A/N: I still don't own XS, although that would be pretty cool. That applies for all my chapters. So, yeah keep the reviews coming, they sure are lovely. This chapter is a filler chapter with, hopefully, some important things in. I'm introducing two characters which I hold close to my heart so just a heads up! They're OC's and they're from the book I'm writing that's not a fanfic but just because I love them, they're in everything I've ever written. Hope you like this chapter! A bit about Ashley's past comes to light and stuff so you know. Do not hate on my female OC that I'm introducing in this chapter, she isn't as bad as she seems in this chapter. She seems so much worse than she is, I promise! Enjoy!
R&R -Anna x
No one wanted to start. It was worse than trying the League of Nations trying to get disarmament in the 20's and 30's; everyone wanted it but no one wanted to be the first.
Everyone just sat there avoiding eye contact with everyone. There had been some tension between the girls as well, just no one mentioned it. There was silence between the group, until Ashley got her phone out and dialled a number.
"What are you doing?" Dojo asked.
"I'm calling my cousin, she can help us out." Everyone just kind of stared.
"Hey cuz, I need your help." Ashley put the call on loud speaker.
"Ash, love, is it important? If so, I'm on my way but if it's not, I swear to Lord Sandra, Queen of the Potatoes, I will send Zach over there to kill you!" A seriously English accent shone through the phone.
"T-C, get your butt out of Midville and on a plane right now to China, it is urgent!" Ashley laughed.
"Jesus, Ashley, you sound serious and you've lost your accent! Not ashamed of where you come from now are we?"
"If she wants, I can send my helicopter to get her. She'll be here in about three hours if you let me text Haruto to go and collect her." Kimiko offered.
"Did I hear helicopter? Can I bring Zach?"
"Kimiko is sending a helicopter to collect you. The helicopter will be there in an hour and a half." Kimiko got to texting. "Oh and pack a bag, Twila, I know you'll forget otherwise!"
"ZACHY, WE'RE GOING TO CHINA, PACK A BAG FOR YOU AND ONE FOR ME. WE HAVE AN HOUR AND A HALF TILL THE HELICOPTER GETS HERE."
"I'VE NEVER BEEN IN A HELICOPTER BEFORE! THAT IS SO COOL!"
The team could hear another English accent but the voice was male, presumably Zach.
"Shut up, Zach, I'm on the phone! Sorry, Zach is a bit excited. How's Jack? Will I finally get to meet the love of your life?"
Ashley flushed red as Rai, Clay and Omi all looked up at her. Rai raised his eyebrows and Ashley avoided his look. Kimiko hit him in the ribs.
"Twila-Cassidy, you know you're on loud speaker and I hadn't told my new friends about Jack yet."
"You have friends?! I joke, I joke. I can't wait to meet them all then. Sorry for telling them. Okay, well listen Ash, I know you've never taken this advice but keep out of trouble okay? We've both got the trouble gene and I don't want another lecture at my birthday dinner for flying out to see you. You know how my parents and your parent are! They absolutely hate the fact that we're friends considering all the trouble you get in. I'll see if my brothers want to come but you know what they're like, probably just me and Zachy. Bye Ashy-baby. Love you and see you in a few hours!"
"Love you too, T-C. See you soon!" And she hung up.
Everyone just stared at Ashley.
"You're… British?" Raimundo just stared.
"English actually and I very much miss it. But I don't miss my family at all, except for Twila." She didn't want to talk about her life before 'Katnappe' and China happened. She didn't really want to talk about her life before she ran away with Jack. She was trying to clean up her act and was actually staying out of trouble for once.
Kimiko ran up and hugged her ex enemy. "I am so sorry for everything we put you through, we had no idea it was so tough on you! If you ever want to talk, I'm always here." She grabbed Ashley's phone and inputted her number.
"I'm fine! Jesus Christ, it's not that big of a deal!" To her, everyone was overreacting as everyone always does.
"Who is Lord Sandra and why is she Queen of the Potatoes?" Omi was really puzzling over it.
"Oh dear Lord Sandra. Lord Sandra is Twila. When my parents didn't want to parent, they would send me for a sleepover at Twila's house, since she lives just down the road from us. And we used to play games but she always used to refer to herself as Lord Sandra. Then she started to get ill a lot. She sometimes couldn't get out of bed because she was in pain so when her dad would shout up to her, she'd reply that she was a potato. But then when she did that when I was round once, I called her a special potato and she became Queen of the Potatoes. This then created Lord Sandra, Queen of the Potatoes." They all stared at her. She actually was the normal one in the family.
The hours passed quickly and a short girl with wild blonde curls hanging over her shoulders came bustling into the dining room.
"T-C!" Ashley squealed.
"ASHY!" Twila squealed, hugging her older cousin.
Zach appeared in the doorway carrying all the bags.
"Well, hasn't little Zachy grown up." Last time Ashley saw Zach, he was short and skinny. The man that stood in the doorway was at least six foot and his muscles bulged under his t-shirt.
The girl's jaws dropped. "Well hello there handsome, I'm Miss Taylor-Jane Moxin from Louisiana. And who might you be?" Taylor stood up and clung to the very handsome muscle standing in the doorway.
"I'm Twila-Cassidy Jennings and this is my boyfriend, Zach, 'Miss Taylor-Jane Moxin'." Twila imitated Taylor's name in her southern twang and gave a sickly sweet smile insinuating she sat down and shut up. Taylor turned to sit down next to Clay, who had his eyebrows raised, and Ana, who was snorting down a laugh.
"Now, Ashley, why are we here?"
Ashley explained everything. "And so Dojo and I," she pointed to the lizard on top of the gong, "need your help to get them talking. And I know how good you are at making people… talk, amongst other things." Ashley winked at Zach who gave her a blank stare.
Twila and Ashley smirked. They really were two halves of the same whole.
"So who wants to start? If you say it willingly, I won't use any of my… special powers, so to speak." Twila looked at the sorry looking lot.
'She called me all the way to China for this?'
"We won't talk to you because we don't know you." Anastasia said, bluntly.
"Right well, I'm Twila-Cassidy Jennings. I'm sixteen years old and I live in Midville, England. I love cats and I'm pretty weird. I don't do girls; all my friends are boys really. I love Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and anything musical. I'm gonna be a stage actress and I love food. I dance a lot and I love to sing. I've been with Zachy for two years now and we're deeply in love. We plan to start a cat family because I'm scared of children. I'm the cat to Zach's panda and he's the panda to my cat." He laughed at her last statement. She looked at him fondly as he leant down and pecked her on the lips. "Any questions?" No one asked any so she continued. "State your names, age and which country you're from. One interesting fact would be nice too but if it's not interesting, I don't care." Twila was clearly one of those girls who doesn't mess around. She was blunt and straight to the point and it was one of the reasons Zach loved her.
"I'm Kimiko, I turned sixteen about three months ago. I come from Tokyo, Japan and I love shopping!" Kimiko chimed.
"We'll get along great then, you can shop for me since I hate it!" Twila smiled at her. "What about you?" She turned to Rai.
"I'm Rai, I'm seventeen from Rio in Brazil and I have a fan club of girls back home." He gave his cheeky smile, hearing Kimiko huff.
"Cool, mate. We'll get along fine, Twila and her friends were my fan club a few years ago." Zach winked at Twila but she just glared back.
"I'm Clay Bailey. I am nineteen years old from Texas and if I wasn't here I would be working on my parents' ranch back home."
They all nodded and approved.
"I'm Taylor-Jane Moxin. I am 18 years of age and I was a cheerleader back home as well as Miss Teen Louisiana last year." Taylor beamed at them.
"I said something interesting." Twila said flatly.
"Twila is a cheerleader at home too." Ashley told Taylor. Twila shot her a look.
"You cheer for my rugby team, T-J." Zach shot her a disapproving look.
"Sorry, I'll try to be nicer." She said.
"I'm Anastasia Pavlenko, I'm fifteen from Russia and I don't really do much."
"She's my new best friend." Twila stated to Zach.
"Oh dear god, Ashley and Twila was enough. Now Anastasia doesn't do much either. God save us all." Zach teased.
"I'm Omi, I'm fifteen and I am from here. There isn't a fact about me that isn't interesting." He said.
The rest of his team and Ashley sighed.
"Is he always like this?" Twila and Zach asked in unison.
"Sadly, yes." Kimiko gave a sorry look.
"So I already figured out what's wrong with you all." Twila stated.
"It's not your place to say, T-J." Zach gave her a warning look.
"I know, but I'm just saying, if they don't tell them; it will sound so much worse coming from me."
Everyone looked worried.
"Ashley, you need to be sitting down too. You haven't been too honest either." Ashley sat down next to Kimiko and gave her cousin a questioning look. "So, this is how it's going to work. Little lizard dragon thing, Zach and I are going to make you all spill your problems to the rest of the group. This will involve one on one time with each of us and then we will present you to the group."
There were questioning looks and a few mumbles against whether this would work.
"Oh trust me, it works. In my infant and junior school, if you had a problem with someone or a group of people this is what the teachers would do. Unfortunately, this takes a while so we will aim to get through one to two people slash problems a day. So then we'll leave Ashley's problem till last because there needs to be some cuz on cuz discussion on this type of problem."
Everyone agreed begrudgingly to this.
"So, shall we start with Princess and Tennis ball over there?" She gestured to Anastasia and Omi.
"Um, I do not wish to go first." Anastasia said.
"I do not feel I have a problem." Omi stated
"Well, I came all the way from England, Tennis ball; I wouldn't do that if you didn't have a problem so how you feel over this is irrelevant. Princess, you two are going first. I wasn't asking a real question; it was rhetorical. Who wants one on one time first?"
"Is she always this mean?" Rai and Kimi asked in sync.
Ashley didn't know, having been away for so long. She looked at Zach.
"She's not mean, she's blunt but she's being particularly blunt because she gets very travelsick. She gets grumpy when she's travelsick. And she gets nosebleeds in planes and aircrafts in general. She had several on the way here. Luckily, she knows what to do but she gets very self-conscious when something goes wrong like that so she becomes harsher on people around her. You learn to love it. I did." He looked fondly at his love.
Kimiko recognised that look. It was the one that her father used to give her mother. She smiled weakly.
They then turned to see Anastasia being dragged out for one on one with Twila, God help her.
Wuya began to laugh. She had bared witness to all of this. She could finally get Jack back on her team. She needed a partner to help her get to her human form once more and she finally knew how to do it. She would find out Ashley's secret and use it to get Jack back. She would only have to wait for a few days then she could have her partner in crime back and even better, her human form.
A/N: Okay so what did you think? I quite like the ending of this chapter. This is my longest chapter yet. I seriously enjoyed writing this.
I love Zach and Twila, okay? I just had to include them! They're pretty cute together, I'll reveal their backstory a bit too, it links with Ashley's story. So I'm going to get writing on Chapter Seven! I hope you liked this chapter as much as I do!
R&R!
-Anna x