Gray Is Not All Colorless

The Secret Side of Branch

Gray is Not All Colorless

A/N: Sorry this took a little longer than normal to update. The end of my semester is coming soon, so I'm going to be pretty busy for a while, getting the rest of my assignments done and finals as well. And that's not gonna be fun.

Well, I'll try to get some work on some of my stories little by little. Until then, enjoy Chapter 3! Roll it!

Chapter 3

The Secret Side of Branch

A few hours later, Branch had returned to his bunker from another quick trip of collecting supplies. He was now looking through one of his many handmade notebooks, which had hundreds of spare drawings and designs in them. His eyes were glued to one particular invention.

It had a large barrel attached to a rope and wheel system that turned it around, and had a timer that would alert him when it should be done. The purpose of it was to wash his clothes just by adding water and soap flakes, and then the turning of the barrel will create the suds, thereby washing them.

After making a couple more adjustments to his measurements, Branch soon took all of his supplies needed and headed over to the nearby lagoon to start building it, along with his dirty laundry and a bag of homemade soap flakes.

Once he got there, he took some rope and coiled some of it around the wheel and then tied it into the inside of the open barrel, which was beginning to slowly fill up with water from some holes in the bottom. He then pulled some more rope around, tied it to the first, and then weaved it through a pulley system, having a timer tied at the end of it.

Branch then whistled sharply, and a blue flyer bug suddenly appeared in front of him. It nuzzled him, making him chuckle briefly at its affection. He took the other end of the rope and tied it around its body.

"Just wait for a second, bud." Branch said to it.

He then took out his laundry from another handheld sack that he brought with him and then threw them into the barrel, along with a handful of soap flakes. He then looked over at his flyer bug friend and spun his finger in the air once, signalling for it to start flying slowly around the lagoon in a large circle. He followed suit to see if there were suds beginning to form inside the barrel, and sure enough, there were soap bubbles after a couple of minutes.

Pleased with the results, Branch found a comfy spot near a little yellow rosebush and took out his scrapbook of "The Trollabian Nights" and began to read from where he left off. He could spare a minute or two to let his guard down.

When he was about to get into the story of "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp", which was his personal favorite out of all the stories written in the scrapbook, Branch's ear slightly twitched up when he heard something coming from above him.

A high-pitched scream was coming from the large tree sapling that was near him. It was high above, but it was getting louder as someone continued to fall.

Instinctively, Branch closed his book, stuffed it in his hair and leaped over to the sapling just in time to see a little shape falling from one of the stronger branches. Quickly, Branch used to launch himself into the air and catch the small body before landing on his feet, knees bent to absorb the impact of the fall.

The trolling in his arms was quivering as he carefully held her in his arms. He recognized this particular little one. It was Suki's young niece, CJ Suki.

She looked a lot like her aunt, except her colors were different. She had bright blue hair, fuchsia pink skin with little freckles on her cheeks, and matching cyan blue eyes, with a green little gem on her navel. She wore a pale blue crop top, cream capri, and navy wristbands on her wrists. She also had matching navy and yellow headphones on her head, in respect to her aunt Suki, along with a purple and yellow bead collar necklace.