Disclaimer: No matter how many times I will re-read it, Half Prince doesn't and won't ever belong to me, I'm merely borrowing the characters for my own. Also please excuse the short chapter... Again! I promised things would pick up sooner but I am still not able to fulfill that promise. I also have to go back and edit a few things in this chapter and other chapters.
I'm excited because I FINALLY HAVE A WORKING COMPUTER YOU GUYS AHH! I wanted to post this chapter as soon as I finished it though and I'm not in my comp typing this up so... I cannot promise you it's a perfect chapter (some errors in geography and names and monetary value might be errored too... Whoops! It's six in the morning guys, I'LL GO BACK TO FIX IT LATER I PROMISE) nor any plot but... Well, we get to see into the stressful life of being rulers. Yay for making them live in nothing but pure agony and hilarious situations. This chapter and the last seem kind of familiar to me, as I had similar thoughts running through my mind as I wrote this.
Update; it is now seven thirty and I added a little bit more. I was going to leave it at when Prince was in the South Continent and Sunshine sneezes... Then stuff happened and my fingers kept typing. AWAY WE GOOOOOOO!
Update; it is now eight am and I have fixed the coin monetary value. (what the heck is a Gald anyways?) aaaaand its now eight thirty and I ended up writing a little bit more. Enjoy!
Notes; aside from errors and stuff, please review (kindly, of course) and let me know your thoughts, writers need to feed their ego. Feed my ego, feeeeeeeeeeeed it! ... I haven't slept at all since yesterday. Either I'm hyper or I'm drunk off tiredness.
New chapter starts now, GO!
[-]
After Prince and the Odd Squad had made the announcement of a festival of sorts, Second Life was in a uproar. Everyone was anxious and couldn't wait to see just how the ever famous "guild" would throw a event of this magnitude.
"It seems highly impossible," a couple of the spectators had whispered to one another, "how can they possibly think to pull it off?"
Choruses of; "I know right?" And "Yeah, there is just no way."
A few others were stating positive things such as; "Hey! This is Odd Squad and The Blood Elf we're talking about!", "Yeah! If anyone can bring this game out with a boom, it's them!"
To say that this might bring turmoil and chaos was putting it lightly, and Lolidragon, who was around the crowd to see everything unfold, snickered to herself as she walked towards the castle.
Whistling a tune to herself, she was calculating just how they would placate the crowd in the following weeks. She wasn't the brains of the group for nothing... Or so she liked to think, at least.
The thief wrapped her cloak around herself tighter and fished out the card that would allow her entrance to the castle via one of the many secret passages.
After getting inside and securing that no pesky guards would bother her, she went in search of Wolf, who would be the strategist in all of this if they wanted to really give it the best they could.
{-}
"These blueprints are all wrong!" Yu Lian was absolutely livid as she noticed just how much everything would cost them. She then went over the other lists given to her. "If you want me to accept the idea of this booth, then suggest something that would use good materials but cheaper costs." As she got to Artic Fox's price list, she was fuming. "I assume you realize by now that what you're asking for... is not theoretically possible, right, Fox!?"
"Hey, I'm bringing in the equipment for entertainment here. And my time and efforts, are costly."
"A simple guitar does not possibly cost 100,000 coins."
"This one is encrusted in red rubies," Fox reminded her, "jewels of which our dear Prince is known for using. May I bring up the Blood Tiara?"
"The Blood Tiara isn't encrusted with..." She grumbled and just waved him away. "I don't have time for this."
"Sounds like you need some help." Lolidragon walked into the room and glared at Fox. "Stop trying to put our financial advisor into a state of shock would you? It's too early for it."
Fox raised his hands and walked away. "Fine, fine, I'll be back later."
Lolidragon laughed as she sat down in a swirly chair and wheeled herself into the adjacent desk next to Yu Lian's. "What can I help with?" She asked as she grabbed a notepad and a pen.
Yu Lian sighed and rested her head in the table. "And this is just the first day..." She glanced up to the thief. "Will you really help me?"
Lolidragon nodded. "I am not the president's daughter just for show, you know. I can do some basic math, it's the complex stuff I hate." She waved her hand and twirled the pen. "Where do I start?"
"You're a lifesaver!" By now, she was looking at the thief with great admiration and glee.
"Yeah, yeah," Lolidragon snickered. "You can thank me later by giving me some money from the castle's capital to go to that expensive restaurant in Star City."
Yu Lian simply sighed. Of course she wouldn't be doing this for free.
{-}
"In the name of love, Doll will punish you!" Making her signature pose, the necromancer hopped into the stage and twirled around. "I can't really hear myself. The microphone needs some minor adjustments."
"Thanks for helping us with this Doll. The faster we get this done, the better. And Prince is nowhere to be found as usual." The technical crew which consisted of mostly Dark Emperor's members and one Kenshin, all stood around fixing things, changing up the lights and upping/downgrading system updates for the equipment.
"Alright, this should do it for today, you're done, Doll." Wicked gave her a thumbs up. "Once again, thanks."
"Doll is happy to help out." She sat down at the edge of the stage and dangling her feet, took out a sleeping meatbun from her pouch who yawned cutely and opened its eyes towards the Necromancer.
"Doll done with work?" He hopped around her arms and awaited her reply, when she nodded, he simply opened his mouth. "Meatbun hungry." Doll giggled and took out her lunch box from her pouch, which really did not catch anyone by surprise that it mostly contained about half of its capacity in meat buns, the other half was vegetables and some rice.
{-}
As he walked around a forest of some kind, Prince kicked a pebble to the side and mumbled about something or other which held no real importance. What mattered, however, was how he had gotten to where he was.
Despite trying to get some changes done for the last remaining months, Second Life still had kept the rules that, one; no communication was allowed between continents, at all. Period. Andtwo; to travel between continents, you had to pay a whooping 5,000 crystal coins payment one way to and one way back.
Not everyone could easily afford to fish out 10,000 crystal coins, so how had Prince who despite being the ruler of his own continent, had little to no money to his name, managed to get to the South Continent, where he currently was at?
Prince laughed to himself at his ingenious idea of borrowing Sunshine's carpet before he gave his speech to the players and was smirking to himself as he enjoyed his leisure and stress free walk. "Thank you, whoever idea it was to give Artificial Intelligence Sunshine that magic carpet, thank you. And good job to me, for borrowing it and sneaking out." As Prince was hopping around happily... somewhere in the Central Continent, Sunshine and Lolidragon sneezed.
{-}
"Professor Gui, professor Gui!"
The afternoon class of Ming Gui Wen was certainly ecstatic and why wouldn't they be? It was no secret that their teacher was one of the members of Infinite City's very own Odd Squad. If they wanted information on the what-happs of the city, who better to ask than someone in the know?
Gui clapped his hands and hushed everyone, ushering them to take their seats. "You may each ask me a question," he compromised, "but only after class is finished. We have a lot to cover today, and rather than gossiping about where Prince has disappeared to..." His eyes quickly and subtly darted to Feng Lan, who had until now been attempting not to fall asleep but failing. "We have a pop-quiz!"
The students groaned and the yells of outrage reached Lan's tired hearing. "Quiz?" Gui tried not to smirk.
"Yes, a quiz," he nodded. "One that if you did the required reading, shouldn't be too hard for you. Best of luck, here's to hoping you all studied and didn't spend all your free time dallying around Second Life."
Feng Lan pouted and crossed her arms. Of course she hadn't done the reading! She had been immersed in Second Life, exploring the Southern Continent and being amazed at how much training Prince could get done when he was by himself and players weren't all trying to hog the good hunting spots. It had been told that the southern continent was full of deep forests and hard-to-kill monsters and so far, the rumors were true. Almost as true as the fact that it was a hard area to get into in general.
With a loud thud, Feng Lan had been shaken off her thoughts and her face had been met with the stern gaze of Gui, who had placed her copy of the test in her desk. "If you would wake up from your daydreams, Ms Lan, we can start the quiz." Lan's twin brother, Yang Ming, snickered and pointed to his sister in mockery.
So much for being Teacher's Pet. Darn, he must be really angry at Prince.
{-}
"The idiot!" Lolidragon balled her fists and heaved a sigh. "Just how much trouble doesshe plan on putting us through?"
The thief tried to calm down but couldn't, simply because she found no logic to the disappearance of Prince, who never failed to disappoint in doing things the unconventional way.
"And you're sure he didn't take any boats?" Yu Lian bit her lips as she kept making calls. "Ahuh. Ahuh. Yeah, he only had like 500 coins in total, last time I checked. Alright, love you too Wolf, keep me posted." She rested her face at the desk. "I'm getting a headache. What's the status on your side?"
"Kenshin was working with Wicked on the stage and he said he hasn't seen Sunshine since yesterday," Lolidragon confirmed.
Yu Lian rubbed her head. "If he didn't get on any boat, Sunshine's carpet is the only other plausible explanation. And let me remind you that Prince is broke," she recited what she had told Wolf, "it's to ensure he doesn't do things like this."
"Lan is going to class though, right?" The thief asked.
At the opportunity to gossip, the wizard perked up a bit. "Get this," she said with glee, "Gui is sooooo pissed off, he apparently gave the class a surprise quiz because he knew that she had probably spent the entire night playing and hadn't likely done the reading!"
Lolidragon spit out the drink she was currently sipping. "You're kidding!" She managed to squeak out when she had regained enough composure.
"I'm not." Yu Lian stated. "Wolf told me himself. You know he works with Gui at the school."
Lolidragon couldn't stop laughing, and managed to not only choke for the second time, but to also fall off her chair. Somehow, Yu Lian had also managed to roll over from the desk and was wiping tears from her eyes.
"We're dealing with idiots." Lolidragon said. "Idiots. The lot of them."
"Says the thief who fell off the chair."
"We're all idiots." Lolidragon concluded. "How else do we all make up Odd Squad then?"
{-}
"Alright class, I am going to be returning your quiz from yesterday!" Gui was in higher spirits, it seemed. Either something good happened... Or the class was doomed. They all gulped and glanced at each other, hoping it was something good and not bad.
One by one, Gui passed the tests to the students, alphabetically so he could savor the moment when he gave her the results.
"Feng Lan," he stated as he went to her aisle and with a unconcerned look, simply said, "Please see me after class."
With big, bold, red letters, he had printed a 'F for failing and P for procrastinating you little princess'
Feng Lan simply gawked and stuffed the test into a folder. Yang Ming immediately did the same to his. She stared at her brother as if to say; And you were mocking me? You didn't study either you jerk!
Yang Ming held up his notebook, where in dark blue ink he had written the letter D. "Still passing," he mouthed.
{-}
"You promised!" She was screaming at him. "You promised we'd keep them separate, so why am I in trouble!?"
"I admit that I am concerned both as a bard in love and a teacher," Gui stated, "but I'm a teacher first and this," he pointed to the copy he had made of her test. "This worries me."
"So I miss one class reading assignment because I was playing the game," Feng Lan shrugged, "sue me."
"I don't want one of my best students to start failing because of a game." He pointed out.
Okay maybe he had lashed out a bit too much, Second Life wasn't just a game it had become just that, a second life for him but really, he was getting worried.
"You're just upset that you have no idea where Prince is!" Feng Lan sighed. "And that is not fair for you to be taking it out on the class." She raised a eyebrow. "A pop-quiz, just to fail me and get to talk to me, really? And don't get me started on barely passing my brother. He was as absorbed into the game as me. I'm not telling you where he is."
"Lan..."
"Are we done? I have to go now. See you tomorrow, professor." She bitterly emphasized on the word. She then took the copy of her test from his hand and tore it into little pieces. "Also, it's not 'princess' it's Prince."
{~}
Ooohhhhh DRAMA! Gaaaaaasp! Leaving it here cause it's such a intriguing little cliffy. Waaah so intense! Will Fen Lan patch things up with her teacher? Why were they yelling at each other their identities back and forth? Will Guillastes ever see Prince? Find out next time, on... THE LEGEND ENDS! *cheer cheer*