Author's Note: I have been warned by a reviewer that the next section of text isn't worth reading. Feel free to skip up to the next divider if you aren't a fan of cheesy science fiction and kung fu parodies. It shouldn't have any effect on your understanding of the story. I added it at the last second and apparently got a little carried away.


Jake Ryan tiptoed through the foggy swamp dramatically, his thighs rising to his hip before crashing to the ground with an audible splash. His blaster traced wide arcs in the air, threatening the thick, all encompassing fog with a random laser beam from any angle at any moment even if his face and eyes seemed to be ignoring everything other than whatever was directly in front of him.

Suddenly a sharp bark erupted through the air. Jake immediately jumped a foot in the air and landed in a crouching position, his blaster rising steadily to his face in a semi-ready position. Speaking softly to himself, he said, "I'm lost in a foggy swamp trying to find Demon Dog and his dog-nappers. I can't see anything so these amazing muscles are useless!" The frustration was prominently displayed on his face; his mouth almost curled into a snarl and his perfectly sculpted eyebrows knit closely together. "Wait a second, I trained for this," he stood suddenly and looked up into the sky as the memory overtook him, "in China!"

An image of his training under Supremely Short Hidden Bottle Fallen Drunk Master of China the eighty-first suddenly appeared before him. The sun was beating down on his half-naked body as he moved around the dirt arena cautiously. Normally these spars would be no problem for his finely trained, zombie killing body but today the master had forced him to wear a deep black blindfold. From behind a voice called out drunkenly, "Re … remember Jahake." There was a slight pause here while the master hiccupped. "Eyes are but one sense of four. Wait, six. I mean five, but seven is also a possibility."

After spinning around to throw a violent punch that connected with nothing but air, Jake furrowed his brow asked, "You mean like earth, water, wind, fire, and heart? Go Planet!" His recitation of the Captain Planet opening theme was interrupted by a deep groan and suddenly one of the master's hidden bottles hit him in the stomach.

The master thoroughly drilled him in the full use of his senses that afternoon. The smell training turned out to be particularly awful since the master had eaten plenty of beans for breakfast in preparation.

Back in the swamp and armed with his memories of his sensory training, Jake began doing everything that he could think of to locate his canine sidekick. No matter how hard he tried, he wasn't able to get the fog into his mouth, so taste was out. For his next attempt he began taking mighty sniffs of air to pick up some kind of scent, but that only caused him to emit a ferocious sneeze. He then tried feeling around through the fog, but he was only able to come up with a tree that was shaped suspiciously like a zombie.

The realization of what had to be done finally hit him like a ton of bricks, and the face that had been clenched and squinting as he had gone through his various senses transformed into a picture of serenity. Standing up straight and tall with his arms opened wide as though he were trying to embrace the fog, Jake bellowed out, "Demon Dog, bark again so I know where to shoot!"

Unfortunately for Jake, he had turned his back to the "tree" and did not notice the bark covered zombie approaching him from behind!


"I don't understand what Miley sees in this idiot," complained Oliver as he reached for the popcorn. His hand was quickly slapped away.

"I don't understand how you can't see what she sees. They just showed him half naked and all kinds of sweaty! I am so gonna buy this DVD," sighed Lilly as she reached for the popcorn. Her hand was quickly slapped away.

"I don't understand why you two are in my house, trying to eat my food, and watching a DVD on my entertainment system, while my daughter is out on a date!" howled Robbie Ray as he again fended off the popcorn thieves by slapping at both of their hands.

Lilly furrowed her brow suddenly as her hand was again rejected. "Whose DVD is it anyway? I thought Miley didn't own any of Jake's works on principle."

Robbie Ray coughed suspiciously and said, "I think it's Jackson's." As the two teenagers bombarded him with quizzical stares, he quickly added, "He said it was for research."

The trio was seated on the living room couch of the Stewart household. Robbie Ray had a bowl of freshly made popcorn placed on his lap and was sandwiched between the two grabby teenagers. The man was rapidly losing the battle for his popcorn as the duo began teaming up on him. The hands were coming too fast and from too many directions for Robbie Ray to stop them all. By the time that Zombie Hunter Jake had managed to chop down the second zombie tree, half of the popcorn had disappeared. Staring forlornly at his dwindling bowl of popcorn, Miley's father realized that something had to be done.

"Alright, that's it. Ya'll have to go!" exclaimed Robbie Ray as he stood up and began ushering the teens outside of his household. As he had expected, it took longer than usual to eject them from the house. Robbie Ray had learned long ago that when Oliver and Lilly were working as a team it was like fighting a demon with two bodies. While you were occupied with one, the other was dancing around causing mischief. Then when you had had enough and turned around to deal with the mischief causing one, the now liberated demon immediately took up the reigns of havoc.

As he closed the porch's window door on the pair they put up a valiant, last ditch effort. Lilly turned on her puppy dog face and would have earned their way back inside if Oliver hadn't attempted to copy Lilly. The boy looked so ridiculous with his squinting brown eyes looking up at him from under his long brown bangs as his lower lip extended and quivered that it broke the enchantment of pity Lilly's face had created. "Go do something outside! It's nice outside!" shouted Robbie Ray through the locked, double-paned glass window. After turning to look at each other, the pair grinned inexplicably and scattered off of the porch.

The man paused a moment to think about what just happened, but eventually decided to let it go and get back to watching the baseball game like he had originally intended. Panting slightly from the effort of expelling the teens, Robbie Ray turned around and was greeted with an unexpected, then an unpleasant sight. The unexpected sight was that the television was now tuned into some cartoon show, and his son Jackson was glued to the screen. The unpleasant sight was that his bowl of popcorn lay empty on the table in front of the television.

Jackson reacted instinctively before he consciously realized that his dad had yelled out his full name. He was already halfway up the stairs to the second floor before his mind caught up and he was able to yell at his chasing father, "What did I do, daddy? What did I do?!"


Lilly and Oliver walked down the street happily chomping on the popcorn that they had managed to load into their pockets while Robbie Ray was chasing them out of the house. Miley's dad hadn't been lying when he said it was nice outside, so the pair just allowed their legs to take them wherever they were going to take them. There had been no verbal discussion about this plan, but when two people knew each other as long as they had known each other a slight nod of the head and an accommodating shrug could be just as effective.

They found themselves following a path that they had already taken before, which wasn't unusual considering that they had scampered together through virtually the entire town at some point in time. This particular path was one they had frequented when they were still attending middle school. It began at the middle school, stopped by an abandoned field that they had spent many an afternoon running around on, and ended up on the boardwalk where they would be able to grab some dinner.

The middle school looked exactly the same as it had been when they were younger, albeit smaller than they remembered it. As they approached the building, what immediately stood out to the pair was colorful artwork of the students that plastered the classroom windows with bright and bold shapes. After some coaxing from Lilly, Oliver agreed to join her in some light trespassing to check out and make use of the small playground that lay hidden from the world thanks to the school and its towering fences. Their bodies were bigger than they had been when they had made use of the facilities years ago, but the sound of their laughter was almost identical.

After being chased off of the grounds by the same old, angry custodian who had been taking care of the school when they had been in attendance, Oliver and Lilly continued on their way. Oliver could tell that Lilly was excited to see the field from the change in her gait. She had mixed in some skipping, and would frequently pull ahead and then be forced to wait impatiently for him with her hands on her hips and her right foot tapping rapidly. When they were about a block away from the field the girl burst into a sprint, leaving the boy coughing in a cloud of dust. Despite his dusted lungs, Oliver grinned and chased after his best friend. He wasn't prepared for what was awaiting him.

The first thing he noticed as he approached the corner that led to the field was that Lilly was standing motionlessly. His concern forced him to run faster than he had been, and soon he was standing next to Lilly staring at their "not-so-abandoned" field. It had been their secret sanctuary when they were younger; a grassy, unkempt field that no one seemed to know about except for the two of them. Apparently someone had known about it though, for they were in the process of erecting some kind of building on top of it. It was impossible to tell what kind of building was being built since they had only managed to lay down the initial foundation as well as cover most of the field with building materials.

Feeling slightly saddened by what he was seeing, Oliver turned towards Lilly prepared to remark that the situation sucked. The tears rolling unhindered down Lilly's cheeks caught him off guard. Oliver couldn't remember the last time he had seen tears falling from her big, blue eyes, but he realized in an instant that he never wanted to see them again. Placing his right arm over her shoulders, he softly whispered in her left ear, "Hey, Lilly, its ok. Stuff like this happens. Things change."

Lilly began moving as soon as she heard his first cliché sentence, and by the time Oliver had finished speaking her head was buried in his chest as her arms wrapped tightly around his lower back. The boy felt the warm tears beginning to soak the front of his shirt, and heard the soft weeping sounds emanating from the girl in front of him. Feeling like it was the most natural thing in the world to do Oliver wrapped his arms around the girl and waited patiently for her to cry it out.

The tears continued to flow for a good ten minutes but even after the tears had dried Lilly continued to hold onto Oliver. While this was slightly due to how good it felt to be held in his arms, it was mostly due to the fact that her face was bright red at the moment and she definitely didn't want him to see. Mistaking her reluctance to let go as embarrassment at having cried in front of him, Oliver quickly surveyed the area taking note of the lack of workers in the area and the still wide open space available on the field.

After forcing a smile on his face, Oliver bent his head down slightly and asked, "Hey, Lilly, you know what?"

The girl didn't lift her head from his shirt, so the boy felt her words against his chest as he heard her muffled voice ask, "What?"

Oliver suddenly broke her hold on him, tapped her lightly on the top of her blonde head, and shouted, "You're it!" Oliver made a mad dash for the building materials to the west of the foundation. As he reached the safety of the materials he turned around and discovered that Lilly hadn't moved from her original position. This entire thing must have hit her harder than he thought it had. He had been sure that she would perk up immediately at a game of tag.

As he approached her from behind he noticed that she was shaking her head. Her voice seemed to have regained its strength as she said, "You're so childish, Oliver."

"We're both childish," stated Oliver, ready for another round of being the crying shoulder.

Lilly's voice called out again as Oliver was within arms reach, "Maybe so, but at least I don't fall for stupid tricks." He realized the meaning of the words too late as Lilly spun around. In a move honed from years of spilling out on a skateboard, Lilly dove to the immediate left of Oliver, slapping him hard on the chest as she passed him. When she hit the ground, she tucked and rolled up onto her feet. As Oliver writhed slightly in pain from the stinging slap Lilly was already a good distance away, ready to use the foundation as cover.

It was an evenly matched game of tag. Oliver may have had the superior top speed, but Lilly was far more maneuverable. By the end, they were both breathless and lying down on one of the few large patches of grass left on the field. They were sprawled out with their heads next to each other, their bodies oriented in opposite directions. Gazing up into the now dark sky, they each struggled to regain their breath but their mouths were stuck in bright smiles.

Even after they had regained their breath, they continued to lie down staring up at the stars. It was a long time before Oliver broke the silence, his eyes focused on the North Star as he asked, "I wonder what Miley's up to."

In the dark of the night he didn't notice Lilly turn her head towards him, nor the single tear that ran down the side of her face.


Author's Notes: Thank you for reading to the end of the second chapter. I'm sorry I couldn't warn you about the angst, but this site only allows for two categories. I would like to extend some special thanks to my reviewers, Hilary, WhiteRose, RxJ, and Rachel. You girls are the reason this second chapter came out so quickly.