Chapter 3: Marcy

The valiant knight Sir Harksworth of Rubendale had made his way past most of the world of Cathatria's bosses by now. He was now trudging through a dark, dank cave, with bioluminescent moss and fungi lining the walls. Small puddles of murky water were lying around the floor, making splashing sounds whenever Harksworth put a foot inside. The cave was messy, filled with cobwebs and spiders and dust. It didn't discourage him though. When he slayed the great Lich Queen, he would ascend to be one of the top knights of the realm. He eventually reached the end of the cave. It opened up into a large underground room, little cracks in the ceiling letting light peek through. Many stalactites and stalagmites pierced the ground and cave roof, the stalactites dripping limestone water onto the floor. Sir Harksworth looked around the room, searching for any clues he could find to the Lich Queen's location. He suddenly felt a tremor in the ground. He turned to his right and saw a large pillar of darkness gathering from the rubble. An ancient, swollen, bony hand slowly emerged from the pillar, flesh knotting into place. It slowly formed into a humanoid figure missing its face. A malicious cackle sounded from its bony jaw.

"So, hero, you've finally arrived at my caverns. You may have beaten my four generals, but do you truly believe that you can stop me from turning the entire world into undead creatures like me?" Sir Harksworth said nothing as he unsheathed his sword and pointed it forward. The Lich Queen guffawed at this. "Alright. If it's a battle you want…" Large shadowy tendrils started coming out of the ground near her and out of her back as she finished her sentence. "...Then it's a battle you'll get!" She charged forward, her tentacles aiding her in movement. Sir Harksworth put his sword up, the point facing her, and charged at full speed. As they sprinted forward, the Lich Queen started to shout something different.

"Ms. Wu. Ms. Wu. Ms. Wu, do you hear me!?"

Marcy snapped out of her trance and put down the controllers. Her teacher, Mrs. Grenton was looking down at her. She had her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

"And just what do you think you're doing, young lady?" Marcy sat still with her arms outstretched, gripping her Bintendo Swap controllers tight with fear.

"Um…schoolwork?" She gave a nervous laugh as Mrs. Grenton's scowl deepened.—

"Seriously, Mar-Mar? How did you get detention this term before any of us did? Did you fight with someone? 'Cause I can totally beat them up for you if you want." Sasha illustrated her point with fist in her palm. The two girls were walking down the hall after the final school bell had rung out.

"I was distracted playing Chronicles of Cathatria's 5's New Game Plus DLC: Hymn of the Ancients. I got to the final boss when the teacher caught me. She confiscated my Bintendo until tomorrow." Marcy looked at Sasha's face and couldn't tell if she was feeling sympathetic or disappointed that it wasn't for a cooler reason. Sasha shrugged before a mischievous smile grew on her face.

"Well, I could just ask her for it. I am quite persuasive, if I do say so myself." Marcy's eyes lit up with relief.

"Really? Thank you so much, Sash!" Marcy wrapped her arms around Sasha with a strong grasp. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Sasha was able to shoo Marcy off after a moment and nodded as she went back through the hallway to Marcy's class. Five minutes later, she returned with the Swap in her hands, controllers and all. Marcy ran over to her, grabbed the game console, and shoved it into her bag. She zipped it up before cheerily skipping through the main lobby, Sasha following her with her hands in her jacket pockets. As they got to the entrance, a familiar face was coming back through the doors. Marcy immediately recognized her as Mrs. Grenton, seeing her not half an hour before. Marcy assumed she was still in the classroom, where Sasha convinced her to give back her Swap. Marcy saw Sasha flinch at her stare of confusion when Marcy figured it out. "You stole it back, didn't you?" Sasha returned the look with an ice-cold glare.

"Yeah, so? She wasn't there, so I took matters into my own hands. I made a promise to my friend. A friend always keeps their promises. They also know when to ignore things, too. Got it?" Marcy had never seen Sasha be so hostile when they were conversating. She tried to say something in return, but she felt tongue-tied. Sasha smirked. "Exactly. Now, come on. I think our friends want to know where we are." Marcy sighed as Sasha shoved the exit door aside. She hated it when this stuff happened. She didn't want to be a bad friend, but sometimes it felt like Sasha wasn't even being nice to her. She looked over at the other side of the lobby at Mrs. Grenton. She considered going over to her with the Swap and explaining what happened, but she knew Sasha would get angry about that. She eventually relented to her fear and swung open the door, sauntering over to the bike rack in defeat. —

They eventually arrived at the park after a few minutes of biking. They could see Luz and Anne sitting on one of the park benches, having a serious conversation. When she noticed her, Luz stood up and walked over to Sasha.

"Ellie! What took you guys so long?" Sasha grinned as she did her handshake with Luz.

"It wasn't that long. Five minutes max. Marcy fell over on her bike and it took us a moment to get it back up. Right?" Sasha turned to Marcy with a forced smile. Marcy nervously laughed.

"Yeah. Lucky I didn't bust up my knees, am I right?" The all became quiet with awkward silence for a moment before Sasha picked it up again.

"So, you girls ready for the sleepover?" They all nodded excitedly. Sasha turned to Marcy.

"Alrighty then. Lead the way, Wu." Marcy stood in place for a moment, still quite nervous before turning to go towards her and Sasha's bicycles. Anne and Luz quickly went to where they had parked theirs and followed the other two in close tandem. Marcy and Sasha rode up ahead of them, unable to hear the continuation of the conversation between the two. Ten minutes of pedalling passed by quickly as they arrived at Marcy's. They parked their bikes out front and threw open the door. Walking inside, they all made a beeline for the stairs, a silent declaration of a race passing through them. Sasha burst through them as she sped up the stairs at full speed, Anne and Luz close behind her. Marcy tried her best to keep up, but, of course, she was Marcy. She tripped on the fourth step and hit her head on the seventh. She looked up in a bit of a haze, pain emanating from her skull. She saw Anne and Luz run back to help her and felt them grabbing the sides of her arms to help her up the stairs. She looked above who she thought was Luz and thought she saw some grey wisps circling her head. After a moment, the pain subsided and the blurry vision faded just as Sasha came back out of Marcy's bedroom.

"Woo! Still number one! Why'd you slow down? You could have probably gotten a really close second place." Luz turned and looked up at Sasha with a glare.

"We were helping our friend who tripped on the stairs. Probably a bit more important than winning a stupid race." Luz made sure that Marcy was okay before standing up and walking past Sasha into the bedroom. "And I'd have won that if it wasn't for Marcy, so shut it." To say Sasha was surprised would be an understatement. She went over to the other two girls and motioned towards the door Luz just walked through.

"Hey, Anne. You know what her deal is? She hasn't talked to me. Was she okay when you checked on her yesterday?" Anne flinched at her question, which Marcy felt as she responded.

"Um…she was okay. She was just feeling a bit drowsy. Her mom was taking care of her." Sasha looked like she wasn't buying it, but didn't ask anything else. Anne helped Marcy up and accompanied her to her bedroom as Sasha followed behind. Marcy's room was much like her: simple yet intuitive. Her bed was neatly made, pressed against the far wall with at least seven stacks of books surrounding it. Marcy shook Anne off after a few moments and sat down in front of the TV.

"I'm fine. We can still do what I planned to do." The other three girls looked confused and sat next to Marcy, Luz raising a question.

"What were you planning?" Marcy gave a smile before pulling out a CD from her pocket, holding it between her index and middle fingers.

"War of the Warlocks: Extended Director's Cut Collector's Edition!" Sasha immediately made a face like she had ingested a lemon.

"Really? Isn't that a movie for kids?" Marcy's eyes went wide as she hugged the CD close to her chest.

"It is not! Sure, they had to simplify a lot of it because the company that produced it thought that the fantasy setting would appeal to a younger audience than what it was originally meant for…" She took a breath. "But! It is still a really good movie, and one of my favorites. My house, my movies." Sasha still looked apprehensive but had no further arguments. Anne parted her shoulder as Marcy got the movie ready.

"Don't worry, Sasha. I'm sure it won't be that long."

—

Three hours later…

"Ooh, guys, this is the best part! The Resistance is about to do a ploy where they distract the Lich King's undead horde with a large army so the main heroes can break into the castle and destroy the Crystal Crown of Tantamore!" Marcy was so excited she didn't realize the only one actually focusing on the movie was Anne. Luz and Sasha had stopped watching the movie about halfway through and told them they were sleeping. Even though it was against the Sleepover Rules, neither Anne or Marcy wanted to argue with them. So, they fell asleep in their sleeping bags on the floor. At least, that's what Anne and Marcy thought. In reality, they were just trying to find a way to speak privately, which was easy to do since the volume of the TV was loud enough for them to whisper.

"Sasha, we need to talk."

"Oh, now you want to talk. Alright, let's talk. First of all, why have you been avoiding me lately? I barely saw you at school today."

"Oh, I spend time by myself for a day and you can't deal with it? Didn't know you were so clingy."

"I know you were spending time with Anne and Marcy. Don't lie to me."

"So, you're not just clingy, but you're also a stalker?"

"Shut it. Second of all, what happened yesterday? Clearly, something made you suddenly hate me out of nowhere."

"I don't hate you. It's just…" Luz paused and lay on her side, her left cheek resting on the fuzzy carpet below her. "What are we doing? Why are we treating our friends like…like they're below us? I'm completely on your side here, but…why?" Sasha was taken aback at that question. She didn't respond for a moment, the noises from the TV and Anne and Marcy's giggling filling the silence between them. She sighed before replying.

"It's happening. I didn't think they would ever actually do it, but they are." Luz raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"What are you talking about?" Sasha averted her eyes from Luz's.

"My Mom and Dad are splitting. The papers are signed and everything. And they didn't even tell me until yesterday. Why do you think I was so desperate to find someone to do graffiti with? I thought I could count on you." Luz was shocked.

"Oh. Oh my god, I'm sorry. I would've tried to spend the day with you if you told me. Why didn't you say anything?" Sasha groaned and put her hands to her face.

"I don't know. I knew it was coming. They've already been separated for six years. I just thought that they wouldn't make it official. And now, I feel like my life is out of control. I thought that maybe if I could keep control of something else, I could start to take control of my life again." Sasha put her hands down, still facing down to the ground. "I know that it isn't an excuse to treat you all like that. I'm sorry if I ever treated you like a flunky, and I understand if you're mad at me and-" She was interrupted by Luz surging forward on the floor and giving her a hug. Sasha's face turned red and quickly turned to see if Anne and Marcy noticed. After seeing they were passing something between themselves, she looked back at Luz, her face getting stuck in Luz's large mane of hair. She hesitated before hugging her back, and the two fell asleep in each other's arms.

—

And that wraps up another chapter. Sorry for the late upload. Motivation is scarcer a resource than gold sometimes. I finished it though, so I hope that counts for something. You shouldn't expect regular updates, but I'm positive I'll be able to finish a chapter every two weeks or so. And if you're tired of the human world, don't worry, because a change of scenery will be happening very soon…

…well, not in the next one, but soon.