Happy 2012! My resolution… Well I don't really have one, but I'll try to update more often, how's that? Yeah… I'll just get to the chapter now. Sorry for out of characterness, spelling/grammar, and I don't own Darkest Powers.
"That's pathetic! You would've been dead by now!"
"Don't listen to him," Julie said to Simon. "He's just excited that he can act like a drill sergeant."
"Still, I think he might be right," Simon said, trying to talk with Derek's arm around his neck.
After almost an entire day of basically irrelevant mini jobs, Claire had finally stopped bossing us around and set us free. Only two seconds after we were let off duty, Frank called us all outside. Apparently, we needed to learn basic self-defense, as well as how to use explosives and a variety of weapons. Frank had really started taking advantage of his job though, and had even called people maggots and yelled for us to drop and give him 20. I still wasn't sure whether I should be laughing or running away.
"I still don't get why we're doing this," Tori said. "I mean, if I was attaching someone, I'd just get behind them and hit them on the head with something."
"Well, not all the bad guy's henchmen are as smart as you Tori," I said sarcastically.
"Yeah, still, that's enough hand-to-hand," Frank said, letting go of Charlie, who fell to the ground with a weird shriek. "Now that we covered that and weapons, here comes the fun part. I'm going to turn you all into little pyros."
"Hey, my dad did that to me years ago," Casey said. "Now come on! I want to blow things up!"
"I'm getting there! Anyway, since none of us are in contact with the FBI or a bomb squad, all we can use are smaller homemade stuff, they still work pretty well though. And no Casey, I'm not telling you what's in them." He handed us all a little white plastic tube sealed off on both ends. "Just, don't drop those, they might blow your feet of. Now these are one of those where you stick a string in there, run it out some, take cover, and then light it and it then makes a nice boom. We're only lighting one though, because I don't trust you guys with actual explosives yet."
"Then what are these?" James asked, shaking his tube.
"Sand. Now go back to the patio, these things are never very predictable." We headed back towards the house as Frank set up the bomb. He ran back to us, letting out some of the cord as we went along. "Okay, this might be loud, like I said, they're unpredictable. Three, two, one!" He lit the end and a little spark went traveling down it. There was a few second gap before the huge boom went off, accompanied by a bonfire sized ball of fire.
"Please let me set one off!" Casey said once she had stopped laughing creepily.
"Hell no, the closest you're ever gonna get to an explosive is a chemistry class." Casey started laughing again. "I'm serious guys, don't let her within a few feet of one."
We spent the next few minutes throwing our little pipes, lighting fake det cords, and running like maniacs away from them before they "exploded," which was really just Frank going "BOOM!"
"Well a few of you probably would have died a few times," Frank said as we wrapped things up. "but not bad. If everyone runs and can duck faster than the Dodgeball guys, you should be fine. Now go inside and enjoy your last day in a home without wheels. Dinner's in an hour."
"I call the TV!" Simon yelled once we got inside, running upstairs.
"No, I cannot take another cooking show!" Derek said, racing after him.
"There's an Avatar marathon on tonight!" Julie screamed, and she, Casey, and James went sprinting after the other two, shrieking for the remote.
"Well I guess I know what I'm not doing tonight," I said.
"Don't worry, they won't be up there for that long," Charlie said, following Tori and me to the kitchen. "Oh, and be over by the trampolines at 8."
"Why?" Tori and I asked with the same tone of suspicion.
"You'll see."
"Why do you people have to be so cryptic?" Tori thought out loud.
"Hey Chloe, look what I found!" Miles said as we entered the kitchen. He turned around in his stool, clearing the view for the one next to him.
"Liz!" I yelled, running forward, then stopping, not knowing how to greet your non-solid dead friend.
"Wait, Liz is here? How'd she get here?" Tori said excitedly.
"Who's Liz?" Charlie asked.
"It's a long story that would better remain a mystery," Liz said. "And hi Tori."
"Liz says hi," I conveyed to a now smiling Tori.
"Actually you guys came in at a good time," Kit said from the table, where he was sitting with Aunt Lauren. "Do you guys care if Liz comes with on our road trip?"
"No, of course she's coming," I said, then looked back at Liz. "I would have summoned you if I could." (I don't really want to make up something for what happened to Liz, so let's just say she disappeared and has now reappeared.)
"Well now that problem's fixed," she said, reaching onto the counter and grabbing a pony tail holder. "This was mine, obviously I wasn't very attached to it, so the connection isn't that strong, but as long as I'm close, it'll work." Charlie was now poking Tori insistently asking who Liz was.
"That's really all we need anyway," Miles said. "With your power it'd probably work long distance too. Plus it's a fashionable accessory." We all just stared at him until Liz broke the silence.
"Never say that again."
"So how's it been Liz?" Tori asked, being careful to sit far away from the place where my and Miles' eyes were directed.
"Who the bloody hell is Liz!" Charlie shouted.
"Charlie, shut up!" Tori yelled back at him. Liz jumped off her stool.
"I got this guys," she said, running behind Charlie and picking up a random note pad on the table. She then slammed it into him head.
"What the-"
"Claire alert!" Miles muttered and Charlie stopped midway through his potential swear, right before Claire walked in.
"And that was Liz," I said. "She's a ghost friend from Lyle House who happens to be a poltergeist."
"Who is joining you on your road trip," Liz said.
"Who is joining us on our- what?" I said, looking back at her.
"Well duh, I didn't spend all this time finding you guys to just sit here once you leave."
"And she'll be amazingly useful," Miles said. "An invisible scout who can also walk through walls and provides silent reports, really, there's no way we could get luckier than that."
"Although other necromancers would complicate that slightly," Kit said.
"Well I can always knock them out, they'll wake up hours later thinking they fell asleep," Liz said, slashing her notebook through the air, pretending to knock someone out.
"Yeah we're not repeating that," I said.
Tori, Liz, and I spent the remaining time until dinner talking. Charlie just sat there switching off between listening to the adult's conversation and ours. The adults kicked us out once we had all gotten some food, telling us to eat somewhere else so they could go over their long check lists again.
"So why are we meeting by the trampolines at 8?" I asked Julie as we all settled onto the couch in the TV room.
"Shhhh!" she said dramatically. "Do not question it, just do it. Don't worry, it's fairly normal, but the adults aren't supposed to know."
"Again, you guys are so cryptic," Tori said.
"We work hard to be so," Casey said, stuffing mini corn muffins into her mouth.
"Balls of Fury or Silence of the Lambs?" Charlie, who had the remote, asked.
We decided on Silence of the Lambs, which was already a third of the way through. Once Derek and I finished with our dinner, we both left to put our plates back down in the kitchen. But instead of returning to the TV room, we went up to the third floor to finish packing our stuff. Well, partially.
"Okay, we go down in shifts," Charlie said. We were now all in the TV room, with five minutes to 8. "And we go through the front door, because it's less squeaky and farther away from them. Julie, you have the stuff?" Julie held up a large basket thing. "Alrighty then, Tori and me will go first, then you guys decide the order for the rest of you."
Tori and Charlie quietly headed towards the stairs. Simon was attempting to see what was in the basket, which seemed to really piss of Julie.
"How long are we going to be out there?" I asked Casey. "Because I'm already tired."
"Let's put it this way," James said. "If anyone falls asleep, they will be drawn on and then slapped awake. Or depending on who it is, we might test that hand in warm water myth."
"Okay, so no falling asleep. But really, how long is it going to take."
"Who knows," Casey said. "Probably not past 1:30, because the hologram spell would have worn out by then. But if you really don't want to stay, you can leave, but you'll be missing out."
"It's been five minutes," Julie said. "Derek and Chloe, go. Remember, front door, quiet, and meet at the trampolines."
Derek and I left the room, with Liz floating behind us, and reached the front door with no incidents. Derek then opened the door, and we walked outside. Rounding the house, we saw the two trampolines, one of which Charlie was jumping on enthusiastically, while Tori sat cross-legged in the middle of the other.
"Don't get too comfortable," Charlie said as Derek and I climbed onto Tori's trampoline. "As soon as everyone else gets here were heading out."
"I don't see why you can't just tell us," Derek said.
"Because it's not as much fun," he said simply, starting to run around in circles.
It took ten more minute for the other four to make it out to the trampolines, at which point I had begun to get dizzy from Charlie's unending circles.
"Alright, off the trampolines," James said. "We need to disappear quickly."
"Wait, Charlie, where's your guitar?" Julie asked, looking around.
"Right there," he said, pointing towards the edge of the trampoline, where an acoustic guitar had suddenly become visible.
"Since when do you play the guitar?" Tori asked s Charlie slung it over his shoulders.
"Since ever."
"Yeah, he's like the Darren Criss character of our group," Julie said.
"Hey, then I want to be the Joe Walker character," James said. (You guys aren't going to get this unless you've seen a Starkid musical, which you all should.)
"Babe, you've always been a Joe Walker character, except you don't sing," Casey said. "And don't look nearly as good in tights, or a dress."
"I don't even want to know how you found that out," Simon said.
"It's actually a funny story," James said. "But we need to go. Levitation crew assemble!"
"You're still not Nick Fury buddy," Charlie said, moving towards a trampoline with Julie.
"Yeah, you need an eye patch and several superheroes to pull that off," Casey said, walking towards the forest.
"Why can't I have normal, non-comic crazed friends?" Julie asked herself before she and Charlie started levitating the trampoline.
"Well come on," Casey yelled, already 50 feet away.
We all followed her towards the trees, but as she reached them, she turned sharply towards the lake. After another minute of walking, we arrived at a large path that cut through the woods that no one saw before we were right next to it.
"Start picking up sticks," James said as we walked into the tree tunnel.
"Why do we need sticks?" Tori asked, picking up a three foot long one by her feet.
"What else are we going to make a fire with?" Julie said semi-sarcastically.
"So we're having a fire?" Derek said.
"Yes… Didn't- Oh, yeah, we probably shouldn't have set Casey and Charlie on fill in duty."
"It was pretty stupid," Charlie said.
"You know how we love our crypticness," Casey added.
"Well then," James sighed, looking at us. "Yes, we are having a fire/trampoline/marshmallow/smore/cheese and cracker party."
"Actually Mom already packed the cheese, so all we have is crackers," Julie said, pulling a box of Ritz from her basket.
"So apparently just a cracker party," he said.
"Hurry up!" Casey whined. "I want to burn things."
We followed her again down the tunnel, picking up sticks as we went. We eventually reached the end, and walked out into a large clear spot of grass right next to the lake.
"Impressive," I said, going over to dump the few sticks I had collected into the fire pit, which was surrounded by logs.
"Thank you," Casey said.
"What are you talking about?" James said. "Me and Charlie carried all the rocks and logs, and Julie told us where to put them."
"Yeah, but had the idea and broke it in," she said, moving towards some bushes. "Now where are those gourds?"
Charlie started the fire as soon as all our sticks were in place. We then took our seats around it.
"So we're just going to sit here?" Tori asked, throwing a rock into the fire.
"We could go skinny dipping if you prefer," Charlie said, winking and laughing.
"Well if anyone wants to have a flaming stick fight," Casey said, pulling a flaming stick out of the fire. "I'm all for it."
"You can heal burns?" Simon asked.
"'Course."
"Then sure, just don't burn my shirt."
It was actually pretty awesome to watch. They were sprinting around the fire parkour style, jumping over logs and occasionally us, and every time the sticks collided a shower of sparks fell all around them. At one point, the hood of Simon's sweat shirt somehow caught on fire and all he did was a couple of fancy ninja rolls, putting it out quickly, then jumping back up. The whole thing only lasted about eight minutes though.
"Bored now," Charlie said within 30 seconds of them sitting down.
"Yeah, we need to do some cliché camping crap," James said.
"I've got a ghost story," Liz said, floating near Tori's head.
"Liz has a ghost story," I said to everyone else.
"Oooh, a ghost's ghost story," Charlie said. "Tell it!"
"Okay, Chloe start interpreting, but don't give anything away, and no emotions."
So Liz told her story, which was basically Child's Play except with a stuffed panda that haunted a mall. It was random to say the least, but surprisingly creepy.
"Wait, so what happened to the dog?" Derek asked.
"The stuffed one or the real one?" Liz asked.
"Both," he said once I had translated.
"Well thankfully the real one only got part of his tail chopped off." Everyone looked extremely relieved. "But when the panda took the stuffed one, he brought it back to the closed down arcade and put it in the reanimating pinball machine to make the dog his accomplice."
"Oh, poor Randall," Charlie said.
"Poor Annie," James said. "She lost her doggy." Casey patted his shoulder as she tried, and failed, not to laugh.
"Okay, time to break out the smores," Julie said, taking some graham crackers from her basket.
For the next hour or so, we all sort of did our own thing. Somehow, Casey and Julie got really hyper and started running around in circles on the trampoline while mixing up the national anthems of Canada and Genovia. (You know, from Princess Diaries? True story by the way, it was really fun.) Charlie, James, and Simon started singing classic campfire songs, fairly well too. Tori, Derek, and I just sat sort of sat there, eating smores and crackers, playing one of those hand slapping reaction games.
"Hey, anyone want to play extreme spoons?" James asked after he and the guys had finished the entire Found a Peanut song.
"Nope," Tori said, taking the opportunity to slap my hand.
"How 'bout kick the can?" Simon suggested. Casey immediately stopped singing a very pitch version of the Charlie the Unicorn "Put a banana in your ear" song and attempted to jump off the trampoline, but slipped and rolled off.
"I'll play," she said from the ground. James was already at her side before she could get to her knees. She brushed him off though. "I don't like being a damsel."
"Anyone else?" Simon asked, looking at the rest of us.
"We don't have a can," Tori said.
"But we do have a box," Julie said, pointing to the Ritz box which Tori, Derek, and I had emptied.
"Then sure," Tori said.
"Cool," Charlie said. "Now someone fill that thing with sand and fireproof it." All of us just stared at him. "Fiiiiiiiiine, I'll do it." (He's filling it with sand so it doesn't just fold in once it's kicked.)
It got pretty intense. With the surrounding trees, there were lots of places to hide and the fire shadows distracted the guard person so there was always a window to run out. James, Charlie and Casey took it really seriously and at one point Charlie punched James in the jaw to keep him from saying "One two three Charlie!" It didn't work, and then he got pissed and made the fire blow up to about twenty feet high. We kept going until about 11:30, at which point Derek kicked the box into the lake.
"Anyone else getting bored?" Julie said after we had been staring at the fire for three minutes.
"Yup," Tori, Derek, and I said. We were apparently the boring people.
"Fine, leave then," Casey said, poking the fire with a stick.
"Well I can't get rid of some of the holograms without getting rid of them all," Julie said. "Plus they'd all die when I fall asleep."
"And let me guess," Charlie said. "There aren't enough anchovies to make more?"
"Nope."
"Damn," Casey said. "We better all go in then, the last thing we need is Claire pissed at us. You know how she feels about late nights and flames."
"And it's always worse when there's a big event," James said, shoving the basket at Julie.
"You carry it, super-strength," she said, turning it over and putting it on his head, causing the few remaining snacks to fall to the ground. "And you might want to pick those up."
Charlie put out the fire and we left James to clean up the rest, Simon, Tori, and Julie levitating the trampoline back. He caught up with us after a few minutes.
"Where'd Charlie and Casey go?" he asked.
"Well Charlie said something about skinny dipping, and ran off, the Casey followed him sing something about condors," Julie said. "I was kind of scared to follow either of them."
"WHAT?" James yelled, running down the path.
"Ahhhh, this will be a fun road trip," Tori said.
We dropped off the trampoline then went back inside, finding Casey and Miles in the kitchen making popcorn.
"Finally, what were you people doing, crawling?" Casey asked. "Where's James?"
"Seeing if you're skinny dipping with Charlie," Julie said, taking a handful of popcorn.
"That's nice," she said, looking at the microwave. "Come on, popcorn, pop!"
"Why are you in such a hurry? It's already like midnight," I said.
"No shit Sherlock," Miles said.
"Ignore him Chloe," Casey said. "He's just cranky because I made him pause his Star Wars marathon."
"I'm not sure if that was a good idea, I really shouldn't encourage your Harrison Ford obsession."
"It's not an obsession, and it's not over Harrison Ford, just Han. But seriously, how can you not love the guy?"
"Han's annoying, he's too cocky," Tori said. Simon stared at her in disbelief.
"How can we be related?" he said, shaking his head. "Anyway, put another bag in, I'll watch with you."
"Well you guys have fun, I'm going to bed," Julie said, leaving with Tori.
"You're not on Return of the Jedi are you?" Derek asked.
"Yup."
"Then I'm going up too, Ewoks suck." (That's not my opinion, I love those guys, it's Hugo Reyes')
"I like the Ewoks!" Miles said.
"Well they do kind of suck," I said, following Derek out of the room. "See you tomorrow guys."
We went up, debating on who would get stuck with waking up Simon in the morning.
"Can't we just let Kit do it?" I said when we reached our doors.
"Yeah but then we wouldn't get the satisfaction of dumping water on him."
"That's the best you could think of?"
"It was just an idea," Derek said, leaning down to kiss me.
"You want to take advantage of our last unsupervised night?" I asked when we broke apart.
"I'd thought you'd never ask," he said, following me into my room and closing the door.
Alright, that was the best I could do. This chapter seemed like a good idea originally, but then… well it just didn't work. So sorry for the sucky chapter, the next one should be better (hopefully). I'm gonna leave it at that, before my laptop's battery runs out and I can watch Jeepers Creepers, and get seriously creeped. Adios.