Chapter Text
Chapter 11: Shed Outta Luck
While you’ve gotten accustomed to waking up early these past few days, you wake up ironically slowly today. Same routine, same fantastic red shirt, but honestly going a bit groggy this day. Maybe some fresh air could help. You trudge downstairs, wandering to the yard, trying to ignore that fallen down Dorian. Despite how much cover the big tree gives, the daylight still hurts a little.
With all the hype about what the shed had to offer, you genuinely have been pulled to the place. And good for you, the door is already slightly open. The shed is rather large, but it’s also rather dark. The only light coming in from the door and a tiny window with a telescope next to it. On the shelves on one side of the rooms are various gardening tools, but a few other objects are slightly visible at the top shelf. On the other side are a small backpack with a load of patches on it, next to a big pile of various outdoor playthings. You already know who that big pile is, might as well say hello…
Autumn is standing before you again. Excited, but definitely not elated with herself. “Hey, human, nice to see you.”
“Is… something wrong?”
“I’m in all honesty still a bit sorry about Dorian. Yeah, I didn’t exactly make that Jet guy blow a hole in his back, but still. I tried asking him and Farya what I could do to help, but they said that I… that they could handle things themselves. I just gave Dorian one of my spare jump-ropes as a get well soon present.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“No worries, if I know anything about Dorian, I know he’d want me to enjoy life a bit. But enough about all of that, let’s get to playing!” Autumn starts rummaging through the pile of activities. “I have 3 main things I wanna try with you: tetherball, trampoline, and a water fight. Which one you wanna do today?”
You give yourself a little while to think about it, before finally settling on “Tetherball. It sounds fun.”
Autumn lifts up a long pole with a ball attached to the end with some string. She easily slides it over her shoulder and grabs a pair of bats. “Hm… there doesn’t seem to be enough space in here. Only one option, then!” Autumn grabs you by the arm and whisks you to the yard, placing the tetherball pole somewhere random. She then hands you a paddle. You might’ve just gone for the hand technique, but you don’t have half the necessary Poise. “Okay, do you wanna go clockwise or counterclockwise?”
“Oh, uh, I’ll go left.”
“…alright, then I’ll go counterclockwise.” Autumn grabs the ball from the top of the pole, and pulls it back until the rope attached is taut. She releases, then hits.
The rope goes flying to your head before you have time to react. It whirls right by, reaching Autumn’s side again and twirling to yours. You bravely take your bat and give a weak smack at the ball, sending it back to Autumn, which she counters with a hit twice as strong. Before even properly processing what’s going on, you dive out of the way, allowing the ball to tie itself around the pole until it comes to a stop.
“Ha, looks like I won this round. Wanna go again?”
You do feel a bit intimidated by Autumn’s strength, but you do feel a bit of determination to win. “Best 2 outta 3?”
“Oh yeah!” Autumn grabs the ball again. She does a similar routine to last time, but when the ball comes swinging to you, but this time you hit it near instantly as you see it, and doing a specific overhead motion. Autumn tries to hit it, but barely misses it each time, until the rope fully wraps around and comes to a still. “Wow, good strategy. Let’s see if that’ll work in the final round.”
It’s you who takes the ball first, hitting it as hard as you can. Autumn retaliates almost instantly, which you return when the ball’s hit back. This back-and-forth between you two goes on for what feels like forever, even if it’s only been 3 minutes. After a while it seems like you’ve gotten the upper hand, the ball already tied 3 times, but then…
“Hi-yaaahhh!!!!!” Autumn hits the ball back so hard, the string almost snapped off. Next thing you know, the tetherball slides inches from your face, and spins around the pole completely in just a few seconds. Not noticing your shock, Autumn simply laughs. “Haha! Guess victory is mine today. You wanna keep going?”
“Uh…” it takes you a bit to speak. “Maybe another time.”
Autumn looks mildly disappointed, but seems to understand. “Alright, guess I’m gonna half to find someone else to play with. The question is, who could be both as athletic or as fun-loving as me to wanna do this for another hour?”
As if on cue, a tanned, muscular man strides into view, covered in various sports equipment. It’s clear who it is at closer inspection, if the voice didn’t already give it away. “Autumn! How’s my favourite tower of toys doing?”
“Dunk!” Autumn gives Dunk a big hug, which is somehow not obstructed by how many extravagant accessories they both have on. “I was just wondering if you’d wanna join in some tetherball. This one’s tapping out for…reasons.”
You decide to ignore that remark as Dunk responds. “Oh sure, I don’t really get involved in the kiddy stuff most days, but I’m down.”
Autumn ironically looks rather upset. “It’s not kiddy stuff.”
Dunk immediately starts panicking. “Oh, right, right, sorry.”
Autumn gives a small huff. “Well, thanks for wanting to join in.” She then turns back to you. “We’re gonna be busy playing for a while, speak again another day.”
“Okay, see you.” You hand her the bat and walk back to the shed, still shaking the shock off and hearing vague sounds of giggling competitors behind you.
When you look at the pile that you summoned Autumn from, you notice it’s ever so slightly smaller. Surely from bringing the tetherball pole outside. Next up, you want to find out where this Mary-Jane person is. You pull out the roomers and go to a section labelled “High as a kite”, seeing that Bugsy mentioned how she was underneath a loose floorboard, so that’s of course where you look first.
Despite the shadows, you can already see a part of the floor that looks a bit out of place, but on closer inspection, it seems to be patched up with duct tape. There also doesn’t seem to be an edge that can be peeled off. Whoever hid this thing really wanted it to stay hidden. That won’t stop you from trying, though. You crouch down, trying to scratch-hook the tape up through your admittedly small fingernails, and pull up in a single tug…
Almost instantly you loose grip, and awkwardly fumble into one of the selves, so that was a bit of a bust. But as you stabilise yourself after, you hear a weird noise from the top shelf. You peer up to see a peculiar, black rectangle right overhead. Letting curiosity get the better of you, and the fact the objects looks out of reach, you decide to use the dateviators…
“Greetings.”
An ominous, metallic creature stands before you. Their almost skeletal body, coloured entirely black and grey, stares at you with their blank face, a smokey cloud imitating hair flowing off of their head. In one hand, a round of bullets seems to have been installed inside, and most scary, a great blaster is in the place where their other hand should go.
“No need to worry. With proper care, pistols like me don’t hurt anyone. And before you ask, I’m known as TR-166312.”
NEW DATEABLE FOUND: 146 - TR-166312 (by @metalichotchoco ) “…hi”
You don’t move even a single inch. TR-1… the gun person keeps speaking. “I understand your concern, but I would appreciate if you tried to not be so frightened.” You continue to say nothing. “I don’t have any affiliation with the US Government Department of Overseas Violence, if that’s what you’re worried about.” That may be a relief, but you’re still processing in silence. The gun person seems to grow desperate. “Could you say literally anything?-“
“I have a gun in my yard!?” You blurt out. The gun person seems both relieved and upset.
“Yes, you do. Quite the responsibility of I do say so myself.” The gun person then closes their single, slit eye, contemplating. “Are you not trained in gun safety?”
“No…”
“Well, no matter.” The gun person puts their hands on their hips. “That just means I need to teach you. Come back tomorrow for your first lesson?”
“Uh… maybe.”
“Well, that’s better than a ‘no’. Goodbye, human.” The gun person disappears.
You trot out of the shack. Maybe you can find Mary Jane another day.