==Hi, everyone! I'm back like I promised, and this time I'm not sick! I hope everyone has had a good life since I've been absent. I've been drowning in school work, but that's nothing new for me. I kind of wanted to get two chapters out this weekend, but I was doing so much stuff with family every day so I didn't get to do that. But as long as I got this one out, I'm happy. It was my goal, after all. For this chapter, I did some searching on YouTube to find good content to give me some ideas about what to write about. There was a cool video by Yellow Claw that I used as a reference and another video by Jack U that I used to help me figure out what I wanted to write about. I don't want to say I copied them, but at the same time, I'm not so creative when it comes to content like this, meaning I have no original ideas. But I hope it's still entertaining enough for you. The next chapter will be full of old content from the original version of this story mostly because it's so jam packed with hard stuff to write about. I'll go through it, of course, to make things better or correct stuff. Other than that, it will be a super huge chapter - probably around 10,000 words - and I'm pretty sure a lot of you will be baffled by how I managed to write that much! It should be fine, though. It won't be here until December; I got Christmas Break coming up soon, but still a few weeks of school left. I should get a few chapters out during that time, but until then, I hope you enjoy!==
Julian Calor - "Power"
You put speed to every motion, take my breath in every moment, fight for right in every wrong and on and on you hold your own. You press play and I fast forward. We play games but you control us. Only you can find a goal that I can aim for all alone. Won't you turn my strength to power?
Haunted: Collapse into Caliginosity
Chapter 58:
Shock and Awe
The ticket line outside was very intimidating by the mere length of it. Luckily it moved fast as soon as we joined the back end of it. Zane and Nya continued to pull off the boyfriend-girlfriend act by holding hands and talking to each other. Seeing my little sister interact this way with a guy I viewed as my brother felt uncomfortable to me. She may have been the one to come up with the idea, but she was still really young in my eyes. In fact, she was nearly a year younger than Macca. How come I saw Macca as a powerful woman who can set her own path but see Nya as a vulnerable girl that I had to protect at all costs? Because I loved my sister and I wanted the best for her. Our parents were gone, after all, and have been for years. That parental responsibility was put on my shoulders. I guess that has caused me to develop the same mindset as a father would have for his daughter.
You aren't allowed to date until you're thirty-five! I mentally told the back of her head.
Yeah, there's definitely a reason why I'm single and twenty-one years old. I couldn't handle having a kid right now. I'd go insane. That's why Nya fills that empty place for the time being, and I don't plan on changing that anytime soon.
Jay observed the two of them the entire time, almost as if nobody noticed. When Nya made the suggestion to pretend to be Zane's girlfriend, Jay was quiet, which was unusual for him. He was always making some kind of comment that would either make us laugh or roll our eyes. It was probably the fact that Nya was the one who wanted to do those things with Zane instead of him that was bothering him right now. Zane was right about Jay's feelings for Nya, and I felt bad for the guy. But it wasn't going to happen as long as Nya was seventeen. Maybe I can let go a little bit once her birthday rolls around. It'll still bother me, of course, but maybe, just maybe, if Jay proves he doesn't intend on fooling around with her, I can live with them being together...maybe.
Being the next in line, I pulled out the phone to get the prepaid tickets ready for scanning. The dark skinned, muscular man, who seemed to be in charge of both tickets and security, took the phone out of my hand. "How many of you?" he questioned.
"Six," I answered.
He unlatched the scanning wand from his belt and scanned each ticket with a beep! to indicate it was accounted for. Once the sixth one sounded, he handed the phone back to me and nodded for us to go in.
Viewing the arena from the outside made it seem pretty large, but actually emerging into the inside of it gave it a whole different perspective. The ceiling felt like it was a mile away, but anybody could see the many steps for seating travelling up the incline until it met the wall.
Everything happening around us was organized chaos. Bodies jostled us in all directions as they went to a variety of specific areas. Some people were leaving because a battle just ended, others entered the actual arena for the next one, and even more crowded the concession stands. Loud music with deep bass barraged our ears from the platform.
"We're supposed to find Macca in all this?" Cole asked from behind me.
"She said she'd be right..." My voice trailed as I skimmed through the active mass of strangers and landed on someone unusually short with a lot of curly hair flowing out from under a white hat. Nobody could deny it was Macca, but she wasn't even watching the door for us. "Here," I finished, stepping toward her.
With one swipe, I lifted my jacket and threw her underneath it, tucking my arm against her belly to get her feet off the ground. She screamed from under the jacket. The guy who was having a conversation with her gave me a scared look as I just took her away from him.
The others laughed when I returned with the obvious squirming bulge protruding from my body with a pair of legs hanging out. Her hands reached out from underneath to grab the zipper and pull it down to reveal herself. "I hate you guys!" she exclaimed, realizing who was responsible for the shenanigan.
Jay laughed the loudest. "You were being taken away without consent and your first thought is to unzip the jacket to free yourself?"
"Shut up!" she laughed, throwing her arms around him and going limp, making him support all her bodyweight by himself.
"Oh wow. Zane doesn't get the first hug?" Nya wondered. "Since when does that happen?"
Macca gazed at Zane, who still had the black hood over his head to disguise himself. "You made him look like a thug?" she giggled, extending her arms up towards him. "Hold me."
He opened his arms up to her. "Jump," he told her.
She, without hesitation, sprang straight into him like a monkey leaping at a tree. He didn't even return the embrace at first, because she was holding on without his help.
"What even is a relationship like theirs?" I joked, jumping onto Cole the same way.
He stepped out of the way so I couldn't succeed.
"Did you guys get here alright?" Macca asked us, releasing Zane from the restraint she put on him.
"Pretty good," Cole replied, "except for when we lost Nya."
"I wasn't lost. I just didn't make it onto the train in time," she corrected.
"Zane went on a rescue mission at that point. Other than that, it was okay."
"Good. Let's go get your seats before it starts getting super crowded," she beckoned, waving us over to the other side of the room.
We followed her through the ocean of bodies until we were through and going down stairs. Hundreds of seats surrounded us from top to bottom. We were getting front row seats, which was a huge upgrade compared to the nose bleed section above our heads. A large amount of people were already seated toward the front, but a noticeable empty row stood out among the rest.
Another loud song began to play once we got settled down. She sat on the railing in front of us. "Things are going to be a little different tonight," she informed us. "Think of it like a celebration."
"Is that why your shoes and hat are white but nothing else is?" Jay hinted, a little bit sarcastically.
"Oh, shut up," she bantered, getting back to her feet. "Give it five minutes." She quickly jogged back up the stairs to leave, greeting fans along the way.
Official workers of the tournament were sweeping the wooden platform with long brooms. Three chairs were at the far end. Apparently the judges of the battles were taking a water break behind the scenes. A DJ stood on a higher placed balcony, controlling the music to keep the room from getting bored. He had the track the battle would play along to and that the teams would use to compete against each other.
The platform itself had two large black metal doors on opposite sides of each other. A space between them was big enough to fit the sponsor vehicles. There was also enough room for the filming crews to hang out around the actual dance floor to broadcast the event on live television. Above the platform was a projection advertising many sponsors, which were hosting battles tonight, and the tournament altogether.
Gradually, the arena was filling back up to pack the entire house tight with bodies and noise. The workers brought out a foldable, draped table and placed it in the center of the platform. Two speakers accompanied it. Another worker drug a handful of wires with extension cords to the table and left them unplugged. The lights dimmed, making everyone excited, but the projection got brighter to play a promotional video...about Macca?
It began with an intense bass that gravitated from the speakers all around the room. An image of Macca with her headphones over her ears and a white light illuminating her face appeared. She coordinated a piece of work on her laptop for only a frame in the video, but as the pitter-patter of a beat danced to become louder an even bigger gravitation of bass, the frame changed to a sunset across the horizon and to an aerial view of Ninjago City. The pitter-patter transformed into stepping sounds, welcoming a third wave of bass as it showed her getting into her car and someone closing the door for her. She was deadlifting a massive amount of weight from the floor with a bead of sweat streaming down her forehead. A moving shot of bright red orbs hanging from a ceiling flashed by. More bass. Faster steps turned into stomps. She was jumping onto stairs. Lights were slowly moving. She was on stage. Fans were gathered with signs and raised hands in a crowd of thousands.
Everything stopped.
When the music resumed, a new clip of an outdoor festival full of people moving at the same time rolled by. A shot of the fogged stage full of animations and lights flew by. The perspective from behind her as she stood above her DJ equipment and danced with the crowds lasted a couple seconds. Then everyone was holding lights, waving them back and forth just as she did as the music became muffled and slowed down.
It resurfaced immediately. She pumped her arms to the beat, her fans mimicking every movement. Flashes of lights and lasers radiated in every single direction. Cheering sounded, people danced, and flags were waved. Macca even interacted with the camera a little bit.
It went back and forth from the enthusiastic fans to Macca dancing and working her turntables. Then she jumped high above the stage, her arms and legs bent in different directions. The moment she landed, the bass dropped again. But all of it came to an end with her sitting with hair covering one side of her face, deeply looking into the camera with the determination to never quit working hard.
Before we could react, the black doors rose with a screech to release a thick cloud of fog. The lights above the platform rained down in colors. The Ferrari came flying out, presenting the temporary paint job of blue and black markings and a distinct jungle cat crashing through the door, and parked in the available space. Its four doors suddenly opened to let out the two teams. They all carried something to the table to let Macca put it all together as fast as she could. The rest went back to the car to get more stuff, even opening the trunk to let one more person out.
A sound emanated throughout the room. "Ninjago City, make some noise!" Macca requested through her microphone.
"It's M, the A, the C, the C, the A. Macca! It's M, the A, the C, the C, the A. Macca!" a familiar voice repeated. A flamboyant man dressed in bright colors and a furry coat strutted onto the platform, his female dancers following him in.
"Oh my god, it's Calico Pat," I exhaled, starstruck.
The activity of the lights increased as the rest of guys from both teams pulled out flags to wave. Calico Pat's dancers lined up in front of Macca's table, never missing a beat to their leader's quickening words. "Clap! Your! Hands!" Macca continued, manipulating the track to change things up a bit.
Calico Pat crossed the stage many times, pulling out a spontaneous rap from his mysterious mind. His dancers followed along perfectly, impressing me. The energetic clapping resonated throughout the arena. "One, two, and three, and go!" another person added as the bass dropped.
The dancers began a whole routine as even more dancers, in a different kind of outfit, came skipping out from backstage to entertain the crowd even more. Rapping continued as Macca found her sweet spot, making the music intensity decrease a little bit so that the dancers could take the show away for the time being. They flipped their hair, swung their hips, and moved their hands to the beat that was making a resurgence.
"Let's go!"
There was an unexpected stop to the beat again, allowing the dancers and Calico Pat to do another segment. A short but new routine and rap came around for only a few seconds, all while Macca and the guys surrounding her jumped to introduce an even better bass drop. The lights went berserk. Everything quickened: the dancing, the rapping, and also our bloodflow. I had no idea what was going on, but it was awesome to watch it happening in real time.
All of it dissipated with one stroke of the turntables. The lights calmed down, the rapping quieted, and the dancers ran up the stairs to leave the platform. Calico Pat exiled himself back through the door he came from.
One of the guys from Poison Posse stepped forward. I recognized him as Trent. "Ninjago City, how you feeling out there?" he asked us with a microphone in hand. Macca unleashed some minuscule sounds to bring in the next song, which began with a slow and relaxed beat. "Welcome to the Ninjago Breakdance Tournament," he continued. "We're gonna have a little bit of a party with you guys before our battle begins. Usually we compete for glory, but we're also friends who compete with each other every summer. We want you all to know that it's more than a competition for some of us; it's a passion we get to express for the world to see."
Macca came out from behind the table, letting Linus take over the turntables for a few minutes. She sang the first verse of the song by herself, her beautiful voice filling our eardrums. She moved around the platform, pausing for the beat to reach the bridge. Someone from the other team with brown hair came around from behind the table, as well, singing the bridge. (He was the guy who was talking with her when I snatched her earlier.) When Macca's voice joined in, it created a harmony that I didn't think was possible at first. The two of them faced each other, locking fingers together just as the song described.
When the bass dropped, they split away from each other. Another rap from a prerecorded song collaborated with the beat because their tempos matched. People came out from the doors with t-shirt cannons and shot out the goods for people in the rows behind us. When the rapping ceased, the people exited back through the doors.
"Make some noise if you're having a good time!" a guy said into a microphone.
People cheered.
More harmonized singing began with the swiveling slow beat. Linus made the song morph into a faster and more party-like beat. Everyone from behind the table got in line with Macca and her singing partner to do a goofy dance that went along well with the sounds. None of them messed up once, and it all seemed normal.
But that was when Macca surprised us all.
She stepped forward, only a few feet away from us, and reached the middle of her Poison Posse shirt just to completely rip it in half without struggle. A white tank top with an image of Zane wearing sunglasses was underneath it. I busted out laughing when I read the caption of "Deal With It" over his head. Then she had the audacity to also rip off her pants! Of course there were white pants ready to be revealed, but at that point, we were waving at her to stop stripping in front of us.
After tossing the ripped clothes into the crowd, she gave everyone a little preview of her moves during battle. First, she did five backflips without pausing between each one. One, two, three, four, five. All had a single foot making the landing and then pushing off again to do another. For the fifth one, not only did she stick the landing perfectly, but she had enough strength to shoot herself forward for a front flip. This time, she finished in a kneeling position. Giving everyone time to cheer her on.
Then she was spinning. It started on a knee and carried onto her arm and ended up completely on her head. The balance she had was amazing. Her arms and legs stayed still up in the air. Suddenly, she was right side up again, throwing herself into more more backflips that resulted in her entire body restrained in mid air. She horizontally rolled three times before extending her legs to meet the floor.
The crowd went nuts.
The guys stood in a line next to her, obviously preparing something else. Meanwhile, Linus changed the beat of the current tune to one of a remix to it. It was different but also the same. Macca skipped to the far end of the platform, and then had a running start towards the guys. She launched herself over their heads, tucking her knees into her chest to do three consecutive flips. The last one was a close call; she barely had enough time to get her feet ready to catch her. But the people around us were just concerned with how awesome she was.
"One more!" she exclaimed, barely audible because of the noise level in the room. She threw herself back onto the floor, using her arm strength to support her lower body as it rotated around and around above the floor. The faster she got, the more her legs rose higher into the air. Soon she was pushing off the floor to spin her body and readjusting her hands to catch herself again. It looked as if she wasn't struggling at all to hold up all her weight.
She made the switch to bring her hands together so her body spun in place like a spinning top. The balancing act was precise. After making a couple fast-paced rotations, she momentarily lowered her body and hoisted it back up, almost as if she did an upside down push-up. As the place riled up again, she readjusted her body so that only one arm was holding her up. Her elbow pressed into her side as she bounced around the floor to somewhat spin again. When she found a stopping place, the beat halted. She pressed her free fingertips to her lips and then released a kiss for everyone watching her. The guys, who were waving flags in the background, suddenly dropped to the floor. "Boomshakatak!" the speakers erupted as Macca stood up to take Linus's place on the turntables. "Boo-B-B-B-B-Boo-Boom-Boomsha-Boomsha-Boomshak-Boomshakatak!"
The next song transitioned in smoothly. They all stayed on the floor, unmoving, as the prerecorded singing voice made its sonorous entrance.
What was funny was that when it became recognizable, Macca nonchalantly made eye contact with us as she manipulated the robotics in the singing.
You put speed to every motion
Take my breath in every moment
Fight for right in every wrong and on and on you hold your own
You press play and I fast forward
We play games but you control us
Only you can find a goal that I can aim for all alone
Won't you turn my strength to power?
We all gazed to the center of our row at Zane, who sunk into his seat uncomfortably.
"You never told us you could sing," I lightheartedly commented.
"I-I don't," he stammered.
"Then how did you get to be part of the show?"
He shrugged.
Won't you turn my strength to power?
Macca made the bass drop, zoning out everyone in the room to accompany a separate but pleasant track into the mix. A whiteout occurred with the lights, adding to the theme of Zane she was presenting. She turned knobs and slid notches to change the sound up a bit. Watching her head wave to keep the tempo and her fingers do magic showed just how knowledgeable she was at her passion.
When it timed out, a familiar beat filled the room again, making people stomp their feet and clap their hands. Macca encouraged it, putting the headphones down and crouching on the table to work the mixing board. The guys all got up to tag along as a whole bunch of random characters came through the doors to party with the new beat. There were people in animal costumes like blue cats, purple squirrels, a mad scientist, and even an "old lady" being wheeled in on a wheelchair. Calico Pat came back out with all his dancers doing their own thing.
Macca built up to a break, the dancers throwing their hands up to do a small routine. Then the characters all started spinning around at the same time, flailing their arms like an airplane that was falling out of the sky. "One, two. One, two, three!"
The bass dropped, letting everybody on the platform go crazy however they pleased. The lights strobed and lasers shot out in all directions. This was definitely a party for not just them, but for all who came to see it for themselves. More tournament memorabilia like shirts and drink holders were distributed through cannons. Confetti fell from the ceiling all over the platform and all over us. The grand finale was everyone posing and the music stopping altogether. The entire arena erupted in cheering. This was the best day ever.
Thank you RandomDragon, PixelatedNinja, and SpitfirewaterNinja for leaving a LOT of reviews since my last update! It's always reassuring to know readers are really absorbing the content I put out there :) And thank you silent readers for all the traffic I've been getting. Seriously, this story has been getting a whole lot of reads every day, and that hasn't really happened until recently :O
SpitfirewaterNinja - Calm down! XD Eleven reviews in one day=serious binge reading, but thanks for sharing your thoughts! :)