A/N: I know. I'm terrible. Sorry it's been a while, my case of the plot bunnies is the authorial equivalent of terminal. I hope to have yet another story *Flinch* out soon, though.
I think that it's the best fanfic I've come up with so far, but I'm not ready to post it. A week or two, no more. I think I can promise you that, maybe I can get you a prologue sooner.
Also, I'm going to try to be less negligent with this story here, badger me if I start forgetting again. I don't have as much time to write as I would like, Blahblahblahfinalsandcrap, the usual stuff that seems to hinder half the authors on fanfiction.
All is not lost, my dear readers. Summer is coming and then I will live in a dimly lit room staring at a screen to create these stories for you. And possibly start calling my computer 'my precious'.
LxWxL
CHaPTeR IV: play with your food, for FooD iS a ToY.
I push Thomas the tank engine up the spiraling, fancy-schmancy track, practically exploding with happiness. Not only did Near let me play with Thomas, he let me have Annie and Clarabel to drag behind them~
I feel so special~
There's clunking on the stairs. Matt must be coming up to call us for dinner, it's soon.
…It's Mello. =-=. Exactly who I didn't want to see.
His expression is somewhere between 'WTH?' and 'Ima kill you where you stand'.
Near pays him no mind, continuing to push James along the track and make soft train sounds.
…I could try to be nice and say hello…
Oh heck no.
I just got a turn with Thomas, and who knows when Sir Killjoy will let me play with him again. I'm not about to waste any of my turn with my favorite tank engine (which happens to be Near's favorite too) to argue with the homicidal barbie in mourning. And I'm already gonna have a bruise from his stupid fist.
"Ms. Alyas, will you please pass me Gordon?" Near asks, indicating the train out of his reach.
"Why certainly, Near." I say, turning my back on Mello.
Matt comes clonking up the stairs. "Look, she's a toy freak too. Now there are two of them, Mells. What are we gonna do? We might have to start labeling all the legos so they know who's is who's."
"I don't own any legos." I say. "I'm too lazy to put away pretty much anything I play with, and leaving legos around is basically turning your floor into an instrument of torture."
"Please refrain from defacing my legos." Near agrees.
"Get. Out." Mello hisses through gritted teeth.
"Uhm, Mells, I'm in the hallway, not my room. I am sort of out."
He charges me, and I have to leap out of the way. "Leave!" He snarls, trampling through the train tracks. "Get out! Go back to where you came from! Or better yet, go die in a hole!" He shouts, still assailing me. I have to dodge really fast. "No one wants you here, you little vulture! No one!"
"Actually, I have no objections to her presence." Near cuts in monotonously.
Mello kicks him in the ribs while I shoot Matt a glace. Taking his momentary distraction, I knock the wind out of him and Matt yanks his arms back. "Dude, what are you doing? Mells, calm down!"
So we have Captain Killjoy, Goggles, and the vicious emo Barbie. Love my roomates.
"What's your problem?" I demand.
"You are." He snarls, deathglaring.
"So ignore me! What in the world motivates you to attack me, and anyone who takes my side," I contemplate, gesturing to the injured Near, "the instant you enter the hall I'm in? Do you need psychological help or something? Seriously Mells, go take some anger management classes."
"Don't you tell me what to do!"
"Really, I think it would be a good thing for you." I say, Ignoring him and chewing on my finger. "I hear that sometimes they give you out the foamy stress-reliever balls and those are super fun. Maybe I'll go with you… actually, let's all sign up for group therapy. Don't you think that would be fun? We could deal with Mello's anger problems, Near's antisocial tendencies, and Matt's videogame addiction all at once!"
"Group therapy won't correct your dementia." Mello snarls.
"Videogames are the stuff of heaven. It's people who can't see that that have the problems."
"I have no desire to become a social person, Ms. Alyas."
I had a feeling they would say that. "You do realize the whole proposal of us going to deal with mental problems is just so we can go to drive the therapist mad." I point out.
I'm greeted with an unenthusiastic silence and an 'I-told-you-so' scoff from Mello.
"No? Okay then. Whatever." I say with a shrug. "Near, are your ribs okay?"
"They will be fine, Ms. Alyas."
"Alright then… I survey the ruined train tracks. What the heck are we gonna call what just happened to Sodor Island?"
"I'm not quite sure, Ms. Alyas. Perhaps we should call it a storm of some sort."
"Okay. Okayokayokay. I got one. On the tenth of June, Hurricane Mello ravaged the island of Sodor. The railway lines are in ruins. It's up to Thomas, his friends, and the brilliantly awesome construction people who are super awesome to restore all the tracks." I narrate. "So we're construction people again."
"So it seems." Near agrees.
"Do you have any cranes or anything by any chance?" I ask, still watching the mess.
Near comes back with two cranes and some construction trucks. I get a bulldozer and start pushing it onto the scattered wooden tracks, bringing them over to where Near is trying to correct an arch with a crane.
Mello and Matt just stare at us awkwardly.
"Um, why are you guys staring at us?"
"Oh." Matt seems to snap out of it. "It's nothing."
"Is it because you want to help rebuild Sodor too?" I ask, owling. "It would be fine if you did, because we need all the help we can get, right Near?"
"I suppose." He answers, busy lifting a track from the pile I've pushed over and twisting his hair.
"As much as I want to help you… pretend to rebuild… Sodor…" Matt says reluctantly.
"You don't." I say bluntly, letting my eyes flick to him for a moment. Obviously, someone here can't understand the immortal magic of playing with toys.
"And it's time for dinner." He finishes, letting Mello go.
Mello slugs him in the stomach and stalks off.
So they're friends, because Mello isn't trying to kill him. Mello just can't stand letting anyone else making the last move/winning.
"He's really not that bad." Matt says, once Mello is out of earshot.
"Doubtlessly." I reply.
Matt sighs. "If you wait too much longer, all the food will be gone."
"kay." I say absently, trying to make a crane pick up a piece of train track.
Footsteps on the stairs. The door opens, the door shuts.
"Do you want to sit together at dinner or do you want some time to yourself?" I ask Near, trying to drop the track in exactly the right spot. I don't want to overwhelm Near, then he might not want me around, and that would mean no more trains.
…Yes, I can be bribed with trains.
"I'd prefer to eat alone." He answers monotonously.
I nod. "Well, I want food. If I don't eat, then I start feeling the effects of sleep deprivation..." And some… special things happen to my mental state.
"Very well, Ms. Alyas." He says, taking the ring of buckyballs off his head and holding them out to me. "Perhaps we'll do this again sometime."
"Keep them." I say, shutting his hand around them.
Looks at them for a second and then slips them into his pocket and goes back to the trains.
"Come down soon, because I'ma eat all the food." Food… I like food. I really, really like food. I'm hungry. No, I'm starving.
"I doubt you'll be able to."
"Heh. We'll see about that." I'm off to find the food.
The halls are deserted. Everyone must already be at dinner. What if the food is already gone? What if there's no more! Gah! That would be terrible! I take off running down the halls, jumping down the stairs, beelining for the mess hall. ! I'm coming!
STOP!
I freeze right outside of the mess hall, which is buzzing with noise. There are people in there.
I peek around the door, suddenly feeling self-conscious. I don't like having a lot of people scrutinizing me. I mean, it's fine if it's a few people, like just Mello, Matt and Near who think I'm more eccentric than the orbit of Halley's comet, but if everyone starts noticing me that could really get in the way and… holy paranoia, I don't feel like meeting anyone else.
"Hey! There she is!" Matt calls.
Gah! Nonono, Matt you're blowing my cover!
Then I notice that he has two heaping plates of amazing food and immediately start fantasizing that one's for me.
"Hey beautiful, you're drooling." He informs me.
"No, really? You'd think there was a pile of awesome, amazingly amazing yummy-delicious food right in front of me distracting me from all thoughts coherent." I answer, staring at the pile of creamy mashed potatoes drowned in gravy.
"Oh, well then, here." He says, holding one out to me.
I take it like it's the Holy Grail. Screw the Holy Grail, this plate has mashed potatoes. Must. Not. Faceplant. In. Awesomeness.
You know what? The plate has mashed potatoes on it. My argument is invalid. ATTACK! OMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!
"Uh..."
"Get me a red hat and call me Santa Claus." I mutter through another mouthful.
"Seriously, we could. It's all over your face."
"Oh dear, I must look like a freak." I say, spiraling into depression.
"Maybe a little."
I narrow my eyes in annoyance. That's when you're supposed to say something nice instead of admitting I'm right. "Well I suppose I'll just have to fix that, won't I?"
He offers me a napkin.
"Actually, I had another solution in mind." I say, wiping a mittful of mashed potatoes all over his face.
He stands there for a second. Then: "You're going down."
"Hnnnnnnnnn?" I ask, owling at him right in his face, spoon jutting out of my mouth.
"We'll be stuck in the room playing videogames for at least three days, and for the record it's all your fault." He says, toying with his plate and smirking. "FOOD FIGHT!" He shouts at the top of his lungs, dumping the plate all over my head.
"Oh it's on, Matt! My Mashed-Santa-Clause-Potato-Beard and I will bury you alive!" I shout, thrusting my plate at him. It spatters food all over him, but he just whirls and tosses some bread at some kid at a random table to spread the warfare.
Hello, chaos. It's been a while.
There are always a few who catch on fast, the food is already flying. The kitchen aids are making no attempt to stop us. Nothing interesting must ever happen here. Oops, lie, forgot I'm dodging rolls like a boss. I swipe a kid's plate and start hurling food at everything moving.
LOL IT'S EVERYWHERE! I sprint for the rapidly depleting buffet and snatch a piping metal dish of chicken cutlets. Ouchhotouchhotouchhot- DUCK! Matt is just flinging one handful of lasagna after another at me. I start retaliating with my chicken cutlets, pelting him with them. "FEAR THE BREADED MEAT!" I yell at the top of my lungs.
I sense someone behind me and whirl just in time to have a cake whistle over my head. Mello. He changes the course of the speeding cake, and I have to pull a fancy move to avoid having it smashed on my back. I duck behind a chair. "NONONO! Mells! You're doing it totally wrong!" I shout, grabbing a handful of the fallen cake(it's sacrifice will not be wasted). "If you have a cake, you fling mittfuls of it at people! The wild Alyas used cake-throw!" I hurl it at him, and it directly hits his forehead. "It's super effective! The wild Mells is dumbstrucked by the awesome!"
He charges me, yelling expletives, only to be pelted by lasagna. I dart over to Matt, fling chairs out of the way, and tip the table. "This is my fort, you're inside it. You can either be my ally or meet your demise at the hands of my mashed potato Santa Beard. The choice is entirely yours."
"How can I say no when you put it like that?" He laughs, still catapulting lasagna. Another direct hit on Mello. "Dude, you'd better get in a fort before I lasagna you to death!" He shouts at him.
Mello tips a table that still has stuff on it, causing glass and ceramics to smash everywhere.
Of course, that's the moment Near chooses to walk in. He surveys the situation emotionlessly, twirling his hair.
"If you're not for us, you're against us!" Matt shouts, spattering sauce and cheese all over Near's white shirt. I crack up.
"Well he's sure not on my team!" Mello retorts, hurling corn on the cob at him.
"Matt, Mello, please do not pelt me with food. I do not wish to become involved."
"Yeah? Too bad. You walked in." Mello sneers, landing a tart on his shoulder, because the idiot isn't even dodging.
"If you don't want food all over you get in the fort, Captain Killjoy! This is a warzone!" I yell.
He makes his way over to the fort and crouches behind the table. "I came here to eat dinner, but it seems you're already wreaking havoc."
"Matt started it."
"What? Oh please, babe. This is all your fault."
"I'm not the one who declared war."
"I think this alliance is over!" He says, throwing a lasagna ball at me.
"I'd agree."
"Please, negotiate your terms. I came behind this table because I did not want to get food on me." Near interrupts. "It would be pointless to be back here if you two are throwing food behind the table as well as out from it.
"Killjoy." I mutter.
"How should we go about defeating the opposition?" Matt asks, quickly moving on.
"We should lower their morale by confiscating vital sustenance. I saw a chocolate bar in Mello's back pocket when he was failing to bash me with the cake." I say.
"We must also keep in mind that such a tactic will infuriate the enemy." Near says, surprising me again by joining the game. "I agree that it is a favorable strategy, because it will make Mello irrational, but first we must be sure we can withstand an onslaught of his unbridled wrath."
"Uh, we're hiding behind a flimsy table, throwing food." Matt says. "I think that if he gets in here, we're pretty much screwed, but pissing him off sounds like fun, so let's do it anyway."
"I do not want to sustain any injuries from this affair." Near says.
"He'll be too busy trying to kill us, probably. I'm going in. Matt, cover me from the base. We need a catapult thingy to hurl the contents of all these trays of mac-n-cheese and shrimp and stuff. Near, think of something smart while I'm gone."
"Sure thing." Matt says, moving onto an untouched vegetable casserole that stinks.
I dive over the table and pull a bunch of fancy martial arts moves to make it across the mess hall to Mello's table. I leap up and land behind him. "Hey Mells!~" I singsong "I'm in your base, stealing your supplies!~" I say, grabbing some random pie like that was the reason I came.
Mello lunges for me, moving to tackle me.
We go down hard, I smash the pie on the back of his head as he crushes my other arm into my body. I yank the chocolate out of his pocket and take his moment of surprise to knee his stomach and escape.
Like a boss. "The prize has been captured! I repeat, the prize has been captured!" I shout, bolting.
"Fire in the hole!" Matt bellows, and then a giant wad of macaroni and cheese flies at me. I hit the ground in a crouch and spring forward, but Mello isn't so lucky. He gets pelted with the stuff.
"Nice!" I shout, diving back into our fort. "The prize is ours. Someone stroke it and repeat 'My Precious' over and over again."
"Yeah, a little busy PWNING N00BS here!" Matt says, catapulting shrimp so they rain like arrows. Some stick to Mello's cheesy front.
"Oh, by the way, that's quite a lovely catapult you've built there, Near."
"Thank you, Ms. Alyas."
"Oh CRAP! DUDE he's COMING!" Matt shouts.
"Man your positions! Near, get the catapult! Matt, throw disgusting vegies! I'll protect the precious from the wrath of the fool!" I cry, slipping the chocolate bar into the waist of my pants.
"You're DEAD!" Mello yells, charging with a HUGE pot of tomato soup. Near's catapult of salad hits, but he just keeps coming.
He drenches all three of us in the hot liquid, and who should choose that moment to enter but Foolder (Roger, remember?). With an extremely displeasured look on his face. He's immediately hit with a mango.
I start laughing like a maniac, loose my balance, and fall on my side in the fort.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?"
I have a feeling that all the food has stopped flying, but I'm still on the floor, convulsing hysterically. His expression was just so… so… priceless.
"Who started this?"
Everyone is silent.
I slowly peek up over the edge of the fort. The atmosphere is suddenly heavy with Foolder's wrath, but I'm still high from the fight and if anything, the pressure of being caught is heightening the sensation. It takes all of my control not to burst out laughing from all the energy building up in me. The adrenaline really started to kick in.
"I said, who started this?"
"She did." Mello spits, fingering me. "That crazy girl. Near helped her."
"What?" I ask, completely convincing.
"I did no such thing."
"I saw the whole thing, you smashed your plate into Matt." He says calmly, pointing at me. "And you set it up so both of them would be surrounded with things to throw. Don't think I didn't notice that." He thinks he's won.
"Hey! No I didn't! Just because you hate me doesn't make it okay to lie and get me in trouble, Mello!" I retort.
"You." Foolder says, eyes narrowing at me. He's probably just looking to get me in trouble too, he has it out for me.
"Yes?" I ask, owling at him.
"You started this."
"Nope. Totally wrong." I say, like I have nothing to be worried about. "Try again."
He starts like he's going to sentence me. "You're-
"Hey, it was me, okay? I was the one who shouted Food Fight." Matt says. "You got me, guilty as charged."
Foolder's eyes narrow further. "It was all of you, wasn't it? All four of you."
"If it was me, I wouldn't have drawn attention to myself by telling you it was him and her, because anyone can tell you that they started it." All the other children are silent, content to just watch the show.
"I just started throwing food because it was being thrown at me, just like everybody else." I say indignantly. "And really, is Near the type of person to organize a food fight? Just totally not his style."
"Oh, I know it was you." Foolder insists. "You're a real troublemaker, I knew it from the start. And you were the first person to be mentioned."
"By Mello, who hates me for no apparent reason. Yep, that's a reliable testimony." I retort.
"This has nothing to do with how I utterly loathe and despise you, because it doesn't affect the fact that you started it." Mello says smugly.
"Don't think that you're off the hook." Rodger says. "You have that look in your eyes that says you were 100 percent involved. It was all of you. All four of you."
"I did not enter the mess hall until long after the food fight started. Anyone can testify to that. There was no conceivable way I could have organized it's beginnings if it happened spontaneously. Matt and Ms. Alyas can testify to the fact that I have not left the suite since lunch." Near says cooly.
"And yet you're hiding behind a knocked down table with the admitted starter of this outrage and the prime suspect for his accomplice. Don't give me that." Mello says.
"I simply wished to avoid being hit by food as much as possible, so I sought shelter."
"Instead of leaving." Mello says. "You're just as involved as they are, you made the catapult."
"I did nothing of the sort."
"SILENCE!" Roger bellows. Then his voice just becomes tired and irritated. "Everyone is confined to their suites tomorrow, save for meals. No exceptions." He says. "You four are confined to your suite for a week and will only be permitted to come to breakfast and lunch. No exceptions."
Cake for dinner and cookies and sugary treats for dinner for the next week then, I guess.
This punishment is so terrible I don't know how I'll ever bear it. It's not like I have Matt and Near and my 50 bajillion computers.
"Now get out, everyone, just get out. I have to yell at the staff for not even trying to stop you." He says, pressing on his temple.
I sigh and slouch out of the fort, dripping tomato soup. The joy has been killed. Everyone leaves the mess hall in stony silence.
Mello has the nerve to give me a smug look in the hall.
One does not mock me without being trolled. Yes Mello, you totally won.
"I must say, I feel obligated to admit defeat to you." I say, offering my tomato-soup covered hand to him. He stares at it in surprise. "Not only did you manage to get yourself in just as much trouble as Matt and I for something that we started, you've also trapped yourself in a small apartment with me for an entire week. But really that won't be terrible, because I'm an awesome cook." Oh, this is going to be fun.
"Either way, I'd like to commend your remarkable ability to create plans cleverly designed to backfire on you at a moment's notice." I finish. "I don't think this could have been more fun if I tried."
He looks like he's ready to kill me again, but Matt jumps to my rescue. "A week shut in the suite with nothing but my enormous pile of videogames. Whatever will I do?" He mutters with amusement. "That was totally worth it."
"I still wish that you had not begun such an irrational conflict." Near says.
"Oh, come on!" I groan, looking back at him, because he's several steps behind me. "Near, you loved it. It was like a playing with toys, but it was food. You got right behind the table and made a freaking catapult. You even started strategizing with us. Don't pretend you weren't totally into that."
"In spite of your tendency to do stupid things you are clever, Ms. Alyas."
"Nice cover-up, Near." I retort.
He's silent.
Alyas 1, Near 1. Don't count me out just yet.
LxWxL
A/N: Wow. This story is quickly deteriorating to stereotypical crap. I know, I'm aware, sorry.
But I'm having fun, so I'll keep writing anyway~
LOLDERHERHERIFEELPSYCHOPATHIC!
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. I'll try to update soon, I have finals in my way so it might be a couple weeks. I certainly hope not, see what I can do… I think I might have said this already.
And remember, RiXCHaN loooooooooooooooooooooves youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu~
Okay. I'm done. Kthxbai.
~Your Rix.