"Your girlfriend is pure evil."
"I was in the SHOWER, for Arceus' sake! The SHOWER!"
Protector of Silence
Chapter Twenty-Eight - Prank war!
Kellyn had a strange feeling when he woke. He wasn't sure what it was. It wasn't that Luna wasn't by his side when he woke up; it was a Saturday so he had probably slept in. But something was wrong in the world, an unnatural shift in the atmosphere.
'Is it Valentine Day?' Kellyn thought 'No, that was last week. Ugh, that was a nightmare! All of Liam's fan-mail from back home! And Starlight and Keith were harassing me about something. Come to think about it, same thing was happening to Kate with Rhythmi. I never wanna go through any of that again!'
Deciding to worry about the weirdness later (it would probably smash him in the face - literally! - the second he stepped outside the door anyway), he put on some random clothes from yesterday evening before jumping down from his bunk and leaving the Boys' dorm. Somewhere in his brain, he registered it was very quiet, but it was really too soon after waking up for him to be bothered by this. He crossed the courtyard, heading for the cafeteria, and opened the front door. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation he found.
For some reason, above a massive mud-patch, a net had been dropped by a crane-like contraption. And currently flailing around in said mud-patch beneath the net was Nick, Liam, Starlight, Ponte and Keith. Keith looked up and saw Kellyn and may have said something, but the words were drowned out by the mud. He stopped trying to speak when Liam fell on top of him.
"Do I want to know?"
Kellyn looked over his shoulder and saw Isaac standing there. He'd probably been in the library since the wee hours of the morning. Kellyn shook his head. Just as he did, Nick raised his head and bellowed:
"BECS!"
'Why would Becs do this?' Kellyn thought with a blink of surprise 'I mean she doesn't prank people often...ohhhh. Please don't tell me it's today.'
Isaac appeared to have come to the same realisation.
"It's February 20th isn't it?" he sighed.
Kellyn nodded in resignation.
Prank war day
"I guessed" Isaac sighed "The stupidest boys vs. girls feud ever." He shook his head "I'm not having anything to do with this."
Kellyn agreed with him. But that probably wasn't going to stop the others.
"Ugh!... I can still taste the mud in my mouth!" Liam shouted later when the boys had a 'secret meeting' in the courtyard.
"Same here!" Nick groaned.
"Your girlfriend is pure evil, Ponte!" Keith growled.
"She's not my girlfriend" Ponte blinked, rather confused by that statement. So he and Becs did their homework together, so what?
"But what can we do to get them back...?" Nick tapped his chin with his forefinger, thinking deeply.
"Wake them up!" Keith grinned. The boys looked at him, confused. "We get something that makes a loud noise, like airhorns or megaphones, put it next to their ears and make a loud sound, therefore waking them up and deafening them for about an hour, making them be unable to hear each other or anyone for that time!"
The other guys grinned.
Keith was in charge of pranking Rhythmi. Liam had Verity and Tamie, who shared a bunkbed. Nick had Sami. Starlight had Kate. And poor poor Ponte had been given Becs. And he had been given merely a saucepan and a hammer to defend himself against pure evil.
When it was his turn, he was going in last, Ponte crept into the common room where Becs was for some reason sleeping on the sofa. He was about to do his part of the prank when Becs' arm shot forward and grabbed his wrist.
"Don't even think about it!" she whispered.
Now, you see, Ponte quite liked his head being in one piece, so he stopped there.
"Please don't kill me!" he meeped, holding his hands up in surrender "I'm only doing what the others say! They'll ostracise me otherwise!"
Becs glared at him for a long time (so long Ponte almost peed his pants twice), but eventually said: "Fine. I'll play along with your little game."
Sighing with relief, Ponte was about to bang his saucepan and hammer together when Becs grabbed his hammer hand and gave him the icy glare of evil and doom as she hissed: "But you will not bang that or you will loose your head in a very violent and painful manner."
Ponte gulped.
Just then, a loud racket boomed from inside the girls' dorm: a mixture of horns and hammers and trumpets and cymbals and the like. A second after it had finished, Keith, Liam, Nick and Starlight burst out of the dorm and down the steps into the courtyard in a heap of laughter. Ponte was left blinking in their dust as five bleary figures slumped out of the girls' dorm for the second time that day (albeit not at five in the morning this time)
"I have this strange pounding in my ear!" Rhythmi shouted.
"What?! I can't hear you! I have this strange pounding in my ear!" Verity then shouted.
"SPEAK UP YOU TWO!" Sami shouted. Kate and Tamie were just staring at each other and mouthing...something.
The five of them all looked at the sofa. Or, more specifically, at Becs. The tomboy groaned loudly and pressed her hands over her ears, complaining: "What's going on?! Why do I have this weird pounding in my ear?!"
That was when the glares all turned to Ponte - and the hammer and saucepan in his hands.
"You know, you probably would've been better off if they just ostracised you" Becs murmured to him.
Ponte could only nervously nod in agreement.
"Sami! Rhythmi! Come here!" Verity shouted to her comrades across the common room.
They came over to her, still tending their ears after the incident half-an-hour earlier.
"What, Verity? We wer trying to think of a way to get back at the boys!" Rhythmi hissed.
Verity just motioned for them to follow her into the girls' dorm.
"Okay, what is this about?" Sami questioned.
Verity just walked over to her bed, the two of them following her. She reached under her bottom bunk and pulled out their latest prank in a shoebox.
"Cupcakes? How can we prank the boys with them?" Rhythmi asked.
Verity grinned. "The ones without milk-chocolate buttons are cupcakes made with chocolate. The ones with milk-chocolate buttons are cupcakes made with:"
She looked like she expected Rhythmi to finished for her, but the blonde just looked clueless.
"OH~!" Sami exclaimed, realising the plan "Genius!"
Rhythmi quickly caught on and the three burst out laughing, then took the shoebox of 'treats' into the common room. Seeing a confrontation coming, Kellyn got the heck outta there.
"Hey guys! I bought cupcakes for us all! Sami and Rhythmi told me that they don't like milk-chocolate buttons, and the others don't like cupcakes, so you guys have the ones that do have them!" Verity smiled.
The boys easily fell into her evil trap. They grabbed their 'chocolate' cupcakes and took a bite into them. Verity, Sami and Rhythmi grabbed their chocolate cupcakes. Keith, Liam, Nick and Starlight grimaced at the taste. Ponte though was still eating his - with a grin no less!
"These ain't half bad!" Ponte grinned.
Everyone just stared at him.
"You do know that what you are eating is a marmite cupcake, Ponte?" Sami asked.
Ponte nodded then completely demolished his snack.
The others gawped.
A few moments later, the other four boys went green in the face and all raced for the bathroom.
After all the chaos, Tamie decided to take a shower. She ran her shampoo-covered fingers through her brown hair, grey eyes lightly closed as she sighed at the feeling of warm water washing over her skin.
Finishing up, she turned the shower off and squinted through the steam. After drying herself off with a towel, she patted the floor to try and locate her clothes. Eventually she found something, but it didn't feel like her jumper. Holding the clothing up, Tamie realised it was a skimpy pink dress with many silk bows and ribbons on it. Her clothes were nowhere to be seen. Her face screwed up in anger.
"KEITH! You pervert! I was in the SHOWER, for Arceus' sake! The SHOWER!"
"So... Sami... Why did you drag me here?" Tamie asked, sounding confused. Kate was right behind her.
"Our comeback for your 'clothing incident'!"
"So what are you doing?"
"Salt!"
"Salt?"
Sami sighed - being a pranking queen was so hard when you have such failures as your minions. "The boys like eating stroganoff for lunch on Saturday lunches - and they flavour it with sugar. We take the sugar off of the boys' table and put it on our table!"
"So when they ask for the sugar..."
"We give 'em the salt!" Sami and Tamie yelled at the same time before bursting out laughing.
Rhythmi walked into the kitchen then to see what all the ruckus was about and Sami immediately told her the plan.
"Oh Latios, they are not gonna like that! Not with a captial N and a crossed T! You're plain evil, Sami!" Rhythmi smirked.
"Aren't I just?! Come on, help me 'ere Kate!"
"A-Alright" Kate was shifting from foot to foot nervously.
"You don't want Kellyn to get pranked?" Tamie teased.
Kate shook her head. "No, not that. It's fine. Kellyn and Starlight don't like stroganoff anyway."
Meanwhile...
Becs and Verity were playing a game of two-man football. They were just about to leave and locate the other girls to be briefed on the latest prank when Verity's phone rang. She picked it up from where it was buried beneath her jumper and answered the call.
"Hello?"
A low male voice began to drone out:
"All the people you care about will die today, if you do not place a sacrificial offering on..."
"PREFERABLY CHOCOLATE!"
"...yes, you must place said offering on the Pledge Stone by sunhigh or all those you care about will perish beneath the noonday sun."
"Yes, I understand, I am so scared" Verity deadpanned "And I know it's you calling LIAM because your caller ID comes up on my phone! Good job idiot!"
"...DAMMIT NICK! YOU SAID THIS WOULD WORK!"
"Don't swear! It's bad in the eyes of Arceus."
"Oh, well, I guess he's going to hate it when I do THIS!"
After that, Liam launched into a tirade of curses with Nick trying to stop him and Keith's voice heard in the background trying to calm them both down. Rolling her eyes, Verity hung up.
"What was that about?" Becs blinked.
Verity shrugged. "Just Liam and Nick's failed attempt at a prank."
Starlight was sitting outside the school building, reading a book. His back was against the brick wall of the school building and Shadow was at his side. He was just getting to the good bit of his book when...
SPLOOSH!
"AARRRGGHHHH!"
"UMBREEEEEEE!"
Starlight glared through his wet bangs and stared miserably at his soaking book and clothes. Shadow was on his paws and growling, water drip drip dripping from his fur and nose. Furiously, Starlight whipped his head around and saw a shadow jump down from the roof to the other side of the school. He shook his fist.
"I'll get you back for this Tamie!"
The girls were meeting in their dorm to discuss the next prank.
"Come on Kate! You're late!" Rhythmi tapped her foot as Kate hurried into the dorm room.
"Sorry!" she apologised, panting.
"There's a chair" Sami pushed a cushioned chair forward so Kate knew which one she was talking about.
Kate plonked herself down in the chair, only for it to make a very rude noise.
"Ugh! Seriously Kate!" Tamie wafted her hand in front of her nose.
"It wasn't me!" Kate squeaked, waving her arms out in front of her in panic "Honest!"
"Stand up" Becs ordered.
Kate did so immediately.
Striding over, Becs dug her hand under the cushion and removed a whoopie cushion with a name on it.
"Okay" she held the whoopie cushion up "HOW did Keith get into the girls' dorm?"
That lunch...
"Pass the sugar!" Liam bellowed across the cafeteria from the boys' table.
Sami smirked and pointed towards Kate then the salt that they had prepared earlier. She nodded, picked it up and went over to the boys' table.
"Sorry, but we wanted first dibs on the stroganoff today. So, there you go!"
Kate then skipped over to the girls' table and they waited for the boys' reaction. Starlight had gone pale, evidently guessing what was happening, but decided to thoughtfully not tell the others. Kellyn was a little confused, but didn't give anything away.
A few minutes later, the four perpetrato—...well, girls responsible for the prank were backed up against the white cafeteria wallpaper with the five victi—...er, I mean, boys surrounding them.
"Salt! Seriously?!" Keith snapped, still looking like he wanted to throw up whatever amount of the concoction had gone down his throat before he noticed the horrendous taste really badly.
"Yep! Courtesy of Sami!" Rhythmi grinned.
Sami shook her head then burst out laughing. Knowing they wouldn't massacre her if one of their own kind was on the line, she hastily grabbed Nick and pulled him in the way of the would-be attack on her life. Watching the four other boys' disappointed reactions and listening to their defeated groans as they walked away, the girls literally roared with laughter. Nick broke out of Sami's grip then.
"You don't mess with a man's stomach Sami! This means WAR!" he shouted, shaking his fist, before running off.
Meanwhile, Starlight looked across the nearly empty boys' table at Kellyn. "What just happened?"
Kellyn shrugged.
I dunno. How's your pasta?
After lunch, Rhythmi and Tamie decided it was necessary to put on another set of jumpers, since they had been wearing these ones for (le gasp!) half a day!
As she was putting on her jumper, Rhythmi frowned as she struggled to put her arms through the sleeves. She tried repeatedly, until with an almighty tear her right hand broke through. As she slipped the jumper on over her head, the second sleeve ripped and her left hand broke free. The froze deepened as Rhythmi looked over at Tamie, who had the same problem. Two rips later, the dark-brunette's hands came free. Now deeply suspicious, Rhythmi investigated one of her sleeves and saw a few red-coloured strands. She then looked at the other sleeve and saw the same thing.
Tamie then reported finding red strands in her sleeves too. Rhythmi tilted her head to the side in confusion.
"Did someone sew our sleeves shut?"
Little did they know, Nick was just outside the door, chuckling as he played with a reel of red string between his fingers.
"So my plans suck, do they Liam?"
Liam made his way to the bathroom sink, trying to fully wake himself up after his afternoon nap; Keith was still asleep. Sighing, Liam ran a hand through his blond hair...
...or he didn't.
"What the?" he wondered.
He looked in the mirror and saw all his lovely hair replaced by a horribly rushed buzz cut. His jaw dropped in horror, then he went red with rage.
"SAMI!"
Liam then decided to get his own back at the mischievous light-brunette. Sami had been told to go back to the dorm to get a her prank book. But when she went to open the girls' dorm's door, she found the handle was horribly sticky.
"Oh yuck!" she groaned.
Quickly, she ran to the bathroom to wash her hands, only to be caught-out by the oldest trick in the book. On top of the door was a bucket of water. But not just any water - hot soapy water.
"GAH! Lord Arceus! MY EYES! GAAAAHH!"
Stumbling over to the sink, Sami grumbled as she tried to find a flannel to wash the soap out of her eyes. Unable to locate one, she had to dunk her head into a partially filled-with-water sink and wait for the pain to pass.
Thirty seconds later, the nightmare was over and Sami was able to think right again.
In order to wash the stickiness off her hands, she then tried to find some soap, but the soap bar was missing as well as the flannel. Seeing no other option, Sami sighed and reluctantly decided to ask for someone else's opinion on something. Unfortunately, the only one in the common room was Liam, playing some sort of video game on the TV. Sami giggled at the Marine-style buzz cut on the once-blond's head. That would teach Liam never to have an afternoon nap! She had been planning on doing the same thing to Keith, but she couldn't bear to ruin his beautiful ginger hair. Never mind, Keith would get his prank later, all down to the genius of an exploding apple pie.
"Hey Liam?" Sami asked, making him turn around in his seat "Have you seen the flannel and soap?"
"Oh yeah" he nodded "Keith used them for a prank. They're currently in the cafeteria freezer."
Blinking in confusion, Sami was pretty surprised, but she didn't say anything. Instead she made her way to the cafeteria kitchen. She bent down to open the freezer...
...and was nailed in the face by a can of tomato soup.
"I didn't fall for that" she muttered, orange liquid dripping off her nose onto the floor "I didn't fall for that. I didn't."
Kellyn, whilst this was all going on, had been hiding in the piano room in the basement with Luna, drawing random doodles and other stuff that would pleasurably pass the time.
"That does NOT look like me!"
Er...about the pleasurably bit...
'Stop insulting my artistic talent Luna! See, that's your body, your head, your ears, those are your legs and those are your tails.'
"That's a box on top of a big box with some rectangles and wiggly lines coming out of it! It looks like a Mareep being disemboweled!"
'That's a lovely comparison to make. You and a disemboweled Mareep.'
"I can't wait to see the result of your art tests! Fs across the board!"
'Yeah sure. Whatever you say, Miss Van Gogh.'
Rubbing the back of his neck, Kellyn let out a sigh. Luna looked up at him.
"What's the problem now, Mr Picasso?"
'I'm thirsty, that's all. Do you think you could...?'
"Whoa whoa whoa! A not-so-spiritual guide I may be, but I draw the line at taps!"
Sighing, Kellyn decided to risk it and, setting his doodling notepad to the side, got to his feet. Reluctantly, he left the room and headed up the basement steps.
"GOOD LUCK! YOU'RE GONNA NEED IT!"
Yep, the ever thoughtfulness of Luna.
As he approached the top of the stairs, Kellyn crouched down, out of sight, watching for any prank or Kincaid. He wasn't sure which would be worse to run into..
...no scratch that, Kincaid would be much scarier.
In the end Kellyn saw nothing, and decided the best he could do was hope for the best and run like a bat out of hell. He paused for a second, scrapping one of his boots against the concrete steps, and then bolted. He crossed the courtyard in all of four seconds, and so far nothing had happened. And nothing continued to happen...that is, until he opened the door to go outside.
"KELLYN LOOK OUT!" Kate's voice screamed somewhere to the right.
Kellyn looked up to see balloons floating above his head.
'No, not floating, falling...WATER BOMBS!'
Kellyn leapt back, landing on his rear inside the courtyard, but he wasn't fast enough. One of the falling balloons hit his head and shattered upon impact. Cold water splashed down from Kellyn's head onto his shoulders, thoroughly soaking and freezing him; the remnants of the balloon lying on top of his flattened hair.
"Thanks Kellyn!"
Four boy-shaped figures jumped quite literally over the top of Kellyn and disappeared through the de-rigged door outside. All the while, he heard both male and female laughter at his expense. Growling slightly, he grabbed the balloon remnants and threw them onto the ground, water dripping from his nose.
'Alright! That's it! I've had it!'
Some time later, the male prankers were in common room. They had set up a prank in the bathroom and were now just chilling out with Nick's stereo. Currently, Liam and Ponte were bickering over which CD to put on: Pop Party or The Best Of Country And Western respectively.
"Hey Keith" Nick poked said ginger's shoulder, sitting on the sofa's armrest "Why was Sami walking around covered in orange juice?"
"It was actually tomato soup" Keith corrected "Liam pranked her with it." Starlight winced.
"Ouch" Nick agreed "He must be really mad about his hair."
"I heard him saying something about a wig" Starlight spoke up.
"Seriously?" Nick blinked "I think tomato soup goes too far though. That's for Stunktank situations only, otherwise it's just plain mean."
"Tell that to the marines" Keith grunted.
He jerked his head in the direction of Liam and Ponte. They had apparently settled on a CD and had inserted the disc. Peaceful silence ensued, only broke by the sound of gears working inside the stereo...
...Then they all cover their ears in pain as rock music blared out of the speakers.
"PONTE! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF! MY EARS ARE DYING!"
"IT'S TOO LOUD! TURN IT OFF, PONTE! OH, MY EARDRUMS!"
"AAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
"TURN THE DAMN THING OFF, PONTE!"
"I'M TRYING! I'M TRYING!"
Finally Ponte stopped the device. Everyone let out a gasp of relief and removed their nails from their ear pinnas. One of Starlight's was actually bleeding from the force of his nails and he tried to stop the bleeding with his handkerchief. It still stung though.
"Seriously Ponte, are you trying to deafen us?!" Liam folded his arms.
"Yeah, what's with that?!" Keith demanded.
"I'm sorry! It wasn't me! Honest!" Ponte held up his hands "It was supposed to be The Best Of Country And Western!"
Liam ejected the CD and frowned. "Which is why Becs' name is on the CD, of course."
Ponte blinked in confusion. "But that belongs in here."
He frowned, opening up the CD's real case. But that had a CD in belonging to Tamie. And that CD's case had one of Keith's CDs in. And so on and so forth.
"Okay, who mixed up the CDs?" Nick frowned.
"My money's on Kate" Keith held up two CD cases "Her's are the only CDs that haven't been touched."
There was a small silence here.
"I was wondering when she'd get involved" Nick muttered.
"What about Isaac?" Ponte suggested "He doesn't care about music so he wouldn't be bothered."
"Isaac's on our side though" Liam pointed out.
"I don't think Isaac's on any side" Starlight snorted, folding his arms and leaning back into the sofa.
Another silence.
"Well whoever did this, it doesn't matter" Keith jumped to his feet in a leader-ish way "But if they even dare touch my..."
"KEITH!"
Rhythmi came pounding up the steps, Becs and Sami at her side. Immediately, Becs strode over to the boys and picked poor Keith up by his collar.
"You're DEAD Dazuru!" she hissed "DEAD!"
"W-What did I do Jackson?!" he practically whimpered "Whatever it is, I blame Liam!"
He pointed frantically at Liam, who was frozen with terror at the sight of Becs ready to actually murder his friend.
"You guys can't be serious about this" Sami shook her head "Keith's not smart enough to set up illusions."
"Heh? What?" Keith blinked, not so afraid if not curious "What's this about illusions?"
Becs snorted and set him down again.
"Some lunatic, we thought, let a Haunter loose on the field" she explained begrudgingly "It wasn't until we'd ran ourselves silly we realised it was just an illusion."
The boys blinked. Their toilet-papered bathroom seemed a bit trivial compared to that. But who would set up an illusion prank? Maybe the same person who changed all the CDs?
"FIRE!" Tamie's voice screamed from outside.
At the mention of fire, most of the room's occupants bolted downstairs. Starlight though just shook his head and lay down on the sofa, having had enough of this craziness. Besides, he had a feeling he knew who the mystery pranker was.
Outside, there was utter chaos. The boys and girls were all huddled in the centre of the field, staring at a wall of fire. The fire wall had now curved, blocking off almost all their exits.
"TO THE ASCENSION SQUARE!" Sami screamed.
Everyone dashed in that direction, only to plummet into a rather deep hole covered with turf.
"What the?!" Keith spluttered "Have Team Rocket tried to take over Almia or something?!"
This comment was acknowledged by hysterical laughter from a female.
"Who's up there?!" Verity demanded.
In the light of the day at the top of the hole, three human shadows, two slightly bigger and further back than the third, could be seen; two smaller Pokémon-shaped shadows were at the side.
"Is that the sound of defeated ones I hear?" a male voice asked, apparently grinning.
"It speaks to me loud and clear!" a female voice joined in.
"On the wind!"
"Past the stars!"
"In your ear!" the two voices said in unison.
"Peon! Peon!"
"Umbree!"
An excited squeak followed this.
"Ah! Cut it out will ya!" Liam complained, covering his ears with his palms "We know it's you, the Traitorous Trio!"
"Yeah!" Tamie shot back at them "Starlight, Kate, Kellyn!"
The three shadows were washed over with light, allowing their identities to be confirmed. Shadow and Luna were now having a rather humorous conversation, but only Kellyn and Starlight could translate and they were a bit preoccupied at the moment.
"I'll get you back for this, illusionist!" Keith hissed, shaking his fist.
Kellyn stuck his tongue out at him and left the hole's edge, Starlight and Kate, plus the Pokémon, soon following.
"Hey! Wait! You can't just leave us here!" Sami complained "GET US OUT OF HERE!"
The other caught-ones joined in, but the trio ignored them.
"Thank for letting me join in on that!" Kate beamed "It was worth it just to see the looks on their faces!"
"Yeah" Starlight agreed "I was getting sick of those guys anyway." Kellyn shrugged.
It's fine. I needed the help. And I wasn't going to ask to prank with anyone but you two.
"Ah! That's so sweet Kelly!" Kate squealed.
Just before she skipped back to the school building, she stunned Kellyn by giving him a peck on the cheek. She was gone before he could do so much as blush.
"Ah great, here we go" Luna sighed, seeing Kellyn freeze, his jaw drop and his blue-green eyes widen in comparison to his tomato-red face.
Noticing the sure signs of a meltdown from Kellyn also, Starlight tried to change the subject.
"So, I guess that makes you 'Kellyn the King of Pranking' as well as 'Kellyn the King of Scrabble'" he joked.
That got Kellyn's mind back on track as the smaller boy nodded determinedly.
Nobody water-balloons me and gets away with it!
