Before I start this chapter, I'm gonna do my PM inbox a favor and declare this to the world: ALL OC SPOTS ARE TAKEN! I appreciate all the characters you guys have been sending me, but I've already picked a lineup and plotted quite a few chapters with them.
...Oh? You'd like to know just who I chose? *Troll face* Why on earth would I let you in on that? I'd find it much more fun to show them off, one or two at a time.
With those little details out of the way, here's chapter two! Thanks again for reading!
*~Second~*
"I swear, this is going to kill me someday…come on…come ooooon…"
The skill required to remove an egg from a nest without falling off the ladder, disturb other hens, dropping her heavy book bag, or getting distracted by the dog was immense. The preteen managed to get one step higher, which let her strikingly green eyes look over the nesting loft for the target.
Ayame Tempest did this every afternoon, right after school, be it rain, sun, or snow. It was done for her aunt Karma, the closest relative who could take her in after her parents died. She was never told how they met their end, and was perfectly satisfied with her kind aunt; though the black lab, she could do without.
Wendy herself was currently pacing the length of the coop, occasionally bumping against the unsteady ladder and offsetting the balance even more. She seemed to be just waiting for her to drop an egg, thus spilling yoke all over the henhouse floor, thus the already-frustrated teen letting her lick it up.
Ayame had a heart attack when the dog knocked against her support and it shook with the force, and didn't want to have an actual fall, so quickly looked over the nests just one last time. She removed a feather from her brown-gold, curled hair in the process, which had somehow fluttered up there on its own. With all the stray feathers, it wasn't too surprising some of them would get an attitude…
Just then, a ray of sun came in from between the boards, sparkling on an object in what she thought was an empty nest. She looked over to it and put on a very confused expression; how on earth could a hen drag up that?
"A Yoshi amiibo?" she asked out loud, taking it from the nest. The weight surprised her and she called out a "whoa!" when the ladder shook again.
It was as heavy as stone, and looked to be made of it—a golden base to match. There were a few eggshells sprinkled around where it had been sitting, like it had hatched from an egg itself. How those shells got there, she never found out, but decided to study the figure closer later…preferably when she wasn't on a six-foot-high ladder.
She made her way down, placing the figurine amongst the eggs in the basket, and mock-scolded Wendy for being such a pain. Ayame tended to be a sweet girl, but if an annoying dog won't leave you alone when your life's at risk…
"Come on, Wendy, let's go inside already," she sighed, exiting the coop with the dog on her heels. And somewhere in the back of her mind, a strange voice sang using joyous hums.
The fun way was also the interesting way, according to destiny.
Later that day, Ayame was taking a stroll on the boundary between two fields, one of wheat and one of wild plants. The one of wheat was a pure yellow from above, a sea of gold that splashed grasshoppers and other insects when you brushed your hand against it. The other was much more diverse, mostly green grasses but with so many splotches of wildflowers it made all attempts at a description futile.
Wendy happily jumped along at her side, disturbing a practical flock of insects with every lope. She had been told to get some more fresh air, common adult-speak for "get your lazy butt off the couch and take the dog for a walk", but either way it didn't matter - the Mario games she so enjoyed were best with more than one player, anyway.
That was the problem with her favorite games: they required friends, and she had no friends. She also only had two remotes, for whenever her aunt joined, leaving her to try and complete the levels…alone. She had saved more toads than she could keep count of, and had probably met every CPU the game could throw at her, but it still wasn't the same as having an actual mind playing along with her. So, naturally, it didn't take much encouragement for her to take a walk along the property.
She was nearing the corner of the two fields when Wendy suddenly took off into the wheat field.
"Hey!" Ayame called after her, eventually going in as well. The plants were higher than her and the property wasn't even theirs (she was much prouder of calling the wild plants her own), but that wasn't much to spare for her own dog.
A chase ensued, the black lab's tail being the only thing she could really spot while they twisted and turned in formations she couldn't spare to think about. Just when she thought the dog was going to stop, Wendy just put on another burst of energy that forced her to move faster as well.
Soon enough, a shout of surprise and sound of a body hitting the ground cued her where the dog was; she parted through the last plants to see that Wendy had ran to the edge of the forest, not to mention tackled a stranger to the ground.
"Wendy!" Ayame scolded. "Bad! What have we told you about attacks?!"
She pried the dog off the older girl by means of collar-tugging, letting the tan-skinned teen get off the ground. "I'm so, so sorry, Wendy just ran off and I couldn't find her…" she apologized.
"N-no problem," the other girl coughed. "Is this your property? I didn't mean to come on it…"
"No, it's the neighbors," she confessed. "I really shouldn't be out here either…"
The girl smiled before bending over to pick something off the ground she had dropped.
"Wait, is that your figure?"
"Hm? Oh, it's something I found on the beach the other day," she confessed, pocketing the Toon Link again. "Why, do you know someone who's missing one?"
"No, it's just that I have one a lot like it," Ayame answered, digging the Yoshi out of her black jeans to show it. She discovered that she was actually quite the mess at the moment, wheat seeds stuck everywhere in her tangled hair and long, purple shirt.
"That's weird…" the girl hummed. "I'm Janice, by the way."
"Sweet! I'm Ayame," she introduced. "Hey, do you think you could show me where this forest ends? I kind of got myself lost in the field…"
"Not good with direction, eh?" Janice smirked.
"W-well, it was a big field…and…okay, maybe," Ayame shrugged helplessly, admitting defeat.
Janice chuckled a little before waving in the direction that the wildflowers grew, "I think it's that way. I think."
"You think?" Ayame rose an eyebrow skeptically.
"Fifty…sixty percent sure," Janice squinted into the background while calculating.
"That's not a very good percent."
"Fine, I'll show you."
They walked along the forest line, Wendy occasionally jumping ahead in her enthusiasm. As it turns out, the fifty-forty percent chance that Janice was wrong had showed up on the first route they tried. Then the second, then the third…
They talked on the way to wherever they were heading, over family and incidents or just the little things that showed up in their path. Then they got on the subject of games, and the conversation really took off; Ayame learned that Janice was a diehard Legend of Zelda fan (kind of coincidental that she found Toon Link...), a series Ayame herself had previously looked into. But the mechanics were confusing to her, letting Janice open the topic over plots or songs or whatever else came on Link's quests.
"So wait, why do they call it Legend of Zelda…if the main character's named Link?" she asked after yet another rerouting to find Ayame's property.
"Gamers have tried to find that out for centuries…" Janice stated in a mock-serious tone. "…I have no idea."
"It doesn't make much—AUUUUUUUGH!" Ayame ended in a scream as she slipped into a lowered spot of ground, then found herself rolling through them. The leaves swatted at her face, blinding her until she eventually stopped flat on her back.
"You alright there?" Janice asked.
"Yea…what the heck is this stuff?" Ayame asked.
"…I think that's wild garlic."
"EWWWW!"
Janice broke out laughing as Ayame made her way back up the short slope, smelling intensely of garlic and leaves. "How does garlic even GROW in this place?!" she growled while Janice kept giggling.
"It might be some gardener's" Janice sighed. "But you really do look—and smell—like you just got beaten up by a forest."
Ayame glared playfully before sighing in defeat, bits of pollen coming off with her breath. "I am so going to need a bath tonight…"
"Hey, you've got a piece on your shoulder there," Janice noted, picking off a clove of particularly strange garlic.
"…huh. I'm not a garlic expert, but that thing has a face," Ayame noted.
True, the dark green clove seemed to have purple eyes and a mouth, but was otherwise normal; the human-shaped roots helped the picture of a human, though.
"Great, now my fingers smell like garlic!" Janice groaned while Ayame pocketed the odd plant.
"At least Wendy didn't—WENDY, NO!"
Wendy turned around and let out a loud bark in the two girl's direction, neck-deep in the wild garlic and not seeming to give a rat's rear about it.
"Dogs," Janice sighed, shaking her head as Ayame wadded back into the plants again to fetch the mischievous dog.
"Did something happen? I heard a shout."
Both girls looked up to see a teenager staring at them from a few feet away.
DUN DUN DUUUUUN…you know what? Fanfiction would be awesome if it had sound effects. Or it could at least, like, read you the story out loud so that all my sound effects would be heard. But who knows! Maybe some of you out there are reading this ten years from now, on your fancy new tablets that read out loud and…incorporate song and stuff. ANYWHO,
Introducing Ayako Zetra's OC, Ayame! *Applause*! She was originally supposed to be the Legend of Zelda wielder, but since that spot was taken, Zetra-Chan changed it when I PM-ed her. I HAVE SUCH GOOD FRIENDS!
Thanks for reading, guys! You keep this fic going! You, and really big truckloads of inspiration! I ask that you follow/favorite for even more OC fun, and leaving reviews never hurt anybody!
Hug an Eevee, you know you want to, and I'll see you next Wednesday! YOU'RE THE BEST!
…
…wait a minute…
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…*mock Announcer voice* I WANNA BE, THE VERY BEST, THAT NO ONE EVER WAS…TO CATCH THEM IS MY REAL TEST, TO TRAIN THEM IS MA CAUUUUUSE-