Hey!
Gotta make this fast. Driver's Ed teach on his way and I'm not out of my footie pajamas yet. Dad's gonna MURDER me!
DISCLAIMED: W.I.T.C.H., Flash, Scooby-Doo.
Enjoy.
-Thirty-Nine: Trouble-
"So where's the munchkins?" Nigel asked, turning to walk backwards so he could see his friends' faces.
After another, less eventful, bike ride to the noticeably un-cratered heather field they were coming to know so well, Eric was panting heavily and even Matt was sweating hard. Of course, he was carrying the mysterious black duffel bag and neither Eric nor Nigel knew how heavy that thing was.
"I wouldn't… call them that… to their faces, Ashcroft," Eric told him with a reluctant smile. "Al might try to gouge your eyes out."
Matt snickered. "They stayed at Al's old settlement a couple hundred yards that way," he explained, pointing towards the rising sun. "Tro and Liam said they might take a little longer than usual to come—city Protectors need time to get used to the woods, you know?"
Eric groaned and limped over to the treeline, collapsing against one of the trunks and taking rhythmic, deep breaths with a hand on his chest to try and slow his erratic heartbeat.
Nigel smirked at the boy. "You need to work out a little more, Lyndon. We'll get creamed in a fight if you faint."
He received a burning glare in reply. "Flying doesn't mean exercise, Ashcroft," he spat. "'Sides, if you weren't The Flash's illegitimate son, you'd be right here next to me trying to buy Matt's steroids off of him."
"Hey!" Matt yelped. "I do not take steroids! At least… I don't think I did," he admitted much more quietly.
"The Flash's illegit son," Nigel was musing. "Awesome. Wouldn't that be cool?" Matt smirked and shook his head.
Eric frowned. "What about your dad, though?"
The easy-going feel of the field almost immediately disappeared, fizzling into nothing like an unimpressive Fourth of July display. Matt winced painfully, Eric's first clue that he'd said something wrong. The second clue was Nigel's tone when he did speak up—it was cold enough that, had it been tangible, the stream would've frozen solid just from being too close.
"My father's a bum," Nigel told him dryly. The frigidness wasn't meant for the boy—it was meant for the man they were speaking of, and served as a decent warning for Eric not to touch the subject again soon. "I'd much rather be The Flash's kid."
Almost immediately, Nigel's normal countenance was back, sliding neatly over the shamefully disgusted look like a new picture slid over an old painting. "I might've been next to you if we weren't Knights, but we are and you need to work out, my friend."
Eric blinked at the sudden change and glanced at Matt to see how he should react. Matt acted like nothing had happened. Okay then. He scowled. "I'm don't need to work out, Ashcroft!"
"May—be not physically," Matt said, holding out a hand to keep Nigel from replying. "But at the very least we need to give our powers and weapons a good try if we want the plan to work." Both boys quieted, conceding the point.
Matt groaned and dropped the duffel to the ground with a slightly wet splat and a very heavy thump. Nigel frowned at it. "How much did that thing weigh, dude?"
He shrugged. "Fifty? Something like that." Two pairs of eyes popped out, staring at him. "What?"
"You biked two miles with fifty pounds on your back in the sun and you're not even staining your shirt!" Eric yelped, pointing at him. "How does that work?"
Matt frowned in thought and winced as his temples throbbed; the barrage was beginning again against his mental walls. "Dunno," he admitted, shrugging and hoping they would let it drop.
Nigel knew his friend too well. "Uh uh. You know. How?"
He scowled and bent over the bag. "All I get are flashes, you know that."
"So? What's your flash?"
Matt sighed and fell back, sitting on the soft ground and holding his head in his hands. "Nothing much. Two somethings on my arms, three behind me. Every single one of them was a lot heavier than this thing. I can remember worrying about weight distribution, but that's it."
Nigel frowned, satisfied for now. "…Fine. So what's in Matt's Mystical Bag of Magic Practice?"
Matt grinned and unzipped the duffel, turning it upside down. Objects that seemed to be picked at random fell out, clattering against each other and making small indents in the mud. Round pieces of wooden stumps, cans of silly string, a length of rope, notepads, the police scanner, and what looked like three sets of football padding.
"My dad played football when he went to Sheffield," Matt explained, picking up the blue and white pads. "He always kept three sets of padding around the house. One to wear for practice or games, one that was in the wash that he switched out for games and practice, and one extra. We get to use them now."
"…For what?" Eric asked nervously.
Matt smirked, picking up a helmet and rolling it down his arm before putting it on his head. "One of the few things I can remember is how to fight," he said, making Nigel and Eric glance at each other confusedly. Had he heard him at all? "So I'm gonna help you two."
Nigel's eyes grew large. "Oh no."
"Combat practice, boys."
Eric groaned and slid his already-aching body onto the ground. Nigel swore under his breath, but strapped on his helmet as well and smirked.
"Fine. Just don't expect me to wear your pops' jock strap."
"Are you positive, Missus Lin?" Taranee asked nervously. "I mean, everything's been so quiet in Meridian lately. We haven't seen anything magical for weeks, much less anything that screams 'battle'."
Yan Lin nodded seriously, wringing her hands under her sleeves. It was a bad habit she'd picked up in the seventies, after watching Shaggy on Scooby-Doo. "Yes, Taranee. An eternal gift is never wrong."
"Besides, I feel it too! Have been for the past three days!" Hay Lin added, shivering slightly. The girls turned to stare at her. "What? I'm sorry, I thought I just had like, a stomach bug or something…"
"That's okay, Hay," Will told her with an understanding smile. "Are we even sure it's from Meridian?" Her question silenced the entire group. "I mean, it's in our name. There are infinite realms, right? Maybe something from one of the others has come a-knockin'."
"Will makes an excellent point," Yan Lin told her. "The danger could arise from any one of several realms. I hate to say it, but there is even a chance that your friend Shinobu's open folds might have granted it access to Earth."
Cornelia narrowed her eyes. "We're gonna talk to her about that, right?" she asked. "We can't have random folds opening everywhere, I mean, sooner or later something really bad is gonna come through."
Irma nodded. "We don't need an evil version of Gargoyle on Earth. He might crush the shops."
"I mean, something that wants the Heart of Earth."
"What if it's not from another planet, though?" Taranee asked, gaining shocked looks from the others. "What if it's from Earth?"
"Better question," Hay Lin added. "No matter where it's from, how do we find it?"
Will sat and thought for a second as all eyes eventually turned to her. She looked up and stood, putting her hands palm-down on the table.
"We search for it. We split up—start in the very center of the city and work out way outwards from there. Don't leave any rock unturned, got it guys? Any suspicious activity, link up with the rest of us and we'll come running."
The girls nodded and Will smiled, slightly nervously.
"Let's go looking for trouble."
This chapter's done, I need to dress up! Tibki, AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
~Tibki