-note- (Thursday, June 9) so, yay, I got a 97 on my NYSMA. YAY! That was a lot better than I thought I'd gotten. But it wasn't TOO bad when I was there… By the way, for those of you who do not know; NYSMA stands for New York State Music Association and a NYSMA festival is when you prepare a piece which is categorized between levels 1-6(1easiest, 6hardest) on your given instrument or you sing it, you go into a classroom with a judge, you play your piece, you play a few scales, and you sight read a little bit, and they grade you a lot. I could go into the specifics of it, but then you would all get bored… Heh. I did a level 5 on my flute…

And by the way. I got a high three on my ELAs (Another standardized test.). When I found out this I did many things. First, I looked at it wide-eyed as if this wasn't actually happening (the paper), then I snapped at my Mum, then I kind of yelled at my Mum, then I cried (I REALLY SERIOUSLY CRIED, TYVM!) and grumbled and got REALLY pissed off and went for a run. This was last week RIGHT before my NYSMA festival. Grarrg. Sorry. I just had to rant a little bit. Did anyone else who lives in New York get their scores back?

-dedication- This chapter is dedicated to WHENICOMEAROUND. She hasn't read the full story yet, but then I haven't finished reading hers either. So we're even. JATE ALL THE WAY! WOO LOST! (yes, I am promoting another television series in a Teen Titans fic) LOVE YA GIRL!

Chapter Twelve

(continued from the previous chapter)
Winter's eyes bugged wildly as she saw the two superheroes appear before the stage. Yes, they were in Jump City and yes, Maria had been playing the Teen Titans theme song – their cue for trouble – but she had never expected them to hear it from, oh, who knows where they were.
Over by the stage they continued to speak to Maria in hushed tones while the audience whispered amongst themselves and some of them got out paper, pencils, pens, or napkins to try and get autographs on. John came up to Winter and began to peg her with questions.
"What are they doing here? Is this your doing? Should I go get them away from the stage? Where's my camera?"
Winter, being snapped out of her happy state she had been in when the superhero prom king and queen; Robin and Starfire had appeared, just kind of gave John a pouty look that said she wanted him to go away.
"I don't know."
He probably would have continued to annoy the blonde and red haired teen further, but Robin and Starfire were now standing on the stage with Maria – Starfire behind a drum set which had somehow appeared and Robin behind the microphone, and they were doing a check.
After a few moments while they did this and the girls in the audience swooned over Robin (the guys were too cool to 'swoon' over Starfire; they simply spoke to each other of her 'bod.'), the boy wonder spoke into the microphone.
"And here's OUR rendition of the Teen Titans theme song!"
And thus the song began – the leader of the show singing, Maria on the knife and humming along, and Starfire banging on the toms and the cymbals.
"Good night, folks."

There is always much debate in my small, worthless brain about where to start a chapter. Who should be the first character to speak? What about the setting – will it be morning, the middle of the night, right before Gar bites into a delicious slice of vegetarian pizza, or right as someone is about to sneeze? Well all of these questions, and then some, were all echoing in my mind as I tried to imagine how to begin this chapter.

So I decided to figure out what to do by random.

To help me do this I have written on many different little deices of paper the names of all the characters, the names of a bunch of random places, and actions. Okay. (By the way, I'm serious. I really am doing this.) So I put them all in different bins. I don't have any hats, really, so the bins it was.

In bin one, under names; I am shaking it up… (:hums the jeopardy theme:)… and I pulled out…. Speedy. Euh – Speedy's boring, so I am going to pick someone else. And that person is… Achilles. Now THAT's an interesting couple o' boys.

Let us continue. Their scene could be in one of many different places; most of which I don't even really remember. This time they get to be at a water/theme park.

And, back to the picking – in the last hat the action is… Nope. Ew. That one isn't going to happen. Okay, so now I just put that one back into the bin without comment and shake it again… Now I pick a different one – Woodworking. Achilles and Speedy will be woodworking at a water/theme park. Shall I begin? That is probably a good idea…

Though the calendar now read September instead of the months that officially are known for summer, the early morning sun beat down on two teenage boys with a surprising amount of heat. Though it was still before eight, Speedy and Achilles were becoming uncomfortable – and not only because it was just the two of them; complete opposites who hated each other. (NO THIS IS NOT GOING TO BE A BLOODY YAOI CHAPTER!... Back to the story)

So how did they end up – together – walking down the street with only themselves for company? As you may be asking that, I, too, am asking how they ended up going just the two of them, but some questions are simply not meant to be answered.

It was not a terribly far walk to the place where they were going – less than a mile as a matter of fact - but while they walked it seemed much longer. Coming to the gates of Aqua Land, the nearest theme park, they sighed in great relief. This was their destination.

Being as it was a Sunday morning, especially since it was September, there were not many people roaming the cobblestone pathways which led to the rides and the concession stands. Those who were working seemed to, by this time of the year, hate their jobs; whether it be the heat or just where they worked, and the two males walked past them all.

There was a reason they were there, and that was not to flirt with the cute concession stand girls; unfortunately for Speedy. (Right. Like any of those girls would be so stupid as to go out with HIM) They were not at the park to use the water rides – although a few of them were looking very tempting right about then with all of that heat – nor the roller coasters or the Ferris wheel.

Finding their way to the back of the park where they had been told to go was easy, finding what they were looking for.

The woodworking class.

"WELCOME!" Bellowed a big voice. It wasn't masculine, but it wasn't exactly the image of femininity either. After hearing this, any thoughts of just turning around and leaving did not even dare entering Speedy and Achilles brains – they were too terrified.

Looking, they saw that the voice belonged to a large woman. A large woman for a large voice. The two of them began to tremble under her presence as you often do when you see someone such like this. She was over six and a half feet tall – but of course they didn't have a measuring stick so they couldn't be sure. Her hair was a frizzy black; short and cut badly to stick out at odd angles and scare the living crap out of your bums. And no, to stop any bad thoughts, they did not poo on themselves.

"Um, thank you?" Speedy tried as he sweat dropped.

With a big grin on her face, she wrapped her large arms around the two boys' necks and steered and pulled them towards the tables where they would be working. There was no one else standing at them – well, no one that either of them considered to be important. There was someone else who appeared to be working there, and someone who was probably his son or some other type of close relative, but no one who had willfully signed up to participate of the whittling and the carving of pieces of tree trunks.

"You boys are the first ones to show up!" The woman had a thick accent but not anything they could recognize. She spoke all of her syllables correctly as someone who was just learning the language might, but the twang was something very American. Neither of them could place it, though.

They 'boys' gave nervous smiles as they approached the table; their minds spinning wildly to accumulate excuses to leave the area. Though they tried, the whole of their brains were filled with too much nervousness to think of anything but the very present situation.

And what exactly was that, may I ask? The two of them were most likely simply afraid of wood, big knives, or large women, but I cannot be sure so I do not want to make an assumption only to find it to be a terrible one and a wrong one. When you are scared there is no rationalism. Just fear.

"Well," the lady continued, releasing Achilles and Speedy from the death grip she held around their necks (although she had meant it in a friendly way), "My name is Kartika. During our workshop we'll give you the freedom that you want to accomplish what you want to. If you need any help, I'll be right there to cheer you on!"

(Just a thought; no she is not anyone from the series. Just a random walk-in character.)

Kartika's speech sounded rehearsed but she recited it with such vigour that the younger teens' eyes opened a little bit wider in awe. Though still respectively frightened, they felt somehow drawn to this creature of womanhood.

"So," Achilles broke the innocence spell with his toneless words, "You're just going to give us wood and a bunch of dangerous tools and let us do whatever we want with them?"

For most people, teachers, parents, siblings and friends, including Speedy beside him, this little comment would terrify the hair out of the person's scalp. The spiky haired boy beside Achilles was looking at him with a horrified demeanor to him; eyes wide open – wide enough to let the bugs in – and his mouth equally large in its open size.

The lady in front of them was, obviously, unfazed. Maybe she was used to rebellious, dark teenagers, and maybe she just didn't care, but she shrugged and replied, "For the most of it. If you do not know how to use something just ask for me but if you steal something there'll be hell to pay."

All of this was said lightly and she left the two of them, to go watch for other people to participate in their woodworking class whether they had signed up or not, with a carefree wave; leaving them both open mouthed this time.

"Uh," Speedy said, clearly unsure of what words he should string together in sentence format afterwards.

Achilles put a mask of carelessness on his face and gave an equally carefully apathetic shrug. "This is going to be pointless."


Throughout the next ten or so minutes, a few geeky looking people showed up. Whether they actually had signed up to come to this work-shop is still unknown, as the lady seemed to be grabbing random people from the path, but Achilles looked fairly tempted to leave his companion; the idiot Speedy, and hang out with them.

Among the tools that were left on the tables to be worked with were an array of wood types, screws, screwdrivers, nails, hammers, wood glue, normal clue, confetti, saws of various shapes and sizes, drills, pliers, finger nail polish, solder, soldering irons, iron, copper, wire, markers, yarn, batteries, DNA, a bottle of water, and many other strange objects. At first Achilles and Speedy did not know where to start and were feeling the urge, once again, to leave the bore and fright that awoke in this 'class,' but every time that they looked to try to find a good escape route, there seemed to be a large lady with frizzy black hair in the way.

Two of the nerds/geeks/whoosamawhatsits were having a conversation across the table, but they could still be heard clearly by Speedy and Achilles.

(btw- nothing against geeks. I am a geek but… whatever)

"No really," Geek 1 said earnestly, "Chicks dig things that you made for them. It gets 'em off your back, too."

Geek 2 looked hopeful. "Really? Geekess won't leave me alone. So if I give her something I made here she'll –"

" - Be so happy that you will have her away within moments. Bribe her and she'll take it," Geek 1 responded.

Speedy snickered under his breath, muttering something that Achilles could only somewhat hear. It included the phrase of "In your dreams" somewhere in it, though, and the black haired teen rolled his eyes.

"You have a real problem with your ego," he noted to the red/orange (?... can't remember) haired guy beside him, "And your ranting is pointless. It won't help you get a girlfriend."

The boy who wishes that he were an exact replica of Dick and not simply a clone put down the piece of wood that he was whittling, a long block of wood that no one could exactly identify yet, and seethed. "Well – well – YOU ALWAYS WEAR GIRLY EYELINER!"

"Man," Achilles soon replied, "Don't diss the 'liner."

The two were quiet once again; the Geeks ranting on in their own little world – maybe even universe – about how they were going to use their projects to get the girls, or, in Geek 2's case, to get them away. Both Achilles and Speedy began to work again; Speedy on his long… stick thing that is still not quite intelligible at this time, and Achilles sawing pieces of wood apart and gluing them together in the shape of some kind of box.

It was nearly two minutes later that Achilles spoke again, "And I don't always wear it. That would be conformity."

The time did not pass by quickly. Achilles checked his phone and the numbers read 8:45 and both boys groaned at their lack of time flying. Geek 1 asked, as the cell phone was pulled out, what time it was as well, and when he was told, his reaction was almost the opposite.

"Wow!" he exclaimed, "Time really flies when you're havin' fun!"

Speedy and Achilles exchanged a look. It clearly stated that this was not quite their idea of 'fun.'

On the bright side, it seemed like they were both just about finished with their little 'projects.' Speedy's, which had for a long time just looked like a block of wood with chips of wood cut off of it, now looked like a bow, even though it had yarn instead of the stretchy cord that a real bow would use. He also had one arrow which he was just about finished with – it didn't have any feathers but it was sprinkled with sparkly confetti.

Achilles project, which had, earlier, been simply a box, now showed itself to be the great birdhouse it was. Its sides were coloured with markers – mostly black and a little bit of red and the whole was decorated with skulls, ghosts, flames – you know, the general thing that really freaks birds out and makes them stay away from it. On the top it had a fake chimney protruding straight up, and on the side of it was another piece of wood; this one shaped like a circle. On first glance it looked like a Wal-Mart (WALLY WORLD!) smiley face, but on the second glance it is seen for what it truly is. A frowning face.

Right when Achilles was putting his mobile phone back into his pocket he found it to be ringing. His eyebrows shot up and he brought it back in front of his face to see who was calling.

He did not comment on whoever's name showed up on the callerID, but he did, however, answer the phone with a name.

"Hi, Vesta."

He did not say much, but it did not seem like the conversation was very long on the other line either, and, within about 30 seconds, he was, once again, putting the phone in his pocket. This time it made it all the way in without ordeal.

Leaning in a little closer to his companion, Speedy, who was obviously wondering what Vesta had called for, he spoke in a hushed tone.

"This is when we walk away slowly. If Kartika comes, we tell her that I just got a call that a relative is having a baby."

The two nodded together in tendon (sp?), both with deadly serious expressions on their face. Now was the time to get out of there. An hour is long enough for these boys, though, even though they would never admit it, it wasn't all THAT bad for them.

They were about to turn and leave when one of the geeks, I believe it was Geek 1, called them back. Turning their heads back towards the table they saw Geeks 1 and 2 holding Achilles' birdhouse in their arms with reverence and awe.

"Um, you can keep it?" Achilles monotonously asked, not sure what they meant.

"NO!" Geek 1 cried, "You must give it to the girl! It's the best way to pick up chicks! They love guys that work with their hands!"

Geek 2 looked at Geek 1 as if he were a traitor. "Why would he want to pick her up? Obviously she is a pain in the ass and he wants to use this for the good of all mankind and to bribe her away from him. You said so yourself that it works."

"That's just in your case."

Achilles cast an exasperated look towards the path, which was, for once, not being guarded by Kartika. "Just give me the bird house," he commanded, holding out his hand. The hand did not stay empty long, for the geeks put the birdhouse on it immediately. They did not say anything further, though, as they were fighting among themselves about whether or not he would use the homemade piece to get rid of 'the girl' or to get her closer.

"Hello boys!" Kartika said with great joy, appearing in front of them before they could reach the path and their freedom, "Where are you going?"

"Our cousin is having a baby and we're her only family nearby. We just got the call." Speedy was quick to insert their planned story into the conversation. He almost sounded desperate as he said it.

"A BABY?" the lady exclaimed with vigor, "I love babies! I'll come too!"

Both of the teenaged boys, eyes wider than balled up fists, jumped to speak and fight away this woman menace.

"No!" they exclaimed together,

"They don't let non-family members in!"

"She'll be uncomfortable if she doesn't know you!"

"Babies are scared of people over twelve!"

"We're not even allowed in!"

After Speedy had released that quite ridiculous comment, the other two looked at him. Kartika with a suspicious look and Achilles with a 'way-to-go-loser' expression to grace his lovely features. No one else nearby spoke either, a bit… uncomfortable about the outbursts.

Kartika put her big hands, balled up into fists, on her hips. "So give me a straight answer. Are you going to go visit your cousin or not?"

Speedy, who had not noticed the look from Achilles and was still in his "I give up I'm going to tell the truth – please have mercy on me" state, got on his knees and began to beg in a whiny voice.

"No! We were going to go back home and we don't even know why we're here but we are and we're bored and one of our friends called and we told her we'd go see her. PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!"

Achilles, throughout Speedy's little speech and afterwards, did not move an inch. Except to yawn once at the end.

Laughter bellowed from Kartika and for a little while she could not speak because of the lack of breath due to this.

She seemed to be about ready to talk, but it was at this moment, while she turned to the side to cough and blow her nose, that Achilles grabbed Speedy off of the ground by the arm and they both made a run for it. They were tripping all over themselves in their hurry and state of freaked-out-ness, but they got out.

And both of them had their 'projects' still in one piece.

In the dorm room of Winter and Raven, it was strangely quiet. It isn't as though the two of them were generally too loud – okay, scratch that. If it were simply Raven I were talking about I could say that she was not generally loud, but Winter is another totally different story. She spends most of her mornings belting out the lovely and – er – melodious sounds of 'all that jazz' from Chicago and the low and sad but still loud notes of 'for good' from Wicked.

But this morning, though the blonde and red haired girl was present, it was quiet. Vesta hung up her cell phone when she had completed her call and Winter, Rayne and Raven watched her, waiting to see what was up.

The dirty blonde girl whipped toward them and, in a very anime chibi-like manner, grinned; her fingers stretched into the symbol for peace.

"Yup!" Vesta said, her happiness almost bubbly, "He'll be here in a few minutes."

Congruently the other three released a little bit of air in relief. They did not want to be present if Achilles was not going to show up. If that had been the case then they would have immediately concocted excuses to simply run away.

"Good," Raven said, "Now can you all get out?"

"Oh come on," Winter chided, knowing her roommates limits and pushing them, "You know that you would just LOVE to come with us to find Achilles and… Speedy."

"Actually, I'd rather not."

With a shrug, they all respected her wishes.

"Vesta," Rayne said once they were safely in the hall, "I think that the media is using subliminal messages again."

The other girl's eyes widened in what seemed like disbelief. She was probably thinking 'oh no!' or 'how could they!' or 'cool how do I – I mean… nooo!' based on that look that Winter and Rayne saw. Since she didn't answer, Winter got into the conversation.

"What are they doing this time?" she asked. The three of them were now outside the dorm hall and walking down the path. It was still quite early morning, especially for high school students to be up and about, so of course they were the only ones on the path as they got closer to the edge of the campus.

Raynes eyes glittered evilly. "They're telling us to –"

Vesta interrupted the redhead's answer with her squeal. Her face no longer seemed to care about what was going on with the television cult. "Look!" she said, looking ahead of them about 100 meters. Where she was pointing were two boys, about their age, running as if running from the Devil his very self, and they could barely seem to keep on their feet.

The funny thing was, though, that absolutely nothing was behind them at all.

Rayne and Winter watched blank-facedly while Speedy and Achilles bolted towards the three of them; Vesta was grinning.

"Where'd you guys go?" Rayne asked when they were standing in front of them. Standing is an overstatement. They were doubled over at their waists and doing their best to pant in enough air to circulate.

Being as they were slightly out of breath, it took Speedy a moment to answer. "We…(pant, pant) were at the water park… (pant, pant) doing woodworking."

The two inverted to Vesta cracked up. You have to admit; it is funny.

"Hey! That's not fair," Speedy protested, suddenly not seeming so out of breath, righteous… yeah, we'll call it righteous… indignation pushing him forward, "We were hoarded at this table with these two geeks who were like 'blah, blah, blah' and a lot of wood and then there was this big lady who wouldn't let us leave and wouldn't go away and then she LAUGHED AT ME!"

He was furious. Everyone ignored him. For this he seethed even more.

"Dude," Winter pointed out, "Your birdhouse is ace! Wicked!"

"Yeah. It's for Vesta."

The dark boy handed over the equally dark birdhouse to the girl standing in front of him. Well, it wasn't exactly 'dark;' how dark can a birdhouse be, but it wasn't flowery either. Vesta took it with a happy but awed look on her face. Not that she thought the boy's woodworking was spectacular or anything, but she found the action sweet. And the smiley/frowney face on the chimney made her want to crack up.

"Achilles, it's so cool!"

It is still in question whether Achilles meant to follow Geek 1 or Geek 2's theory in this action.

review replies...

xBxMyXJaMeSxDeaNxcandyclouds: by the time you read this school will already be over. Euh… Anyways, I know that I changed it up; but I just couldn't do the planned chapter yet. I'm still teetering on the brink of putting this story in a coma (the first time I wrote this I accidentally typed 'this coma in a story') and working on something else. But, never fear, I probably won't. I am just having one of those days/weeks/moments that you get when you have been up every night of the week till about 1 AM to work on a literary piece other than this fanfiction. Um… Something like that. I think I'm just tired of the late nights this week and the fact that I didn't get this done yet. Oh blah. Knowing you, you probably understood every word I just typed, so I won't even say that you probably didn't understand that but… Oh dear. Soooo… We have to get together as a band and do some practicing. Keep writing songs… and all that jazz. By the way, just so you don't forget (I'm reminding Hillary too!), you two have your intermission on July 7. I know that you won't be around that week, but I still want you and Hill to write it together. Unless you don't want to. Okay. Goodbyes. Love ya!

This is the second half to your review reply review. Thing. I wrote Mo I really long review. If you don't catch who Mo is, look at Golden-Sama's review reply and then you'll get it. I wrote a review for him too… It wasn't quite as long as your review would have been but it was long. Like two full pages or something like that (but it was small font.). It's going to take up a whole page of reviews… Okay, maybe not. I think that it's a competition to see who has the longest with him. And we started it, somehow.

Golden-Sama: Hehe… We are not only stalkers, but guilt trippers as well. I think we're getting good at this game. If you want us to stop bugging you constantly we'll stop. :coughcough: I really don't know what to say right now. It is 9:22 PM but it feels much later. Maybe it's the combined amounts of sleep I've gotten this week. I don't believe I've slept more than 6 hours a night this week – I most certainly have slept LESS than that, though. I wonder if this review reply sounds depressing. Sometimes things, when read by other people, have a different kind of feel than what you were feeling when you wrote it. Like when I write in an Irish accent. Or English. Or Southern. Do you have a southern accent? That was kind of random. So was this whole review reply thing. But, you can't deny it, everyone loves to get really long reviews, review replies, emails, and/or comments on their online journals. :-d. I'll leave you be now.

But only after I'm done saying that I will now call you Mo from now on. Don't ask me why. I like the name Mo. And not Moe, or Mow, but Mo. It kind of rolls off of your lips like… chewing gum. So…. See ya later, Mo!

Tidus'luvr: Don't kill me for not updating Thursday. Or any other day. And don't cut off the circulation to my arm either. (:rubs arm where it is sore:) lol. I promise to change! But it is probably too late to be saying that – by the time this chapter is uploaded and you have read this chapter you will probably have killed me already. I say we kidnap Schnookums and make him appear at our party as a boy-band lover person. (do you notice how long ago I wrote this review reply? It must have been a while…) Grr. I am really dead right now. What should I talk about? Hm. ACHILLES! Did you like Achilles in this chapter? I know that you know that this was supposed to be the church chapter but I couldn't write it today. Or yesterday. Or any day this week. So I just began to write and tried to wing it. Then I had to change the formatting of all the rest of the chapters I had planned. By the way, just so you don't forget (I'm reminded Caitlyn too) your guys' intermission is July 7. :-d TTYL – LOVE YA!

Rose: I only saw Halloweentown once... but that was a while ago. I remember when I saw it i was at some girl's birthday party and I was TERRIFIED all night. I was only six or seven, but I still find it hillarious when I think about it now. lol. Sorry I skipped a week, but I'm going to try to update twice next week to get back on track. Shh. Just don't tell anybody. :-d

scathac's warrior: heh, heh... Sorry it took so long, lol... I have had a lot on my plate of life food. Okay, so that's a really, really bad excuse but i had to say it because it popped into my head and I was like... YEAH! Um, I had ramen noodles for lunch. The first time I've had them in a while, actually. Do you ever go to tvtome? I suddenly hate it. They reformatted it, and its no longer tvtome and its CONFUZZLING! argh. Just had to rant about that a bit... I love to rant to people randomly and they usually have no clue why I'm mumbling to them... :-d

TTHPfan: You know what?I despise pop ups, but I can't block them because then the stupid pop up blocker blocks self induced pop ups such as sites that pop up into separate windows and reviewing boxes on FFn. Argh. It's a double edged sword. I wish I could sneak out and use the computer at night, but since my mummy and my stepdad got married and I moved in with him we no longer have a computer for the kids and a computer in my mom's room; it's all in the living room and it's my stepdad's. SO if i want to use itI have to ask him and he has to put in the password for his computer. He has a very fragile harddrive and doesn't want us killing it. Have you ever noticed that about Dell computers? The fact that they basically suck? lol... stupid bill gates :-p Life DOES go by fast. I have been saying that all year. This year has been the fastest year I have ever had to go through, and it's been the best. I can't decide whether that's because I was having fun or because I'm just getting older. My mum tells me often that it just gets faster... oh deary. YES! The idea that you have of working for the people who work for Teen Titans is excellent! Even though right now I mostly hate DC Comics (for reasons I will explain if you wish) it would be so cool to know someone who worked there. Anyways, I am going to update this now, but I hope you read and review in the future:-d

Sneaky Peaky: "Chapter Thirteen"
Victor stood up as straight as his back could hold him, singing out the notes with the choir. The only problem was – well – he was holding his hymnal upside down. And the words looked as if they were in a different language to him.
"La, la, la, I don't speak Latin, or Filipino or Japanese - but, wait a sec," he listened to the choir for a moment, before 'catching on,' "I once was on lost, but now they're cancelled. Was white but now I'm green!"