OCWaGH: Chapter 10
It was now past midnight here in the little town of Peach Creek. Everyone in the Cul-De-Sac was fast asleep in their homes, not realizing the amazing event that was about to occur. We zoomed in on an abandoned house that was located a bit further away from the main Cul-De-Sac houses. The house had a lot of dandelions in the front yard, seeing that no one had lived there or entered the place in years.
Suddenly, a beam of white light started to form in the sky above the abandoned house, covering it for a few seconds before going away. The house that the light hit was now fixed to be a proper house for several people to live in, possibly fixed to be bigger than it was before. The front yard was no longer covered in dandelions and there was a light on inside the house, like someone was now living there. A strange wave of energy then started to come from the house, spreading out all over the Cul-De-Sac. It was a signal that could rewrite people's perceptions to say that the house was never abandoned, but instead had new neighbors move into it.
Quite a few interesting things were going to occur in the next few months thanks to this.
The morning soon came to the Cul-De-Sac, with it now being 8 am. We could see Ed and Double D leave their houses so they could meet up with Eddy at the playground. They had both read in their group chat that Eddy wanted to talk to them about something before their other meeting with the girls at the condo. The two Eds could see Eddy sitting on the bench, nervously waiting for them to arrive.
"Hiya, Eddy!" Ed called out to him with a wave.
Eddy flinched slightly before regaining his composure, which was noticed by Double D; he could tell something was bothering him.
"Uh, yeah… Hey guys," Eddy stated, "I need you, uh… talk to you two."
"… Eddy, what's the matter?" Double D started to ask with a bit of worry, "I don't think I've seen you act this nervous before…"
Eddy was silent to his friends before making a deep sigh to himself, "Y-Yeah… I need to tell you two something; probably something I should've said a long time ago."
Meanwhile, at the not-so-abandoned house close by, we could see three young teens exiting the house, ready to explore the new neighborhood they were now living in. The three teens were all fourteen years old. One of them was a girl with long, slightly wavy light blue hair that went a little past her shoulder blades and had dark blue-green eyes that were behind her glasses. The second teen was a boy with very short black hair that had a tint of violet in it and dark blue eyes. The last teen was a girl with medium-length black hair that went to her shoulders, her hair had a lighter purple tint to it than the boy next to them. The third girl also had the same-colored eyes as the boy, which were dark blue. The boy and the second girl were fraternal twins.
"Come on, guys! I wanna see what's around!" the light violet-haired girl said with a big smile to her twin brother and her best friend.
"W-Wait a moment!" gasped the blue-haired girl when she noticed her friend starting to dash ahead of them, "Maybe we should wait for the others to wake up? Ms. Meioh told us to stick together…"
"I know, I know!" replied her friend, who had stopped for a second to turn to the blue-haired girl, "But I think it's important to scout out the area! We did come here to train so we can help everyone back home!"
Her twin brother only made a sigh at his sister's antics as she proceeded to dash further away, "I swear, she's going to get us all in trouble one day."
The blue-haired girl looked to the dark violet-haired boy beside her before making a chuckle, "Yes, your sister is a handful a lot of times," she then latched herself onto the boy's right arm, leaning up against him a little, "But I'm sure we're all used to it, right Joshua?"
The boy named Joshua stared at the girl latched to his arms before making a smile to her, "You're right, Brooke."
The two stood there for a second before Brooke separated herself from Joshua's arm, "Anyway, we should go after her. Vivian isn't exactly the best person to keep a secret. She could easily blab to someone about our mission here…"
"… And that's it."
Ed and Double D looked at Eddy in complete shock; trying to process the information about Eddy's brother and what he told them; about Evan's addictions and abuse towards him when he was younger. Ed reached over to give Eddy his trademarked Ed-Hug to him, "I'm so sorry that happened to you!"
Double D could only sigh, "Eddy… you really should have told us about how your brother has treated you in the past. That kind of thing shouldn't be a thing to burden alone."
"I-I know that!" Eddy yelped as he tried to squirm his way out of Ed's hug, "It's just, well… I remembered the days he used to be nice before he completely changed. That part wasn't exactly a lie…"
"Don't worry, I understand," Double D replied, "Honestly, a lot of things make sense now with how you used to act, especially when we first met so long ago."
Ed soon puts Eddy down and releases him from his hug, "Anyway, we, uh, need to get going soon to that meeting," Eddy stated as he regained his composure, brushing off the wrinkles from his clothes from Ed's hug, "I don't wanna stick around for long, just in case my brother gets here early."
"I'll lead the way!" Ed cheered as he grabbed both Double D and Eddy by their arms, "Follow me!"
"ED!" Eddy yelled to him as Double D made a little yelp at the sudden action, "Stop for a moment, please!" Double D shouted.
It was about thirty seconds after dashing away with Double D and Eddy that Ed came to a screeching halt for some reason. He could see a teen girl up ahead with light violet hair; she looked to be about fourteen or so, two years younger than them. She was walking on the sidewalk they were on, looking around at the neighborhood in awe.
"A new kid!" Ed cheered with a big smile as he let go of his friends to run over to the girl.
"My word, Ed has become a little too excited lately," Double D stated with a big sigh.
Eddy, in the meantime, looked at the girl that Ed was running to, arching an eyebrow at her, 'Huh… she looks a lot like Rei. Are they related or something?'
"Hai there!" Ed greeted as he approached the girl.
The girl looked at Ed for only a second before audibly making a gasp in shock, "Huh?! Y-Your—!"
"VIVIAN!"
Everyone jumped a little at the sudden voices from behind the girl. They could see a dark violet-haired boy and a light blue-haired girl running over to their friend, "You shouldn't have run off like that! We just got here!" scolded the boy with irritation.
"Aww, but Joshua! I wanted to look around!" the girl pouted back.
The blue-haired girl looked at who her friend ran into, only to widen her blue-green eyes in surprise from behind her glasses, 'Oh… oh god.'
"Sorry about my friend here," Double D started to say as he and Eddy came over to Ed's side, "He gets very excited whenever he meets someone new."
"T-That's quite alright," the blue-haired girl replied to him. She was trying to look away, pretending to be distracted by something, "Do you three live around here?"
"Uh, yeah? Just over there," Eddy stated as he gestured to the Cul-De-Sac behind them, "Who're you three supposed to be? Did you move in close by or something?"
The blue-haired girl and the dark violet-haired boy stayed silent for a second, wondering what to say to them.
The light violet-haired girl, on the other hand, "Yep! We're new here! My name's Vivian!" she then looked to her company behind her, "This is my twin brother Joshua and one of my best friends Brooke! We came here—"
"For the new school year!" Joshua interjected before Vivian could say anything else, "My friends and I moved into that really big house close by thanks to a program that we're a part of."
"A program?" Double D questioned with curiosity, "What kind of program?"
"It's, umm, a program for teens to live with each other like in a dorm, but with someone else's help to watch over us," Brooke explained, "It's to help us learn how to do certain things on our own. Of course, our parents told us that this program is something we need to do."
Double D and Eddy suddenly felt a small tug in their chest when they heard them mentioning their parents, 'Huh…?'
"Hey, wait a minute… Isn't the only big house around here the abandoned one?" Ed asked in confusion, "The house with all the dandelions in the front yard, right? Why would you move there?"
Double D and Eddy looked at their friend in confusion, "Ed, I believe the owners finally renovated that house about a year ago so people could rent it out for things like that. Don't you remember?"
"… Wait, really?"
"Yeah!" Eddy replied with a nod of his head, "How'd you forget that?"
Ed could only scratch his head in confusion while the three new teens made an internal sigh to themselves, 'Looks like that signal we made when arriving here worked on some folks,' Brooke thought in relief, 'Thank goodness!'
"Anyway, the three of us need to get going," Double D stated as he and his friends started to walk away from the new teens, "Perhaps we can speak again at another time?"
"Y-Yes! All of us are looking forward to getting to know everyone!" Brooke replied as she made a small wave to the Eds.
It was once the three Eds were out of hearing range that both Brooke and Joshua began to give Vivian a stern look, "… What?"
Brooke made a sigh to her friend, "Vivian, you DO realize who those three were, right?"
"Yeah, I knew one of them was Edwin! How could I not know?" Vivian replied, "I know better than to say anything. Why are you getting mad at me for saying hello?"
Joshua could only make an irritated groan to his sister, "Wow, freaking really?" he asked, facepalming in disbelief, "You didn't recognize the others with him at all?"
Vivian looked at her brother before widening her eyes in complete shock, "Wait. OH SHOOT!"
"Finally figured it out, huh?" Brooke replied before making a small chuckle and making a stern face once again, "That's why we need to be careful here! So please, don't do anything reckless like that again."
"Alright, alright, I get it! Geez…" Vivian pouted a little.
"Well, now that we're done giving myself a heart attack for the day, we should try and stick around here," Joshua stated, "There's no need to walk too far away for today."
Meanwhile, back with the three Eds, they continued to walk down the sidewalk to get to the condos nearby with Ed being slightly ahead of Double D and Eddy. As they were walking to where they needed to go, Double D began to think about their earlier encounter with the new teens that moved into the big house nearby.
'That girl from earlier… I believe her name was Brooke?' Double D thought to himself, putting his thumb and index finger under his chin to ponder about her, 'She sort of looked like Ami, but not exactly… Perhaps she is Ami's cousin or relative?' he scratched his chin to think a little more about it, 'But, Brooke is not a Japanese-oriented name, and I don't think Ami would have any relatives here; that would be very coincidental considering how sudden everyone's arrival here was yesterday…'
"… Very strange."
"Huh?" Eddy looked to Double D when he heard him muttering to himself, "You say something, Sockhead?"
"Well, I was thinking about those three teens we bumped into earlier," Double D started to say, "Something about them seems a bit off to me."
Eddy arched an eyebrow, "Uh, off in what way?"
"I'm… Honestly not sure why," was Double D's response.
"You're probably thinking too much about it, Double D," Eddy replied with a shrug of his shoulders, "They look like average kids to me."
Double D made a small sigh, "Maybe so…"
'… He does have a point,' Eddy started to think afterward, 'Those twins… The girl looked a lot like Rei, but her brother didn't look like her that much. Maybe they're Rei's cousins?' he shook his head a little at the thought, 'Freaking weird…'
Author's Note (February 2nd, 2024): OH SHIT! Today is Persona 3 Reload Day! My physical game hasn't arrived yet because it's only 1:30 am CST right now. Everyone's asleep. But I felt like I had to get this done before going to bed! Gotta wake up early tomorrow to play the game and install it!
Anyway, sorry this chapter was so short, the Guardian meeting will happen in the next chapter, where we will learn about the new team members' codenames they will be using when helping out.
And yes, there will be a lot of new, mysterious characters arriving from somewhere; it's more than just those three. It should be VERY obvious who they are and where they came from later on in this story (or even in this chapter, I was never that good at being subtle). How will everyone react? Stay tuned!