Chapter Ten: The WIIIILD Round-up!
NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO! SUMMER VACATION IS OVER FOR ME! No more free hours of lazying around doing absolutely nothing for another nine, slow months! Back to crazy packed schedules of tests, and sports practices, and studying, and math…ugh, lots and lots of math…:O Okay, rant over! :'D Though I'm starting school this week, fingers crossed, that won't affect this posting schedule! Speaking of schedules, this post is already running behind… To chapter ten! XD
Jens: Yep, this meeting definitely won't end well…XD And esprit and queue really mean spirit and tail? That's so cool! Yah, we didn't plan that at all. :'D Well, esprit was supposed to sound something like spirits, but I didn't know it would actually mean it! And as for queue, that's an interesting story. XD So originally it was going to be "Qu", like "Wu", but then one time I was sending Kendra an email and it said 'queued' on it. I texted her this, and then we're both like, "Wait, queue…" It stuck! XD And yas, Lloyd just can't seem to get enough of pizza! When Kendra and I did that accent debate, Lloyd's was Italian. And yep, Kyle is such a drama king. XD And thank you so much!
Anonymous7: To be honest, writing about characters like Lawrence and Kyle lashing out at each other is really fun. XD And thanks! Having the whole thing be told by Sensei Wu as a story with the ninja breaking in was not the original idea, but I'm so glad we did it! After coming up with the story idea, we're like, "yaaahh…world building? Too complicated! We'll just make it a story in a story!" XD And oo, cucumbers! I forgot about those; I love cucumbers too! As well as food. XD And yas, I remember editing that popcorn scene a few chapters back right before dinner and being like, "this is a mistake!" :'D And yours also sounds hilarious! Stop-motions take a while, but they're always so fun to make!
Natalie looked down at the address in the letter, then back at the pristine white barn-house. This must be the place, she thought with wonder.
The morning after Cowboy Queue visited her workshop, she had found this letter from him on her shop's doorstep, saying she and the others were to meet at the White Barn tomorrow, which was now today. Pretty much everyone in town knew where the White Barn was. After all, it was the largest and best maintained property around, owned by the famous Cowboy Queue. Not that he was there a lot.
Natalie took a deep breath, picked up her pale blue skirt, and climbed the steps to the farmhouse's front door. She looked at the brass dragon doorknocker. Strange choice in decoration, she wondered as she picked it up and let it drop.
Almost immediately, a breathless servant girl opened the door. "Are you here for the meeting?" she asked instantly, dusting flour off her apron.
"Well, yes; I'm Natalie-"
The girl ushered her inside without waiting for her to finish her introduction and pointed to the hallway heading to the right. "The meeting is going being held in the parlor. Master Queue will be here shortly." Then she grabbed a duster and ran off.
Natalie didn't know why she would need it. Everything already looked spotless.
She made her way down the hallway, glancing at the expensive paintings lining the bright white walls. Then she reached a set of open double doors, and went inside with a small gasp.
The parlor was crazy fancy, from the white walls trimmed with gold, the plush sofas, huge paintings, tall windows, and grand fireplace. The walls were lined with shelves of books, and the table in the middle of the cluster of armchairs was laid out with tea in porcelain cups and many other delicacies.
Obviously, she was the first one here. She slowly sat down on one of the pure white sofas, and gingerly took a teacup. This is awkward. I hope the others show up soon. I wonder who they are? Probably other high-class people, if we're meeting here. The thought comforted her a little, and she stirred some sugar into her tea while she took in a nearby painting of a mountain landscape.
Just then, a girl stormed into the room, looking around and glaring as if she smelled something bad. She wore dusty buckskin pants, a cotton shirt with a vest on top, and a cowboy hat. Her orange copper hair was done into a messy braid, and Natalie winced seeing the dirt on her face. The girl's hazel eyes settled on her, and then narrowed.
"I already don't like the look of this, y'all!" she said, and plopped herself on a white armchair across from Natalie, causing a cloud of dust. Natalie bit her lip, seeing the dirt smears on the white fabric. Not what I had in mind...
"Well, if ya also in this group, I guess I should introduce myself," the girl continued, crossing her legs and leaning back in the chair. "Howdy, I'm Tessa Taylor. How do ya do?"
Natalie sat bolt upright. "Wait, like the bandit?"
Tessa smiled wickedly. She took out a small knife and started filing her nails with it. "So y'all heard of me. How nice. And who are ya?"
Natalie swallowed. "Natalie Smithereens. The inventor."
Tessa nodded thoughtfully. "I also heard of y'all. I recently met your brother, Kyle. It's his fault I was caught and almost put in jail."
Natalie started. "Wait, what?"
Just then, another figure came marching into the room. Natalie instantly recognized him as Caleb Brown, the town's head sheriff. The badge made it easy.
Tessa scowled at him. "I was a-hoping y'all would get shot by one of my fellow bandits before this meetin'."
Caleb scowled back. "Glad to know I was missed." He sat down next to Natalie. "Where's everyone else?" he asked Natalie, clearly ignoring Tessa.
"Use yer eyes, stupid!" Tessa exclaimed before Natalie could answer. "They're obviously not 'ere yet!"
Caleb shot her a glare, and she glared back. Natalie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. The two already seemed to know the other would be here, and they definitely weren't happy about it.
Several minutes passed by in a tense silence. Natalie swirled her tea, trying to think of a way to start a conversation without it ending in disaster. Right when she was about to bring up the safe "The weather's nice today" cliché, seven people burst through the doorway at once in a stampede, arguing about something intensely. Seeing the others, they immediately stopped arguing, but the tenseness in the room instantly hit an extreme. Natalie looked them over with interest and felt a jolt of surprise run through her. She dropped her teacup on the polished wood floor with a shatter.
Standing among the group of seven was her brother Kyle, looking extremely angry and annoyed, glaring at the other six. Then there were two upper class people, one Natalie recognized as Clara Green, the mayor's daughter. She saw the girl with curly brown hair and soft green eyes once at a town meeting next to her father. The other was a tall man with pale blond hair and light blue eyes. And the last four people were wearing the brown and silver colors of the resistance: a girl with red hair and amber eyes, another girl with long black hair in two braids who Natalie vaguely remembered as the sheriff's twin sister; the bandit who had tried to steal her tools in the marketplace Natalie realized with a flash of anger, and the last one, a familiar looking young man with black hair and brown eyes...
"Cameron?" Natalie sputtered in surprise.
Cam avoided her stare. "Oh, uh, howdy, Nat."
Natalie ran up to her younger brother and gave him a fierce hug. "For goodness sake, Cam! We thought... I thought you were dead! That…day in the marketplace you just disappeared, and we never saw you again! Where were you all these years?" She saw Kyle roll his eyes from the corner of her eye.
Cam awkwardly pulled back. "Uh, well, y'all see, um, it's…a looonng story-"
"Irene?!" Caleb had paled, staring at his sister in shock. "You...you were with them?!"
Irene bit her lip, and looked away.
Suddenly, a teapot went flying through the air. The bandit Jason Grant just barely managed to dodge it before it smashed into the wall in an explosion of tea and broken porcelain.
"YOOOOU!" Tessa standing up now, shaking with fury. She picked up a teacup and other dishware and stared hurling them at him.
Jason dodged them. "Y'all got to be kiddin' me!" he shouted. "I never agreed to this! I ain't working with y'all!"
"Me neither!" Tessa ran out of dishes and muffins, and so she switched to giving Jason the death glare.
The tension in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Actually, a knife might not be strong enough. Maybe an ax, though.
Queue approached his house, the White Barn, and could hear shouts coming from inside even from a distance. He sighed. I should have been here earlier...
He went through the front door and saw his maid by the hallway, looking down it anxiously. Hearing him enter, she whirled, and quickly curtsied.
"I don't know what's going on in there, sir," she said nervously. "But it doesn't sound good…"
"Thank you, Phoebe; I'll take care of it," Queue said with a sigh, making his way to the parlor.
He went in and saw it was even worse than he thought. There were loads of shattered dishes thrown across the room, and dust could be seen on the white furniture. The ten people in the room were all standing up, most of them yelling and arguing, sulking, or looking completely confused.
"SILENCE, MY SEGASUAS!" Cowboy Queue yelled above all of them. The room became silent, and the Wild Roundup stared at him in surprise, guilt, and with more confusion.
The room was silent until Kyle randomly asked, "What's a 'segasuas'?"
"It is what I will call you. In the ancient language, it means 'warriors'." He replied calmly. "Now, it is your time to answer my questions: what was the meaning of this chaos?"
"I can explain," stated John. "It was inevitably caused by the fact that somehow we all knew each other in some shape or form and most of them didn't get along, so they started throwing items."
"Thank you. Now, we will go around the room and say your name, so we might get to know each other." Queue gave them all a cold look.
"Tessa Taylor!"
"Clara Green."
"John Jameson."
"Kyle Smithereens, y'all!"
"Jason Grant."
"Cam Smithereens."
"Stephanie Stormer."
"Irene Brown."
"Natalie Smithereens."
"Caleb Brown."
"We are missing one," said Cowboy Queue dramatically with great flourish.
Kyle groaned, loud and long. "We ain't needin' him!"
"But, yes, we do, young segasua. We need all eleven to participate if we are to win this battle."
"Speaking of that," Stephanie broke in, "weren't you going to say what this evil is?"
"Only when the last segasua gets here; I don't like to repeat myself."
Then a figure looked around the doorway and came into the parlor. Lawrence Green.
"Lawrence?" Clara asked, blinking with astonishment.
"You're here too?" he asked. "And..." He trailed off, looking at the rest of the group; he knew most of them, and he disliked most of them too.
"Perfect timing, Lawrence," Queue said. Then he turned to the rest of the team. "Now, to tell you about the evil. The evil that plagues this town is the zarthlus and eprits. They have returned, they would like their sweet revenge. Your mission is to defeat them, and save the town while also uniting the two classes. That is the reason that you eleven have been chosen."
"So, we're physically fighting these creatures?" asked Clara with her eyebrows raised.
"Yes. Your training will begin in precisely half an hour."
"What do we do until then?" asked Cam, looking around the room uneasily.
"Try to get to know each other and get along, because it seems most of you lack that. Also, I will make sure lunch will be ready. So, please, try not to throw anything while I'm gone." He then left the room, doors swinging closed behind him.
The next few minutes were spent in more taut quiet. The ones from the lower class sat on one side of the sofas, and the upper class on the other. No one moved, unless to exchange looks of anger, shock, sadness, and betrayal.
Suddenly, the servant girl opened the doors, causing everyone to jump.
"Uh, I hope I'm not interrupting anything," she said cautiously, balancing the tray. "I just brought some more tea and stuff." She quickly set it on the table, and hurried out of the room, closing the doors.
Stephanie stared at the tray, noticing that the cups were wooden this time.
Tessa grabbed a biscuit and sat back in her chair, looking over at Jason. "So, Garbage-Grant," she started, flipping her braid over her shoulder, "just how did the resistance allow an abomination such as yerself into their ranks?"
Jason's cobalt blue eyes narrowed. "Let's just say they saw 'ow amazin'ly skilled I was and offered me a spot in the resistance, which I took."
Suddenly a biscuit bounced off Jason's head. "I don't believe that for a second, y'all!" she scoffed.
"We are not permitted to throw objects," John broke in. "Perhaps we should engage in conversation using less violent methods."
"Like what, y'all?" exclaimed Kyle, arms crossed. "I pretty much hate everyone in this room."
"Like explaining how you seven all know each other," offered Natalie, looking suspiciously at her brothers.
"It's a long story, y'all, but I'll sum it up," said Cam. "Stephanie, Irene, and myself helped found the resistance. Jason here was one of our most recent recruits. We captured Clara and John to cause chaos in the government-"
"IT WAS YOU?!" exclaimed Lawrence, standing up. He pulled out a knife. "I ought to stab this knife right through you!"
"Lawrence, calm down!" said Clara, pulling him back down. "We're in the same group now. We can't be stabbing each other!"
"You're defending this...this...THAT?" Lawrence sat back down, but didn't put the knife away. He glared at Cam. "I swear, if you so much as look at my sister ever again, I'll-"
"As I was a-saying," Cam butted in, ignoring Lawrence, "we were escaping the hideout since we were being attacked, and got separated from the other resistance members. That's when we bumped into Queue and all that prophecy stuff was mentioned. We tried going to Jason's ole place, but it was swarming with esprit thangs. So we crashed at Kyle's farm instead."
"They just barged into my farm and expected me to be okay with it, y'all!" Kyle burst out. "Cam was like 'I have as much right to be here as you do', but he didn't! If I wasn't outnumbered, I woulda just kicked 'em all out! My 'orses were just as upset!"
Everyone gave him a strange look.
"What, y'all?"
"Never mind!" said Natalie.
Caleb then looked over at Irene, expression still hurt. "Why, Irene? Why did you betray the government?"
Irene took a deep breath, looking at her boots. "You can't actually be okay with this government, can you? They take away all yer money, and expect ya to keep payin'. The low class barely has any rights. And if this government were to keep up like this, this town will fall to ruins. Again."
Caleb didn't say anything, and looked away.
Tessa pulled out a pocket watch, obviously stolen from how fancy it looked. "Where is Queue dude?" she demanded. "It's been thirty-two minutes!"
"Right here."
Everyone spun around to find Cowboy Queue standing in the doorway. "I hope you enjoyed your tea, because lunch won't be for a while. Now, follow me to the training room. We need to get your new uniforms situated, and then the real challenge will begin."
The mayor was satisfyingly looking down at some of the members of the resistance he had captured. There were two girls and one guy. Their hands were cuffed behind them and the mayor's guards held on to them to make sure they wouldn't escape. The rest of the resistance had managed to evade his officials, but he would soon find them.
"Tell me," he said, "where is the rest of your little organization hiding?"
The younger of the two girls spoke up, her aqua eyes flashing. "We don't know."
"I doubt that."
"She's telling the truth, y'all!" the boy interrupted, defending her. "We were just followin' the rest through the tunnels."
Mayor Green thought about this. "If what you're saying is true, then you are useless to me." He turned to face the guards. "Take them to the prison."
"Wait!" said the other girl, who had been quiet since she and her teammates got captured.
"What is it?" The mayor asked with frustration. I don't have time for this!
"Uh..." She looked side to side, frantic.
"I'm waiting." The mayor crossed his arms and tapped his foot impatiently.
"Uh, we can see if we can find where the rest of the resistance tunnels come out!"
Her friends looked at her, confused.
"Really? How do I know you're not lying?"
The girl paled. "Um, well, it's your best chance of findin' 'em."
"And I'm supposed to believe you're just going to turn on your side? I should have known." He turned back to the guards. "Lock them in the prison. We will find the rest by ourselves."
The guards dragged them out of the room. The three struggled to no avail.
Kids these days... thought Mayor Green, sitting back at his desk.
The guards brought the three newest prisoners to a cell in the jailhouse. It was dark and poorly lit by a couple lanterns, and it didn't smell good at all, to say the least. The guards took off their cuffs and shoved the three teenagers inside, locking the door behind them. Two stood guard outside while the other three left to go back to town hall.
"How long do y'all think we'll be 'ere?" the girl with aqua eyes, Kimberly, whispered.
"Not much longer!" said the guy, Will, quietly digging around in the corner.
"What did ya find?" The older girl, Serena, asked, pulling her auburn hair over her shoulder.
Will held up a bullet whispering, "We could a-use this."
"We ain't gotta gun." Kimberly protested.
"I have somethin' else in mind."
And now you have been introduced to three completely random new characters that we previously weren't going to go far with but…well, I'm not going to spoil it! XD Anyways, leave a review and we wish you all a marvelous week! :D