Lee POV
Clover, my best friend, was being an annoyance again when the 7 skeletons came back home. Blue and Dust were holding hands and smiling at each other and Error was carrying a blushing Ink bridal style. Cross was sweating nervously even though it was freezing outside and Nightmare was glaring at him while an oblivious Dream smiled and called all of us to gather in the living room. Yu Yan and Yu quickly hurried over to us. Sci walked over and told Ink the coordinates. Ink got out of Error's arms and painted a portal with his 'broomie'. "Just in case, we'll follow you guys inside." Dream said, smiling at us. We nodded as walked into the glowing portal. Ink, Error, Blue, Dust, Cross, Dream and Nightmare followed us into the portal just as it closed.
The portal closed and we found ourselves in some kind of nuclear plant. "Now don't touch anything, we might disturb the machines and-" CLICK! "oK whO tHe fLiP dID tHAt?!" Error growled. We all turned to look at Clover who was standing beside a counter with lots of buttons and levers. A big red button was pressed down and was glowing. "CLOVER YOU SH-"
Clover POV
A blinding light was produced. When it cleared we saw that there was no explosion. "Okay what did the button say?" Nightmare asked, glaring at me. "Um, 'Code-19'" I answered as Lee took a manual and started flipping through it. He told us that Code-19 was a button that released an extreme amount of radiation that causes the world to be covered in a cold layer, causing a nuclear winter. He told everyone about it and Yu, unexpectedly, slapped me flat on my face. "Owwww"I whined, rubbing my cheek which had a red mark on it.
We hurried out to find that it was freezing. We were in a forest too and it seemed to be snowing lightly. We walked along a path but I could feel that someone, or some people were watching us. Nightmare seemed to feel it cuz he said, "Do you guys feel that we're being-" Darts shot out from the trees and the skeletons fell to the ground. "What's happening?!" Yu shouted as a bunch of people jumped down from the trees and landed softly onto the ground. "Alrighty boys! Good job! Now,what do we have here?" The leader, I presumed, said. The leader seemed to be a girl with a mask on her face and her hair in a low ponytail. Another girl stood beside her, not armed but taller.
All the 'troops' seemed to have masks on them and were each armed with some kind of gun or knife. All the skeletons were luckily only knocked out which left X!Chara in control of Cross. One of the troops was pressing a knife against his neck while another disarmed X!Chara. The leader and a few other troops did not hesitate to put us into an unbreakable headlock. The leader who held me in a headlock, pressed a knife against my neck, cooed, "Well hello there tiny! What are you doing in our territory?" The other girl tapped her foot impatiently and said flatly, "We don't have time for this, C. Just knock them out and you can have your fun later." "Alright, alright, L! Goodnight!" The girl grinned and stabbed a dart into my neck. Then everything went black.
...
I woke up to the sound of Chinese, my head fuzzy.
"什么？我不是叫你帮他们放针了吗？每个东西都是我做的..."
(What?! Didn't I tell you to help them to put the needle already? I have to do everything myself...)
I looked around to see the girl from the forest holding a clipboard and rubbing her eyes with a kid in front of her. "走开！C 会找你东西去做！" (Get lost! C will find things for you to do!) The girl, or 'L', told the person and he nodded and quickly ran off. I realised that I was on a chair, but in a hospital like room, with monitors and beds. On my left there was a large glass window that exposed the outside. It was still snowing but the ground had a thick layer of snow. My friends were also tied up and on chairs, this time they were awake.
A door at the end of the room opened and 'C' walked in. She was still wearing a mask but now, with closer inspection, had a grin stitched onto it. "Oh? You're awake." L said seeing that we were up. "What do you want with us?" Lee growled, lunging forward but only to be stopped by the ropes that tied him to the chair.
L rolled her eyes and walked over to him. She jabbed something into his wrist and continued doing so to the others. "What are you doing?!" Lee snapped, trying to pull the needle out of his wrist. "Just a little information picker," L said calmly, "it'll only take a while." When she finished with the others, she walked past me. I expected her to jab me too, but she just walked over to some computers and started typing. "Hey! What about me?" I said, trying to get the two girls' attention. "Oh! Well princess, I'm afraid we've checked your status and you're too stupid for our tech! Now now don't be sad, you're special!" C chorused in a teasing tone. I could hear an audible chuckle from Lee and I growled at her, already hating this one.
After a while, the needles were taken out from them and we were brought to another room. C and L followed us to the room. "I'll leave them to you now," L said, "I have some other things to attend to. Don't toy with too much, we still need to access their worth." "Aw! Ok L, I won't! See you at 6!" C called back to L, who was already leaving the room. We were in a room with a large glass window that covered the whole wall. The afternoon sun shone in. "So," C cooed, walking around us who were placed in a circle. "Where're you guys from huh? East? West? North? South?" "What are you talking about?" Yu said, eyeing her suspiciously. "Oh right!" She said, clapping her hands together, "I know where you guys are from cause X!Chara told me!" Dam traitor... C walked around then stopped in front of me. I could tell she was smirking under her mask. She flipped something out from her pocket, and it landed on her palm and I saw it was a pocket knife. It was covered in crusted red stuff. She started cleaning it and teased, "So princess how'd you survive all out there without a guard, hm?" She raised a teasing eyebrow and I could hear snickers from my friends and even a chuckle from Yu Yan. I felt my face heat up and I shot back pathetically, "W-Wdym?" She chuckled and pressed the knife against the chair, close to my neck and cooed, "Well, Guess I have to guard tiny princess here!" All my friends broke out into laughter. "Oh shush!" She said playfully, untying all of us, "Let's just get you guys some new outfits." "Bet you need a dress~" Lee said loudly, loud enough for us to hear. "Hey that's a good idea!" Yu Yan teased, punching my shoulder playfully. "He'll need a guard too~" C smirked, winking. "S-Shut u-up guys!" I stuttered walking off quicker.
Luckily they stopped teasing after we started walking. "I'm sure Star can get something for each of you." C said, walking downstairs towards another room. She opened the door and we walked into a room filled with drawers and shelves of clothes. A girl sorting some clothes spotted us and waved to C. "Oh! Hey C, newbies?" The girl smiled walking to C. "Naw. They're the -Whisper-" C said, whispering into Star's ear. "Ohhhhhhhh! I know just the thing for our new friends" she said and grabbed a small stack of neatly folded clothes and handed one to each of us. We went to some changing rooms and changed into the new clothes. We came and out inspected ourselves in the life-size mirror. We all had somewhat the same clothing but the colours and sleeves were different for each of us. Star said that our shoes were fine so we left them as they were.
"Why don't we meet up with L for dinner then we introduce ourselves properly with all the skeletons?" C said, patting Star's shoulder. "That's a great idea!" Star cheered, her pupils Turning into stars. C nudged Star and her pupils quickly turned back to normal. Yu raised open eyebrow but said nothing. We walked off to the dining area, which was some kinda canteen in a school. "We're in a school right?" I asked. "No shit Sherlock..." Yu Yan scoffed, shoving his hands into his pockets.
We arrived at the canteen. We walked off to a room and saw the skeletons at a round table with L standing behind a chair. Error was still holding Ink who was blushing like crazy. Blue and Dust were playing Rock Paper Scissors and Dream was sitting in between Nightmare and Cross. Nightmare was eyeing Cross while Cross tried to avoid any eye contact. Error looked up at us and said, "s'BoUt tIMe HuH?" Ink scrambled out of Error's grasp and sat in a chair beside him. Ink pecked Error on the cheek and Error froze, crashing. Ink chuckled and said, "So, shall we start?"
"Well we should introduce ourselves now," L said, breaking the silence. Star beamed under her mask and patted her shoulder, bringing up some kind of panel which said,
Star (???)
Job: Medic, Socialist
Status: unaware
The panel disappeared after all of us had finished reading and the next panel came from L, saying
Lib aka L (???)
Job: economics specialist, planner
Status: #(-/+/#/@(-)+#);@-
"Huh, that's weird," L said, looking at the STATUS heading, "No matter, it's not that important anyway" Then it came to C who's panel popped up, that stated,
C aka Chara (???)
Job: army trainer, communicater
Status: aware
"Pff! Army trainer? You?!" I scoffed, almost a laugh, "Why I bet I cou-" A blur flew Archos the room and I was suddenly locked into a headlock. "Well princess, what did you say?" 'Chara' smirked, tightening her grip on my neck. "I changed my mind." I coughed and she left go. She jumped back to her seat smirking smugly. "pRIncEsS?" Error scoffed, already finished rebooting, "hEy sOMeONe geT hIM a DrEsS!" I crossed my arms and huffed, annoyed. X!Chara who seemed to be out of Cross's body said, "Chara?" 'Chara' shrugged and said, "Everyone said I seemed like Chara from UNDERTALE so they started calling me that. I mean sure I have an abnormal craving for chocolate and I consider stabby as a emotion but really? I guess it's just the most suitable one." X!Chara started asking her questions and they answered.
Q: Why nicknames?
A: Well we all have to hide our identities due to a trust situation that did not end up well.
Q: Masks?
A: Like we said, identities.
Q: Why is your main council only girls?
A: ...
They kept quiet, Star biting her lip nervously. L finally broke the silence and said, "We'll around a few months ago, no, we didn't have just the 3 of us. There were 3 other boys. We worked together in harmony until raids started occurring in our area more often. We found out the 3 boys that betrayed us and banished them from the group. We decided we can't just trust anyone now. However we do know you skeletons so I Guess you're the only guys we can trust and most probably will only trust." "What about us then?" Lee asked looking at L. "...Time will tell," the economist said and walked out of the room. Star mumbled about appointments and rushed out of the room as well. Chara left without another word. "Well if you guys are asking, the radiations separated me and Cross. Welp I'm gonna go get some chocolate." X!Chara said and disappeared. I slammed my head on the table and said, "These days are gonna be Long...."
***
Hold up. Thank you guys for reading my book!! I got 62 reads in just a few weeks! ;w;
I will be posting regularly if you're asking so don't worry. And there will be cliffhangers >:3. 再见！