Pre-Parade

Swords and Magic

"Thank you, Jack. It's called decency, Kim!"

The sound of a kazoo in the tune of a sound fare and mocking laughter caught their attention with Milton being the center of it all. Asa loosely followed behind him in a costume of her own. He wore a gold and shiny rented king's costume; Asa internally cringing at the cosplay disaster in front of her.

Milton held up his sector announcing, "All hail Miltonius, the newly crowned King of Nernia!" They had no words on how to describe what just happened.

Jerry eyes Asa's choice of clothing in question. "What are you wearing?"

She looks down at her costume. It was a simple comfy look that had a loose fitting faded red shirt, suede jacket and blue-gray cloth scarf around her neck, with brown pants and boots. "My Merlin cosplay."

He scoffs. "Where's your beard, wizard hat and wand?"

"I'm not from Harry Potter, you idiot." His eyes widened in surrender.

"See, Milton," Jack started, getting up from his seat. "This is the reason you had to go to spring formal with a bio-lab skeleton."

"I'll have you know Bonita is an excellent dancer." Milton defended.

"Hey, I know what's going on. It's that time of year when all the dorks come out and play Swords and Magic in the park." Eddie points out.

"Or if it rains we use the bingo center at the senior center. We tear it up!"

Jack raises a brow at the quiet Asa. "Why are you participating?"

"You honestly think I'd let an opportunity such as "killing" nerds with my sorcerer staff go to waste? Heck no!" Asa cheers using air quotes.

Kelsey walked pass greeting the fake sensei. "Hi Jerry."

Jerry shoved Milton back acting like an idiot. "Hey, Kelsey. I was just talking to this kid I've never seen before. I don't even know his name. Right, Milton? Really, Jerry!" He shouts to himself at the slip up.

"Guys, big news. This year, you guys are gonna participate in the battle with me and Asa." Milton says cheerfully.

"What happened to all your other friends? Ya know, the ones that throw up when I try to talk to them or run away from her." Kim asks gesturing to the only girls.

"Well this year's a little complicated. Francis has a bassoon recital, Jeffery is a finalist in the math-lympics, and Lewis got grounded from teaching his cockatoo bad words."

"Dude, we're not gonna be apart of your nerd fest." Jerry says rudely.

"Actually Nerd Fest isn't until October in Minneapolis," Asa corrects.

They with the exception of Milton stare at her questionably. "And you know this how?"

"Who do you think?" She retorts pointing to Miltonius.

"See Milton, a bunch of dudes in tights, running around the woods beating each other senseless with foam swords is just not our thing." Jack said as gently as he could muster up.

Milton's face fell. "Well it's my thing. And I wanna share this moment with my best friends. That's you guys."

Eddie hesitantly stands at the idea with his basketball. "I don't know. I just quit the cello and threw out my panda bear backpack. I'm just starting to get cool."

"Come on, just give it a chance. Soon you'll know the exhilaration of bounding down a hill, cape aflutter, to slay a half elf with a foam rubber axe. You with me?! All for one, and one for-" Milton turned around to see that his friends had fled the scene, leaving just Asa standing there. "Gahhhh! I probably lost them at cape aflutter."