Preparation

13 2 2
                                    

"We're dead." Rolly says. You know something's wrong when that's the first thing you hear in the morning. "We have no defences, other than ourselves, and Ultra Tech could attack any minute. They have at least one Dusk Walker who knows all of our abilities and his way around The Hideout. Any ideas that could save us?"

"Well, aren't you Mr. Sunshine today." I comment as I pour my cereal. No ideas come to mind. Except... inspiration hits. "Couldn't we just keep on reviving ourselves using the resurrection device?" Rolly immediately dismisses the idea.

"That thing needs loads of electricity, which we don't have. Plus, U.T would already know about that." Here, Shawn makes his entrance.

"Wive? Do you still have Fred?" he asks.

"Yup. He's in my room." I made sure to put him somewhere nice and safe; under my bed. Although that's kind of obvious, my door is locked and my room wouldn't be the first place a U.T guy would go. Hopefully.

"Good." Shawn says. Although he's still not healthy, he's definitely made an improvement. Hopefully the road to recovery is a short one, because we'll need everyone to be ready when U.T hits. Ray enters shortly after Shawn.

"We're dead." he notifies us as he gets a piece of toast.

"We know. Yeesh, can't we find a silver lining?" I ask. Everyone present turns to me and says,
"No." ( Other than Shawn, who's nodding and saying, "Yeah, let's do that. It sounds like fun!" ) Well, that's depressing. We continue our breakfast in silence. It's odd, how times have changed. Once upon a time, we would have been having a cheerful breakfast. We would have freaked out at Ray's presence. Heck, once upon a time I would be eating whatever nasty substance U.T decided to puke up for me. Not anymore, though. I'm free. Of course, that could changed any minute. This thought expands my cloud of depression. My cereal, having lost it's taste to me, is tossed into the sink. I wander around, just feeling bad about my life. I pass by Tarna, who's just woken up, and this sparks my memory. I return to my room and grab the paper that I recovered from the underground tunnel.
I return to the kitchen where Tarna is eating and hand it to her.

"This was underground." I inform her. "With Fred." She looks at it for a moment before tearing up.

"Dinford." she whispers. "Alyssa and Reggie Dinford. Mom and Dad." Her hands tremble before gently moving the paper to hug it to herself. After a moment, she wipes her eyes and sets it down. "Thank you." she whispers, and wraps her arms around me. I stupidly mutter,
"Um." before awkwardly returning the hug. We stay like this, Tarna crying on my shoulder, for a moment. A very long moment. I'm not sure what to do. Tarna's not moving away. Should I stop hugging her? Should I stand here? I silently plead for help using my eyes. Ray catches the signal and shrugs. Rolly sees it too, but pretends not to notice. So we stand here. Tarna cries. I stand. She cries. I stand. She cries. After a few years, she lets go.

"Thank you." she repeats. I open my mouth to respond, decide against it and close my mouth, realize that I should say something ( opening my mouth ), and figure that I don't have the right words. ( Closing my mouth ) But she needs to hear something... ( open... ) Yeah, no. Just no. ( and close. ) I finally make up my mind and nod. Thankfully, Tarna ignores my stupidity and grabs her paper again. In this crazy storm, the preperation for the end, at least I've made someone happy. Or maybe sad. I frown and decide to go spread happiness ( or sadness ) and dumbness somewhere else. The porch might need a dummy. I walk to the porch and continue feeling miserable about my life. Why can't something go right? There's a little bloodthirsty maniac who lives in my brain! How many other people have that problem? I sigh and try to rise above this bad feeling. I should do something productive. After another very long sigh, I walk back to The Hideout.

Everyone is awake now, so we can have a meeting. Tarna leads this one.

"So... what do we do?" No one has an answer to that. "We can't just sit here and wait for U.T to capture us all! Come on, guys! Think!" I search my brain for something, anything, but come up blank. Luckily, others are better at thinking.

"You're right." Cassie says, standing up. "We're sitting ducks right here. I have a plan, if you guys are willing to go with it..."

"Let's hear it." says Ray. "Action ducks are better than sitting ones."

"Okay. I say we attack Ultra Tech." Stunned silence follows.

"Well." says Ray slowly. "Ducks who commit suicide are still action ducks, I suppose." After Ray breaks the silence, total chaos takes it's place.

"What?"

That's insane!"

"Could we actually do that?" Tarna puts her hand up for silence. After we obey ( which takes about 5 minutes ), she turns to Cass.

"You know the security on that place. You know their machines and weapons. How do you suggest we launch an attack that would even slightly bother them?"

"Well, maybe if we had a darkness-bender, a girl who could control the ground, a fire maniac, someone who could change gravity on herself, a kid who could chuck stuff around, and... Rolly." Rolly sighs.

"I could use my sword..." Cass nods enthousiasticly.

"Yeah! Do that!" I mean, seriously guys. We've got insane powers-"

"And Rolly has a sword." Ray interjects. Rolly shoots him a glare.

"Yes, anyways, we have powers! We might pull something off if we actually used them for once. What do you say?" We all look at one another. Could we do it? Might we be able to strike a fatal blow against the enemy? I can see the excitement on everyones' faces. Tarna turns to Cass. I can almost see us rising victorious!

"Maaaaaaaaaaybe." The excitement immediately dies. Tarna just kills the mood. "We'd need a plan. And we need to be equipped. Because when we go-" Cass jumps up and squeezes Tarna.

"She said when! She said when we go! We're going! Oh, thanks, everyone! We're actually finally fighting back!" With Shawn's help, she pulls us all into an involuntary group-hug. But still, I can't help smiling. Nerd Tech is about to meet The Hideout's best attack team: a few kids.

The ForgottenWhere stories live. Discover now