Saturday, July 18, 2015

T.N - Chapter 84

I don’t know what I expected, but it was definitely not this. Which, on second thought, it’s a bit of a ridiculous thing to not expect this, considering nothing should surprise me anymore. 
But there’s something about seeing full-grown adults, many of them very deadly trained mercenaries or similarly gifted people, having a food fight that defied all of the logic I still held onto. I didn’t even have to look over at Dennis and Charlie to know that they thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. 
With a quiet thunk, I rested my head on the door. Maybe taking a moment to process everything will help me accept whatever happened. 
Of course, that moment was quickly taken away when the door started to ease open. I scrambled back, but the door continued to slip open on greased hinges. I had to hand it to the Dragon, he took good care of his submarine. 
I stood frozen as I watched the door open, not sure whether to dart forward and close it. I started to creep towards it, my hand outstretched, reaching for the handle.
“Theo, watch it,” said Dennis, pulling on my arm. “You’re going to get caught in the crossfire-“
As if to punctuate his thought, something goes flying over his head and hits the wall with a resounding splat. A tomato paints the previously pristine white wall, slowly sliding down in a trail of slightly morbid red. 
“Well we can’t just leave the door open either, obviously,” I said. 
Both Dennis and I startled back as a pair of glass measuring cups are thrown between us, crashing into a million pieces on the ground. 
“Why do all of these things seem to be aimed towards me?” Dennis asked. 
“I’m sure they don’t have time to actually be focusing their throws out here, they have enough on their hands in there.”
“I guess henchmen have some really bad aim,” Charlie remarked.
“One more thing to add to the list of why henchmen employed by evil people are bad at their jobs,” Dennis conceded. He mimed writing it down on an imaginary list. 
“Take that!” yelled somebody from inside, which sounded suspiciously like Heathcliff. 
“Dennis,” both Charlie and I warned, just as he looked up and was hit square in the face by a pie. It was one of those creamy ones, and it slowly slid off his face as he stood there, mimed invisible pen in the middle of the air. It couldn’t have caused much damage, except maybe to his ego. 
After a moment, he lifted his hand to gently wipe his eyes off, his mouth closing from the surprised ‘O’ to a grimace. 
Dennis sighed. “Ok, that’s it.” He rolled up his sleeves, bunching them up around his elbows. “I’m going in.”
“Wait, what?” Before I could protest anymore, Dennis (quite literally) threw himself into the fight. He picked up what looked to be a broken loaf of bread and a plate and started throwing them wildly at the other side of the room. 
I looked over at Charlie, and he shrugged at me. 
“We’re already in this deep…” I sighed. We took a few cautious steps into the room.
As we hovered by the doorway, I looked around to see what the room layout was like. Thankfully, it looked like the room was divided fairly neatly in half by a countertop, in which Laura and the others have taken the half to the right, and the henchmen the left. 
I picked out Wolfgang and Heathcliff from the others, paired together. Their shoulders were almost touching as they were jostled about by Laura’s men, who were putting in some excessive moves. 
Something glinted in the air from the other side of the room. One of the henchmen was holding what looked like very menacing dinner knives, and he slowly aimed them at Wolfgang and Heathcliff. 
Without another thought, I ran towards them. “Watch it!” I shouted, and they both turned towards me right as I ran and tackled them to the ground. 
We tumbled down and across the room, a tangle of legs, and arms and, “Ouch, watch your chin!” We landed in a heap right behind the counter, safe from any form of projectiles.
It took a moment for all of us to catch our breaths. My head thud against one of the cabinet doors in relief. 
“Theo, you’re safe!” exclaimed Heathcliff and Wolfgang at the same time, and they both hugged me. I melted into it a bit.
“I’m sorry for earlier,” I muttered.
“No, we’re sorry,” they both said. I laughed a little bit at how synchronized they sounded. I brushed them off, and they reluctantly let go.
“Not really a time for sentimental stuff right now, is it?” I smiled. 
“Yeah, but we didn’t exactly part on the greatest note,” said Wolfgang.
“We were worried sick!” added Heathcliff. 
“Well, you guys found Laura and her men, so I think we’re ok,” I said. 
“Did you manage to find your grandfather?” asked Heathcliff.
I shook my head. “I kind of got lost, but I found Charlie and Dennis, if you haven’t noticed them yet.”
Charlie had snuck his way besides Laura, and they seemed to be exchanging a few words with her while also dodging a couple of the food projectiles that had come their way. Dennis was next to John, and their faces of intense concentration sent a shiver down my spine. I noted to myself to never mess with Dennis when it came to food fights, if it ever came down to it.
“Good that you found them,” said Wolfgang, “but it would’ve been better if your plan had worked out.”
I shrugged “It’s for the better. Plus, if I wasn’t here, I think you guys would’ve been in trouble.” I pointed up at the two knives I had seen the henchman holding, now embedded into the wall. 
Wolfgang blanched a bit. “I had forgotten that there were actual things that could hurt you in a kitchen.”
“You should probably note that down for next time.” We all nodded in agreement.
I turned to face the counter on my knees, and slowly peeked my head out over the countertop. A couple of fruits came whipping past my face, and I quickly sat down. 
“Looks like we’re stuck here for a bit,” I sighed. I looked at the two of them. “While we’re here, care to tell me how this all started?” 
They looked at each other, trying to figure out silently who was going to start the story.
“Well, after you ran off, we started looking for Laura and the others,” started Heathcliff.
“We ended up running into a bunch of henchmen, who started chasing us until we ended up here in the mess hall,” added Wolfgang.
“We found Laura and the others here, and they were being guarded by the other henchmen and….Mr. Kent? Virus?” Heathcliff paused. “I don’t know what to call him.”
We all kind of shrugged. Even I didn’t know exactly what to call him anymore.
“Anyways,” started Wolfgang again, “they were very ready to use the tasers on us, and they had them out when we accidentally knocked these drums of water over.” He pointed over to the side of the room, where several large metal containers were lying on the floor. 
“So obviously, they don’t want to electrocute themselves,” Heathcliff continued.
“Thanks to that, Laura and her men were able to overpower the guards and duck over to this side of the room.”
“But we didn’t have any usable weapons on us, and neither did they.”
“So we kind of just…picked up the closest thing we had.”
“Which was supposed to be their lunch.”
“And started a food fight.”
“It escalated pretty rapidly.”
“Kent, Virus, whatever, ended up getting molten marshmallows dumped on him.”
“What?” I interrupted. “Why would there be that much molten marshmallow on a submarine?”
“We don’t know either,” shrugged Heathcliff.
“It was pretty effective though,” laughed Wolfgang.
I took a moment to process the rapid-fire bombardment of information, and then sighed. “Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up.”
There was some loud whooping noises, and we all jumped in surprise. I looked over to see Graham holding up a remote of some kind. The Terries looked like they had just made some sort of score, and were high fiveing each other. 
“Hit it, Graham!” they yelled. 
Graham dramatically hit a button on the remote, and the intercom crackled to life, blaring out very very loud music. 
“What is that?” yelled Wolfgang over the music.
“I think that was some form of interference, hacking into the intercom!” I yelled back.
“No, I mean the music!”

And truth be told, I had no idea. But whatever it was, it stopped the fighting completely.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

C.N. - Chapter 83

I'm posting for G here after he wrote this.
Wow we've been gone for awhile (I think I say this every time we go on an unplanned hiatus, which is more times than I'd prefer)... Hope you enjoy this!


“Well,” Dennis stopped in his tracks, “the hatch to the main deck, right where we left it.” He pointed to the circular door in the ceiling.
“Do you hear anything coming through from up there?” Theo whispered.
Dennis climbed up a few rungs of the iron ladder directly beneath the hatch and pressed his ear as close to the metal as possible. “Nothing,” he whispered back.
“What if the Dragon’s henchmen are waiting right on the other side?” Theo whispered more urgently.
“HELLO? MR. DRAGON’S HENCHMEN? ARE YOU WAITING ON THE OTHER SIDE READY TO AMBUSH US?” Dennis yelled at the hatch. His voice bounced off the ceiling and reverberated up and down the hallway for a few meters before disappearing.
“Dennis! Are you crazy? What did you do that for?” Theo hissed as she dragged him down from the ladder and cupped her hand over his mouth.
Dennis removed Theo’s hand from her mouth and said, “Well, Charlie and I had a conversation earlier while we were trying to look for you where we deduced that henchmen employed by evil villains are generally not very intelligent. So I was hoping that they’d fall for me asking them whether they’re behind there waiting to ambush us and tell us themselves.”
Theo slapped her forehead in exasperation and incredulity. “Words cannot express my feelings towards you two right now.” She said. 
We were silent for a few moments. All around us there was silence save the perpetual humming of machinery.
“So, judging from the silence, I see two clear possibilities,” Dennis broke the silence, “either there are no henchmen on the other side of the hatch, or there are henchmen on the other side of the hatch but didn’t fall for my trick, which would make them exceptionally intelligent henchmen, don’t you think, Charlie?”
“In any James Bond movie the henchmen would surely have fallen for that trick.” I concurred.
“Indeed, my bet is on the first possibility.” Dennis concluded.
“Really, guys?” Theo raised her eyebrows.
“I don’t see why not,” I said, “but just on the safe side, why don’t you try again? If there are indeed henchmen on the other side of the hatch, and they didn’t fall for your trick on the first try, maybe they will fall for it this time out of frustration that we’re taking too long to walk into their trap.”
Before Theo could clasp her hand over Dennis’ mouth again, he yelled at the top of his lungs, “HELLO? MR. DRAGON’S HENCHMEN? ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE NOT WAITING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS HATCH WITH THE INTENT TO AMBUSH US?”
I laid my hand on Theo’s before she could stop Dennis from yelling further, “Trust me, I think this time it’s going to work.” Theo looked at me with a mixture of puzzlement, disbelief and awe, a look I’m beginning to realize that I get a lot from her.
Dennis continued, “I’M SPEAKING HONESTLY HERE FOR MYSELF AND MY FRIENDS WITH ME, WE’VE HAD ENOUGH SURPRISES IN THE PAST SEVERAL DAYS AND WE’D REALLY APPRECIATE IT, IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE WAITING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS HATCH WITH THE INTENT TO AMBUSH US, THAT YOU DECLARE YOUR PRESENCE SO WE DON’T BE SURPRISED WHEN WE GO THROUGH AND BUMP INTO YOU GOOD FOLKS.”
Just like last time, Dennis’ voice traveled a short distance up and down the corridor and disappeared.
“Wait a minute,” Theo grabbed both our arms, “why is there no echo?”
“What echo?” Dennis asked, puzzled.
“This corridor is extremely long, we should hear a very sustained echo whenever we make any noise,” Theo said. She stamped her foot. A low rumbling crept along the metal floor of the corridor and disappeared abruptly after a few seconds.
“You’re right,” I said, “The sound is being suppressed.”
“That’s it!” Theo exclaimed, “This must be some sort of stealth technology at work, just like the one on Laura’s hovercraft.”
“You mean on the flyasaurus?” Dennis added.
“That’s why everything’s been so silent around us. Someone must have activated stealth mode on the interior of the submarine.” Theo continued.
“Stealth mode.” Dennis and I echoed at Theo’s brilliant realization.
We pressed close together, listening to the silence.
“Well, now’s a good time as ever, let’s go through.” Dennis swiftly mounted the ladder, twisted the circular latch, and pushed upwards before anyone can object.
White light spilled onto us. I squinted. Dennis climbed up first, helped Theo through, and then me. There were no henchmen waiting to ambush us after all, we had entered through the floor of another deserted corridor, this one bathed in bright light. It looked like the interior of the Starship Enterprise, white and porcelain. 
On the side of the corridor right in front of us was a pressurized door with a porthole fixed at eye-level. Creeping up to the glass, we peeked through, Theo on the left, Dennis in the middle and me on the right.
Theo’s jaw dropped wide open. Dennis looked like he was seeing the most beautiful thing he had ever encountered in his life. We gazed through the porthole at the sight on the other side of the glass. Laura, Wolfgang, Heathcliff, Laura’s henchmen, some of Mr. Dragon’s Henchmen, even Mr. Virus (covered from head to toe in what seems to be a buttery, creamy substance), they were all there. It was total chaos, kitchen utensils, pots and pans, chef’s hats, food and people were flying everywhere.

With delight, I exclaimed, “It’s a food fight!”