The Apocalyptic Rockfight

[Catche Jagger]

“Yeah, yeah! Just a sec!” Alan hadn’t expected the offer of a ride, but he wasn’t gonna turn it down. Still, he’d left some of his stuff back in his cover, so he quickly rushed back, keeping his head low, before going to grab his bag.

There however, he paused, noticing a notebook sitting on the ground. Picking it up, he thumbed through a couple pages. Seemed to be filled with some drawings, not too bad in Alan’s estimation. Perhaps it belonged to a certain guy he’d taken cover with earlier…

Well, that was something to hold on to for later, Alan decided with a grin, stuffing the notebook haphazardly into his own bag before rushing back to Crispin.

“Alright! Let’s fucking roll!” He shouted, hopping on as Crispin indicated, before pausing a moment.

"Wait, wait... I'll drive, you shoot." He suggested, considering that they could probably take a few more shots on the way out.

[DerArknight]

Chaos had enveloped Gary.

He saw a squirrel boy with a mask on a bike shooting at him. He saw a mask squirrel-boying him with one shot. Squirrel boy saw his mask shooting Gary with a bike. And the bike saw Gary masking Squirrel boy. Or garying the shot with a mask. Or-

And then, all of a sudden, a clear voice cut through the mist that was around Gary, allowing his mind to refocus.

He opened his eyes.

Above him stood the figure of a girl. Since Gary was lying on the ground looking upwards, the sun blended him so that he could only see her outline. Still dazy, he didn't question it. He didn't question much except what had happened. Why was he lying here? Wherte was here in the first place? Whenever he tried to think about it, Gary drew a blank.

Finally, he managed to form words.

"A-a-are you a angel?"

[VoltTurtle]

Lily's chest heaved as both her and Joel reached the rim of the quarry, near Kincaid and Astrid's flock of goths. The two of them had spent quite a while making their way up and out through all of the chaos. Joel had gotten pelted by a fair few rocks on the way up, but she had remained shockingly unscathed besides her current injuries. Joel was a real sweetheart for that, she'd make sure to get him back one day.

"Oh, hey Astrid," she wheezed, "and hey Kitcat."

Her head was starting to clear up, the fog that had enveloped her mind beginning to fade. It was then that the cacophony of noise playing out in the quarry below started to become intelligible to her, and she realized that there were shouts about the cops being called. She glanced between Kincaid and Astrid, remembered seeing the phone be passed between them as they approached, and her blood ran cold.

Her heart rate picked up, escalating to full blown panic. Getting hit by rocks and paint balls was one thing, but getting arrested? How could she explain that to her mom? She needed to get the hell out of dodge, like, right now. Her bike was resting next to the fence, where she had left it, so getting herself out wasn't too much of a problem. Fuck the pigs, though, everyone deserved to know what was about to go down. So she alerted everyone the only way she knew how.

"WOOP WOOP, DAT'S DA SOUND OF DA POLICE," rang out across the entire quarry, followed by the voice of John Mulaney shouting "SCATTER!"

In the panic that erupted afterwards, Lily pulled Joel into a hug and leaned down to give him a peck on the cheek.

"Thanks for the help," she cooed into his ear, "but I'm getting the fuck out of here. Good luck."

Without another word, Lily let go of Joel and sprinted for her bike. She threw herself onto it and slung her backpack over her shoulder in one fluid motion. She gave one last look back at Kincaid, Joel, and Astrid, nodded, and started pedaling. A cloud of smoke erupted in her wake, with the sound of a motorcycle engine fading into the distance announcing her departure.

((And that was the limit to Lily's recollection of the rock fight.))

[ItzToxie]

"Aw hell yeah, we doin this shit sicario style?!"

It was time to dip, but they might have time to do another drive-by. A real one this time, it'd be a lot easier to aim as a passenger at least. Crispin kicked out the kickstand and hopped forward, sitting in the basket of his bike, resting his legs on the hub pegs of the front tire.

"Hop on man, let's light 'em up!"

[Catche Jagger]

“Fuck yeah, man!” Alan hopped into the bike seat and steadied himself before knocking back the kickstand and pedaling forward, doing one last loop of the quarry to give Crispin a chance to take out any stragglers before they would make their great escape.

“Scatter motherfuckers!” He yelled, cackling with delight.

[AnimeNerd]

Walk, help Lily, get out. Walk, help Lily, get out. Walk, help Lily, get out.

He didn't know when Crispin left his mind, but at some point he did. He could wait for another time. Probably school. Everyone can laugh at him then.

Walk, help Lily, get out. Walk, help Lily, get out. Walk, help Lily, get out.

Oh, Astrid was here. Great. That was definitely a conversation he wanted to have. Explaining why the one time he decided to go out somewhere with classmates was the time a full on rock war broke out with some idiot bringing a paintball gun. Future fun times right there.

Walk, help Lily, get out. Walk, help Lily, get out. Walk, help Lily, get out.

Finally out of harm's way, and Joel let go of his focus on Lily. His head didn't hurt anymore, but in exchange the rest of his body was in pain. A cut or two on an arm and definitely a good number of bruises. So maybe he was going to need to give a bit of an explanation anyway. At least he could have a few people on his side, and vice versa, if he needed it. Especially if the police were-

Joel's mind lost focus as he was pulled into an embrace, and he could feel his face flush as a pair of lips made contact with his cheek. The words Lily spoke were buzzing in his ears, but he nodded along, hoping he hadn't agreed to something stupid. His mind was mostly mush as he watched the girl go, a small smile on his lips as he let out a puff of air from his nose and a thought came to mind.

Well. At least it wasn't ALL terrible.

The memory of the rest of the world brought his attention back to the others before him. Astrid, who was definitely going to question what happened later, Kincaid and a couple of Astrid's other friends. His attention was only on the first one as he spoke.

"If you keep it secret I was here, I'll owe you big time."

[Shiola]

August couldn’t really swim.

He knew how, but - he couldn’t.

People didn’t really get how his Gift worked. He was too blitzed on meds most of the time to ever have much to demonstrate. The battery he carried with him kept everything quiet, kept him from being much of a disruption. Every hour or two, he’d touch a metal clip in his pocket, connected to something most people thought looked like a phone case. It shouldn’t have seemed like a problem.

A little while ago he'd tripped and fallen in the hallways between classes. A few little sparks flew, but nobody got hurt. They laughed, mostly. Then they talked.

Swimming didn’t feel terrible - in freshwater, at least. Quite the opposite, he found water to be immensely relaxing. It was easy to keep his charge low, and the feeling of cool water on his skin helped with the aches and pains. There weren’t any phones nearby, most of the time. The second he jumped into a body of water, though, most people jumped out.

So August had sat on a boulder by the edge of the water, pant legs rolled up with his feet in. It didn’t make much of a difference, but whenever anyone asked, he told them it did. If anyone was afraid, they hadn’t shown it. More than likely, they didn’t notice him, or pretended not to.

He was invited. At least, he was part of the group chat that an invite was sent to. Mercedes had been there, but it looked like she was hanging around some other people. They were having fun, and August was just fine where he sat, he figured. It would’ve been nice if they’d come by, but he didn’t want to scare anyone by sauntering over.

The idea that he would be the one to cause a problem seemed a little bit funny, in retrospect. Kincaid started throwing rocks. Then everyone else did. Then Lily started throwing out some really wacky illusions, the kind of things he’d probably have found distressing if he’d been sitting closer to all of them. Either they thought something terrible would happen if someone hit him with a rock, or they didn’t pay him any mind, but few of the stones flew in his direction.

“Oh.”

Then, August spotted Crispin on a bike, with a paintball gun. Everything escalated, and he heard someone mention cops.

“Oh, no.”

He’d wait until the chaos died down a little, and then make his way out.

Maybe if the cops don’t actually show up, I’ll jump in for a bit.

[Pippi]

Mercedes’ plan, to put no finer point on it, had backfired just a little bit.

Her slung rock had sailed right past Crispin and found a completely different target instead, Alan’s yelp of pain as it smacked into his leg making her wince even while she pressed onwards to the quarry’s exit. Bad enough, even though Alan was also kind of a tool, so she was thankful at least that she hadn’t hit Nora or someone like that.

But that, of course, had alerted the Bucktooth Bastard himself, who had, in all of his incredible mental prowess, taken the warning shot as a challenge instead. Mercy’s eyes widened as the bike wheeled round, the boy pedalling towards them with frightening speed, and there was no goddamn way she was gonna be able to put her own foot to the floor; sweat was streaming down her forehead, and her bikini was feeling more like several winter coats at this point.

With a yelp as Crispin’s bike kicked up dust, Mercy swung her parasol down, trying desperately to block herself and the boys from the barrage of paint, her endeavour bearing fruit as a good deal of the bullets splattered against her umbrella.

Not all of them though. She yelped again and hissed through her teeth as three shots cracked against her, two to the leg and one to the shoulder, all of them hitting bare skin and leaving bursts of gaudy pink and yellow paint splattered across her body. She winced as she hoisted the parasol back up again. Her arm and leg were throbbing with pain, no doubt she’d end up with some particularly nasty bruises there by tomorrow, but more concerningly, her head was really beginning to pound, a surefire sign that she was beginning to reach danger zone levels of overheating, or that she was getting to an uncomfortably familiar bloodrush.

Or both. In this situation, both was pretty likely.

It was Austin, of all people, who snapped her back into focus; if time hadn’t been of the essence before, it most certainly was now that cops were on the way. Maybe she hadn’t thrown the first stone, but a bloody temple and a paint covered body were pretty effective smoking guns anyway.

“Right, yeah… hah… let’s keep… moving…” Mercedes panted out, shaking her head to clear out to try and clear out some of the fuzz that had encroached upon her brain. “You guys… you guys keep going if I fall behind, okay? I’ll be, hah, fine. Promise.”

She stopped for a moment, trying to catch her breath, and as she hunched over, hands pressed against her knees, the obnoxious sounds of paintball fire and cackling cut through the noise of yelling and splashing. Her head pounded harder. She grimaced. Red spots flashed before her eyes.

These morons clearly weren’t gonna be deterred. No more warning shots.

“Cut it out you douchebags!” Mercy yelled, as loud as her straining lungs would let her. “You’re gonna... gonna get in so much shit!”

As she reared back again, and hurled another tenderly-warmed rock towards the dickheads on the bike, she saw someone still sitting by the edge of the pool, feet dangling in the water. The brief pulse of joy that entered her heart whenever she caught sight of August was quickly snuffed out by the sensation of ‘Oh God, he’s still right in the midst of the crossfire zone’. It didn’t actually look like he’d been hit by anything though, thank goodness. Maybe it was the safest place to be, now that everyone else was scrambling for the exit. She’d try and message him when she was back home and safe; hopefully his Gift would let him play nice and respond sooner rather than later.

Actually, hang on, she’d just realised something. Where in God’s name was Lincoln?

[Slam]

Lincoln was, in fact, nowhere near the rock fight.

Sensing impending trouble, because putting a bunch of teenagers in the middle of an old quarry wasn’t a recipe for someone to drown to death or just get painfully embarrassed at all, Lincoln had steered clear of the invitation that afternoon. Why go outside in the sunshine with a bunch of your classmates and play in the water, when you could spend it lazing on the sofa texting and browsing shit?

While he laid back on the couch, staring at the latest clickbait on his phone, his sphere was nestled in a bundle of pillows and blankets on the windowsill. It didn’t actually need such a padded perch, lacking any sense of touch, but it kept it stable without any concentrating and blocked out a portion of its view, making it easier to focus. In this comfortable setup, Lincoln could be enjoying the wonders of the internet while simultaneously people watching the crowds passing by their home. The television was also on, naturally, but Lincoln hadn’t looked at it in a long while.

His relaxing rock-free existence was interrupted by his dad calling from the doorway. “Since you’re on your phone instead of outside on this beautiful day,” he drew out in a wonderfully dad-like manner, “text your sister for me.” he commanded, explanation following on. Lincoln considered protesting, because his dad did own a phone himself, but that would take more effort than he was in the mood for. And arguing with dads rarely worked out well anyway: it was a proven fact.

“Yo dad says come clean your shit out of the garage. His D&D friends are coming later.” he typed into the phone, rolling his eyes defiantly at the excessive chore. “No i don’t know why he can’t text you himself.”

[Sh4dE]

Caine that bastard was still invisible and was throwing rocks at him. Moose saw him! Or didn't saw it! Either way, he had to defend himself.

Moose patiently picked up small sized rocks with his gloves and threw them around. He was still confused about all the action going on and all the different parties involved and the amount of rocks coming out of nowhere like an illusion, but if he only would knock out Caine to make him visible again, Moose would feel safer.

Now all of this had been exhausting, but also really fun so far. But when Moose saw Crispy coming with his bike, he grinned. Nice. This was going to be even more fun than that time where they got banned from Applebee's.

Unfortunately someone snitched apparently and the cops could come. David probably snitched. He has to be tracked down and his phone has to be destroyed. Moose looked around, still with a rock in his hand.

[Primrosette]

Kaine felt a rain of rainbow-colored paintballs smacking into his side that was exposed and Mercedes' parasol had been too late to protect him from the blows that have been hitting him at full force. His right leg buckled from under him and he almost slipped onto the rocky surface of the quarry. Thankfully, his arm was still hooked around Austin's arm and it helped him straighten himself back up more carefully to his feet.

"Owww...." He winced slightly, now his leg was faring up with a stinging pain. "God, what a complete jerk." He mumbled, shaking his head.

They needed to get to the top quickly. God, his moms would kill him if he got in trouble with the cops. He was sure that Sherrie would back him up when she got back home, but she also had a bit of a mean streak. He couldn't risk it.

"We're almost there, guys. Come on...." He said calmly, moving with a slight limp now.

[ItzToxie]

One last drive-by.

One last volley of frozen fluorescent paint projectiles.

One last “YEE -YEEEE! GOON SQUAD BAY~BEH!” And as quickly as Crispy appeared; the Destructively Dominating Duo of Alan and Crispy disappeared, riding off into the sunset.

((Crispy and Alan continued elsewhere.))

*bonk*

” Ack! Your girlfriend looks like my mom, dood!”

[The Honeless Beard]

A long beat as Kincaid narrowed his eyes at Joel, ear flicking in Astrid's direction as he blinked quickly, twice.

"I'm sure your favour is widely coveted," came the deadpan response to Joel, as Kincaid's gaze slowly rotated towards Astrid. She had a point about the five-oh, but he was in crisis mode, now, and didn't want to directly address the cops with other people here. Needed to try to avoid taking credit for it.

"Eh, it's your phone," he said in response to Astrid, walking backwards quickly, heading back down the trail, "so you should probably take responsibility for it. I know why you'd call the - uh, call them, but I don't- it looks like it's winding down, so."

[Kermit]

Astrid's mouth pressed down into a thin line, and she was silent for a moment. Then she sighed, and stood up from her crouch.

"I'll remember when it’s Christmas," she said to Joel.

She then turned her head to Kincaid and sighed again.

"It wasn't my voice on the call, which the cops will notice. That's not something I've got a cover for. So I really think it would be a lot more convenient for both of us if you didn't try to weasel out, because I'd prefer not having to rat on you." She stated to him, never blinking.

[MurderWeasel]

Yvette looked down on the boy, who was not dead and didn't seem to be unconscious, at least not anymore. His question confused her; she wasn't religious so maybe she was missing something, but she was pretty sure that wasn't how angels worked. You didn't just find them around; they were something special.

"No," she explained, "I'm Yvette."

She pressed her lips together and tried to decide what to do about this. When most people got hit in the head, she'd learned in school, it did bad things to them and made them confused, for reasons she didn't really like to think about. Maybe that was happening here. In the movies they did things to assess the situation before getting back to the action, and Yvette didn't fully understand how that worked but she knew the routine well enough.

She brought her right hand up and held it out between her and the boy, index and middle finger extended in a V shape with shiny purple polish showing at the tips, palm with other fingers curled into it facing her.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked.

The sun beat down on her back, evaporating the droplets of water from her skin, and she really hated that feeling. At least the conflict seemed to be keeping a wide distance from her things back by the water.