A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long. It was rather a pain in the rear. This is the worst chapter that will exist. Next chapter is where the author has a lot of fun. Hang on for the ride. I promise you that once you sit through this, it will get funnier, and better.
Chapter Five: Crushing Trumpets
12:46 p. m., Monday
Crypt
Team Green
"So what exactly was that entrance?" Amethyst asked Elyse. She, Rachel (complete with rolling R2-D2 cooler), and Gina had missed most of Elyse's garble about the supposed entrance, so they had very little knowledge of what they were doing or where they were going.
"I've been searching for it since my sophomore year. You know about the crypt and all, but that's a very inconvenient way to travel," Elyse began explaining. "I mean, teachers get annoyed if you come into their classes smelling like a mummy."
"Gee, really? I thought it was the latest craze," one of the twins (the group had decided to give up telling them apart and merely called them the freshmen) remarked sarcastically. There was a muffled giggle from the cooler, but somebody jumped in front of it to stop Lisa from kicking it. "I think you should leave her be for awhile."
The seniors just ignored her and continued traipsing down the stairs.
"Well, anyway," Elyse continued, "the entrance was the fabled entrance into a catacomb of tunnels, all of which were used during the first war—the Great Jock War in '86. The jocks created them and completely forgot about them because they were—"
"Smashed out of their minds, we know," Amethyst said, rolling her eyes.
"So I've been searching for these tunnels for a long time. One of the jocks was smart enough to write some hieroglyphics on the walls for any crazy student to decipher. I just happened to be that crazy student."
"So why are we headed down if these tunnels are more convenient than the crypt?" somebody asked.
"Dumb freshmen," Kelly muttered.
"We should actually be hitting another staircase in a moment—" Elyse began.
"My feet hurt," somebody complained. "How long do we have to go?"
Elyse opened her mouth to answer, but Kelly broke in. "I know! We should throw a rock or something loud down the stairs and hear how long it falls. Anybody got any rocks on them?"
They were unfortunate in the fact that the steps had no rocks or breaks in them. Trisha had a flute case on her, but she stoutly refused to throw that. It was up to Lisa once again to come up with a solution. Sighing, whether from happiness or glee, she nudged Kelly. Grinning like incredibly scary twin Cheshire cats, the two shoved the R2-D2 cooler off the step, watching it bounce and clatter and listening to Rachel's indignant squawks. They heard an almighty thump and then silence. "How long?" Kelly called.
"Two flights, maybe three," was the weak reply. "I think something's broken. Like my spine!"
That spurred the group to hurry down the stairs to where Rachel was crawling shakily out of the cooler. "I hate you all," she swore dizzily and staggered. The twins held her up until the world righted itself about her and the little purple monkeys stopped dancing.
"Why? I should think that rolling down the stairs like that would have been fun," Trisha said as she brushed past. "Here's the staircase you were talking about, Elyse. Go up, right?"
"Why?" They had been walking in one great mass, but now the tunnel was narrowing about them, so they walked in groups of three. Now Elyse reached for the wall with one hand—
"Wait! As much as I love leaving the ground, I really don't want a repeat performance of the Crypt," Ashley stopped her.
Elyse continued to reach for the wall—
"I don't think this is a good idea, Elyse."
—and grasped something tightly. "Everybody hold onto somebody or something." Immediately, they latched hands and gripped the R2-D2 cooler. "Okay, here we go…"
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Rachel said wisely.
"Shut up, Solo," somebody muttered.
Amethyst opened her mouth to comment, but was cut off as the world quite abruptly and suddenly exploded.
There was a ghastly silence.
There was a ghastly noise.
There was a ghastly silence.
12:58 p. m., Monday
Adobe's Classroom
Team Green
Sebras was thrown from his stool and dumped unceremoniously on the tiling as the entire school shook tremendously. "What?" he cried just as the school shook again, dislodging the Jolly Green Giant from its smug position and throwing it against the whiteboard with a loud CRACK! A third and final shake threw the contents of the chessboard all over Sebras and Becky, lying a few feet away. "Ugh."
"What's going on?" Rand demanded when they were sure the shaking had stopped. Somehow, he had managed to stay in his chair, although it had rolled halfway across the room.
"No idea," Meg managed to get out. She brushed herself off and glanced about.
"Unless somebody was blowing up leaves in the backyard," Sebras muttered. "Valuable life lesson: A big pile of leaves, a lighter, and gasoline do NOT go well together." He rubbed the back of his neck where the rook from the chess game, Ariel the Little Mermaid, had hit him. All present in the room grumbled as they picked up pieces of whatever they were doing and cleaned up spilled Mountain Dew. Sebras had kept several runners on the move for Mountain Dew so that they could remain awake through the tedious battles. It was working apparently—twelve hostages from Team Puce were under Gabi's watchful eye.
"Team Green! Team Green!" something chirped in the darkness. It took the group a moment of searching that the chirping was coming from Meg.
Or, more precisely, from a walkie-talkie attached to Meg's belt.
Meg immediately yanked it off. "Autumn?" she demanded eagerly.
"Er—nope."
"Gabi?"
"I'm sorry, no cigar for you."
"Who is it, then?" Meg said, her stomach growing icy. All around her, people stood in tense positions and stared at her. Deep inside, they all knew who it was.
"Hey, this is Travis. I found this on one of the sophomores we apprehended—I think her name is Alyssa—and just wanted you to know. Oh, yes, and according to our calculations, we have over a quarter of your men in captivity. They're all crying for you now, Sebras. I think they might join up with Team Puce." Travis paused dramatically before rambling on a different string, "Boy, your saxophone regiment is gullible. Do you not feed your men, Sebras? They came with just one sniff of a candy bar."
"Jerk," Sebras growled under his breath.
"At least we on Team Puce feed our men," Travis continued, not hearing Sebras.
"Yeah, but on Team Green, we feed our women, too," Meg broke in savagely. "Don't look behind you, Travis. Here we come!" She continued in a high-pitched voice. There was a pause as Travis looked behind him and swore. Meg clicked the walkie-talkie off. "Man, that guy annoys me."
3:57 p. m., Monday
Tunnel
Team Green
"What do you mean, you have the old maid?" Eve demanded. "I have the old maid!"
"What? You're crazy!" Laiva returned. She held up a 'Joker' card. "Joker's the old maid, remember? Did you forget how to read the cards?"
Eve's only response was to flash another 'Joker' card at Laiva. "Oh, dear," said Laiva mournfully, "I do believe I forgot to remove one from the deck…"
The strange dust-people had led them down a straight tunnel hewn completely from stone. Dusty wooden posts supported the tunnel every few feet and torches in sconces lit their way. Laiva, who had, after years of marching, learned how to judge how long she had walked by the soreness in her feet, figured that they had walked for well over an hour, maybe two. She wasn't used to marching on rock, after all, although the practice field could compare quite well. She was able to judge that they had just gone down a winding, narrow path, although she wasn't sure where they were now. Several of the dust-people had broken off and left them guarded by a small ring of adolescents. So they decided to sit down and enjoy some nice card games.
"Wow, I guess you're both old maids," Verran commented, gathering up his piles of pairs. They handed the cards to Autumn, who dealt them out one card each. From somewhere, she pulled out four spoons. Verran, Solan, and Laiva gaped at them, wondering what they were for, but Eve grinned.
"Spooooons," she crooned.
Autumn was starting to set the spoons out in front of the group when the young leader returned with the rest of the men. His set of rags was looking dustier than ever and his hair was, if possible, dirtier now. "Come on," he grunted to them. "The portal's just up here. I daresay you're in for a bit of a shock." With the first change of expression the group had seen from him, he grinned fiendishly and gestured for them to follow. With sore legs, the five youths climbed to their feet and trotted along after him, all in step.
'Just up here' turned out to be a twenty-minute walk. After about five minutes of silence, Laiva grew bored and slipped up beside the leader. From this distance, she could see a silver pendant about his neck on a thin chain. One word was blazoned across in green. "So…Lewis," Laiva began, reading the pendant.
"That's not me," the leader said shortly. "I'm Shane."
"Okay, then, Shane," Laiva agreed. "Where are we headed?" she asked, hoping for a definite name so she could stop calling it 'The Place That We Will Soon Arrive At.'
Instead of an answer, however, she got a spear pointed at her throat. Taking the implied message, she slipped meekly back into place beside Eve. Shane's eyes, a pale, ugly brown, followed her.
They walked in silence for a time until the path took a sharp drop and rounded a harsh corner. Before they rounded the corner, however, Shane stopped them and stared solemnly about. "Many Up-Worlders don't get past this point ever again," he began.
"So we gathered," Solan said dryly, "from the 'We'll probably kill you.'"
Shane ignored him.
"What I'm trying to say is that we're not as mean as we say we are—"
"You know, in the Up-World, we consider it rude to point spears in people's faces. If you feel like going out on a limb, you could even call it 'mean,'" Verran pointed out.
Shane ignored him, too.
"—And even though we've been a bit…abrupt with you—"
"Milk it up, Shaney-Boy, milk it up," Laiva muttered.
"—We're not that bad. So, in short—"
"Without the speech, please," Eve commented.
"—Welcome to the Down-World. Heaven under earth." Shane flourished his dusty hands and waved them forward around the bend.
4:02 p. m., Monday
Dark Place
Team Green Seniors, Amethyst, and Freshmen
"Look at the pretty purple monkeys dance," somebody to Amethyst's left murmured deliriously. The junior, who had been known to keep a cooler head in situations just a strange as this (she HAD dated two percussionists…well, one percussionist and a quasi-drummer, quasi-trumpeter), opened her eyes and stared straight up. If she had been able to see in the darkness, she would have noticed a rough ceiling carved from jagged stone only five feet above where she was lying prone to the world.
She struggled to roll over and found that incredibly difficult. Somebody had landed with one leg and an elbow atop her. After the world had blown up, or something close to it to Amethyst's head, at least, they had been flung magically through a roller coaster of tunnels. Everything was now a blur, but she could vaguely remember a spout of flame here, a sharp turn there…
Grumbling, she pried the leg and elbow off and sat up, still trying to see through the darkness. She could hear breathing, made louder by the strange effects of the tunnel, and could feel warmth from nine different bodies all strewn about. Well, eight bodies besides hers. The cooler had rolled to a stop a bit down the tunnel; she could see the silhouette. Directly beside her, Rachel (with a swelling bruise on one cheek) muttered sleepily about monkeys and flying chimneys. On Amethyst's other side was a tangled mass of limbs that she figured was probably Lisa. She wasn't sure if it was wise to wake Lisa yet; was the senior a morning person?
Elyse was tossed carelessly across her feet, which Amethyst could not feel. Stretching, Amethyst leaned forward and tapped the senior, trying to be gentle as she did so. "G'way," Elyse groaned. "I'm sleeping, Dad."
Somebody on the other side of the pile clearly stated, "Wha—teletubbie?" and fell back asleep.
Amethyst tapped harder. "Elyse! Wake up NOW!"
Elyse promptly did a very good imitation of somebody who was trying very hard to jump out of her skin. Grumbling with embarrassment, she sat up—or at least tried to. Rachel had both feet atop her stomach, making it very hard to move, much less breathe. She glared when she realized that Amethyst was grinning cheekily at her. "Is Elyse not a morning person?" Amethyst asked in her 'talking to small children and color guard captains' voice.
"Yes, I'm a morning person! I'm a very BIG morning person!" Elyse protested crankily, struggling to free her right arm from underneath Jenn.
"After about two pots of coffee, that is," Rachel commented in a drowsily sarcastic voice. She promptly fell asleep again.
"Where are we?" Amethyst demanded as Elyse finally managed to sit up.
"I'd imagine we're in the tunnels. I guess I forgot to tell you about the part where we get thrown on a ride that nearly kills us. Figures. Bit of a nasty trip, it was." Elyse leaned over and shook Lisa (whom Amethyst could now recognize from the locks of dark brown hair sticking up from underneath the mass). "Wake up, lout."
"Wakey-wakey," Amethyst told Rachel, who just grunted and rolled away. Unfortunately, she rolled straight into Kelly, who shoved her away as a reflex. THIS woke Lisa, for Rachel was pushed right into Amethyst and the two managed to land on Lisa. Lisa in turn pushed both arms against Amethyst and sent her flying straight onto Ashley, who coughed and shrieked loud enough to wake the dead. THAT made Trisha shriek as well and the twins, on either side of her, jumped and accidentally knocked heads as they scrambled to their feet.
In the end, several people clutched their heads in pain while Lisa slept on, unperturbed by what was going on about her.
Finally, after waking a very stubborn Lisa, the group all managed to collect themselves and wait for Elyse to give them directions. "We're right underneath the Red Wing," she explained after a minute of reading the hieroglyphics printed across the tunnel walls. Amethyst saw what she suspected to be a Florence Flask atop of an English book. Of course. The Florence Flask would represent a chemistry class (The upstairs Red Wing was the science wing) and the book would represent an English class (the downstairs Red Wing was the English wing). "Let's go that way." She pointed and the group set off.
"So now that we've found the secret passages beneath the school, what are we going to do to get Travis in here?" Jenn asked, pointing to the cooler trundling along behind her. "He'll be in the Band Room, we know that."
"Guarded by a very large Team Puce," Elyse added. "Hmm…I dunno. I guess we'll think of that when we get there. We have duct tape—" and Kelly held up the roll, grinning devilishly—"and a cooler. I figure, we can do anything with those two things."
They nodded and traveled in silence until Elyse suddenly said, "Stop! I think we're here!"
"That's great," Kelly announced, "but where is 'here,' exactly?" Elyse looked slightly flustered at this, but the rest saw the truth in Kelly's words. 'Here' was a stone tunnel that looked exactly like every tunnel they had been through. The hieroglyphics splayed across the entire wall, somehow larger and more erratic than they had been before. Looking over, Amethyst could see a large boot spray-painted on, with a silver line up the middle that could only be a flute. Underneath the boot was a very flat instrument that could only be a trumpet. She caught Gina's eye (she was the only one who could tell the twins apart, but she wasn't going to help the seniors out by letting them know THAT) and the two laughed.
"Underneath the practice rooms," Elyse explained simply. She pointed at the wall. "See, the entrance into to the Large Practice Room is right there. Don't any of you hear that?" After a moment of silence, Amethyst heard what she was talking about: screeching, awful, horribly loud screeching that could mean only one thing…"Trumpets," Elyse finished grimly. "They've been giving me a headache for the past five minutes."
Amethyst winced as one of the trumpets (Travis, probably, to judge by the lack of tone and the fact that he was half a beat off from the other trumpets) hit a particularly loud and screaming note. "The hostages are probably being kept in the practice rooms," Amethyst said loudly, more to drown out the trumpets than anything. Even her ex-boyfriend played better than THAT!
"And that means that the members of Team Puce are torturing them," Ashley finished for her. "If my co-captain Andrea were here—"
"Entire saxophone regiment was captured," the other Andrea, who played clarinet and happened to be Gina's twin, chirped. "So, she IS here. Well, up there." And she pointed to the ceiling.
Ashley's eyes widened. "Let's do it," she whispered dangerously.
"Do what?"
"Let me handle this." Ashley looked about the group, sizing them up and down. Finally, she seemed to make a decision. "Jenn, Kelly, I need some femalepower backup, so you'll come with me. Amethyst, you and the freshmen will go with Elyse since you're all bone thin. Lisa, Trisha, I'm trusting you two to pick up the garbage, right?"
"Er—what are we doing exactly?" Lisa asked. She still looked a bit grumpy at having been woken up.
"Jenn, Kelly, and I will enter through the entrance into the band room from the tunnels. There is a separate entrance there, right?" Ashley began, glancing at Elyse for confirmation. When the captain nodded, she continued, "We'll enter through and send Elyse's group a signal. You'll all scramble up through the entrance. Get Travis. Elyse—that's you. Get Travis. Shove him into the tunnel—Trisha, Lisa, you get him tied up and into the cooler."
Trisha and Lisa both grinned. "Cool."
"Give me two minutes," Ashley said, and she, Kelly, and Jenn ducked into a separate tunnel.
4:13 p. m., Monday
Practice Room
Team Puce
"No! No! No! It's eighth-eight-dotted quarter!" Travis snapped to Alex, and Mike, who rolled their eyes at him and tried again. Like the previous twelve times they played this simple measure, the rhythm came out entirely wrong. The captives, who were clustered against the far wall in an attempt to get away, all cringed and moaned. Plans of escape had been given up hours before in place of gnawing arms and legs off. Several people were lying on the floor in near-catatonic states, with the strong-willed captives leaning over them worriedly. "I don't think he's going to make it," was heard in the two-measure rest as the trumpets paused.
"They've been doing this for two hours. Do you think they'll ever stop?" Krista, the first captive taken, asked Andrea, the Pseudo-Saxophone-Leader (AN: From now on, so that there's no confusion, everybody will call her Andrea II).
Andrea, curled up in a fetal position, did not answer.
"Okay, guys, one-two, one-two-three—" Travis began.
"Hold it right there, bud, I don't want to hear that again." Immediately, every eye in the room flew to where a senior—Krista couldn't remember her name. Was it Alice? April?—leaned confidently against the doorframe. "Have you considered getting a mute?" Bending, she scooped one from the floor and flung it at the shocked Travis, who caught it after it bounced off of his nose. "It might improve your sound quality, you know. Of course, playing into a swimming pool might have a better effect."
Travis growled. "Get her, boys!" Immediately, Mike and Alex sprang from their chairs to do his bidding, but the door swung open to admit two seniors, Jenn and Kelly. Kelly was on the Varsity Basketball team and had a foot in height gain over either Alex or Mike, and two feet over Travis. Jenn just managed to look really mean and quite fierce, which did not couple with the green "I'm an Angel" shirt she wore.
"What were you saying, Travis?"
Travis whirled to see Amethyst, a fellow junior, rising out of the trap door and smiling innocently. She was flanked by a set of identical twins, who smirked at him as they took positions behind Amethyst. Rachel, Travis's ex-girlfriend, rose through the passage next, before spindly Elyse popped through and joined the twins in smirking at the now helpless Travis, Mike, and Alex. Indeed, even the hostages had stood up, looking pale but determined as they stared down the three Team Puce leaders.
"Put the trumpets down, boys," Elyse commanded. "We'll take care of the hostages from here." Andrea II immediately took the initiative and stood behind Ashley, glaring at Travis. To Amethyst, she whispered: "Get Travis quickly. Team Puce will show up at any moment. Speed is essential." As Jenn and Kelly took the trumpets from Mike and Alex, the twins and Rachel herded hostages into the trap door. Amethyst moved forward to take Travis's trumpet—
—And all Hell broke loose.
Travis, who was small but surprisingly wiry and fast, swung his trumpet and smacked Amethyst solidly upside the head. As she fell, Team Green moved into action. Rachel yelled and leapt into a flying kick, catching Travis right in the stomach. He tried to fend her off, but was blocked by both of the twins, who sent him down hard in identical flying tackles. Elyse made a lunge to grab his arm so that she could ship him down to Lisa and Trisha. She missed. Alex and Mike used the opportunity to grab their trumpets, but only Alex succeeded. Mike found Elyse's hand wrapped around his neck just as he lunged, knocking him flat to the ground right over the trap door. Lisa and Trisha hauled him through.
Krista scrambled underneath the fighting figures and pulled Amethyst to the trap door, sending her through after Mike. There was an outraged shout as Lisa appeared, wild-eyed and red-faced. "Who hurt Amethyst?" she demanded into the sudden silence. All fingers pointed to Travis, who scampered back, whimpering. Nobody had quite seen Lisa like this before. The senior's hair was in disarray, framing a face flushed with anger, and her fists were clenched about what appeared to be an imaginary flagpole. There was not one person who didn't feel sorry for Travis in that room just then.
Travis was spared from Lisa's wrath, however, by Alex. Before anybody could stop the junior, Alex had leaped over two people and clamped a hold on Andrea II's arm, his trumpet raised threateningly to her ear. He looked ready to blast out a high G and kill Andrea II's hope of hearing. Travis sighed in relief and barked, "Team Green! Drop your weapons!"
"What weapons?" Elyse asked. It was true. None of the Team Green members held so much as a piccolo.
"Well—uh—then, put your hands on your heads."
Nobody moved.
"I mean it!"
Once again, nobody moved.
Finally, Elyse said, "You wouldn't do it. You wouldn't. O'Malley would KILL you. Remember Eloise, the one-time bass clarinetist? O'Malley said that if you kill another band member's eardrums, he's suspending you from band."
Alex's trumpet wavered.
"Seriously, man, let her go," Lisa snarled, and charged forward. Perhaps Alex took Elyse's warning seriously or perhaps he was just knocked off guard, because he did not let out the blast that was promised and instead dropped his trumpet. Lisa took that opportunity to haul Andrea II out of his grip and kick him. Rachel did likewise to Travis before Lisa said, "Let's get out of here and get back to base. Let's not waste our time with this filth." She kicked Travis for good measure on the way to the trapdoor and disappeared, still hauling Andrea II after her. Slowly, the hostages trickled into the passage until it was just Elyse, Ashley, Alex, and Travis left in the room.
"You may have won the battle, but you haven't won the war," Travis groaned as Ashley disappeared into the trapdoor.
"Yet." And Elyse was gone, with the promise of a return hanging in the air.
