Hello! I have more modern Ranger shenanigans for you... and man, I will say I had fun with this chapter. And the next one. Yeah. Anyway, reviews!
ByTheOldOak(Guest): They don't have a clue. There's a reason the story is called "How Did This Even Happen?" XD NO ONE KNOWS(not even me... I'll come up with something!)
Ranger-Corpses: Wow, thanks! I'm not gonna lie, I have some worries about people being OOC('some' meaning 'a whole lot'), but this makes me a bit more confident in my character-writing abilities. Also, I wish I had all that cosplay stuff! I have a cloak in my room, but this is giving me ideas for art that I could possibly try to convince someone I want on a shirt with RA quotes for a birthday or something. XD But, everything else is based heavily on me.
india(guest): Here is more. Hope you like it!
hopeweaver19: That makes me happy! I saw the older stories of this type and thought 'hey, that's a cool idea!' I'm so happy you like it! (Also, I love your story "Revenge"!)
Two: Don't shoot the TV, Halt!
I stepped out of the shower to find my bathroom had filled with steam and quickly toweled myself down, throwing on undergarments and jeans before reaching a dilemma. I had grabbed the first shirt my hand fell on, and looking in the mirror, I realized with horror that it was one of my Ranger's Apprentice ones. Sadly, it was also one of my favorites - a quote from Halt: You know, Gilan. Sarcasm isn't the lowest form of wit. It's not even wit at all. It was a favorite quote, and one I had thrown at sarcastic friends whenever they ticked me off with it(The sarcasm, not the quote). The shirt had a small chibi Halt(designed by me) at the bottom, staring at the front of the shirt.
I was about to turn around and rummage through my drawer when I heard a loud crash from downstairs and froze. What the hell did they do, I thought, and glanced around quickly for a jacket or something I could use to conceal the words, at least. I could make some sort of argument for a video game character or something if any of the three saw the picture, but the words… The fact I simply owned this shirt was essentially a death sentence to any form of naivety I could have possibly had in their eyes. They landed on my Ravenclaw cardigan(I'm a bookworm, okay?) and I quickly threw it on, buttoning it enough to cover the words. I then threw open the door to see Will about to open it. I stared at him, and he blinked.
"Dude, what if I hadn't been dressed," I said calmly. Or still in my Halt shirt, without a jacket over it, I added mentally. Will's face flushed a deep shade of red once he realized the mistake. I just nodded.
"Yeah. So. What was that crash I heard?" I asked, trying to keep any signs of what my friends(my Ranger's Apprentice-loving friends, anyway) called my Halt side out of my voice. It failed some, from Will's face and next statement. He smiled some, the flush reducing.
"You sound like Halt when you say those things," He said, and I fought back the sense of horror I felt from showing on my face.
"Do I? I never noticed. Anyway, what was the crash," I continued, leaving the room and promptly shutting the door. Will's flush returned.
"Uh… Gilan knocked over-" Will got no farther as I pulled him behind me. "Why are you so strong," he said in shock.
"PE is evil," was my only reply. That was part of the truth, anyway. The other part was that my best friend had some thing where she needed to roleplay Ranger's Apprentice whenever we went over to each other's houses, and she was extraordinarily strong as well.
"What's-"
"I'll tell you later," I cut him off and we went downstairs, where Gilan was hastily trying to pick up broken glass from the floor.
"Gilan," I said, putting conscious effort into keeping my Halt side out of my voice and not using his last name, like an annoyed mother might. His and Halt's heads shot up, and Gilan reddened.
"Yes…?" Gilan said. I glanced at his hands, and sighed loudly. No, my mother would never let me eat in here again, I decided.
"Stop… just, just stop," I said, and strode over and moved him out of the way. "You don't pick up broken glass with your hands. That's just common sense… In the kitchen, now, before you get more blood on the carpet," I sad, shooing him into the kitchen. I could at least mop up the blood in there. I turned to Halt and Will. "Neither of you touch it," I said, glaring at Halt. I then spun on the ball of my foot and stormed into the kitchen, pulling out the first-aid kit from the cabinet. I grabbed the neosporin and a box of band-aids and sat down across from Gilan.
"Hands," I ordered, and he held out his bleeding hands. I groaned. He hadn't done anything even remotely close to cleaning them. Isn't he supposed to be a Ranger? I thought with exasperation. "Go wash them, now," I said. "I can't do anything with them like that."
Long story short, it took me half an hour and a good amount of fighting before Gilan was no longer bleeding everywhere and his cuts were taken care of. I went back in to the living room, and glared at the glass. I didn't even remember what it had been, but I was willing to bet that it was a flower vase of some kind. I shooed the remaining Rangers away once I returned with a dustpan and swept up all the broken glass, and my suspicions were confirmed when I saw the discarded, wilting flowers in the trash can already. At least they got that far, I thought. This is going to be a long day.
I was shaken out of my thoughts by the TV turning on. My head snapped around and saw Will, cowering from the remote, and the three Rangers looking at the TV with startled reactions. I realized that someone - probably parents - had left the TV on a romance channel of some kind. In hindsight, I only managed to tackle - and, consequently, save the TV from an arrow from - Halt because I caught him by complete surprise.
"Don't shoot the TV!" I shouted, barely managing to pry the bow out of Halt's grip. I fought back the waves of fangirl giggling that were threatening to give away my place as totally clueless. I was holding Halt's bow, and was managing to pin down Halt in my living room. My fangirl senses were trying to overpower me, but were shot down as soon as Halt's eyes landed on me.
"Give me back. My bow," he said, nothing but coldness in his voice. I was fully aware of Gilan and Will staring at my back in stunned silence. I had just done something incredibly risky, and we all knew it.
"No, and I'll tell you why," I said, and Gilan and Will were further shocked. Halt looked past ready to murder me, so I swallowed down my fear and continued. "Because, just like the fridge, I need the TV to stay functional. Meaning, no arrows through the TV, got it?" I said, my tone of voice exactly matching Halt's. The two former apprentices watched this exchange with growing shock and worry. I continued on, despite the dangerous look in Halt's eyes.
"I get that nothing's the same here as in-" I stopped myself, realizing I almost said Araluen and gave up the game. "Wherever you come from," I said instead. "I come from here, so I will tell you this - I know more about what is normal here and what is not."
Halt and I stayed completely silent, looking into each other's cold eyes for at least ten minutes straight, neither of us looking away. At the end of that time, to my surprise, Halt gave in. I beat Halt in a staring contest, I thought dimly, totally shocked myself.
"Now, I'm out of honey, so I'm going to go out to the store to get some more." At least ten bottles, I decided. And more coffee. "I'm going to be out for an hour tops, and if I come back and see anything" I paused and looked at each Ranger, holding their gaze for three seconds each, "broken, with an arrow through it, knife through or in it, or with any signs of sword usage upon it, none of you will be seeing your weapons for at least a month. Am I understood," I said, with all the icy clarity that my friends referred to as my Halt voice. How better to get Halt's attention than by using my own Halt voice, I thought with amusement, and looked to each Ranger individually as they nodded slowly. They were all clearly somewhat terrified of my sense of control in the house, and decided it would be a very bad idea indeed to get on my wrong side. Especially after I had managed to stare down Halt successfully and not come out injured. I nodded.
"Good."
Then I swept upstairs to put on socks and my boots, along with gloves, a hat, a scarf, and a much better coat - I gave up on my search for a non-Halt related shirt. After that show, the three Rangers would no doubt want to know every single little thing about me, and it would only hurt my cause if I spent extra time just trying to find a shirt. I grabbed my bag and stormed out of the house to find honey and coffee for my Ranger houseguests. I decided to also find them some clothes while I was at it. It might not fit them completely, but it wouldn't hurt. I had a fairly okay idea what I could possibly find to fit them.
I got back to the house an hour later, tired, covered in snow, and dragging in bags filled with at least one new outfit for each Ranger, coffee, and honey. I took off my boots by the door and dropped the bags on the table, startling all three Rangers who were carrying a discussion there. From what I had heard, about me.
"I'm going to do my sweep of the house to make sure that none of you destroyed anything while I was gone. While I'm doing that, please put these things away." I detailed where coffee and honey lived in the kitchen, and told them to leave the third bag(Yes, I got a bag full of coffee and a bag full of honey) be until they were done and I returned. Without waiting for an answer, I swept out. I was still using my commanding Halt voice, I realized. I also realized that, should the three figure out anything about my love of their world, Cierra would want to know. Cierra was my best friend - along with the person who had introduced me to Ranger's Apprentice. I got up to my room and shedded my hat, gloves, and scarf, along with my sodden pants and socks. I changed out my coat for the Ravenclaw cardigan from earlier, and did my sweep of the house. To my joy, nothing was broken or with weaponry through it, or signs of weaponry ever having been through it in the past hour. I returned to the kitchen, where all three Rangers had finished their task and were staring intently at the third bag.
"So, I'm not going to lie to you," I started, making at least Will jump slightly. Maybe Cierra and my impromptu silent, unseen movement sessions(with the books as guides) weren't so pointless, after all. Startling Rangers with their own tricks was fun. "Your clothes at the moment are not normal in this world. So, I got you each a new outfit."
To my joy and surprise, I had guessed each Ranger's size perfectly. The snow was starting to die down, and I realized that my dad might decide it to be a good idea to get back before the blizzard hit. I shot Cierra a text, and Will glanced at my phone.
"What's that?"
"It's a phone."
"What does it do?"
"Let me finish, then I'll show you," I said.
Hey, can you come over? -A I sent the text to Cierra. Maybe I could get her to break the news to them about their literary existence.
Why? -C
There's something cool I want to show you… but uh… you need to be kinda calm about it? -A
What is it? -C
Just come here. -A
Coming, A. -C
I decided to give Will a game to play with, hoping he wouldn't figure out how to access anything else. Or even leave the app, since my background may or may not have been Ranger's Apprentice related(It was). I glanced at my games, and eventually fell upon a word search game. I opened it, and gave it to Will.
"Here. This is a game on the phone. It's a word search - do you know what one is?"
Will shook his head.
"Basically, you have to find the words… here," I showed him how to do it, and he watched with extreme interest. It was funny, and just got more so as Halt and Gilan crowded around to see, and started commenting on it. I left them to it, and soon there was a knock at the door. Halt's head snapped up.
"I got it," I told them, and opened the door calmly. "Hey, Cierra," I said, before stepping outside and closing the door just as Halt made a particularly snarky comment about Will's playing.
"What was that?" Cierra asked, not having missed it.
"Halt," I said, and her eyes went wide.
"Letmeinletmeinletmein-" I cut off her rapid begging to be let in to tackle the poor Ranger.
"They have no clue that anyone knows who they are," I told her. She gave me a funny look, glancing at the chibi Halt showing from under my cardigan.
"You're wearing -"
"Yes, I know. I've been covering the words all day."
"Wow."
"Yeah. I was up since five-thirty dealing with them." I smiled grimly. "I had to take Halt's bow or he'd shoot the TV," I remembered. "That was tense, let me tell you."
"You actually… wow. I want to know how that worked."
"I'll tell you - later. Can you… uh… make the fact that there's a book series about them known to them, please? Without getting either of us killed in the process? Or injured?"
"Why don't you just tell them?"
I felt like I was being watched, and I glanced at the window and saw Halt watching us. I raised an eyebrow at him, which he responded in kind.
"Yep… uh, why don't you just… come in? Halt's watching us," I told Cierra, making my lips unreadable by turning away from the window. I felt Halt's annoyed gaze in the back of my head. Cierra nodded, and I let her in. Will and Gilan were watching the door with interest, and Halt came back around, eyebrow still raised.
"Who's this?" Will started. "Where'd she come from? Does-"
I cut off Will's questions, and glared at Cierra, who was trying poorly to hide her smile.
"This is Cierra. Will, did you leave my phone on the table?"
Will nodded.
"I'll just go get that," I said, leaving the three Rangers with my best friend, and smirking. Oh, this would be good, I thought as I settled in a corner to watch the exchange after I had reclaimed my phone.
I'm not gonna lie here.
I really did not expect this story to be as popular as it is. XD
So, since I'm finishing up my other story and doing a ton of drawing, I was wondering if you guys would like me to open up chapter suggestions? I have about six already written, but for future chapters, I'd love to take suggestions!
It makes me really happy that people enjoy my writing this much. Thanks to all who read this! :D
