Chapter Three
Three Musketeers...or Stooges?
"Wash?" I looked on at him, and saw that no features on him had changed. It didn't even seem like all that had happened to him aged him any bit. "Wash is that you?" I asked.
"Sup Cheyenne." The only bastard in the universe who could get away with my real name.
"David!" I excitedly shouted reaching out to take his hand but he dissipated right in front of me…
"No….Wash...David..." I groaned in my sleep, and Aiden and J.L. had been chuckling above me. As I was grasping the air Aiden's laughed echoed in my dream and I woke up. I looked up at them bleary eyed and realized what I was doing again. "Fuck..."
"Cherie this is the third time we've woken you up dreaming about Washington. Sorry, you're stuck with us." J.L. cleared his throat after all their laughing.
"Ha, sorry not sorry. You thirsty boo?" Aiden coughed he was laughing so hard.
"I hate you two..." I muttered throwing my pillow over my face.
"Awww, I saw some blush in between those freckles!" Aiden was just overall being a jerk.
Many years before…
I sat in the car and watched all the familiarity pass me by. I had run into the apartment feigning to Joe I had forgotten something for class and he brushed it off as nothing but a thing and returned to his guitar, the newest money making piece of our lives that was currently failing at what he hoped it was going to do.
I had ran through my room frantic to seem as though I wasn't ditching my school supplies for some normal clothes and shoving some sentimental items and creature comforts instead. You know shouting things like "Where is it? Damn thing!" every six and a half seconds. No notice from him though. Good kind of what I was counting on.
I had quickly scrawled a note in a torn off piece of paper from my note book about him not looking for me, good luck with his life, and that I'm glad we had this opportunity to spend some of our lives together. Been a learning experience yada yada…
I had shoved my journal into the bag, and finally decided enough of my stuff was coming with me to feel like I wasn't going empty handed. I, in the mad rush I was in left the note on the table and when he stopped me at the door, guitar in hand, gave me a halfhearted kiss wishing me a good day in class and asked when I was getting home, I about lost it. I lied and said the usual time.
I'm glad my mom was at least more informed than what I had to do to him. I may not have as strong of feelings for him anymore, but I still cared.
"It'll get easier darling." Dr. Church snapped me out of my reverie.
"I know it will."
Hell was I wrong.
Present day…
I played more with my food than ate it, to J.L.'s dismay since he typically makes enough food to feed refugee camps twice over.
"We will get to Chorus soon C.C…." Aiden groaned.
"Yeah I get it, I just haven't felt this twisted in a long time..." I answered pushing my plate away.
"You were never good at waiting..." Aiden shook his head and took a sip of his drink.
"Oh please it's seriously the suspense and worry, not my patience." I retorted.
"Uh huh, like you're patience executed in signing our contracts with the Director." Aiden joked.
"Hey, you know I'd have slice my finger and signed in blood if wouldn't have been such a mess." I retorted laughing. "I was in a rush, I had a good deal." I muttered.
"Yeah you're finger wasn't the only thing you would have cut..." J.L. added laughing.
"For real, all I asked was if you were going to read your terms before you checked agree!" Aiden said.
"Aiden I'll still cut a bitch for calling me sweet heart." I crossed my arms.
"What really sucked was how you and J.L. both know French! I was so left out." Aiden groaned.
"Hey that shit helped in our training that first day we were up." I argued. "Just didn't help when I experienced that damned concussion. J.L..."
Many years ago…
We walked down this large corridor in The Mother of Invention. We were given our Agent names, and we got to pick our armor. We knew each other's first names, and we only had some of our evaluations to chit chat.
Alaska as he is known now was the guy I threatened to cut when he made fun of my signing of our contracts in the directors office. Clearly he didn't get as convincing of a deal as me or seal is fate on the outside. Louisiana was the Cajun man who humored in my behavior and helped me brush up on some of my French.
Alaska took it upon himself to half a white Mark IV suit and have black accents on his shoulders and knees. Something simple, kinda reflected his state name. Louisiana flared his Cajun pride by having his armor in dark purple and the accents green and gold on alternating sides. Me, I went for simple. Dark red with black and gold. Resembled a coral snake; small but lethal. I didn't admit that aloud, but I felt like it was good.
Oh and I was given Colorado. I felt at home already.
A large door slide open revealing what was apparently the training arena where were approved to demonstrate today. A booming female computerized voice echoed as we walked in. It was identified to us FILSS.
"Now entering the training room: Agents Alaska, Louisiana and Colorado." She boomed.
"It's like we are the three Musketeers or something." Alaska said.
"So long as we aren't looking like the three stooges today, I'll be good being grouped with you two." I said.
"I concur mademoiselle." Louisiana responded.
"Awaiting challengers..." FILSS sounded.
"This is gonna be good." I mentioned.
"What makes you say that?" Alaska asked. I pointed up to the observatory and the various others in armor appearing as though they were debating. Finally we saw the figures move down and out of the observatory.
"Challengers confirmed. Agents York, Wyoming and Washington." FILSS announced. They stepped into the training arena. One was in gold armor, one in white, and the other had steel with yellow accents.
"There are three stages to this training simulation. First one is team based free for all. The second one is target acquisition, and the third is one-on-one sparring. Team 1 is Alaska, Louisiana and Colorado. Team 2 is York, Wyoming, and Washington." FILSS announced.
"Woo Team 1!" Alaska shouted, I shook my head. There was a circle that lit up in the center of the training arena.
"For the Team free for all. Last one standing wins for them team. Team objectives is to ring out all the opposing team members before the other." FILSS explained. We all walked into the circle, some lagging behind others.
Here's looking at the guy in the steel yellow accented armor.
"Alrighty guys, we should just go a little easy on the newbies." Said the guy in gold. "I'm York by the way."
"Well York, you don't have to pull punches on us. We can probably handle ourselves just fine. Alaska, by the way." Alaska replied sarcastically.
"We don't wanna scare you before you even see the battlefield." York retorted as the countdown started at 10.
"Ha. Good luck." I said. "Last I checked I know I don't scare easy."
"What, don't think we could?" The guy in the steel said, sounding a tad bit unsure.
"I mean with that cute nervous demeanor it sounds like you guys can use all the luck you need." I said flirtatiously. It felt strange and left a weird taste in my mouth. Not even 24 hours ago I had a live-in boyfriend.
"I'm glad we have the quick witted lady on our side." Louisiana interjected. Countdown was still on.
"The only advantage that's gonna be on is Wash, he doesn't know how to handle himself around the ladies." York said gesturing to him.
"5...4...3..."
"Really dude? That's uncool. Like you and Delta telling me about the helmet waste disposal syste-" I cut him off as the counter hit one, and I took the opportunity to perform a flying side kick. Shit that felt good to perform again! Washington slid almost to ring out line.
"That's why you need luck!" I shouted as I turned to York and engaged in combat with him. I was landing a few good blows, but not as many I had been hoping to. He was really fast and somewhat unconventional. Lots of sweeps to avoid, and typically I failed to block the next hits after that.
"Colorado, Ton droite!" I heard Louisiana call. York stopped slightly confused by the jibberish he heard, but I recognized it. My right? I looked and ducked just in time to avoid getting hit by an airborne Washington. I rolled and hopped back up beside Louisiana.
"Merci Cherie." I Offered my fist up for a fist bump.
"De Rien Mademoiselle." He returned the fist bump. Alaska was struggling with Wyoming, shouting some nonsense about knock knock jokes never ending and not making much sense either.
"You think he's going for a 'die from laughter' approach?" I asked. York and Washington were already getting up and getting ready to fight again.
"No but I think we are gonna be out if you don't pay better attention!" Louisiana urged as I turned back to our opponents. York came at me a lot harder with higher kicks I had to defend from. It has been ages since I had a decent skirmish and he was clearly a better fighter. I couldn't break a defensive pose for the life of me. I landed like two punches to his torso and managed a weak uppercut. My arms were taking such a beating. All I could manage to think about was how fucked I was with him as an opponent. I managed a glimpse over at Louisiana who was just letting Washington have it. I cannot attest to what he was thinking, but I'm sure it included the use of the word "fuck" as much as I was.
Finally my feet were just centimeters from the ring line and he ended my misery with one powerful spinning back kick and I landed flat on my back.
"Colorado, ring out." FILSS announced. I groaned.
"Fuck." I muttered. Suddenly I heard someone else yelling. I sat up and was hit hard with a person.
Sucked for me that the moment I got ringed out, Louisiana tossed Washington in the same direction. On me.
Now we laid in this groaning pile of embarrassment and pain.
"I'm sorry Cherie!" Louisiana shouted, then moving onto York as an opponent.
"Fuck...you…Louisiana..." I coughed. My head hurt and it felt like someone had turned my vision on and off like a broken television. Washington lifted his body off of me but still held himself up in a plank position, perpendicular to me flat on my mother fucking back still. He adjusted his helmet.
"By the way, I'm Washington." He introduced awkwardly hovering above me.
"That's nice, I'm in pain, please move or I will try and make you move." I barked. He quickly sat up and took my hand and lifted me to my feet with incredible ease.
"I'm sorry, I didn't like...try to land on you." He stammered.
"Jesus York was right, how often do you talk to girls?" I chuckled holding my head. Oh yeah I had a concussion. I'll have to go to the infirmary for this shit.
"Am I really that bad?" He asked, in a such a tone that I couldn't help but laugh because it was so cute.
"Don't worry, it suits you. Colorado by the way." I answered. "You can call me 'in pain' but it probably won't get you too far." I left the poor guy speechless, I patted him on the shoulder and walked back to my team's half of the arena to wait for the rest of them to finish up.
It felt good to be this free and myself again.
I'm trying to get a good description of how they met in and the time spent in PF before I get to the chapter where they make it to Chorus, because what's the fun in finding out in one chapter how these three escaped and then repay Wash if we didn't even see how they got to that relationship in the first place :) so bear with me, it's gonna be lengthy...lol
Thank you guys for those amazing reviews! I'm sorry it took me so long to get this updated but I tried to make it worth while! I personally feel like I cannot write action and I had to pull memories from my own skirmishes and sparring matches to make this legit!
I hope you guys enjoyed! I'll update sooner rather than later, False Pretense is getting intense now and I am also attempting NaNoWriMo this year!
~Sahara