Chapter 4: Off With A Bang
Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OC.
Within the next hour, the cadets found that none of their equipment would work. They did a monthly battery check on everything so they had no idea what was making them die.
After a while, Miguel decided to check the batteries on one of the remotes and saw that it had been replaced with Smarties. Flabbergasted, he turned to the other cadets and said, "Guys, I found the source of the problemo."
"What is it, Miguel?" Tug asked, looking over his shoulder.
Miguel held up the candy and said, "They replaced our batteries with these."
"Are you serious? How did they even get in here without us noticing. . ." Roger trailed off, knowing exactly how the ghouls had done it.
"Lauren. Crap. Her ability to teleport is a seriously unfair advantage." Grunt said.
"Hey! Are we going to let them win just because they have some special powers that we don't? No! We're going to show these girls what real men are and win this." Baxter shouted.
"Kid's got a point. They may have pranked us, but it was weak. Let's open a pack of new batteries to replace the Smarties and think of a prank to one-up them." Tug said, opening up a drawer. Inside were several unopened packages of Double A batteries.
"I can't believe the girls didn't think of taking our extra batteries. Amateurs." Grunt said with a laugh as Tug tossed him a pack. He reached for his pocketknife and went to flick the blade open when he noticed something that made him scream in fury.
"What is it?" Baxter asked.
"They zip tied my knife shut!" Grunt stammered, flabbergasted as to how they could have done so.
"What?" Jamal asked, craning his neck to get a closer look.
"Yeah! Look!" Grunt said, holding his knife out for everyone to see.
"Relax, I'll cut the tie," Roger said, pulling out his knife. But it was also zip tied. The other cadets scrambled to check their knives and saw that they were all zip tied. They frantically searched the room and saw that every single pocket knife and pair of scissors had been zip tied shut. And any knife that wasn't a pocket knife had had its sheath super glued to it, making it impossible to remove.
"It's one thing for them to replace our batteries with Smarties. But this knife has been in my back pocket all day. How did even Lauren manage to get it because you'd think I would notice someone's hand entering back there?" Grunt asked indignantly.
"Let's just try to find something to free our knives with before we talk about that." Tug ordered when a loud BANG went off down the hall.
The cadets all froze in fear. The sound had come from the colonel's office. They stowed their knives away and quickly stood at attention as he burst into the room, his face beet red and a vein in his forehead visibly pounding. "What is the meaning of this, cadets?" he asked, holding up an air horn.
"W-we had nothing to do with it, sir." Tug mumbled in a feeble voice.
The colonel turned toward Tug and said in a low voice "You didn't have anything to do with this, Roper? Well then, by all means, tell me who did."
"It was the Grimwood girls, sir." Tug responded quickly.
"Oh, really? And just how would they have managed to break into my office when they don't even know where it is?" The Colonel asked, his face continuing to redden.
Not wanting to give away the girl's secret, Tug simply muttered, "I don't know, sir."
His eyebrow twitched. "Then I'll ask you one more time, Roper. How did this get on my chair?"
"But, sir, it was the Grimwood girls. We're having a prank war with them and I guess that they confused that room with a study of one of ours." Tug explained.
The Colonel's face instantly returned to its original coloring. "A prank war, eh? Well, I hope you men plan on winning."
"We do, sir. Our next prank will send them running, and crying, to their mommies." Grunt said eagerly.
"That's the spirit. And good work, men." and without further ado, Colonel Calloway walked back to his office.
Tug waited for the Colonel to turn down the hallway before speaking. "Okay, men. I could live with replacing our batteries with Smarties and zip tying all of the knives, but pranking the colonel to get us in trouble is where I draw the line. We got off incredibly easy. If we hadn't said we were winning we would probably be doing suicides for the next hour right now. So I say it's time we sink to their level." Tug said with an evil grin.
"That was great, Lauren!" Tanis cried in glee.
"Yeah! It was fangtastic how you were able to zip tie their knives without them noticing." Sibella praised her friend.
"It was nothing. Honestly, though, I'm surprised none of them noticed." Lauren said modestly when her phone began to ring. "Hold on, guys. I'm getting a phone call." Lauren answered the phone and nearly had her ear blown off as soon as she had done so due to the fact that the other line was roaring at her. When it stopped, Lauren brought the phone closer to her ear and said, "I'm sorry, but I think you've got the wrong number."
"But this is the number from the flyer." the man on the other line insisted.
"What flyer?" Lauren asked, confused.
"They flyer that was hanging up downtown. You're hosting a Chewbacca roar contest for the next twenty-four hours, aren't you?" the man on the other line asked.
Lauren held her phone, stunned. "No, I'm afraid there's been a mistake. I never have nor ever will host something like that." and without further ado, she hung up. Lauren spent the next four hours explaining to people that there was no competition. Finally, she had had enough. Turning her phone off, she sunk into bed and fell asleep.
