Author's Note: I read Newsies In Da Future the other day and it made me want to hide in a hole. I'm really not happy with how it or the sequel turned out so my new project is to fix them and hopefully make them infinitely better. Let me know what you think.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from the Newsies
Aria Autumn was up bright and early on this particular summer morning. It was a month before the beginning of her Senior year of high school and she and her friends had decided to embrace every moment of freedom they had left. None of them were looking forward to going back to the Hades some people liked to call high school. As soon as she showered and dressed she was on the phone with one of her four best friends, Harmony Parker.
"Well what are we going to do today anyway?" she asked as she poured herself a glass of juice.
"I don't know," Harmony replied dreamily.
Aria shook her head. "Harmony! Focus here, my parents are gone until school starts, we could do anything we want. We've got to have some fun before we're forced back into the dredges of public education."
"I know, I'm so not looking forward to going back to school. That place gives off bad vibes."
Aria grinned and blew an unruly auburn curl out of her face. "Hate to break it to you granola girl but you and your flower child parents think pretty much everything gives off bad vibes. It's nothing new."
Harmony snorted. "Well school gives off really bad vibes."
Aria slid out the back door to water the plants and shook her head. "Sure sure, I'll believe you just this…" she trailed off as the phone slipped to the ground. Laying in a heap as if they had fallen from the sky were the Newsies. "I'm losing my mind," she whispered as her bright green eyes got progressively wider.
"Aria? Aria!" Harmony yelled on the other end of the phone line.
The red head picked the phone back up shakily. "Harmony, call everyone and get them over here. Now." She hung up and collapsed into a chair before her legs could give out from under her.
Twenty minutes later all of the girls had arrived in their respective cars and Aria contemplated each of them before dropping the bombshell.
Harmony was the epitome of the hippie chick with her ridiculously long wheat blonde hair and big blue eyes. Dressed in her customary flowy skirt and tank top she looked as comfortable as ever and she was the one who would likely take it calmly.
Cassia was easily moved to emotion, though not flighty as her appearance might suggest. Her pixie cut brown hair, violet Elizabeth Tayloresque eyes, and total lack of height gave her a decidedly fairy type look. She would most likely squeal and clap her hands before doing some kind of a little dance.
Cordelia's willowy height, shoulder length swing of honey colored hair and deep brown eyes gave her a deceptively adult look. In fact Cordy often tended to be a bit childish and sometimes rather self centered. She would probably act put out about the whole thing.
The most fragile of all of them was Isabella, Issy to their group of friends. She was built so delicately that she gave the impression she may break if she were handled roughly. The porcelain skin, long ebony hair and huge grey eyes only added to the illusion. With her quiet nature she'd probably just gasp and find a chair to sit in.
"For the love of God Aria stop staring at us and tell us what happened," Cordelia said impatiently.
Aria took a deep breath and motioned towards the backyard. The group of friends huddled at the back door and several jaws dropped. Just as Aria had expected Harmony just shrugged and sat down at the kitchen island, Cassia sort of squeaked and hopped back into the kitchen to do some sort of booty dance, Cordy muttered something about their summer going down the drain and Issy went even more pale than usual and found a chair to sit in.
"Ladies, I give you the newsies," Aria said wearily.
"How on earth did this happen?" Issy asked quietly, still reeling.
"Does it matter, everything happens for some reason," Harmony replied. Cordy snorted at that and the granola shot her a dirty look.
"Look it doesn't really matter how it happened does it, what matters is what we're going to do when they wake up," Cassia shot out.
"Guys," Issy said quietly.
Cordelia talked over her. "Well I say we just call the police."
"Oh yeah Cordy that'll go over really well… Hello officer, a bunch of movie characters have come to life and landed in my backyard, yes I'll hold for a psych consult!" Aria cried.
"Well it was just a suggestion."
"Guys," Issy said again.
"Fighting about it isn't going to get us anywhere guys," Harmony said serenely."
Cordy snorted again. "Yeah we know, give peace a chance…"
In a rare moment for her, Issabella finally yelled at them all. "Guys!" They all turned to look at her with wide eyes. "You don't have long to decide because someone's starting to move out there."
"Who?"
Cassia ran to the door and groaned when she looked out. "We've all seen the movie right?" Everyone nodded in agreement. "It's Spot."
In the backyard Spot Conlon woke with a pounding headache. It didn't take long to figure out why when he realized that Jack, Les and Racetrack were on top of him and he had somehow landed partially on top of Mush and David. He pushed everyone off and stood up to stretch, quickly realizing he wasn't anywhere he should have been. "What the hell happened?" he asked himself. His eyes narrowed when he turned and saw the girl at the door with hair like a boy and wide unnaturally purple eyes.
"Hi," she said tentatively.
Spot slowly reached for the slingshot in his back pocket as he spoke. "You've got about five seconds to explain what's goin on little girl."
"Don't call me little," Cassia said reflexively before she could catch herself. "Sorry, come in the house. When everyone else wakes up we'll explain everything, I promise."
Spot regarded her warily. She didn't seem like any sort of a threat, and if she had any idea what was going on she was worth talking to, even if he didn't trust her. He walked towards the house and she put a hand out to stop him.
"On second thought, maybe it would be easier if we were all out here when everyone wakes up."
"All?" Spot asked suspiciously.
Cassia nodded and motioned for the others to join them in the back. All four girls stepped out to meet them and Spot nodded cautiously. He figured there wasn't a lot these five girls in funny clothes could do to him. As he surveyed them his eyes were automatically drawn to the tiny girl closest to the door with the big grey eyes. Issy noticed him staring and fought the urge to squirm under the inspection.
The blue eyed newsie heard a groan from the heap and whipped his head around to look. The movement brought a sharp pain to his already aching head and he moaned. "Man," he said quietly.
"Your head hurts?" Aria asked quietly.
Spot looked at her distrustfully. "Yeah, why?"
"I've got something that will help, hold on."
By the time Aria convinced Spot that the Advil Liquigel she was trying to give him would help Racetrack and Jack were already up. The newsies quietly discussed what was going on while everybody waited tensely for the others to wake. Twenty incredibly unpleasant minutes later everybody was up and moving and Harmony took it upon herself to try and explain everything.
"Well, hi I'm Harmony, and we all know who you are so we'll skip that for now."
"How do you know who we are?" Jack asked angrily.
"I'm getting there!" Harmony replied, the exasperation clear in her voice. "As I was saying, I'm Harmony and that's Aria, Cassia, Isabella and Cordelia. This is Aria's house and she found you all passed out this morning. It's July 2006."
There was a load uproar from all of the newsies, Mush finally spoke out the loudest. "That's impossible. How could be in the future?"
"We don't know," Aria told him. "But we can prove the future thing. There's all of our clothes for a start, plus there's other things. Let me show you." She took them all through the house and showed them the calendar, the tv, the cars in the driveway, anything they could think of to prove to them that they were really in the future. After the grand tour everyone congregated in the living room.
"This can't be happening," David said quietly.
Cordy waved her arms around her. "What more proof do you need?"
Davie opened his mouth to snap back but Racetrack shook his head. "She's right. I dunno how it happened but somehow we're here. Until we can find a way to get back we'll just hafta learn to live with things here."
"There's something else we haven't told you," Cassia said carefully. It took a while but they were finally able to explain the movie. Aria pulled out her DVD and let them watch it. The newsies all watched completely riveted. When the credits rolled Jack sat back, shaking his head.
"It's everything from the strike a few years ago."
"This can't be happening," David said again.
"It's just all so strange," Les agreed.
Feeling as if she'd been silent long enough Issy spoke up. "I know it must be hard for you to adjust to all of this, but we'll make it as easy as we can for you. We only want to help."
The room went silent for a long time and Spot went back to studying Issy. She struggled to keep eye contact but lost her nerve and looked away quickly.
"Well the first thing we need to do is get you all some clothes to wear," Cassia said cheerfully, breaking the silence.
"What's wrong with our clothes?" Mush said indignantly.
Cassia smiled kindly. "I'm sure there's nothing wrong with them in your time, but here you'll stick out like sore thumbs.
"Yeah," Harmony agreed. She regarded all of the newsies and chose the two who looked the least like they were going to a Halloween party. "Jack and Mush, you come with me and Aria to the mall." The designated two shrugged and stood up. "The rest of the girls will stay here with the others and moody blue eyes," she said with a pointed look at Spot who narrowed his eyes at her.
Jack laughed. "I like her, she's feisty."
"Yeah, yeah, come on lover boy," Aria said as she pushed him out the door behind Mush.
Author's Note: So if you read the original you may have noticed that the girls' physical descriptions are a bit different. I looked back and decided to tweak them a bit to better fit the personalities I had written for them. I hope it doesn't aggravate anyone too much.