//------------------------------// // Level Eleven: Cue the Emergency Sirens // Story: Delinquency // by Daemon McRae //------------------------------// Level Eleven: Cue the Emergency SIrens The days leading up to the dance were about as stressful as you’d expect. Between poorly coordinated attacks from the empty shells, golem sightings all over town, and the rather daunting task of convincing both Principals that the large trunks of incendiary devices they were asking to stash around the school were not, in fact, major felonies (a feat made easier by Principal Luna’s unused law degree), the boys had nearly run out of steam come lunch on Thursday. Which didn’t bode well for the weekend’s scheduled programming. They’d all gathered under a large tree some yards away from the school for lunch, having been asked politely to stay outside whenever possible until the golems stopped attacking them. Spooks had buried himself in a large tome again, finding the crisp autumn air a rather conductive environment for reading. Rubble and Dusty had taken to a game of cards, while Treble simply poured over his smartphone with mild interest. “Hey,” he said after a few moments of silence. “Sup,” came Rubble’s response, not looking up from his hand of cards. “So, like, you know how Celestia said they weren’t going to cancel the dance, come hell or high water, cause the school had already but a buttload of money into it?” Treble mused. Dusty gave half a glance over the top of his cards. “Yeah?” “So, I know we’re gonna probably be spending the whole night fighting monsters or something stupid, but I mean, it’s still a dance. Should we like, get… dates, or something?” Treble asked. Rubble and Dusty traded unamused glances, before pulling out their wallets. Each of them then dropped a ten-dollar bill into Spook’s outstretched hand, whose owner hadn’t even looked up from his book. “Told you so,” Spooks said with a smile. Rubble groaned. “Yeah, yeah.” Ignoring the somewhat indignant look on Treble’s face, he asked, “Do I even want to know who you have in mind?” Treble scrolled through his phone. “Not really sure, actually. Just thought maybe it’d be nice to have something to, you know, look forward to beyond the whole extra-dimensional Satan thingy.” “STILL not a demon,” Spooks grunted, turning a page. “Whatever,” DT groaned. “I’m just saying it’d be nice to have like a moment of normality in all this bullshit, you know? I’d like to maybe have a pretty girl around if I’m gonna have to go full Rambo on a bunch of faceless freakshows.” The rest of the boys thought about that sentiment, imagining various scenarios in which a grateful girl looked on as they performed daring and heroic feats, protecting the school. “Ok, yeah, that’s be kind of cool,” Dusty conceded. “But I mean, the dance is tomorrow. Who would we even get to go with us?” Rubble gave Treble a mischievous grin. “You could ask Sunset.” The glare he got in return would ignite thermite if it could. “I’d rather tongue a snake. I mean, really. But what about you, Spooks? You and Nerdlight seemed to have a thing goin’ on the other day.” “She has a boyfriend,” Spooks said, punctuating his sentence with the turn of a page. The other boys looked at him consolingly. “Welp,” Rubble muttered. “I can’t think of anyone. If anybody’s got any suggestions, I’m all ears.” The group was silent for a moment, until Treble stopped scrolling on his phone. Then a devious grin arose on his face. “I may actually have an idea.” The other boys gave him a worried look. “I know that voice,” Dusty said cautiously. “That’s your I have a really horrible idea and nobody’s going to like it but me voice.” “He-he, yeah...” Treble chuckled. He continued to laugh as the rest of the group traded extremely worried glances. --------------------------- It was after school on Thursday, and the boys had all gathered in a relatively foreign spot to all of them: the lobby of Deep Treble’s apartment building. “This is the worst idea you’ve ever had,” Rubble groaned, as they marched for the elevator. “Oh please, nothing’s ever gonna beat ‘Ultimate Fireball’ in that category,” Treble responded with a misplaced sense of pride. “I don’t know, this comes pretty close,” Spooks conceded, as Treble hit the button. Dusty looked around the lobby with interest. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to your place,” he mused out loud. “That’s because my parents are ‘cats in the washing machine’ crazy. Trust me, you’re lucky they both work tonight,” Treble groaned. Dusty looked to the other boys for confirmation, and got grim nods from both. “Yeesh.” The elevator dinged, and they piled in. “So, how long have these girls been your neighbors, anyway?” Rubble asked hesitantly, in an effort to keep the conversation going to drown out the rather horrible elevator music that had kicked up. “I didn’t see them the last few times I was here.” “That’s because they’re on a different floor,” Treble explained, pressing a button. “Also they don’t really leave the apartment except for school. And I think one or two of them have part-time jobs.” Dusty nodded. “Well, they’d have to, wouldn’t they?” The elevator lurched upwards with a start, dragging its occupants up the building with a bit of effort. The building itself wasn’t exactly amongst the higher-end apartment complexes in the city, occupied mostly by middle-class families and individual tenants with slightly better than no money. Not that it was a terrible place to live, but it was obvious that this wasn’t exactly the glory days of its existence. Some remnants of those days still shone through, however, and so the building had a bit of a homey quality, and was far from disrepair. Rubble noted the floors as they passed by. “Wait, they live on a floor above you? I thought that’s where the decent suites were?” Treble shrugged. “Almost. They had to start renting out the upper floors to regular tenants after some newer properties cropped up. Now only the top two floors are really the fancy-schmancy stuff. They’re like two or three floors below that.” “Still a horrible idea, by the way,” Spooks grunted, as the elevator dinged and let them all out. Treble led them down a well-decorated, if somewhat paling, hallway. Yellow wallpaper with floral decorations, red and gold checkered carpet, and some impressive-looking chandeliers (which in all honesty wouldn’t pass closer scrutiny before they were discovered to be merely clever imitations of a more impressive decor). They stopped at an apartment door that looked much like all the other doors, save for the numbers on the front, indicating the address. Also, the faint scratch marks in the door frame. The boys took a step back as Treble knocked. “Coming!” A husky female voice said. There was some commotion, and some metallic clicking indicative of a lock being fiddled with. The door flew open, and the girl on the other side met her guests with a look of surprise. “Oh! Well hello!” “Hi, Adagio,” Treble said. ----------------------- The boys sat in various seats around a polished oak coffee table, in chairs and a couch much more comfortable than the furniture in their usual hideout. Adagio brought them a tray of glasses, with a large pitcher of water, as they admired the rather well-decorated apartment. Dusty let out an appreciative whistle. “I gotta admit, I was expecting something a bit more… run down than this.” Adagio raised an eyebrow as she took a seat next to Treble, taking a sip of water from her own glass. “And why is that? It’s not exactly like we’ve been sitting on our haunches for the last several hundred years.” “Yeah, but this isn’t exactly the Hampton Inn,” Rubble piped up. “I figured it’d either be a total dump or the Taj Mahal.” Adagio chuckled. “Well, you learn to be a bit more careful with your expenses as time goes on. And let’s just say the invention of the IRS did us no favors when it came to our spending habits. Besides, now we actually are the teenagers we’ve looked for centuries. And teenagers don’t exactly own Penthouse Condominiums in the center of town. Anymore.” Rubble shrugged, taking a gulp of water. “Hey Dagi, who was at the do-” a rather sharp, gravely voice cut out as Aria Blaze rounded the corner from the kitchen and answered her own question. “What. The FUCK. Are the Beater Boys doing here?” The so-called ‘Boys’ traded glances. “Um… what?” Spooks asked, tilting his head. Adagio frowned prettily. “It’s a term she came up with some time ago. Sunset and her friends are the Rainbooms, we’re the Sirens, and you lot are the ‘Beater Boys’,” she explained, air quotes included. “Aria finds it easier to address the world as a whole with labels. Although she does have a point. What are you doing here?” The rest of the group looked to Treble to explain, since the whole thing was his idea. He sighed, put his glass down, and said, “Ok, so I don’t know how well informed you all are about the weird shit going down around town.” Adagio shrugged. “Well enough. I’ve put together bits and pieces from gossip, and Aria’s been filling in the gaps with internet research. Plenty of conspiracy theorists losing their minds over the ‘Blank Slates’ popping up all over town. Her words, not mine.” Spooks looked at Aria appreciatively. “That’s a much better name than what we’ve been calling them. We just say golems or monsters.” The abrasive siren shrugged. “Whatever. Still doesn’t tell me what you’re doing in our house,” she growled. “Who’s in our house?” came a chipper voice from around the corner, soon followed by Sonata Dusk poking her head into the room. She let out a loud gasp. “TREBBY!” she shrieked, throwing herself at Tebble and catching him in a big hug. “Yes, it’s good to see you too, ‘Nata,” he mused, patting the girl on the back. She squirmed to make herself more comfortable, sitting in his lap and not relenting on her hug. Aria rolled her eyes at her younger sister, and took a seat on the arm of the chair Spooks had occupied. “Right. I forgot you two actually got along, somehow.” “...Trebby? Exactly… how much time do you spend around these girls?” Spooks asked, not really wanting to know the answer. “Not as much as he shooouuuld,” Adagio said in a singsong voice, tracing a finger on Treble’s shoulder. Aria rolled her eyes. “Don’t read too much into it. He drops by once in a while to play video games with me and Sonata. And he and Adagio have this weird super-flirty relationship going on.” Rubble leaned away from the couch. “You guys haven’t, y’know...” “Not for lack of trying,” Treble lamented. “But no, we haven’t.” “Trying on whose part?” Dusty asked. Treble grinned, then resumed his explanation. “So, right. You know basically that there’s a bunch of weird flesh golems traipsing about-” he started, filling them in on the rest of the details they’d been able to put together so far. His explanation was met with a strange mix of curiosity and alarm. “So what, you came to warn us from going to the dance?” Adagio asked, with a puzzled expression. “Actually, just the opposite,” Treble continued. “We-ok, I figured that you girls knew how to handle yourselves,” he reasoned, correcting himself at the many glares his friends were giving him. “And I thought that maybe, just maybe, you’d want to join in on the fun.” “Aaaannnnnnnd?” Rubble interjected, giving Treble an annoyed look. “...aaannnnnd maybe go as our dates?” Treble finished. Whatever the response the newly crowned ‘Beater Boys’ had been expecting, it hadn’t been the one they got. The girls looked at each other, and traded rather mischievous gins. “...ok, what?” Dusty asked finally. Sonata hopped off of Treble’s lap, and stood off to the side, while Adagio explained. “Well, it’s no secret that we aren’t exactly the Rainboom’s biggest fans. Of course, I understand that you aren’t, either, but for entirely different reasons.” Rubble nodded. “Go on...” “We are also well aware that the Rainbooms neither approve of your… methods, nor of us in general. In fact, we’d been talking about something similar to this very situation not too long ago. Of course, not these circumstances, but one of us might have pointed out what an amusing shade of vermilion Sunset would have turned if she’d seen, oh, say, you and I on a date together,” she gestured to Treble, in possibly a more suggestive manner than was necessary. Which, in all honesty, the boy had to quarrels with. “Actually, yeah, that would be amusing. I mean, I was just looking to have a date to a school dance for the first time in like, a year, but your idea is much more fun.” “Wait, what idea?” Spooks piped up. “All she did was talk about how much none of us really like the Rainbooms, and vice vers-oooohhhh. Oh, ok,” he finished, catching on. Rubble raised an eyebrow. “So, what you’re saying is you’ll go to the dance with us, but only to piss off Sunset and her friends?” Sonata smiled wide, an innocent looking smile in a naughty sort of way. “Totally.” “I’m in,” Rubble clapped his hands, excited at the prospect. Aria raised a hand. “Hold on! So if pissing off the Rainbooms wasn’t your primary reason for asking us to the dance, what was? And what makes you think we didn’t already have dates?” Treble jabbed a thumb in Adagio’s direction. “There’s my primary motivation right there. Not to be crude, but hot damn.” Adagio smiled and flipped her hair. “Much appreciated, dear.” Spooks elaborated, “Treble’s idea was actually just to ask Adagio for himself, then thought that maybe he could get you two to maybe to with two of us.” Sonata leaned against the back of the couch. “You don’t seem particularly excited about this idea. Kinda offended, actually.” Spooks shrugged. “I just figured I’d be the odd man out. I’m not exactly dating gold.” Sonata gave him an appraising look. “Well, you’re not terrible looking. And I’ve met scarier stuff than you before. I mean, ‘Dark Ages’, seriously. Aight’, dibs on the skinny one.” Aria got huffy. “Hey!” Adagio rolled her eyes while Sonata smirked. “Oh please. Like you’d be caught dead on a date with anyone that couldn’t take you in a fight. There’s no way you’d go with anyone other than Punchy McFightclub over here,” she reasoned, jabbing a thumb at Rubble. Aria rolle her eyes, but conceded the argument. Dusty looked around. “Wait, so I’m the spare tire? What?!” Adagio looked him up and down. “Well, I might be able to find you someone. You know, if you don’t mind the hourly.” Dusty stared into space for a second as he processed this. “No. No I think I’m good. Besides, someone needs to be on weapon duty all night. And it’s not like I can’t get around faster than you losers.” Adagio crossed her legs suggestively, resting one on Treble’s thigh. “I doubt that, darling.” “NOT WHAT I MEANT.”