WARRIORS HIGH
ISLAND OF THE LOST
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE SOCIETY OF LIARS
"Nothing?!"
"Cut me a break, man!" said Sunfield on the other end, "It's like they were tailored to avoid everyone! They're ghosts between classes and they never eat lunch in the same place! I've only seen them at lunch once!"
Fang frustratedly massaged his brow. "Well, surely they have friends, right? They can't possibly be that inconspicuous!"
"Well, there's this one guy…"
"Who?! What's his name? Where does he live? Are you friends with him yet?"
"Fang, I'm hanging up."
"DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE HANG UP ON ME!" he roared into the phone amid Sunfield's snickers, "Who is the boy?"
"Don't know," the boy said nonchalantly, "All I know is that he eats outside and is in Advanced Band or something."
Sunfield was met with silence on the other end.
"Fang?"
"You're free after school, right?"
"NO!" shouted the boy, "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NONONONONONONONONONONONO-"
"Come on," said Fang, a smirk slipping through a corner of his mouth, "You work at a record store! It shouldn't be too hard."
"That doesn't make a difference! I've never picked up an instrument! Don't do this to meeeeeee."
"I'm hanging up, Sunfield."
"WAIT! PLEASE! NO-"
Fang hung up, a grin slipping through. He had finally found a way to get even with the annoying smiler.
"You seem thrilled," said Lostface, sitting down across from him with a bottle of whiskey and pouring generous portions into two large glasses.
"I think I may have finally gotten the direness of the situation through to the boy," said the brute, gulping down a third of his drink in one sip.
"Jesus, man," said the lady, guzzling down her drink, "Why is striking fear into the boy's heart one of your life goals."
"It's not," he said, taking another sip, "Just...think of it as a prized side quest. The faster he sees how shitty the world is, the faster he can actually become a real agent. The last thing I want is him getting shot in a firefight where he brought glitter, sunshine and rainbows."
"Fair enough," she responded, finishing her drink, "But why are you the one feeling obligated to make him see the world as a dark place?"
"The quicker he sees straight, the better," he said, "The last thing everyone wants is for him to turn out like me."
"Yes, the strong, respected and feared brute who can absorb three bullets without death, crack a man's skull with one swing and even had an affair with the queen for, like, a month."
"It wasn't an affair! I knew her long before she became queen!" he shot back irritably.
"Sure, sure. So what do you call that time period where you two had sex twice a day for four weeks?"
"That's irrelevant," snapped Fang, finishing his drink to hide his blush, "The point is that I grew up like him, thinking the world was just sunshine, lollipops and rainbows until my mom dies, my brother tries to kill me and I was kicked to the streets of London to fend for myself. I don't want him to go through that shit! I wouldn't wish that fate on my worst enemy!"
"Not even your brother?"
"Okay fine, but besides him…"
"Alright, you've made your point," she shrugged, refilling her glass and draining it in two gulps.
"Are you jealous?"
Lostface raised an eyebrow. "What?"
Fang held a cocky smirk. "Let's be real. You wanted a piece of me when Poppy and I first made camp here. You jealous that she got to me first?"
Lostface flung the almost empty bottle at his face, which fang caught with one hand and drained the rest. "You didn't answer my question."
Lostface smirked. "You're lucky the queen still keeps you around."
Fang grinned. "I know."
"I...was," she said, her intoxication taking the lead, "Before Cloudtail was killed in Iraq, I was in an area of...sexual distress, you might call it. For weeks, all I wanted was dick, and your arrival with Poppyfrost didn't help at all. Then, when I found out Cloudtail was dead, I took a chastity oath and I got over it."
"Ah yes. The ultimate turnoff for all drunk, flirtatious men."
"Eh. You'd be surprised. There are some people with really fucked up kinks."
"Oh, I know."
Fang stopped when he heard a small beeping. He looked down to see his watch beeping red.
"What is it?"
Fang's eyes widened.
"Intruder."
"HELP!" shouted a man from across the marketplace, "SOMEONE HELP! PLEASE!"
Instantly, the pair was sober. Fang flipped on his brass knuckles and Lostface locked and loaded her six-shooter as they raced across the main street, where the crowd circled around what looked to be a man holding an unconscious person.
"MOVE!" shouted Fang, shoving people aside and standing threateningly over the man, who had messy, dirty black hair and a goatee, holding an unconscious woman, a couple of dirty towels being the only thing protecting her modesty.
"Who are you?" growled Fang as Lostface aimed at the man's head, "How did you get here?"
"Please," whimpered the man, not hesitating to throw himself down to their mercy, "You need to help us. She-"
"Fang," rasped Lostface, suddenly on edge, "Do you smell that?"
Fang stopped.
Oh God.
Emanating from the girl wasn't just body odor.
It was semen.
"You...you better not be lying…" he growled.
The man's eyes ignited in raw fury. "WHY THE HELL WOULD I LIE ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!"
"Fang," growled the woman, "Regardless of if he's lying, we can't risk throwing her out."
Fang was still on the fence.
But this girl's life was more important than how much Poppyfrost was going to kill him for this.
"Get her inside," he ordered Lostface, who nodded and helped lift the limp teenager in the direction of the throne room.
"BACK TO WORK!" he snapped at the bystanders, who scurried away to their shops as he followed their unwelcome guests inside.
Though Fang couldn't shake the feeling that by taking them in, he was pulling everyone down into something much bigger.
"JESUS CHRIST!" shouted Foxleap, who looked about ready to pass out, "YOU'VE KEPT ME UP FOR ALMOST THE WHOLE NIGHT! CAN I GO TO BED YET!"
"NOT YET!" shouted back Jaywhisker, in a frenzy as he drained his third can of Irish whiskey and typed commands into his computer at the speed of light. "Okay, one of the post-it notes have numbers saying what the 'master hinges' are. Can you read them out to me?"
Foxleap honestly didn't give a shit, grabbing a post-it note at random. "Okay, uh, 45, 84, 22, 15, 70, 43 and 66."
"No no no!" said Jaywhisker, sprinting over the exhausted inventor, "Those are the component attachers. Were you even listening to me?"
"I sure hope not." muttered the redhead as Jaywhisker erratically sifted through the hundreds of post-its on the wall next to the chair Foxleap was about to call his bed for the night. After about forty-five seconds of searching, he ripped a post-it near the ceiling off. "GOT IT!"
He sprinted back to his computer, read the numbers for about a third of a second and after four tries, typed in a command and sent it.
The power glove-esque module closed in, resembling the shape of the iron gauntlet from Endgame. "YES!" shouted the boy with inhumane enthusiasm, "FOXLEAP! GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE! WE'RE ALMOST THERE!"
Foxleap groaned and shuffled over. Whoever this side of Jaywhisker was, he definitely was not a fan of it.
"Okay, I need you to type in this command just as I say it."
He spoke a forty word command that Foxleap did not process. "What the hell are you saying?" he said drowsily.
"YOU SAID YOU WERE GOOD WITH COMPUTERS!" he shouted indignantly, shoving him aside and typing in the command himself.
"CAN YOU PLEASE STOP SHOUTING?!" screamed Foxleap.
"NOT WHEN I'M THIS CLOSE!" he shouted back, finishing the command for him before sticking his hand into the glove. "Okay! SEND IT!"
Foxleap pressed enter and the glove closed around Jaywhisker's hand and wrist. "Okay," said the boy, "Type in 'sys:unlock/bm."
After twenty unnecessarily tense seconds, Foxleap finished and sent in the command.
Cautiously, Jaywhisker flexed his hand.
The glove moved with his fingers perfectly.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" he shouted, "Now, type in 'sys:start!'"
Now Foxleap was awake.
Was this kid really onto something?
He sent the command and heard a loud whirring from the glove. "Now what?" he said, prepared to be engaged in this.
"Duck."
"What? AAH!"
The redhead barely had time to duck as Jaywhisker fired an energy beam straight above him and into the wall, with Newton's 3rd Law flinging him back ten feet onto his back.
Both inventors got to their feet and saw a large stone-size hole in the back wall where the blast went through. The wall was busted and the hole would take a contractor to replace, but at the moment, that was the topic of the least concern.
Foxleap turned and stared in jealous awe at the boy, who stared at his masterpiece in drunk shock.
"YES!" he shouted, pumping his half-armored fists, "YESYESYESYESYESYESYEEEEEEEEEEEEHEHEEEEEES! I DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID IT!"
Foxleap just sat quietly as the boy very slowly brought himself back to his senses.
"Hah...hah...hah…" panted the boy after about ten minutes of basking in his victories. "What...what time is it?"
Foxleap checked his watch. "Uh...just after five in the morning."
"Okay...so how long have I been up?"
"Well, you started building this thing around midnight yesterday, so...thirty hours?"
"Wow...I've never been this productive in that timespan since...ever. Thank God for alcohol."
"Context, please."
"I dunno, man. My mind just...works better when I'm drunk. I've never been able to think so fast and so well before."
"That's...not good."
"Why not?"
Foxleap looked at him as he sat up. "Ever heard of an alcohol overdose?"
"Okay, sure," he said, holding up his new creation, "But look at what I just made! Think of all the great things I can do like this! I can build this suit by the end of the week! I can BUILD THAT HELLBAT ARMOR IN A COUPLE NIGHTS! I CAN BRING DOWN ARS IN A SINGLE DAY. WITH MY OWN. TWO. HANDS!"
"I'm not gonna get through to you," muttered Foxleap, getting up and stumbling to his bedroom, "Go to bed."
"You're not my dad!"
"I MIGHT AS WELL BE!" he snapped back, slamming the door behind him.
Jaywhisker got to his feet, ready to get the glove off and hit the hay, until…
The left hand wasn't that hard to build. Hell, he had all the parts he needed to build the second hand right here, right now.
Jaywhisker unequipped his glove, made a copy of the code file and got to work. He wasn't going to be sleeping today.
"Alright," said Sky, "I'm going in."
"Don't fuck this up," said Garrison through her earpiece embedded inside her right ear.
"Thank you, commander. Your faithful words are truly what keep me going."
She walked in through the fancy oak double doors.
It was the most Gatsby party she had ever seen. Expensive dresses, ecstatic couples, exotic buffet, everything needed to paint a portrait of the Roaring 20s on the expensive side of New York City.
She didn't like it here.
But nobody could know that. This was a rich man's party, after all.
As she was observing her surroundings, a drunk man stumbled up to her left and gratuitously groped her ass. It took an elbow to the chest and an unfortunate timing for his wife to turn around to shove him away.
She swallowed back the intense urge to whip out the switchblade strapped to the back of her bra and stab the life, hope and dreams of the pretentious prick. She needed to remain calm. The faster this was done, the quicker she got out.
After grabbing a shallowly filled wine glass of champagne from one of the finely dressed waiters, she spotted Firestar, shaking hands with a man with aged, blond-blue hair with glasses.
The obstacle.
"Come now, Firestar," said the elderly man, "When children have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong."
"Yes, I suppose so," said the leader, subtly giving away how uncomfortable he was, "Give my regards to the staff…"
The staff.
She had found their target.
The two broke apart as Sky signaled Garrison. "I got him. He's heading to the east wing."
"On it."
Now to get to Firestar.
"Oh hello, Firestar!" she said, faking a genuine smile smoothly, "You don't know how much of an honor it is to meet you!"
FIrestar's smile seemed to decay a bit, until it felt like a formality. "On the contrary, you don't know how much of an honor it is for ME to meet people like you. If it weren't for the people, Forrestlake would never be where it is today."
He had just lied to her face with a smile.
By God, he really was a politician.
"Well, no need for flattery! Otherwise we'll all faint before we get to the voting booths!"
Firestar covered up his uncomfortability with a couple forced chuckles.
"Now, how is your wife...Mrs. Sandstorm these days?"
"Ah well," he said, shrugging, "All of these charities and galas certainly...work her sleep schedule to the extreme. She's at home, taking a much-needed rest."
"Yes, yes," said Sky, straightening, "After all, a man without his wife is surely going to find himself in heaps of trouble if they are not careful."
Firestar's smile started to slip as she moved to talk nearer to his ear. "You...definitely need the right people by your side to maintain status quo."
"Or…" she whispered, "Is that really what you want, Mr. Firestar?"
The delivery was so quiet and so subtle that Firestar froze for a moment to process it. But after a moment, he fixed himself up. "I should be going. Have a lot more guests to greet."
"As good hosts should," said Sky, shaking his hand, "It was a pleasure meeting you, sir."
"Same to you, Ms…"
"Brazelton. Ms. Brazelton."
Firestar walked away while Sky showed a smirk for the moments she could.
There was no greater pleasure in this world than scaring the liars that led them.
A conversation between liars.
Among a society of liars.
"Alright," said Sky, "I'm going in."
Though there was no answer, Sky assumed he had heard the update.
She crossed the room, shooting down flirtatious looks as she moved to the other side of the great hall, stumbling more and more until she propped herself up against the wall.
"Oh, miss!" said Crookedstar, who happened to be the nearest, "Are you alright?"
"Yep!" she said, grabbing his shoulder, "Just...a little much to drink."
"Can you stand?"
"I...guess not. Uh...do you mind calling a cab?"
"Sure! Uh...let's just get you outside and I'll make the call."
"Thank you," said said, "Thank you."
Five minutes later, she was seated on a
bench right outside the party house while Crookedstar waved to the black Uber pulling up the valet circle. He rushed to Sky to help her up as the car came to a stop and the passenger window rolled down.
"Do you need help?"
"That won't be necessary."
Crookedstar's eyes widened as Sky stood up under her own power.
"Good evening, you two," said Garrison from the driver's seat, "I'll be your chauffeur for the night.
Crookedstar had no time to react before Garrison fired a tranq dart into his stomach.
Seconds later, he was out cold.
After laying him down in the backseat, Sky slipped in the passenger side and fastened her seatbelt as Garrison pulled away.
"Unfreezing the cameras in 3...2...1…"
Moments later, the four cameras around them that could have seen the kidnapping were back on real-time, erasing all security evidence that they had been out here in the first place.
"So," said Garrison, pulling onto the interstate, "Did you enjoy the party?"
Sky glared maliciously, slipping on her mask.
"I cannot wait to burn this entire place to the ground."
A wise man once said that the only party you can safely make fun of is the rich.
I don't know who that man was, but damn was he right.
But Sky now has her second victim. What's she gonna do with him? Well, nothing good, but likely nothing as serious as...um...the other thing.
But I am SET for Jaywhisker for the next...many chapters. He's going CRAZY. Think of him as Wade from Kim Possible crossed with Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor.
Not his performance of Lex Luthor itself, but more of the idea to make him Lex Luthor in the first place.
Sorry not sorry.
And if I screwed up Sunfield, Jay, I apologize. It's just...he's necessary, but really happy characters are not my cup of tea. You've probably figured that out by now.
Next chapter, Sunfield prepares to join band (against his will) and meets Dusty and more Coalstrike and Ashtooth. Haven't used those two in a while, so why not show you some backstory?
Or to put it better, why not show you shades of how dark I can possibly be?
Heeheehee. :)
Best,
~Res