Watcher (noun): a person who observes something attentively or regularly.
Luna
I took a deep breath in through my nose, letting the forest air flow through my veins like a drug. Several bodies surrounded me, jostling uneasily at the task at hand, but my pulse was steady and I was still.
The wind whistled through the trees that we were hidden in, leaving a trail of goosebumps along my exposed skin. Below us were, if I had counted correctly, 98 teenagers running around a small clearing whooping and yelling not realizing that they were attracting every grounder in a 50 mile radius. But lucky for them, our orders were not to touch them only to scout their numbers, location and resources to report back to the commander.
I rolled my eyes as a gangley brunette boy picked up a stick and began to sword fight with his asian friend. A man to my right shifted restlessly, an unmistakeable fury in his eyes. I slowly reached my hand over and placed it on his shoulder. A warning.
"We shouldn't be up here watching. We should be down there, taking back the land that they stole." He hissed, spitting in the kids common tongue like it tasted foul in his mouth. Mocking them.
I didn't speak but I locked my gaze to his and pressed one finger to my lips. He scowled. My ears picked up the tail end of a conversation and my interest turned to the scene below me.
"So, Mount Weather? When do we leave?" A boy with long scruffy light brown hair and a cheeky smile spoke to a blonde girl who was tending to a dark boy's ankle after the confrontation earlier.
Mount Weather.
Everyone in the tree shared an uneasy look. We didn't know much about Mount Weather, but it was known that if you wandered to close to the mountain, you might just disappear. They were too powerful, sitting up on the mountain looking down on us. It was foreboding. If these kids were aligned with the Mountain Men, the were much more of a threat than I had first anticipated.
"Right now." The blonde declared, stretching up to her full height.
"We'll be back tomorrow with more food." She spoke to the guy nursing his ankle.
"How are the two of you gonna carry enough food for a hundred?" He asked. But there wasn't a hundred, there was only 98 I was sure of it and I didn't count the two body bags behind the Dropship. One less thing to worry about in my opinion. The light brown haired boy turned and grabbed the two boys that had been fighting with sticks earlier.
"Four of us. Can we go now?" He asked eagerly.
"Sounds like a party, make it five." A pretty brunette strutted over.
"Hey what the hell are you doing?" A boy with black messy hair, olive skin and striking features pulled her back.
"Going for a walk." She said, irritatedly.
The blonde girl then spoke up. "Were you trying to take this off?" She grabbed the light brown haired boys wrist and held it up. Attached to it with a heavy duty metal wristband. I scrunched my brow and leaned in, what the hell is that?
"Yeah? So?" He sassed.
"So? This wristband transmits your vital signs to the arc! Take it off and they'll think you're dead." She excalimed.
They're transmitters. They're still in contact with wherever they came from, the arc she called it. That is bad, that means the possibility of more coming down and not just ignorant teenagers.
"Should I care?" He asked.
"Well, I don't know! Do you want the people you love to think you're dead?" She asked.
"Do you want them to follow you down here in two months because they wont if they think we're dying." She told him.
Two months. We had two months to get rid of them before the rest of them invaded. And we had to get rid of them, no way would the commander just let a whole bunch of sky people come down and take our land after they fled from it in the first place. I know the history. The stories, they abandoned the planet, the human race. And now they think they can just waltz back down and take it?
"Okay, now lets go." She finished.
They started to move out and I motioned at the others to climb down the tree. We moved quickly, darting through the forest in silence and met at the base of a tree that was far enough away that we wouldn't be heard.
"Here's what we're gonna do. I want two of you to follow them. If they're in alliance with the mountain men that could be very bad and we need to know what we're up against. But our orders are that we cannot touch them. The rest of us will continue to scout for information until you return. Clear?" I briefed them and they nodded.
"Tanner, Kaito. Go." I ordered but before they left I stopped Kaito.
"If you so much as touch one if them, your ass is the commanders." I told him and he gave me a curt nod. The rest of them looked at me for instructions.
"They haven't strayed too far from that ship of theirs so fan out, I want them surrounded. Any plans that they might have, the commander will want to know them." We sprung into action all moving as one, quickly and silently.
I chose a tree that was to the left of the Dropship. I scaled i quickly and settled into the thick, leafy branches and there with my senses on high alert I waited.
~~~
So far it had been a good two hours and all I had found out was that Gemma thought Liam was super hot.
Riveting stuff.
Although, I couldn't deny that I was fascinated by the sky people and the way they found joy in the littlest places, a meadow of flowers, a flock of swallows, the afternoon sunshine, but I would never admit it to the others.
Just when I was ready to circle up with the others and see what they'd uncovered, hushed voices caught my attention. The boy they called Wells, was limping on his ankle, collecting firewood when two boys one with a glazed 'meathead' look in his eyes and the other with a twisted smile and obvious arrogance approached him.
"Find any water yet?" The arrogant one asked.
"Nope not yet. I'm going back out if you want to come..." he trailed off and I craned my neck to see what he was looking at. Scratched into the side of the ship was,
FIRST SON
FIRST TO DYE
Oh god. Dye? They couldn't even spell, in their native language. How incompetent were these kids? The arrogant one laughed and then his faced twisted.
"You know, my father, he begged for mercy in the airlock chamber when your father floated him." He spat out.
Floated? Was that some kind of punishment? Execution? I was familiar with what limited stories we had on space but I had never heard the term floated. I assumed the worst. The boy pushed past them.
"You spelt die wrong. Genius's." He said over his shoulder.
Out of the corner of my eye, the striking boy with messy dark hair approached.
"If you're gonna kill someone, it's best not to announce it." He suggested sarcastically and, absentmindedly, the corners of my mouth turned up.
"You're not really a member of the guard, are you?" The arrogant one asked.
"No. The real guard will be here soon unless we stop it." He replied, all traces of sarcasm gone from his voice. I listened hard.
"You don't actually think they're gonna forgive you crimes do you?" He continued and I raised my eyebrows, putting tow and two together. The sky people sent child criminals down to test if the radiation was livable because they were expensable. Nice.
"Even if they do, then what? Guys like us, we're gonna become model citizens now? Get jobs? If we're lucky we might pick up their trash." He told them.
"You got a point?" The meathead asked.
"No, I got a question, they locked you up, dumped you down here like lab rats to die, So why are you helping them?" He asked.
"The hell we are!" The meathead exclaimed.
"You're wearing those bracelets aren't you?" He pointed out.
Oh, so that was his angle. He doesn't want them to come down here. That sparked my interest. Why would he want that? Didn't he have any loved ones that he missed? Or did he do something so bad, they wouldn't forgive him when he came down?
"Right now those things are telling them weather or not it is safe for them to follow us down here." He reminded them.
"Okay, you said we could stop it. How?" The arrogant one asked.
"Take them off. The arc will think you're dead. That it's not safe to follow. You follow?" He smirked.
"Right. And if we do, what's in it for us?" The arrogant one bit back.
"Someone's got to help me run things." He said confidently, turned his back and walked off.
I sat back, my mind racing through all the things I had learnt. At first I though Blondie was running the show, wanting the sky people to come down and for them to be reunited with their loved ones but it seems like even amongst them there are rebels. The Commander wont want anymore of the sky people to come down so if the rebels succeed they'll be condemning their people without even knowing it.
~~~
Night had fallen quickly and throughout the afternoon I had watched the boys work their way through the throng of teenagers, convincing people to jump ship. It wasn't until they were all crowded around the fire with ten people already burning their now unattached wristband that the dark boy made an appearance.
"Who's next?" The striking boy with messy hair called out after a red haired girl threw her wristband into the flames.
"What the hell are you doing?" The dark boy yelled. The meathead moved menancingly towards him but the messy haired boy held him back.
"We're liberating ourselves. What does it look like?" he answered, a sly grin gracing his lips.
"It looks like you're trying to get us all killed!" The dark boy exclaimed and for a second I saw a flicker of uncertainty in the striking boy's eyes, a flicker of guilt and then it was gone.
"The communication system is dead! These wristbands are all we've got, take them off and the arc will think we're dying, that it's not safe for them to follow!" The dark boy told them.
"That's the point, Chancellor." He replied sarcastically.
"We can take care of ourselves, can't we!" He yelled, riling up the crowd who cheered along with him.
"You think this is a game don't you? Those aren't just our friends or our parents up there. They're our farmers, our doctors, our engineers. I don't care what he tells you, we won't survive here on our own!" The dark boy argued, a desperate edge to his voice.
He was right. I had been watching them all day and they were like five year olds, running around, making noise, not knowing what to do. They would learn, but it would be slow and by that point they'd be dead.
"Besides, if it really is safe, how could you not want the rest of our people to come down?" He finished.
"My people are already down. Those people locked my people up. Those people killed my mother for the crime of having a second child. Your father did that" The messy haired boy argued. So I was right about the floating being execution, but for the crime of having a second child? How was that right?
"My father didn't write the laws." The dark boy responded.
"No, but he enforced them. But not anymore, not here. Here there are no laws!" People cheered in agreement.
"We do whatever the hell we want, whenever the hell we want! Now you don't have to like it Wells, you can even try to stop it, change it, kill me. You know why? Whatever the hell we want!" He yelled out and the people erupted, howling and chanting.
His speech was passionate, confident, sexy. And I could already see the people who were hesitant being swayed by his words. This was no child, he was a man and he was in charge.
Suddenly thunder boomed and rain pummeled down only making everyone more and more excited. I guess none of them had ever seen rain before and the childish joy on their faces almost brought a smile to mine.
Almost.
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A/N
HELLO AWESOME READER!!
First of all thankyou for looking past my sucky discription and giving this book a chance! I have been playing around with this plot for a while now and I have lots of exciting ideas!
I have cast Phoebe Tonkin as Luna btw because she's hot af.
This chapter was based on Season 1 Episode 1 'Pilot'
Please vote/comment/share this because it would mean the world to me
DISCLAIMER
I do not own any of the characters or plot lines from the original television series, just the ones that I have created :)
Also I know in Season three a charcter is introduced called Luna and I just want to point out that these charcters are COMPLETELY different. I just like the name :)
*loves*
-J xx
Edited.