Disclaimer- I only wish I owned it then I wouldn't have to work a single day for the rest of my life. I also don't own the song Monster it belongs to the god Wayne Static of Static-X.
A/N- Finally heard from Nienna. The good new is she hasn't dropped off of the face of the earth. Oh, Hi Nienna. Don't worry you'll be kicking some orc butt in this chapter. Everyone please read and review.
Chapter 13- I'm bored are we there yet ?
Since my friends and I had kept our dorm rooms from the semester before there was really no need to pack anything since we had left everything in our rooms. So we passed the time waiting for the fellowship by calling any family or friends we had in the surrounding area and telling them to either get out or to barracade themselves in their homes with a lot of weapons. During this time something kind of dawned on me. Nienna was stuck in New Orleans alone. No parents. No family. Well, she did have those but they were out of town. I headed for the door and looked outside to see if everything was clear. After all, I couldn't exactly save Nienna if I was eaten by a warg now could I ? I closed the door momentarily so I could tell my friends ",I'll meet you guys at SLU. If I'm not there by tonight then I'm not coming at all."
Matt looked concerned for all of a nanosecond. "At least take a weapon with you. Might I suggest something in the way of a nice .22 Saturday Night Special and a .22 semi-automatic."
"How the hell do you know about my dad's guns ?"
Matt shrugged ",I spend way too much time here not to be nosy."
So, once I had weapons in hand, cocked and loaded but with the safety on (safety first, don't want to shoot your foot off) I left the apartment to return to the one city I had absolutely no desire to visit again. I made it to my VW without incident then I saw a blond head running across the courtyard. Now if you didn't know this a warg delicacy just happens to be elf. So guess what that idiot Haldir attracted from a ten mile radius. Yep, that's right. Every warg in the area. For some reason I was nice enough to let him in and we took off for New Orleans to rescue Nienna.
45 Minutes Later...
Why was I nice enough to let him into the car ? Why couldn't I let Haldir get eaten by a warg ? The entire way to New Orleans he was saying how I needed him to protect me because women are notorious for getting captured and killed. I finally swung my head to look at him, snapping ",For your information I don't need a man or an elf to protect me. I do a pretty good job of it on my own. I was the one who got the hobbits to safety therefore saving the ring from the enemy. Maybe you forgot that little fact."
"It was by chance you saved the hobbits. Orcs are not known for their intellect."
"Sure, chance, right. It was chance that I got them on the roof and tossed them from rooftop to rooftop. Do me a favor. Shut your mouth and concentrate on killing orcs."
The Garden District was completely empty. Not an orc to be seen. Although the shotgun blasts were a dead giveaway as to where they were. Of course the shotgun was in the possession of Nienna which would normally be a very scary thing except she was blasting orc butt to kingdom come. Nienna had perched herself on the roof of her one story house and was killing the orcs as soon as they popped their ugly little heads over the edge. I rammed my VW through the wrought iron fence stopping at the front door. I poked my head out of the window ",In the mood for a little saving, Nienna ?"
She looked at us gratefully before turning completely pissy ",Its about time. I was wondering when you were going to remember me."
I shot an orc who got too close to my car. "Just jump on so we can get outta here."
Haldir busied himself with killing orcs and he was just a little to happy doing it. Nienna dove onto the roof of the bus and we all set about trying to get out of the city...again.
Mandy's POV
We were waiting in Tina's dorm room anxiously. I had sent Legolas and Boromir out with Tina's bandmates to grab us some food from the cafeteria. The hobbits were playing video games. Gandalf was sitting at Tina's desk in deep thought. Aragorn was glowering at Gimli. "Tell him," Aragorn hissed.
"I will do no such thing. It might tarnish her image."
Aragorn leaned down eye level with Gimli ",If you do not tell Gandalf I will make sure you no longer have an image to maintain."
"Try it, Ranger."
Aragorn drew his sword while Gimli steadied himself with his ax.
"Cease this madness at once," Gandalf roared, doing his freaky wizard 'I'm bigger than you' thing again.
It worked. The two put their weapons away looking at Gandalf the entire time. "I apologize Gandalf. It seems that the events of these last hours have begun to get to me."
Gimli muttered an apology. At least that's what I think it was. Gandalf continued to glare at them before his expression softened slightly. "I can understand Legolas and Gimli arguing because of the animosity between their races. But you, Aragorn, are to be the king of men. Such behavior is beneath you."
Matt stepped in then ",Listen, Gandy, they were fighting because Gimli was being more stubborn than usual. He didn't want to tell you that he's the reason all of you are here. See, he did something with Galadriel that really pissed Celeborn off so Celeborn cast a spell that went haywire. Hence the reason all of you are here."
"I see," was all that Gandalf would say before returning to Tina's desk continuing to think.
Tina's POV
Once back in Hammond and in relative safety we all relaxed a bit. I took the turn into the university a little too fast but managed to stay on the road. I never did see Gollum fly off of the roof of the VW. I parked the mini-bus in the dorm parking lot and we went to my room to find everyone pretty much there. Everyone except for Legolas, Boromir and my boys. "Its too crowded in here. Lets go to the commons so we can think of something or someway to send these guys back," I suggested.
We walked down to the commons where we all sat in relative silence. I mainly just didn't want to try to find a place to sit in my overcrowded room. I was going to leave all of thinking to the wizard. Isn't that what they do best ? My boys and the two members of the fellowship that they had managed to find us just fine. Then we continued to sit there only making the noises that go along with eating. Then the most remarkable thing occured. A few more of my friends showed up. Mike, Kat, Stoney, Jeremy, Alan, and Reese were all dragging their own displaced person. Boromir was the first to shoot to his feet, yelling out ",Faramir, my brother, why are you here ?"
"I could ask the same of you, Boromir."
I looked up at Boromir then to his brother and found that I suddenly had a drooling problem. Not only was I drooling over Faramir but the guy standing next to him. Reese was the first to speak ",That's Tina. She's the one you want to talk to about all the strange shit going on."
Drooling problem gone replaced by anger management problem. "Why the hell do you assume that I would know anything about what's goin' on ?"
"You make it your life's mission to screw everything up or to make it so weird that no one can figure out what's going on," Reese stated with a satisfied smirk. I hate her. I really do. Why am I friends with her again ? Oh, that's right. She's Jonothan's girlfriend and a lousy one at that.
Faramir looked down at me and smiled warmly. "Good evening, my lady, I am Faramir brother of Boromir."
Mandy looked confused ",What'd he just say ?"
"His name's Faramir and he's Boromir's brother," I snapped.
"This is Eomer and his sister Eowyn from Rohan. Lord Elrond of Rivendale." At that point I noticed Aragorn was already in deep conversation with Elrond. "This is Lord Celeborn of Lothlorien."
When I heard that name I pounced on the already freaked out elf. "You idiot. Your spell brought orcs, wargs and lord knows what else here in my world. I'm so gonna rip your lungs out."
Before I could land a good punch to the perfect elf's face Faramir had pulled me off of him at Gandalf command. "Tina, now is not the time to fight amongst ourselves. If you ripped Celeborn's lungs out as you put it then who would help me to find out how to return to Middle Earth along with all of the dark creatures that followed us."
"You have a point," I grumbled, still firmly in Faramir's grasp. "But he goes to cast one spell, even if its to fix his hair, I'll kill him."
"Agreed," Gandalf nodded ",now if you will excuse Celeborn and myself I believe we will go about finding a way home. Can we use your chamber, Tina ?"
"Go right on ahead."
So we waited for the two to figure out a way to reverse the spell. And we waited. And we waited. We also waited to see if any orcs and wargs were going to make an appearance but they didn't. At least not yet. So we continued to wait in absolute boredom. Nienna stayed with me since Louisiana had been placed under Marshall Law and her parents couldn't get back into the state and we couldn't leave.
Kids started moving back on campus a few days later since SLU hadn't announced a cancellation of classes. You would think an attack from evil things would warrant that but no. We all drug the guys with us while we got our class schedules and bought our books. Then we went for one last rehearsal before the show that night. Kevin showed up with Courney again and I of course played like I had no idea that they were together. I wanted Kevin to have a little public humiliation.
That night....
I dressed like I would for any other show because as far as anyone else knew this was just another one of our shows and nothing interesting would happen. I wore a short pleated skirt, a tank top with a fishnet top over it, and a pair of shitkickers. When everyone else was dressed we left for the bar. The first person I stopped to talk to was Bryce, the bouncer, who looked none too happy to see me. "Hey, Bryce, how would you like to bounce someone outta here and then have a little fun out in the alley with them."
"How would that be different from any other night that you guys play ?"
"This person is Kevin."
Bryce suddenly lightened up a little bit and actually started to look happy. "With pleasure, Tina."
"Just wait until I tell you."
I then literally ran into O.C. who was the bassist for our opening band, Glyph, which was a really heavy metal band. I don't know why they're so insistent on opening for us lately since we're a cover everything that rocks band, but they do and seem to enjoy it. "Hey, Tina. How was your summer ?"
"Unfortunately, eventful. Heart attack eventful. And you ?"
"Nothing like that. Just hung out here with nothing better to do but drink and play shows. Speaking of which. I better get onstage."
O.C. left and I went to sit in the back of the bar with everyone. I, of course, didn't drink anything but soda as did Nienna. Everyone else, on the other hand, was trying to drink the bar dry and doing a good job of it so far. After Glyph's forty-five minute set Pocket Full of Strange went on stage just as Kevin showed up. Bryce saw him and started to crack his knuckles. "This is for Kevin," I spoke into the microphone.
The band began to play then I ground out the words since this was an angry song:
Breathing, killing, seething, willing
Fighting, biting, hating, waiting for you
Don't you, won't you, don't lie
Give it, get it, live it, let it
Dedicated, nothing sacred for you
Don't you, won't you, I die
Wreak havok, I'm crippled
Your polluted soul, is so corrupted
In your eyes, see all the lies
The alibis, That I despise
In your eyes, see all the lies
The alibis, That I despise
In your eyes, all the lies
Alibis, I despise
See the lies, spirit dies
You disguise, Monster size
Breathing, killing, seething, willing
Fighting, biting, hating, waiting for you
I don't know why I try
Give it, get it, live it, let it
Dedicated, nothing sacred for you
I can't see you I'm blind
Wreak havoc, I'm crippled
Your polluted soul, is so corrupted
In your eyes, see all the lies
The alibis, That I despise
In your eyes, see all the lies
The alibis, That I despise
In your eyes, all the lies
Alibis, I despise
See the lies, spirit dies
Your disguise, Monster size
Wreak havoc, I'm crippled
Erasing, Refacing
So worthless, no mercy
Your polluted soul, is so corrupted
The song ended and I looked at Kevin. His mouth was hanging open in shock. I could only smirk ",Get him outta here, Bryce."
Bryce grabbed Kevin by the back of his neck and proceeded to drag him, quite roughly from the looks of it, out of the club. Jacob immediately went into the next song in our set to cover up Kevin's screams from the alley. But, there was a scream that could be heard over our eardrum-busting music. It didn't sound human. My boys immediately stopped playing and we heard it again. I must have gone white as a piece of paper. When I looked back over my shoulder to my people at the back of the bar the Ring people had the same looks on their faces. The pause in time is when everything went to shit. The plate glass windows in the front of the bar shattered, spraying glass everywhere. Nothing ran in. I felt a hand on my shoulder squeezing it so hard that it was beginning to hurt. I looked over and saw....
A/N-A great teacher once told me that comedy wouldn't exist if there was no tragedy. That a character can't laugh at the lighter things in life without having experienced the deepest abyss of sadness. That if you didn't know what emotional or physical pain was that you would just take the good moments for granted. The only decision to make in this for your character is if you're going to have them face a tragedy that involves the depression of a broken heart or are you going to hit them so hard with so much that you drag them into the bowels of insanity. So my next chapter is going to be quite tragic and how everyone deals with it, especially our girl Tina.
Next time- Good-byes are so hard to do on the run.
A/N- Finally heard from Nienna. The good new is she hasn't dropped off of the face of the earth. Oh, Hi Nienna. Don't worry you'll be kicking some orc butt in this chapter. Everyone please read and review.
Chapter 13- I'm bored are we there yet ?
Since my friends and I had kept our dorm rooms from the semester before there was really no need to pack anything since we had left everything in our rooms. So we passed the time waiting for the fellowship by calling any family or friends we had in the surrounding area and telling them to either get out or to barracade themselves in their homes with a lot of weapons. During this time something kind of dawned on me. Nienna was stuck in New Orleans alone. No parents. No family. Well, she did have those but they were out of town. I headed for the door and looked outside to see if everything was clear. After all, I couldn't exactly save Nienna if I was eaten by a warg now could I ? I closed the door momentarily so I could tell my friends ",I'll meet you guys at SLU. If I'm not there by tonight then I'm not coming at all."
Matt looked concerned for all of a nanosecond. "At least take a weapon with you. Might I suggest something in the way of a nice .22 Saturday Night Special and a .22 semi-automatic."
"How the hell do you know about my dad's guns ?"
Matt shrugged ",I spend way too much time here not to be nosy."
So, once I had weapons in hand, cocked and loaded but with the safety on (safety first, don't want to shoot your foot off) I left the apartment to return to the one city I had absolutely no desire to visit again. I made it to my VW without incident then I saw a blond head running across the courtyard. Now if you didn't know this a warg delicacy just happens to be elf. So guess what that idiot Haldir attracted from a ten mile radius. Yep, that's right. Every warg in the area. For some reason I was nice enough to let him in and we took off for New Orleans to rescue Nienna.
45 Minutes Later...
Why was I nice enough to let him into the car ? Why couldn't I let Haldir get eaten by a warg ? The entire way to New Orleans he was saying how I needed him to protect me because women are notorious for getting captured and killed. I finally swung my head to look at him, snapping ",For your information I don't need a man or an elf to protect me. I do a pretty good job of it on my own. I was the one who got the hobbits to safety therefore saving the ring from the enemy. Maybe you forgot that little fact."
"It was by chance you saved the hobbits. Orcs are not known for their intellect."
"Sure, chance, right. It was chance that I got them on the roof and tossed them from rooftop to rooftop. Do me a favor. Shut your mouth and concentrate on killing orcs."
The Garden District was completely empty. Not an orc to be seen. Although the shotgun blasts were a dead giveaway as to where they were. Of course the shotgun was in the possession of Nienna which would normally be a very scary thing except she was blasting orc butt to kingdom come. Nienna had perched herself on the roof of her one story house and was killing the orcs as soon as they popped their ugly little heads over the edge. I rammed my VW through the wrought iron fence stopping at the front door. I poked my head out of the window ",In the mood for a little saving, Nienna ?"
She looked at us gratefully before turning completely pissy ",Its about time. I was wondering when you were going to remember me."
I shot an orc who got too close to my car. "Just jump on so we can get outta here."
Haldir busied himself with killing orcs and he was just a little to happy doing it. Nienna dove onto the roof of the bus and we all set about trying to get out of the city...again.
Mandy's POV
We were waiting in Tina's dorm room anxiously. I had sent Legolas and Boromir out with Tina's bandmates to grab us some food from the cafeteria. The hobbits were playing video games. Gandalf was sitting at Tina's desk in deep thought. Aragorn was glowering at Gimli. "Tell him," Aragorn hissed.
"I will do no such thing. It might tarnish her image."
Aragorn leaned down eye level with Gimli ",If you do not tell Gandalf I will make sure you no longer have an image to maintain."
"Try it, Ranger."
Aragorn drew his sword while Gimli steadied himself with his ax.
"Cease this madness at once," Gandalf roared, doing his freaky wizard 'I'm bigger than you' thing again.
It worked. The two put their weapons away looking at Gandalf the entire time. "I apologize Gandalf. It seems that the events of these last hours have begun to get to me."
Gimli muttered an apology. At least that's what I think it was. Gandalf continued to glare at them before his expression softened slightly. "I can understand Legolas and Gimli arguing because of the animosity between their races. But you, Aragorn, are to be the king of men. Such behavior is beneath you."
Matt stepped in then ",Listen, Gandy, they were fighting because Gimli was being more stubborn than usual. He didn't want to tell you that he's the reason all of you are here. See, he did something with Galadriel that really pissed Celeborn off so Celeborn cast a spell that went haywire. Hence the reason all of you are here."
"I see," was all that Gandalf would say before returning to Tina's desk continuing to think.
Tina's POV
Once back in Hammond and in relative safety we all relaxed a bit. I took the turn into the university a little too fast but managed to stay on the road. I never did see Gollum fly off of the roof of the VW. I parked the mini-bus in the dorm parking lot and we went to my room to find everyone pretty much there. Everyone except for Legolas, Boromir and my boys. "Its too crowded in here. Lets go to the commons so we can think of something or someway to send these guys back," I suggested.
We walked down to the commons where we all sat in relative silence. I mainly just didn't want to try to find a place to sit in my overcrowded room. I was going to leave all of thinking to the wizard. Isn't that what they do best ? My boys and the two members of the fellowship that they had managed to find us just fine. Then we continued to sit there only making the noises that go along with eating. Then the most remarkable thing occured. A few more of my friends showed up. Mike, Kat, Stoney, Jeremy, Alan, and Reese were all dragging their own displaced person. Boromir was the first to shoot to his feet, yelling out ",Faramir, my brother, why are you here ?"
"I could ask the same of you, Boromir."
I looked up at Boromir then to his brother and found that I suddenly had a drooling problem. Not only was I drooling over Faramir but the guy standing next to him. Reese was the first to speak ",That's Tina. She's the one you want to talk to about all the strange shit going on."
Drooling problem gone replaced by anger management problem. "Why the hell do you assume that I would know anything about what's goin' on ?"
"You make it your life's mission to screw everything up or to make it so weird that no one can figure out what's going on," Reese stated with a satisfied smirk. I hate her. I really do. Why am I friends with her again ? Oh, that's right. She's Jonothan's girlfriend and a lousy one at that.
Faramir looked down at me and smiled warmly. "Good evening, my lady, I am Faramir brother of Boromir."
Mandy looked confused ",What'd he just say ?"
"His name's Faramir and he's Boromir's brother," I snapped.
"This is Eomer and his sister Eowyn from Rohan. Lord Elrond of Rivendale." At that point I noticed Aragorn was already in deep conversation with Elrond. "This is Lord Celeborn of Lothlorien."
When I heard that name I pounced on the already freaked out elf. "You idiot. Your spell brought orcs, wargs and lord knows what else here in my world. I'm so gonna rip your lungs out."
Before I could land a good punch to the perfect elf's face Faramir had pulled me off of him at Gandalf command. "Tina, now is not the time to fight amongst ourselves. If you ripped Celeborn's lungs out as you put it then who would help me to find out how to return to Middle Earth along with all of the dark creatures that followed us."
"You have a point," I grumbled, still firmly in Faramir's grasp. "But he goes to cast one spell, even if its to fix his hair, I'll kill him."
"Agreed," Gandalf nodded ",now if you will excuse Celeborn and myself I believe we will go about finding a way home. Can we use your chamber, Tina ?"
"Go right on ahead."
So we waited for the two to figure out a way to reverse the spell. And we waited. And we waited. We also waited to see if any orcs and wargs were going to make an appearance but they didn't. At least not yet. So we continued to wait in absolute boredom. Nienna stayed with me since Louisiana had been placed under Marshall Law and her parents couldn't get back into the state and we couldn't leave.
Kids started moving back on campus a few days later since SLU hadn't announced a cancellation of classes. You would think an attack from evil things would warrant that but no. We all drug the guys with us while we got our class schedules and bought our books. Then we went for one last rehearsal before the show that night. Kevin showed up with Courney again and I of course played like I had no idea that they were together. I wanted Kevin to have a little public humiliation.
That night....
I dressed like I would for any other show because as far as anyone else knew this was just another one of our shows and nothing interesting would happen. I wore a short pleated skirt, a tank top with a fishnet top over it, and a pair of shitkickers. When everyone else was dressed we left for the bar. The first person I stopped to talk to was Bryce, the bouncer, who looked none too happy to see me. "Hey, Bryce, how would you like to bounce someone outta here and then have a little fun out in the alley with them."
"How would that be different from any other night that you guys play ?"
"This person is Kevin."
Bryce suddenly lightened up a little bit and actually started to look happy. "With pleasure, Tina."
"Just wait until I tell you."
I then literally ran into O.C. who was the bassist for our opening band, Glyph, which was a really heavy metal band. I don't know why they're so insistent on opening for us lately since we're a cover everything that rocks band, but they do and seem to enjoy it. "Hey, Tina. How was your summer ?"
"Unfortunately, eventful. Heart attack eventful. And you ?"
"Nothing like that. Just hung out here with nothing better to do but drink and play shows. Speaking of which. I better get onstage."
O.C. left and I went to sit in the back of the bar with everyone. I, of course, didn't drink anything but soda as did Nienna. Everyone else, on the other hand, was trying to drink the bar dry and doing a good job of it so far. After Glyph's forty-five minute set Pocket Full of Strange went on stage just as Kevin showed up. Bryce saw him and started to crack his knuckles. "This is for Kevin," I spoke into the microphone.
The band began to play then I ground out the words since this was an angry song:
Breathing, killing, seething, willing
Fighting, biting, hating, waiting for you
Don't you, won't you, don't lie
Give it, get it, live it, let it
Dedicated, nothing sacred for you
Don't you, won't you, I die
Wreak havok, I'm crippled
Your polluted soul, is so corrupted
In your eyes, see all the lies
The alibis, That I despise
In your eyes, see all the lies
The alibis, That I despise
In your eyes, all the lies
Alibis, I despise
See the lies, spirit dies
You disguise, Monster size
Breathing, killing, seething, willing
Fighting, biting, hating, waiting for you
I don't know why I try
Give it, get it, live it, let it
Dedicated, nothing sacred for you
I can't see you I'm blind
Wreak havoc, I'm crippled
Your polluted soul, is so corrupted
In your eyes, see all the lies
The alibis, That I despise
In your eyes, see all the lies
The alibis, That I despise
In your eyes, all the lies
Alibis, I despise
See the lies, spirit dies
Your disguise, Monster size
Wreak havoc, I'm crippled
Erasing, Refacing
So worthless, no mercy
Your polluted soul, is so corrupted
The song ended and I looked at Kevin. His mouth was hanging open in shock. I could only smirk ",Get him outta here, Bryce."
Bryce grabbed Kevin by the back of his neck and proceeded to drag him, quite roughly from the looks of it, out of the club. Jacob immediately went into the next song in our set to cover up Kevin's screams from the alley. But, there was a scream that could be heard over our eardrum-busting music. It didn't sound human. My boys immediately stopped playing and we heard it again. I must have gone white as a piece of paper. When I looked back over my shoulder to my people at the back of the bar the Ring people had the same looks on their faces. The pause in time is when everything went to shit. The plate glass windows in the front of the bar shattered, spraying glass everywhere. Nothing ran in. I felt a hand on my shoulder squeezing it so hard that it was beginning to hurt. I looked over and saw....
A/N-A great teacher once told me that comedy wouldn't exist if there was no tragedy. That a character can't laugh at the lighter things in life without having experienced the deepest abyss of sadness. That if you didn't know what emotional or physical pain was that you would just take the good moments for granted. The only decision to make in this for your character is if you're going to have them face a tragedy that involves the depression of a broken heart or are you going to hit them so hard with so much that you drag them into the bowels of insanity. So my next chapter is going to be quite tragic and how everyone deals with it, especially our girl Tina.
Next time- Good-byes are so hard to do on the run.