'Zup, readers?
So, after a loooong time, the 14th chapter (including the Halloween Special) is finally out. I know it took a while, and I apologize for it. But (hopefully) the next one will be out sooner. If I can, I'll have it out by Sunday. If not... well, as soon as possible, then.
And now, I wouldn't want to stall you any longer, would I? Well then, go ahead!
Less than Legends, More than Myths
Chapter 13: Arrivals, Friends, And Enemies
"Finally!" Brendan shouted just as the group reached the top of yet another hill.
Around him, May and Sara gasped, and Jake's face broke into a smile. In front of them, the hill swooped down gently for no more than a mile before become perfectly flat before turning to the right towards a huge forest. Bordering it after its turn was a small cliff, than sand, before reaching the sea. The beach wasn't very big, with no more than half a mile in length and thirty feet in width, but it was clean. The sea opened in front of it, wide and majestic, reaching far over the horizon.
There was a few umbrellas here and there, with some people under them. There were also a few on the water, dressed with swimming clothes. Built against the cliff were two changing rooms, built with yellow bricks and an orange roof. Up the cliff, almost all the way to the forest, there was a few small huts, no more than a dozen. A charming little village.
"Wow…" May whispered softly, amazed at the sight in front of her. She giggled in excitement. "I can't wait to get down there and take a swim! It's been forever since I've been on the sea!"
"Yeah." Brendan said, looking at the sea. "Makes you feel kinda small, doesn't it? Who are we puny humans compared to the size of the sea? Even our greatest city is no more than a single drop in that water…"
"Deep." Jake noted, nodding. He took a deep breath. "Last time I went to the sea, I ended up almost drowning after being attacked by a flock of enraged Wingull." He began to rub his left arm, between the shoulder and elbow, without thinking about it. "But I reckon it's quite a nice place."
There was a small moment of silence, then everyone turned to Sara. The girl looked at the anxious stares, then at the ground, touching her index fingers against one another.
"Actually… I don't really know how to swim…" she said shyly. "I never really learned…"
"WHAT!?" May shouted, unable to contain herself. Noticing her outburst, the girl quickly piped down her voice. "Didn't you have any childhood? How can you not know how to swim?"
"I guess I never really cared…" Sara muttered in reply, still looking at the ground. "There wasn't any sea near my… where I lived, or any pools, so I never thought it was important…"
There was another moment of silence, but this time is was more awkward. Everyone was doing different things. Brendan was struggling against himself not to say a sarcastic and probably rude remark, May was unsure of what to say, and Jake… he was feeling too lazy to actually go through the bothers of speaking. The four just stood there, atop the hill, watching the swift, almost unnoticeable from the distance, waves in the ocean. Finally, May took a deep breath and spoke up.
"No matter." the girl said cheerfully. "We'll teach you everything you need to know about swimming, from moving around to all that scientific buoyancy crap! Everything from top to bottom."
"That doesn't even make sense…" Brendan said. "And sorry, but you speak for yourself. I have some… old acquaintances… around that I would very much like to visit." Jake snorted subtly, and the white-haired boy blushed a bit. Luckily, none of the girls noticed.
"How can you say that?" May shot at him, a tad annoyed. "We're her friends! It's only normal that we should teach her when she needs it! You can go there later!"
"Oh, so you're saying I should ignore my… old friends, and just go along with you?"
"YES!"
"You're crazy, d'you know that!? Cuccu in the head!"
"May, it's okay. I don't mind…" Sara said, trying to stop the incipient argument.
"You stay out of this!" both Brendan and May shouted at her, causing the smaller girl to step back.
"Do you even have the slightest idea of what 'buoyancy' means?" Brendan asked skeptically.
"Not really… and I bet no one here knows either… so we'll just have to ask someone down there!" May replied, evil thoughts racing through her head.
Brendan grunted in the effort of resisting commenting on how someone would feel if a bunch of kids just came along and asked about buoyancy, instead focusing on continuing the fight and, of course, showing off. "As a matter of fact, I have a pretty neat idea about it."
"Oh, really? I mean, it's pretty hard stuff about how things float, isn't it? It takes someone pretty smart to figure it out…"
"Of course I know! It's the rules of physics when it comes to floatability, about how an object floats on top of water if it moves a mass of water greater than it's volume!"
"Wow! You do know! You're smart!"
"I know I'm very smart, you don't need to repeat it…"
"But you are! In fact, I bet that for someone so smart as you, it'd be no trouble to teach this to someone, would it?"
"'Course not! It'd be a piece of cake!"
"Then you would mind doing it, would you? With your brains, it would only take a minute!"
"Just show me the person and I'll do it! It's no cha-" Brendan began, but then stopped when he realized he had been fooled by May and his own pride. "Dammit, May! That was cheap!"
"'Course it was." the said girl replied with a devilish grin. "Seriously, wha'd'you expect?"
"I'm not gonna teach her."
"You just said you would, so you will!"
"That wasn't fair! Tell her, Jake! Jake? Jake!"
The boy began to look around for his friend, but found none. He was now alone with May and Sara atop the hill. The former noticed Jake was gone as well, and looked around curiously.
"Hey, what happened to Jake?" she asked.
"He took off a minute ago." Sara explained, pointing down the road. "He said, 'If you excuse me, I have some… meetings… I'd like to organize.' then took off running down the hill."
The two recently-informed people looked to where the girl was pointing, and sure enough, there was Jake, quickly jogging down the hill. Brendan turned to Sara, who blushed a bit, but managed to hold her gaze, then to May, who was still grinning like the devil she was. Then, he must have realized something, for his eyes grew wide and he turned back to the hill, and shouted on the top of his lungs. "DAMN YOU, JAAAKE!"
--XXXXX--
"Okay, so let's see…" the twelve-year-old said out loud to himself, walking on the border of the cliff that fell onto the beach. "Julie's house, Julie's house… It was the… third? No, fourth… how did that go?" He began to sing in a low voice. "Three steps of Slowpoke, then five of Slowbro, three steps of Slowpoke, 'till you reach the flow… One left and one right, just a pretty sight, then through, through you go, 'till you reach the flow…"
He quickly walked past the beach towards the houses. There were two roads that passed through the village, making a cross at the center, and all the house were facing them. The boy quickly reached it an walked to the main square, where the roads met and there was a small fountain. He searched the latter for a drawing of a Slowpoke on the rough stone, smiling at the memories it brought back to his mind…
Flashback…
"There!" said the blond girl with a the frilly pink and yellow dress, getting up from the ground and dusting her knees. She looked no older than six or seven years old. She smiled at the impressive drawing of a Slowpoke she had just carved into the fountain.
"You sure that works?" asked the small, white-haired boy. He, too, looked about seven years old.
"Yep! Now you always know how to come to my homey!" the girl replied in a painfully sweet and cheerful voice and hugging the boy. The latter blushed a bit, but it went by unnoticed by the girl.
"Cool." a third boy said, watching the two with a grin on his face. He was taller than the others, with spiky brown hair. He was also older, looking about a bit under ten, although he was actually eight. "So, how did it go exactly?"
"Simple!" the girl said again, pointing at the drawing. "You just see ol' Pokey Pokey here, then follow the song I teached you!"
"Taught." corrected the older boy, smiling disturbingly. "And how did that one go?"
"Y-you don't remember?" the girl asked, eyes wide, stupefied. She sniffed a bit and looked as if she was about to cry. The white-haired boy's eyes grew wide, and he looked uncertain of what to do. The older boy shot him a meaningful look, and then it hit him.
"Three steps of Slowpoke, then five of Slowbro, three steps of Slowpoke, 'till you reach the flow…" the boy sang soothingly, hugging the girl and slowly rocketing her to and fro. "One left and one right, just a pretty sight, then through, through you go, 'till you reach the flow…"
"Oh, Breny, you remember!" the girl shouted as she hugged the boy tightly. "You're not like Jake-y!"
Jake, the big boy, flinched. "Why, why, why, do you always put a 'y' on the end of every name?"
"I think it's cute-y!" the girl said, showing her tongue to him.
"Kids! Time for lunch!" called an woman, coming down from one of the roads.
"Coming, Momy!" the girl shouted back. Then, she turned to the boys. "Last one there gets to clean Pokey Pokey's teeth!" And she shot down the road, the boy's on her heels.
End Flashback
Jake snapped back to his to the present, still looking at the drawing. Around him, there were only two people, a couple of tourists dressed in swimming suits. He took a deep breath, then looked at the road down from his point of view.
He walked down the road, crossing the village in no time. After a few steps, he was already near the edge of the cliff, with a short 10-feet fall to the sea below. He looked around, seeing the beauty of the wide ocean surrounding him, and on a little shore that could only be found by going down the cliff, a house. The boy had a quick search, and found a path down the cliff. In no time, he was approaching the door. He raised his hand to knock…
--XXXXX--
May smiled and laughed evilly, taking great delight in the evil things she was doing. Not only had she tricked Brendan into helping her teach Sara how to swim, but she had managed to disappear at the beginning of the lesson without trace, leaving Brendan alone to do the job. She had justified it to herself: It wouldn't hurt for Brendan to swim around for a bit. Still, when she thought about it, she felt a pang of jealousy towards Sara.
Shaking her heads to clear away those insane and unhealthy thoughts, she approached the fountain in the middle square of the little village. Only a pair of tourists dressed in swimming suits were there, walking around slowly as if to absorb every detail of the place. Since May couldn't go back to the beach without being seen by Brendan and Sara, she had decided to examine the surroundings. This seemed like a nice place; the girl would never, ever live there on her free will, but she could enjoy some minutes of sightseeing around.
When she was near the fountain, she noticed something odd in the base. Kneeling down on the ground to have a better view, she examined what seemed to be an old engraving of a Slowpoke. Next to it stood some old but conveniently still readable markings. It took a while for May to figure them out, but they seemed something like this:
"Pokey Pokey pokes! Julie was here!
Tea and biscuits for all! Breny B. was here!
I'm not related to them in any way. Jake T."
There were three different calligraphies, one per line. When May read the second and third, her heart skipped a beat. Breny B. and Jake T., they said.
Brendan Birch and Jake... whatever his last name was.
--XXXXX--
"Ow!"
"Oh, I'm so sorry! I swear I didn't mean to do that again!"
Right at the precise exact moment that May had had that experience, Brendan had one himself. However, his was slightly less honorable, consisting in getting hit under the chin by a struggling Sara for the fourth time in two minutes.
Of course, the girl wasn't voluntarily hitting him. Their current exercise in, as Brendan had named it, 'Brendan's Theoretical and Somewhat Physical, But Mostly Mental and Psychological (Except on Mondays) Exercise and Activities Course' consisted of try-out swimming. It was simple; Brendan and Sara went into the water, going only deep enough so it would reach Sara's shoulders (which, by itself, was extremely disturbing to the girl). Then, Brendan would hold her arms while she would try and beat her legs, with her head underwater.
It was supposed to be easy. It was easy. But Sara just couldn't do it. Every time she tried, her arms slipped from Brendan grasp and ended up hitting him in the chin. Of course, Sara wasn't the only one to blame. Brendan's grasp really wasn't all that great. The boy was admittedly bored, and being 'forced' to help Sara learn how to swim wasn't helping. Neither was the fact that May had mysteriously disappeared. Sara remembered clearly Brendan's reaction, so many seconds before…
Flashback…
"Where. Did. She. GO!?" Brendan shouted, en- and out-raged. "WHERE THE HELL DID THAT FORSAKEN… DEMON GO!?"
"She said she was going to the bathroom…" Sara replied shyly, trying to ignore the odd stares that the few people around them were shooting.
"And you fell for that!? We're in the middle of a beach! There isn't a bathroom for miles round!"
"…Sorry… I didn't think of that…"
"And now I'm stuck here with you, alone! That's even worse than with May! Although not by much."
"You're not forced to be here…" Sara muttered, trying to keep her voice normal. She had to admit that the boy's behavior was beginning to get to her. Why did he have to make such a scene, treating helping her out as if it was the worst thing in the entire universe? It was offensive, at the very least. "You can just go."
"It's utterly hopeless!" Brendan continued, completely ignoring her. He then began serious again, with no trace of his previous behavior whatsoever. "Well, might as well get this over with. C'mon, let's go take a swim."
Sara watched, absolutely shocked, as the boy calmly walked towards one of the two changing cabins/sand-removing showers, the only buildings other than the houses at a distance. Mood-swings was one thing. This was quite another.
End Flashback.
"Okay…" Brendan said, rubbing his chin and taking a deep breath. "Let's do this one more time, okay? And this time, I'll hold a tad tighter, and you'll try not to let go, okay?"
"Sure." Sara replied, trying to sound convinced. She failed.
"Bon dieu…" Brendan muttered, so low not even the girl could hear it. He then raised his voice. "Ready? Let's go."
Sara complied, grabbing the boy's arms and feeling him tighten the pressure. She quickly hid her face underwater to prevent the boy from seeing the huge blush creeping across her face. She then began to slowly beat her legs, alternating between them.
She managed to hold on for almost ten seconds, before she began to run out of breath. Her heart began to beat faster, and she instinctively began to beat her legs faster. It was then that her wet hands slipped, and somehow managed, even with the awkward angle, to slap Brendan across the cheek. The girl quickly let go and got back up to face the boy, who was looking at her with a stunned expression on his face.
"Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry!" she screamed, unleashing upon him a torrent of apologies. "I swear I didn't mean to! Sorrysorrysorry!"
Brendan closed his eyes, took several deep breaths, opened them slightly, saw Sara, closed them again, took several more deep breaths, and then opened his eyes again. He looked around as if examining everything for the first time, then looked at Sara's confused stare, and ran away.
The girl stood motionless after it happened. One moment, she had just hit Brendan again. The other, the boy was running towards the shore like his life depended on it. After he got there, he didn't even slow down, but instead continued on his way towards the village, pushing people aside and leaping over logs and innocent swimmers resting after a long day of physical activity. Sara just watched him go, and in less than a minute the boy had vanished inside the mass of houses.
--XXXXX--
May stood motionless, looking at the drawing, for almost a minute. Then, she shook her head and dismissed it as 'Whatever' before taking a stroll around town. Since the entire town was no bigger than a small mansion, it didn't take long, and soon May was bored again. The only living thing besides her were two people dressed in swimming suits. From the way they were examining the town, the girl guessed they were tourists.
She sat on the fountain for a few minutes, trying to figure out something fun or at least entertaining to do. When, after a minute, nothing came to her mind, she hoped to her feet and began to pace around the square in circles.
It didn't help her train of thought, but it did make her dizzy and somewhat nauseous, at least. Frustrated, the girl took a few deep breaths to calm herself. May really wasn't good at coping with boredom. Out of sheer desperation, she actually considered going back to the beach and helping Brendan out.
She was about to do just that when she saw none else than the famed white-haired boy running towards her. As soon as he saw May, his eyes went wide, and he began to shake with rage.
"YOU!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. May noticed with a certain relief that the two tourists from before had gone off to somewhere, so they were alone. "YOU FREAKING WITCH!"
"Oh, come on! It wasn't that bad, was it?" the girl shot back.
"You... have NO idea..." Brendan replied, taking several deep breaths.
"You were just helping Sara out! What could have happened?"
The white-haired boy was about to shoot a mean and ferocious reply when a scream cut the air. A scream of terror and desperation. A scream coming from a girl. A scream of fear and concern, filled with so many emotions that it froze the two bickering souls solid.
But even worse then the scream was the single word that it carried through the wind.
"JAKE!"
Another chapter, another cliffhanger. But it was lamer this time...
One way or another, thank you for reading. Not much else to say, except 'See ya next chapter!' and 'Don't forget to R&R!'.
Have a fine day/morning/noon/dusk/dawn/afternoon/night/nightfall or whatever!
Gotta Go WIth The Flow!
BlackShadowKnight