Author's Note: I can't believe how long it took me to write this! Anyway, here is the next chapter. I want to thank those that favorited and followed this, since you inspired me to finish this. I also want to thank those that reviewed the first two chapters, since I was also thinking of you when I wrote this.
Chapter Four: New Discoveries
Wally had brushed aside Baby Tooth's concerns, but he had to know. His world was always the same - filled with garbage and loneliness. But this noise he had heard was something different. Of course, he had to see what it was. He walked at a fast pace, but hopefully not too fast. The last thing he wanted to do was trigger another asthma attack. He paused as he looked around, the rumbling noise had taken him to a large clearing. He furrowed his brow, since he didn't see anything out of the ordinary..
..Wait!
Wally squinted behind his shades as he looked out into the clearing. What were those red things? His eyes lit up as he looked at them and without another thought he rushed right out into the clearing. Baby Tooth chirped in alarm and quickly followed after Wally.
"Look!" Wally called out happily to Baby Tooth, as he pointed at the red things. They were small and circular and seemed to be forming a ring around him that was getting smaller.
The rumbling noise was also becoming deafening, as if something was drawing closer. Baby Tooth landed on Wally's shoulder and looked around at the tightening circle of red dots in concern -
- and then she looked up.
What she saw caused her to squawk in alarm, and she tugged harshly on the collar of Wally's uniform.
"Huh?" Wally asked, but then he noticed she was gazing upwards in terror, and he too, looked up.
Wally cried out as what he saw was terrifying. Some giant thing was headed right for him!
Without another thought, Wally ran and dove for cover behind a pile of garbage that was just big enough to hide himself. He patted his chest and took a hit from his inhaler as the wind picked up and the rumbling noise became unbearably loud. When the noise settled down, Wally peeked out from behind the garbage pile while Baby Tooth squeaked in protest. She was still tugging on Wally's collar a bit, since as far as she was concerned, Wally should get out of there now.
Wally, however, was too curious to leave. He was gazing at this large white thing, that almost looked familiar to him. It looked a little like a smaller version of the thingies he had seen in the hologram ads.. Sort of. His eyes widened when he saw a hatch open in the large white thing.
Wow!
"What is going on?" a testy voice asked from the shadows and Baby Tooth looked down to see a pair of golden eyes glaring up at her.
Omigosh! she cried out, It's Pitch!
Unfortunately, to Wally (and also Pitch), it just sounded like a high pitched panicked chirping.
"Oh, it's you," Pitch commented in a bored tone when he saw Baby Tooth freaking out on Wally's shoulder. "Oh knock it off," Pitch added irritably. "You're behind the times."
Wally glanced down at the golden eyes, which were in the shadow of the garbage pile.
"There's a big thing," he whispered in a raspy voice to Pitch. "It came out of the sky."
"What?" Pitch asked in confusion. "Impossible!"
The golden eyes vanished from their spot, presumably to get a better look at whatever the big white thing was. Wally continued to peek out at it from his spot, and he was surprised to see two men dressed in white uniforms help lower a large pod down to the ground with the help of a large robot arm.
"Ugh, why don't we get to be in stasis too?" one man complained to the other.
The other man turned to his companion with a shrug.
"Not important enough? You know the scouts get frozen to prevent unnecessary aging from all the space travel," the second man said.
"Exactly!" the first man complained. "You know how much all this travel has aged me?"
The second man shook his head and pointed down at the pod.
"Well, old man, you can go wake her up. I'll get the ship ready for takeoff as soon as she's clear," the second man said.
"Fine," the first man grumbled.
The man climbed down a ramp that had come out from the ship and walked over to the big white pod. He popped open a small panel on it and pressed some buttons. There was a hissing noise and the front of the pod slowly opened up, releasing a strange mist.
"You know your job," the man said to whatever was inside the pod. "Do your duty and no goofing off. You might be the youngest scout, but that doesn't mean you can neglect your duties."
With that, the man walked back to the ship and boarded it with his companion. The ramp went back up into the ship and the hatch closed. The sound of the engines, which had died down when the ship landed suddenly amped back up again and the noise was quickly becoming deafening.
A girl sat up in the pod, and Wally couldn't help but stare at her. As she stood, he saw that she was wearing a white uniform as well, but hers was different from the men's. Her's was nearly skintight while their's had clearly been made out of cloth of some sort and was a bit looser. The girl's uniform must have been made to be tougher but Wally didn't much care.
For the first time in forever, he had seen people.
Pitch had been waiting for hours for Wally to return! The pot had boiled itself sufficiently, and he had barely managed to turn off the hotplate on his own. Where had that child gotten to?
He had grumbled to himself for what felt like forever before he felt a large surge of fear. It was joined by another surge of fear and this confused him, since.. wasn't Wally all alone?
It took him a moment to remember that the Guardians had mentioned that.. that.. fairy was on her way back to Wally. Obviously she must have found him.
Now what were they up to?
He concentrated on the fear, but he couldn't get much of a coherent thought from it. The fear was just a jumbled mix, which sometimes happened when the person was too afraid to form a coherent thought. Pitch didn't want to think what would happen to Wally to make him that afraid.
He concentrated harder on the fear..
Where was it...
..There!
And like a flash, the golden eyes disappeared from their shadow.
Pitch had appeared in a shadow near where all the fear had been coming from to see Wally and that annoying little fairy. The fairy nearly had a heart attack when she spotted him, but he had other things on his mind. After the golden eyes had snapped irritably at her, they had vanished into the shadow of the spaceship. Over the last of the rumbles and machinery, Pitch had overheard the conversation between the two men and his heart had nearly stopped.
Were the people coming back?
After all this time?
But no, that didn't make any sense! The world wasn't habitable yet. Then he heard them say something about a scout and Pitch nodded to himself. Obviously they had sent someone to survey the land for some reason. Were the people who had cruelly left and abandoned their workers to an inhabitable place thinking of returning?
Pitch nearly scoffed at such a notion, but he stopped himself. He didn't want to see if these men could hear him or not. When he heard them mention something about leaving, the golden eyes returned to their spot by Wally and Baby Tooth.
If the people of Earth were going to return, they had a lot to make up for to little Wally, Pitch decided.
Wally watched the girl sit up and yawn and a big, goofy smile stretched across his face. He couldn't believe it, but here was another person. After all these years!
The girl meanwhile, rubbed her eyes tiredly and got out from the pod. She looked around with a frown on her face, but she didn't spot anything out of the ordinary. Her black hair was cut into a short bob that was shorter in the back. Her hair went down at a sharp angle that reached her chin that was good for space travel. She tucked some of her hair behind her ear as she dug around in the pod and came up with a small pack. It was white like the rest of her outfit, with black straps. She opened it to pull out what looked like two clip-on earphones of some sort. They were black and white, and she easily put them on over her ears. Then she pressed on the side of one, and a dark holographic visor appeared to cover her icy blue eyes.
Apparently having everything she needed, she closed the pod and hurried a good distance away from the ship. When she waved, the ship noisily took off. In a few minutes the ship had blasted off into space and the girl was left all alone. In the noise of takeoff, Wally tried hard not to cough too much, but the dust that was blown up was making his asthma act up. He took another hit of his inhaler and by the time the ship had left, his breathing had settled back down.
As Wally continued to peek out at the girl, he saw that it looked like she was a few years older than him. He could tell she wasn't an adult yet, not like those two guys that had been in the ship. His emerald eyes shone with an intense curiosity behind his shades and just as he was about ready to stand and say hello, all the dust that had been flying around finally got to him, and he sneezed.
It wasn't a particularly loud sneeze, but the silence that was left after the ship departed was deafening and his sneeze sounded much louder because of it.
Like a flash, the girl whipped out a hi-tech looking gun that had been holstered at her side. It was white like the rest of her uniform and therefore easily missed. If it hadn't been for Pitch grabbing Wally at the last second and pulling him to the ground, Wally's light might have been obliterated off the globe. Wally stared up at the trash pile that now had a melted, smoking hole right where his head had been with wide eyes.
He looked from the hole to the golden eyes which had reappeared once Pitch's hand had disappeared back into the shadows. The golden eyes were narrowed, but it was difficult to tell if it was in concern or not. Apparently Pitch wasn't going to encourage more violence from the girl by saying anything, on the off chance she could hear him. Poor Baby Tooth was huddled in the collar of Wally's coverall and was trembling in fear. She too, didn't dare to make a sound.
After a moment of just lying there, Wally heard the girl start moving again, and he very, very quietly got back up to his knees as he dared to peek around the edge of the trash pile. He saw the girl had stopped looking over at him and had holstered her gun again. She pulled her pack off again to pull out a small holographic square of some sort before she put her pack back on. She aimed it at a random patch of soil and pressed something on it. The screen lit up with "SCANNING" and a wide blue beam shot out from the square to shine on the patch of ground it was pointed at.
The girl sighed when "NEGATIVE" popped up on her scanner, and she looked around at all the... nothing. She scowled again and kicked at a small rock before she tucked her scanner away into a pocket that was on her belt. Wally lit up at that, because she was just like him! She had a tool belt too! Then he gave a huge gasp (that thankfully went unheard) as she pressed a hidden button on her belt, and she started to fly up into the air. Apparently her boots and pack had small jets on them that enabled her to fly.
And like a shot, she zoomed off into the air to go explore the area.
Wally stared at the white trails left behind from her flying in awe.
"Wow," he whispered.
Pitch meanwhile was muttering something about trigger-happy psychos and didn't seem to share Wally's enthusiasm even a little.
"C'mon!" Wally called out to Baby Tooth and Pitch as he stood and started to hurry off after the girl.
Pitch had been busy grumbling and had missed what Wally said, but he groaned when he saw the boy take off running.
"Wait!" Pitch called out after Wally, but Wally didn't want to listen.
Pitch grumbled something about children with a death wish and his golden eyes disappeared from the shadow, to flit from shadow to shadow to follow after Wally.
Jack grinned as he surveyed his handiwork. Sandy was doubled over laughing in a silent fit of giggles and Jack wasn't far from joining him. He had made an ice figurine of himself with his hands by his ears and appeared to be in the middle of going "Nyah nyah na nyah nyah!" with his tongue sticking out and had placed said figurine on Bunny's little head. He had also given Bunny an ice mustache, just because.
For North, he'd placed a big, icy Easter egg in his lap that had "Easter rules!" in a delicate icy script on it and for Tooth he'd given her a pile of icy candy and what appeared to be an icy candy necklace. Sandy had been particularly amused by what Jack had done to Bunny and had paused in his silent laughing long enough to go fetch an old polaroid camera (who knew why North still bothered to have that around the workshop) and took several pictures for posterity.
Jack and Sandy were so busy laughing at the unconscious Guardians that they never noticed little Wally's light growing inexplicably brighter - the brightest it had ever been.
Wally spent most of the rest of the day chasing after the increasingly frustrated girl. She seemed intent on using her square thing to shine its light onto things, but Wally wasn't exactly sure why. The tool she was using wasn't one that Wally had to use in his daily life, really, so he didn't know what it was. He could guess though, and he guessed it was a scanner of some sort. What she was scanning for, however, he had no idea. Wally was just so excited at the thought he wasn't all alone anymore that he couldn't help but follow this girl around.
Wally had to use his inhaler a few times, since running or moving so quickly wasn't very good for his asthma, but he considered it worth it just to keep following this girl. He was bright-eyed and had the biggest smile on his face that Baby Tooth had ever seen. It had taken a long time for her to stop shivering under the collar of Wally's coveralls, but she had finally come out to fly near Wally. She still didn't dare to make any noise though.
Wally, too, had been keeping his distance. Mostly because his asthma was making him wheeze more, and he didn't want the noise attracting the girl's attention. While he wanted to follow her around, he was also a bit scared of her since she almost killed him. That still didn't stop him from following her around though.
As the girl stopped to shine her light onto things, Wally grew braver and silently crept closer to her while keeping hidden behind the piles of trash. Baby Tooth, her wings growing tired, had landed on Wally's shoulder for a bit and cocked her head curiously at the girl, wondering for the umpteenth time what this girl was doing on Earth. After all these years, why was she here now?
While Wally hid behind a pile of trash to spy on Eve, a pair of golden eyes appeared in a nearby shadow. The eyes had finally dared to break the silence to start to hiss at Wally for how foolish he was being in following this - this psycho, but that was as far as he got.
The girl had whirled around as soon as Pitch started to speak and before anyone knew it, she had pulled out her gun and had obliterated the trash pile that Wally had been hiding behind. Once the smoke cleared, Wally stood there trembling, but a terrified squeak from his collar spurred Wally into trying to run away and hide. Wally might have been curious about her, but he didn't have a death wish!
Unfortunately, every trash pile he tried to hide behind was blasted out of existence before he even reached it, until he was left trembling near the smoking remains with nowhere at all to hide. The girl had her gun pointed at Wally and unable to stand the overwhelming fear he felt, Wally crouched down and covered his head. The golden eyes had appeared in Wally's shadow, but had soon disappeared to reveal gray fingers inching out.
Pitch didn't care if he didn't have the energy for this, he wasn't about to leave Wally to get killed by some lunatic. Just as the fingers were about to reach Wally's pants, the girl's voice caused him to pause.
"Who are you?" the girl demanded harshly, her voice steady and commanding.
Wally didn't dare answer, he just continued trembling like a leaf. He was certain the girl was going to blast him right out of existence too!
"Who are you?" the girl repeated in the same harsh tone, but Wally was too frightened to say anything.
Eve stared at Wally for a long moment in consideration. She held out her little square and the light shined onto him, but it quickly came back as "NEGATIVE," as she suspected. She turned away from him in derision and began to move off to go find other things to scan.
She couldn't help but glance back at him though.. She had been told this planet was completely uninhabitable.
So why was there a person here?
It was a long time before Wally was finally able to push the blind panic he'd felt down and uncurled himself from his little ball. He gingerly stood and looked around to see if he could spot the girl anywhere. He couldn't immediately see her, but he could hear the sounds of her flying around and his face lit up.
"Are you done with this insanity yet?" a golden pair of eyes drawled from a nearby shadow.
Wally glanced at them in surprise.
"You almost died, you know," the eyes said conversationally.
Wally tilted his head. Did he hear a tremor? Was.. Was the Boogeyman scared?
Wally looked at the eyes in consideration.
...Nah.
It was probably just his imagination.
"It's a person," Wally told the eyes as if that explained everything.
And in a way, it had.
Poor little Wally had been alone for so long that any sign of people had him following after this girl, even if she was a bit trigger-happy. He couldn't help it. He couldn't just pretend that she hadn't come to their world at all.
That still didn't stop Pitch from his long-suffering sigh as Wally hurried off to go find the girl again.
This was going to be a very long day.
Pitch was right, it was a very long day. He found himself unable to leave Wally alone, for fear he'd do something stupid again and incur the girl's murderous wrath. He did not have such a hellish night last night for nothing!
So he found himself flitting from shadow to shadow following after Wally, who was following Eve like a lost puppy. It was somewhat sad, and nothing he said to Wally would get the boy to stop.
Finally, when the sun had dipped low into the sky, the girl had stopped her search for whatever she was searching for and had returned to where the white pod had been. It was in the open, and she'd easily be able to see if anything tried to approach her from there.
Wally was crouched low behind the somewhat melted pile of trash he'd been hiding behind before as the girl dug around in her pack. She produced a small cube and carelessly tossed it to the ground. To Wally's (and Pitch's, although he'd never admit to it) amazement, the cube instantly sprung up into a small tent. The outside was hard and very resistant to numerous things.
Wally startled when small holes opened up at the four corners and sides of the tent and metal ropes of some sort flew out. They had sharp spikes on the end and the spikes drove themselves deep into the ground, their metal ropes taught.
The girl walked around the tent and kicked at one of the spikes. Apparently satisfied, she touched a hidden button on the front of the tent. To Wally's amazement, a half-circle appeared on the front of the tent next to where the girl had pushed and it smoothly went to the side, leaving an opening on the front of the tent. The girl looked completely unsurprised at this and crawled inside. As soon as she was inside, the half-circle slid closed and then seemed to vanish. It looked indistinguishable from the rest of the tent.
Wally stared at the strange contraption that the girl had crawled into for a long moment. He could hear faint noises coming from inside, so the girl must be doing something in there.
But what?
Wally carefully stood from behind the trash pile and to Pitch's utter dismay he began to walk towards the tent. Baby Tooth, who'd been following Wally the entire day chirped softly in concern from Wally's shoulder, where she'd settled down when Wally had hidden behind the trash.
Wally glanced at her and placed a finger to his lips. They had to be stealthy.
Baby Tooth's eyes went wide and she instantly stopped chirping as she remembered what had happened earlier that day. Pitch, from his spot further back in the shadows, noticed this and rolled his eyes.
It wasn't like the girl could hear them!
She could only hear Wally, right..?
But...
Then why did she hear Pitch earlier, when he was talking to Wally?
Pitch puzzled over this, but could only come up with one answer to this. However, since this girl was clearly insane, it wasn't a theory that he'd care to test. The golden eyes watched Wally thoughtfully as Wally snuck up to the tent with the insufferable fairy.
Perhaps he could see about things later that night.
With a satisfied smirk, Pitch watched and waited.
As the sun began to set, Wally snuck right up to the tent. He remembered when he was younger and things.. weren't so great, and out of desperation some people had resorted to using tents.
He shivered as he tried to push those unpleasant thoughts away.
No.. tents couldn't stand up to the ferocious sandstorms that would come out of nowhere. With this in mind, he gently placed a hand flat to the surface of the tent and was surprised by how firm and hard it felt.
Maybe this could stand up to the storms?
Wally examined the tent further, but couldn't find much of anything else to investigate about it. Baby Tooth glanced at Wally from her perch on his shoulder, but she didn't dare say anything to him.
Wally frowned a little as he stared at the tent in consternation. The girl had seemed so mad whenever she had seen him. What could he do to make her happy?
Wally's eyes lit up as he had a light bulb moment. Baby Tooth looked a little worried at the impish grin that was shot her way as Wally stealthily hurried off.
A pair of golden eyes watched Wally scurry away briefly, but opted to stay where they were, spying on the tent.
It would only be a matter of time.
As soon as Wally got far enough away, he slowed down to cough. He wasn't surprised at this, since he'd been battling with his asthma all day - doing far too much had caused him to stop frequently to use his inhaler. Baby Tooth gave Wally a concerned chirp, but Wally ignored it in favor of using his inhaler.
He patted his chest as he caught his breath and smiled at Baby Tooth reassuringly.
"I'm okay," he told her with his quiet, raspy voice.
Wally looked around where they were and took note of the few trashy landmarks that could be seen - it would be difficult to find if he wanted to wander back later that night. Then he remembered his poor wagon with a pang of regret and a grimace. He hated wandering around in the dark, but he had to grab it! Anything could happen to it out in the open and then what would he do? He'd be so lost without his wagon or the miniature trash compactor.
With a look of determination, Wally headed back to where he'd last been. He was going to have a really long night - not that he minded, because he couldn't wait until the morning to see what the girl would make of his surprise.
He grinned to himself as he thought of her reaction and continued to hurry back to his wagon.
A little while later, when darkness had completely fallen, Pitch dared to wander a little closer to the tent. The faint noises that could be heard from inside had stopped and now all was quiet. He wondered vaguely what little Wally was doing, and decided (or more like hoped) that Wally was probably back at the truck getting ready for bed. Perhaps watching one of his treasured videos that he liked so much.
As the eyes appeared right in the shadow of the tent, he waited tensely for any sort of sound but couldn't hear anything. He supposed this was a good sign, but he couldn't help but be cautious. After all, the girl was clearly very dangerous and armed. It wouldn't be fun for even the Boogeyman to be shot right in the eyes.
The golden eyes disappeared from the shadow and appeared inside the tent in a small shadow created from the girl's pack that she'd left leaning against the side of the tent near where she slept. Pitch could see her hair peeking out from what appeared to be some sort sleeping bag. It was very dark inside the tent but that suited him just fine.
He watched her and then paused - he remembered the accusation earlier from the Guardians that he'd been giving Wally nightmares, but the truth was that he hadn't actually given anyone nightmares in years.
Could he remember how to do it?
He couldn't help but grimace at the implications of that thought.
He was the Boogeyman!
What sort of spirit was he, if he couldn't even remember how to do his job?
Inwardly grumbling at himself, the golden eyes vanished and reappeared in a smaller shadow of the girl's boots, which were slightly closer to the sleeping bag than the pack.
Pitch marshaled what was left of his strength and then reached out to the girl with his powers.
The next morning came far too quickly for Wally's liking, as he tiredly sat behind a trash pile while he watched the tent that the girl was still inside of. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon when the door to the tent suddenly opened. The girl was about to step outside when she heard a strange sound and saw a piece of paper flutter to the ground.
She realized it must have been stuck to the door of her tent somehow, and she narrowed her eyes at it suspiciously before she bent down to pick it up. She stared at it for a long moment as she studied it.
Wally perked up as he saw the girl looking at his drawing. Did she like it?
The drawing on the paper was extremely childish (and done in crayon), but there was no mistaking the figure with the black hair and blue eyes. Next to the figure was another one with blond hair and dark green eyes. The two figures appeared to be holding hands and had big smiles on their faces.
Below the two figures was a word that was scrawled inexpertly, looking almost as if the letters had been copied from somewhere.
The girl almost glared at the word "Friends" that was below the two figures and carelessly tossed the paper aside. She had more important things to do!
Wally visibly deflated when the girl tossed aside his drawing. He'd spent forever working on it. Why didn't she like it?
...Why didn't she like him?
A pair of golden eyes winced at the light that was beginning to fill the tent and uttered a small sigh of relief when the door closed. Last night had been a complete disappointment to Pitch. He had hoped to find some insight into why the girl could hear him, but instead all he saw in the nightmares he gave her throughout the night were her fears and insecurities.
She was afraid of failing her mission and a bunch of people were all ganging up on her, scolding her for failing to do her job. Just what that job was, Pitch had no idea. Her nightmares hadn't given him much information at all. Instead, all he'd seen were some people he didn't know giving the girl harsh words. One even slapped her in anger, but all they would tell her was that they couldn't believe she had failed! The youngest scout!
Pitch scowled to himself as he tiredly rubbed his eyes. He'd only managed a few hours of sleep by the time he'd given up on the nightmares, and he'd used his powers far too much the day before. He thought of Wally trailing after the girl again like a lost puppy and wondered if it would be worth the effort to bother following after the child. He thought briefly of just heading back to the truck and waiting on Wally there, but then he thought of when Wally had almost been blasted to smithereens by that psycho.
Pitch internally groaned at that.
No, he had to follow Wally to save the boy from his own stupidity.
He just knew it was going to be yet another long day.
Wally followed after Eve much like the day before. He spent a lot of time diving behind trash piles when Eve would look his way, and he was pretty certain that she must know that he was there considering how often she turned her head towards him. But unlike yesterday, she made no move to engage or talk to him. She would just huff in irritation when he would dive for cover and continue scanning her surroundings.
It was when the sun was high in the sky when the girl first gave a loud growl of frustration. She clearly wasn't finding what she was looking for, no matter what she scanned. Wally tilted his head at her curiously. What was she looking for anyway? He wished she would talk to him.. if only just a little. He tried very hard to push the thought away that maybe she would never talk to him.
That couldn't happen, right?
The girl angrily kicked one of her boots out at a bucket and sent it flying. Then for good measure she pulled out her gun faster than anything and blasted the bucket to kingdom come. It was soon full of holes and barely recognizable as a bucket. Scowling, the girl aimed her gun at a pile of cars and fired continuously.[1]
KA - BOOOM!
It didn't take long for the car to explode once the red beams from the gun hit it and it soon started a chain reaction.
KABOOOOM!
There was another explosion followed by another. Wally stared at the carnage, his green eyes huge behind his wraparound shades with his hands over his ears. Baby Tooth had once again retreated to hide in his collar, shivering in her fright. Pitch, who was deeply regretting following after Wally, winced at the sound of the explosions.
The girl was completely nuts!
He was so busy cringing at the explosions that he failed to notice what Wally was doing next. If he had been paying more attention to little Wally, he would have been able to stop Wally from doing what he considered to be something incredibly stupid.
As the cars finished their explosions, the girl stood staring at the raging fire. Her eyes were once again shielded by the odd holographic wraparound shade that seemed to come from the two earphone-like things that were clipped to her ears. After a long moment she sighed and holstered her weapon as she trudged over to a pile of trash and plopped down to the ground dejectedly in front of it. She pulled her knees up to her chest as she leaned back against the rusty safe she was sitting in front of, staring at the flames.
After a minute of her not moving, Wally plucked up the courage to unfurl himself from his crouched positing behind a pile of trash and stood up. He tensed as though waiting for the girl to start shooting at him again, but she gave no indication of having seen him. So Wally very carefully started walking toward the girl. He made sure to keep his footsteps light and to keep his movements slow - just in case.
It took him several minutes to reach her, and even then he still kept his distance. He sat down on the ground a ways away from her and pulled his knees up to his chest too, as he unconsciously mimicked her.
The girl's head turned slightly in his direction and her icy blue eyes stared at him indifferently behind her holographic shades.
"Richtlinie?"[2] the girl asked him, her voice coming out commanding and ringing with authority.
Wally tilted his head a little in confusion.
"指令?" the girl tried again.
Wally scratched his head and the girl could practically see the question marks floating in the air beside him. She gave another huff of frustration.
"Directive?" the girl shot at him, her voice filled with exasperation.
Wally visibly perked up at that, and he grinned at her. He quickly stood and trotted off to fetch his wagon, which he'd been dragging along after him all day. (A number of times the girl had turned to Wally, only to see a little red wagon sitting alone as its owner dove behind a pile of trash.)
The girl stared at Wally as he fetched the mysterious wagon and dragged it over to where he'd been sitting. Wally scooped up some trash with his trusty shovel and shoved it hurriedly into his trash compactor. He slammed the door shut on it and let it run for only a few seconds before stopping it.
What resembled a cube of barely compacted trash fell out from it before it sadly fell apart and became a pile of trash again, only a little more squashed now.
"Tadaaa!" Wally proudly waved at the somewhat squashed pile of trash proudly before he resumed his seat once more.
The girl looked from the pile of trash back to Wally, back to the pile of trash again before once more settling her gaze back on Wally.
He looked at the girl with bright-eyed curiosity and a happy smile on his face.
"D-directive?" Wally stuttered over the unfamiliar word with his raspy voice.
The girl's gaze sharpened behind her holographic shades (not that Wally could see) and she turned her head away from him.
"It's classified," she told him stiffly.
"Oh," Wally softly replied. He pulled his knees back up to his chest and looked down at the ground, dejected. He had thought that if he talked to the girl she would be nicer to him, but she sounded like she hated him. Why?
There was a long stretch of silence as the girl took in Wally's dejected form. She sighed again and finally took some pity on him.
"What's your name?" she asked Wally, her voice flat, but less harsh than it had been.
Wally lifted his head a little and glanced at her.
"Wally," he told her, his voice still soft. "..What's - "
"Eve," the girl cut him off as she finally got back to her feet.
A small smile found its way onto Wally's face as he too, stood.
"E.. Ev-ah?" Wally stumbled over her name.
Eve rolled her eyes and gave Wally a look, not that he noticed.
"Eve," she corrected him.
The grin grew wider on Wally's face.
"Ev-ah!" he said again, deciding that this would be a suitable pronunciation. He didn't know why, but for some reason he had a difficult time pronouncing 'Eve.'[3]
The wind began to pick up as Eve faced Wally and placed her hands on her hips.
"For the last time," she started loudly, "It's - "
"Ev-ah!" Wally cried out as he wildly pointed behind her, cutting her off.
Eve huffed again and shook her head at Wally's antics. Obviously he just wanted to get her back for cutting him off in the first place. This was a waste of time, she had a mission to get to!
She started to stomp off (to where, she had no idea) when the rapidly approaching sandstorm hit. It seemed to spring up out of nowhere. One second she was storming away and the next a whirlwind of sand had completely surrounded her, clouding her vision. She coughed as she looked around, but she all she could see was the huge cloud of sand that surrounded her.
Wally flung out a hand as if to reach out for Eve as the storm hit. It blew up around them so quickly! He didn't hear his little friend's squawk of alarm nor Pitch's surprised shout, but he could feel his little friend squirming around underneath the collar of his coveralls. He reached up with a gloved hand and gently patted her.
"E-Evah...!" Wally cried out as he started to cough.
"WALLY!" Eve screamed back as she tried to turn to where she thought the sound had come from, but she still couldn't see anything. Then suddenly a shadow appeared in the whirling sand, and she felt a gloved hand firmly grip hers. Wally took the lead and began to tug her urgently.
Not daring to fly in the raging whirlwind of a storm, she staggered after Wally.
It felt like it had taken hours for them to get back to Wally's truck. Wally had taken her all the way back along with his little red wagon. If it hadn't been weighed down by the trash compactor, it would have blown away. Even so, Wally would definitely have to get a new shovel. Who knew where that thing had flown off to.
Wally led Eve up the ramp to his truck and inside before he managed to close the door. He staggered to where his lights were and hastily turned them on before the coughing overtook him.
Eve stared around the inside of the truck in wonder. She had never in her life seen anything like this! Then she registered the sound of Wally coughing and gasping for air.
Wally clutched his chest with his shades hanging halfway off his face haphazardly, his cheeks turning red from the exertion of trying to breathe. He scrambled for the pockets of his tool belt with his other hand and came up with his inhaler. He quickly inserted it into his mouth and depressed it, as he waited for the medicine to do its work.
Nothing happened.
Wally frantically pressed the top of his inhaler again and still nothing happened. He dropped it as he coughed even more, his face completely red now.
"..Wally..?" Eve called out to him, the first note of uncertainty that Wally had heard from her.
Trying to be brave, Wally attempted to wave at her nonchalantly as he staggered over to his shelves. He stabbed at the button that controlled them and Eve watched as the shelves rotated around. Once they reached the medical supplies the shelves stopped rotating and Wally frantically grabbed at an inhaler.
Finally, he was able to trigger it and the medicine puffed out to do its work. It took several long moments for Wally's breathing to settle down, and he had to trigger his inhaler once more.
Eve stared at Wally, her eyes a bit wide, since she could actually hear him struggle to breathe. Raised in a huge cruise ship with all disease eradicated, she had never heard anything like it before.
"Wally?" she called out again, her voice softer.
"..F.. fine.." Wally wheezed back as he massaged his chest. "..I'm.. fine..."
Eve didn't look at all convinced, but she nodded anyway. She reached up to her ears to remove the earphone things, since she wouldn't need her holographic shades indoors and paused when she only found one was attached. She ripped the remaining one off in disgust and shoved it into a pouch on her belt.
Great, now how was she going to shield her eyes?
Not to mention it also displayed the information of what she scanned! A lot of the things she scanned she hadn't seen before, so now what was she going to do?
Wally waited another few moments for his wheezing to die down a bit, and then he motioned Eve over to where he was. Eve noticed this and walked over to him curiously. Before she could ask him what he wanted, Wally was rotating the shelves around again. He stopped on one shelf that had a pile of assorted things on it. Wally waved a hand at it grandly with a huge grin on his face, as if he hadn't just been fighting for his life mere moments ago.
Eve stared at Wally curiously, but he seemed so eager. Obliging, she looked over at the shelves and then her curiosity got to her. She grabbed her scanner back out of a pouch and scanned a few things on the shelves while Wally hurried off while she was distracted.
Eve wasn't surprised when the things she scanned came back "NEGATIVE." Everything else had, so why should this be any different?
Eve stared at the objects on the shelves as she tucked her scanner back into one of her belt pouches. She looked curiously at the mugs full of spoons and forks and poked at the strange combination of the two that was sitting on the shelf in the middle of them. She picked up a Rubik's cube and looked at it before she placed it back down on the shelf again. She pressed the button Wally had and the shelves rotated around again, before stopping randomly when Eve let the button go.
She picked up a lighter as Wally made his way back over to her, now clad in only his BnL t-shirt and jeans, his feet bare. He watched as Eve examined the lighter, before she opened the top of it and flicked it on.
"Ohh," Wally said in awe as he stared at the mesmerizing flame.
Eve stared at it too, before with a flick of her wrist the top of the metal lighter closed and the flame was extinguished. She looked around some more at the shelf, but Wally had snapped out of it and was reaching for her hand.
"Ev-ah," Wally said to her excitedly.
Eve jerked her hand away from Wally's reflexively and absently tucked the lighter away into one of her pouches.
"It's - " Eve started to correct Wally, but she stopped as she noticed he was practically vibrating in happiness. She remembered before when he looked so sad, and stopped in mid sentence. There was an awkward pause as she closed her mouth and then opened it to ask Wally what he wanted.
Wally gestured frantically at her to follow him.
"Come on!" he said excitedly to her as he rushed off.
Eve blinked at his enthusiasm but followed after him all the same. She stared at the curiousness that was the iPod/magnifier combo as Wally rushed to the VCR and pushed his favorite tape into it.
The sudden noise and sound had Eve pulling her gun out on pure instinct as she pointed it at the TV. Wally saw this and panicked a bit as he rushed to get in front of Eve and protect his precious tape.
"No!" Wally almost shouted at her in alarm, with his arms spread wide.
Eve looked startled, since besides his shouting in the storm, this was the loudest she had ever heard Wally be.
"No, Ev-ah," Wally said, his voice more gentle as he pushed the gun down and away from the magnifier screen.
Eve sighed and holstered her gun again.
"Look," Wally told her as he gestured at the screen.
On the screen was a bunch of people dressed up in their best clothes as they happily sang and danced around. Eve watched the screen in complete confusion, since she'd never seen anything like it before. Sure, the passengers on the ship were constantly glued to their screens, but they were always talking to someone or watching a BnL ad. They never watched anyone singing or dancing.
While Eve was distracted, Wally found the trashcan lid where he had carefully placed it and took his place near Eve again. Eve looked over at Wally as he goofily used the trashcan lid as a makeshift hat in his hand as he pretended to lift it off his head like the man on the screen had been. Wally tried to dance around like the guy had been, but he had accidentally stepped on the bottom of his jeans and started to fall.
Eve hurriedly reached out and caught Wally in her arms as the scene changed on the screen to a more romantic one with the man and a beautiful woman singing to one another.
Wally looked up at Eve, who quickly got Wally firmly back on his feet before hastily pulling away, her cheeks a bit pink. Wally smiled, not noticing her pink cheeks as he pulled his mattress over so it was in a better position to see the screen. He plopped down on it and patted the spot next to him as he looked up at Eve with his emerald eyes. Eve hesitated a fraction of a second before she settled down next to Wally, leaving a good-sized gap between them.
Several hours later, the sun had risen outside of Wally's truck to reveal that it was now completely calm outside. Inside, both Eve and Wally were sprawled out on Wally's mattress, with Wally laying on his back while Eve was laying on her front with her arms crossed and her head resting down onto them. Wally's feet were by her face, not that she could tell at the moment. She had finally thought to remove her boots sometime in the night and her perfectly clean feet (clad in white ankle socks that had completely fascinated Wally) were down by Wally's head.
The screen of the magnifier showed that Wally had switched tapes and had been playing. Eve's eyes instantly snapped open when the tape finished playing and reverted to black and white snow before it stopped with a loud click and then began to automatically rewind.
Eve slowly sat up and yawned as she sleepily rubbed an eye and looked at the screen curiously. It wasn't playing anything at all now and was blank. She looked from the screen and then spotted Wally sprawled out on the mattress next to her. She shook her head as she saw that Wally's mouth was open, and he was drooling a little.
As she stood and stretched, she was unaware of the golden eyes that were carefully watching her from a dark corner of the truck. They had appeared a few hours earlier, but both Wally and Eve had been absorbed in what they were watching and hadn't noticed the golden eyes' arrival. Which is just the way Pitch wanted it for now.
Pitch glared at Eve mistrustfully as she stretched and got to her feet. What had she come here for? She was obviously looking around for something, but what? He continued to glare at her as his mind whirred in thought.
Meanwhile, Eve started to pat the pouches that were attached to her belt down and soon came up with a protein bar of some sort. She was grateful that it was wrapped as sand had somehow found its way into the pouch. She tore the wrapper off the bar (which said "BnL ALL THE NUTRIENTS YOU NEED!" in enticingly large, bubbly letters on the wrapper), and hungrily ate the thing in only a few bites. She'd been so busy the other day that she hadn't eaten much at all. She crumpled the wrapper back up and tucked it back into her pouch as her gaze fell back down to Wally.
What did he eat?
She looked at him consideringly while Pitch continued to furiously think. Unaware of the Boogeyman's presence, she settled on padding around in her socks and soon wandered over to Wally's shelves curiously.
By the time Wally finally woke up, Eve had long since settled back down onto the mattress nearby him and was staring at a letter she had found in one of Wally's books. It was a letter from all the Guardians. While they'd been watching the specials, Wally had eagerly explained all about the Guardians to Eve, who had sat and listened in amusement. She had thought it was strange of Wally to talk about the supposed Guardians as if they were real, but now..
What was this letter?
Wally sat up sleepily and saw Eve holding his precious leather bound book and the letter that he had placed inside of it for safekeeping.
"Wh-what are you doing?" Wally asked her, stuttering a bit as he yawned while talking. They'd stayed up far too late last night while they watched his tapes.
"What is this?" Eve asked as she waved the letter in Wally's face.
Wally gently grabbed the letter from Eve and looked down at the handwriting on it. He looked down at the signatures at the bottom and a small smile crept onto his face.
"It's my letter from the Guardians," Wally said, as if that explained everything.
"You mean.. Santa and.. the Tooth Fairy..?" Eve asked Wally cautiously.
Wally nodded eagerly.
"And the Sandman, Easter Bunny and Jack Frost!" Wally added on.
Eve stared at the letter before she looked away.
"They aren't real," she scoffed, although her tone wasn't anywhere near harsh.
"Yes they are," Wally said softly as he hugged the letter protectively to himself. "He gave it to me."
"Who?" Eve asked Wally suspiciously. She had been under the impression that Wally had been on this planet by himself, judging from the lack of people.
"The Boogeyman," Wally told Eve, who widened her eyes at this.
"The B-Boogeyman?" Eve stuttered. "He's here?"
Is he REAL?!
The girl's fear suddenly screamed out to Pitch in his corner, and he raised an invisible eyebrow at her. So.. his suspicions had been correct after all. This girl had somehow heard about him and somewhat believed in him - enough so that she could hear him, apparently.
Hmm.. this was certainly interesting.
"Yeah," Wally said with a note of curiosity in his voice. "Do you know him?"
Eve coughed in embarrassment and tried to pull herself together.
"Of.. of course! Everyone's heard of him," she said offhandedly to Wally.
Wally shrugged at that, not quite realizing the implications in his sleepy state as he walked over to the corner where he kept his foodstuff, along with his hot plate that still had the pot of water on it. He carefully poured some of his precious water into a bottle and grabbed a package of one of the BnL cakes along with one of his little friend's Kremies. He carried this back over to Eve and thrust everything into her hands.
"Here," Wally said simply to her. When she stared at what Wally had given him, he merely smiled in return. "You must be hungry and thirsty, right?"
Eve blinked in response and Wally went back to the corner, presumably to get something for himself. She looked back down at what Wally had given her. She recognized the packing of Buy 'N Large and looked at the Kremie curiously. Her gaze moved from the Kremie to the bottle of water and she grimaced. Even though the water had been boiled, it still looked off to her and the bottle was far from clean. In fact, as far as she could tell, the entire planet was filthy with Wally not being an exception.
She glanced over at Wally, and he turned to her with his mouth full. He gave her a thumbs up, and she looked away and back down to what he had given her, pretending to not notice the dirt smeared on his cheeks or on his t-shirt. It'd been much easier to pretend when it had been dark and light hadn't been filtering in through the truck's door.
She juggled the items in her arms and managed to somehow open the BnL package. She gingerly took a bite and froze as her eyes widened.
She had never tasted something so horrible in her life, and she had grown up eating all sorts of BnL foodstuffs. She noticed Wally was watching her, and she forced herself to chew and swallow the big bite she'd taken. She gave Wally a smile that felt more like a grimace and hastily forced the rest of the BnL cake down. She stuffed the Kremie into her pack and silently vowed that she'd chuck it the first chance she got (or sneak it back to wherever Wally had gotten it from).
Eve carried the bottle of water back over to Wally and handed it to him.
"I have my own," she explained.
"Oh!" Wally said as he watched her retreat back to where she'd left her pack.
With a shrug he tucked the extra bottle of water away and sipped from the one he had poured himself. Meanwhile, Eve retrieved her own water bottle that was in a spotless reusable container and contained carefully filtrated water in it. She drank from it in relief as she wondered how Wally could stand living in filth like he did.
It never occurred to her that he had never known anything else.
Wally finished up his breakfast and some of his water. He put the cap back on the bottle and placed it next to where he had put the bottle he'd gotten back from Eve. Making sure the area was as tidy as he could make it, Wally straightened back up and rocked back on his heels a bit as he gazed around the truck.
Normally he'd start getting ready to head outside and go about his duty of compacting trash, but..
..But how could he do that when there was another person around?
It was much more exciting than compacting trash.
Then Wally's face lit up as he remembered the green thing and how much it had meant to the Boogeyman. Surely Eve would think it's just as wonderful, right?
Wally started to head for where he kept it (near where he stored his wagon and hung his coveralls up) and Pitch's golden eyes widened as it suddenly came to him in a flash:
That must be what the girl came here for!
Of course a scout would be sent out to look for signs of life! A plant would be irrefutable proof that life was in fact viable on this godforsaken planet!
Which, of course, meant that the girl would grab the plant and leave Wally all alone.
...Which would definitely break poor Wally's spirit.
Which would in turn, destroy the last of his belief.
All of that flashed through Pitch's mind in a few short moments and his golden eyes vanished from the shadow they were in, flitting over to a shadow near where the plant was. The eyes were soon replaced with his gray fingers, and he very quickly and deftly moved the boot, hiding it behind some miscellaneous items.
Wally scratched his head as he reached the spot where the boot had been and looked around in confusion. He had just seen the green thing here a moment ago! Where had it gone?
"Did you lose something?" Eve asked Wally curiously.
"Ah.." Wally glanced at the empty spot where the green thing had been. "I.. I guess not."
"I have to go outside," Eve said patiently to Wally and Wally noticed that while he'd been busy, Eve had put her boots and pack back on.
Wally deflated a bit at that.
"Oh.. Of.. of course," he said as he hurried over the controls for the door and opened it up for her. He was surprised when he didn't hear the normal hiss and grumble about how bright it was, but mentally shrugged to himself. Maybe the Boogeyman wasn't here this morning.
"Maybe I'll see you around?" Eve said casually as she strode over to the open door.
"Yeah!" Wally exclaimed as he perked up.
Eve walked out the door and strode partway down the ramp. To Wally's surprise she suddenly flew up into the air with the help of her thrusters and took off in a flash, flying off towards where Wally had built his many trash skyscrapers.
Wally coughed as the thrusters kicked up dust that flew into the truck, but he couldn't help the excited grin that seemed permanently stuck on his face. He rushed to where his coveralls where hanging and changed into them in record time as he haphazardly tried to zip them up and stuff one of his feet into a boot at the same time.
"I don't know if it's such a good idea to continuously follow this girl around," Pitch spoke up from where his golden eyes had been hiding again in a far corner.
Wally paused in mid-zip and looked around before he spotted the golden eyes, which had moved to a shadow that was closer to himself.
"It's people," Wally countered as if that said it all.
"But that doesn't mean - " Pitch started to say and then stopped, since Wally had finished getting ready in record time and was already hauling his wagon outside.
Baby Tooth popped her head up from where she'd also been hiding and looked out after Wally in concern. He'd forgotten all about her! She quickly flew up and followed after him, while Pitch watched from the shadows.
"At least one of them has some sense," Pitch muttered to himself, referring to Baby Tooth who had spent the entire time Eve was there, hiding from her.
He stared out the door for a moment and gave a long suffering sigh before busying himself with finding a better hiding spot for the plant. It was going to be so much fun trying to water the darn thing while keeping it hidden away from the girl.
[1] I know that in the movie that Eve blows up some ships after she gets stuck on a big magnet, but I felt like the explosion from that would be a little bit too big for humans. Plus I figured the noise from that would be unbearable, so I changed it up a bit and made the explosions smaller.
[2]Eve is speaking German here, which Google assures me is the proper word for 'directive.' After that it's japanese characters for 'directive.' I just copied and pasted.
Author's Note: Whew, that was a long chapter! There were a few times I was thinking of stopping, but I decided to continue. I originally was going to have everything with Eve in one huge chapter, but it would have been too big. So I decided to split it up into a couple chapters instead. As we know, Eve doesn't have long with Wally before she discovers the plant. In this, Pitch is interfering, so Eve will have longer to get to know Wally before drama happens.
I also know I skipped over Wally's incredibly cute montage in the movie, but since Wally has longer with Eve in this fic, I decided I didn't have to put everything all at once.I tried to make things a little different from the movie (while still having some familiar things), so you'll have to let me know how I did on that front. I'm also thinking of extending Wally's time on the ship a bit (since I think he's only there for a day or so), so you'll have to let me know what you think of that.
Anyway, I hope you guys liked this chapter and even if it does take me forever to post, I won't give up on my fics.