Disclaimer: Any resemblance to real people or events in this piece is purely coincidental and we formally apologise if there are any such occurrences.
Unless you specifically asked to be in this, in which case it probably is you.
Chapter One—Where have all the cowboys gone?
Wasteland.
What had once been a living, thriving place of knowledge and torture (often simultaneously) was now divided, split into rival factions spread across the site. It was barred to the outside world, locked in its own, secret space, leaving those inside to plot revenge, escape and drag themselves on to keep alive.
Things that had once been people—although, teachers, so not quite proper people—became… not quite people. These people were technically not people in the first place, but over time became even less people, so much not people that the other people were really quite afraid of them. People in general retreated to one building, one curved building that was safe to hide from these other not really people. People fought other people. This was bad.
Time passed, and the people's hearts became weary having to spend all their living waking moments in a place that had been previously somewhere they came to attempt learning, and mainly fall asleep. The cafeteria shut down, unable to cope with the vicious demands of teenage girls every month, and the servers (including Marcus/Marek, they never agree on his name. The tag says Marek; you can't just call him Marcus. It's silly) went into hiding, rumoured to be lurking in the staff room, which was now supposedly barren and abandoned, the coffee machines dripping to nobody. (Also, unrelatedly, the supply of pads ran out in the slightly smelly toilets, which became smellier, even as girls came up with increasingly ingenious methods to deal with… girl stuff. There's only so much toilet paper.)
The garden patch became of massive importance, and so was guarded 24/7 by one particular not people person, a vicious mermaid with a fetish for colours who would eat anyone who got too close. Her ginger hair was the substance of many a horror story told around burning copies of The Lord of the Flies and Kensuke's Kingdom.
The top floor of the Tower Block became the domain of another fearsome consumer of human flesh, an impressively spherical woman who had quickly fallen into the progress of cannibalism, and found a certain relish in demanding about homework as she munched on femurs. There were rumours that a wise woman lived on the floor below her, and was in constant (non-violent) battle with her. It was told that this wise woman held the secret of how to save the Wasteland, but this isn't about prophecies, which are crap, so nobody bothered to go ask. They're always bad news, the characters always try to stop them, then making them come true; prophecies are really ridiculously predictable.
So we're not having any. None!
So instead this wise woman kept the prophecies to herself and her companion Anna the giant (who was just the right height for talking to her through the window of the third floor) and just gave advice to anyone who happened to walk past. Some people found this rather useful, others simply found it depressing. Nobody knew how she got food. Perhaps it was magical. She was a hermit, after all. They're quite magical. No? A little bit?
The languages and science block were ruled respectively by a deadly rogue language teacher who turned to sorcery early on in the developing wasteland to turn a fellow deadly teacher into a dragon that would do her bidding. They were ferocious together, and no woman could defeat them.
But there was a group more deadly, more ferocious, more evil.
They were… Ronald the (slightly dodgy) PE teacher, and his crack squad of PE department assassins (including those student teachers who never tell you their name and just kind of sit there quietly the whole time).
The rest of the school lived in the curved building, praying for deliverance. But not all of them simply prayed. One girl in particular decided to take matters into her own hands, and summon the greatest of them all, the most fabulous of them, the goodest (is that a word?) of them all.
Jesus.
It's Parousia time, bitch.
Drenched in blood, Ayesha the ninja stood in the middle of a pentagon amidst the various organs and bodily fluids from numerous slaughtered animals. Reciting the ancient words of power she half closed her eyes and bit the tip of her thumb, smearing the blood to cover her palm
"Kuchiyosu no Jutsu!" She finished, slamming her hand down on the ground and completing the summoning. Flames the colour of blood sprung up around the edges of the pentagon and within the centre a beautiful white fire glowed. Somewhere, a small baby Chihuahua was screaming in agony with its paw trapped in a cat flap.
"Oh it hurts, but it hurts so good." A moan of pleasure came from within the fire. Ayesha squinted her eyes against the light as a figure emerged, clad in clothes as white as the fire.
"Are you the Lord Jesus?" she asked tentatively, somewhat shyly as His striking face and masculine muscles became distinguishable. Her words seemed to distract Him from the flames.
"That I am, my child"—a hint of lust flaring into His voice at the words 'child'—"and why have you summoned me?"
She took a deep breath, mustering her courage and swallowing her nervousness. "It will be far easier to show you, my Lord," she decided after a while, at a loss for words. He smiled at her and her heart beat faster. There was something about Him, something undeniably good about Him, and not just the way the tight muscles of His arms strained against His sleeves, or the way the wind played with His luscious hair or His deep, intoxicatingly masculine voice; or even the way His tight leather trousers strained against His—
After a short time she realised she'd been staring at Him and averted her gaze, blushing like a pool of ninja blood on an omniscient lake at midnight of the secret place in the bushes and stuttering out an almost incoherent stream of what might be loosely described as words, "Ahmfd...I-I mean, I, uh...yeah...w-would you like to, ah, um, ya know? F-follow me? S-sso I can, uh, show you, the erm, school? And, er, its condition?" Smooth. Very smooth.
Luckily for our ninja heroine, her trusty and incredibly suave Italian mentor came to her rescue, arriving with an Italian pelvis whack to the back of Ayesha's head that quite literally knocked her back to her senses. And some stars, too, but she ignored them.
"Hello Jesus," Berlusconi greeted the Lord, twirling his distinctively Italian looking moustache and releasing ripples of his Italian sexiness. "Long time no see… It's been a while since we—"
"Hello there. It has been a while," Jesus replied with a wink and a smile that sent sparks of jealously through Ayesha. "You've still got that funny accent, can't place it, nearly—Transylvanian?"
Ayesha interrupted as Berlusconi cowered away. "We don't talk about that."
"What's so bad about-?"
"ANYWAY," Berlusconi interrupted, twirling his Italian moustache steadily more upsetly. "I came to help Ayesha, like always."
"Oh, great," Ayesha said, clearly very, very happy. "You're about as helpful as Jayne. Jayne the incompetent prophet." A poof of smoke went up. "Wait, I didn't mean it—too late."
"Did someone call me?" Jayne announced, giggling away to herself. "For in times of trouble just remember that life is like a languid lemur, needing nothing yet lacking all."
With that, she disappeared in a rain of what probably should have been glitter; but as this was Jayne, it was instead a collection small, slightly perplexed insects who had been unknowingly conscripted to welcome Jesus.
"And how the hell does that help me at all!" Ayesha muttered.
"Well, you did call her," Berlusconi pointed out, absent mindedly pulling up his Italian shirt halfway to let Jesus see his Italian muscles, being suave as always. Restraining the temptation to murder her supposedly helpful (Italian) mentor because she was sure Jesus was meant to be a pacifist, she took a deep breath and conquered her anger. Turning to the others with a forcibly polite smile on her face she said,
"If you're going to be here, at least be helpful, help me fill Jesus in on our predicament."
"Ah! Of course… How rude of me," Berlusconi said in shame, taking Jesus' hand lightly and leading Him away. "Let me give you the tour." A knee met his back and he choked slightly, turning to glare at Ayesha, who was staring off in another direction and whistling coolly. "Or, correction—let us give you the tour. Happy?" he hissed in a lower voice to Ayesha. She looked innocently at him, and simply moved off.
"Right now," she announced happily, trying not to look at Jesus as to retain her eyesight, "we're in the curved building. Most of the school is off-limits."
Jesus looked around, clearly flabbergasted at the state of the school.
"An all-girls school," Ayesha added, and He nodded understandingly. Then He looked at Berlusconi, who looked back with a questioning Italian smile.
"What are you doing in an all-girls school, my little Italian muffin?" He asked, running His hand through His long, luscious locks. "This is the last place I would have expected to find you."
"Would you believe me if I said I was branching out?"
There was silence.
"No? Not even a little bit? Some girls can be quite attractive, maybe I've broadened my interests—"
"ANYWAY," Ayesha interrupted, in a way not at all reminiscent of her sexy mentor, "the tour?"
"Of course, ma cherie."
She beckoned to Jesus to follow her. "That, over there, is the tower block. The staff room on the second floor is out of bounds, we think the cafeteria staff has barricaded it. The third floor is home to a wise old hermit, don't listen to her, she just says prophecies all the time. She has a friend called Anna who's on her level, don't be surprised and don't mention how tall she is. They get along really well together, no-one knows why." They walked as she talked, gesturing to each place she mentioned. "The top of the tower block is home to a cannibal, we don't go there. The language and science blocks too, they're those bits connected there. There's a sorceress and a dragon in them. The garden patch as well, it's guarded by a ferocious mermaid. Don't start talking to her, whatever you do."
"What're you lot doing roaming around here after hours?" a rough voice called down the hall, speaking of toughness, leaderly qualities and probably a very stout pair of boots.
"What?" the group said as one, cupping their hands to their ears and leaning forwards.
A figure stepped forward majestically into the light, requiring a dramatic chord from an orchestra (if you have no orchestra, please YouTube something appropriate). Her long blonde hair gleamed healthily in the hall light, swinging around her shoulders with a grace that needed sound effects; her bright eyes stared at them with a look that was 90% toughness and 10% pure intelligence and her jaw was set in a confident, strong line. Her uniform was ripped and stained, showing someone who played hard, worked hard and wasn't afraid to get down and dirty. She wore a leather jacket over the top of her school jumper and a pair of sunglasses nestled in her hair.
She pushed them down and pointed vicious looking pistols at them, one in either hand.
"State your name and purpose, suckers."
Jesus coughed. Berlusconi stared at the wall, attempting to whistle and failing. Ayesha sneezed. She had been about to cough, but Jesus had done that and for fear of copying she had chosen another route.
"Bless you," the new arrival said obligingly, offering her a pristine tissue from her leather jacket. It had guns embroidered delicately around the edge.
"What?"
"Bless you."
"What?"
"Bless you."
"No, really, I can't understand you. Where's your translator, Hannah?"
Hannah's strong face fell for a moment and she sighed, tucking her twin pistols into two customised holders on her leather jacket. Ayesha felt the need to explain as she wandered off in search of her translator, leaning back to Jesus. "Hannah is the leader of the resistance," she whispered, "and she's the best thing to happen to it. But…"—she looked around to check if Hannah could hear them—"she comes from oop north. No-one can understand her! We're all southern. We're about an hour away from London, we can't understand northerners! She's from Yorkshire."
A helpful Year 7 was produced to translate. "She says bless you," she informed them, then wandered away, her bandana waving jauntily on her head.
"Well, we've got to give Jesus the tour, Hannah, we might be back later. See ya."
"Bye."
"Can't understand you!"
They moved on, passing classroom after classroom full of noisy, rambunctious girls of all years, although of course the Year 7s were segregated to their own classroom and not allowed to mix with the others for fear of infection. The sixth formers had commandeered the corridors and demanded tolls, although with one look at Berlusconi twirling his sexy Italian moustache, they fell into dead faints.
"Ah! Jenna!" Ayesha called, evidently spotting someone that she knew.
A girl ahead of them in the corridor turned around to them, her eyes oddly unfocused. "Hello," she said, "how are you? I am feeling quite good today. How are you?"
"You poor child," Jesus said, something soft in His eyes. "What is wrong with you?"
"MY LORD," she cried, falling to her feet at once. "But I don't have the myrrh, or the frankincense, or even any gold!"
"You…," Jesus gasped. "You—but it can't be!"
"Yes," Ayesha said, with great gravitas. "Jenna has a unique condition. Inside her head, she contains all three wise men. Jenna is also in there somewhere, but we're not entirely sure where."
Jenna's head twitched sideways and she gasped, then raising her head. "My lord, I have managed to take over. I am the second wise man—I am Jeff. If you'll just give me a couple of days, I could spread the world about your second coming and I'm sure I could find some frankincense. I know you liked that gift the most." Her head twitched again and she let out a shrill scream, then averting her head. "My lord, I am the first wise man, Al. Don't listen to Jeff. I know you liked the gold. You always had a liking for the bling, my lord, if I may say so, and it was a lovely accessory, really went with your skin—" In a now familiar way, Jenna shook all over, her head twitching manically, and then spoke. "Don't listen to Jeff or Al, my lord! I am the third wise man, Gertrude. I know you liked the myrrh, they told me all babies love myrrh."
Jesus paused diplomatically before replying, "I liked all of them, Gertrude. I liked all of them equally."
"Call me Gertie."
"Gertie. I liked all of them equally."
Ayesha cleared her throat. "Are we moving along?"
"Oh. Oh yes. Sure. Sorry. It's just nice to meet people from my past, you know."
Someone ran out of a doorway ahead of them, a blonde wig askance on their head, an ill-fitting jacket patched together out of what looked like dark plywood swinging around their thin form. They tripped over their wellies and sprawled into the corridor, the wig falling off. A water pistol flew out from their blazer pocket and bashed against the window, leaking across the floor.
After a dumbfounded moment of watching, those present blinked in unison.
The figure got to their feet, shouting curses in the direction of the classroom that they had just left, adjusting their wig. "SCREW YOU ALL," they shouted in an accent that no-one could quite place.
"Jamaican?" Berlusconi volunteered.
"I heard a bit of Welsh in there, I'm sure," Ayesha muttered thoughtfully.
The figure wheeled to face them, pointing to themself enthusiastically. "I'm leader of the resistance," they announced proudly, "I'm northern."
"Right now you're South African," Ayesha observed clinically. "And no you're not."
"I am too. I've got the outfit and everything."
"Eh," Ayesha said, tilting her head to one side to examine her. "Not exactly."
"Well, it's hard to get the proper resources in here! I'm doing my best."
"Points for effort?" Berlusconi offered helpfully. Ayesha thumped him.
"Don't encourage her. She'll dress up as anything."
"Hey, well at least I make this look good."
"Okay… you just keep on doing what you're doing. We're off."
"I'm leader of the resistance, you should show some more respect!"
"You're a loony."
They walked on outside, to walk around the school and show Jesus everything. He took it all in appreciatively, nodding at the extra facts they gave Him. By the time they had reached the field—carefully avoiding the sports hall, which was another place where nobody went, He was looking around as if He had been there since Year 7 with the rest of them, excepting people who moved to the school after Year 7 –God only knows why they'd chosen to move to this school.
He pointed to a distant figure in the far off distance, walking around distantly and serenely, surrounded by distant white blobs. "Who is that?"
Ayesha shaded her eyes, staring in the direction He had pointed. "Ah, that's Evie. She is a shepherdess, and that's her flock. Nobody knows where she got the sheep from or why she has them, she just does. And nobody is allowed to eat them." She leaned in, beckoning to Him. "The last person who tried to steal one, they never found them," she confided. "Don't mess with Evie. Her sheep aren't ordinary sheep."
Jesus nodded, absorbing this.
"Is that the tour?" he asked.
Berlusconi gasped, snapping his Italian fingers and flashing a bright Italian smile at Jesus. "Oh! How could I have forgotten—there's someone you must meet, mein liebling." Jesus looked at Ayesha, who shrugged. Taking a deep breath, Berlusconi let out an ear splitting yodel, spinning around in a circle and dancing up and down to add to this.
A shape began to become clear in the hazy horizon, a shape of pure rainbow brilliance that approached ever closer. A whinny echoed around and a pure pink light imbued with glitter and joy surrounded them.
"This," Berlusconi announced majestically, "is Judith, mi querida. My familiar."
Judith the sparkly rainbow unicorn neighed in agreement as he gave her a hug.
Ayesha stared on. "Your familiar… is a unicorn." Berlusconi nodded, patting her flowing mane proudly as it rippled despite the fact that there was no wind. It released tiny, happy fairies as it blew.
She smacked her own forehead. "Why am I not surprised?" She looked over to Jesus, who simply shrugged.
"What do you have for a familiar?" Berlusconi sniped, noticing her disbelieving expression.
"I—"
"You don't have a familiar, do you?" he asked, putting his hands on his hips. Judith neighed in agreement.
"Well, no—"
"So don't knock it til you've tried it, then. I happen to be very pleased with my unicorn familiar, so you can go—" He paused.
"What?"
"No."
"What?"
"It's nothing. Nothing."
"No, you've said it now, you can't just not tell me."
"Double negative."
"Shut up."
"So you don't want me to tell you, then?"
"Yes!"
"Well, you're not acting like you do."
"Just shut up and tell me!"
"I can't tell you if I'm shutting up, can I—what are you doing? No! Stop it. Get away from me! Ah, god!" Several minutes later they both stared disconsolately off into space, Ayesha having been gored by a unicorn and Berlusconi dented in several places by an unnamed weapon. He rubbed a particularly vicious one in his Italian cheekbones.
"I've forgotten what I was going to say now."
Ayesha made a disgusted noise. "Never mind then."
"You know, as a rule, I generally dislike fighting, but that was actually quite amusing.' Jesus admitted, smiling and nodding His head somewhat smugly. At that moment, due to their dangerous proximity to the Sports hall, they were spotted by him. The ultimate in slightly dodgy Welsh-P.E teacher evilness; Ronald. Spotting potential victims to subjugate to the terror of P.E detentions—namely, having to tidy up the smelly shoe locker—he strode over to the group.
"Oh dear, here comes serious trouble," Ayesha decided, readying several shurikens, knives and other bladed weapons in preparation to defend her currently free lunchtimes. Unfortunately for our heroine, Ronald—upon noticing Jesus' generously bulging leather trousers—had his eyes set on a different prize.
"Hello," he said, casually performing a few pelvic thrusts in Jesus' direction.
"Be careful Jesus, this is Ronald, he's a rugby fan, so he's not afraid to get a bit dirty," she whispered urgently.
"Oh, really? That definitely sounds promising." Jesus' words were accompanied with a casual tossing of His thick, glossy hair and a seductive smile. Ayesha, appalled at the interpretation of her warning and the non-too-subtle hints Ronald and Jesus were sending each other, quickly stepped between the two.
"Hello Ronald," she started, grimacing menacingly and drawing her Katana, "I'm afraid Jesus is busy at the moment, with me."
"Is that so? And what gave you the right to occupy his time?"
"I'm the one who summoned him here!"
"So? Maybe he doesn't want to be with you? Maybe he'd much rather I...entertain him for a while." At this he sent Jesus a playful wink.
"You think so do you? I'm pretty sure I can entertain him plenty; being a ninja I have very good stamina so I can keep going for hours and I am rather… flexible." She dropped down into the splits easily to demonstrate her point. Smiling up at Jesus, whose attention was instantly drawn back to her, she slowly got to her feet, "accidentally" grinding her hips against him in the process.
"Humph!" Ronald interrupted, going his signature shade of red, "I think Jesus should decide who gets to keep him occupied." As one, the whole group turned to Jesus, each attempting their own seduction techniques; Ronald tilted his pelvis invitingly, Ayesha stretched her arms upwards to display her curvaceous figure (lolololol as if Ayesha, you're tiny. I'm the one with the bodacious bod –Sophi) and even Berlusconi subconsciously ripped open his shirt and ran his hands over his impressive Italian muscles absent mindedly.
"Gangbang?" Jesus offered, looking more than a little bit hopeful.
"I refuse to share you with that abomination of nature!" Ronald declared.
"Do not call anything an abomination that the Lord has made pure," Jesus said reproachfully.
"What about a competition to win your heart then?" Ronald suggested,
"That sounds like a brilliant idea," Jesus mused. "There will be three competitions to win over the three parts of me; the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit. The first shall have to be a dance-off, for I am the Lord of the Dance." Ayesha cursed mentally. She couldn't dance to save her life—or the love of her life, it appeared, haw haw haw.
"Fine by me," Ronald announced.
"Then it's fine by me too," Ayesha decided, perhaps a tad hastily in her determination not to be out-done by the short Welshman.
"Good, it is settled! The first competition will begin during period F on Friday in the Courtyard!" That only gave Ayesha until the end of the week to learn how to dance! "For now I shall depart, but do not worry, when you arrive in the Courtyard I'll re-appear, for when two or more of you gather in my name, I shall be there." With that He disappeared in a cloud of blinding light –if you're thinking clouds of blinding light are improbable shut up, this is Jesus. Miracles? Son of God, ultimate hacker? Live with it.
"See you Friday," Ronald said confidently before swaggering off. Sinking to her knees in despair Ayesha cursed the world and threw various pointy objects at the innocent animals of the school field to subdue her anger. She did avoid the sheep, though, that was more than her life was worth.
"There, there," Berlusconi soothed from a safe distance, behind a nearby tree, using his unicorn as a shield just in case "Don't worry, I can teach you how to dance," he offered, "At the disco back in Transyl-you know where, I was quite famous for my moves." Faced with this unpromising prospect, inspiration suddenly struck our heroine, in the form of blood from a pigeon that she'd hit splattering her face.
"Or I could just kill that Ronald bastard?"
"Yes, there's always that option." Berlusconi admitted, somewhat reluctantly seeing as he wouldn't have a chance to show off his groovy moves. However, just at that moment, and as usual appearing at the time when she was least wanted, Jayne the Prophet (not profit) manifested.
"Attacking Ronald is not recommended,
or else by his P.E assassins you shall be apprehended!"
"Bring it on, I can take them!" But Jayne was not to be so easily detained.
"I bid you not take them too lightly,
or else they'll ensure your demise is rather unsightly.
If you want to complete your mission,
the best bet is the competition.
You must learn to dance,
so through the stages you can advance,
and fulfilled will be your ambition."
By the end of this Jayne was looking immensely pleased with herself at managing to just about stick to a set rhyming pattern with her prophecy. After delivering her full wisdom on the matter of Ronald and his P.E assassins, she promptly disappeared in her normal shower of insects.
"Ambition doesn't fit the rhyme scheme, although OKAY FINE IT RHYMES WITH COMPETITION," someone muttered, although on closer examination the only person it could have been was the unicorn, which was unlikely even in a story of this calibre. "And I thought we said we weren't having any prophecies on page one. Screw you guys."
"Seriously?" Ayesha groaned, carefully ignoring the nothing that had not just been spoken by someone who was not there. "Alright then, fine; you can teach me how to dance," she relented eventually. Berlusconi stepped out from behind both the tree and his unicorn familiar and proceed to laugh in a magnificently sexy, Italian way.
"I shall teach you how to dance! And you shall go to the ball!" He danced away majestically, pirouetting like a born ballerina. Resisting the urge to face-palm, Ayesha followed him unenthusiastically.