Let's get this ball rolling, shall we?
"Is he there, Minerva?" I ask.
"He's in front of Pizza Pavilion."
We hide in the small spaces in front of our seats on the bus and wait. Yesterday (Thursday), Mason Richards's car was nowhere in sight, but today, he's pretty much right across the street from us. Apparently he hasn't given up on us yet.
"Okay, he went after another bus, we're safe."
We sit back up in our seats.
"This guy is going to find us eventually. We gotta do something," Darius says.
"Maybe we could have the Shadow Guard follow him while he follows the buses?" Erika asks.
"Oh yeah, that's a great idea. Let's do that," I reply.
"Wait...what if he notices that he's being followed?" Azalea asks.
"Oh, crud, that would be a big risk," I agree. "I'll ask them about it. But tonight, we mess with Bob's gang, right?"
"Yep," Darius says. "I've actually been wanting to do something like that for a while, those guys are never not back there, it seems."
"Well, tonight, that's a good thing though, right?" I say. "Cause we need them to be there to tell us stuff."
"Yeah, yeah, we all get what's going on, X," Minerva says. "We go at 5:00 and spy for info on Richards."
"Except I'm going to be across town looking for clues about where he went earlier this week," Erika says.
"And we wish you luck with that," Azalea says.
"Thanks."
While I'm doing my chores that afternoon, I get a call from the Shadow Guard, which I answer as soon as I take my phone up to my room.
"Hello?"
"X, this is Whimsalot. Have you, by any chance, completed your mission yet?"
"Well, no, but we're about to in about an hour and a half. Why?"
"That's perfect. I just wanted to let you know that the watches you asked for came in today. Knight Knight drove over and hid them near the forest behind your neighborhood."
"Really? Awesome! They got batteries, right?"
"Yes, but make sure to conserve them."
"Alright, thanks so much, dude."
"And one more thing: when you and your friends go out and spy on that gang, please, try not to get hurt. Some of us would hardly be able to handle it if we caused innocent people to get hurt."
"We shall be careful. Talk to you later."
"You too."
As I hang up, my brother walks into the room. "Who were you talking to?" he asks.
"Erika," I respond quickly.
"What were you so excited about?"
"Uh, well, she said she finished this one part of a project we've been working on for World History, and it looks really cool."
"What's the project on?"
"Uh...samurai. We're using these cool animation effects."
"Oh, nice. Can I see it when you're done?"
Crap, I am an idiot, I forgot that if you're going to lie about something, you can't make it sound interesting! "Uh, I don't think so, you need a certain program to run it that we don't have."
"Oh, okay."
That was kinda close. But now I just remembered that I need to remind my friends some things about the mission tonight. I send a message to them on my phone:
Me: Richards knows what some of us look like. Wear something you wouldn't normally wear. And don't forget your weapons just in case.
Darius: got it
Alright, time to finish my chores and then chill for an hour.
At 4:45, I change shirts, take one of my dad's old baseball bats from the garage, tell my mom that I'm off to play baseball with the gang, and head out the door, making sure not to wear my jacket. I want those freaking watches, but I'm not going to touch them until my friends get here. When I get to the entrance to the woods, I stand around and hope that they show up before Bob's gang comes out or something. Luckily, they do; first Darius in a hoodie and baseball cap, then Minerva in a white shirt and gray sweatpants, and finally Azalea in a blue shirt and blue jeans. All of them are carrying/wearing their respective weapons.
"Dang, I did not try hard enough with the dressing up thing, did I?" I remark once everyone else is here.
"I think no jacket is good enough for you, X," Azalea assures me.
"Okay, I gotta tell you guys something right now," I say. "The magic watches I had the Shadow Guard order for us came today, and now they're hidden somewhere around here!"
"There's a cardboard box over there, is that them?" Minerva asks, pointing next to a tree.
How did I not see that box before?! I run straight over to it, and notice that it's already open and...it's empty.
"Ohhhhh, crap," Darius says. "Somebody stole them."
"Probably Bob," Minerva says. "We need to get those back."
"Darn right," I say. "Quiet though, we still need to see if they say anything about Richards."
We walk slowly into the woods, which start sloping downhill, and then bring us to sort of a mini-creek. We take turns jumping over a rather skinny part of the creek, and then proceed down a dirt path.
"We're sort of like one of those teams from RWBY, don't you guys think?" Azalea asks us.
"Hey, yeah, we are," I answer. "Four of us with our own unique weapons, and our soul powers are almost like Semblances."
My favorite crossover fanfictions have always been RWBY and Undertale. Apparently RWBY does, in fact, count as an anime, at least on the fanfiction website. Wonder if Alphys has seen it?
We come across sort of a clearing, at which point Darius motions for us to quickly hide behind some trees. I look over and see that Bob and his gang are right there in the clearing.
Bob himself is really tall with this huge, bright red Mohawk, which make him look even taller. The guy standing next to him has shades and a shirt that I wish I had not read. Behind them are a shirtless dude with lots of tattoos and a guy with really long hair. And they are wearing our watches, two of them on Bob's wrists.
Let the spying commence.
"What are we doing here again, Bob?" the guy with the tattoos asks before taking a drink.
"Fighting," Bob replies. "We gotta get used to it if we're gonna work for this guy."
"But we don't have guns yet," the guy with long hair says.
"We gotta fight without guns to get guns."
"Oh, I already got guns," the tattooed guy says flexing.
"*****, you got BB guns, I'm getting me an AK47," says the one with shades.
"Dude, everyone knows *****es love a man who's good with a Glock," says the long-haired dude.
"Okay, we'll fight with those and see who ends up dead."
"Shut up, we're getting started now," Bob says, turning towards the shades guy and the long-haired one. "Thomas and Jimmy, it's you against me and Reese."
Perfect, we can wait until these guys have already beaten each other up, and then ask for our watches back, and they'll hardly be able to fight us.
Wait...Thomas is messing with his watch. Time for plan B: confront them now.
"Hey!" Darius calls out as he takes a few steps forward.
"What the **** are you doing on our turf?!" Bob yells at Darius.
"Calm down dude, I just wanna talk about something real quick, and then I'll leave," Darius responds."
"Start talking."
"Have you guys seen our watches? We left them right outside these woods."
"Oh, these things?" Bob holds up two fists. "Yeah, they're ours now. You put them too close to our turf."
"Look, dude, what do you want for those watches? I got a hundred bucks at home if you want it." Is Darius seriously offering to buy our watches back from these guys?
"Make it a hundred each and you got a deal."
I step out from behind the trees, holding my bat behind my back. "Listen, as much as we wish we could give you that much money, we need those watches. We...owe them to a friend of ours."
"Why the **** should I care? Just get the **** off our turf before we make you!"
"We will leave as soon as we get our watches."
"We're not giving you your ****ing watches!" Bob smashes a glass bottle against a tree. His guys step forward and smash their bottles.
I hold out my baseball bat. "Well, looks like we gotta take them then."
"I ****ing dare you to come any closer."
Azalea and Minerva come out of hiding. Azalea points her spear (which has two knives on it) towards the gang, Darius holds up his fists, and Minerva starts nocking an arrow. Then, a tense moment of stare down.
"Okay, so we're about to fight," I whisper to my friends. "We can't reason with these guys, so try to dodge their attacks and fight only until you can spare them."
At this point I realize what we're getting into. These guys are clearly more dangerous than we are, yet we're trying to show them otherwise. And Whimsalot said not to get hurt. Not to mention that I've never been in a fight like this before.
I can't think about that now, though. We need those watches back. Gotta just give it what I got.
Bob takes a step forward. I almost flinch, but my determination allows me to hold my ground.
Then Bob yells and really runs straight towards me. Now we're fighting.
I swing my bat at his bottle and straight back. The first swing misses but the next hits his other arm. Bob thrusts his bar knife at me, and I drop to the ground and roll to avoid it, but the back of my shoulder gets cut during the roll. As I'm in pain, I notice the litter-filled creek behind Bob. I kick him in the leg, stand up, and start wildly swinging my bat around it front of him. Bob starts backing up and reaching for his pocket, but slips and falls into the creek. That should buy me some time.
I turn around to help out my friends. Thomas seems to be having trouble getting anywhere close to Azalea, who keeps thrusting her spear forward but not touching him with it. Jimmy is in a bit of a standoff with Minerva, who has an arrow aimed straight at him. And-okay, Darius is the one I need to help first. Reese has him pinned against a tree.
"AND HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA!" I yell as I run straight up to Reese and smash him in the head with my bat. Reese falls down and doesn't move.
"Oh...he needs some milk!" Darius exclaims.
"Yeah, you go save your girlfriend while I save mine," I say quickly as I head over to Azalea.
Is...Thomas trying to tie her up with a rope? That is just...wrong!
I start to feel my soul light up a little (why is it always abusive action towards Azalea that sets off my soul?), but it's probably not a good idea to blow our cover to these guys, so I let it die down as I nail Thomas in the chest. Azalea runs over and holds her spear a few inches from his throat.
"Thanks for the help," Azalea says as Thomas struggles to breathe.
"You're welcome," I reply, turning towards Darius to see that he and Minerva have Jimmy down, and still with an arrow pointed at him. We're pretty lucky that she didn't have to shoot anyone with those.
Suddenly, I feel someone grab me from behind and hold something in front of my throat. All of my friends look at me with wide eyes.
Bob wins.
"I...am going to ****ing kill each and every one of you ****ers," Bob growls at us.
I aim my eyes down as far as they will go, and see that Bob is indeed holding a knife at my throat...but the sharp side of the blade is facing away from me!
I elbow him in the gut as hard as I can, and Darius runs up and punches him straight in the face with his brass knuckles, knocking him flat on his face.
Once Bob gets his face off the ground, there's a bloodstain in the dirt and on his face.
"You guys are ****ing crazy," he says. "...Well, what do you want?!"
"The watches," I tell him. He takes off both of the magic watches he's wearing and throws them at me with what little energy he has left. Darius goes over to the other gang members and takes their watches, one of them straight off Reese's wrist, since he's still out cold.
"One more thing," I say. "What do you know about a man in a red ninja mask?"
"Whatever happens after I tell you about him would be worse than anything you little ****s could do to me."
"Well...okay, I guess that'll have to do for now," I reply. "Sorry we had to beat you guys up, I guess..."
"We gave you your watches, just ****ing leave."
"Okay, we're gone," I say, turning around and heading back towards the neighborhood with Darius, Azalea, and Minerva following behind slowly, making sure none of the gang mambers chase after us. Lucky for us, it doesn't seem like they're interested anymore.
Once we're out of the woods, Darius and I pass watches to Azalea and Minerva, and we all put them on for the first time. The watches look like regular digital watches, but they're very black, with the time shown in blue. All the buttons I'm used to are there, plus a bright blue button near the top. That must be the button that turns the magic on and off.
Minerva turns hers on. "Whoa, I think I could get addicted to this feeling."
"Yeah, probably don't," I respond. "It only lasts twelve hours before you have to buy a new battery."
"Doesn't mean you can't be determined," Darius tells her.
"Alright," Minerva says as she turns off her watch and starts concentrating. "Come on, come on...crap, I lost it."
"That was pretty good, though; you held it for, like, five seconds," I say. "Hey Darius, I'll give that fifth one to Erika when I see her if you want."
"Oh, alright." Darius hands me Erika's watch. "Anybody got plans this weekend? I'm free."
"I got church on Sunday, as usual," I reply. "Got Saturday open though."
"Well, I'm gonna be sleeping in tomorrow morning and gaming tomorrow evening, but I should be available in between," Minerva says.
"My mom wants me home all Sunday so she can have some bonding time with me and my brother," Azalea says.
"Okay, I gotta go home and report back to the Shadow Guard," I tell everyone. "I'll see you all later."
"Anybody wanna race home?" Darius asks, smiling and turning on his watch.
"Oh, you're not leaving me behind," Minerva says, as she turns on her watch and grabs Darius's hand. Darius takes off faster than this neighborhood's speeds limit, dragging Minerva behind him through the air almost like a kite.
"Oh crud, there better not be anyone else out there to see them," I say.
"I'm sure they'll be fine," Azalea says. "See you later!"
"Bye, Azalea."
We head in different directions off to our homes. Holy crap, we just won a fight. Now I just gotta figure out how I'm gonna explain the cut on my back.
Wow. I am bordering on Sans's level of laziness here. A whole month without updates. Somebody just knock me dead. This next chapter will come out within the next week, I promise.
Next chapter, X has an idea for a productive but also fun way to spend the weekend.