A/N: WOOOOOOAAAAAAAH MAN. The Fellowship's in modern-day Earth! BET YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THAT IN A STORY BEFORE GUIZE LOL.

Okay, but in all seriousness...I promised you in the first chapter that this story would be unique and have lots of unexpected twists and turns and all that jazz. I realize that the whole "Fellowship comes to Earth" has been done before, but...I like taking these kinds of popular (overused?) storylines and doing my own version of them. So please don't give up on this story and start rolling your eyes and going "Oh wow. I've already read a million fanfics like this." I promise you, it'll get better. Just you wait. ;)

Chaos Unleashed: Chapter Three

Kaia's POV

"...and that's literally all I can tell you." Erin crossed her arms over her stomach as she finished speaking, and my eye roamed over the eight men who were now spread out across our living room as the information sunk in. We'd spent the past hour hauling them downstairs, introducing ourselves, and explaining what was going on as best as we could (though Erin had done most of the talking). We'd had to go into great detail when it came to telling the Fellowship about how Lord of the Rings was just a fantasy story here, and that there were movies showing their entire adventure across Middle-Earth, and that they weren't in their beloved homeland anymore. That led to a series of questions about where they were, which led to another in-depth explanation about Earth and how it was different from Middle-Earth, and that there were no elves or dwarves or hobbits or wizards here; only men.

We'd also let the Fellowship talk for a bit, and they gave us as much information as they could, too. For starters, we realized that Gandalf wasn't with them at all. He hadn't appeared in the closet upstairs, and he certainly wasn't with us now. Apparently the guys had "popped into our closet," as Merry put it, just a few days after they'd left Lothlórien via boating down the Great River. I was pretty confused, to say the least, and I'm sure Erin and Kathryn felt the same way at this point.

After the long moment of silence, Aragorn spoke up. "...But that makes no sense," he said, looking at Erin in disbelief. "How is it that we just...arrived here? What could've caused that?"

"I have no clue," Erin said. "I'm just as lost as you are, I swear." I was at least happy that we'd managed to convince them that we were cool and not some freaky spies of Sauron that were gonna rip them limb from limb pretty quickly.

"Well then what do we do?" Now Boromir was talking. "We cannot just sit here idly! What of Middle-Earth and those we left behind? What will happen to them?"

Erin opened her mouth to speak again, but she was cut off by Gimli. "He's right," the dwarf said, looking at his companions. "We set out to destroy the Ring, and we've got to do it! We can't just let Sauron have his way while we've gone missing! He'll be unstoppable!"

As soon as he said it, the tension in the room increased tenfold. "Now, hang on a minute-" Erin began.

"We can't let that happen!" Pippin cried. "What about all the others? Will they be all right?"

"We have to go back!" Merry agreed, and the others gave their nods and murmurs of approval. Then the blonde hobbit looked to us again. "...We can go back...can't we?"

Erin let out a breath, then glanced over to me pleadingly. I took the hint and answered them to give her a break from talking. "We don't know," I said seriously. "There might be a way for you all to go back, and there might not. But no matter what, I can guarantee you that you won't be going anywhere tonight...maybe even for a few days."

Boromir instantly objected to this. "But we must get back somehow!"

"I understand that!" I said, snapping my head in his direction. "But as you know, none of us girls have any idea how you guys got here in the first place. So obviously we wouldn't know how to get you home." The redheaded man still seemed unsettled, so I softened my tone slightly. "I understand that you need to return as soon as possible, Boromir, but we can't make that happen right away. You'll just have to be patient."

"And that is something we can do," Aragorn replied with a nod to me. Some of the others shot him questioning glances at this, but no one else spoke against him. On the inside, I smirked. Guess we know who's in charge here.

"Thank you," Erin said. "That helps us out a lot."

Another brief moment of silence passed before Frodo then spoke up. "...If we are going to be stuck here for awhile...then what's to be done?"

"Well, if you guys don't mind," Erin said in response, "I'd like to talk with them about it in private." She pointed a finger at Kat and I. "Excuse us for a second." She then motioned for both of us to follow her out of the living room, through the dining room, and finally into the kitchen on her side of the house.

Erin's POV

I jumped up and sat on the smooth white counter top that was hardly ever used and turned to face my friends. Kathryn closed the door behind her as she slipped in, and she and Kaia stood apart so that we were in a triangle-sort of formation. "Well!" I said. "We now have a band of eight men in our house who have no idea how Earth works, and we can't send them home. What do we do?"

"Obviously they're gonna have to stay here," Kathryn said immediately. "I mean, we can't just throw them out on the streets."

I smiled a bit. "Yeah, because I would totally do that to the Fellowship. But seriously! Yes, they'll have to stay here. However, that means we've got some arrangements to make. They all need places to sleep, modern clothes to wear...we'll need to teach them the basics of modern life so that they're not totally clueless..." I trailed off, trying to think of all the main issues we had to fix.

"We should probably do something about their hair and all," Kaia said, "because if they all went to Wal-Mart looking like that, I'm pretty sure someone would recognize them and we'd be screwed."

I bit my lip slightly. "Oh frick, Legolas is gonna be hard to work with. He's gonna have to constantly hide his ears."

Kathryn nodded. "And the hobbits probably won't be too happy about having to wear shoes."

"And I'm sure Gimli'll be pissed when we tell him he might have to trim his beard at least a little bit," Kaia added. Then she leaned her head back and groaned. "Oh, God. This is gonna be a nightmare."

I laughed openly at that. "A nightmare? Dude, we've got the Fellowship of the Ring in our house! Do you realize how awesome that is? And so what if we've got a couple problems right now? They'll adjust. They've got no other choice."

"Says Miss Optimist over here," Kaia replied. "What about when we have to teach them all how to use the bathroom? There's no way in hell I'm doing that."

I couldn't help but cringe a bit at that. "Good point. But still! It'll be fun, just wait." I gave her a knowing smile before getting serious again. "Now first we gotta deal with the most important issue, which is getting them all settled in somewhere. Thank God we have both sides of this townhouse to work with."

"Yeah," Kathryn said. "That's good. But I don't think we should all work on the same thing at once. We should split up and take care of different problems all at once to make things go faster."

"Good thinking," I said. "Okay, let's do that, then. Kaia, are you cool with taking care of figuring out the sleeping arrangements?"

She nodded as she reached behind her head and pulled out her disheveled ponytail. "Yeah."

"Awesome. Kathryn, are you okay with making a run to Wal-Mart and trying to get them all at least one complete outfit to wear?"

"Uhh, how am I gonna know what sizes they are?"

"Just make a guess," I said. "You've seen how tall they are and stuff. Try your best, and keep all the receipts. If stuff doesn't fit, we'll take it back, and then once they all have one basic outfit to wear, then we can go on a bigger shopping trip and take them with us to pick out more stuff."

She shrugged. "Mmkay. I'll give it a shot."

"Sweet. Thanks. And while you guys are taking care of that...I'll be labeling stuff."

Both of my housemates' eyebrows shot up at this. "The fuck? What are you talking about?" Kaia asked.

"I'm gonna label, like...everything in this house that they don't know the name of," I said. "To help them learn easier. Trust me, it should work."

"Keyword: 'should.'"

"Hey, shut up," I said to her. "Unless you've got a better idea."

She just sighed and shook her head. "Whatever, then. Go for it, man."

I smiled again. "Okay. I think that'll be enough to get us through tonight. We can give them a tour of the house and explain how things work and all that in the morning." I turned to Kathryn again. "If you leave now, do you think you could be back here with the clothes in...half an hour?"

"Are you crazy?" she laughed. "If I'm blindly guessing their sizes, it'll take me longer than that. I'm thinking an hour would be okay."

I thought about that. "...All right. Do that. You know where your keys are, right?"

She was already on her way out of the kitchen. "Yeah, I got it!"

I looked at Kaia, who was also heading out. "I'll make the list up in my room, okay?"

"Gotcha."

She smirked as we headed back out the way we'd come. "You're in charge, Erin...so don't fuck it up."

I laughed. "No promises."

As soon as we stepped back into the living room, all eyes turned our way. Kaia nodded to them once before continuing on out of the house so she could get over to her side and get up to her room. I could tell that the men had all been talking about something from the way they were semi-huddled together, but I brushed it off. It wasn't any of my business, anyway. "Where's she going?" Pippin asked as Kaia disappeared from sight. "And Miss Kathryn, too! Why are they leaving?"

"I'll explain everything," I said, holding up a hand to stop the questions. "Just bear with me for a bit longer." I paused and took a breath before beginning. "Okay. Since none of us know how to get you guys back to Middle-Earth at the moment, we've decided that it would be best for you to just live here with us for now." Almost all of the Fellowship stiffened, muttered something to another, or reacted in some way. The only two that just continued to calmly stare at me were Aragorn and Legolas. "I realize that this'll be hard for you, but you really don't have any other choice. We're going to do all we can to help you adjust to this world, learn our 'customs' and whatnot...everything. Kathryn just went out to buy you guys a couple new things to wear, because obviously we dress way different here than you do in Middle-Earth." I gestured to my own outfit which was now a simple grey tank top and skinny jeans. And to think, they haven't even seen what most girls wear these days. "Kaia's working on picking out rooms for you all to sleep in, which brings me to my next point. We should be able to squeeze you all in somewhere, but you'll definitely all be sharing a room with at least one other person. That won't be much of an issue for you, right?" No one said a word. "Awesome."

"Lady Erin." Legolas spoke up, and I looked at him. Good lord, his eyes are blue. "As generous as your offer is, I must ask...how long we would be staying here?"

I shrugged and shook my head. "I don't know. It could be a couple days...could be a couple weeks...could be a couple months, even. But this is what we've got to do either way." More murmurs from the men. "Again, I'm really sorry for overwhelming you guys with all this, but we'll do our best to make you as comfortable here as possible."

"Then...where do we start?" Merry asked.

I thought about that for a second. Hmm...what could we do while we wait for Kaia and Kathryn? "Oh!" I snapped my fingers. "I know! The first thing I'll need you to do is remove all of your weapons."

This got me several skeptical and wary stares, particularly from Gimli and Boromir. "And why should we do that?" the dwarf piped up, his dark eyes narrowing dangerously.

"Gimli," Aragorn said quietly, but sternly. "Now is not the time. These women have very graciously allowed us to be their guests for as long as is needed, and we must trust them just as we trust each other." He then turned back to me, unhooking his belt which carried his sword and hunting knife. Reluctantly, the others followed his lead. "What do we do with them?" the ranger asked.

I smiled. "Just come with me. I'll show you where we'll keep them." With that, I turned and started up the stairs again, hearing the footsteps of the eight others behind me as we went. I stopped in front of the door to the upper storage closet they'd fallen out of. I stepped inside and cleared a couple boxes of junk away before coming back out. "You can arrange them in there however you want them," I said. "I can bet that you won't have any use for your weapons for awhile, but if you would ever need them, you know where they are."

The men nodded in response, and one by one, each member of the Fellowship stepped forward and set his weapons in the closet wherever they fit. They still seemed uneasy about leaving their only means of defense in there, but no one protested. "And another thing you should know is that we don't refer to others as 'Lord' or 'Lady' here. You pretty much always refer to people by their regular name, but I'll explain the exceptions to that later," I said. "So to you guys, I'm not 'Lady Erin.' I'm just 'Erin." They nodded to show that they understood. After a moment of silence, I spoke again. "...Uhh...any other questions about how stuff works here?"

Immediately, Pippin's hand shot up. "Do you still eat food here?"

I couldn't help but laugh a bit. "Yeah, we still eat food. Kathryn's usually the one that does the cooking around here, and some of the stuff she makes will be a bit strange to you, but I think you'll like it anyway. She's a pretty good cook."

Now Merry spoke up. "Do you have biscuits on Earth? And sausages?"

I nodded. "Yup."

"What about carrots?"

"Uh-huh."

"And mushrooms?" Pippin cut in, looking hopeful.

I smiled a bit. "Yes, we do have mushrooms." This got the attention of all four hobbits, who shared excited looks with each other, eyes as big as the state of Texas.

Suddenly, the bang of our front door slamming shut sounded loudly from downstairs, making almost all the guys jump. "Erin!" I heard Kaia shout. "I figured everything out!"

"That's our cue to head back downstairs," I said. "Come on!" I quickly slipped past the others and headed down into the living room again, our new house guests trailing behind me.

Once I stepped onto the carpeted floor, Kaia turned around. "Oh, there you are." As we all crowded into the room, she held up a piece of paper with red ink scribbled onto it. "I think I've got it."

"Well then let's hear it!" I said, turning around to look at the Fellowship. "You guys can sit down wherever you want."

After giving them a moment to get settled, Kaia took her place in front of the TV again and began. I stepped back so that I was behind everyone else and absentmindedly started tracing my finger over a landscape painting I'd done and hung up on the wall awhile back. "Okay. Gimli, Pippin, and Merry will be right over there-" I glanced over my shoulder to see her point "-in our unused dining room. We'll have to move the table and chairs around so that you guys have enough space, but it should work." I pulled my phone out of my pocket as she continued, checking the time. It's almost nine thirty.

"Frodo and Sam, you'll be in Kathryn's bedroom, which is upstairs on the other side of the house." Now I'd slid the phone open and was typing away, preparing a message for Kathryn asking when she'd be back.

"Boromir and Aragorn, you two will share the guest room upstairs, right above the dining room." I selected Kathryn's name for the message to be sent to, quickly reading over it to make sure I hadn't made any stupid spelling errors. Aaaaaand...send.

"And that leaves you, Legolas. You'll be in Erin's room."

My phone dropped straight from my hand and hit the floor, causing every head in the room to turn in my direction...including the elf, who was eying me curiously. "Uhh...s-sorry," I said, already feeling my face getting hot. "Dropped my phone." I laughed nervously as I reached down and picked it up, then quickly shoved it back into my pocket. As I looked back at Kaia, though, I noticed something that made me want to punch her in the face. She's smiling. She's friking smiling. ...Oh my word, she planned this. That dirty little-

"Kaia, are you sure that these...arrangements are entirely proper?" Legolas asked, turning back to face my friend, who still had that look in her eye that told me she was dying of laughter on the inside.

I'm gonna kill her. "Yes, Kaia! Are you sure that's entirely proper?" I repeated, clenching my fists and shooting her a glare.

She looked like she was barely holding it together. "We don't worry so much about what's proper here," she said in response. "It's no big deal."

NO BIG DEAL?! I groaned internally. Why did I put her in charge of this? I'm stupid. I'm such an idiot. But for the moment, I just had to swallow my embarrassment and act like nothing was wrong. "All right! I guess that's what we'll do, then!" I stared Kaia down for two more seconds before smiling sweetly at the others. "I'll go get the upstairs rooms ready. Kaia, why don't you come help me?"

"Okay. It shouldn't take us long, guys, so just wait here for a minute." She still had a smug grin on her face as the two of us disappeared up the stairs. I didn't stop to turn around and look at her until we got to the art studio. As soon as she shut the door behind her, though, I spun on my heel and let her have it.

"Really, Kaia? Really?" I hissed. "You seriously put Legolas, of all people, in my room?"

She laughed openly now. "Why wouldn't I? Oh God, you should've seen your face!" She laughed ever harder. "It was perfect!"

My shoulders dropped as I asked the dreaded question. "You're not gonna keep doing this the whole time they're here, are you?"

"Erin, come on," she said, calming down and looking at me seriously. For a second my hopes were raised a little bit...until she cracked a mischievous grin again. "What kind of friend would I be if I let you live in peace?"

I rolled my eyes. "A good one," I muttered.

Kaia just laughed again. "Don't deny your undying love, Erin!" she said, pretending to over-dramatically swoon.

"Shut up."

"You'll never get anywhere with him if you deny it!"

"Shut up!" I could feel my cheeks burning again as I stepped around her.

"Come on, Erin!" She jumped in front of me again, blocking the door. "You can't look me in the eyes and say that you don't want that d."

"Why do I live with you?!" I shrieked, shoving her out of the way and yanking the door open. Her hysterical laughter followed me as I bolted down the hallway and into my bedroom.

Just seconds after I'd slammed the door shut, I heard a thud as Kaia rammed into it, then the sound of her fists pounding on the door. "Erinnnn! You can't hide forever!"

If they hear her downstairs...holy balls, I'll murder her. "Shut your face!"

"Why are you hiding in your room, Erin? Huh?" I bet she was tearing up from how hard she was laughing. "Why you hiding from me?"

I kicked the door with my heel. "Go get the guest room ready!" Thankfully, she finally moved on and left me to myself. Once I was sure that she'd walked away, I groaned and slid down the door until my butt hit the ground, then buried my bright red face in my knees. "Oh, man...when Kathryn gets home, there'll be twice as much of this crap... I'll never hear the end of it!" I wasn't seriously pissed off at Kaia or about to cry or anything. I knew she was just joking around, but...good Lord, putting Legolas in my room was just about the worst thing she could've done to me, and she knew it. Why? Well...

...Okay. Anyone who knew me knew that I was a pretty obsessive Lord of the Rings fan. That was obvious. But anyone who really knew me knew of my, ah...tendency to favor a certain Mirkwood prince over the other characters. It wasn't to the point of being creepy or anything, but...honestly, this is Orlando Bloom we're talking about. And in my eyes, he'll always be the most perfect man on the face of the earth.

So what was my problem, then? Well, my problem was that in my room, I just so happened to have quite a bit of Lord of the Rings merchandise scattered everywhere, and a good chunk of it was Legolas-centered. There was a poster of him as he appeared in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, two other posters of him from The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King, a big portrait of him that I'd drawn as a sophomore in high school, a figurine of him from The Hobbit, a special limited edition poster of him, Aragorn, and Gimli from The Two Towers, three random Legolas trading cards that I'd indefinitely borrowed from a friend, and (my personal favorite) a cheap, but pretty good quality replica of his twin white knives that sat on top of my bookshelf. Besides all that, I had a handmade replica of Sting and the Fellowship's leaf brooch from a Frodo cosplay I'd done awhile ago, a poster with a mishmash of characters from all three movies, a collage of the One Ring that I'd done, and my Hobbit-themed popcorn bucket from when I'd gone to see the premiere of An Unexpected Journey with my friends (which I now used to store a bunch of spare art materials in).

Needless to say...I couldn't have Legolas in here. Not when his face was plastered all over the walls, anyway. So I picked myself up off the ground and began the heartbreaking task of taking down all my posters that would make me seem like a stalker. It didn't take me long, as I left some of the normal Lord of the Rings fangirl stuff where it was...but the Legolas posters were rolled up, the knives taken down, the figurine and cards gathered up, and everything that could fit was stuck into a small cardboard box that I dug out from inside my closet. I quickly grabbed a Sharpie and scribbled 'Erin's Crap' in large letters on all four sides, then grabbed it and started off towards the hallway, picking up my posters as well.

As I stepped out of my room, I saw that Kaia had just finished up with the guest room and was standing in the hallway waiting for me. Once she saw what I carried, she frowned. "Erin, what the hell are you doing?"

"Getting my room ready. After all, I don't want him feeling uncomfortable."

She raised an eyebrow, confused, then stuck her head in my doorway to see what I'd done. "Seriously, bro? What the fuck?"

I made it to my destination and flung open the closet door, smiling as I heard the disappointment in her voice. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I ruin your fun?" I laughed. I moved aside Legolas' quiver, knives, and bow, as well as Gimli's axes, and set my box on top of the pile of spare junk we kept in there. The posters were set next to the box, and I repositioned their weapons so that nothing would smash them.

When I turned around and shut the door again, Kaia was right in front of me, shaking her head in disbelief. "Really? Nice."

I glared at her again. "Don't think I'm on friendly terms with you, woman. I almost cried doing that." We both laughed a bit before turning and heading back towards the stairs.

As we started to descend them, Kaia leaned in close to my ear. "...But I know you still want that d, Erin."

FML.

Another quick A/N because I can: I'm so so so sorry it took me so long to write this ajfhjakshfwk ;A; I made it longer than normal as payment, so...hopefully you guys like this chapter. It took me forever to figure out how I wanted that beginning to go. ;_; (And it doesn't help that I've recently become a fan of a guy named Pewdiepie on YouTube, so I'm constantly watching his videos when I should be writing. Are there any other bros out there? ;D)

Not sure when the next chapter will be up. :I I'm still adjusting to the new semester, and I might have to go back to the doctors if this dumb ear infection doesn't go away soon, so...yeah.

I'M SO DONE WITH JANUARY. D: