Devils Tower was something I learned in Earth Sciences (a class I needed as a science credit to graduate and, ironically, the only class I used lessons for this story). The information I used was stuff I learned combined with some websites I consulted.
Year Two: The Devils Tower
The Devils Tower - 11:06 AM
It's been a long three days on the road. Along the way, they've made pit stops in small towns, stocking up on supplies and gas. During the nights, they stayed in the motels Ashton would crash at during his trips to and from the Academy. Not only were they familiar to him but they knew they were safe since Ashton lived to tell the tales of sketchy people passing by or the occasional family. Once they entered Wyoming's borders, Xavier let Ashton drive since he knew the way that would avoid tourist and city traffic.
"Remind me again why can't we crash at your place?" Xavier asks.
Ashton just shakes his head. "No."
"I want to meet your family," Orchid says.
"I want to meet your biological bros," Brody adds.
"I didn't want to split the cost of a motel room," Merida grumbles.
Ashton rolls his eyes. "My mom's going to comment on why I didn't bring my stuff with me and why my friends are white."
"Just tell her it was to match your white state," Orchid says without batting a lash.
Nobody said anything until they arrived at The Devils Tower. Once Ashton parked in the visitor's parking lot, they stepped out to see a giant pillar on top of a distant hill. Even from where they are, they can see the hundreds of parallel cracks that offer a myriad of faces.
For the first time in a while, they can finally soak in the sun.
They empty the trash from the car as Orchid grabs a free map from the vacant welcome centre. Park visits were low this time of year since it was the middle of April in the middle of the week on a windy day. They weren't the only ones at the park, but they were the only young ones. It looks like they came during a retirement home's field trip.
"Devil's Tower was a prominent image in the early Spielberg movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Ashton says, mocking the tour guide for the seniors. "It was the landing site for the alien mother ship."
"And yet, the aliens went to New York," Brody says underwhelmed.
"Avengers will never assemble here," Ashton responds, glancing at Merida and Xavier. "We had to blackmail Xavier to come."
-o-
"This is like the Grand Canyon," Brody states.
They've been hiking along the Red Beds for over an hour to get to the pillar. The maroon rocks are like those of the Grand Canyon, except this place has fewer people and a forest.
"We should've gone there instead," Ashton says.
"Get over yourself," Merida says with a glare, "we're already here."
"Speaking of here, it's been eerily quiet minus the sound of someone or someones following us," Orchid states.
"Yeah, that's been on my mind too," Xavier says.
"You're hearing those pattering footsteps too? They're too fast for oldies."
"Oldies aren't even climbing this far. They couldn't even make it through the parking lot."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Going to Mount Rushmore on the way back?" Brody questions, prompting cheers from the others.
"Sweet," Merida says, nodding.
"Assembling the Avengers?" Ashton suggests.
"That'd be fun!" Orchid exclaims, pumping her fists out as if she's punching while bouncing on her toes. "But remember that we trained for this. We also have two Avenger spawn and Brody."
Ashton glares at her, feeling offended. "What about me?"
"Need I remind you about this," Merida turns over her phone and plays the raccoon video from the start of their trip.
Ashton lowers her phone, showing a smile from her that he didn't want to see. "Point."
"Besties, assemble!" Orchid exclaims.
They didn't know how to assemble. They had no superhero poses or positions. Instead, they look in the vague area of where they heard the pitter-patter of footsteps with the addition of Merida holding a pocketknife nobody knew she had on her. She figures she had to explain when they were staring at her.
"We were crossing state lines and staying at creepy motels," Merida says, "I have to protect us."
"No, you don't," Ashton says. "We were fine."
Merida eyes him as Ashton starts walking over to where their suspicions arise. Something catches their eyes the moment he gets closer. Merida takes out her phone in case it's another raccoon since Angela enjoyed the last video. They spot something red behind a tree and Ashton pulls out a red backpack being held by a stringy kid who looks like a smaller and younger version of himself.
"Woah," Brody says, pointing at that encounter, "Ashton just cloned himself."
"That's his brother," Xavier says, putting two and two together.
Then Ashton starts yelling at mini Ashton in Spanish. Nobody says anything. They watch this one-sided angry Ashton, a sight they have never seen, get angry in his second language. It must have something to do with being in his home state. Mini Ashton starts to yell back and their Ashton has never looked so annoyed.
"Forget The Devils Tower, Brody whispers to his friends. "This made the whole trip worth it."
Merida points at the Spanish interaction with her knife. "Ashton's basically saying what the fuck are you doing here? Little bro says we're playing hooky and took mom's car since Aunt Maya picked her up to visit their grandma. Ashton's now yelling who he's with and -"
Merida stops talking when there are more footsteps from behind them. As they turn around, Ashton stops yelling and they see two more mini Ashtons, a smaller boy and an even smaller girl, walk out from behind the trees with their backpacks. They run past the group and hug Ashton who drops the brother he was yelling at so he could hug the others.
The brother with the red backpack is the oldest, likely just got a licence if they were able to play hooky. The second brother looks next in line, in the middle of a growth spurt and about to reach the second brother. Lastly, the youngest sister with a thick braid done in her hair just hit double digits, if they remember Ashton's stories correctly. Simon. Gabriel. Sofia. The entire family looks alike, sharing the same sun-kissed skin, dark hair, and dimples.
"I told you it was Ashton!" Sofia exclaims, hanging off Ashton's arm, kicking against the ground.
Ashton looks up from his siblings with so much regret on his face.
"Oh my god, we do get to meet the family!" Orchid exclaims excitedly. "Hi, I'm Orchid!"
Orchid runs over to Ashton's siblings. Ashton looks at her, staring into the abyss that the one reason he didn't want to come to The Devils Tower has come true. At least his mom isn't here… Xavier nudges Merida and she puts her pocketknife away.
"No way Ashton could befriend people this cool or hot," Simon says, wiping his glasses on his shirt and putting them back on to be sure. He looks at Brody and Xavier again, lingering on Orchid and Merida a moment longer. For obvious reasons. "The girls must be robots."
Merida narrows her eyes for a second before grinning at Simon. "Do you have a place for me to charge? I don't use solar power like my friend."
Simon's eyes nearly pop through his glasses.
"How did you get cool friends?" Gabriel asks his brother.
"Hey!" Ashton exclaims. This whole trip consisted of people offended him. Now it doesn't look so bad when his friends do it.
"We were roommates for two years so we were forced to be friends," Xavier starts.
Never mind. "Rude."
"I was the other girl on a double date," Orchid adds.
"I was the girl on a different not-date double date," Merida continues.
"I was on that not-date double date but I thought it was a date," Brody follows.
Orchid leans on him. "It was a date with me but not for Merida and Ashton."
Brody gasps. "It all makes sense now…"
"I set all that up," Xavier concludes.
The siblings have never looked more confused in their whole lives, honestly making Ashton smile a little before remembering he was mad at them for skipping school and following him the moment they saw him with his friends.
"I'm telling Mama that you guys were here instead of school," Ashton says.
"Then we'll tell Mama you were back in town and didn't plan on visiting," Simon responds quickly. This banter wasn't the first sibling-blackmail negotiation to happen.
Ashton keeps quiet.
"Or we could mention your white friends and all the sleeping around you've done," Gabriel adds.
"Just don't mention me, Orchid, or Xavier's sister since we didn't sleep with him," Merida pipes in.
Orchid laughs a little. "He wishes, though."
Ashton covers Sofia's ears a little too late.
Sofia squirms out of his hands. She frowns up at Ashton. "And you'd better have presents or else all promises we made are broken."
Ashton sighs, hating every second of this. He thought he wouldn't have to deal with this for another week. Forget being the oldest brother and, supposedly, the family leader, he was outnumbered in the sense that there were more younger siblings. He wasn't wrong when he said he was used to familial injustices and this was a live demonstration of that. Orchid and Xavier think about their sibling dynamic under a new light after having seen everything from Ashton yelling in Spanish to the Ruiz family blackmailing.
"My brothers ain't looking so bad now," Orchid says. "I should get them gifts."
Xavier nods. "I have to go apologize to Angela because she's a perfect sister."
Brody sighs happily. "Bless being an only child."
"Amen to that!" Merida exclaims.
They high-five.
-o-
After the Ruiz family reunion, Ashton gave his siblings fifty bucks to beat it. (Ashton contributed ten dollars and the other four had to give the rest. He promised to pay them back but they said meeting his siblings covered the cost). Now that they were alone, they finally continued their hike and were at the bottom of the tower.
Their five heads look up, being face to face with the pillars that look like they're about to slide off and crush them. It was truly breathtaking. This moment was worth the three-day drive with pit stops in random places (or the Ruiz family reunion).
"Imagine we did this in Rushmore," Brody says, "looking up at all those presidential heads."
"We still could," Merida says. She's happy when she doesn't hear Xavier objecting. Maybe if she's the first one driving on their way home, they'll make a pit stop at Rushmore.
"Can we climb it?" Orchid asks excitedly. "I'm asking about the Tower but I'm down for doing the same to Rushmore. It's mischievous but not illegal, right?"
"I just have to outrun you," Ashton mutters.
"Please," Orchid sasses, saying that as puh-lease. "We're in the same class and I outrun you by laps."
"We're doing something without actually doing anything. Never risking anything meant never having or doing or being anything," Brody says, eyeing the tower.
"Is that like some daily mantra?" Xavier asks.
"Actually, yeah."
"So, what do you say? Are we going to try and climb?"
Everyone looks at Xavier in shock. Were they hearing this correctly? Xavier Buchanan Rogers was asking to climb The Devils Tower? Three days on the road really changed him and they wish he would stay this way.
"What?" Xavier asks when he notices their spooked faces.
"Guys," Brody whispers, "don't question it. He might change his mind."
"It honestly sounds like it'll be fun."
"Start climbing before he changes his mind!" Merida yells.
A triumphant end to the second year, this was their besties road trip.
It's the middle of June 2020 as I'm typing this chapter so let me say that I didn't think I'd make it to the end of year two so fast (quarantine helped but ignore that).
As of now, my second year of university ended (early and abruptly because of quarantine, again, but ignore that) so it's weird to be at a point again where these characters are the same age as me (and they're living a much more fun life but a girl can dream). I'll be taking a small writing break before starting the next chapters to work on other stories which probably won't matter by the time I'm publishing this but, hey, the more you know.
There will be a few intersession chapters following this one but not as much as last time since, to be honest, Year Three is a fun game-changing one.
[As I'm publishing, in February 2021, I'm about halfway through writing Year Three and it's so much fun. I can't wait for you to read it!]