Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Okay so bam.

Here's how it went down.

The idea of having this gigantic crossover event story has been the genesis of every creative endeavor and life-defining choice I’ve made since I was kid. The beginnings weren’t in anything that massive; playing Sonic Rush permanently altered how I understood fiction, video games, music (holy shit, the music), and most of it started with the inclusion of Blaze the Cat.

Having such a strong opposite personality to who I had come to know Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends as as a kid, and seeing all the cool team-ups and the intricacies of how she interacted with characters like Cream and Knuckles and the rest left a super big mark on me. Sonic Rush introduced me to the idea that you could have strong and mellow personalities mix and still have a really cool adventure story throughout the process of seeing them come together and, eventually, become friends and respected comrades. I found that I really, really liked the power of friendship and romance and love and all that cute, fluffy shit.

Then everything changed again because of two video games: Super Smash Bros. Brawl & Super Smash Flash 2.

The first had The Subspace Emissary, and if I thought shit couldn’t get more hype than seeing all of my favorite video game characters come together, seeing them actually interact on a large scale format, fighting against the ultimate evils of the fucking void blew my tiny 11-year-old mind. The first thing I ever actually wrote was a comic where Marth (who I mistook for a girl for the first couple of years), Link, Ike and my own OC Hiro Katyanagi (Scott Pilgrim was a massive influence on me… give me a break!) had a pop punk band named DSX, all of which was set in high school and was oddly set to a lot of the 80s New Wave music I had become obsessed with. Super Smash Flash 2, on the other hand, introduced me to anime characters I had never heard of before. Until then, Ichigo was just a cool guy with a gigantic, ill ass sword and Naruto was a clone-making ninja with a cool character design. Couple that with my cultivation of the eternal love for hand drawn animation with Flipnote Hatena and the stage was set for me to have my eyes opened up to the possibilities of what I could watch and listen to and absorb.

Of course, there’s a million different influences I could talk about – the weird, abstract humor of Regular Show, Chowder, and Invader Zim, my late nite excursions watching Boomerang (shout out to Duck Dodgers & Samurai Jack & Action Hero NOW!), years upon years of watching Youtube Poops and Super Mario Bros. Z, reading the Percy Jackson books front and back more times than I could count, Dragon Quest IX & Golden Sun: Dark Dawn during the D.C. trip right after watching Transformers 2 – but I'm already talking too much.

Once I finally decided to sit down and write this big, sprawling love letter to my childhood, the more I was stumped on how all of this would actually happen. Some of these characters are from Victorian-era England; others inhabit far-flung alternative futures and pasts. Sure, it'd be easy to just explain it all away as fanfiction doing what it does, but what fun would that be? I want things to have a good narrative, characters to go through tough arcs for the better, high stakes and ill hang-out sessions. I want the world they inhabit and the events that take place that cause them all to find themselves amongst each other to make sense and intrigue the audience - AKA, you guys - to wanna learn more.

And then it hit me – most of the characters I wanted to write about were teenagers tasked with saving the world.

Around the time I was rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender with my friends, it hit me just how young the protagonists and some of the antagonists were; outta all of em, Zuko was the oldest and he was only 16 or 17. My mind kept tallying them off; every kid in the first series of Percy Jackson is barely 16 fighting against literal Grecian mythological monsters and Titans. Naruto is focused on the use of child soldiers to fight wars & conflicts the adults had let get out of hand. The Jimmy Neutron cast hadn’t even hit puberty and had to find a way to make spaceships capable of hyperspeed travel to battle against an impossibly massive alien civilization to free their parents and narrowly escape the jaws of death, Teen Titans… well, it’s all in the name. Harry Potter, Danny Phantom, EarthBound, Sailor Moon, Spider-Man, Static Shock, X-Men. Et cetera, et cetera. It’s weird, but I felt really bad for all of them. They were a part of my childhood, but they themselves hardly got the chance to just be kids. In hindsight, saving the world from the worst evils or a tyrannical government or a reality-ending monstrosity should best be left to the adults; but then I realized, sometimes these kids were the only ones with the power to do what had be done.

So the idea finally came to me: a summer camp for heroes and protagonists alike.

Summertime is universally known as the one time of the year to relax and enjoy your time to yourself. (For the most part.) And since our heroes are teenagers, what better time allow ‘em a little rest and happiness?

Now of course, not all of the characters I included were superheroes, or even responsible for saving the world or anything major like that. A good chunk of the worlds I chose from are just regular teenagers from shows I loved growing up and into adulthood. I wanna explore what it looks like to have so many characters from so many different time periods and worlds come together and interact and everything, of course, but I also wanna make the opportunity to see some of my favorite characters have just a little time to themselves to be who they wanna be and get a little rest.

Now for the music. Here's how everything's gonna work!

I'm making the soundtrack to the fic as I go along, but I've had this in the tank for years. I've got a lotta music saved up and since it's all made up of stuff that you either A), can't find very easily on the internet, or B), spread out over Soundcloud, Youtube, Beatport, etc, it'll all be able to be downloaded/played from from a Google Drive links that I'll scatter throughout with every chapter. Some of 'em are long-form mixes that you'll have to follow along while reading, so be sure to pay attention to captions where song cues are gonna be! Hopefully the incorporation of what the Timmy and the rest are hearing and making translates good alongside the narration and your own imagination.

Now with all that said and done; let’s write an ill ass adventure.

See ya on the other side!

- ChiptuneGhosts

Chapter Text

Dimmsdale, California, 2004.

///

The morning sun had just barely begun to peek over the horizon of the Dimmsdale skyline before an alarm clock rang out obnoxiously loud. A pair of blue eyes, bleary and bloodshot red, drowsily peeked at the gleam of the green numbers on the display. 5:05 AM.

With a groan, the young man’s hand slammed the bar that rested above the clock and yawned, muttering groggily. The house was quiet, and the only noise that could be heard was the faint chirping of the birds making their morning flights.

It would’ve been a peaceful awakening too, if not for-

“Upppppp and att’em, sleepyhead!” a cheerful, high male voice called from beside the fish bowl that sat on teenager’s nightstand. “C’mon, cmon, c’mon, wake up! Chester’ll be here any minute!”

“Aw, Cosmo, gimme a break…” Timmy pleaded, stuffing a pillow over his head pitifully. “It’s five o’clock in the friggin’ morning…”

Suddenly the blanket covering the teenager swooped up and hovered above his bed, the cold air startling him fully awake. “Ack!” Timmy yelped. “Wanda, come on! Warning first!”

A feminine giggle chimed from inside the fish bowl. “You heard the man, sport. Your friends are gonna be waiting on you if you don’t hurry!” The tiny aquarium began to shake and rumble, the tremors becoming more and more vigorous until a POOF! of purple, sparkling, billowing smoke burst from the top. The enchanted clouds parted to reveal two floating figures smiling down at the young man.

One was a woman with bubblegum pink hair done up in a flowing curl, donning a summery skirt and thready sandals. The other was a man with radiant green hair covered by a wide sun hat, dressed in a pair of tropical shorts and an open, Hawaiian-style shirt. Most eye-catching of all, though, was the pair of flapping, transparent wings that sat behind both of them, beating at a steady pace with a soft hum.

“Looking radiant as always, sugarpie,” Cosmo, the green-haired one, complimented Wanda saucily, kissing her knuckles. The lady fairy blushed and giggled girlishly, “Quite the outfit yourself, handsome.”

Timmy gave the two the stink-eye and rolled himself unceremoniously off of the bed, bare feet landing on the hardwood floor below. “Good to see you two are in the summer spirit so early,” he said in a grouchy, sleep-laden tone. Suddenly he blinked and swiveled his head back towards the clock. 5:15 AM.

(Music: Track 01 – The First Day of the Rest of My Life)

Seconds passed by and the thought finally connected. “...Aw, crap!” Timmy exclaimed, hastily jumping out of the bed. The buck-toothed teen raced towards the bathroom and hit the lights, almost quite literally leaping into the shower to get himself ready. Timmy burst out of the washroom with a toothbrush in his mouth, mouse-brown hair still dripping wet and trying to pull on a pair of blue jeans in a panic.

“Leave it to Mom and Dad to shove off to some exotic luxury cruise while they stick me in a backwater camp in the middle of nowhere for the whole summer,” the teenager lamented heatedly, forcing a not-quite-dry foot through a white tube sock.

The two fairies shared an amused look, silently observing their godchild whip up a frenzy in his bedroom as he gathered up his suitcases and clothes. “Look on the bright side, sweetie,” Wanda started, levitating towels and dirty clothes from the floor and into the nearby hamper. “At least you’ll be with your friends while you’re there. You’re bound to make some good memories between now and the end of August!”

Cosmo sorted out his and his wife’s luggage before magically shrinking them down and stuffing them into his pockets. “And think about it, Timmy,” Cosmo added optimistically, “You can’t stay out of trouble to save your life! There’s no way it’ll be as boring as you think.”

Timmy gave a resigned sigh, the nervous energy giving way to a wave of familiar melancholy. “I guess so,” he replied. “I wish they’d just...” His train of thought came to a halt as his eyes once again landed on the clock. 5:50 AM. “Shit, they’re gonna be here in, like, five minutes!” he exclaimed, moving even faster to stuff clothes inside his suitcases.

“Language!” Wanda scolded in the background, floating back next to Cosmo.

Sure enough, not even a moment later, a car horn’s loud BEEP! blared in a series of staccato honks from the downstairs entrance to Timmy’s house.

“Close, more like five seconds!” Cosmo snickered. With a swish of his wand, Timmy’s hair instantly dried and the rest of his outfit – a washed out pink tee-shirt with loose, floppy sleeves and a pair of black-and-white sneakers – appeared on him and completed his look. Wanda floated next to the teenager and placed a beat up, equally-as-pink baseball hat gently on his head with a mirthful grin on her face.

The young man breathed a sigh of relief and shot a grateful look towards the green-haired and pink-haired fairies. “Thanks, guys,” he said, hugging both fairies tight.

Another POOF! transformed them both into pink and green dog-tags on a silver necklace that hung from the teenager’s neck. Timmy grabbed his suitcases and, sparing one last glance to his bedroom, turned off the lights and shut the door, quickly making his way down the staircase and out the front. The car’s honking blared again as Timmy closed the entrance to his house, causing the buck-toothed dude to grin to himself.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming! What’re ya trying to do, wake the neighborhood?!” he joked towards the RV parked in front of his house’s driveway.

The passenger door opened to reveal the grinning form of Chester McBadbat, dressed in an olive green flannel, a plain black shirt and a pair of well-worn jeans busted out at the knee. The boy gave Timmy’s fist a hearty pound in greeting. “Dude, c’mon, get in!” the blond-haired teen directed, popping open the lock to the door that led into his car-house. “We’ve been out here forever, AJ and the girls are knocked out and I’m literally starving!”

Timmy shook his head, a full smile on his face now. “I was already headed out the door, man!” he jovially replied, squeezing through the narrow entrance to the RV. “Can’t help it if you guys are impatient-”

“Timmy!” a girl’s voice squealed from close by, glomping onto Timmy’s unprepared form with an intense hug and an audible ‘oof!’ from the teenager.

“T-Tootie, can’t… b-breathe…!” Timmy spluttered, dropping his suitcases.

“Oh!” Tootie said softly, loosening her bear hug with a blush. “Sorry ‘bout that,” the raven-haired girl mumbled with a smile. “No sweat, Toots,” Timmy reassured her, tossing his luggage atop space above the couch. Tootie, with a small gasp, none-too-gently slugged him in the arm, cheeks now puffed in embarrassment.

“Ow, Tootie!” Timmy recoiled, half in jest and half in genuine pain. “Jeez, talk about mixed messages…”

“What’d I tell you was gonna happen if you called me that again?!” she huffed, crossing her arms as she gazed upward at the tall boy.

“I didn’t think you’d actually punch me, what the hell!” he replied with a laugh. “Didja have to get your sister’s strength on top of her violent streak when we got older?”

“Hey! Walking hormones!” a gruff female voice called from the driver’s side of the mobile home. “If you could please stop flirting with my sister for three seconds so we can get this show on the road? You two make me wanna throw up! Repeatedly!” Timmy and Tootie immediately went red and stepped a healthy distance away from each other.

“I-it’s… W-we’re not flirting, Vicky! Ugh!” Tootie grumbled, plopping down on the chair in front of the static table closest to a window. She pointed an accusatory finger towards the dozy form of AJ sitting across from her, who had been watching the scene in and out of sleep with a mischievous grin. “Not a sound outta you, Brainy,” she warned.

The sound of an exasperated female groan from the mattress sitting above the driver’s cabinet got Timmy’s attention. “Can we maybe not yell before the sun’s up…?” the sluggish, but poised voice of Trixie Tang quietly implored.

Timmy winced. “Sorry, Trix. Nice to see ya!” The girl rolled over and gave a halfhearted response, snoring heavily not even a second after.

Chester hopped back into his spot in the passenger seat only to be met by a glare from Vicky. “And who made you co-pilot, Braceface?” Vicky questioned. Chester leaned back with his hands behind his head with an easygoing expression. “Three reasons,” the teenager began, counting down on his fingers. “One, it’s my house-car-thingy. C, I’m technically the oldest behind you, so, y’know… shotgun seniority. And tres , who wouldn’t wanna spend time with our favorite babysitter? You’re so nice to us nowadays!”

The redheaded young woman’s glare intensified, fingers drumming rhythmically on the wheel. He gulped and laughed nervously, settling back into the seat upright and pointedly averting her gaze. Vicky rolled her eyes and put the rundown RV into gear, feeling the grinding and shifting of the old parts rolling through the engine. “I swear, if this deathtrap breaks down you’re the first one up fixing it.”

Chester’s face adopted a comically offended look. “Hey! This ‘ deathtrap’ has gotten me ‘n my dad everywhere we need to go, Betsy’s a reliable girl!”

“Yeah, yeah, twerp, just open up the map and tell me where I’m drivin’ us,” Vicky said, ignoring the waterfall of tears streaming down the teenager’s face.

Timmy had settled down on the couch on the opposite side of where AJ and Tootie were now sleeping, The bright, fluorescent lights of the RV flickered off as Vicky began to drive off from the front of the driveway. The young man took one last gaze out of the window towards his house and felt another pang of sadness in his chest. Kicking off his shoes and using the armrest as a makeshift pillow, Timmy’s mind wandered towards thoughts of his parents as he stretched out across the couch.

“I wish they'd pick me. Just one time.” the unheard prayer reflected in his mind.

The buck-toothed teenager shut his eyes and ignored the tears building up in the corners, tucking his knees up closer so he could fit. The warmth from the pink and green dog-tags on his chain gave him small comfort and lulled him to sleep.

“Just once.”

///

Timmy Turner
& The Arcadia Odyssey

///

As per usual when hanging around his Vicky and his friends, Timmy awoke to the sound of violence and bright lights in his eyes.

“...so how far exactly are we from getting there?”

“Ask again and you’re walking!” Vicky snarled through grit teeth.

“Hey, Timmy’s awake!” Timmy heard AJ’s voice say from the other side of the RV. The teenager, certainly feeling well-rested enough to get a taste of whatever was cooking, sat up straight with a massive yawn.

“Like, finally! And I thought I needed my beauty rest,” the unmistakable valley girl accent of Veronica Miles joked from her place on the fuzzy, lime green carpet on the floor, chowing down on a pair of fluffy pancakes laid on a paper plate. Timmy tip-toed over the blonde girl’s outstretched legs to the table where AJ, Trixie and Tootie had gathered around for their own stacks of poofy deliciousness.

“And when were you guys gonna wake me up for breakfast?” the pink-hatted teen questioned with a smirk.

“Ya snooze, ya lose, Tim, you know the rules,” AJ replied, grinning. “Over there sleeping heavy as hell!”

A chorus of laughter rang out over the RV, prompting Timmy to snap back at Trixie with a devilish gleam in his eye. “Trixie, you should be the last one laughing! You know you still snore, right?”

Trixie’s face instantly switched from gleeful to horrified as AJ and Tootie’s snickers intensified. She landed light, open-handed smacks on the bald genius’s arm, an affronted look gracing her pretty features. “Ohmigosh, you said that dumb home remedy worked, you ass!” the girl fumed.

“You guys better not eat all the hash browns!” Chester yelled from the front seats.

“Who’s gonna stop me~” Tootie singsonged, taking an exaggerated bite from one of the hash browns on her plate.

" Dammit, Tootie!"

Timmy scooted over to make room for Veronica, who hastily took advantage of the open space. “Thanks Timmy,” the blonde teenager smiled gratefully. “The carpet was, like, totally making my butt ache after a while.”

The boy made a noise of acknowledgment, fully digging into his first meal of the day. “Mmm, whaddimeizid?” he asked, mouth muffled and cheeks full of pancake-y goodness.

AJ gave him a strange, amused look.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, sport,” he heard Wanda’s voice gently admonish in his head.

“Whoops. Sorry, Wanda.” Timmy gulped down his breakfast and said, “What time is it?”

Tootie shrugged. “Lemme ask Vicky,” she replied. The raven-haired girl peeked her head in the front cabin and tapped her big sister on the shoulder, who was currently slurping down an iced coffee and laser focused on the road ahead.

“Whaddya want, brat, I’m doing something here. Metalmouth, directions please?!” Vicky barked at the frustrated blond on the other side.

“Look, this map is old as shit, I’m tryin’ my best over here!” Chester protested, tracing a finger on the map with his tongue out to the side. “Okay, it looks like we’re supposed to follow the road till we get to a four-way intersection, then make a right.”

“Timmy wanted to know what time it is, sis,” Tootie answered. Vicky squinted at the tiny display on the dashboard, replying, “Ten ‘till 12. Now vamanos, lemme drive!”

“Thanks!” the girl said cheerfully, skipping back to the main area. “She said it’s ten ‘till 12, Timmy.”

Timmy’s eyes widened. Somehow he’d slept through almost six solid hours of driving and they still hadn’t made it there yet? “How far are we from the camp site?” the pink-hatted teenager asked.

“Ask Chester, he’s on navigation,” Trixie complained from her spot on the mattress above the driver’s cabin. “We’ve passed the same two gas stations twice in a row!”

“Let one more person say somethin’ else about my directional skills! That’s all it’s gonna take!” Chester snapped.

The RV was quiet for a few moments as landmarks passed across the windows. Veronica’s face grew a mischievous grin, biting her tongue before announcing, “Uh, I think all of the hash browns, like, evaporated.”

Chester’s anguished scream echoed across the next two miles.

…

(Music: Track 02 – Are We There Yet?!)

For the next couple of hours (after replacing Chester as the navigator for AJ with a bit of kicking and screaming), the gang resolved to hang out and enjoy the journey towards the start of their summer, passing the time however they could. One hour they’d be playing board games or I-Spy, and in the next they would alternate between taking naps and sightseeing the passing cities and the sun-kissed highways of southern California.

“Yo, does anyone actually know what we’re gonna be doing when we get there?” Chester asked, tossing a hackey sack in the air as he lay on his back.

Tootie sat up from her spot on the couch, hanging upside down and letting her hair flow downwards into her face. “Whatcha mean? It’s a summer camp, probably just summer camp stuff.”

Chester shook his head and sat up on his side to face her. “No no, I mean, what specifically? Like when your parents signed you up and Vicky took the camp counselor job, did they tell you what kinda camp it was?”

Tootie frowned in contemplation. “Not really, now that I think about it,” she replied.

“At first, I thought my parents signed me up for another mathlete retreat or something, but then they told me it was for the entire summer,” AJ added, having joined the rest of his friends to sit criss-cross on the fuzzy carpet as a break from navigating. “Weird that your parents won that sweepstakes and took my folks and Chester’s dad along for the ride at the same time, huh Tim?”

Timmy simply shrugged. “My parents do stuff like that all the time,” he reasoned. “I dunno anything about it other than the name, though, that’s about it.”

“You gotta admit, it sounds like a totally hip place,” Veronica chimed in with a starry-eyed smile. “Camp Arcadia, nestled in the scenic Hanging Gardens Isle!”

“Anything having to do with “gardens” or “isle” in the title was enough for my mom,” Trixie commented humorlessly. “I don’t even think she read the whole brochure before she put my name down.”

“Aw man, I hope it’s not some fancy-schmancy rich-kids club thing,” Chester whined. “Last thing I wanna deal with is four months of Tad and Chad-lites!”

A smattering of agreement followed. Timmy snorted, “You and me both.” The teenager had noticed that Cosmo and Wanda had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the ride, but he didn’t want to disturb them just in case they had decided to hibernate through the road trip. The rest of the ride passed along without a hitch, and deep into the eighth hour of the ride, AJ popped his head out to announce-

“We’re almost there, guys!”

“Whuzzat?” Chester slurred, dirty blond locks falling in front of his eyes. “I said, we’re almost there!” AJ repeated.

Almost immediately the group cheered and whistled, stretching out their stiff muscles and wiping away what sleep remained in their eyes. “Thank God ,” Trixie exclaimed, looking close to tears at the good news. “I don’t think my brain can take another minute in this godforsaken-”

“Ahem.”

Trixie turned around to face Chester, who stood with his arms folded and a pout on his lip. The girl inhaled and, choosing her words carefully, plastered a forced smile on her face. “...homey, warm, definitely-not-dying-with-every-half-mile… vehicle .”

Chester nodded with a satisfied smile. “Glad to hear you love Betsy too, Trix.” The pretty girl stuck out her tongue at him.

“How much further, twerp?” Vicky asked the bald teenager, honking at a car that had changed lanes without a signal. “Would it kill ya to actually learn to drive, dumbass?!”

“Looks like just across this bridge and straight ahead,” AJ replied, settling back down excitedly into the passenger seat.

“Cosmo! Wanda!” Timmy called out to his godparents mentally, lacing his shoes back up. “We’re almost to camp, wake up!” He felt his godmother’s eye’s flutter open from her spot on his chain necklace and a yawn from Cosmo right beside her. “Well, that wasn’t too bad, wouldn’t you say, hun?” Wanda asked her husband.

“It coulda been better; I got the weirdest in-flight movies!” Cosmo replied, stretching his “muscles” out and causing his form to vibrate. Wanda snickered, “Uh, sweetie I think those were just your dreams.”

The green-haired fairy had the decency to look embarrassed. “ Ah. That would make more sense,” Cosmo said sheepishly.

Vicky gassed Betsy across the bright red overpass bridge heading towards the Hanging Gardens Isle, and the gang was starting to notice fog roll over. The further they went, the less cars were beginning to pass, until eventually there were no other cars on the bridge besides Chester’s RV.

Veronica looked out of the wide window of the mobile home and felt a small shiver crawl up her spine. Where it was just bright and sunny, now the clouds had gathered and made the entire atmosphere overcast. “Is anyone else, like, getting kinda spooked?” the Valley girl asked to the rest of the group.

The fog in front of the car had gotten so thick that even the highbeams were barely able to pierce through the opaque wall that had built up around them. The temperature, which had been respectably hot all day, had dropped dramatically. Only the appearance of a tower of pine trees in the near distance let Vicky know she was still in the right place.

“Cripes, you guys’ folks picked the creepiest friggin’ summer camp to go to…” Vicky murmured to herself, checking her mirrors for any other passersby. “We almost there, brat?”

AJ traced a finger down the map and stopped. “Uh… we should be here already,” he replied hesitantly.

As if by magic, the fog cleared up and revealed a lot without grass, covered by wood chips and large logs marking what looked to be a single parking spot. No other cars were in sight and a hand-drawn sign that read Camp Arcadia Official Parking planted right next to it. The moment Vicky pulled into the space, Betsy’s engine sputtered and died.

“No, no, no, no!” Chester wailed. “Come on girl, you’ve driven through worse than this!”

Try as she might, the engine refused to turn over. “The deathtrap’s been slain, Braceface,” Vicky said with finality. “We’re stuck here ‘till we can fix her up.”

“Well, at least she lasted the whole trip,” Tootie consoled Chester. The blond-haired boy fell to his knees with a whimper.

Timmy felt Cosmo stir in his mind. “ Everything okay, guys?” the young man thought. Cosmo remained still, save for his now-labored breathing.

“Do you feel that?” Cosmo asked, all trace of humor gone from his voice. Wanda closed her eyes and waited. Soon after she gasped, her heart rate speeding up upon feeling a pulse coming from above.

Now Timmy was seriously worried. “ Guys, you’re kinda freaking me out, what’s goi-”

Suddenly the doors locked. Everyone looked around at each other in varying degrees of concern. “Um… Chester?”

“Yeah?”

“Does your house, like… usually lock itself up like that?” Veronica asked warily, running a nervous hand through her ponytail.

A shake of the head. “Nope.”

The blonde girl gulped. “Didn’t think so.”

And then the foundation of the RV shook.

Anyone that wasn’t sitting got thrown off balance and into one of the chairs or straight to the ground. The tremors continued and became more and more violent, feeling like a small earthquake beneath their feet. Out of nowhere, the car roared to back to life and a beam of bright, ocean blue light struck through the middle of the mobile home. Smaller blobs of light spun around the pillar of light, squashing and stretching lazily. The fog around them dissipated in the blink of an eye and a soft, mechanical hum began to reverberate throughout the cabin. Tootie clung arm of the couch next to Timmy, fearfully gawking at the rotating column of light. AJ and Vicky were peeking behind their chairs, and Chester was shielding Trixie and Veronica with a wok pan cover that had dropped from a cabinet above.

Nobody moved an inch. For a tense handful of moments, the silence was pregnant with apprehension.

“ARE YOU TIMMY TURNER?” a rumbling, deep voice thundered, eliciting screams of fear from around the room. Timmy stood stock still, petrified.

The voice broke the silence once more. “ARE YOU TIMMY TURNER?”

The buck-toothed teenager gathered up what resolve he had and set his jaw. “Y-yeah. I’m Timmy Turner,” he shivered.

The beam of light glowed and then turned a deep purple color. “ARE YOU TATIANA VALENTINE?” the voice boomed.

Tootie balked, fearfully shuffling up toward the windowsill above the couch. “U-um, yes,” she replied timidly.

Another glow and another color change, this time to a soft pink. “ARE YOU BEATRIX TANG?”

The others looked to Trixie, who had gone white as a sheet. She looked back around at everyone incredulously. “Are you crazy?! I’m not answering that thing!” the beautiful girl exclaimed.

The pillar pulsed and morphed to a warm, sunny yellow. “ARE YOU VERONICA MILES?”

Trixie’s eyes widened in disbelief. Veronica glanced from behind Chester and his makeshift pot-shield and mumbled, “Th-that’s me.”

The color shifted to a muted orange. “ARE YOU ALEXANDER JAMES DANIELS?”

AJ, dumbfounded and terrified, simply nodded in response.

A dark forest green. “ARE YOU CHESTER MCBADBAT?”

Chester puffed out his chest and, as bravely as he could muster, “Live a-and in color!”

Finally, the pillar settled on a rich, intense green. “ARE YOU VICTORIA VALENTINE?”

Of course, Vicky wasn’t about to go out like a wimp. “And w-who’s askin’?!” the woman defiantly hollered back.

The beam of light’s humming grew louder as it changed from color to color, rapidly shifting and gaining volume. Finally, the column of light stopped on a bright, blinding white, the humming changing into full on vibration, shaking the air particles around them.

“YOU WILL ARRIVE IN APPROXIMATELY THIRTY-FOUR MINUTES AND NINETEEN SECONDS,” the voice instructed. “PLEASE REMAIN INSIDE THE AUTOMOBILE UNTIL FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. WELCOME TO CAMP ARCADIA. PLEASE ENJOY THE MUSIC.”

Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the beam of light shrunk and disappeared, letting the fog roll back in around the car.

There was barely a breath taken in the cabin. A pin drop would've deafened a mole.

“Wh-what… what did it mean by, ‘enjoy the music ’…?” Tootie quavered.

(Music: Track 03 – The Ascent, Pt. 1)

A solid click was heard out of nowhere, loud and direct in everyone’s ears. The shaking beneath the RV had rapidly begun to start up again, this time more violent and disruptive than the last. The fog next to the car was being pushed away and started circling around like a twister’s wind pattern. Timmy scrambled to look outside the window and his jaw dropped. Somehow, the 30-ton automobile had started to levitate into the air slowly like a feather in the breeze. The music, once altering and progressing at a snail’s pace, had picked up the tempo, growing louder and louder as the electronic-sounding melodies began to blend into each other. The car managed to float further upwards, higher and higher in the air as a visual stream of colors appeared, running outside the windows of the RV. Chester looked at Timmy with wide, panicked eyes, the terror from the blond-haired teenager rolling off of him in waves.

Tootie shrieked as the windows cracked and shattered, whipping her hair around in the air. She held Timmy’s arm in a vice grip and buried her head into his shoulder. Veronica dived under the table with Trixie, and Chester let out a yelp beside them, shielding his head from the broken glass with the wok covering. AJ screamed louder than he ever had before as Vicky watched mutely, pink eyes openly gazing through the windshield at the widening wall of light and color spinning around them at breakneck speed.

With a burst of energy that was felt throughout the car and the people in it, the RV’s slow ascent snapped as it shot up into the air and the music reached its crescendo, a heavenly choir-like mass of voices floating through the airwaves. Timmy looked up through the skylight in the roof of the car and saw the clouds, making their way towards them – and then past them – at an incalculable speed. The sky gave way to the inky black expanse of the atmosphere, stars dotting the infinity of space; finally, a swirling, all-engulfing portal waited at the top. Timmy closed his eyes in a silent prayer and held Tootie’s hand, afraid to see what lied ahead beyond the electric blue sky-gate.

And then, silence. Black nothingness.

A clattering of drums broke through and the music guided the sudden flash of sunlight through the windows, the expeditious levitation of the car decreasing to a gentle lift. The music crashed into an explosion of hypnotic chords and movements, the emotion from the instruments pushing and pulling through their bodies.

(Music: Track 04 – The Ascent, Pt. 2 )

Vicky blinked her eyes and gasped audibly. She shook AJ hastily by the shoulder, trying to get him to stop screaming in her ear. “Oi, Baldy! Snap out of it!”

The brown-skinned teenager peeked through his hands and went slack-jawed.

Timmy opened his eyes and, adjusting his trusty hat, carefully stepped towards the now-destroyed windows. Tootie followed close behind, his hand still in hers. Once his eyes adjusted to the brightness, the teenager nearly fainted at what he saw. “H-holy shit ,” Timmy cursed, stumbling back and almost losing his balance.

Chester, Trixie and Veronica walked over, careful not to step on any rogue shards of glass. As they gazed out the window, Chester let out and strangled breath and rested his weight onto the windowsill. Trixie and Veronica’s eyes could not physically get any bigger than they were. Out there, among the stars and the clouds, were dozens upon dozens of cars and RVs, trucks, boats and ships floating forwards; even a handful of rocket ships were flying with the rest of the crowd, each leaving their own wispy trails of rainbow light behind them.

Vicky burst through the front, checking to see if everyone was alright. AJ's gaze shifted between Timmy and Chester wordlessly, pointing outside and mouthing feebly. Timmy looked back up at the skylight and knit his eyebrows together. Grabbing a chair from the ruined table and ignoring the raised voices of protest from every side, Timmy climbed through the shattered rooftop and rolled onto the top of Betsy, taken aback at the sheer size of the space that they were now occupying.

Every type of color splattered the surface of the sky, stretching on seemingly forever. The bright red-orange sunset seemed permanently plastered to the horizon, resting just below the golden hour. It was almost like a dome had enveloped him and the other cosmic travelers in an ocean of technicolor oil paint, held together by the orbit of glittering stars against the black of eternity, as luminous galactic dust was weaved and woven below them.

“Timmy, what are you doing?! Wait inside the car, you dolt!” he heard Trixie exasperate, startling hit out of his reverie.

“I’m okay!” Timmy responded quickly, looking back down at the group through the skylight with an exhilarated grin. He held out a hand to lift the rest of them up. “You guys gotta get a closer look at this!”

Tootie was the first to grab ahold and lift herself up before Vicky finally spoke up. “Hello?!” the redheaded woman yelled in disbelief, turning away to gesture wildly to the scene outside of the broken window. “Have you brats gone mental?! We are floating , in space , on a broken-down goddamned RV! None of this should be friggin’ possible! No way I’m letting you any of you geniuses-!”

Vicky's tirade was cut short with a high-pitched "eep!" as Timmy pulled her up with the help of Chester and Tootie, who had climbed above sometime during her rant with the rest. The young woman gathered herself and shot a dirty look towards her little sister (who promptly stuck her tongue out back at her in response), and turned to stare out at the vibrant interstellar heavens. The sight and sounds rendered the group speechless once more, accentuated by the bright, exuberant music that continued to play around them. A synthesized voice harmonized in rhythm to what sounded like a million keys being played a minute, vocalizing joyfully among the magnificent, shimmering instruments.

Suddenly the RV lurched forward in motion, catching everyone off guard with an abbreviated yelp. Vicky quickly shuffled everyone back through the skylight and jumped down last, landing on her feet with unexpected grace. Chester's mobile home had begun to drift towards the main path that the rest of the celestial traffic was following, like a roller coaster's caboose locking onto a motorized track. All of a sudden, the same beam of kaleidoscopic light shot up through the sky and the voice from before began to speak, fading out the volume of the music.

"GREETINGS, ALL," the voice bellowed. "YOUR DESTINATION AWAITS. YOU WILL ARRIVE IN APPROXIMATELY THIRTY MINUTES AND TWENTY-SIX SECONDS. THE MUSIC WILL CONTINUE MOMENTARILY. PLEASE ENJOY THE JOURNEY."

And then, after a moment of silence; "AND IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO, YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO DANCE."

The column of light collapsed in on itself from top to bottom in a flash, stretching out horizontally forever like an iridescent arrow. The beam glowed a rhythmic pulse carrying northwards, indicating the direction of the vehicles like a compass. Like before, the movement of the RV started up again, leaving the cabin’s travelers staring out of the window.

Chester's uneasy laugh broke the quiet. "So, uh... anyone up for I-Spy?"

Chapter Text

The Innaspace, ???

///

“I wish we were in the Panic Room!”

POOF!

Inside the fortified, billeted steel walls of his mental crawl space, safe from the concern of his friends and the adventure they had found themselves thrust into, Timmy quickly abandoned any sense of calm and began hyperventilating, doubled over on his knees.

“Oh no, okay, honey, breathe! Breathe with me now, come on,” Wanda said worriedly, rubbing circles into the teenager’s heaving back. “In,” she instructed, taking a sharp inhale. Timmy began following her lead, gulping a massive amount of air. “Out… one more time sweetie, you can do it! In… and out, there you go,” Wanda continued gently, motioning with her hand in front of her godson’s face.

Cosmo anxiously watched in silence from his place next to Wanda as Timmy huddled into the corner with wide, terrified eyes. Now a little less distressed, the buck-toothed teen ran shaky hands through his hair, panting in uneven breaths.

“What the hell is going on?!” the young man squeaked hoarsely. “Wha- where there hell are we?! Did I die? Are we dead?!”

“Pretty sure we’re still here, kiddo,” Cosmo replied with a weak chuckle.

The pink-haired fairy resumed rubbing gentle circles into her godson’s back. “Wherever that portal thing took us, I’ve never felt anything like this,” Wanda responded, eyebrows knit in focus. “I don’t think any fairy’s ever been in this place before.”

Timmy turned a curious look towards Wanda. “Feel? You guys can sense stuff like that?”

Cosmo nodded thoughtfully. “Usually there’s a trace of Fairy magic no matter where ya go, even in space,” he answered. “Wherever there’s people, there’s always kids; and where there’s kids, there’s fairies.”

“But up here,” Wanda finished, eyes shut in concentration. “There’s no trace of us to speak of. It doesn’t even feel like regular magic.” Her eyes reopened, a soft glow in her blue irises. “Wherever we are, the energy feels… older. Much, much older.”

Timmy could have started crying. “Oh, great,” he faltered, “A summer camp in a magical black hole. Fun.”

“It doesn’t feel harmful, though!” Cosmo helpfully added, putting a hand on Timmy’s shoulder. “Whoever’s in control of this whole thing, I don’t think they brought you guys up here to hurt you.”

Wanda’s face briefly turned wondrous. “And the music! Goodness, I’ve never heard anything like that before in my life.”

A small smile grew on the teenager’s face. “Yeah, that part’s really cool,” he agreed. “It made me feel… I dunno, I just felt happy hearing it!”

The group fell silent, Timmy’s enthusiasm sobering. A determined look crossed his features as he gazed back up towards his godparents. “So what do we do now?” he asked, mouth set in a small frown. “I wanna I protect all of you guys.” The two fairies glanced at each other, then back on Timmy with a shared grin.

“We get ourselves to summer camp,” Cosmo replied mischievously.

//

“...mmy! Hey, earth-to-twerp!”

Timmy shook his head, blinking the fuzz from his eyes. The light from outside had morphed from the vibrant hues of earlier to a more mellow collection of darker colors, floating through the openings of the RV where the windows used to be and bathing the dim living area in muted shades of blue, orange, purple and pink reflecting from the ethereal starlight of not-quite-outer space. The rest of his friends were staring at him, all with variances of fearful, concerned expressions.

The buck-toothed teen smiled sheepishly. “Uh, sorry, guys. I was just, er… thinking,” Timmy claimed, scratching the back of his head.

Vicky rolled her eyes and smacked him upside the head, earning a surprised yelp from the teenager. “Next time you wanna zone out on us, maybe do it after we get outta space and on solid ground?”

Timmy opened his mouth to retort, but instead chose to look away and lowered his head, sighing sadly. “Sorry.”

“Like I was sayin’,” she resumed, taking a criss-cross seat on the fuzzy carpet, looking at every one of the teenagers directly, “Either we’re all hallucinating from those gas station hot dogs we picked up, or we’ve gotten ourselves into somethin’ way beyond whatever your folks thought they signed you up for.”

Chester laughed humorlessly. “No shit. What tipped you off first, my RV launching off like a rocket or the mystical Barry White voice calling us all by our government nam- OW!”

“You’re lucky I took up therapy, twerp!” Vicky yelled, taking her shoe back.

“Clearly it’s doing wonders!” Chester shot back, nursing his bruised temple.

Tootie sighed and stood up, standing next to Vicky’s sitting form. “Look, the fact is, the only way we’re gonna get any answers is getting to wherever this guy has us going,” the nerdy girl reasoned, glaring at her big sister. “It sucks, but until then we’re kinda stuck here.”

Veronica, meanwhile, had peeked her head out of the window to gaze at the other floating vehicles passing by, laying her head on crossed arms. She heard shuffling and glanced to her right to see her best friend join her, resting her chin on stacked fists, exhaling deeply.

“This is insane,” Trixie commented quietly, bewildered by the sights laid before her.

Veronica sniffled. “This is impossible,” she corrected. “Like, what if we don’t ever get back to Dimmsdale?” Then, a more terrifying thought popped into her head. “What if… what if we, like, die here?”

AJ shook his head, placing a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t sweat it. If we were gonna die, we would’ve suffocated in the vacuum of space the second we stepped outside,” he offered in what he hoped was a comforting way. Judging by the fear-stricken face Veronica was making, it hadn’t helped. Timmy facepalmed.

“Hey, he’s not wrong,” Chester commented, hopping onto the sofa and stretching out lazily. “That voice said we had, like, half an hour till we got there, right? I say we just wait and see what happens.”

Tootie slowly began to sit up, ears perked up in interest. “Do you guys hear that?” she questioned.

Music: Track 05 – Hyper Light Drifting

The RV fell silent once more. Timmy closed his eyes and started concentrating, only barely able to make out a deep, rhythmic, pulsating sound and a softer, melodic accompanying note. A fittingly spacey, electronic fluttering tone would follow soon after every so often, sending a shiver through the teenagers arms.

“Guys, look!” Tootie exclaimed, pointing out of the window excitedly. All seven of the travelers packed in shoulder-to-shoulder and made room standing on the couch, having a front row seat to the wonders that awaited. The speed of the vehicles next to them had now slowed to a crawl in their journey forwards, the trails of light propelling from behind them easing from a wide, erratic ray into a steady stream that pulsated along to the rhythm of the sparse, delicate assonance. The beam of light that directed them to their destination had begun to do the same, changing color from a light sky blue, to a darker saturated orange. Below them, the road they traveled on revealed more of itself, winding even further upwards than they had already been, strange, cubic, abstract constructions shifting and waving to the rhythm of the music surrounding the trail.

The song changed to hauntingly melancholy lead harmony, the low notes of the bassline playing along to the twinkling of the stars that populated the now-black skies. The atmosphere darkened, and the luminous glow of the cosmos had started to look closer to what Timmy and the rest associated with space. Minutes passed, and AJ sat unblinking and reverent, drinking in the sight of a natural phenomena he didn’t think he’d ever get to see in his lifetime. The music tugged at his heartstrings, a strange mixture of pensive excitement and longing swirling around in his chest.

“I’m glad I get to see this with them,” the teenager thought abruptly. AJ smiled to himself, taking a moment to look at the entranced faces of his childhood friends. “If I’m gonna be stranded in space and as far from home as possible… I couldn’t pick better people to be stuck with.”

Suddenly, an arrangement of sustained strings pierced through song, and the skies became littered with shooting stars, turning a brilliant midnight blue. Chester felt wetness run down his cheeks and blinked in confusion; he hadn’t realized he was crying. The blond-haired teenager hurriedly swiped at his face with the sleeve of his flannel, catching the eye of a certain red-headed woman.

Vicky grinned impishly. “Aww, don’t tell me the song’s gotcha emotional, brat?”

Red-faced, Chester crossed his arms and looked away from the pretty young woman, flashing her a defiant middle finger.

As the song went on, a traditional piano began playing alongside the same futuristic-sounding tones from earlier, altering the scenery of the heavens to a hazy, bright violet. Cosmo and Wanda, from their spot around Timmy’s neck as dog tags, could only stare outwards in mute wonder at the splattered illumination surrounding their godchild and his friends. Timmy himself was unable to form much of a thought, overwhelmed by the size of the planets that hung far in the distance.

“I don’t deserve to be here,” the familiar, sinister voice echoed in his mind. “Cosmo and Wanda might not be sure, but I know some fairy magic bullshit mighta put my friends in danger. This would’ve all gone so much smoother for all of them if I wasn’t here to screw it all up. This is my fault.”

The teenager closed his eyes and willed the tears to stay exactly where they were. He wasn’t going down this thought path again, not right now. He turned his gaze towards Tootie, who sat next to him completely enthralled by the sights and sounds around them. The raven-haired girl’s eyes met his, and she beamed happily at him, making something in his heart clench. Timmy did his best to return it, just so she wouldn’t be concerned about him.

“Not that I deserve it.” He didn’t disagree that time.

They were adventurers on a sea of sound, inching forwards to their mysterious destination. Drifting past masses of floating meteors, planets circled by layer upon layer of rings, and moons that glowed bright with lunar light, Timmy and his friends remained silently huddled together. As the music guided them along its wistful melody, they coasted towards the unknown, an uncertain thrill settled in the hearts of the teenagers and their fiery captain.

Some time later, a glimmering shower of stardust started to rain down on the travelers like a thunderstorm, cosmic lightning flashing far beyond as an Aurora Borealis blanketed the expanse. Trixie, curious but cautious, extended an arm out of the window to feel the star’s rain on her fingertips. A large chunk of what looked like cosmic hail landed smack dab in her dainty hand, earning a surprised “oh!” from the beautiful girl.

AJ stood slack-jawed and wide-eyed, eyes trained squarely on the glowing piece of star that had landed in his friend’s hand. “That… that’s not possible,” he said weakly, walking closer to get a better look.

“Did you just… catch a star?!” Tootie asked incredulously.

The translucent, crystalline star piece glowed faintly, warming up in Trixie’s manicured hands like her own personal sun. It sparkled and reflected off of itself, changing colors as the teenage girl turned it. She smiled faintly, astonishment clear in her gaze. “Now that is one heck of a souvenir,” Trixie hummed happily.

As the music faded, the beam of light that guided the way forwards went white, shooting up into the air and taking the form of a pillar once more. “HELLO, VOYAGERS ,” the sonorous voice from earlier boomed from every direction, straight into everybody’s ears. Timmy and the others popped their heads out of the window to find that the road ahead – if you could call whatever they had been floating above – was starting to fade out into nothingness.

Timmy’s eyes widened in fear. “Uh, oh.”

“I HOPE YOU’VE ENJOYED YOUR EXPEDITION SO FAR,” it spoke. “IF MY CALCULATIONS ARE CORRECT, THERE IS ONLY…” the voice paused. Then, in a quieter tone, “Uh , Belle, how long ‘till they get here?”

Tootie covered her face with both hands hopelessly. “We’re never getting home,” she moaned.

“...AH! FOUR MINUTES AND TWENTY-F- I MEAN, TWENTY- TWO SECONDS, thankyouBelle, FOUR MINUTES AND TWENTY-TWO SECONDS UNTIL ARRIVAL ,” the voice echoed with finality. “SEEING AS YOU ARE NEARING THE END OF YOUR EXCURSION, YOUR VEHICLES, SHIPS AND OTHER MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION WILL BE PUT INTO HYPERSPACE TO FINISH THE LAST LEG OF THE TRIP .”

Veronica balked, “Hyper-what, now?!”

“I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU STRAP IN AS BEST AS YOU CAN,” the voice warned. “ SINCE WE HAVE TO DO IT THE OLD SCHOOL WAY, LIGHTSPEED TRAVEL CAN BECOME VERY TURBULENT.” Already, the pace began to pick up. The one languid motions of the wisps of light flickered to life, and the incline of the RV tilted upwards like the start of a rollercoaster. “NEVERTHELESS, AS ALWAYS, PLEASE ENJOY THE MUSIC AND WELCOME TO CAMP ARCADIA!”

This time when the beam of light collapsed, it packed itself into the form of a vibrating, radiant ball. At once, it shot off and zoomed far, far above and away, leaving a trail of stardust in its wake. All of the other ships and cars had begun to steadily crawl up the unseen path, throwing loose pillows and what remained of the silverware towards the back. The seven friends all spared a glance at each other before scrambling to find a place that could secure them down.

Veronica tugged desperately at the seatbelt that refused to budge from the couch, glaring at Chester. “You and your dad had to pick the one RV with broken freaking seatbelts!”

Chester indignantly squinted at the blonde girl as he pulled along with her. “It’s not like we had – oof! – a whole lotta financial options, Ronnie!” the teenager spat.

“Do you guys hafta argue right now? Right now?!” Tootie yelled back, glancing around for anything that could help.

Timmy set his mouth in a frown, thinking as hard as he could. “ The sofa’s a dud, none of the tables and chairs are nailed down… c’mon, Turner, think!” Suddenly, an idea popped into his head. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he shouted, “Guys! Everyone get to the front!”

Vicky gaze darted towards him quizzically, but she quickly agreed; there wasn’t anywhere else where they could go. The driver’s spot was the only one where the windshield hadn’t shattered into pieces.

“C’mon twerps, move it!” she barked. Without a lick of hesitation, the other six piled in, quite literally packed on top of each other as Vicky hopped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind them shut.

Music: Track 06 – Dancing With the Stars

The gentle sounds of a handful of violins eased in, and the Guide’s voice began jazzily scatting along, giddily making noise alongside another voice harmonizing in a stilted, looped manner. Timmy could make out the color of the path far ahead, the gradient changing from the mellow purple to a cooler neon blue. Rings of light made arcs over all of the travelers, and the pace began to build speed as the Guide scatted and babbled faster, an almost audible grin in its voice. On cue, heavy, groovy drums thumped through the air, launching the vehicles and ships into a spiral into the heavens, causing the seven in Chester’s RV to be laid flat on their backs. There wasn’t an incline anymore – all of the travelers were now just shooting straight into the air, nose first.

Timmy had either the best or the worst seat in the house; situated in the middle of where Vicky and Chester sat in tandem (or lay, at this point), he could see upside-down pyramid-like constructs and flying past them at daredevil speed, rainbows made of odd color palettes swirling and shattering into stars inbetween each other to the beat of the music. On the other hand, the door handle to the main cabin had decided that it rather liked its position in his lower spine, and he wasn’t exactly sure where his left arm was but, jeez , was it numb by now.

Veronica looked down towards her feet and noticed that, on their own accord, they’d started tapping in time to the strange, futuristic music. A growling, squelching bassline latched itself to her ears and wouldn’t let go, alongside a fresh wave of nausea and vertigo. It was really too bad that she had started screaming along with the rest of her friends, she liked this song the most out of the ones she’d heard all day.

Some shuffling, swinging percussion was added into the mix, and AJ had finally figured out why his eyes were swimming; with every kick and clap, the RV was following the path up and down like a tricked-out lowrider, bumping and bouncing. Unfortunately, as cool as that was, it also meant that, being scrunched up next to Timmy and Trixie’s elbows in his ribs, it felt like driving over the world’s worst potholes all on the same street. Definitely couldn’t be good for the RV’s shocks.

Finally, they had reached the peak of their climb. The music calmed for a split moment – and then all of a sudden, the RV tilted forwards.

Chester and Vicky both gripped the armrests of their chairs for dear life, joining the rest in screaming their heads off in a mash of pure terror and thrilled elation. The speed had increased to a ludicrous degree. Stars were leaving long afterimages behind, and the sky no longer stayed just one hue, choosing instead to rapidly alternate between a plethora of colors. The rings around the travelers multiplied, doubling in on themselves until it looked like a tunnel of solid luminescence above them. Their color intensified from a jade green, to a brilliant saffron, until finally, reaching the bottom of the steep descent, an all-encompassing neon orange. A cacophony of saxophones, synthesizers, strings and sonic oddities clashed together as the Guide’s magnificent laughter drowned out the sound of the cries of panic from Timmy and the rest.

Their velocity was incalculable; nobody could make out any solid shapes, let alone any of the other travelers’ ships. All that remained was light and sound – and in the distance, through watery, squinted eyes, Timmy finally saw the end. It was the biggest portal he’d seen thus far, dwarfing them a hundred times over, incomprehensibly massive. Its outer rings were circling in slow rotations, pulsating with heavy energy between black stripes, as the inside shone with the brightest, purest white he’d ever seen.

“ Hold on, sport!” Wanda exclaimed.

Tootie whimpered and laid her face in the crook of his shoulder, unable to watch them meet what could be their certain doom. Timmy shut his eyes and looked away, holding Tootie’s hand once more in a vicegrip close to his chest.

The music reached a fever pitch, jittering and glitching, as the RV pierced through the stargate,

and finally

without fanfare or a fade

quiet.

//

Music: Track 07 - We've Reached Our Destination!

Timmy finally got the courage to open his eyes as he felt a fresh breeze on his cheek. The sound of groans resounded throughout the cabin, and the teenager soon regretted exposing his eyesight to the warm, blinding sunlight pouring through the windshield.

“ Wait a second… sunlight?!” Timmy mused before the thought connected. “Guys, c’mon, get up!” he exclaimed, lifting up Tootie from her spot in his shoulder blade.

“...Are we dead yet?” Trixie muttered in the corner, helped up by a sore and disoriented AJ.

Timmy took one look out the window and felt a grin stretch on his face. “See for yourself!”

Chester leaned forward and felt his jaw drop. AJ was looking every which-way, accompanied by a madly giggling Veronica. Vicky had resigned herself to shaking her head in complete disbelief. Cosmo’s form vibrated with glee. “ Holy Von Strangle,” the green-haired fairy whispered. Wanda was content to just silently drink in the scenery.

From the height and the viewing angle they were at, calling the land mass an isle didn’t do whatever idea Timmy had come up with in his mind any justice. Tall pine trees and redwoods populated the isle like an enclosure, the camp like an oasis among nature itself. A huge lake occupied an open space down the middle, sparkling in the gleam of the raised sun. Trixie could make out a handful of wooden docks scattered across the rim of the lake, all accompanied by small boats. The camp itself could barely be considered a camp; the way it was setup and from what little they were able to see, it looked more like a small city. As the RV flew closer, they could see that there were clearly defined sides; around eight or nine cabins between both with a larger, square building situated as the midpoint.

The music accompanying their entrance felt like a musical victory lap, energetic and carefree. As if the fear of the past couple of hours lifted like a weight off their shoulders, the six friends looked at each other and, after a split second of quiet, whooped and hollered in excitement and relief. Vicky inhaled deeply and melted in her chair with a shuddering exhale.

“We’re not dead! We’re not dead!” Chester singsonged, doing a little dance in the passenger seat.

The sound of car horns and whistles blared outside of the RV, causing the teenagers to pop their heads out of the door’s side windows. All of the other travelers had made it through unscathed as well, and were celebrating in kind like they were. Chester pumped his fist in the air at one of the other RVs way across from his, and they responded with a generous blare of their horn. The blond-haired teenager beamed and gave them two big thumbs up.

“HELLO ONCE MORE, TRAVELERS,” the voice resounded, a happy note in its speech. “I AM GLAD TO SEE YOU ALL MADE IT THROUGH THE GATE UNHARMED. I APOLOGIZE FOR THE ROUGH WAY IN.”

The flight of the adventurers had slowed, stopping to hover above the lake as the music faded out to a rapid, consistent tink-tink-tink-tink sound . “YOU WILL BE MET BELOW IN THE MESS HALL BY MY SECOND-IN-CONTROL,” the voice continued. This time, there was no pillar of light. “FROM THERE, THE SORTING WILL BEGIN AND YOU WILL HAVE YOUR CABIN ASSIGNMENTS.”

From somewhere far behind them, the seven could hear a chorus of exasperated groans.

“ YOU WILL MEET ME LATER ON THIS EVENING. AGAIN, I WELCOME YOU TO YOUR HOME FOR THE NEXT FOUR MONTHS ,” the voice said kindly. “ YOUR CAMP AWAITS.”

Then, slyly: “CAREFUL ON YOUR WAY DOWN!”

And then with an audible snap of a pair of fingers, below the RV’s now-opened doors, appeared the biggest water slide any of the seven had ever seen. The yellow contraption stretched from the top of the crest of the clouds directly into the edge of the lake. From where the buck-toothed teenager could see, each of the campers had their own personal slide, and some were taking the plunge as he glanced over! He turned to face Trixie, who looked terror-stricken. As soon as she saw the look in his face, she frowned and crossed her arms.

“Don’t.”

An innocent smile. “Don’t what, Trix?”

“Timmy Turner, I swear to God -”

He shared a look with Chester and Tootie and grinned.

“I am not going down that slide, I just got this skirt last weeeeeeeek~! ”

Suffice to say, the rest of the crew followed after their now free-falling friend, whooping with laughter the whole way down.

“…Maybe this summer won’t be as bad as I thought,” Timmy thought happily.

Chapter Text

///

Timmy, Chester and the rest of the teens hooted with laughter, booking it away from the shore of the lake with haste. Trixie was hot on their heels, kicking up splashes around her drenched form without care, unable to keep a grin off of her face.

“You guys are so freaking dead!” the dark-haired girl cried. Timmy looked behind at her and, with a wide, mischievous grin, waggled his fingers in front of his nose. “Catch us if you can, princ-oof!”

The pink-hatted teenager’s taunting was cut short by a wayward stone and an abrupt meeting with the sandy beds of the shore. AJ jumped over him with a joyous whoop as the rest left him behind without a missing a beat. Veronica giggled and waddled over from the shallow end of the water, reaching out a hand to help him up – only to reverse his grip and trap him in a surprisingly effective headlock.

“Wh- Veronica!” Timmy exclaimed in shock. “Seriously?!”

The blonde girl shrugged with a teasing grin. “Best Friend rule trumps the Group Trouble clause,” she reminded him gleefully. Timmy choked on anxious laughter, struggling to try and wiggle out of Veronica’s grasp. “C’mon Ver, quit playin’ around! At least lemme get a head start before she-”

An elegant “ahem,” caused Timmy’s gaze to snap forward, pupils shrinking at the sight of a waterlogged, soaked-to-the-bone Trixie Tang.

The beautiful girl had caught up and waltzed forward, awet squish from her white sneakers and an unnervingly calm smile hidden behind a thick curtain of heavy, damp hair. “Oh, Timmy...~” the girl singsonged.

“H-hey, Trixie!” the pink-hatted teen greeted nervously, sweat beading rapidly on his forehead. “Have I t-told you how pretty you look today?”

The girl’s politely upturned mouth gave way to a manic grin. “Hold him down, Ver!” she yelled, rolling up the sleeves of her white button-up shirt.

“He’s not going anywhere, Trix!” the drenched blonde replied with an evil smirk.

“Gimme a break T-Trixie, it was just a little prank!” Timmy pleaded, arms still suspended embarrassingly high above his head.

“Oh, I’m gonna prank you alright, Turner!” the teenage girl threatened.

Suddenly, Timmy didn’t feel the weight of his wet clothes holding him down, nor the uncomfortable feeling of damp socks inside of soaked shoes. “Now that I’m thinking about it,” the buck-toothed teen realized, “It doesn’t even feel like I was in the water at all!” He looked down at his outfit and felt his eyes widen in surprise. “Woah, wait, wait! Look, your clothes!” he exclaimed, stopping Trixie mid-stride.

Sure enough, the raven-haired girl’s tresses and ensemble were completely dry, earning a soft gasp from both girls. Trixie narrowed her eyes and slugged Timmy smack dab in his arm. “Ow!” the boy yelped, finally getting dropped unceremoniously out of Veronica’s vice grip. “Why are all of the girls in my life so violent?!”

The twosome flitted mirrored smirks as Veronica rested a manicured hand on her hip. “Like, don’t dish it if ya can’t take it, geek,” she responded with a snicker.

Trixie lent a hand downwards, helping the boy up. “Whatever magic trick they managed to pull to get me dry so fast is the only reason it wasn’t both arms,” she huffed.

The reminder of the impossibility of their situation brought reality back into the room, as AJ and the rest haltingly joined their friends on their spot near the lake an astonished silence fell over the group. The view of the isle’s lake and the size of the trees surrounding them made Timmy feel even smaller than he had seeing it from up top. Cosmo and Wanda’s presence on his chest, normally a calm and warm weighted blanket from the latter and an excited, almost static-electric energy from the former, had stilled and subdued at observing the fleet of the various ships and cars in the sky make their gentle decent towards the ground, as well as the swell of other teenagers excitedly clamoring out of the water.

AJ’s view focused on one of the ships in particular, its curious, floaty movement not quite matching to others. Once he understood exactly why that was, his eyebrows knit together and his jaw dropped open. “What the hell?”

Chester followed his friend’s gaze and let out an almost comically loud gasp. Floating and landing right next to Betsy with an earth-shaking thud was a group of kids riding atop a massive, fluffy, white buffalo… thing. Whoever it belonged was either some kinda sicko or they had a weird sense of humor, because the poor (gigantic, terrifying) animal had a perfect arrow drawn on the very top of its forehead pointing downwards. Judging by the swaths of white fur that now draped Betsy’s roof and across the shattered windshield, it seemed to have a shedding problem as well.

And that wasn’t the end of it. The growing mass of teenagers, some with bright yellow skin tones, others seemingly to be half made out of metal or – even stranger, if that were possible – looking like actual animals, had gathered on the grassy expanse past the shore and were restlessly conversating, observing the environment around them in shared wonder and wariness. A sense of kinetic excitement buzzed around as they all walked, following the big, cheesily-designed arrow signs that read, “NEW CAMPER ORIENTATION!”

“...y’know, I’m willing to take back that ‘we’re not dead’ thing I said earlier,” Chester deadpanned. “’Cuz now I’m, like, 87 percent sure we all died before the trip even started.”

Vicky, who had annoyingly waded her way out of the water and dried off long before the rest and had been content to simply observe the brats hunt each other down and kill each other, blew out a shrill whistle between two fingers that immediately got all six teenagers’ attention.

“Oi! My twerps, shake a leg!” the redheaded young woman ordered. The six hurriedly trotted over to her and began making their way towards the modestly-sized cubic building that they assumed was the Mess Hall.

Cosmo and Wanda hadn’t said much of a word since they made it to the isle. “You guys doing okay?” Timmy mentally asked his godparents, concerned. He let out a silent sigh of relief when he felt a pulse of energy from the both of them almost immediately.

“Doin’ fine, kiddo!” Cosmo replied softly.

“Be careful, Timmy,” Wanda warned. “I’m still not feeling any of our magic around this place.” The boy sent back a gentle wave of reassurance and refocused on making his way inside the building.

“There’s so many people,” Tootie nearly whispered, making quick, anxious glances around at the dense crowd they had fallen behind in. AJ nodded in wonderment. Veronica walked sandwiched between Timmy and AJ, quietly letting her thumbs rub allaying circles into her folded arms.

Chester bumped a gentle elbow into a tense Trixie’s side, leaning over to her as he followed the rest. “Hey, maybe this really is one of those rich luxury getaways your family’s so crazy about,” he teased quietly. The girl snorted, covering a mirthful smile with her hand.

Vicky walked ahead of the rest and turned around to face them when they got to the steep steps that led into the cafeteria, letting the last of the crowd file in until just the seven of them remained. Timmy took note of the architecture and design of the building; sanded, light brown Lincoln logs that looked closer to segmented Jenga blocks than cut wood made up the walls, and the pillars that supported the veranda and the entrance to the mess hall had surprisingly smooth, round, steel handrails attached to them. Wrapping around every wall and corner were square, electric lanterns that seemed to be connected to each other, and the double doors that led inside were heavy, billeted grey iron. Draped above the stairway and flapping in the breeze of the morning wind was a charmingly scratchy, hand-drawn banner that read, “Welcome to Camp Arcadia!”

“Alright, listen up brats,” Vicky started, making sure to look each one of hers in the eye. “I dunno what we’re in for when we get inside this dump, but if it starts looking dicey, we haul ass back to Betsy and pray for a miracle. Got it?”

For once, no one argued or made jokes. A collection of nodded heads and solemn looks gave Vicky all the answer she needed. With a heft, the redheaded babysitter pushed open the doors and led the group inside.

The place was packed, to say the least. People were sitting wherever there was space, on the ground, in chairs or on the tables themselves, so the gang piled into their own corned near the middle where a small, makeshift stage had been prepared in front of a wider, empty space Timmy assumed the rest of the tables and chairs would go once the orientation was over. The interior looked like your every day, lived-in high school lunch room, with a cozy blue and grey color scheme weaving through the overall design and the stripes around the white and black spotted, waxed concrete flooring. Lots of natural light seeped in through the large windows from the ceiling as large string lights hung from metal rafts in rows that sat unlit. Fluorescent spotlights lined the back of the cafeteria where an open kitchen laid behind a row of gleaming, metal, windowed displays.

Moments passed. In place of the previously bustling deluge of campers was a shroud of resounding, awkward silence and the occasional spattering of murmurs as the doors shut behind them. Chester’s eye accidentally caught the gaze of a guy with short, spiky, bright red hair and heavy, dark brown clothes that was sitting criss-cross next to him.

“Erm… come here often?” the blond-haired teenager joked with a weak chuckle. The other boy’s teal eyes – marked either with eyeliner or the worst sleep bags he’d ever seen – simply bored into Chester’s with a mute tilt of his head. Chester’s lips thinned with a smack as he leaned forwards and out of his line of sight. “Gotcha, good talk,” he muttered.

Suddenly there was a rumble from the tiny, wooden stage, shaking and rattling at an increasingly alarming rate as the seconds ticked by. Timmy’s hairs stood on end as he sat up from his relaxed position on the floor to rest on the balls of his feet, fists curled and ready to spring at any moment. The sky in the windows above began to get darker and darker, until finally-

KRAK-KOOM! POOF!

A booming thunderclap and a poof of purple smoke focused every eye on the tall and very short silhouettes that had appeared on top of the platform. A couple of male voices coughed and waved the smoke away, careful to cover their mouths as they did.

“You know, you’d think – coughcough – that the Campmaster would get tired of the grand entrances after so many rehearsals last week…” a distinctly Australian accent commented wearily.

The taller shadow seemed to shrug, fanning away the smoke with what looked like a hat. “Brotha’s got a taste for the dramatic,” responded a voice with a heavy Southern twang. “Can’t – cough – fault him for wantin’ to make a good first impression. Or second ‘n third, for that matter.”

“Er, speaking of which…?” the Australian voice questioned, the smaller silhouette making a motion toward the confused and anxiously waiting crowd of murmuring teenagers.

“Huh?” The taller man let out an embarrassed chuckle. “Aw, my bad, I guess we should get this show on the road, huh?” With a clear of his throat, the sky’s dark clouds dissipated and sunlight shone strong through the skylights once more, and the last of the purple smoke gave way to finally reveal the two figures on the miniature stage.

The first was a dark-skinned man with a goatee and a towering, willowy build. Dark blue jeans and a white shirt were oddly complimented by a deep, royal purple vest and a flaxen, wide-brimmed hat, and the easygoing grin below his slim nose stretched facial lines that one could tell were accustomed to equal years of smiles and stress.

Beside him was a grey mammal with a long snout and short, pointy, twitching ears that reached no taller than the other man’s knee. He was dressed in an electric blue buttoned shirt with squiggly patterns and geometric shapes scattered about, alongside a pair of light khaki shorts and brown sneakers. Wide, anxious brown eyes stared out at the crowd – who, in turn, stared right back – as he waved in a friendly, clumsy manner.

“What’s happenin’, y’all,” the taller man boomed happily, hands in his pockets and practically on his toes so he wouldn’t have to say his piece twice over the chatter of the teenagers. “Campmaster sent me ‘n my partner here ahead this morning to give y’all a proper greeting and show y’all around where you’re gonna be living. I’m the second-in-charge, so I guess that means I got some authority ‘round here. Y’all can call me-”

“Sunny?!” a chorus of astonished voices cried from somewhere close behind where Tootie and Trixie sat, causing everyone else to look back at where the vocalizations had come from.

The man – Sunny, as he was called – squinted his eyes and shielded his eyes from the sunlight. “...I know that ain’t who I think it is,” he marveled.

“Man, Sunny, what you doing here?!” a raspy male voice with a similar accent puzzled.

Another, deeper voice with a slight tropical edge spoke, “Yeah, you didn’t tell us you were working here for the summer when school let out!” A cacaphony of agreeing voices around his rang out.

Sunny grinned and shrugged. “Y’all never asked which camp they hired me at,” he replied, earning some laughter from the rest of the crowd. The man scratched at his beard, readdressing the room. “Well, like my students said-”

“Hi, Sunny!” a bubbly, girlish voice piped up.

“– Hi, Madison – my name’s Sunny Bridges. Y’all can just call me Sunny, though,” the tall man finally finished with a gentlemanly tip of his hat.

The diminutive animal next to him blinked and waved once again, this time a more relaxed smile making its way to his face. “I’m, ah, the Head of Counselors. Just call me Rocko!” the marsupial greeted.

Sunny linked his hands behind his back and walked leisurely to the left and right against the increasing volume of the mutters among the teenaged crowd. “Now if the boss man’s schedule is right, y’all just crash-landed from outer space a ‘lil while ago and y’probably just wanna pack your bags and pick a bunk to sleep for the rest of the day,” Sunny guessed with a smirk.

A rousing ensemble of exhausted yeses and amens rang through the Mess Hall, prompting cheers and whistles.

“Aight, aight, I ain’t mad atcha,” the man reassured with a growing smile. “First things first, y’all – everyone’s gotta get sorted into a cabin so we make sure we got an accurate count.”

This time a louder round of exasperated groans and awws echoed. Sunny put up his hands in surrender. “I know, I know, just rock with me for a ‘lil while, people,” he responded sympathetically.

Rocko climbed up on a chair that brought him up closer to standing eye-level. “Could I have all of the counselors follow me, please?” he asked politely. “We’ve got a separate tour to take from the rest of the campers, and the Campmaster wants to meet you all ahead of schedule.”

Tootie cast a worried glance at her older sister, who huffed a breath through her nose, mouth set in a wary frown. “Guess that’s my cue,” Vicky murmured, lifting herself off of the floor. The red-headed babysitter turned to look back at Timmy and the rest and folded her arms. “Welp, I’m off, losers. Lookin’ forward to torturing one of ya if they put you where I’m at,” she said in parting, ruffling Tootie’s hair. “Try not to drown or eat anything poisoned, alright?”

“Oh sure, I eat just a little too much at one of Trixie’s pool parties and stay under the water longer than I meant to one time…” Chester grumbled.

Timmy rolled his eyes with a small smile. “Catch ya on the flipside, Icky,” he replied.

The mention of her years-old nickname made the young woman’s eye twitch, and it was through only years of being around her sister’s silent mannerisms that let Tootie be quick enough to guide her Vicky away towards her exiting group of fellow camp counselors (and keep her from physically harming her best friend. Again.)

“Aight y’all, here’s how it’s ‘bout to go down,” Sunny began. “While Rocko ‘n them make their way to see the Big Cheese, a ‘lil piece of paper’s gonna show up in your hand in the next couple of seconds with a number on it. Should be right about…”

On cue, a strip of paper poofed into existence in Timmy’s closed fist, earning a startled yelp from Veronica. One by one, the telltale sound of a new paper slip repeated around the cafeteria, igniting a fresh batch of rowdy, excited conversation among the campers. The buck-toothed teenager glanced down at the number adorning the middle – a solid black “2”.

“Cabin Two, huh?” Timmy mumbled. He turned his attention back to his friends, blinking inquisitively. “What’d you guys get?”

“Number Four for me,” AJ responded casually. “Chester?”

The blond-haired boy shrugged. “I’m in Three. Guess we’re stuck with complete strangers for the summer,” he answered, a disappointed frown set on his face.

“Aw, dammit,” Timmy lamented. “Girls, any luck?”

Trixie took a look at her paper. “Ooh! It says I’m in Cabin One,” she stated happily.

Veronica sighed sadly. “Don’t get too excited. They put me in Cabin Seven,” she bemoaned. “I just know I’m totally gonna be walking, like, a million miles from here every night!”

Finally, Tootie flashed a sheepish smile. “Looks like we’re all unlucky. I got Cabin Two, too,” the nerdy girl replied.

“Yo, c’mon, none of us got put together?” Chester whined. “What’re the chances the only ones that got matching cabins are the lovebir-OW!”

Every head turned toward Timmy and his friends, stopping Sunny’s monologue in action. Tootie, cheeks lit up in a faint shade of red, had quickly pinched and twisted Chester’s nipple over his shirt in an effort to shut him up.

Chester stared at her incredulously, nursing his abused pec as Sunny continued on. “Seriously, a purple nurple? What the fuck has Vicky been teaching you?!”

“Q-Quit it, ya dolt!” the girl fumed quietly. “Next time I’m twisting where the sun don’t shine!”

Timmy covered his blazing face into open hands with a deep groan. AJ had tears streaming down his face from laughter, trying his best to keep quiet by closing his teeth over his tongue. Trixie and Veronica were pointedly not looking at each other so as to not draw more attention to themselves by laughing too hard.

“Once you got yourself a number, you can start makin’ your way to the exits,” Sunny spoke louder over the noise of the chatter. “Ladies’ cabins are to the right and fellas, y’all are to the left. You’ll know which one is yours from the number on the door.” The tall man glanced down at the clipboard in his hands, continuing on. “One more thing! For camp events and team-related things, every cabin’s got a brother or sister cabin,” he said. “It’s in flipped order, so the girls’ Cabin One is the boys’ Cabin Eight, the boys’ Cabin One is the girls’ Cabin Eight, ‘n so on and so on. Any questions?”

Beside AJ, a somewhat short girl with cinnamon-toned skin and a halo of thick, bushy brown hair raised her hand eagerly. “Yes ma’am?” Sunny acknowledged her.

“When will we be meeting the Campmaster?” she asked in a clear, lilting British accent.

Sunny gave a kind smile back to the girl. “Boss man said he wants to meet all the campers at the Cove ‘round ten tonight,” he replied as he stretched out his back with a loud crak! “’Till then, though, he wants y’all to just hang out ‘n get to know your cabinmates for a while and grab some lunch later on. Your Cabin’s counselors should be around by then.”

At the mere mention of food, the crowd broke out into cheers and whistles, slowly but surely splitting off into groups of guys and girls walking towards their respective exits. Timmy sighed and turned back to the uneasy faces of his friends, none very keen on splitting up from each other. The astonishment and terror from the bizarre intergalactic ride that got them here was still far too fresh on their minds.

“...Hey, how about this?” AJ started, getting the others’ attention. “Sunny says we’re all meeting back here for lunch. Why don’t we just sit together like we do at school? I’ll even bet Vicky’ll be here by then.”

Tootie brightened up a little at the idea, shooting her friend a small smile. “Yeah, why not? It’s only a couple hours away, we can handle that, right?”

“Hell yeah we can!” Chester affirmed, wrapping his arms around Veronica and Trixie’s shoulders. “Guys, we’re on summer-freakin’-vacation. This island is huge and there’s a literal sparkling lake outside. Let’s just go with the flow!”

Veronica smiled happily at the thought. “Totally! Like, we made it this far. And besides, it’s not like we’ll be alone.”

The other five looked expectantly at Timmy, who had been the most quiet. The pink-hatted teenager felt a strange mixture of lead-heavy guilt and piercing trepidation roll around in his heart and gut, avoiding eye contact with everyone else. “I guess it has been a really long time since I haven’t hung around at least one of ‘em every day,” Timmy silently thought. “Not since… well, my birthday, at least.”

Then, with a shaky inhale, he looked back at Chester and gave the most reassuring smile he could muster. “Yeah,” Timmy agreed. “I can do a couple hours.”

///

Timmy ended up getting to his cabin long after the rest of the other guys had filed out of the side entrance to the Mess Hall. The smooth, fresh asphalt pathway to the second cabin was confusing at first, but he supposed it made sense; instead of the cabins starting with One being the closest, Cabin Eight sat first. Which meant that Cabin Two was all the way in the back of the woods. And the path was already long as hell to begin with.

“At least you’re getting your steps in, sweetie,” Wanda offered sympathetically.

Timmy snorted humorlessly. “How ‘re you guys holding up so far? Any change in the energy?”

“No dice on any Fairy magic yet, kiddo,” Cosmo replied. “’We’re doing good though!”

Wanda’s eyebrows knit together in worry from her place around her godchild’s neck. “We’re certainly feeling more than the regular amount of… pressure coming from some of these other young people,” she admitted.

“What’s the usual amount?” Timmy asked curiously.

“Unless you’re the Crimson Chin or secretly a pixie, almost none,” came Cosmo’s answer, laced heavy with concern.

Timmy grimaced. “Ah.”

The pathway proved to be calming, at least. Each cabin he passed was far spaced out from the other, all of them painted different colors so that it’d be easier to tell them apart, Timmy assumed. The woods themselves were almost ethereal in their beauty; massive red pines stretched into infinity as tiny rays of sunshine pierced through to the grounds below, pinecones littering the grassy flatland beneath them. The smell of fresh water from the lake wafted even as far as where the back half of the cabins lie, mixing pleasantly with the aroma of the flowers and the trees that floated along the breeze. Even the miniature street lights and the paved road didn’t feel that foreign in the otherwise completely natural world Timmy found himself journeying through. It felt closer to a city park trail than an out-of-place obstruction.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity of wandering, Timmy finally came across the entrance to his cabin. It was built with the same sort of rectangular, stacked wood planks as the Mess Hall, but someone had decided to paint it a deep blue all around, save for the solid burgundy of the front door. The number “2” was quite literally tacked onto the top in a bold, mustard yellow color, and Timmy could hear the telltale bellows of loud conversation and commotion already emanating from the inside. The teenager took a deep, stabilizing breath, reaching out to grab the frayed rope handle. Cosmo and Wanda radiated a wave of silent encouraging energy that settled his pounding heart.

“Alright, Turner,” Timmy mumbled to himself. “Let’s face the music.”

And with an intentional push, the creak of the door’s hinges gave way to the entrance, allowing the buck-toothed teen to step inside.

The room itself was much bigger on the inside than the outside made it look. Rows of humble-but-cozy bunk beds lined the walls, small closets with two-tier dressers on both sides. Breaking the line on the right was an entrance into what the teenager guessed was a bathroom. Near the end was a big, square, sturdy-looking wooden table surrounded by kitchen stuff, a couple drawers nestled between the stove and the fridge, and a single light hanging by a thread and enclosed in a simple, metal casing.

Towards the middle, Timmy could spot that there was one more open space below a bunk where another guy sat atop reading a thick magazine, nose buried deep into its pages. The title, in bold white font, read Aeronautics Aficionado.The other guys were busy tossing socks and shirts into their closets, leaving the pink-hatted boy confused.

“Where is all my stuff, anyways?” he thought to himself as he walked to the bottom bed space. Sure enough, as he got closer he saw his backpack and suitcase appear with a faint POOF! and land softly on the dark blue comforter.

“Neat trick, huh?” the voice above Timmy said giddily. He turned his gaze up to see the boy hanging his legs off the edge of the top bunk, looking down at him with a friendly smile. “I freaked when I saw my stuff pop into thin air. Didn’t even say anything about wanting this bed to be mine, I just thought it and there it was!”

Timmy grinned and shrugged. “Must be magic, I guess,” he replied cheekily. He held out a fist to be bumped, “I’m Timmy.”

The teen had a lithe, skinny build, the kind that came from drinking a ton of water and years of avoiding candy like the plague. His white tee and sky blue overshirt were complimented by a pair of dirty white sneakers and dark brown khakis with a hole in the knee. Thick grey glasses with opaque yellow lenses laid alongside a sandy-colored baseball hat that covered his messy, mouse-brown hair. He grinned and gave Timmy a two-fingered salute, knocking a fist against his. “Hoagie P. Gilligan,” he introduced himself, twirling a small wrench around in his fingers. “Pleasure to meetcha!”

“Oof!” another boy’s voice across from Timmy and Hoagie exclaimed. His arms were struggling to stay wrapped around a bunch of shirts and jackets on hangers, threatening to tip him over. “Could, um, anyone help?” he asked, posh English accent strained. “Please?”

Timmy and Hoagie both hurried over, the weight of the clothes split between the two proving to almost be too much even as they chucked everything into the nearest closet to the other boy’s bunk. An anxious, but grateful expression smoothed out the stress wrinkles on his face, exhausted hands on his knees. “Th-thanks,” he said. Then, with an abashed wince, “I didn’t know how much to bring before we left. Might’ve been a bit more than I needed.”

Hoagie shrugged. “Don’t sweat it. I totally threw my whole room in my suitcase at the last minute, can’t blame ya for tryna be prepared,” he replied.

“I didn’t even get to pack my underwear!” a brash, energetic voice chimed in from across the room.

Hoagie smiled goodnaturedly, jabbing a thumb behind him in the direction of the voice. “See? Even Sheen agrees!” A moment passed and the smile on his face morphed into real concern. “Wait, dude, what?”

The teenager – a very tall, slim dude with some last remaining echoes of baby fat in his cheeks, floppy, mahogany hair and dressed in a formal-looking buttoned shirt and neat, dark jeans – moved to shake Timmy’s hand. “N-Neville Longbottom, nice to meet you,” he greeted kindly.

Timmy shook it back, returning a reassuring smile. “Timmy Turner, same here.”

“Make way, make way!”

Just then, the cabin’s door burst open, startling everyone that resided inside. From outside walked in a bright green crocodile with red scales trailing down its back – strangely enough, standing on two legs – large and imposing, donning only a gold chain, some headphones, white gloves wrapped around with black bracelets, and a pair of black sneakers. It marchedover to where Timmy, Neville and Hoagie stared with wide, terrified eyes. “Yo!” the crocodile greeted, flashing a toothy, sharp grin. “Where’s the rest of you guys at?”

From behind the bathroom doors, the other handful of boys peeked their heads out and yelped in terror, slamming it back closed. The crocodile just rolled his eyes, placing his hands (paws? Front legs?) in front of his snout. “I’m not gonna eat ya, you buncha weenies!” he yelled. With a sigh, he turned his attention back to the trio, who stood seemingly rooted to the spot. “This is Cabin Two, right?” the crocodile asked.

The three nodded jerkily.

He brightened and grinned again, pumping a fist into the air. “Great! The name’s Vector, fellas. Counselor Extraordinaire for Cabin Two, pleased to meetcha!”

Timmy choked. “Y-you’re our counselor?!”

Vector scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Er, well, yeah! That’s what they hired me for,” he replied sheepishly. He motioned for the boys to follow his lead. “C’mon, you three! We’re all s’posed to be getting to know each other ‘till lunch and we got about an hour, gather up the rest of the stragglers!”

///

Soon enough, all twenty of Cabin Two’s residences, plus their reptilian counselor, sat stock still in the middle of the cabin in a circular formation. Every eye was warily regarding Vector’s presence, until finally-

“Alright, I get it!” Vector snapped, throwing his hands in the air. “Jeez, you guys’re actin’ like you’ve never seen a crocodile before!”

One boy, dark-skinned with black, fluffy hair that reached down past his neck,dressed in a pair of faded denim overalls, cleared his throat nervously. “Um, I do not think it is necessarily just your species that causes the rest of us to be frozen with fear, Mister Vector,” he quavered.

“Just Vector’s fine, kid,” the crocodile answered, annoyed. “What’s the deal, then?”

“Nigga, I ain’t never seen a talking animal in my life,” a guy sitting next to Hoagie with an oversized green hoodie and rows of black hair braided in long rows exclaimed, arms akimbo. “Between you and that Twilight Zone-ass trip we took to get here, I’m not even sure if all this camp shit is for real!”

He gestured an open hand to another teenager sitting across from him – a dusky-hairedboy with pure white skin that looked like it almostgleamed in the light, sporting a mossy green scarf, black undershirt and crimson cargo pants, and whose wide, dark eyes shone with puzzlement. “Look at this muthafucka, you not gon’ sit here and tell me you see niggas like him on the regular!”

“Uh, dude? I think he might just be a robot or somethin’,” Sheen pointed out, rapping his knuckles against Robot Dude’s shoulder with a hollow clang.

“See what I mean? This is some weird shit!” Hoodie Guy insisted.

The Asian dude sitting beside him shrugged. “I mean… this isn’t the absolute weirdest thing that’s happened to me, so I’m coolin’. Can’t speak for y’all, though,” he added quickly.

One of Neville’s brows raised warily. “...What is, then?”

Vector waved his hands in a “cut it” motion. “Okay, look, I can swear ‘til I’m blue in the face that I’m not gonna eat ya. You die, I don’t get paid. Probably don’t even taste that good!”

Hoagie rolled his eyes, resting his chin in his hand. “Yeah, real reassuring,” he muttered.

The crocodile glared at him before pinching the bridge of his snout,exhaling deeply. “How ‘bout this,” Vector started exasperatedly. “We’re runnin’ outta time, so we’ll make this quick. I’ll go around the room, say yer name and you’ll say where you’re from.Maybe one interesting thing about you if we’re feelin’ particularly social. Everyone cool with that?”

An ensemble of unenthusiastic agreements and nodded heads was the answer. Vector’s toothy grin shone in the fluorescent light, clapping his large hands in delight. “Perfect!” He pulled out a clipboard and a pen, running the tip up the list. “We got an Eddward Murphy in here?”

To Vector’s left, a teenager balked, wringing his hands together. He wore a black polyester beanie that covered a head of equally-as-black hair peeking out all around the brim. On his slight shoulders hung a bright orange hoodie that opened to show a plain black shirt, and a pair of plum shorts. “Oh! Well, yes, that’s me,” he introduced himself, his cadence refined and polite. “All of my friends refer to me as ‘Double D’ though, so feel free to use whichever one you prefer. I’m originally from a place called Peach Creek, Texas.”

“Hi, Double D,” the room intoned.

“See, that wasn’t so hard, huh?” Vector grinned. “Alright, uh… Phillip P. Phil?”

One of the boys who recognized Sunny from earlier was next. He was easily the tallest in the cabin, sitting a head above everyone even as he slumped forwards. A globe of thick, curly reddish-orange hair sprang from his head in every direction, accompanied by thick, circular glasses, a warm yellow tee shirt, elbow pads and a pair of roughed-up, black sneakers.

“Peace, my fellow starchildren,” he said, holding up a Vulkan salute and an easygoing smile. “Everybody calls me Philly Phil. My roots is in the A, and I play bass like nobody’s biz.”

“What’s the ‘A’?” a tall, shaggy-haired guy sitting across from Hoagie questioned, voice scratchy and hoarse.

“The A-T-L, man! Atlanta,” Philly answered with a laugh.

“His parents named him Phillip Phil?” Wanda disbelievingly commented. Cosmo was too busy giggling his ass off in Timmy’s mindscape.

“Good to meetcha, Philly,” Vector replied. “Next! Ferb Fletcher, where ya hiding at?”

A lanky, grassy-haired boy dressed in magenta overalls and a cream-colored shirt raised his hand, blinking mutely and flashing a peace sign as a hello. “Present,” Ferb responded, his accent a hint more casual than Neville’s. “I’ve travelled from Danville, Chicago with some of my family and friends. I like building things with my brother whenever we can.”

Hoodie Guy’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Ohh, snap! You from Chi-town?!” he gushed happily, before schooling his features into a practiced, disinterested gaze. “I mean, that’s cool or whatever. Me ‘n my big brother was lived there before we moved to this wack ass neighborhood in Maryland with our granddad.”

“And you’re…?” Vector trailed.

A devious glint and a mischievous grin stretched over Hoodie Guy’s features. “Riley Freeman, a.k.a. Yung Reezy, a.k.a. Mista Escobar, whaddup!”

Vector shook his head and turned his eyes back to the list. “...Ah, Baljeet? Er, did I say that right? Baljeet… Tuh-jin-der?”

Fluffy Hair attempted to keep from laughing. “Close enough, Mister Vector. It is pronounced Tjinder,” Baljeet corrected. “I also come from Danville, I traveled with my good friend Ferb who was just introduced to you!” Ferb looked over and pointed a silent finger gun Baljeet’s way.

The crocodile had the grace to adopt an embarrassed grin. “Yipes, sorry about that. Okay, let’s see… Thomas Pickles!”

“Right here!” a guy with short, lavender hair, two-toned blue and green longsleeved tee and dark brown cargo pants answered confidently, cradling an expensive-looking camcorder in both hands. “You guys can call me Tommy if you want. Me and my friends came from Akron, and I wanna be a film director someday. Even brought my camera along with me!” The rest of the boys ooooe’d in wonder at the sight of the multitude of buttons, lenses and folding screens attached to the camera.

“Groovy. Okay, is there a Milo Kamalani in the house?”

A mellow, long-haired boy with a well-worn burgundy beanie, a half-yellow-half-orange buttoned shirt and dark green shorts gave a two finger salute. “Live and in color, Sir Croc,” he drawled with a half-lidded smile. “I hail from the ever-humble suburb of Hazelnut.”

“Ahoy, fella. Uh, Jacob Long?”

“Yerrr!” came the Asian dude with the bright red hoodie’s enthusiastic bellow. “Jake Long in full E-F-F-E-C-T, y’all! Representin’ for Brooklyn, illest borough on the planet!” he affirmed proudly.

“Alright, now that’s the kinda spirit I’m lookin’ for!” Vector praised. “Okay, next is… er-” the crocodile squinted at his clipboard, turning it as he peered closer. “Looks like the name’s scratched out here, but the nickname’s “Robin”?”

One of the quieter boys, a raven-haired guy with sharp, icy eyes and a simple red shirt and black jeans, sat cross-legged with patient hands in his lap. His gaze snapped to Vector’s, nodding in affirmation.

“Present,” he replied curtly. “I’m from Jump City.” And that was all, it seemed, he was willing to divulge.

Hoagie leaned over to Riley conspiratorially. “Sheesh, who pissed in his cereal this morning?” he stage-whispered, earning a quiet snicker from the other teenager. Robin cut his eyes to the pair and frowned, freezing both to the spot until he looked the other way. Riley turned an affronted look back over to the bespectacled boy.

“Why do niggas with blue eyes always stare at you like that?” he asked, thoroughly unsettled.

“Nice to have ya with us, Cheery,” Vector chirped, the sarcasm in his tone just barely imperceptible. “Quote?”

Robot Dude – Quote – inclined his head respectfully.

“Perfect. And last, but not least, Linus Van Pelt?”

The studious-looking boy with the striped shirt and wild hair beside Sheen straightened up, giving Vector a courteous smile. “I’m here!” Linus answered, leaning back on his hands. “My friends and I all came from Detroit together. I’m not too sure how we got here, but it’s been extremely fun so far,” he hummed.

Double D nodded his head thoughtfully. “I was wondering that myself. I’m theorizing that what we traveled through wasn’t actually space, but something of a space between space,” he guessed. “My friend Rolf stepped outside of our vehicle at a certain point and he didn’t immediately suffocate and die, so I figure it wasn’t the outer atmosphere as we understand it!”

“Yeah, hey, me and my friends sat on top of the roof of my best friend’s RV when we first shot into it,” Timmy added, leaning forward to wrap his arms around his upturned knees. “Our windows were broken so we wouldn’tve stood a chance regardless.”

Sheen scratched the top of his head confusedly. “I dunno what you guys are talkin’ about, it wasn’t any harder to breathe than usual,” he countered, earning significant looks from every boy in the cabin.

“...What do you mean, ‘than usual’?” Robin inquired slowly.

The energetic teenager merely shrugged. “Me and a bunch of my friends’ve been to space more times than I can count. The first time was when we had to build rockets outta theme park rides to save our parents from getting eaten by these aliens’ giant chicken-god-thing. It was kinda weird.”

The building familiarity Timmy had felt seeing Sheen and hearing him talk about his adventures suddenly clicked. “Where’d you say you were from, again?” the pink-hatted boy quizzed.

“This place in California called Retroville,” Sheen answered offhandedly, more interested in tying and untying one of his shoes. Timmy hopped up on his feet, eyes the size of dinner plates. “Dude, Sheen?!” he exclaimed, saying the other boy’s name as though it was his first time hearing it. “It’s me, Timmy!”

Sheen’s eyes narrowed in concentration, studying Timmy for a few moments, until finally – “Woah! Small-Headed Jimmy, way long-time-no-see!” he balked, blinking in shock.

“You guys know each other?” Vector inquired, intrigued.

Timmy laughed happily, easing some long-held tension in his shoulders. “Man, do I! I accidentally got us into a crazy situation back when we were younger and I needed some help on a science project,” he added sheepishly. Meeting Jimmy and accidentally getting him transported to Dimmsdale, getting Goddard back to normal with Jimmy’s friends (after turning his poor dog into a bloodthirsty mech) and stopping Mr. Crocker from wreaking havoc in Fairy World was one the few memories from his childhood he cherished. “How’s Jimmy and Libby and everybody else?”

“Aw, you know Jim, we’re still saving the city every week from something science-y screwing up,” Sheen jested, Timmy laughing along with him. “How ‘bout you, man? What’ve you and your friends been up to?”

Timmy waved the question off casually. “We’re all here for the summer. Haven’t had nearly as many adventures as you guys have,” he chuckled softly. Then, a thought connected that made Timmy stop where he stood, brow furrowing in growing worry. “Wait,” he began warily, “This isn’t right. You guys are from a different dimension, there’s no way you should be here.”

Linus swiveled between the two boys, hopelessly lost. “D-different what, now?” he stammered.

“The last time we met, we had to use Jimmy’s tech and my… er, computer programs to get back home,” Timmy answered. His gaze turned to the floor, unfocused eyes darting around in intense thought. “Dimmsdale and Retroville are in the same part of California as each other but they didn’t exist in the same place. That’s how Jimmy figured out it was an alternate universe the first go ‘round.”

Double D eyes lit up in wonder. “Parallel universes? How peculiar!”

“Hol’ up, hol’ up, timeout,” Jake interrupted, forming a ‘T’ with his hands. “What, you’re saying your Earth isn’t the same Earth that I’m from?” he reasoned unbelievably.

Timmy gulped wordlessly. “Could be, yeah.”

Riley broke the tense silence with an anxious snicker. “Yo man, y-y’all gotta be playing a prank on us or somethin’,” he joshed, the tremble in his voice betraying his projected confidence. “So, what, just cuz I’ve never heard of Danville or Hazelnut, that means we all got snatched from different worlds or whatever?”

“Is it that crazy to imagine?” Timmy shot back, somewhat defensively. “I just brought it up cuz I know Sheen’s from a different California than I am. Who knows how far we actually traveled up there?”

Robin opened and closed his mouth once or twice, face stony with thought. “Timmy,” he addressed the pink-hatted boy seriously. “What part of California is Dimmsdale located in?”

Timmy raised an eyebrow. “Southern Cali, right next to L.A.”

The stoic boy cursed under his breath, covering his mouth with his fist. “...Have you ever heard of the Teen Titans?”

The buck-toothed boy gave him a blank look. Robin ran a stressed hand through his hair and exhaled heavily. “Okay, have any of you heard of them? Jump City? Anything at all?”

Once more, shook heads and quiet negatives were his answer. Robin turned back to Timmy, worry lines creasing in his features. “I think you’re right,” he told him gravely. “Jump City is positioned in southern California, exactly beside Los Angeles. I’ve never heard of Dimmsdale before.”

At that revelation, all the boys went voiceless. Vector glanced at his watch and blanched. “Aw jeez, twelve o’clock already?!” he exclaimed, seemingly ignorant to the tense atmosphere. “C’mon, fellas, up ‘n attem! We’re gonna miss out on all the good stuff if we don’t shake a leg!”

As if on cue, Milo’s stomach growled audibly, making the lax boy color with embarrassment. “My bad, dudes. Kinda skipped breakfast this morning, didn’t think I’d be shooting through space before I got a chance to get some grub.”

Some of the uneasy ambiance relaxed at Milo’s self-deprecating joke, making some of the other boys laugh. They shuffled out of the front door, following Vector down the trail and conversating with each other as they walked.

“Sport?” Wanda started uneasily.

“Yeah, Wanda?” Timmy responded, halfheartedly listening to Double D and Hoagie trade intricate theories on where they though everyone was from, Neville and Baljeet interjecting here and there.

“We’re gonna be okay, you know that, right?”

Timmy didn’t reply. As much as he wanted to be reassured, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the worst was yet to come.

///

To the Campmaster’s credit, the cafeteria looked fantastic when the sun was all the way up.

Once Cabin Two made it to the Mess Hall, it looked almost transformed. Before was a subdued, somewhat hollow feeling building. Now that everyone seemed to have gotten settled, it was bursting with life. The loud conversations, heavenly aroma from the food and the ambient noise of the metallic clanging of utensils on plates and scratchy chairs on concrete brought Timmy a comforting sense of familiarity. Sunlight poured in through the skylight windows, illuminating the impressive size of the cafeteria and the sheer numbers of the campers that currently occupied it.

“You guys go ahead and sit wherever ya want,” Vector said, elevating his voice about the crowd. “I gotta sit with the other counselors. I’m gonna go check out some of that catfish and mac ‘n cheese!” he drooled, rubbing his gloved hands together giddily.

The other boys shared an excited look at the prospect of fried food and delicious sides. Jake was the first one to break out from the group, bidding a quick adieu when he spotted his friends. “I’ll catch y’all boys back at home base!” he vowed, waving as he ran off. One by one, the rest of Cabin Two separated until only a handful remained. Timmy circled around to where Hoagie and Sheen stood and offered a small smile. “You guys wanna grab a table? I’m gonna look for my friends after I hop outta line!” the pink-hatted teen asked loudly.

Hoagie, on the other hand, grinned brightly. “Yeah, definitely! I’m gonna see if some of my friends wanna come with, too,” the geeky boy responded. Sheen hadn’t even said anything back, already off in the line to get a head start on the aforementioned catfish special.

Timmy hurried to join him, careful to weave and move between people walking in front of him. He bumped the shoulder of one dude and swiveled around, an apology already on his lips. “Sorry ‘bout that man-”

“It’s alright, I should’ve watched where I wa-”

The two stopped and got a good look at the other. Bright red shirt, jeans and an impossibly tall, whippy-dip haircut filled Timmy’s view and his eyes couldn’t have gotten any bigger. “Oh, shit.”

“...Pukin’ Pluto, Timmy Turner?!” he responded, joy mixed with intense confusion and shock.

Timmy grinned and raised a hand for a returned high-five. “Yeah, dude! Me and Sheen were freaking out about it at the cabin, I came with all my friends!”

Jimmy stammered, a bewildered grin etched into his face. “My mom and dad signed me up a couple months before school let out. I found out Sheen and Carl and the girls were headed to the same place, so I just took ‘em along with me. I’m actually sharing a cabin with AJ-” he said, indicating his head toward where Timmy could make out his bald friend chatting animatedly with a table of other guys. “-but I didn’t expect all you guys to be here at all.”

The young genius inspected the air next to Timmy in confusion. “What happened to your hologram companions?”

Timmy lifted his chain to show the pink-and-green dogtags that hung from his neck, a pair of eyes revealing themselves and winking at Jimmy. The other boy barked an astonished laugh, “Ha! Shapeshifting camouflage, I forgot how brilliant that was!”

The elation in Jimmy’s face soon started to fade. Timmy could almost see the exact moment the realization hit him, murmuring to himself and snapping his eyes back to Timmy, extreme concern in his gaze. “But, that means-!”

“Yeah. We figured that out, too,” Timmy confirmed, mouth set in a tight line.

Jimmy bit his lip in worry. “It wouldn’t surprise me if all of these teenagers were from different realities,” he started, deep in thought. “All it took for us to meet was a malfunctioning voice command and a misplaced teleporter. Can you imagine how easy it must’ve been for whoever blasted us through that wormhole to get everyone together at once?”

The thought set dread loose in Timmy’s stomach. If someone was powerful or smart enough to warp all of these people in one go, what else could they do? What were they choosing not to do?

“I think we should just go with the flow for now,” Timmy decided cautiously. “Besides, Sunny said that we’ll be meeting the Campmaster later on tonight, right? One way or another we’re gonna get some answers.”

Jimmy scowled, but eventually conceded with a nod. “I guess you’re right. I just hope I didn’t fly my best friends across the universe into a death trap for a second time,” he hoped, shoulders slumping sadly.

Timmy gently bumped his arm, getting his attention. “Hey man, don’t sweat it. Go ahead and snag everyone else up, me, Sheen and a couple other guys are all gonna sit together.”

The young genius brightened some at the news. “Say no more! I’ll go see where Cindy and Libby ran off to, meet ya in a few!” He took off in the direction he was originally walking, leaving Timmy to finally get a plate of whatever was making his tastebuds water.

“I’m so happy to see Jimmy’s been doing well,” Wanda tittered. “It feels like it’s been forever since we needed his help dealing with Crocker.”

“It was six years ago, I was practically a baby still,” Timmy noted with a short laugh.

“You think all of these kids are really from different para… er, pare-fa-lel… paralympic…” Cosmo struggled.

“Parallel universes, sweetie,” Wanda instructed.

Cosmo radiated grateful energy. “Yeah, that!”

Timmy gave a halfhearted ‘eh’, shuffling his way up the lunch line. “It’s the only way I can explain Jimmy and his friends being here. I dunno for sure, but something about all this makes me feel like we all got picked for a reason.”

The ever-familiar shroud of self-doubt and guilt crept up, settling in the pink-hatted boy’s shoulders. “You got your friends and family wrapped up in danger yet again, asshole,” it rasped in hushed tones. Timmy shut his eyes and tried to focus on Cosmo and Wanda’s inner dialogue like he’d practiced, but to no avail.“You’re a burden on all of their lives, and you know it. They’re better off withou-”

“Didja want hot sauce with it, sweetheart?” a soft voice asked.

Timmy shook his head, refocusing in front of him. He’d made it to the serving spot and hadn’t realized. “Huh?”

A shockingly beautiful, coffee-skinned woman with her hair done up in a curly bun behind the glass displays gestured to Timmy’s full plate. “Asked if ya wanted hot sauce, honey,” she repeated, a soothing, heavySoutherntwang to heraccent.

Timmy’s ears went red. “Uh, yes ma’am,” he answered, too embarrassed to say no or consider what he’d just requested. The lady’s kind smile set the pink-hatted boy at ease as she gingerly drizzled the spicy concoction onto his fish, careful not to overwhelm the dish with too much. “There you go, baby, enjoy!” she said, Timmy shyly thanking her back as he set off in search of Jimmy and his cabinmates.

Sure enough, after scanning around the room he caught the telltale colors of Trixiepink and Chesterblond sitting beside Jimmy’s unmistakable hairdo, Hoagie’s weathered hat, and a mass of other unfamiliar faces.

“…and then AJ was like, ‘if we were gonna die, we woulda suffocated hours ago,’ and I was like, ‘he’s gonna give her a freakin’ heart attack…’” Chester facepalmed, earning a chorus of laughter from the rest of the table. Tootie noticed Timmy walking over, scooting over to make room for him with a wide grin. “Hey, geek,” she greeted fondly.

Timmy couldn’t help but smile back. “What’s up, nerd. Any sign of Icky?” Tootie shook her head and pointed across from her. Timmy could see the redhead sitting next to Vector and a host of what he assumed were the other camp counselors. Oddly enough, one of them – a scarecrow-like man with silver hair – seemed to be eating with a facemask on and was actually managing to eat without taking it off.

“Weird,” Timmy thought.

“How you holding up?” Tootie asked seriously and quietly, looking him dead in his eye. A mute thumbs-up in reply. She nodded and scooted closer, leaning some of her weight against her best friend’s arm.

“So, uh, I miss anything?” Timmy inquired. Definitely not trying to focus on Tootie’s calming warmth.

“Like, yeah!” Veronica interjected sardonically. “We were talking about our cabins and how totally unbelievable that trip over here was!”

“Jimmy was getting us caught up with his friends, too,” AJ answered, sparing an unserious glare at his best friend. “So Goddard’s how you beat me in that science fair when we were in fifth grade, huh?”

Timmy gave a withering chuckle. “Heh, it was stiff competition. Plus, that was the one year getting an ‘F’ in Crocker’s class actually mattered. If I got held back cuz of a dumb science fair, I woulda never heard the end of it.”

Trixie gaped at him. “No fair! You got interdimensional help from a super genius, and all I could do was a papier mache volcano my mom made at three in the morning that stopped working halfway through,” she pouted.

Hoagie waved in a lively manner at his fellow cabinmate. “Hey, Tim! These are thefriends I was talkin’ about earlier,” he gestured to a handful of teenagers, some sitting inbetween Timmy’s own posse. “Nigel, Wally, Kuki, Abby, this is Timmy. Me ‘n him share Cabin Two, Sheen too!”

“Pleased to meetcha, mate,” the boy with untamed, dirty blond hair – Wally – greeted, vocal inflection thick with Australian style. He held a wild edge to his gaze, even as he grinned happily at Timmy. A single gold earring hung from his left ear, faded scars all over his knuckles; two different shades of orange between a tee-shirt and a sleeveless hoodie clashed with his natural hair color.

“I’ll tell ya, I didn’t think we were gonna make it up there for a sec! Space isn’t nuthin’ new to us- I mean, uh, only cuz we study it in school so much,” he quickly pivoted at the panicked look in Hoagie and the darker-skinned girl’s eye.

“I thought it was bea-uuuuu-tiful!” the cheery Asian girl named Kuki chirped. “All the colors and the music and the roller coaster ride we did at the end was so much fun!”

Abby – the pretty, darker-skinned girl with black locs that flowed below her bust and an azure tank top that bared her midriff – rolled her eyes. “Abby thinks goin’ though alladat once is enough for one lifetime,” she muttered in third person, taking a bite of her mac & cheese.

The second boy – Nigel, as Hoagie had introduced him – was as bald as AJ (somehow his scalp was shinier), and his body language exuded the same type of confidence Robin had; serious business, but with a softness in his eyes as he listened to Kuki excitedly exchange cheerleading stories with Veronica. He sported a dark burgundy buttoned shirt with a black vest and tie as accessories, finished with a smart pair of sunglasses. Nigel inclined his head in greeting.

“I dunno, I wish they would’ve teleported us somewhere less terrifying,” Carl stuttered apprehensively. “That was more excitement than I can handle in one sitting.”

Libby giggled, covering her smirk with a hand. “Aw, don’t be a weenie, Carl. You’ve gone berserk on an army of egg-themed aliens with just an inhaler all by yourself before, what made the trip here so scary?”

“That was life or death, Libby!”” Carl defended. “And none of us thought we were gonna get blasted into the sky when we got into our ships, I coulda ruptured my spleen or slipped a disk or something!”

Tootie snorted. “At least you weren’t squished against four other people on re-entry,” she commented humorlessly. “I think I mighta literally had my foot in somebody’s ass at some point.”

“Oi, I told you that comes after the third date,” Wally joked. AJ choked and spat his water out.

A gorgeous girl with long, blonde pigtails scurried up to the table, taking a close seat next to Jimmy. “You guys won’t believe where some of these guys came from,” the blonde said excitedly. “That guy with the round glasses next to the girl with the big curly hair said they come from some boarding school in Britain-!”

“Uh, Cindy?” Jimmy interrupted softly. “I ran into someone you might know.”

She switched from looking at Jimmy to Timmy and he saw her eyes go wider than dinner plates. “Timmy?!” Cindy caught the poor teen off guard with a crushing hug and a high-pitched “squeeee!”, squeezing the actual life out of him. Tootie hid a small frown, discreetly glaring at the blonde girl.

“Cindy! Need.. air!” Timmy rasped.

Cindy had the grace to blush pink and release the bucktoothed boy, returning to sit next to Jimmy. “Hehe, sorry. It’s just been forever since I last saw you!”

Timmy just grinned; he was glad she remembered him at all. “I’m happy to see you, too! I dunno if you met any of my friends last time-”

“Hey, I’m AJ,” AJ waved.

“Trixie, nice to meet you,” Trixie smiled.

“Chester McBadbat, at your service, milady,” Chester bowed, bringing his hands together like a martial artist.

“Hi! I’m Veronica, but you can, like, call me Ronnie if you want,” Veronica greeted cheerfully.

“Tootie Valentine,” Tootie replied impassively, eyes narrowing by a hair.

Cindy smiled at the five. “Nice to meet you guys this time around!” she complimented. “Lord knows Neutron was searching for a way to visit again for months after we got Goddard back to normal size.”

Jimmy’s face blazed red. “Cindy…” the genius whined.

The girl just giggled and pecked his cheek. “No shame in being honest, Nerd-tron, there’s nothing unmanly about missing your friend.”

Tootie hid her chagrined face upon seeing Cindy be so openly affectionate with Jimmy. “Mighta jumped the gun on giving Miss Perky the Valentine Death Glare,” she thought abashedly.

Abby blinked and looked toward Cindy. “Hey, you’re in the same cabin as me, arentcha?”

Cindy’s demeanor shifted in recognition. ‘Oh, hey, yeah, we are! Abby Lincoln, right?” The mellow girl smiled in surprise. “Abby didn’t think you remembered,” she replied.

“That must mean the rest of you are Nigel-” she pointed towards the resolved bald teenager, “-Kuki,” another dead ringer, “-Wally,” the Australian boy looked genuinely impressed, “-and that makes you Hoagie,” she finished, indicating her fork at the skinny dude with a satisfied, expectant smile.

A moment of silence passed. “Damn, Abby, did you give her our social security numbers while you were at it?” Hoagie replied incredulously, another round of giggle fits echoing through the Mess Hall.

“That reminds me-hee hee!-where’s your red-headed friend?” Cindy asked, the last of the laughs finally leaving.

Nigel shrugged, slicing his catfish in half with a fork and knife. “Fanny’s probably sitting with our friend Rachel at her cabin’s table,” he answered. “Inseparable, those two, I swear.”

“Say, what d’you guys reckon this whole midnight meeting biz is all about?” Wally questioned.

Jimmy and Timmy exchanged a look.

“Beats me,” AJ admitted. “I’m interested in seeing who this Campmaster guy is. Think he’s that voice we heard guiding us through the trip?”

“Gotta be!” Chester exclaimed. “Doesn’t seem like there’s anyone above the guy if he’s the one runnin’ everything. Plus, who else coulda made all that music?”

Libby shook her head. “I’ve never heard anything like those songs we heard in my life. It was all… I dunno, electronic and stuff,” she reasoned, the memory of the melodies taking her attention.

“I felt the same way,” Kuki added. “It was so weird! I didn’t have the right words to describe how I was feeling, I just… I couldn’t help but feel really deeply.”

“My favorite was when we passed through that slow section through the stars,” Hoagie sighed, frowning. “It was peaceful, but really sad at the same time, I think. I felt like a real-life astronaut or somethin’!”

Shared sentiments rounded the table. “Mine was when we first went up,” Jimmy admitted. “If the Campmaster’s behind all the music we heard, I gotta compliment him on his choice of mood-setting selections,” he joked.

“I was, like, totally terrified when it started playing, but the one that came on when we started going fast was mine,” Veronica tittered, a round of ooo’s and good choice’s coming from the teens. “It was hella rad, I wanted to hear more like it!”

“Yeah, if there’s one thing I’ve liked a lot so far, the music has been really cool,” Tootie observed contentedly. “Here’s hoping we get to hear more of it while we’re here!”

The rest of lunch continued that way: the sixteen teenagers conversated and got to know each other better, losing track of the time even as some of the other campers left to explore around the campgrounds. At one point, Rachel and Fanny came to say hello to their friends and got to meet Jimmy and Timmy’s gang, enjoying making jokes and getting into deep exchanges about shared interests. The foundation for their budding friendships had been planted, and soon enough other seeds would be ready to be nurtured in due time…

///

“Psst! Hey, Tim! Wakey, wakey, man!”

Timmy’s bleary eyes cracked open hearing his name be called. “Whuzzat?”

He could see Hoagie standing beside his bed, Sheen in the background struggling to tug on a shoe. “C’mon man, everyone’s making their way to the Cove! It’s almost ten!” Hoagie exclaimed excitedly.

At once, a shot of anxious anticipation to his heart woke the pink-hatted boy right awake. He shook out his (now annoyingly long) hair and hurried out the front door with the other two, with Vector walking ahead and leading the cabin further into the back of the woods on the trail.

“How exciting and completely terrifying!” Baljeet proclaimed. “Let us hope this is not a trap to kill us and sell our organs on the black market!”

Philly Phil spared him an odd look. “I think all this’d be a lotta effort just to get our gallbladders,” he replied sardonically.

“You’d be surprised,” Robin commented quietly.

Quote walked alongside Neville and tapped him on the shoulder. The nervous teenager looked down at Quote’s closed hand and opened the written note he’d placed in his own. He smiled back at the young android kindly. “O-oh, it’s no problem,” he replied. “I was happy to invite you. My friends thought Curly was quite funny.” Quote gave a small smile and a humble bow in return.

“You think I shoulda brought my stuff with me?” Tommy asked for the umpteenth time. “Maybe it won’t be as rowdy as I thought, I could always run back and get it-”

Jake, who had been listening to Tommy go back and forth for the past four minutes, finally snapped. “Yo, B, either go zoom and get the camera or don’t and zip it, you feel me?!”

The rest of Cabin Two talked excitedly about what could be awaiting them, bouncing off absurd ideas and cracking jokes; the buck-toothed teen, by contrast, looked closer to a participating funeral march. Milo bumped an elbow against Timmy’s arm, who had been almost completely reticent the whole walk there. “Yo, Pink Dude. You hangin’ in there alright?”

Timmy languidly turned to acknowledge the mellow boy and gave a weak smile. “Yeah. Just anxious, I guess.”

Milo gave a sympathetic smile. “You’re not alone, bud. I’m just hoping we’re not about to get beamed up again, I don’t think my brain is built to handle so much intergalactic travel.”

Soon enough, Cabin Two joined the rest of the restless crowd of teenagers herded in front of a wide, deep stage with an absolutely gigantic screen displayed in the back. Iron railings stood situated in front from what Timmy could see. Although there were trees situated around them, behind the metal support beams was a clear, inky sky, twinkling with a brilliant dusting of stars. The crescent moon hung above them, illuminating the crowd in pale, weak moonlight. Sitting on the unlit stage was a small table with some sort of black box with knobs and buttons on it, and a microphone stand without a mic. Nothing else. The campers busied themselves with unending chatter, standing in darkness and silence for minutes at a time.

“I’m not feeling good about this, guys,” Timmy thought worriedly.

Cosmo and Wanda sensed their godson’s growing unease, sparing a glance at each other. “Just say the word and we’ll poof you guys outta here, sport,” Wanda reassured him, sending a wave of determination to him.

Music Track 08 – Enter: Switch!

Out of nowhere, a heavy, thumping drum set burst through the ears of the campers, scaring the daylights out of more than a few. Cymbals crashed rhythmically against the distorted kick and thick thwack of the layered snare. A bubbling, almost imperceptible bassline rumbled through Timmy’s entire chest, nearly forcing his feet to start tapping. Other campers started to loosen up a bit, as well; the addition of shuffling hi-hats and a double-time tamborine gave life to the hard four-by-four groove, and before anyone knew it, the mass of teenagers had begun to really get into it.

The scratch of a turntable’s record and a piercing ‘ow!’ bellowed out alongside an echoing, infectious piano riff. By now, Timmy had yet to see any movement on the stage – it still stood empty and dark. Suddenly, little flickers of light had started to pop up from the fixtures situated above it, responding to different elements of the song and through different colors. “Dig this,” a voice in the song instructed every so often. The pink-hatted boy looked to the rest of the crowd and saw that everyone was having a hard time not moving to the rhythm of the jam; even Robin, who seemed like the most focused and serious in the cabin, had resigned himself to nodding his head to the beat much more enthusiastically than Timmy was sure he ever meant to do in public.

Then the kick dropped out of the song, leaving just the percussion and the vocal effects to run unaffected in the background. The piano’s melody shifted ever so slightly, adding hits of unexpected, extremely satisfying lower notes that made the crowd whoop and cheer. From out of Timmy’s peripheral vision came a tall, shadowy figure, jogging up from behind the stage and letting whatever head covering it had flow from the speed at which it approached the small table. The lights fully brightened and revealed the form of the figure that had rushed the stage.

He was a brown-skinned dude that looked no older than most of the teenagers in the audience. A white tee-shirt with loose, floppy sleeves hung over his lean frame, while a pair of casual black shorts and very, very well-loved sneakers adorned his feet, white tube socks drooping and stacking in different lengths. Most curiously was another, smaller white tee that was wrapped around his head, the sleeves draping over his ears and reaching his shoulders like a long haircut.

It was at that point that Timmy realized there weren’t any speakers in or around the stage.

Cosmo and Wanda’s magic senses went through the roof.

With a red remote control in his hand and a manic grin set in place, the guy howled into the remote like a microphone at the top of his lungs, screaming and reverberating through every ear that sat in that area: “Welcome to Camp Arcadiaaaaaa!”

The place fell apart.

He didn’t so much as start jumping as he did bouncing with the energy of a thousand kindergartners on a Halloween sugar rush. Knees to chest, arms spread out wide, landing exclusively on the balls of his feet. To his credit, as soon as he began bouncing, the rest of the campers followed suit, roaring back in deafening response.

“MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE, AND YOUR HOUSE IS MINE,” came the repetitive affirmation from the teenager, pointing his makeshift mic into the crowd and whipping his shirt-hair all around without a care in the world. “MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE, AND YOUR HOUSE IS MINE!”

The crowd was in a frenzy. Forget about the energy being in the air, it was damn near physically present. The ones in the front had gripped onto the iron railings and were headbanging like it was the rawest punk rock show on Earth; the majority that sat in the middle and in the back had formed one, amorphous moshpit, where some were jacking their arms and body back and forth, another handful were giddily dancing with every fiber of their being, and others were content to make the ground beneath their feet shake with their rhythmic jumping. A chorus of girlish cheers and boyish whoops roared from the crowd. The screen on stage dazzled brilliantly, flashing the words “MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE” in every type of color.

Timmy felt somebody put their arm around his neck and start bouncing, spurring the buck-toothed teen on to jam excitedly with the quickly-forming moshpit around him and his cabin. He didn’t know hardly any of these people, but at this moment in time, with this music playing, they could feel what he felt and Timmy knew where they were coming from. With each push, he pushed back. He got screamed at incoherently, so he yelled back just as discordantly. The pink-hatted boy had become fully entrenched into the emotions of the music, happily repeating back to the guy on stage his looping statement: “My house is your house, and your house is mine!”

“SING IT!” he yelled.

“My house is your house, and your house is mine!”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOUUU!”

“MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE, AND YOUR HOUSE IS MINE!” they all screeched back.

“ONE MORE TIME!” he commanded mid-way. This time, he joined in alongside everyone else, joyously replying:

“MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE, AND YOUR HOUSE IS MINE!” (ow!)

The teenager on stage tapped buttons on the strange black box on tempo to the music, each turn of a knob and push of a switch making an audible change to the music the pulsated through the airwaves. He flipped his intense gaze back to the crowd, stomping his heels against the wood and fingers latched onto one of the knobs, eyes never leaving the faces in the crowd. He caught Timmy’s eye and grinned, pointing dead at the headbanging teen.

Timmy froze. He pointed back to him, unsure – and for a split second, Timmy could swear he saw his eyes light up in a rainbow of color – and was surprised when he saw the teenager leap off stage, black box and mic-remote in hand, and run across the length of the fence getting into people’s faces and giving out hi-fives.

“Now that’s what I like to see in this motherfucker!” he cursed, absolutely elated. “I see you dancing over there, keep that shit going!”

He hopped back onto the stage and addressed the crowd again, doing the same call-and-response as earlier as the instruments dropped out one by one and the piano’s melody got simpler. “Sing along! MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE, AND YOUR HOUSE IS MINE!”

The audience replied in kind. “MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE, AND YOUR HOUSE IS MINE!”

“MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE, AND YOUR HOUSE IS MINE!”

Suddenly, as if struck, Timmy understood what the teen was trying to get across. He had never, ever seen a live show like this. Everyone was dancing, bouncing, screaming along to the music, laughing with the people next to them.

“Sing that shit to your neighbor!”

The pink-hatted teen turned to the guys that were linking wrapped shoulders with him in the moshpit and answered, “My house is your house, and your house is mine!”

Eventually, all that remained was the looping vocal and the persistent drums, the teenager on the stage still going as hard as he did when the song began. He lifted the remote one last time, screaming, “MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE-!”

“AND YOUR HOUSE IS MINE!”

The song ended with an echo of the last line, fading out into the raucous cheer from the crowd. The teenager that had led the musical riot grinned breathlessly, shaking around his shirt so that it wouldn’t fall in front of his eyes. He laid down flat on the floor of the stage, holding up the arm that gripped the remote-microphone, his chest rising and lowering at an accelerated pace. “Whoo!” he huffed out. “Hopefully y’all liked that little introduction me ‘n my fellow camprunners came up with!”

At the sound of cheers, whoops and loud whistles from the crowd, the dude sat up on his feet and grinned, walking forward to sit on the foot of the stage. “I gotta say, this is my first time performing anything, but I never seen a bunch of people as rowdy as this. Y’all made me feel like I actually did a ‘lil somethin’!”

He scanned the crowd left and right, placing a fist under his cheek. “Boy, it’s a lotta different fellas ‘n ladies down here. Y’all feelin’ alright this wonderful evening?!”

The crowd roared once again with approval. Timmy could hardly believe his eyes – who was this guy?

The teenager sat up with a deep bow and a mischievous smirk. “My name is Switch, and this is my Camp,” he introduced himself.

“Welcome to my House .”

Chapter Text

Girls’ Cabin Two, Camp Arcadia, 7:58AM, Sunday.

///

Tootie Valentine was used to sharing a space.

Living with an older sister meant dealing with hogged bathrooms, long-term borrowed makeup, and revenge pranks for flushing the toilet while someone else was in the shower. She could handle that, no problem.

It’s an entirely different story living in a cabin with thirteen other girls.

Particularly when you’ve known them for less than a day and it’s the night after you’ve all partied until two in the morning.

And you have to be up by eight.

On a Sunday.

The first slivers of dawnlight crept through the shuttered windows of Cabin Two, pooling at base of the bunk beds that sat firm on the smooth, uneven surface of its deep mahogany floors. It was still dark enough for Tootie to lethargically peek through lead-heavy eyelids and curl back up on her side with a silent yawn. Gentle snores and mattress creaks echoed through the quiet scene, the beginnings of a peaceful morning unfolding as the sun rose.

Of course, that didn’t mean other people weren’t already awake.

The entrance to the cabin flew open, swinging around and slamming against the wall with a thundering bang. The sandled foot that kicked it open – still hanging steadily in the air where the door used to be – was attached to the manically grinning form of an Asian woman in a tan miniskirt and a beige overcoat, peculiarly garbed down to her calves in a razor-thin metal mesh fabric, her mauve hair up in a messy, voluminous bun.

“Rrrrrr-rise and shine, kiddos!” the woman giddily bellowed, practically skipping over to yank open the blinds, letting the harsh rays of sunlight illuminate the cabin. “C’mon, c’mon, get yer scrawny asses up! Campmaster’s got a couple announcements to make during breakfast, and I’ll be damned if my cabin gets to the Mess Hall after Blake’s or Fenton’s!”

Whoever hadn’t already had a heart attack from the gunshot-like impact of the door against the cabin wall was certainly awake now, either due to the loud commands of their scratchy-voiced counselor or the violent brightness of the open shutters. A cacophony of disappointed groans and annoyed murmurs rang out over the noise the woman was rousing.

“I’m gonna kill her,” the blonde girl in the bunk below Tootie growled monotonously. “I’m gonna bury her body in the woods, and then I’m gonna tend a flowerbed on her grave.”

Tootie rubbed her eyes as she sat up on her elbow, landing on bare feet upon leaping from the top. “Promise that I get to pick the flowers and I’ll help,” she grumbled back.

As if she heard the girls’ grouching from all the way across the room, the woman’s light-brown gaze twitched towards Tootie and her bunkmate, effectively freezing the two in place. She walked over at a nonchalant pace, hands behind her back. “If ya wanna take me out, might I suggest not plannin’ it out in your target’s face?” she offered pleasantly, her posture and closed-mouth smile radiating ‘danger!’

To the woman’s surprise, both girls returned an unimpressed look back. “I grew up with my big sister before she started seein’ a shrink,” Tootie stated plainly. “It’s gonna take a helluva lot more than that to scare me, Miss Anko.”

The woman – Anko – snapped her fingers in recognition. “Ah, that’s right. You’re Valentine’s mini-me, eh?” she guessed, hands on her hips. “Gimme yer name again?”

“Mini-me?! I do not look that much like Vicky!” The raven-haired girl frowned, resting her still-exhausted form against the bedpost. “Tootie.”

Anko’s sharp grin became downright sinister. “Well, Tootie,” she mockingly emphasized, looming forwards until their faces were millimeters away from touching noses. “Your sister asked me personally to make sure I took care of you. Let’s see if we can’t get along this summer, hm? Four months is a mighty long time, after all.”

Tootie fought against the sudden shiver of fear that ran down her spine.

The lavendernette turned her attention to Tootie’s blonde co-conspirator, same terrifyingly affable smile in place. “What about you, Cheery? Don’tcha know to run away from trouble when ya see it?”

The blonde – who couldn’t have stood any taller than five feet even, wearing a simple set of silk, powder-pink pajamas with a bright blue flower on the front of her slender frame – simply folded her arms, staring at Anko head on. “It’s Mandy. And trouble usually runs away from me screaming, if it’s smart.”

Anko actually snorted and laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s adorable. Just my luck to get a couple gakis with some spunk,” she snickered, completely unaffected by the shorter girl’s threatening gaze. “Chop, chop, brats!” she yelled, turning on her heel to walk back to the middle of the spacious cabin. “Last one outta the showers isn’t eating, ‘n don’t think I’ll forget who it was!”

Tootie sighed, tying up the back of her thick hair in a loose ponytail. She turned to look at Mandy with a small smirk. “‘Trouble runs away from me screaming?’ A little edgy, don’t ya think?” she joked lightly.

“What makes you think I didn’t mean it?” Mandy replied curtly, shoulder-length hair fanning out as she stalked off towards the bathroom.

///

One by one, everyone shuffled groggily to the adjacent bathroom at the behest of their boisterous leader, half-asleep as they brushed teeth and combed hair at their own personal sinks. Barely half an hour later, the freshly-showered and absolutely miserable girls of Cabin Two marched in line to a mostly empty Mess Hall, making Anko’s sadistic smile widen to truly joyful proportions.

“Ha!” she cheered as she pumped a fist in the air, oblivious to the pile of exhausted campers behind her. “Point one for the single and sexy Mitarashi Anko! Let’s see Foster or Dinkley try ‘n bet against me next time!”

“More like the cruel and unusual…” murmured a raspy-voiced girl with plum-shaded hair from behind Tootie, inciting a wave of giggles and hushed laughter. Anko’s wordless glare and narrowed eyes silenced any remaining amusement, jabbing her thumb to a nearby table that the girls hurriedly filled up without a peep.

“Top o’ the mornin’, Miss Anko,” greeted a bedraggled man with a shaggy haircut and stubbly, salt-and-pepper beard. Tootie had seen Anko sitting beside him yesterday at the counselors’ table, and he was as twitchy then as he was now. Seemed to be polite, though.

“Looks like you’re the first from the girls’ side, then?” he asked, heavy British accent coloring his inflections.

The mauve-haired woman seemed to preen, gloating as she smiled. “Damn right! I dunno what Kakashi’s always complainin’ about, all you gotta do is scare the brats to death and the job’s basically done for ya.”

Shaggy Dog Man snorted, sipping from his coffee mug. “How are you already starting to sound like Mad-Eye and it’s been less than a day?”

“He reminds me of my mentor back home. The man’s insane, but I like his style,” Anko snickered.

The man grinned with a sly smirk into his cup. “In that case, I’m sure you could ask Kakashi to lend you his students for an afternoon if you’re willing to test out your new epiphany? I’ve heard him tell one or two stories and they seem right up your alley. I’ve even got one of ‘em in my Cabin!”

Anko blanched. “Hell no. Him and Team Kamikaze are an occupational hazard I can’t afford to be around. I’ve seen the mission reports and the state those four leave the training grounds, nuh-uh, not a chance.”

She glanced past him at the busy gathering of boys at a table further away from where her girls sat, brow furrowing. “Uh, Sirius?”

“Yes?” the man – Sirius – replied.

“One of your brats is bright red. And I think he’s got the short blond in a headlock. Huh, I don’t remember the Uchiha brat getting that scar recently.”

Sirius groaned, hurrying back over to his cabin’s table. “Knuckles, what did I say about using your words?!”

Tootie stifled another giggle. Anko swivelled her head back around to the bracefaced girl, frowning. “What’re you doin’ eavesdropping? Scram, brat!”

The raven-haired girl jumped and scurried to where the rest of her cabin were making conversation.

Sounds of ruffling from the kitchen subconsciously made her stomach rumble, the prospect of breakfast planted firmly in her sleepy mind. It still looked to be closed so Tootie sat, quietly observing some of her other cabinmates socialize. The sun’s bright rays beaming through the large ceiling window stood in stark contrast to the unlit Mess Hall, giving the atmosphere a clash of steel blue and radiant yellow from the light that reflected from the concrete floors. The ruckus from the boys in Gai’s cabin filled in the hollow space beside the quiet mutters from the exhausted girls of Cabin Two.

Tootie noticed that Mandy took one of the spots next to her, but she found herself unable to strike up a conversation with the morose girl. She didn’t seem like she was the type to get very chummy with people.

Tootie glanced out one of the cafeteria’s windows with a sad frown. “I wish Trix and Veronica were here. Never really have to worry about running outta stuff to talk about whenever they’re around. At least if one of them got the same cabin as me, I’d feel way less awkward about trying to make some friends.”

“Excuse me? Is it okay if I sit here?”

A soft voice interrupted Tootie’s thoughts, looking up to the figure to her right. She was tall and willowy, and could definitely benefit from a little time in the sun. Wavy, jet black bangs sat beneath a wide-brimmed sun hat. Light shades of purple and pink eye shadow framed her wide, expressive eyes. The same pastels matched the loose sash that wrapped around the waist of her black, longsleeved dress and leggings, finished with a pair of plain ballet flats. The girl flashed a shy, unsure smile that Tootie returned, setting her at ease.

“Yeah, go for it,” Tootie replied, scooching over to make a little more room for the spindling girl. “You’re… Lydia?”

The girl brightened and nodded, “Yeah! Lydia Deetz, nice to meet you, uh…” she trailed, scrunching her eyebrows together. “Tootie?”

The bespectacled girl was pleasantly surprised, braced smile widening. “Yep!”

“Awesome!” Lydia chirped. “I’ve been trying my best to remember everyone’s name from yesterday, even if it’s been a little tough.”

She looked across Tootie’s shoulder at Mandy and gave a small wave. “Mandy, right? I didn’t really get a chance to say hi before.”

The standoffish blonde stared back at Lydia, stiff and unblinking. “...Hi.”

Another beat of silence. Lydia glanced at Tootie and looked back to Mandy. “Er, where did you say you were from again?”

“Endsville,” she yawned, placing a hand beneath her cheek. “It’s a dump someone decided to put in the middle of Washington.”

Across the table, a tanned, dark-haired girl dressed in a black crop top and a zig-zagging tartan skirt looked at Mandy curiously, taking a seat. “You’re from Washington, too?” the teenager – who Tootie and Lydia remembered as Samanatha – questioned excitedly. “You didn’t tell us that yesterday! You got any idea how far it might be from Amity Park?”

This time it was Mandy’s turn to quirk an eyebrow in confusion. “I have less than no clue where, or what, that is,” she deadpanned.

“Seriously?” Sam said disbelievingly. “C’mon, Most Haunted Place on Earth, home to Seattle’s Million and One Ghosts, not ringing any bells?”

A diminutive, curvy girl with amaranthine locks, a black shirt layered with a grey longsleeve, black skirt and striped stockings, gave a mirthless snort beside Sam. “Please don’t mention that around my troglodyte brother,” she snarked, not sparing a glance from the handheld game console cradled in her hands. “It’s bad enough dealing with him and Zim embarrassing me on a daily basis. The last thing I need is either of them bugging us the whole summer about some dumb tourist trap.”

Sam rolled her eyes, folding her arms. “Whatever, Gaz. I’m just saying, it’s kinda weird. People from all across the entire state come to my hometown for Halloween, it’s hard to believe someone could just not know.”

“I’d be sorry to have disrupted your place in the universe if I cared,” Mandy replied sarcastically.

“I’ll tell you what’s weird,” Coraline – another cabinmate with a glossy, midnight-blue bob framing her pretty, ovaline features, cloaked in a tattered, olive rain jacket with a bright red tee underneath – interjected from Lydia’s right side, rattling off facts on her multicoloured nails. “The intergalactic hyperspeed space trip we took to get here, or how our stuff just popped outta nowhere on our beds when we got to our cabin, and the fact that that guy, Switch or whatever, he was on stage last night, making music play without any speakers-”

“Arson, robbery and jaywalkin’, huh?” Yumi muttered, eyes closed as she nestled her head between her arms on the table. She was the punk rocker girl with the contralto voice, dark lipstick and messy, lilac hair Tootie had heard earlier.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Coraline frowned, turning her gaze toward her.

“It means, considering everything else that’s happened, some musical magic might be the least of our worries,” commented Mai, a svelte, dark-haired girl with sharp, beautiful features, who sat bored as she twirled a small metal toothpick between her slender fingers.

“To be fair, that guy’s music magic is what got us here,” Lydia pointed out. At this point, the rest of the girls of Cabin Two had gathered around the large table, interested in the conversation that was playing out.

Coraline gestured gratefully toward the pale girl. “Ex-actly!” she exclaimed. “How are you guys not freaking out as much as I am? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to tell people that magic and stuff is real without looking completely insane?!”

“Perhaps you’re just late to the party,” Luna remarked bluntly, her voice soft and faraway. “It seems like the rest of us may already be well-acquainted with the unusual.”

Lydia began pointedly fiddling with the frayed edge of her dress.

Lovegood was an odd girl, with dirty blonde hair that reached past her waist, large, bright slivery-grey eyes, and a lithe build like a ballet dancer’s. A long, thin stick was perched above one of her small ears alongside pair of not-quite-radish-shaped earrings.

Tootie let out a small chuckle. “Speak for yourself, sister,” she disagreed. “Until Saturday, the most I ever heard about magic was from my old homeroom teacher before he got committed.”

“Oh, how lovely!” crooned Luna. “Was the reception fun? I’ve always wanted to be invited to a wedding.”

The silky-voiced girl who sat across from Luna, with coal-colored, neck-length hair cut into high bangs and a sleeveless black dress, and whose jade eyes shone with intelligence – Ingrid Third, Lydia recalled – bit her red lip to keep from laughing. “I don’t think that’s the kinda commitment she means, Luna,” she replied gently.

Luna pouted, folding her arms. “Oh, poo.”

“...One of my friends thinks we might all not come from the same Earth,” spoke Raven, quickly getting the other girls’ attention.

The mysterious girl’s entire body was hidden beneath a navy blue cloak that pooled at her feet, hiding most of her face save for her intense violet eyes that seemed to glow beneath the shadows of her hood. She’d talked about herself in sparse words the day before, and only seemed to really talk to the more outspoken girl with the shockingly greyish skin tone and hot pink, horned-shaped hairdo that had travelled with her.

“Rae!” Jinx – her pink-haired friend – sent her an urgent glare.

Raven just shrugged. “It’s not like it’s all that hard to figure out. Have you guys actually seen some of the other campers?”

At that, Tootie’s line of sight involuntarily turned towards a girl who hadn’t uttered a single, solitary word since the other girls had met her the day prior. She was sitting between Raven and Luna, silently drinking in the conversation as her facial expressions did the heavy lifting in response to what she heard. Her skin was like porcelain, an otherworldly snow white without a hint of color or blemish. She was of average height, her petite build seeming to allow her to blend into the background at will. She had shadowy, unruly hair that seemed to stick out in all directions, covering one of her inverted eyes, the white of her sclera an unnerving pitch black. Her stygian sweater contrasted underneath a simple cream dress that stopped at her knees.

Anko had introduced her as Erma Williams, and when her silvery iris met Tootie’s, a strong shiver of fear and guilt rankled up her spine. The bracefaced girl sent a faint, apologetic smile her way.

Erma pressed her lips together, making the corners of her mouth turn slightly upwards. The flash of hurt in her downturned eyes spoke louder.

Whatever else Raven was about to say was interrupted by the sudden influx of other campers from both sides of the cafeteria. It seemed like the rest of the cabins were finally awake and ready to get their grub on. The kitchen’s lights flickered to life, clouds of steam and the sounds of running sinks emanating from the back.

“Oh, thank God,” Yumi moaned. “I’ve been freakin’ starving, one more minute and I woulda went back there and started cooking myself!”

Tootie turned away from the growing crowd and back to Erma, but she’d already disappeared. She grimaced and sighed, resolving to make sure she apologized to the spooky girl when she had the chance.

“Do you think she’s right?” Lydia asked hesitantly. Tootie blinked, refocusing back on the girl next to her. “What Raven said, I mean. You think we all came from a different Earth?”

Tootie could only flash her a weak grin. “Betcha it’ll make for a crazy story for the first day of school, huh?”

///

Once she’d gotten out of line for breakfast (a glorious, deliciously aromatic plate of stacked pancakes with strawberries), Tootie plopped back down at her cabin’s table next to Lydia once more, eager to finally get some food in her empty belly.

“So, did you come with anybody else?” Lydia inquired, biting into a strawberry.

“Yeah!” Tootie responded. “Me and a handful of my best friends got invitation letters in the mail around the same time, so we all decided to pile into my friend Chester’s RV together.”

Lydia chuckled. “Must’ve been kinda cramped.”

“Not even! ...Well, I mean, my friend Trixie was sleeping on the ceiling, but she wanted to!” Tootie laughed.

“Hey, at least you weren’t by yourself,” the willowy girl shivered. “I was barely inside my mom’s car before I got shot into the stratosphere. I thought it was one of Beej’s pranks at first until I looked out the window!”

“Beej?” Tootie asked.

Lydia’s eyes widened as she paused mid-chew. She swallowed deliberately, tittering nervously. “Er, he’s my best friend,” she explained vaguely.

“Oh, cool! Did he come with you?”

She shook her head quickly. “No! No, no, uh, he wasn’t invited. Came by myself, remember?”

Tootie gave Lydia an odd look. A tense couple of second passed before the bracefaced girl laughed out loud. “You seriously suck at lying.”

Lydia had the grace to look embarrassed, smiling sheepishly. “Promise I’ll explain when I’m a little less scared of getting burned at the stake,” she half-joked.

Tootie nudged her with an elbow, scanning the room for a couple familiar faces. “Here, lemme show you who I came with,” she grinned.

First, she spied a bookish woman with glasses and a poofy orange sweater next to a shorter, red-headed woman with a high ponytail and a lime-green zip-up hoodie. The two were placing a handful of bills into Anko’s hand at the counselor’s table, an annoyed scowl on their faces as she cackled happily, counting out the dollars one-by-one. She split a small amount with her big sister, who inclined her head with a devious smirk.

“Definitely begging Vicky for cash later,” Tootie thought with a small giggle. “That’s my big sister, Vicky,” she explained to Lydia, pointing her out.

Further to the left, she saw Chester chattering along with his table, talking to an excited teenager with russet-colored hair and a triangular head shape and – she had to rub her eyes to make sure she was seeing right – a lanky, saffron-furred fox with two tails and a pair of welder’s goggles on top of his head, right in between his twitching, fuzzy ears.

“And there’s Chester, he’s the blond-haired guy with the braces,” Tootie faltered, tilting her head. “I think- is he talking to a fox?”

“Ohmigosh, histailslooksosoft!” Lydia exclaimed behind her hands, eyes twinkling.

Another anthropomorphic animal, this one’s fur a vibrant, electric blue with long spines and pointy ears, quickly zipped around the table to approach the fox-boy with a wide grin. The two reared back, and knocked foreheads together in greeting, yelling “Bonk!”

The blue animal guy sat back over by the boys’ Cabin Four, where Tootie singled out AJ to Lydia. “That’s AJ, we’ve been friends since forever. Smartest dude you'll ever meet. Unfortunately, also one of the most annoying."

Lydia snickered and Tootie continued, "Me, him and Chester’ve all been in the same school since kindergarten.”

AJ and Jimmy were in an enthusiastic conversation with a boy with dark, circular sunglasses that was covered from head to toe in an army-green cloak, and a bespectacled, dapper dude with flaxen hair and freckles, as the rest of the guys there listened along in rapt attention. She felt herself smile; whatever they were talking about had to be nerdy to the N^th degree.

“Heh! Like I have any room to talk,” Tootie remarked self-deprecatingly. How many pounds of quarters had she dropped at the arcade and the comic shop with Trixie and Chester over the years?

Speaking of whom, she switched over to the right of the Mess Hall where the majority of the girls sat. Trixie was busy making conversation with a short, cocoa-skinned girl with curly puffs on either side of her head, a blonde that he had come to their table yesterday – Rachel, one of Nigel’s friends – and a kind-looking girl with caramel-colored skin, long, shiny black hair and a floral-patterned red dress who was showing off her peculiar-looking blue dog to the other girls. The tomboyish girl caught Tootie’s eye and waved with a happy smile, the other girls looking back and deciding to wave too. Tootie grinned and waved back enthusiastically.

“Lemme guess, Trixie?” Lydia asked expectantly.

“What makes you think so?” Tootie replied.

Lydia giggled. “She strikes me as the type to take her beauty sleep serious,” she jested.

Tootie rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell her you said that,” she warned. “Nowadays, she’ll swear up and down that she’s not some prissy princess. Me personally, I’ve never met another girl with a longer bedtime skin routine.”

With a teasing smile, she continued, “Sometimes me and Ver even make bets to see who gets closer to how long it takes for us to hit the hay when we’re havin’ sleepovers!”

“Ver?” Lydia asked.

“Veronica,” Tootie explained. “Trix’s best friend. And one of mine, too, by now.”

A couple tables beyond Trixie’s, Tootie spotted Veronica deep in what she could reasonably assume was “girl talk”, judging by the sheer amount of scandalized dropped-jaws, casually flicked wrists, and high-pitched, gleeful laughter from the other girls around her.

“We didn’t get along for the longest time, y’know,” she blurted, catching Lydia’s intrigue. “I thought she and Ronnie were stuck-up, rich-girl bullies, and they thought I was an annoying, geeky weirdo. Definitely no love lost between the three of us.”

“Whoa. What changed?” Lydia inquired.

A brief, pained, wistful expression brought the raven-haired girl’s gaze downwards. She found Lydia’s concerned eye and plastered a half-hearted smile on her face, picking at what remained of her fruit on her plate. “We found some common ground,” she murmured.

Curiously, one of the athletic-looking girls inhabiting Cabin Seven’s table had powder blue skin and rainbow-colored hair, and looked to be having an argument with a white-furred bat girl who paid more attention to her nails than whatever Skittles was rattling on about.

“Wow, Raven really wasn’t kidding,” a new voice to Tootie’s left echoed.

Lydia and Tootie both yelped.

Another girl, who’d appeared seemingly out of nowhere and was staring in the same direction as them, looked back at the two with a small, abashed smile.

Her honeyed voice had a hint of a lisp, and paired with her big, periwinkle eyes, dark freckles and lopsided grin, her outward demeanor set both girls at ease. Her long, curtained hair was an inky black-indigo, held back by a bright yellow hairband. Apparelled in a pink flannel and stonewashed jeans that flattered her dainty build and flared hips, Violet Parr might’ve been on the quieter side of the girls in Cabin Two, but she had an air of approachability that Lydia shared and Tootie appreciated.

“Where did you… Were you always sitting there?” Lydia asked, astonished.

A mysterious smile bloomed on Violet’s face behind her glass of orange juice. “I get that a lot,” she said dismissively. “Anyways, how crazy is all this, right? We’re walking around real-life aliens like it’s just another regular day!”

“No kidding,” Lydia agreed.

“Maybe it’s a comparison thing,” Violet surmised. “It helps that no one seems to wanna cause trouble or anything.”

Lydia pursed her lips, shrugging. “What do you think, Tootie?”

Tootie, however, was searching for one last buck-toothed boy to point out to her (maybe?) new friends. The longer it took for her to find him, the more worried she became.“Where is that dweeb at?”

Finally, she saw him. As the rest of his cabin were immersed in conversation and laughter, Timmy seemed to be detached, only occasionally looking up to reply or half-heartedly chuckle at something Hoagie or Sheen said. Someone who wasn’t familiar with him might’ve chalked his mood up to early-morning grumpiness (and if you were to ask him, that’s exactly what he’d blame it on too), but she knew her best friend better. It’d been forever since Timmy didn’t have her, or AJ, Veronica, hell, any one of their friends around him for more than a day.

How long had she and Vicky been picking him up at Chester’s house for school and meeting them both at AJ’s for the weekend? When had he not picked up his fish from Veronica’s and held them close like it was all that he had when he thought no one was paying attention? When was the last time she’d actually seen either of the Turners at Timmy’s house when he inevitably had to return just to change out his laundry?

Timmy’s moody eyes wandered around the cafeteria until they finally landed on Tootie’s. He waved half-heartedly and tried to give her his best “don’t worry” smile. Her heart clenched, but she waved back anyway, hoping some of her enthusiasm would rub off on him.

“Hey, Earth to Tootie!” a voice at the table called, rousing Tootie out of her thoughts. She turned around towards Lydia, who was looking at her with an amused smirk. “You okay?”

“Yeah!” Tootie replied hastily, sitting back down. “Yeah, no, I was just looking for my other friend, Timmy. He’s over by Cabin Two, the one with the pink… er, everything on.”

Violet peeked over her shoulder at who Tootie described, face shifting from curiosity to concern. “Is he alright? He looks kinda sad.”

Lydia noticed the same pensive expression appear on Tootie that she had a little earlier talking about Trixie and Veronica.

The bracefaced girl sighed, wearily shrugging. “Long story.”

Suddenly, the ground beneath the girls’ feet started to tremble. First, like heavy footsteps on a building’s second floor; a few seconds later, the tremors vibrated the Mess Hall’s marble like a small earthquake.

The campers started to panic, as cabin counselors hurried over from their table to where their cabins huddled, looking all around to see what was making the commotion. Tootie saw Anko’s body somehow flicker and close the 20-foot gap between them in the blink of an eye. In her right palm was a sharp, angled knife and a deadly serious countenance. There was no trace of the boisterous, sarcastic lady they’d gotten to know.

Then, just as sudden as it started, the quaking stopped. The air stilled. Nobody breathed.

From Vicky’s table, a coffee-skinned girl with huge, poofy, hazel pigtails gasped, pointing up at the glass ceiling. “Look!”

Automatically, every head snapped upwards. Initially, all Tootie could see was a bird, whistling as it travelled across the blue morning sky. Once she squinted, however, she noticed that it wasn’t moving in a straight arrow; it started to slow down. And then she noticed that the bird was getting bigger, and bigger, until she realized that it wasn’t a bird at all – it was the flailing arms and legs of a person.

And he wasn’t getting bigger – he was getting closer.

Tootie heard an all-too-familiar, terrified, atmosphere-filling voice screaming, “WRONG SPELL! WRONG SPELL!!”

Several things all happened at once.

A bunch of people made a run for the exits. Blinding flashes of light sparked around the cafeteria, first at AJ’s table, then Chester’s. The azure-skinned girl from Cabin Seven threw off her black bomber jacket to reveal a beautiful set of long, feathery wings, blitzing out of the door at breakneck speeds. Streaks of blue, pink and green followed quickly after her.

Tootie could hardly believe her eyes, but one of the girls from Cindy’s cabin – a tall redhead in a magenta miniskirt and high boots – was flying towards the falling dude in an effort to catch him.

Unfortunately for her, so were a handful of other campers.

He was coming to the ground way, way too fast for her to just grab him where he was without seriously hurting him, so the redhead guided her hands to be under him as she matched his speed, intending to gently slow his descent. However, as soon as she met him halfway, another… alien creature had gotten there at the same time. Its body was a mixture of white, black and sickly greenish color with papery, dragonfly-like wings and four orange eyes on prehensile stalks. The creature roared – an oddly panicked, human-sounding noise – and beat its wings backwards, as if it didn’t see Wonder Girl already where he was quickly heading, crashing into her and sending all three into a free-fall.

The fox from Chester’s cabin was somehow rapidly spinning his twin tails side-by-side, managing to catch Wonder Girl underneath her shoulders before she could fall any faster, and it took the three color-coded triplet girls that dashed behind Blue Girl to wrangle the slimy, heavy body of the other alien creature. The winged girl weaved deftly between all of them and grabbed the falling guy by his wrist, but was unexpectedly yanked downwards along with him.

By now, they were no longer so high up that they were pinpricks in the sky; they were coming dangerously close to the roof of the Mess Hall.

Skittles was yanking her arm up, keeping a grip on the falling guy’s wrist and flapping her wings violently against the velocity of the fall to try and break their plunge. But either her grip was too flimsy or her rescuee was too heavy, because not a second later, he slipped.

The blue girl, startled, scrambled to catch his hand again. She didn’t.

Tootie’s eyes widened, and so did hers.

With a resounding CRASH!, his back smashed through the glass ceiling.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Tootie was able to count the split seconds like the minutes of an algebra class after lunch break. Everybody’s eyes were on the guy who was surely about to become a human pancake on the cafeteria floor at 8:26 in the morning. An entire roof’s worth of broken glass followed after him, a couple feet away from raining down on the horrified campers and counselors.

In the corner by Cabin Six to Tootie’s right, a girlish voice commanded, “MEGA GLITTER FEATHER CARPET!”

An all-consuming glimmer of light summoned a plume of glossy, soft, white feathers moving and weaving themselves into stretches of thick blankets on the floor. They popped into reality just in time for the guy to land into them with a heavy “oof!” , his body sinking deeply into them. The shards of glass, however, were coming down fast, and Tootie shielded herself with her arm and shut her eyes to avoid the worst of it.

But after a few seconds, the worst never came.

When she opened her eyes, Tootie was shocked to her core for at least the fifth or sixth time today. Surrounding her, Lydia, Sunny, Rocko, indeed everybody inside the Mess Hall, was a transparent purple dome of light. Ripples of energy pulsated throughout the bubble rhythmically. She turned toward Lydia, who looked no worse for wear but plenty flabbergasted. Then she followed the macabre girl’s gaze back to the newest addition to her little breakfast club.

There, holding her hands up with a fresh sheen of sweat across her wrinkled brow, was Violet. She exchanged a look with the two girls, a mix of fear and intense concentration clear on her face. Slowly, she folded her outstretched hands back into her palms, and the dome faded away. Glass slid to the floor, the clattering sounds of shardlets scattering to the campers’ feet.

If the cafeteria was quiet before, now it had become absolutely silent.

Everybody who had flown from outside were standing in the open doorways, breathing heavily. The hourglass symbol on the alien creature’s head flashed red and, in a burst of green light, revealed a brown-haired teenager in a white shirt and cargo pants with a strange watch around his wrist sitting flat on the ground, still astonished.

Tootie was at a loss for words. She figured she could be forgiven for that, seeing as how no one else was saying much of anything.

“Ooooh,” a voice moaned, reverberating inside everyone’s ears. All eyes refocused back on the big pile of gaudy feathers that held what should have been a very, very, very dead man.

Crawling out of the comfortable wreckage was their Campmaster, who had lost a shoe and broken an arm off of his eyeglasses, hanging uselessly on one ear. He shook his head clear a couple of times, refitting the ever-present white shirt over his head and cracking the kinks out of his back.

“Note to self, ask Remus to look into a teleportation spell next time ,” he murmured to himself. Or rather, to the entire room.

He looked up at the incredulous, highly worried faces on his campers and counselors and brandished a nervous smile, scratching at his chin.

“ Uh... sorry to make you guys wait?” Switch said, voice modulating from commanding and omnipresent to a shy baritone.

///

Once Switch finally got settled (choosing to sit crosslegged on the summoned feather carpet with his breakfast), it was time for the promised morning announcements. Although, from how he was acting, Tootie had a hard time believing this was the same guy who was flying across the stage last night inciting the crowd into a screaming, bouncing riot.

Standing next to his right-hand-men, the Campmaster made the neurotic Rocko appear as natural as Doug Dimmadome in front of a news camera. His eyes were wide and anxious, and he kept taking shaky sips of orange juice like he’d never been in front of people before.

Sunny put a supportive hand on his shoulder. With a deep breath, Switch exhaled and smiled gratefully at the older man. He looked out into the crowd and his posture relaxed, chest puffing an inch forward.

“G-G’morning, everyone !” he greeted, putting his old voice back on and startling the shit out of everyone else.

“Good morning!”

He clapped his hands together and stammered, “Now, uh, I guess we got some… some orders of business to talk about, huh?”

The Campmaster sat casually on the bed of feathers, resting his folded arms on upturned knees. “So! First things first; nice to officially meet all of you guys face to face,” he said. “Super, super sorry for setting y’all on edge and for the, uh.. the crash landing.” His eyes guiltily glanced upwards at the exposed roof of the Mess Hall.

“I’d asked one of my assistants about an easier way to get from my house all the way down here, but as it turns out, a spell meant for making something bouncy does not translate very well to shoes. Heh heh.”

He inclined his head low, a grateful motion toward the guilty-looking Skittles, Green Bean and Wonder Girl. “’Preciate ya for not letting me splatter, y’all,” Switch thanked them. “Good thinking on the shields, by the way!”

Next to Tootie, Violet looked like she wanted to shrink until she disappeared, wholly avoiding eye contact with the glances that came her way.

“And to whoever broke my fall with these sparkly feather blanket things, thanks!”

“No prob, Music Man!” replied a perky blonde dressed in an insanely mismatched clash of colors and skirts sitting at Cabin Six’s table.

Switch fidgeted some more with the hem of his big, navy blue hoodie, touching his fingertips together rhythmically. “I wanna personally thank my second-in-control-” he gestured toward Sunny, “-and my Head of Counselors-” pointing at the small form of Rocko as he licked his dry lips anxiously, “-for getting all campers and counselors situated and whatnot. Hope your living arrangements have been cozy so far.”

An awkward, but polite golf clap echoed through the cafeteria.

Switch groaned, dropping his head. “Alright, look, I know you guys’ve got a ton of questions-”

“How are you not dead?!”

“Holy shit, wait ‘til the guys in Paranormal Club hear about this! ”

“Dil! Language!”

“Are we on a different planet?”

“Grandpa Max is gonna totally freak…”

“Hey, where’s Perry?”

“How are we not dead?!”

“How did that girl do that… that, purple shield thingy?!”

“...I am standing right here…”

“How did you do that purple shield thingy?!”

“Guys, guys, woah!”

At the sound of Switch’s “official” voice, the room quieted down.

“One at a time, please!” he pleaded. “Just… I dunno, raise your hand, or something. I promise I’ll answer a couple things, then I gotta move on, deal?”

He sent the room a kind smile. “Now,” he started, “Who’s first?”

Instantaneously, almost every single hand shot up.

Switch groaned.

Question one went to a rather skinny guy from Cabin Five with spiky, dark hair that pointed upwards, a well-worn strawberry hoodie and a mellow, kind countenance. “Why’re you wearing a shirt on your head?”

“Cuz my hair’s too short,” he stated, as though obvious. When it was clear that he wasn’t explaining himself any further, a palpable awkwardness was felt from campers and counselors alike.

“Guy must’ve knocked a few screws loose before he crashed through the ceiling…” Tootie reasoned internally.

The next question came from a tall boy with an even taller, curly hairdo and a long-sleeved jersey with the number ‘33’ on the front from Cabin Eight, who stood with his arms crossed. “Okay, so say you’re not from Mars or the dark side of the Milky Way or whatever,” he said skeptically. “What’s the deal with you beamin’ us up and shootin’ us across space?”

A chorus of agreeing sentiments rang out.

Switch lit up, grinning excitedly. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” he began, spreading out his hands. “I call it the Innaspace. I’m not totally sure what it is, but from what I’ve seen it’s a place you can travel through get to different worlds. It’s only ever worked when I use my powers to get to and fro, though. Far as I know, it’s the only way to get to my island.”

Next was a pretty girl with cropped, bubblegum-pink hair and emerald green eyes from Cabin Three. “And that’s how you’re able to make your voice change like that?”

“Yup!” Switch answered. “Learned how to mess around with my vocals around the same time I was practicing how to make what I hear in here,” he rapped his knuckles at his temple, “Play in real life.”

“What else can you do?” asked a shorter guy with a square-shaped head and fluffy brown hair from Cabin Six.

Intrigued murmurs followed, and Switch bashfully lifted his shoulders. “I mean, nothing like some of the gifts y’all got,” he replied humbly. “All I got is music ‘n some stuff I can do with sound, that’s about it.”

“Aw, c’mon, don’t be a wet blanket,” said a fierce-looking girl with an orange beanie covering short, messy ponytails and a leather jacket over by Vicky’s Cabin. “Show us a little somethin’!”

Once again, a round of enthusiastic pleading came from the campers and counselors alike. The young Campmaster’s grin grew mischievous, and he stood up, surveying the crowd as he dramatically rubbed his chin. His eyes landed right on Tootie’s, who gulped.

He made a show of deliberately pointing towards her. To everybody else, no sound escaped his moving lips. In Tootie’s head, however, loud and direct, she heard:

“Hola, mademoiselle. Dig the color of your bifocals.”

She squeaked in surprise.

Lydia and Violet turned to her, confused.

“H-he said that he liked my glasses,” she replied, astounded. “Didn’t you guys hear him, too?” she asked a little louder to the rest of the room.

This time, Sunny spoke up, shaking his head. “Pulled the same ‘lil trick on me when he first gave me the job. Didn’t know whether to start cryin’ or check myself into the funny farm.”

Switch grinned and sat back down on the bed of feathers. “Hey, it got you on board, didn’t it?”

One of the women who lost Anko’s bet, situated in front of the girls’ Cabin Four as their counselor, raised a manicured hand in the air. Switch looked surprised, shooting her a friendly smile and visibly relaxing for the first time Tootie had seen all morning. “Oh! Uh, what’s up, Velma?”

The bookish woman – Velma – smiled back. “Hi there, Switch. Some of my girls were wondering… oh, how do I put this-”

“Dude, why do you look, like, our age?!” came the rambunctious inquiry from a brown-skinned girl with three long, voluminous pigtails and a tie-dye sweater.

Switch chuckled nervously, twiddling his thumbs. “Probably ‘cuz I think am,” he responded meekly. “Just turned 17, last I remember.”

A new round of disbelieving murmurs came from each Cabin.

“Waitaminute, waitaminute,” interrupted the girls’ Cabin Six counselor, a leggy, auburn-haired woman with a cherry red top and a canvas-white skirt. She held the bridge of her nose between her fingers, a stress vein growing on her forehead. “You’re only barely older than my little brothers!”

“I am?”

“Yes! Who you invited here! After hiring me!”

“Mhm, sure seems like it.”

“How the heck did you get all these buildings built in time?!”

“Magic, I guess. They weren’t here until a few months ago when I decided I wanted to turn it into a summer camp and... well, poof, there they were.”

“Wh- Aren’t you kinda young to be running this whole thing by yourself?”

Switch blinked. “Yes, yes I am.”

The highstrung woman just drooped and covered her face in her exasperated palms. “Stacy was right. This is what I get for taking the first job offer I see in the mail,” she bemoaned, muffled behind her hands.

“Alright, last one, then I gotta get to the important stuff,” Switch said decidedly, aiming a finger gun at one of the guys in Sirius’ Cabin. He was dark-haired and dressed in a white, waist-length karate gi and black pants, with the same type of athletic sandals that Anko wore. He came off gravely intense, folding his arms akimbo as he bored his coal-black eyes into the Campmaster’s.

“Do you plan on trying to cause us harm?” he asked directly.

Tootie immediately felt the temperature in the room drop. She was reminded that her counselor still hadn’t dropped her oddly-shaped knife, nor her calculating, deadly gaze, or relaxed her defensive positioning in front of her cabinmates. A lot of the campers seemed more than able to defend themselves if it came to it. Even though Switch seemed mostly harmless, if not bashful and sort of weird, this was still a guy that was powerful enough to transport an entire building’s worth of people and their vehicles from who knew how many different planets and throw a party for five hours the same night. Everybody sat warily, awaiting his answer.

On Switch’s part, a flurry of emotions passed through his face. At first, Tootie could see the hurt and surprise in his eyes. Then, as he opened his mouth, a hint of anger knit his eyebrows. Finally, resigned understanding loosened the offense from his frown. What remained was a determination that he directed to everyone in the room, making sure to look as many people in the eye as possible. He stood up on a nearby table, some of the confidence in the musician from last night coming through.

“I promise that the only thing I brought all of y’all here for was to have a good summer vacation.” Switch gazed at his hands, flexing his fingers slowly. “I dunno why I can do all of this stuff, or why I’ve been the only one on this island for…”

He paused. Switch shakily exhaled, clenching his open palm into a fist, then letting it go. “...Well, long enough.”

He lifted his head back to the crowd, setting his shoulders and standing tall. “But I figured I might as well do something good with what I got. I meant what I said last night; my house is your house. It’s not much of a camp without people to share it with, and excuse my language, but this island is too damn big for just one dude. I think we all deserve a little rest ‘n relaxation for one summer, y’know what I’m saying?”

A chorus of satisfied agreements rang in the Mess Hall. Switch let out a relieved breath and smiled.

“Now, if there’s nothing else-”

///

The map was big.

No, scratch that. The map was huge.

“I knew the camp was big when we flew over the lake, but I didn’t think it’d be this big,” Lydia commented, awestruck.

“Ditto,” Tootie breathed.

Following Switch’s announcements at breakfast, the campers excitedly set off roaming around the island, both to familiarize themselves with the area and to check out a couple of the newly-open sections of the camp. The rest of Cabin Two had splintered off into their own groups, and Tootie quickly took Lydia and Violet to tag along as they decided where they wanted to check out first.

The map itself took up a good chunk of the wall near the girls’ entrance to the Mess Hall. One of the biggest sections was Lake Kerrier, which sat near the Mess Hall and sliced right through the lower half of Hanging Gardens Isle, the northern tip blanketed by a nice little patch of sand that made up Kerrier Beach; branching paths from the east and west sides of the cafeteria carved a jagged path northwards, with little numbered house icons indicating the different Cabins. Behind the Mess Hall was the Infirmary, the counselors’ living quarters, and more upwards splintering trails that culminated into the big, open field and stage – or, what Switch had named it, Jam Central Station. To the far west, the dodgeball arena-slash-basketball court, skate park and the baseball field, all taking up a significant portion of where they rested. Down south and across the lake to the left, there was the outside cinema beside the training gym for all the weightlifting and such, and in the upper east, nestled in the thick of the mass of redwoods not too far from the girls’ Cabins, was what Switch had ambiguously described as The Sound Exchange and The Tape Factory.

One’s for digging, the other’s for grooving, the Campmaster had informed them.

And all the way up on the lonely northern edge of the island, with only one trail there and one trail back, was Switch’s house. With how far his home was from everything else, it didn’t surprise Tootie that Switch had almost killed himself trying to find another way around that long walk.

“Any clue where the other girls are headed?” Lydia questioned.

“Ingrid said she was gonna catch up with one of her friends at the basketball court,” Tootie replied, eyes still hovering over the map. “Mai stayed behind with Raven and Jinx, but everyone else just split to do their own thing.”

Violet still wasn’t talking, opting to quietly rest her body against one of the Mess Hall’s wooden support beams.

Tootie and Lydia shared a worried look. “C’mon, Violet, you don’t hafta be all broody. So you can shoot lasers outta your eyes or whatever, big deal!” Tootie reasoned.

Violet flinched and withdrew further into herself.

Lydia shot Tootie an admonishing glare. “Sorry, sorry,” she winced. “I’m just saying, what you did in there was just- it was so beyond cool! The whole camp woulda been deli meat if it wasn’t for you.”

Lydia vigorously nodded. “Plus, you’re clearly not the only one who’s got powers,” she helpfully added. “There were people out there flying and turning into giant, freaky bugs and weaving blankets out of glittery turkey feathers.”

Their other cabinmate let out a wet chuckle, sniffling. Then, with a more somber expression, she finally responded, “I’m really, really not supposed to use my powers unless I have to. One of the biggest rules my parents drilled into me,” she mumbled. “I didn’t wanna take a chance that someone else could’ve done something.”

“And you made the right choice!” Tootie emphasized, throwing her hands in the air. “Besides, who are any of us here gonna tell about your hand-shield-thingy?”

Violet rolled the statement around in her mind for a little bit before she gave them a small smile, some of the tension in her shoulders easing. “...They’re called force fields,” she teased. “And it’s not all I can do.”

Lydia and Tootie gave her matching questioning looks. Then she disappeared.

Immediately, two two girls panicked. “V-Violet?!” Lydia sputtered, looking around the spot she had inhabited. Tootie felt a tap on her shoulder and let out a clipped yelp, before she heard Violet’s unseen, nasally snickering behind her.

“Oh, that is so not funny!” Tootie squealed, making the invisible girl laugh harder.

“How interesting,” a familiar voiced gasped, startling the three girls into a short scream.

Luna had stealthily approached the group at some point, wearing what Tootie could only describe as 3-D glasses for psychedelic owls. She kept her glowing blue-and-pink spectacles trained between Lydia and Tootie, almost as if-

“...Can you see me?” Violet asked hesitantly.

The spacey girl didn’t respond at first, instead walking around the trio and peering at the space Violet occupied up and down. “Not too dissimilar to a disillusionment charm, but you aren’t reacting to the sunlight or disturbing the air,” she murmured to herself, the dreamy quality of her voice replaced with a focused intrigue. Luna’s gaze darted into Violet’s, a puzzled frown on her pink lips. “You wouldn’t happen to be a witch, would you?”

“W-what?” Violet exclaimed, part of her head and neck turning visible. “How’re you able to see me? No one’s ever been able to before.”

Luna took off her colorful glasses, tucking them into the breastpocket of her canary yellow polo shirt. “My Spectrespecs can see lots of things,” she replied casually. “Did you know I’ve yet to catch sight of any wrackspurts? Not a single gathering on the island anywhere. It’s most peculiar.”

“Wrackspurts…?” Lydia was afraid to ask.

“Nearly imperceptible little creatures that like to nest in your ears. They have a tendency to befuddle people,” she replied cheerfully, missing the looks of horror on the other girls’ faces. “Harmless, but quite mischievous. My daddy and I have been studying their behaviour patterns since I was very young. I was using my Spectrespecs to see if I had missed any zooming about, but instead I found an invisible girl. Perhaps I should write Daddy and tell him that including a pair in the next issue may not be the wisest choice. I don’t think that someone who’s turned themselves invisible would want to be seen by accident. Unless the accident itself was turning themselves invisible, in which case, the Quibbler’s Spectrespecs would come rather in handy, wouldn’t you agree?”

The three girls blinked.

“Hey, uh, Luna, right?” Tootie asked. “I wanted to ask earlier, but what’d you take the Campmaster’s glasses for? Was that for your… er, research?”

Another arm shot into the air, this time from someone in Tootie’s cabin. Switch wordlessly, but politely, gestured towards Luna, who smiled and gingerly skipped up to the curious Campmaster.

“May I see your glasses?” she asked.

Switch shrugged, fishing the crooked, broken spectacles from his pocket and tossing them to the spacey girl. “Knock yourself out, shorty,” he replied.

Luna made a pleased, happy noise in her throat and skipped back over to Cabin Two.

She just gave her that same serene, Cheshire-cat smile. “I couldn’t imagine that it was pleasant to have to look around without being able to see very well,” Luna answered. “I’m going to fix them for him.”

The all-but-shattered lenses, snapped arm and wildly bent frame begged to differ. But Tootie admired the girl’s intentions and her matter-of-fact style of speak, so she humored her. “Tell ya what,” she chuckled, “You manage to fix those, consider yourself my personal optometrist for the rest of the summer.”

Luna’s eyebrows arched. She stared at the three girls for a long while, studying them intently as if she was trying to come to an important decision. She gently plucked the long stick that rested above her left ear, opening the palm that held Switch’s glasses. The spacey girl hesitated for a split second, then, with a swish and a flick of her stick, intoned, “ Oculus Reparo.”

The girls watched as the spiderweb crack in the right lens healed itself like an old scrape. The copper frame went rigid and smoothed out into it’s original circular shapes, and the thin arm reattached itself as it folded perfectly with its other half. Luna promptly dropped them inside her small, crossbody leather purse, snapped it shut, and returned her wand to its place above her ear, a mirthful edge to the calm of her upturned lips.

Tootie, Lydia and Violet shared a disbelieving look between each other. Tootie, growing the biggest grin she’d gotten thus far, stuck her hand out to be shaken. “Luna, I think we’ll get along just fine,” she decided happily.

Luna shook it daintily, her own smile widening a hair. “That’s nice. Now,” she hummed, “where were you all planning on going?”

“We dunno yet,” Violet answered, now fully visible. “We were looking at the map and trying to decide on a place right before you walked in.”

Lydia put a hand to her chin, staring at the map. “How about the library?” she suggested.

Tootie made a face. “That sounds so boring,” she whined, elongating the last syllable. “Everyone else is at the lake or the basketball courts!”

“Exactly! We’ll get first dibs on whatever books they’ve got and we’ll get some peace and quiet in the process,” Lydia reasoned as she paced and twirled. “Plus, it’s way closer to walk down there than it is to have to drag ourselves all the way up to the other side of camp.”

Violet smiled. “Sounds like a good idea to me. I could definitely go for some reading and relaxing for a change.”

“Ugh. Fine, I know when I’m out-voted,” Tootie grumped.

“May I join you? I’m eager to venture around and take note of any magical creatures I may encounter,” Luna asked, then paused. Then, with a hint of timidity, “...But I think it would be best if I wandered in the company of others. In case you all come across something perilous that I’m more familiar with, of course.”

Lydia cast her a kind, knowing grin. “Sure, Luna. The cabin that gets lost together stays together, right?”

The odd girl’s face softened, a touched expression spreading over her smile. “We do? How thoughtful,” Luna replied pleasantly.

“Well, what’re we sittin’ around for?” Tootie asked, skipping over to the stairs. “To the library, ladies!”

And so it went, the four girls of Cabin Two made their way down the trail that led from the cafeteria to the southernmost part of Hanging Gardens Isle, in search of peace, quiet and books. They walked past the edge of Lake Kerrier, seeing a handful of campers who’d already decided to try their hand at lazily canoeing across the still, peaceful waters. The asphalt pathway was surrounded by tall, black gas lamps, the trail ebbing and flowing over grassy knolls. In contrast to the forested elevations in the north, the south of Camp Arcadia was noticeably more leveled out and open. Since the way to the library really wasn’t too far, the girls took their time walking, unknowingly slowing down as they got shared more about each other.

“So does anything you touch turns invisible, too?” Lydia questioned, adjusting her sun hat so that the light didn’t shine in her eyes.

Violet shook her head negative. “That’s actually one of the suckier parts of my powers,” she confessed, cheeks reddening. “If I’m not careful, the only thing that goes invisible is me. It looks really weird only seeing a shirt and jeans walking around.”

Lydia couldn’t help the gurgle of laughter that came through her nose at Tootie’s scandalized look. “Wait, so when you disappeared on us earlier-”

“Don’t worry, she wasn’t naked,” Luna interjected, more focused on observing the surroundings in her technicolor glasses. “I would’ve been somewhat concerned if that were the case. I’ve had nargles snatch my shoes and some of my school robes before, and I would hate to come across any here. Haven’t seen any mistletoe bushes, thankfully. I’ve been told public nudity is generally frowned upon, but then, I suppose it’s not really public if no one can see you. Do you usually like to roam in the nude, Violet?”

“No!” Violet shrieked, blushing and aghast. “Some of my clothes can go invisible too!”

Luna rolled her eyes, returning back to searching for magical creatures. “No need to shout. In some cultures, nudity’s a more common sight than wearing clothes, you know.” Lydia was personally loving every second of Violet’s embarrassment and Luna’s personality.

“Seen anything yet, Lu?” Tootie asked, watching as her cabinmate looked all around in her Spectrespecs.

Luna shook her head sadly, pocketing the glasses with a small pout. “Not even a hint,” she sighed. “With as much magic that’s in the area, I would have expected more than this.”

“I’m guessing you see a lot of wrackspurts and, er… nargles and stuff where you’re from?” Lydia assumed.

Luna nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes. We have entire courses at my school and vocations dedicated to the research of magical creatures.” The girl’s silvery-grey eyes shone with longing, wistfully exhaling. “That’s what I’d love to do someday. Discover all of the wonderful creations we’ve yet to come across, search for things thought long-dead and give them a new home.”

Violet looked at her thoughtfully, mentally filing away her curiosity about where exactly she went to school. “Wow, Luna,” she marveled. “That’s really noble of you.”

The spacey girl – either humbly or truly nonplussed – just shrugged and kept walking along. “Why did you call me ‘Lu’, Tootie? No one’s ever called me that before,” she commented offhandedly.

Tootie smiled apologetically at the brightly dressed girl. “Force of habit. I give everyone nicknames, mostly ‘cuz I’m too lazy to say the whole thing, hehe. If you don’t like it, though, I get it.”

“No! It’s nice,” she quickly replied, her gaze falling to the asphalt trail. “Most just stick to ‘Loony’.”

Lydia couldn’t help the scowl that shadowed her features. “Doesn’t sound like a very endearing nickname.”

“I don’t imagine they mean it to be,” Luna quietly responded. Even as the flicker of unspoken hurt passed her eyes, she spoke as evenly as if she was discussing the weather.

Tootie bumped a friendly shoulder with the blonde girl. “Aw, they’re just jealous ‘cuz their names aren’t as cool as yours,” the bracefaced girl reassured her. “C’mon, ‘Luna Lovegood’? Sounds like a sexy, international super spy or somethin’!”

The blonde’s cheeks colored pink.

“It is a really pretty name,” Violet admitted, Lydia nodding in agreement.

Luna’s nonplussed visage grew softer with every reassuring word from her cabinmates, shyly clasping her hands behind her back as she ambled along. “You’re all saying very nice things,” she softly thanked them.

A large shadow passed over the girls, blocking out the admittedly beaming sunlight and giving them a moment’s rest from the summer heat. Lydia swiped at her forehead, eager to keep sweat from ruining her eyeshadow. “Whew, thank goodness,” she exclaimed gratefully. “Thought I’d have to grow a tree to get some shade around here!”

Tootie suppressed a snicker. “Y’sure that’s not all the black and lace making ya hot, Elvira? ”

Lydia glared at her unseriously, sticking her tongue out at the raven-haired girl.

“I’d just like to point out that you’re both dressed basically the same,” Violet mirthfully chimed in.

“Not even! I’m in classic scholarly attire,” Tootie hummed, doing a small spin on her toes and letting her grey skirt flare out.

“Yeah, a classic head case, maybe,” Lydia teased, earning her a rude gesture from Tootie and a hearty laugh from Violet. “All you’d need is my hat and arm warmers and we’d look like twins.”

“Who wears arm warmers in the summer?!”

“Is there a reason you dress like that?” Violet asked Lydia, tilting her head cutely.

Lydia smiled sheepishly. “I’m into stuff a lotta people might consider creepy,” she answered truthfully. “Horror movies, spiders, Edgar Allen Poe, Siouxie and the Banshees- ”

“Perkiest goth I’ve ever met,” Tootie laughed.

“Goth? What’s a go-?” Violet began to ask, but was stopped when she bumped into Luna’s still form.

“Uh, Lu? Library’s that way,” Tootie indicated ahead of them, confused. “What’s up?”

“Tootie,” Lydia whispered, voice small.

The bracefaced girl frowned, beginning to get annoyed. “Hey, I’m glad we got some shade too, but we gotta kee-”

Violet grabbed her face, squishing Tootie’s cheeks, and tilted her head upwards.

Floating in the sky were the dozens of ships, cars and planes the campers used to venture through the Innaspace. Now that by itself, given everything, you could be forgiven for for not finding very interesting. But one of the vehicles wasn’t a vehicle at all; as the girls stood below what they thought was a passing cloud, they discovered that it was the massive, six-legged, fuzzy, flying bison with the dark grey arrow pattern on its head that Chester had taken notice of the day before. And sitting atop it was a figure seemingly scratching its furry head and making cooing noises at it that was hard to see due to the positioning of the sun.

Luna stood stock still, moving only to take her Spectrespecs on and off disbelievingly as she stared upwards.

“Whoa,” Lydia breathed, blinking rapidly.

“Double woah,” Violet echoed.

Luna, though, wasn’t content with just observing. “Pardon me!” the tiny blonde yelled, cupping her hands to her mouth.

The shadowed figured turned its head and made surprised noise. It stood atop the fuzzy, floating animal’s head, a long, slim stick in their hand. “...Uh, hi!” The figure’s voice was boyish, scratchy and bright.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Luna inquired loudly, “Could we get a closer look at your flying companion, please?”

The boy seemed to mull over her request before he twirled his stick in the air and slid it behind his back in one fluid motion, sitting back on top of the animal’s head to grab a pair of reins that were tied between the bison’s tall horns.

“Appa, yip yip !” he barked.

The bison – Appa – bellowed a deep groan and moved, gracefully (and unexpectedly) avoiding some of the levitating RVs and cars that blocked its path. The four girls watched wonderstruck as the massive animal and his rider gradually descended, touching down on the grass next to them with a solid rumble from the soil below its six paws.

Tootie, Violet and Lydia were wide-eyed and unmoving, whereas Luna had already taken a few gentle, almost reverent steps towards the heavily breathing bison. From above, the boy looked down curiously at the group of girls, a hint of wariness in his grey eyes.

He was dressed in shades of yellow and orange cloth draping across one of his shoulders and wrapped around his slim waist, alongside a pair of dark brown pants. The same arrow that was branded on the overgrown bison’s head stretched from the top of his own bald head all the way down through both of his arms, painted an eye-catching sky blue. He watched as Luna wordlessly stretched out a tentative hand to pet the animal’s nose, dwarfing her by no small margin.

Appa sniffed the odd girl’s hand, its cavernous nostrils expanding and contracting, and it let out a short growl, terrifying the other girls. Luna, however, just grinned and rubbed the animal’s wide, damp nose. “Hello,” she greeted softly. “You’re quite the handsome boy, aren’t you?”

Apparently that was the right thing to say, as Appa decided to lean closer and give Luna’s palm an appreciative lick – which had the unfortunate effect of absolutely covering the blonde in saliva from the waist up.

Tootie cringed, bringing a hand to her mouth. “Aw, gross, Luna!”

“Oh, no, Appa!” the boy sitting atop Appa complained, athletically leaping off of his head and landing softly on his feet – suspiciously soft, in fact – glaring at the massive animal. “What’d I say about licking strangers?”

Appa snorted in response, clearly unapologetic. He was far too busy enjoying the small girl’s scratches.

The boy threw his hands up, frustrated. “C’mon, buddy, we wanna make a good first impression on people, don’t we?” He turned to Luna and bowed quickly, embarrassment clear on his face. “Sorry about that. He doesn’t usually get that friendly with people so soon, any more,” he apologized.

Luna giggled and continued blindly petting Appa’s fuzzy snout even as her hair stuck straight up. “It’s no fuss. There’s always a chance for things like this to happen in the field,” she replied casually, flicking some of the spit from her shut eyes.

“Hold on, let me try… er…” Appa’s rider hesitated, glancing around Luna’s slimy body. “Stand still really quick!”

He grabbed his staff from its place on his back and faced it towards her. With both hands, he whirled it around and around until it began to pick up incredible speeds, and a small force of wind blew away all the remaining trails of bison spit on Luna until she was, impressively, completely dry. Her hair was now windswept and blown in a completely different direction, but it was a welcome improvement nonetheless.

“How’d you do that?” Lydia exclaimed, her apprehension from seeing Appa up close forgotten at the sight of the feat the boy performed.

He shrugged, smiling bashfully. “Call it a family secret,” he answered slyly. He waved at the group with a friendly smile. “I’m Aang,” the boy introduced himself, then patted the side of the giant bison’s body. “This is Appa!”

Luna did a small curtsy, smiling back. “Luna Lovegood. It’s very nice to meet you, Aang,” she replied. A deep whining sound from Appa made the odd girl giggle, resuming her ministrations. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you too, Appa.”

Aang glanced past Luna at the other girls expectantly, blinking and furrowing his brow. “Hey, weren’t there three of you before?”

Lydia and Tootie looked confused for a moment before Tootie realized what had happened to their cabinmate, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “Seriously, Vi?”

“Oh, d-don’t you ‘seriously’ me!” came the shaky, disembodied reply from beside Lydia. “That thing is huge! What if he tries to eat me?!”

Aang looked insulted, crossing his arms. “Hey! Appa doesn’t eat meat, much less people… whoever and wherever you are!”

Violet phased back into visibility, glowering at Aang – who gave a startled jump back in complete surprise – and keeping a healthy distance away from Appa’s wide, shining brown gaze that had trained on her. Lydia sighed and walked over to Aang, even as she kept a wary eye on the massive bison. “Lydia Deetz, nice to meet you Aang,” she greeted him, jabbing a thumb behind her. “That’s Violet.”

Tootie waved at him with a weak grin. “Tootie Valentine. Cool, uh… pet, ya got there.”

Aang grinned and petted the side of Appa’s wide, fuzzy body. “He’s a sky bison,” the boy explained. “Best friend a guy could ask for. Isn’t that right, buddy?”

Appa leaned his head over to nuzzle Aang’s shoulder and Luna looked about ready to burst. From excitement, questions, or cuteness overload, it was a matter of seeing which won out first.

“He’s unlike any magical creature I’ve ever come across,” Luna murmured admiringly. “How does he fly?”

The bald boy’s eyes widened a hair. He propped himself up on Appa’s body, trying his best to look casual, and flashed what he hoped was an easygoing grin. “Er… family secret?” It didn’t work as well as he’d hoped.

“...Right,” Tootie finally replied. “Were you plannin’ on going the same way we were?”

Aang quirked an eyebrow. “I came over here to make sure Appa was doing alright, but the rest of my friends are sorta all over the place. Where were you girls headed?”

“The camp library,” Lydia answered happily. “We figured it’d be the best spot to get away from all the campers making their way to the dodgeball courts.”

“We all come from Cabin Two,” Luna supplied, taking down quick notes on a small notepad as she seemed to converse quietly with Appa.

Aang snapped his fingers, smiling. “I knew you looked familiar. I’m in Cabin Seven! We were at the Mess Hall right before your Cabin came in,” he explained.

Violet’s eyes widened in recognition. “Your counselor’s the wild-looking dude with the beard and the long hair?”

“Yep! That’s Mister Sirius,” Aang responded with an amused grin. “Weird guy, but he’s really funny.”

“Well, hey, why not come with?” Tootie offered. “The more, the merrier. Cabin Seven’s supposed to be our brother cabin anyways, right?”

“Is Seven our brother cabin?” Violet whispered to Lydia.

“I think so,” the macabre girl asserted. “Sunny said it was in reverse order yesterday, remember?”

“And if we get lost, it just means we get closer as cabinmates!” Luna added enthusiastically.

Aang laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I can tag along,” he accepted. “I’ve got a friend that works there that I’d like to see, too.”

“Even better!” Tootie grinned. “Welcome aboard, Stringbean.”

Aang shook Tootie’s outstretched hand before her nickname settled in. He shook his head and wrinkled his nose, “Wait, Stringbean?”

///

To Tootie’s credit, she handled her first time traveling by sky bison pretty well, she thought.

She only screamed on the take off, when Appa slammed down his hulking, flat tail on the grass and shot off toward the clouds. Compared to Violet – who’d been so airsick that she’d resigned to just laying in a heap of dark hair and bright clothes in the corner of the overlarge saddle – Tootie figured she was doing pretty well indeed.

“This is insane!” Lydia exclaimed, looking excitedly over the edge with her bespectacled cabinmate. She had a firm hand over her flapping sun hat so it wouldn’t fly off, even though Aang was flying Appa at a slow pace so as to not miss the library as they flew over the lower part of the island. “Everything looks so small from up here!”

“It’s even more fun if you keep your eyes on one thing while you’re up here,” Aang replied with a grin. “Makes you feel like you’re going super fast!”

Violet somehow turned even greener, moaning miserably.

Luna, for her part, was having an absolute blast, standing up on her knees with her arms spread out wide, allowing the wind to flow through her hair and ruffle her long skirt. “This is unlike any flying I’ve done before,” she said, moving to sit beside Aang and give Appa an appreciative head scratch. “He’s much more agile than I would have expected a magical creature of his size to be.”

Aang beamed proudly. “He’s the best. We met when I was really young and we’ve been best friends ever since.” He turned to look at Luna curiously, “Why d’you keep calling him a magical creature?”

“Where I’m from, we’re taught about many different types of animals and beings that can do wonderful and terrible things,” Luna explained, folding her legs. “It’s a field I personally love to learn all I can about. Even though I’ve never seen another like him, Appa would be considered nothing short of magical.”

Then with a small, fond smile and another gentle head rub, “Certainly nothing less than adorable, as well.”

Appa rumbled deeply in his chest, a happy sound.

Aang became less apprehensive at her answer, and gave an unsure smile back. “Gotcha. I was kinda worried you and the other girls wanted to kidnap him or something,” he admitted sheepishly. “We’ve had some… experience with people like that.”

Luna looked appalled, losing her serene detachment in place of one of disgust. “Absolutely not,” she retorted. “Magical creatures should be studied, not caged.”

The bald boy gave her a genuine, relived smile this time.

“Not like we could do much if we wanted to,” Tootie jested, gesturing around the large saddle they occupied. “Lu’s way too deep in Crocodile Hunter mode to hurt anybody, I’m barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, Vi’s busy trying her absolute best not to hurl in your car seat, and Lyd’s… I know she’s got powers or somethin’, but she doesn’t come off as the hurtful type.”

Lydia’s pale cheeks went pink, twiddling her thumbs self-consciously. “Well, I-I mean, I don’t have powers, it’s just that-”

“Hey, guys, I think I see it!” Aang interrupted. He pointed down below to a cylindrical brick building topped by a metal dome standing by itself at the end of the asphalt trail. “C’mon Appa, we’re heading down! Yip yip!”

The giant sky bison whipped around and gently descended to the grassy flats below, much to the immense relief of the girls’ aerophobic cabinmate. Violet would’ve all but flopped to the ground if Aang hadn’t taken her across his shoulders and helped her down from atop Appa.

As the five campers approached the entrance to the library, they realized that it was a lot bigger than it looked from the thousands of feet in the air they’d been in. Slick, all-glass double doors stood beneath a simple, wrought iron sign that read, The Arcadia Observatory . The path that lead to the entrance was bare dirt and had smooth wooden benches on either side. Different shades of red brick and simple, rectangular windows with white windowsills made up the architecture, and from up close it looked like its gleaming metal dome had a symmetrical split that suggested it could open or move around.

“Thanks again for the lift, Aang,” Lydia imparted as they journeyed inside, her voice automatically getting quieter.

“If I never have to ride that thing again, I’ll be too happy,” Violet complained, still holding her tender stomach. “Can’t believe I let you talk me into that, Tootie.”

Tootie glanced at the taller girl incredulously. “Wh- I’m getting blamed for this?!”

“It’ll be fun, Vi! Come on, when’re you ever gonna get another chance to ride on a giant flying bison? We can totally brag about it when we get back to the cabin!” Violet mimicked Tootie’s high voice, making exaggerated hand gestures.

“Aw, gimme a break, Lydia was just as excited!” Tootie shot back in hushed tones.

“Hey, I’m staying outta this,” Lydia mumbled, putting her hands up in surrender.

As the other three girls argued behind them, Luna and Aang approached a receptionist’s desk that was set up in the middle of an open space, spidering out to all directions where rows upon rows of books lay on dark wood floors, waiting to be discovered. It didn’t seem like there was anyone else in the building, and the quiet atmosphere only reinforced the assumption. There were stairs right in front of the desk that led to another floor of books, and second flight of stairs went beyond the flat ceiling of the tall library, possibly leading to whatever awaited below the dome.

Behind the tall desk sat a beautiful, fair-skinned brunette with a blue and white dress, pouting red lips and warm, brown eyes, resting her cheek on her hand with a concentrated expression gazing downwards at a small book titled, The Shawshank Redemption. The small wooden plaque that laid beside a thimble of pencils was engraved, “Belle Duvall”.

“Hi!” Aang said cheerfully, rousing Belle from her deep reading. She looked over the edge of her workspace to see a rather bald, monkish boy with peculiar blue markings and a blonde girl with big, pale blue eyes looking up expectantly at her, standing in front of a trio of silently bickering dark-haired girls. “I’m Aang, and this is Luna,” he introduced himself and his companion, who inclined her head respectfully. “We’re looking for someone who works here, do you think you might be able to help?”

Belle scooted her rolling chair forwards to better address the teenagers. “Yes, I think I can,” she replied kindly, voice musical and airy, accent thick with French. “My name’s Belle, caretaker of the Observatory. Who exactly are you looking for?”

The boy’s cheeks went a faint hue of red at Belle’s attentive gaze. “His name’s Iroh,” Aang answered her, a bit shy. Belle’s eyes lit up with a soft smile, “Oh, Monsieur Iroh! Yes, he should be researching tea recipes like always.”

“Which way would that be?” Luna inquired. Belle pointed a pen to the campers’ right, “Walk to the east and up the stairs, and look for the little sign that says ‘Applied Sciences and Medicines’,” she clarified.

“Thank you!” Aang said quickly, taking off to the right with Luna close behind.

Tootie, Violet and Lydia ceased their mutual teasing and eagerly walked close to the brunette’s desk. “Do you happen to have a horror or a poetry section?” Lydia inquired hopefully.

“And science fiction, too?” Violet piped up beside her.

“Or fantasy?” Tootie finished.

“All of them would be in Section 800 in ‘Literature’,” Belle provided helpfully, laughing at the girls’ enthusiasm. “It’s on the very top floor, if there’s anything you want to check out, bring them back here and I’ll get you set up.”

The three girls smiled at each other excitedly. “Thanks!” Lydia replied. She faced Tootie Violet before they all made their way up the stairs. “We’ll grab Luna and Aang whenever you guys’re ready to head back,” the macabre girl instructed.

“Thanks again, Missus Duvall,” Tootie responded, much to Belle’s humor. “You know, I’m still getting used to being called ‘Missus’ anything,” she giggled. “Enjoy the books, Miss…?”

“Tootie,” she grinned, shaking the woman’s hand.

The brunette smiled back at the brash girl. “Let me know if you all have any questions, Tootie. Have fun!”

And so, the five split off into their chosen sections, marvelling at the design of the library and the sheer density of the books that inhabited the deceptively simple bookshelves. Luna and Aang came across the section labelled Applied Sciences and Medicines and, sure enough, sitting cross-legged beside an open window, peacefully reading a dark green book named Tea: History, Terroirs, Varieties, was a hefty man with long, receding ashen hair in a small ponytail and a thick, well-kept beard, dressed in breezy, white and green robes.

“Hey, Uncle!” Aang greeted the older man, bowing at the waist. The man – Iroh, Luna assumed – glanced up from his book and gave the boy an easygoing smile, the lines in his face crinkling together.

“Ah, hello, Aang,” Iroh hummed, setting down his book to stand and bow back at him. His voice was low and even, vocal cords thick with the dust of age and experience. “I must say, I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon. And with such lovely company!”

“Uncle, this is Luna,” Aang grinned, gesturing toward the spacey blonde. “Appa and I ran into her and some of her cabinmates on the way over here after breakfast. Luna, meet Uncle Iroh!”

Luna curtseyed, blushing pink at the man’s compliment. “Luna Lovegood. It’s very nice to meet you, Mister Iroh.”

Iroh’s eyes lit up upon hearing Luna speak. “The pleasure is all mine,” he replied, intrigue piqued. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard an accent like yours. Tell me, where do you come from?”

“The British Isles,” Luna replied. “I live in a place called Ottery St. Catchpole with my father. It’s been there for a very long time. Centuries, if my family’s books are correct.”

“Centuries!” Iroh softly exclaimed, chuckling. “Sounds like quite a history.”

“Luna says she’s training to learn about magical animals at the school she’s going to,” Aang interjected. “She even got Appa to lick her on the first try!”

The older man’s eyes went wide, surprised. “From what Aang and his friends have told me, it takes a while before Appa feels comfortable enough to show affection. I suppose you have a way with animals, then, young lady?”

Luna looked almost uncomfortable at the praise she was getting. “I think so. At least, I hope that I do,” she confessed, fiddling with her palms. “I’m not the most experienced.”

“Ah. Modesty is a virtue, Miss Lovegood,” Iroh suggested, “But second-guessing what you know to be true can quickly erode well-earned confidence.”

The blonde stood up a little straighter at Iroh’s advice, a proud sharpness entering her eyes. “I do.”

The aged man gave her a pleased smile. “I am glad to hear,” he chuckled. “Perhaps now Appa will have more friends than poor Momo to talk to.” Iroh turned to glance at Aang, confused. “Speaking of which, I’m surprised to not see him on your shoulder.”

“Momo’s checking out the island with Sokka and Katara,” Aang answered, sitting down across from Iroh alongside Luna, who imitated his crossed legs. “Tootie says most of the campers made their way to the dodgeball courts up and to the west.” Aang shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t even know what dodgeball is.”

Iroh laughed and shrugged his shoulders as well, “Neither do I. I assume ‘Tootie’ is one of your cabinmates, Luna?”

“Oh, yes. She, Violet, Lydia and I are all in Cabin Two,” Luna responded airily, placing a finger to her lips. “I do wonder where they’ve run off to…”

…

Lydia was in heaven. As much as she downplayed it, she adored books. And it seemed the Campmaster made sure there was poetry in spades in the Observatory; plenty of Poe, Byron and Rossetti to keep her happy for the whole summer.

“And then some,” the macabre girl giddily thought, a stack of texts tucked into her slender arm. She sighed, a fond, amused smile on her red lips.“Beej would be absolutely miserable in here. He’d definitely have more fun if they ever show Rosemary’s Baby or something on the outdoor theater.”

Lydia’s inner monologue shifted to worry as she thought about Tootie and her other cabinmates. “Violet’s powers are so cool. I feel sorta bad for not saying anything about Beej. It’s just… I’ve never summoned him around anyone else! Luna’s… yeah, she’s a little weird, but she’s nice. And she’s a witch! Like, a real life one! She’d probably handle it well,” she reasoned. Then, with a groan, “...Or maybe she’d freak out like I know Tootie and Violet would.”

Behind her, Tootie seemed to almost hum to herself as she picked out one or two books for herself. “I’m not even sure what I’m grabbing, they all look super cool,” she bubbled, holding up two books for Lydia to see. “Check this out, this is part of something called the Discworld series, and this is The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi. Think I should go for it?”

The pale girl pursed her lips, considering it for a moment, and shrugged, “Yeah, why not? Long series aren’t really my thing, but it sounds fun.”

Violet had already buried her nose in a comic book omnibus called The Astonishing X-Men, her purple eyes floating through pages at breakneck speeds. “This is so cool,” she murmured.

In the excitement of making their way around the corner to sit and read in one of the many beanbag chairs that were scattered around the library, Violet tripped over her own feet, letting out an embarrassed yelp. A flash of red stopped her from falling completely over on her face, a hand grabbing her shoulder and saving her books from making a loud thud on the floor.

“Whoa. Nice save, Lydia,” Violet exhaled gratefully.

Lydia looked up at the figure behind her and shook her head. “Er, I don’t think you should be thanking me, Vi.”

The man who’d swooped in, seemingly from nowhere, was tall. And she meant tall. Wild, snow white hair grew from the top of his head quite literally all the way down to his knees. She recognized the symbol on his metal head covering as Japanese, which fit the aesthetics of his outfit and facial features; a dark green robe-like top and pants were matched with a long, crimson vest and blocky wooden sandals. Long, thin red markings drew from the bottom of his eyelids down to the edge of his cheeks.

He peered down at the girls – standing at least a head and a half above all of them – with a wide, disarming grin. “Oughta watch your step, little lady,” he chuckled, handing Violet back her books. He tilted his head to read the title of the small brown book on top of Tootie’sThe Colour of Magic and, impossibly, the man’s grin nearly split his face. “Now, this I haven’t seen in ages! Where’d ya find this at?”

“The fantasy section,” Tootie replied, glancing at Lydia and Violet uneasily. “Um, where did you come from…?

“It does my heart good to see the youth reading true literature,” the tall man’s boisterous voice warbled with emotion, wholly ignoring Tootie’s question. “’Course, if I had a say, I’d much rather it be in the drama section, but beggars and choosers ‘n such-”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Violet interrupted, completely lost.

The man struck several dramatic poses in a row, finishing with a wide-legged stance and outstretched hands on top of a gigantic, orange and black striped frog, a banner written in kanji poofing from a plume of smoke above his head and draping from the ceiling. “I am Gallant Jiraiya of the Legendary Sannin! Toad Sage, world-renowned author and head of literary research at the Arcadia Observatory!”

The three girls blinked.

“Oh, so he’s insane,” Tootie concluded.

…

“…How interesting,” Iroh commented, rapt in intrigue. “When Aang first said you were interested in magical creatures, I thought you were just very enthusiastic about wildlife. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen any… what did you call them again?”

“Wrackspurts,” Luna repeated. “They’re not quite like the other species I described, elves and kappas and the like. Wrackspurts are notoriously hard to catch. The Ministry of Magic refuses to even acknowledge their existence. That’s what my daddy’s newspaper is for, for reporting on things that most wouldn’t think are serious news.”

Aang folded his arms across his knees, leaning his head in the pit of his elbow. “So… you’re actually a witch? You don’t look mean or ugly like any witch I’ve ever read about.”

Luna gave him her usual serene smile. “Some would call you a wizard in my world,” she mused. “You can do things with wind and your staff that most simply aren’t able to do. Staffs may not be as popular as wands nowadays, but you would fit right in even though you don’t look like any wizard I see regularly.”

Aang grinned shyly. “Point taken,” he conceded. “What sorta things can you do?”

The spacey blonde plucked her wand from behind her ear, her smile growing a hint mischievous. She pointed it at herself and, with a curvy swish, said, “Colovaria!” In an instant, the polo shirt Luna wore morphed from a sunny yellow to a deep indigo, standing boldly against the sharp red of her plum earrings.

Both Iroh and Aang’s eyes grew to the size of kitchen plates. “Spirits above,” Iroh mumbled in shock, placing a hand against his now-clammy forehead.

Luna giggled, placing her wand back where it belonged. “I’m curious to know where you two come from. Where can someone like Appa exist, but not magic, I wonder?”

The young man and the older man shared a significant look.

…

“No.”

“C’mon, I already apologized!” the eccentric man – Jiraiya, as he’d introduced himself – pleaded, hands thrown up. “Just give it a chance. You were already about to read it, anyways!”

Tootie and Lydia both gave him an unimpressed look. “What possessed you to poof a giant frog in a library?!” Tootie fumed.

Jiraiya narrowed his eyes at the bespectacled girl. “First off, it was a toad. Second, how was I supposed to know she’d vanish outta thin air like that?”

“What is with you people and giant animals?!” Violet exclaimed, her voice echoing around the small group in the quiet of the Observatory.

The tall man facepalmed, dragging his face down with an annoyed growl. “Look, kid, I said I was sorry for startling you. Jeez, the one time someone doesn’t interrupt my introduction…”

Violet slowly phased back into visibility, coming from behind one of the brightly-colored beanbag chairs with a cautious frown, keeping her eyes on Jiraiya. “Warn someone first before you do that, next time.”

He rolled his eyes, but kept his curious gaze on her. “That’s one helluva camouflage technique you got there, kurokami. Couldn’t even detect your chakra signature.”

Violet folded her arms around her comics, her gaze turning questioning. “It’s not a technique, they’re just my powers.”

Jiraiya shook his head, snapping his fingers. “That’s right, gotta remember you don’t come from the same place I do. Well, regardless, if I can’t find you it’s impressive, kid. If you ever wanna try your hand at shinobi work, not being able to be found is a great place to start.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow at the Toad Sage. “Like the Gusty Shinobi?”

He grinned wide and gave the pale girl a big thumbs-up. “Exactly! Which is why I’m beggin’ ya to take it with you ‘n read it! It’s a fantastic story, full of daring feats, do-or-die action, drama, romance-!”

Tootie’s ear twitched. “Romance?”

“You bet!” Jiraiya reassured her.

The raven-haired girl mulled it over for a bit, glancing at Jiraiya carefully. “I dunno, what if you’re just saying all that ‘cuz you wrote it and it actually sucks?”

The Toad Sage went poker-faced. “Look, gaki, gimme a break, of course I’m gonna go all out for the first book I wrote,” he deadpanned. “Are you gonna read it or not?”

Tootie sighed, taking the small book back out of his hands. “Sure, whatever.”

As expected, the tall man dramatically pumped a fist in the air. “Alright!”

…

Luna sat in silence, absorbing the end of Aang and Iroh’s abridged – and heavily edited – description of the fauna and the people of the Four Nations.

“I do believe I would very much enjoy adventuring in your homeworld,” Luna finally blurted. “Turtleducks and pygmy pumas, otter penguins and – what species is Momo called?”

“A flying lemur!” Aang said happily.

The smile on Luna’s face refused to fade, nor the thoughtful look in her intelligent eyes. “Whenever we get a chance to visit each other after the summer is over, I can show you around the Rookery and you can show me the Ba Sing Se Zoo.”

“Oh-ho-ho,” Iroh chuckled heartily. “’When’ and not ‘if’, Miss Luna?”

“’When’, Mister Iroh.” Luna repeated, like an indisputable fact. “Would you like to meet my other cabinmates? I’m sure they’d love to hear some of your stories as well.”

Aang agilely leapt to his feet, lending a hand to both Luna and Iroh. “I would be honored,” Iroh replied kindly. “Which section did they go to?”

“I have no idea,” Luna said, somehow both casually and confidently. “Shall we look?” Not waiting for an answer, the odd blonde started walking back the way she came.

Aang stared after her as Iroh lent a hand to the young man’s taller shoulder, an entertained grin set on his wrinkled face. “Word of advice, young Avatar,” he began, “Whenever you come across brilliance like that, befriend them as soon as possible.” Aang simply shook his head and followed after his old friend.

Luckily for the three of them, it didn’t take long to find the trio of girls. They were stationed in front of Belle’s desk, talking both amongst each other and with a very tall, tanned man dressed in a lot of green and red with wild, lengthy white hair. Tootie noticed Luna first and waved happily. “Hey, Lu, Stringbean! Check it, we found a couple books.”

Luna and Aang rejoined the group, waving back. “Cool! Lydia, Violet, Tootie, this is Uncle Iroh,” Aang introduced the older man, who bowed. “It is an honor to meet so many beautiful ladies in one place,” Iroh complimented.

The three girls turned varying degrees of red and giggly. Lydia smiled bashfully, shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you too, Mister Iroh.”

“Aw, come on,” Jiraiya complained. “He gets polite handshakes and giggles, and all I get is a threat to incinerate my book?!”

“Giant! Frog!” Violet punctuated for emphasis.

“I said I was sorry!”

“Excuse me,” Belle spoke evenly, getting everyone’s attention. She hadn’t even looked up from her book. “This is still a library. Please, lower your voices.”

A shiver ran through every spine at the brunette’s ice-cold tone. “Scary…” they all thought.

“S-sorry, Belle-san,” Jiraiya apologized profusely, laughing nervously. “Anyways, lemme know how you like it, kid. And you, kurokami, talk a little bit with Anko about what I told ya.” He looked at Aang and held out a fist to be bumped. “What’s your name, baldy?”

Aang scowled at the man, even as he bumped it back. “Aang.”

He turned a sly grin to Tootie, then back to the teenage boy. “Jiraiya. Nice meeting ya, Stringbean,” laughing heartily at the indignant squawk Aang made. He inclined his head to Iroh with a knowing grin, making his way back upstairs. “C’mon, old timer, let’s leave these youngsters to it. You still owe me and Doppler a second round of pai sho!”

Iroh shook his head. “He still doesn’t know how to play…” The other teenagers (and Belle) let out a laugh at Iroh’s exasperated face.

///

Later on, when the four finally got back to their cabin (and Violet could stand without the vertigo taking out her legs) and got dressed for the night, Tootie found herself listening to the stories being swapped between some of the other girls from her spot on her top bunk, unable to fall asleep. It seemed that everyone had had a good day, even Miss Anko. Even if it was for the wrong reasons.

“…And he friggin’ fainted, right there, on the spot!” Anko exclaimed, making her girls laugh. “I didn’t think Wilde was being for real! Of course, Pilgrim and Black can’t take anything serious, so they’re dyin’ laughing instead of helping. I know I’m hot stuff ‘n everything, but you woulda thought I showed him my tits instead’a sneakin’ up on him!”

At the edge of her bed, Raven choked on her tea. Jinx laughed even harder.

“Is Mister Madrigal gonna be alright?” Coraline asked between giggles.

Anko waved off the question dismissively. “Yeah, he’s fine. Scratched up that big old nose of his, but nothin’ a quick trip to Tsunade-sama didn’t fix.” She glanced at the clock on the wall and got up from her forward-turned chair. “Well, that’s my cue, brats. Lights out in five, and get ready to be up for seven!”

A chorus of dissatisfied complaints and groans came from every corner of Cabin Two.

“Oi! Wanna make it six?!” Anko warned. Grumbles followed, but the vocal dissent quieted, much to the smug enjoyment of the sadistic woman. “That’s what I thought. G’night, ladies!” And with that, she slammed the door shut, making her way to the counselors’ living quarters.

Luna turned to face Lydia, who laid below Sam with a nightlight on one of her pickups from the library. “Do you think Aang would mind terribly if I asked to play with Momo next Sunday?” she wondered. “I’d like to get a chance to study some of his behaviours.”

Lydia shrugged. To her, the flying lemur behaviors seemed to consist mostly of leaping around the lunch table and picking off fruits from everyone’s plate. “I dunno. Appa likes you, so I don’t see why not?”

“...Appa likes you?” doubted Mai, her balanced monotone colored with the barest hint of disbelief. “When did you even get to meet him?”

“When I went down to the library after breakfast,” Luna replied. “Tootie, Violet and Lydia invited me. At first, I was rather surprised at how an animal as big as him could stay afloat, but then I was just excited that I was able to encounter such a beautiful thing face to face.”

“It’s true,” Violet supported her, already tucked in snugly with her hair in a long ponytail. “She’s like an Appa Whisperer. Likes her a lot better than me, at least.”

Lydia snickered. “That’s because you threw up on his fur, twice.”

Mai held up a hand, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry, Aang let you ride Appa?”

“And we met his Uncle!” Tootie piped up.

At that Mai went quiet. Her shoulders began to shake and she brought a slender hand to her mouth. Tootie’s eyebrows rose past her hairline. Was Mai… laughing?

“Y-you… ahem, his Uncle, huh?” the svelte girl said with a smirk. “I see. I’ll ask him how meeting Uncle Iroh went tomorrow at lunch.” Then Mai turned around and laid her head on her pillow, shoulders still trembling a hair.

Lydia and Tootie shared a confused look. Once the lights went completely out, Lydia went back to reading her poetry under her nightlight and Tootie placed her glasses on the windowsill next to her, the moonlight providing some ambient lighting in the dark. She remembered the small, brown book that she’d checked out from the Observatory and fished it out from the pocket of the backpack that hung on the bedpost closest to her.

“The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi by Jiraiya of Kono… er, Konohagakure, huh?” Tootie thought to herself. “A promise is a promise, I guess.”

She turned to the first page, settling in comfortably. “It was after the Second Shinobi World War, and a shinobi named Naruto found himself in a rough spot…”

Chapter Text

Boys’ Cabin Three, Camp Arcadia, 11:37AM, Monday.

///

“...You sure that’s how it’s supposed to look?” Fillmore asked, a doubtful brow raised.

Chester and his accomplice, who lifted his red baseball cap to wipe the sweat beading his forehead, got up from the floor to look upon their work. “Like nothin’ happened,” Chester answered assuredly.

TJ tilted his head. “I dunno. It looks kinda… floppy, don’tcha think?”

The muddy green teepee bed, which originally stood on four wooden legs and reached almost to the same height of Chester’s bunk bed, now resembled something of a asymmetrical hut with a fuzzy carpet and a lot of excess fabric pooling on the ground.

“It’s compact now!” Chester argued. “I think Kiba’ll thank us for the improvements we made, honestly.”

Fillmore shook his head, turning back to head toward the lake. “Y’all might wanna start writing your wills before he gets back from his run,” he warned them with a smirk.

TJ groaned and palmed his face with both hands. “Whydid we think playing catch inside was a good idea?”

“Because you guys were too lazy to actually go outside. As a matter of fact, I remember Chester saying, and I quote, ‘Dude, just go long!’” Dib chuckled from his place on his bottom bunk, nose buried in a flashy magazine titled Paranormal Enquirer.

Chester frowned, turning toward the snarky genius. “Oh, look who’s talkin’, the walking tanning bed advertisement!”

Dib narrowed his eyes at the blond. “Hey!” he pointed a defiant finger at Chester, “I’m outside plenty, metalmouth! We just don’t get a lotta sun where I’m from, that’s all.”

“Y’know, wearing all black in the summertime really only makes the pastiness more obvious,” TJ snidely retorted, earning a snicker from Chester and a couple of the other boys who’d stayed behind in the cabin. Dib went a faint shade of red and he flicked a middle finger at the brown-haired boy, grumbling as he returned his attention back to his magazine.

There was a fluttering of wind and the sound of shoes hitting the wood porch outside the cabin door before it creaked open. “Hey, guys,” Tails greeted, taking off his goggles and strapping them behind his fuzzy ears. “What’s going o-” His gaze stopped on the deformed doggy bed and TJ and Chester’s guilty smiles.

The fox blinked and his blue eyes went wide. “Oh, man. Kiba’s gonna kill you guys.”

Chester and TJ both dropped their heads in defeat. “Augh, what’re we gonna do?!” TJ anguished. “We can’t put it back the way it was, the stick things that held it up are completely busted!”

Tails walked over to take a closer look at it. Poking his tongue out, the fox boy fished around his tool belt and pulled out a handful of rubber bands, deftly wrapping them around the snapped and frayed balsa wood sticks. Quicker than they could count, somehow the teepee was miraculously back to its normal shape, appearing almost none worse the wear.

Chester grinned brightly as TJ let out a grateful whoop. “Hell yeah! Dude, you’re a lifesaver!” the blond cheered, giving a high hi-five to Tails, who returned up high and down low it with a shy, pleased grin of his own.

As if it was right on cue, Kiba strolled in with Akamaru, both heaving and smudged in dirt from head to toe. “’Sup, fellas,” he acknowledged them, shaking out his spiky, dark brown hair as his humongous hound did the same, splattering the wood floors with outside debris. “Can we head out to the Mess Hall for lunch yet? Me ‘n Akamaru are starving!”

“Er, yeah, same here, l-let’s find and ask Mister Madrigal!” TJ suggested, subtly elbowing Chester in the ribs, who nodded rapidly with a big, nervous smile.

Kiba fixed the two with a suspicious expression. “...Alright, what’d you losers do?”

Chester’s eyes widened, waving his hands back and forth. “Wh-what’re you accusing us for?” he defended, “We didn’t do anything!”

Right then, one of the rubber bands that Tails had wrapped a little too tightly around the base of one of the snapped support sticks popped from the pressure, and sent the rest of them into a chain reaction of failure, flinging rubber all around the cabin until the doggy bed tipped over into a heap of fabric and tiny splinters, large rips and tears in the spots the sticks had managed to poke through in the actual tent part.

Kiba went between staring incredulously at Chester and TJ and the ruined teepee. Akamaru’s growls vibrated through the cabin and deep in his chest.

Chester’s face went deadpan and he turned his attention to his cohort. “The window or the door?”

TJ glanced back at him with a similar, accepting expression. “Window.”

Tails’ ears drooped as he sighed.

The next moment, Kiba and Akamaru burst through the front door, righteously furious and running down the stairs hot on TJ and Chester’s trail, who’d made a mad scramble through one of the windows on the left side and down the trail of cabins and were running like hell. “I’m gonna hang ya by your ankles from the ceiling, ya friggin’ headaches!” Kiba yelled angrily. “Get back here!”

Not a second later, Dib was out of the door along with the rest of the guys of Cabin Three who’d stayed behind, and was watching the shit hit the fan with a grin and a handheld video camera, zooming in on the action. “Oh, I’m totally documenting this,” he laughed vindictively.

“Coming through!” Chester yelled out, leaping over and dodging past some of the other guys that were walking on the trail. “Woah, ’scuse me! On your left!”

TJ kept looking back and ahead, hoping they’d make it to the counselors’ living quarters before either Kiba or his massive dog caught up to them. Every time he glanced back, though, they were both quite literally nipping at his heels.

“Shit, shit, shit!” TJ cursed, almost tripping over his own shoes trying to out-run the pissed off twosome. “Why are the cabins built so far apart? And how is he running so fast?!”

“Man, why’d you have to go and jump to catch the ball?!” Chester complained tiredly, arms and legs pumping at maximum effort. “All I said was ‘go long’, not make a freakin’ Hail Mary!”

TJ scowled at him, nimbly moving out of the way of a bigger dude with wild, long hair dressed in red, looking at Kiba in recognition and no small amount of confusion. “And whose bright idea was it to throw it right where Akamaru’s bed was?!”

“You shoulda watched where you were going, genius!”

“Aw, pot, meet kettle, cheese grater!”

Unfortunately for the two boys, they were so focused on arguing that they neglected to keep their eyes ahead on the trail they were being chased down. And doubly unfortunate, the one person who wouldn’t be aware of four figures barrelling down the same walkway he was currently crossing, indeed, happened to be walking past at that very moment.

Chester and TJ’s eyes went extra wide in sudden alarm. The other guys from Cabin Three – as well as a handful from the other cabins who’d stopped to watch the pandemonium play out – either hurried to avert their eyes or preemptively cringed from secondhand pain, but it was too late to stop their momentum without running into their cabinmate.

So they crashed right into him.

All three laid in a heap of scraped elbows and knees on the asphalt trail, moaning and groaning in pain. Chester cut his eyes at the boy they’d run into, immediately knowing who it was by the black zig-zag pattern on his bright yellow, collared shirt and the whispy tufts of pale blonde hair flowing from his exceptionally round head.

Chester laid his head on the pavement with a deep exhale. “Hey, Charlie Brown.”

“H-hello, Chester,” Charlie Brown replied, his kind voice painfully strained. “Nice to see you too, TJ.”

It was this scene that Kiba and Akamaru inevitably caught up to, pacing forward with an ominous grin that exposed his exceptionally sharp canines. “Thanks for the assist, bōruheddo,” he spared a glance toward Charlie Brown, grabbing TJ and Chester by the scruff of their shirts to yank them up. He smacked both upside the head with an audible thwack.

“The hell, dude?!” Chester cried out.

“Jeez!” TJ exclaimed painfully.

Kiba narrowed his eyes at the his fellow cabinmates and folded his arms. “That’s for wrecking Akamaru’s sleeping tent!” The white, fluffy dog ruffed in agreement, forcefully snorting through his nose.

“Give us a break, man, we tried putting it back up,” Chester contended as TJ hefted up Charlie Brown, rubbing the side of his tender scalp. “Wasn’t like your mom made it or somethin’, right?”

“My sister knitted it for me, dumbass!” Kiba snapped, making TJ wince and Chester forcefully sigh, shutting his eyes. On a roll today, McBadbat. “You’re lucky I just got done runnin’. I almost don’t feel like tossing the two of ya into the lake.”

The reply, “I’d like to see you try it,” was mere millimetres away from leaving the tip of Chester’s tongue, but he mentally counted to ten and let it be where it was. He was starting to believe Kiba really might chuck him and TJ into the water if he made him mad enough.

“How about if we fix it for good?” TJ quickly interjected, seeing his cabinmate’s thunderous expression. “No harm, no foul if there’s a doggy tent at your bunk by the end of the week.”

Kiba mulled it over, visually weighing the pros and cons with his eyebrow movements. He looked down to the pony-sized canine that stood at his hip, seeming to mimic his owner's thinking pose. “Whaddya think, Akamaru? Give ‘em another chance to make you a new bed or show ‘em how we settle scores back in Konoha?”

Akamaru yipped, tail wagging happily.

“You’re in luck, losers,” the wild boy flashed another sharp grin. “Lookin’ forward to seeing what you two come up with by Friday.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Chester replied dismissively, brushing off the dirt from his flannel shirt. The boy and his dog, satisfied that their message had been received, walked past the pair, giving TJ’s shoulder a hard shove with his own.

Charlie Brown hung his head, kneading his thumb into his palm. “Sorry, you guys. I should’ve watched where I was going,” he apologized.

TJ shrugged, giving the round-headed boy an easygoing smile. “Ah, don’t sweat it, Charlie Brown. Coulda been worse,” he reasoned.

“Yeah, like how we’re gonna be dead in five days instead of getting it over with today,” Chester grumbled, kicking a stray pebble as the three walked. “How the heck’re we supposed to make an entire teepee for a dog that big from scratch? Last time I checked, I couldn’t knit.”

TJ’s grin curved downwards into a lopsided grimace, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Neither can I,” he admitted uncertainly. “Know anybody who might be able to help us out?”

Charlie Brown frowned in concentration, the wheels turning in his head. “My friend Linus might be able to, but I’ve only really ever seen him stitch up that old blanket of his,” he said, sighing sadly when no one else came to mind. “I wish I could help you guys out more.”

“Y-you need someone who’s good at knitting?”

Chester yelped. TJ let out a clipped scream, and Charlie Brown flinched hard in surprise. The three teenagers spun around behind them quickly, making the person who’d snuck up behind them and spoken so softly raise his voice in a shriek alongside them.

He stood somewhat stout, though some of that height could be made up if he hadn’t habitually slouched. A green poncho with geometric patterns dancing on its borders hung loosely around his skinny frame, faded and frayed at the ends from years of love. Springy salt-and-pepper curls draped to his shoulders, a sparse beard and mustache covering his cheeks alongside a bandage patched over his bulbous nose. And although the dark bags under his eyes belied a bone-deep weariness, his sage-shaded gaze was still bright and attentive.

“Ack! Sorry, sorry!” the man apologized quickly, hands up in a surrendering motion. “Bad habit, sorry.”

“C’mon, Mister Madrigal, you gotta stop sneakin’ up on us like that!” TJ complained, breathing heavily. “Gus already can’t walk in the cabin without keeping his back to the wall after yesterday!”

Their cabin counselor winced at the memory. Poor Gus was almost as jumpy as he tended to be, and almost two decades of well-practised light footfalls were hard to unlearn.

Bruno placed the bridge of his nose between his exasperated fingers. “Look, kid, I told ya, you can just call me Bruno,” he implored with a revulsed shiver. “Mister Madrigal makes me feel… er, about as old as I already feel, I guess.”

Chester waved his hands. “What were you saying earlier?”

Bruno blinked, then shook his head, as if clearing the cobwebs. “O-oh! Yeah, ah, if you guys are looking for someone who’s good at sewing, I know the perfect person.”

TJ and Chester both grinned in relief at their good fortune. Finally, some good luck! “Dude, seriously? Yes!” the blond teenager exclaimed with a fist pump.

A small, proud smile overtook the nervous man’s face, making him stand up a bit straighter. “Look around for a girl named Mirabel,” he explained. “She’s in Cabin Five over on the girls’ side. Her counselor’s the… uh, the scary one with the really red hair.”

Chester’s face dropped. He hesitated to even ask. “…Vicky?”

Bruno nodded. “Yeah, that’s her!” he replied in a light tone.

His head dropped down, hair curtaining the rest of his face as he groaned. Of course.

“Oh, that reminds me!” Bruno suddenly interjected, smoothing out his outfit. “I was on my way to tell the rest of you guys that lunch is ready. Sunny’s announcing the list for Saturday and today’s Cabin Activity.”

As Bruno walked past them and onwards toward Cabin Three, whistling a jaunty little earworm, the three boys shared a confused expression between each other.

///

“Gotta give them credit,” Trixie started, taking a sip of her pink lemonade. “The Mess Hall kinda looks a little cooler with the top dropped.”

Since Switch’s crash landing the day before, the cafeteria’s roof was still very much missing in action. The only things that remained of it was the criss-crossed metal railings that ran ceiling lights from atop. To be honest, most of Camp Arcadia’s population didn’t really mind it. The upside was that, since the weather was almost always beautiful, the warm winds allowed the scent of the lakewater and the pine trees to blow in from outside and fill in the empty space with a cozy, earthy aroma.

The downside, though…

“Yeah, if you’re used to, like, living in a sauna!” Veronica complained, fanning her flushed face with a delicate hand. The sun was indeed beaming down on the campers unrestricted, and the heat was thick enough to be toasted on top with a blowtorch and served as a fourth course. “Ugh, the sooner they can figure out how keep the AC inside, the better.”

“Aw, this ain’t so bad,” Wally shrugged, resting his elbows on the dining table. “You wanna feel some cruddy air conditioning, try hangin’ out with us in Hoagie’s garage back home.”

Said teenaged tinkerer abruptly paused mid-bite from his veggie burger and shot a glare at his Australian friend, hair damp beneath his hat. “Hey, my workshop is perfectly inhabitable!” Hoagie objected. “Doesn’t keep you freeloaders from coming over all the time and eating my snacks.”

“It’s not Abby’s fault you keep all her favorites in one place,” Abby commented with a cheeky giggle, deftly snatching one of Hoagie’s sweet potato fries off of his plate. Hoagie sputtered, then turned away, muttering under his breath as his cheeks went pink.

“Oi, last time I checked,” Wally stressed, pointing a thumb at his chest, “I got lifetime first dibs on all the snacks in the Gilligan household past four in the afternoon, anyways.” The blond ruffian grinned toothily. “Part o’ the official Best Friend Agreement ‘n whatnot, if I remember correctly?”

Hoagie let out a dramatic groan, tilting his head back into the sky. “Dude, we made that thing up in first grade!”

“But Best Friend Rules are forever!” Trixie gasped, wholly aghast at Hoagie’s protest. “You make a promise like that, you’d better keep it. Only thing worst than ignoring a B.F.R., is breaking a B.F.R.”

Veronica bumped the pretty girl’s fist with a concurring smirk. “Like, tell ‘em, Trix.”

Wally gestured to the two girls and folded his arms with victorious smirk. “Y’see? I rest my case,” he declared. “The workshop’s a sweat factory and your snacks’re still fair game.” He was met with his affirmation by a flung chunk of veggie patty at his nose. “Oi!”

Over by the other half of the lunch table, Chester’s dirty blond locks were sprawled all over the table. The teenager was currently thumping his forehead against the wood in a slow, steady rhythm, a hollow noiseechoing in the cacaphony of the other cabins’ chatter.

“I-” thump, “am so-” thud, "dead,” thunk.

Sitting next to and across from him, Timmy, AJ and Nigel shared a concerned look. “C’mon, Chester, it’s not the end of the world,” the pink-hatted teenager consoled him.

He snapped up from his bewailing, despair clear in his face. “What am I supposed to do? Just waltz my happy ass up to Vicky’s cabin and say, ‘Hey, V! Crazy story, I’m actually looking for someone my cabin counselor knows and apparently she’s one of yours! Why’s that? Oh, you know, just need her help fixing up this guy’s tent for his six-foot-tall dire wolf, and if I don’t have it by Friday, I’m gonna end up as his kibble instead’?!”

Timmy fought a grin. “Well… yeah, actually, that might do it.”

Chester exhaled deeply through his nose and smacked his head back on the table. “Ow.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Nigel shrugged, taking another bite from his burger. “It’s just asking her for a favor. You three have been friends with her sister for a long time, right? Surely she’s not that unreasonable.”

The deadpan stares from the Dimmsdale boys gave the bald Brit all the answer he needed. Nigel winced.

“Why’d you even make the deal with this Kiba guy to begin with?” AJ asked. “Sounds to me like you shoulda just taken the ‘get tossed into the lake’ option instead of dragging it out.”

“That was TJ’s fault!” Chester contested, sadly munching on a handful of fries. “Besides, what other choice do I have? Either I get Mr. Madrigal’s niece to make this doggy bed, or I’m toast. None of our friends know how to knit, and it’s not like I can just magically pop one outta thin air!”

Timmy involuntarily glanced down at his pink and green dog tags on his necklace and choked on a particularly long sip of lemon-lime soda.

From the leftmost side, the tall, hatted figure of Sunny Bridges strolled in through the entrance and stood in the middle of the Mess Hall, grabbing most everyone’s attention. He waited until the chatter had quieted down and gave the campers an easygoing grin.

“What’s happenin’, y’all?” he greeted them as he fanned his face with his ever-present hat. “The big cheese is still busy tryin’ to find a faster way to get down from his house without settin’ off another 3.0-scale earthquake, so he gave me the run down for Saturday and today’s Cabin-Buildin’ Activity to tell y’all about.”

Confused and intrigued murmurs bloomed at the tables, even among the the counselors. Chester frowned and glanced at his friends, who seemed to share the same thought. What the heck was going down on Saturday?

Sunny carried on, pulling out a plain sheet of paper with writing marked down from the top to the bottom and clearing his throat. “Hola, party people,” he began, making a couple people laugh at his terrible imitation of Switch’s deep voice, “This is the list for the first official Camp Arcadia Summer Jam Session! Here’s how it works. If your name’s called, your job is to find your paired partner and, sometime in the week, make your way to the Sound Exchange to grab a handful of records that get your ears twitching. After that, head to the Tape Factory to lay down a groove using those records! You’ll then perform that song alongside me – uh, the campmaster, that is – and the duo whose song I dig the most gets to pick the format for next Saturday. The format for this week: a 2B2B2B, or two-by-two, back-to-back mix. One twosome throws down, the next follows after them.

“Which leads me into today’s Cabin-Building Activity! I think everyone’s getting a little tired of calling their cabin, ‘Cabin Three’ or ‘Cabin Seven’, especially since we got two of each-”

“Astute observation, pal!” agreed the foxy – literally – counselor with the sunglasses from Cabin One. The shorter lady bunny beside him elbowed his ribs.

“-So today, each cabin is gonna pick one person to make a run to the Sound Exchange and pick out a brand-spanking-new official name for your Cabin based on a record that catches their eye. Be picky, cuz this is the name you’re all gonna be going by for the next three-and-a-half months. Everyone’s gonna meet back here at dinner and tell me what they’ve chosen, and then… well, you guys will just have to wait and see what happens after that. Good luck, and happy digging, campers!”

Amped-up conversation sparked from every corner of the room. Chester couldn’t deny that he was a little interested in doing what Switch was doing the first night they got here. In fact, the more the idea stewed around in his head – the flashing lights, being behind that desk with all that cool-looking music gear, making people dance and jump around to something he made – the more excited he got at the possibility of getting picked. Here’s hoping whoever I might get matched with isn’t a total weirdo.

“Ooo, who do you guys think’ll get called up first?” Veronica questioned, a curious wonder to her voice.

“Abby hopes it’s not her,” the raspy-voiced girl next to her shivered. “I get nervous enough talkin’ in front of class for presentations. Abby can’t play an instrument to save her life.”

“…So, is there a reason you talk in third person, or…?” Trixie puzzled, almost unsure if she wanted the answer.

Sunny lifted his hands high above his head and waved them in a downwards motion. “Aight, aight, y’all settle down. Now, here goes the partners for Saturday’s Jam Session. First spot, Manny Rivera and Jackie Lynn Thomas!”

A couple tables away from Chester and his friends, a Hispanic boy sitting next to a girl with electric blue hair gave her a bright, mischievous grin and a high-five. At the same table, another girl with very light, loosely curled hair – that had a striking stripe of mint green thrown in the mix – went wide-eyed as another Latino teenager talked excitedly with her and the fashion-averse blonde girl that helped save Switch the day before.

“Hey, I know that guy, he’s in my cabin!” Wally stage-whispered as he nudged Hoagie’s shoulder.

“Same here! Jackie Lynn’s in mine, she’s, like, hella nice,” Veronica mentioned pleasantly.

“Next up… well, how ‘bout that, my man Philly Phil and Jeffrey Anda, er, Andouille… Andonuts!” Sunny announced.

The tall bassist from Cabin Two let out an elated whoop, pumping his fists into the air. A freckled blond with the thick glasses from Jimmy and AJ’s cabin looked up in surprise.

“Dang, man, y’all got me going two-for-two on my kids,” Sunny chuckled underneath his breath. “Lil D, Annette Pearson, y’all got third!”

From somewhere in the Mess Hall, a girlish, strangled, terrified eep! rang out.

“After them, we got Huey Freeman and Neville Longbottom!”

Muted snickers and quiet giggles broke out among quite literally every single table. At the table with the lanky, ruddy-faced redhead and the bespectacled guy with messy black hair, Neville looked absolutely mortified. Whether that was from being chosen for the Jam Session or everyone’s reaction to his family’s name was anyone’s guess. Hoagie and Timmy both grimaced in sympathy.

“Aw, poor Neville,” Wanda sighed inside Timmy’s head. “He looks like he’s gonna pass out.”

“One heck of a last name,” Cosmo joked halfheartedly.

Sunny peered closer at the list, trailing down it with a finger. “Sixth spot goes to Kuki Sanban and Kori Anders!”

Nigel, Wally, Abby and Hoagie all looked at each other, wide-eyed and stunned. “Abby wasn’t expectin’ that,” the mellow girl succinctly murmured.

From across the way at the girls’ Cabin Seven, Kuki cheered happily, exchanging high-fives and excited whispers with another cute, fashionable Asian girl with high, dark blue ponytails and an athletic-looking girl with long, chocolate hair and a flowy pink skirt that showed off her strong legs.

“And roundin’ it off, Chester McBadbat and Norman Babcock!” Sunny finally finished, tucking the list back into his pocket.

Chester blinked. Then blinked again. I actually got picked?!

“Dude, they actually picked you!” AJ echoed his thoughts incredulously. Rounds of congratulations and eager speculations on what Saturday would look like lit up the table. Timmy spared him a genuine, if not shocked, smile and ruffled a light noogie into his hair, much to Chester’s annoyance.

“Guess we’ll be seeing you on stage, McBadbat,” Nigel remarked, a hidden grin beneath his cup.

The blond felt excited. But then, as it sunk in, his eyebrows furrowed. “Hold up… who the hell is-”

///

Norman Babcock was a weird dude.

Since he’d met the other guys of Cabin Three, Norman hadn’t said much of a word past his name and where he was from. His hair was dark, and it stuck straight up like a hair pick. He was dressed as casually as one could be; a red hoodie, half zipped-up to show a horror movie tee, a pair of worn jeans and some equally red sneakers to go along with the jacket. The constant, mellow unease he gave off reminded Chester a little of Charlie Brown, minus the almost palatable anxiety. Chester felt a little ashamed that he’d forgotten his name, but in his defense, Norman didn’t really seem the social type.

“Hey,” Chester began, sticking out an unsure hand, “You’re Norman, right?”

The other boy looked back at him, a curious sort of apprehension on his face. “Yeah. We, uh, we got put together for that Saturday thing, right?” Norman asked, shaking Chester’s hand back.

The bracefaced blond nodded, sitting back against his bunk’s tall leg. “Sure did,” he replied plainly. “I dunno what exactly we’re gonna be doing, but I’m kinda excited.”

Norman grew a small grin. “At least it’s starting to look less and less like we’re gonna get our brains replaced by alien parasites.”

Chester gave him an odd look, but chuckled despite himself. “If we’re lucky, this is all just a scheme to get us flung a little too close to a radioactive meteorite. Maybe we’ll get super powers!”

“Alright, guys, bring it in,” Bruno called out, stepping into the middle of the cabin. “C’mon, I gotta make sure everybody’s here before we get started!” The older man peeked down a sheet on a clipboard. “Okay, uh… Chester, Norman, I see you guys,” he pointed at them with a pencil without looking up. “Phineas, Rudy, you in here?”

A red-headed boy with a very angular head threw his legs over his spot from his top bunk above another boy with light brown hair and buck teeth, who had to shake himself out of a daydream. “Right here, Mister Madrigal!” Phineas answered.

“Yeah, I’m here!” Rudy Tabootie replied in kind.

“Gotcha,” Bruno acknowledged, trailing further down the paper. “TJ and Fillmore, you’re in here somewhere, right?”

“Over here, Mr. M,” came the cool voice of Cornelius Fillmore, sitting beside TJ on his floor bunk, flashing the man a subtle thumbs-up. He was more on the quiet side, but Chester found that Fillmore was just the type to play it cool and socialize when he felt like it.

From behind Bruno, Dib was snickering and showing Kiba the footage from earlier in the day that he’d captured, much to Kiba’s wonderment. “So, you just press a couple buttons on this thing and it keeps whatever you show it?” the wild boy asked, tilting his head as he turned it over and under.

“Yeah! And if you want, you can make copies of it and give it to other people,” Dib suggested with an evil grin. Chester’s eye twitched.

“Miles, where’s Danny?” Bruno queried.

The two-tailed fox in question sat cross-legged on his bed, turning his head and a fuzzy ear twitching upon hearing his name be called. Tails furrowed a brow. “I could’ve sworn he was in here somewhe-”

Below him, a black-haired teenager yelped and landed flat on the ground, seemingly propelled sideways from nothing that anyone else could see. He stared at the room and the room stared back, equal parts weirded out and suspicious. Danny Fenton let out a sheepish laugh and righted himself up. “Er, here, Mister Madrigal,” he answered, eyes darting from Bruno to the front wall’s windows back and forth.

Bruno’s face went impassive, sighing deeply. “…I’m not gonna ask,” he resignedly muttered. “Gus, you seen Charlie Brown around?”

Gus Griswold was one of TJ’s best friends and, in Chester’s opinion, a pretty cool little dude, if not a little twitchy. He simply shrugged. “Last I saw, he was at the Mess Hall with the rest of us,” Gus answered.

As if on cue, the door to Cabin Three opened. In stepped a small, white beagle – walking languidly on its back paws like legs, as if the sight wasn’t strange enough – with an even smaller yellow bird fluttering around it. The dog stopped to bow in front of Akamaru (who laid his head on the ground and back up again in response), resuming its casual walk until it stopped to lean coolly against the bedpost that Charlie Brown shared with Gus.

Charlie Brown came running in a moment after, grimacing in exasperation. “Snoopy, you know you and Woodstock have to wait up for me when we’re out on a walk!” The blond-haired boy sent a contrite look to Bruno. “Sorry I’m late, Mister Madrigal,” he apologized, sitting on the floor beside Chester and Snoopy, who sat on his haunches to let the small bird that accompanied him – Woodstock – rest between his paws.

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Bruno assured him, sitting down in a wooden chair of his own. “Okay, so uh, first orders of business. Apparently, we got two of our very own representing us on Saturday, that’s pretty cool!”

“Yeah, congratulations, you guys,” Gus praised. “Got any idea for what you might wanna do?”

Chester made a wry face, lifting his shoulders non-committally. “We’re supposed to use stuff we find from the record shop up by the girls’ cabins. I guess whatever we end up getting is how the song’ll come out?”

“What does that even mean, though?” Kiba asked, face pinched in frustration. “Using records. How do ya make music out of a plastic disc thingy?”

Fillmore’s glasses shone in the incandescent bulbs hanging from the ceiling. “Maybe it’s not the actual physical record, just the music that’s on it,” the bald teenager suggested. “Like taking bits and pieces from other songs to make a new song?”

Bruno and the other boys ooohed, marvelling at the peculiar idea. Charlie Brown looked bewildered, turning his head to glance at Fillmore. “You can do that?” Beside him, Snoopy and Woodstock took on the same sort of exaggerated, mystified expressions.

“People scratch records all the time in the stuff I like to listen to,” Fillmore nodded, his hands behind his head as he reclined on his bunk.

Charlie Brown balked, an alarmed horror in his expression. “Why would you scratch a record on purpose?!” he exclaimed. “Won’t that ruin it?”

“Not really, not the way people’ve been doing it, from what I’ve heard,” Rudy replied. He tilted his head and gave a strange look to the round-headed teenager. “You’ve never listened to any hip-hop on the radio or anything?”

Charlie Brown shook his head. “I didn’t even know that was a genre of music,” he answered truthfully. “I mostly listen to jazz-” Snoopy and Woodstock mimed playing a saxophone, a pair of round sunglasses suddenly appearing on the dog’s face – “Sometimes classical music too, if I’m at Schroeder’s.” The beagle and bird changed to imitating someone hunched over a rather small piano, eyes closed in concentration over imaginary keys.

“Huh,” Rudy said, surprised.

Bruno chose then to interject, clearing his throat to catch their attention. “Well, since we’re already basically on the same topic,” he started, “Anybody feel up to volunteering to walk to the Sound Exchange so we can decide on a name for the Cabin?”

This time, the conversation dried up like a sour lemon. Some coughed awkwardly, others whistled, but all of them looked away from their cabin counselor, intentionally averting their eyes.

The older man rolled his eyes. “C’mon, guys, work with me here,” he whined, gesturing his arms outwards in a pleading manner.

“Give us a break, Mister Madrigal, you've seen the map,” Danny argued back. "Who wants to drag themselves all the way that far, just to have to walk right back? That walk’s gonna take forever!"

Norman shifted his sitting stance, bringing his knees up to rest his heels on the wooden lip of the bed. Chester noticed that for some reason, he kept discreetly alternating between looking at Danny and squeezing his eyes shut like he had a headache.

“What about us, Mr. M?” Chester suddenly proposed. “Me and Norman gotta make our way there anyways, why not kill a couple birds with one stone?”

Dib scoffed. “Yeah, right. Leave it up to you, we’ll get stuck with The Outhouse or something.”

Chester bristled, scowling at the sarcastic genius. “Better than Mom’s Basement,” he retorted, fists clenched.

Dib’s dark eyes narrowed dangerously. “You wanna run that one by me again, Train Tracks?”

“O-kay, tranquilo, you two,” Bruno said, anxious but stern. “We’re all on the same team here.” He turned his full attention to where Chester and Norman sat and gave them a small smile. “Guess we’re leaving it up to you guys, then. Make sure you get back here before dinner so we have something to give the Campmaster, alright?”

Chester and Norman looked at each other, then back at Bruno, and nodded firmly.

///

Chester walked quietly beside his fellow cabinmate, as the two of them made the long walk to the upper east part of Hanging Gardens Isle. It was still early in the afternoon, but thankfully the sun wasn’t directly overhead to make the journey unbearable with heat. Birds flapped around high into the sky, and the soft grass gave way to a loamy soil on the forest’s floor. Norman, as it turned out, wasn’t much for conversation. He seemed lost in thought, looking all around them as they split the scopse of trees that acted as the diving line between the girls cabins and the boys cabins.

“First time at summer camp?” Chester questioned, hopping over some loose rocks.

That seemed to shake the spiky-haired teen out of his head. “Huh? Oh, yeah,” Norman replied, his voice faraway. “I’m just… I’m not used to all this quiet. It’s pretty noisy where I’m from. All the time.”

“Dimmsdale’s kinda like that too,” Chester responded in kind. “The trailer park gets really busy on the weekends, people throwing parties and stuff.” He smiled at the memories of homemade fireworks and countless outdoor barbecues he’d been to since he and his dad moved to Happy Trails.

Norman, on the other hand, looked about ready to swallow his own tongue. “Oh.”

Chester took notice of Norman’s new brand of quiet-tinged-with-uncomfortability and decided to spare him an olive branch. “Don’t sweat it, by the way,” he reassured him. “I know it’s weird to hear that I live in a trailer park, but I’m not ashamed of it or nothin’.”

The shorter boy turned up an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah,” stated Chester with a sardonic grin. “I just get mad when people feel like they can look down on me ‘cuz of it.”

After seeing how he reacted to Dib’s tame ribbing, Norman believed him. “I get it. Your neighborhood’s still your home, even if it’s not the most flashy place in the world.”

“Exactly!” Chester lit up.

Norman felt a bitter smile grow in the corners of his mouth. That was a mindstate he admired – something he wished he had more of. A lot of the time, it seemed like there was only so much space in Blithe Hollow for him, and even that amount had run its course a long time ago. He didn’t know how much having Chester’s staunch enthusiasm regarding his gift would help him, but he figured it’d at least make him feel better when the bullying and the cold looks inevitably came his way.

Speaking of spaces, the two had been roaming for the past couple of minutes, and had indeed crossed past the treeline and into the girls’ side, but they weren’t making their way up where the Sound Exchange lied. “Hey, uh, Chester? The Sound Exchange is supposed to be up,” Norman puzzled. “Why’re we walking down the girls’ trail?”

“Remember how I said we were gonna kill a couple birds?” Chester hinted, walking a ways and looking over the cabin doors until he stopped in front of one that read ‘Cabin Five’. He and Norman walked up the stairway, pausing as he brought his knuckles close to the entrance. The bracefaced blond gulped nervously. “You don’t get scared easy, do you?”

Norman grinned at the plethora of ironic jokes he came up with on the spot at the question. Honestly, he was sort of proud at how quick he’d thought of some of them. “Not really, no,” he answered instead, shaking his head.

Chester blew out a shaky breath.“Good. Don’t look her in the eye and you should be alright.”

Norman blinked and looked at Chester, suddenly concerned. “Wait, what d’you me-?”

Chester rapped his knuckles at the door in the old Shave and a Haircut rhythm, and the noisy chatting inside died down. He could hear shoe steps approaching the entrance, and the boys braced themselves for the storm that awaited.

The door opened and Chester felt the air leave his lungs involuntarily.

She had soft, wavy, bright ginger hair that fell well below her green-sweater-covered shoulders, covering one of her spruce brown eyes. A smattering of freckles peppered across her cheeks and the bridge of her cute, small nose. Pink, glossy lips were turned downwards in a confused frown, leaning against the door frame and crossing one of her bare legs, covered by a tartan red skirt and brown boots that had obviously seen much love across the years.

“Well? Who’re you lot, then?” she questioned gruffly, a heavy Scottish dialect coloring her girlish voice.

It took a feat of willpower to make himself remember why exactly he came here. An elbow from Norman might’ve helped the jumpstart.

“Er, uhm,” Chester stammered, red-faced and running a hand through his hair, “I-I’m lookin’ for a girl named Mirabel. She’s here in Cabin Five, right?”

The girl’s eyes narrowed, but she turned away from the two and hollered,”Oi, Mirabel! Ye’ve got a boy out here askin’ aboutcha!”

The way that she said the word ‘boy’ didn’t exactly give Norman the idea that she’d hold them in any sort of high regard.

She turned back to them and curled a wrist on her hips, appraising Chester with a curious, critical eye. “Ye look familiar,” she eventually said. “You’re one of the ones that’s been sittin’ with Nigel and the others at supper, aren’tcha?”

Chester snapped his fingers and flashed her a gleaming, metallic smile. “You’re Rachel’s friend! She talks about you all the time. I-I’m Chester. Er, McBadbat.” He shot out a nervous open hand at the girl, hoping that he wasn’t sweating as badly as he thought he was.

The girl gave him an odd look. “What kind of a last name is that?”

“One that we probably earned,” The blond boy mumbled self-deprecatingly.

She smirked. “Fanny Fulbright,” she introduced herself.

Suddenly the door was yanked open wider to reveal a shorter, rather pretty mocha-skinned girl in a flowing, colorful dress and pink, fabricwork sandals. Her curly hair bounced and weaved, kissing her shoulders with every movement, and her brown eyes sparkled with intrigue behind her overlarge, neon green glasses drooping from her round nose. “Somebody’s looking for me?” she asked, looking between the two boys.

Chester’s eyes went wide. “Mirabel, right?”

The girl’s brows furrowed in suspicion. “Yeah, who are you?”

The blond ran another hand through his hair, giving an impressed whistle. “Jeez, you guys got some strong genes,” he muttered to himself. “I’m Chester, this is Norman,” he answered, pointing toward Norman, who gave both girls a shy wave. “Mister Madrigal told me to look for you if I needed some help knitting something?”

Instantly, Mirabel’s countenance brightened, a dazzlingly pretty smile growing over her face. “Oh,Tio Bruno sent you! Sure, yeah, what’s up?”

Relief couldn’t have washed over Chester’s face quicker. “Thank you God,” he heaved. “I got ‘til Friday to fix up a dog’s teepee bed, and if I don’t have it, I’m dead meat.”

Mirabel giggled and cracked her fingers with a long arm stretch. “Not a problem,” she assured him, pulling out a notebook seemingly from out of nowhere, tying her hair back into a poofy ponytail. “How big is the ol’ pupperino?”

“Almost as tall as you.”

Her note taking screeched to a halt, etching a jagged scratch across the paper.

Mirabel blinked. “¿Perdona?”

Chester would’ve thought her dumbfounded expression was hilarious if his physical health didn’t rest on the impossibility of the request. He just groaned and hung his head. “He’s almost your height sitting down,” he repeated lamely.

Fanny and Mirabel shared a look, and the ginger girl barked in laughter as she walked in the other direction. “Ha! Good luck, blondie,” she bid the three of them adieu. “You three have fun not getting him killed.”

The curly-haired girl rolled her eyes and turned to face Chester, who’d stretched his neck past Mirabel, staring after Fanny as she walked. An amused ahem brought the blond back down to Earth.

“Huh, what’s up?” Chester sputtered. Norman held back a quiet snicker at his cabinmate’s wonderstruck expression.

“How about we do it like this – you come back tomorrow after breakfast,” Mirabel instructed, writing out something detailed on her notepad. “Bring whatever’s left of the tent with you so I can see what I’m working with? If this dog really is as big as you’re saying it is, we’re gonna need all the time we can get.”

Chester could’ve cried. “Dude, how can I pay you back? I’ll do anything you want, just say the word.”

Mirabel paused and tapped a finger to her round cheek. “Hmm,” she intoned, pretending to think hard. “Can we be friends?”

The blond teenager rolled his eyes goodnaturedly. “Kinda goes without saying. C’mon, anything you want, for real!”

She actually put her mind to it the second time around. After a moment, Mirabel decided, “Gimme all your desserts from the cafeteria for the rest of the week, and I’ll call us even.”

Chester gave her a megawatt smile and an outstretched hand. “I’ll catch ya at the lunch table.”

The brightly-dressed girl smiled back at him and eagerly shook it back with both hands, bouncing excitedly on her toes. “Okay, cool, cool!” she squealed.

Her gaze turned to Norman, who’d been content to silently watch the funny scene play out and felt awkward when the attention landed back on him. “What about you, Norman? I know you don’t really have any life-endagering knitting missions right now-” that got a laugh from the other boy, “-but I could always use another friend.”

Norman felt the bottom of his metaphorical feet come from under him. No one’d ever actually asked him to be friends back home. Definitely not after Aggie’s anniversary, he thought acridly. Although he was as unsure and uncomfortable as he could feel, and even though he felt like she’d come to regret it, the spiky-haired boy couldn’t turn the sweet girl down. “Um, yeah. I mean, sure, we can be friends,” he answered her, voice smaller than usual. “I don’t mind.”

Mirabel gave him a soft, small smile in return. Something in it felt understanding, bittersweet in a way. “Okay.”

“C’mon, Norm, we oughta make it up to the record shop before it gets too late,” Chester prompted. “I’ll be sure to bring the tent by tomorrow!” he asserted to Mirabel, the two boys hurrying down the stairs.

She happily waved after the pair. “See you tomorrow, Chester! Catch you later too, Norman!”

Once they’d left and Mirabel closed the cabin’s door, Vicky stepped from out of her spot in the wall between the door and the open window with a satisfied smirk. “Good to know the twerp just wants to learn how to sow,” she purred, words falling like silk.

Mirabel just shook her head. “Senorita Valentine, why didn’t you want Chester to see you?”

“’Cuz part of being a big sister means you’re everyone’s big sister, especially your baby sister’s friends,” she replied plainly. Then, with an evil smirk, “And every good big sister needs blackmail.”

///

It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that the camp didn’t really have much left to shock Chester or Norman with. After all, space travel, campers with super powers and a beautiful, picturesque island is sort of hard to beat.

When Norman had heard that the campmaster had a record shop on the island, he hadn’t had a clear mental image of it; he’d never even been inside of one before. But he hadn’t imagined that it would look anything like this.

The outside was an unassuming rectangle – short in front, long on the sides, with a tropical feel to the lightly-shaded wood and ash red, arched tile that made up the roof. The building had an asphalt trail leading up to it, same as the other buildings on the island, and it was surrounded by taller trees that made it feel almost foreboding. Not even a four minute walk away was the other, more asymmetrical building that the two boys guessed was the Tape Factory. The one they’d gone into had a plain, rounded sign with the words, The Sound Exchange, illuminated on top in a funky, dynamic font, built from neon lights that flickered between every letter so often. Inside, though, was where the real show was.

Rows upon rows upon shelves upon shelves of upright vinyl records were packed to bursting all the way down to the end of the shop, where a singular cashier’s desk sat. Where the shelves on the walls seemed to be broken up by tiny, handwritten markers in each cubicle, the open rows in the middle of the floor had big banners above indicating the genres. Private Press Jazz-Funk. Progressive Rock. 80s New Wave. Northern Soul. Mid 90s Independent Hip-Hop. Detroit Techno. The categories were so numerous, and it seemed to go on and on forever. Listening stations were positioned dead center of the shop’s walls. Each record was immaculately kept, plastic coverings keeping them protected from dust and dirt. The smell that wafted throughout the shop was unfamiliar, but made an instant impression on their noses; it was reminiscent of a grandfather’s house, swirling with the promise of unearthed history and the mildew of an old bookstore. Norman loved it immediately.

“Woah,” Chester mumbled.

“Yeah,” Norman concurred.

Chester glanced around and saw a handful of people already sifting through the stacks. “Wanna split up the work?” he purported. “I can pick out the record for our cabin, you handle the records we’ll use for our song.”

“You sure?” Norman worried. “What if I accidentally get something that sucks?”

Chester shrugged. “How’ll we know if it sucks or not? Not like we know what we’re doing, anyways,” he laughed, walking off toward the hip-hop section.

The melancholy boy figured he couldn’t argue with that.

He walked over by the subtly-categorized square record shelves, running his fingers down the spines of the vinyl and enjoying the satisfying fluttering sound they made. His mind drifted to Switch’s performance on the first night they got to the island; how energetic and lively the music was, and the way the entire crowd seemed to move as one. Not even simply bouncing to the rhythm of the beat, but fully jumping, not caring if someone’s knee ended up in someone else’s upper spine.

I dunno if I wanna make something that’s that hyped-up, Norman thought as he idly shuffled through record covers in the jazz fusion section. But it’d be cool to have everyone dancing along to it. Maybe something with a cool bass line or somethi-

His inner monologue was interrupted when he bumped into someone in the same row as him, sending some of her records tumbling to the ground. The spiky-haired boy cringed, kneeling down to pick up what he’d made her drop. “Sorry, I shoulda watched where I was going,” he apologized quickly.

“Don’t worry about it, I wasn’t really paying attention either,” she replied, voice equally as soft as his. Norman glanced up at her and was greeted with an unexpectedly gorgeous sight. The first thing he noticed was her eyes; big, big, expressive pools of inky black, made only more alluring by the vivid pink and shadowy purple eye makeup surrounding them. She seemed to actually radiate a halo of light around her lissome form – odd, considering there weren’t hardly any windows in the shop for light to reflect into. Her hair, just as shiny and black as her eyes, feathered out into bangs and neck-length hair tucked behind her sizeable ears. The corners of her small, pouty lips were tweaked into a wry grin, and he’d realized that he hadn’t actually said a word for a solid twelve-ish seconds. Long enough to completely mortify him.

The beautiful girl gasped quietly, and Norman eventually discerned that she was staring at his shirt. “ I love Night of the Living Dead,” she gushed shyly.

“M-me too,” Norman blurted. He fought the incredible urge to facepalm. She probably put that together already, Babcock. “Didn’t think anybody else here liked Romero.”

“You kidding? Horror's are all I watch some days,” Mystery Girl admitted, looking down at her polished black flats. “Poltergeist, The Shining, Blacula-”

Norman’s mouth went agape. “I’ve never met anyone who even knows that movie exists,” he said, disbelievingly. “Where did you-”

“Best friend’s got a taste for the scary stuff. The cheesy stuff too, now that I think about it,” she answered with a hidden giggle. “I’m Lydia.”

“N-Norman,” he eventually returned.

Lydia’s closed-mouth smile got wider, and he decided to look anywhere else but her pretty face. She gestured to the door with a dainty thumb. “I was headed back to my cabin since I just picked out our nickname-record-thing, but maybe I’ll see you later? At dinner?”

The poor boy could only nod mutely.

Lydia clasped her records behind her back and smiled at him once more before turning on her heel, the motion flaring out her black skirt slightly, and heading out the door, the chime of a bell ringing out as she exited.

Right then, Norman felt a strange tugging in his chest from the rows of records behind him. He glanced up at the banner hanging above him – Boogie Funk & Post-Disco. One hell of a section to end up in. Almost like an unseen hand was guiding him, he flipped through records, stopping on a few but never truly landing on whatever it was he felt he was looking for. He’d gone straight through to the middle of the row and was rounding on the end of it, when suddenly. There it was.

He gently, but quickly, lifted the vinyl record out of its place buried deep in the corner of the rack. Three Black men, garbed in Roman armor, were posing victoriously on a long, winding road made from the black-and-white keys of a piano. Above them read the title, Imagination – In the Heat of the Night.

Weird cover, Norman decided, But maybe it’s got something cool on it. Whatever “cool “even sounds like.

The spiky-haired boy took it over to the listening station and placed the record on the turntable, overwhelmed at the complicated-looking contraption. Thankfully, someone seemed to have read his mind and left instructions on the wall in front of it. Okay, so I just put it where the hold pokes through, he thought, careful to only touch the record by the edges. Then press the square button on the edge and be really gentle when I put down the needle. For as delicate as it all was, there was a tactile satisfaction that Norman felt from turning all the switches and faders and hearing the soft, dusty feedback in his headphones from the cartridge brushing the outside groove of the record.

(Music: Track 08: Music & Lights)

A syncopated, squelching bassline ramped upwards and came right back, hopping along the shuffling, steady pace of the drums. The kick drum and layered claps and snare were soft, and yet still managed to come through the mix alongside the double-time of the hi-hats and tambourines. It sounded like futuristic disco, alright – maybe that’s what the post in post-disco means, Norman wondered.

It was deceptively simple. The men’s vocals were front and center like an instrument themselves. Keyboards glided along, chiming softly with the undeniable groove of the bassline. Here and there, a flourish of a second synth filled in the empty space with a twiddle, but other than that the strength of the song came from how… bouncy it felt, for lack of a better word. Norman realized that this, this was what he wanted people to dance along to when he was on that stage. As his feet tapped along to the dreamy, groovy music, he figured this would make for a pretty good starting point for whatever song he and Chester could come up with. He swiftly replaced the arm of the turntable back to its resting place and slid the record into its jacket, eager to make his way back over to his cabinmate.

Chester, meanwhile, had chosen a record and was keeping it close to his chest, giddily hiding it from Norman’s view. “Hey, man,” he greeted the spiky-haired teenager. “Got something good?”

“I think so,” he replied with a shrug. “I felt this weird pull when I found it, like it wanted me to dig it out. It sounds good and everything, but I feel… I dunno, I just like it.” He then caught that Chester was deliberately not showing off the record he held close and felt himself smirk. “Any reason I can’t see whatcha got?”

“Nah, man, it’s a secret,” Chester explained with a satisfied, devious grin. “Wait’ll I run it by Mr. M, you’ll see what I came up with.”

Norman just let it be, choosing to approach the counter with their music in hand. A bored-looking young woman with long brown hair, dressed in an all-black, skin tight outfit, sat with her legs crossed and her face in her manicured hands, perking up a little when she caught wind of the two boys coming up to the counter. “Hey,” she greeted them casually. “Checking these out?”

“Uh huh, just these,” Chester responded, cheeks going pink. The record shop worker’s outfit left just enough curves to the imagination, but only just. The golden badge on her collared leather longsleeve read Vanessa D. in black lettering.

She handed both of them what looked like a bookmark with a punctured hole near the top and a tote bag with the Camp Arcadia logo on the side, records tucked inside neatly. “Bring them back when you get done listening to ‘em and make sure you take care of them,” she instructed, sitting back down to inspect her nails. “Other than that, go wild, boys.”

“Appreciate it, er, Vanessa,” Chester thanked her bashfully, both teenagers committing to the Herculean task of keeping their eyes on hers and not dropping them back down to her well-developed chest.

The older girl’s mouth turned a smidge upwards. “No prob, blondie. See you guys whenever.”

“Y’know, you’d think people would get more creative with my nicknames,” Chester bemoaned as they walked out of the door of the Sound Exchange. “It’s always ‘Blondie’, or ‘Chompers’, never anything cool!”

“It’s kinda hard to shorten Chester without it sounding weird,” Norman pointed out, toes still tapping out the song’s rhythm as they walked over to the last part of their afternoon journey. “If it makes you feel better, you’re the first person to give me a nickname. No one’s ever called me ‘Norm’ before.” He made a face. “And now that I’m saying it out loud, I dunno if I like it.” Chester burst out in a guffaw at his honesty, and soon enough Norman started laughing alongside him. He really hadn’t meant to be so blunt.

By the time they reached the singular, surprisingly heavy door of the Tape Factory, a handful of phrases and licks from Music and Lights kept repeating in Norman’s head. He found himself humming the chorus, particularly the part about dancing with pretty girls on the dance floor. He pictured himself dancing with a certain pretty girl he’d met not too long ago, smiling involuntarily.

The inside of the Tape Factory was, in so many words, compact but cool as fuck.

It had a homey feel, with posters of musicians strewn all over the strong white concrete walls, alongside ridged foam blocks in the corners of the octagonal walls. Everything was set up in the middle of the room, plenty of space away from every wall. The main desk held up the two boxes with the pads and dials they’d seen Switch play on, and the boys walked up close to get a better look. The big one, the one with the blue screen and the sixteen white rubber pads, had dents and scratches on the steel body, evidence of a lifetime of use long before they’d gotten there. The other one was more of a rectangle and a gunmetal silver, with four colorful knobs and a big dome flashing numbers in red, morphing colors around the display. It only had twelve, numbered pads, and was noticeably more button-like than the squishy drum pads of its big brother.

A pair of turntables, with a box of switches and faders in between them, rested on an unassuming desk on the left, and on the right was a small piano with plenty of knobs and a funky green color scheme. In front of all of this was a drum set, a couple of freestanding microphones, and in the corner, a massive, complicated-looking machine with two identical reels on either side, blinking and flashing lights.. There were only two stools to use as chairs, but that suited Chester and Norman just fine.

“So what now?” the blond-haired boy wondered, aimlessly turning a knob here and there. Norman noticed a tiny sticky note next to the boxy machines like the one at the listening station in the record shop, same handwriting and all. Put the needle on the record, turn the machines on, press a couple buttons and let your imagination do the rest, it read.

“See if you can find the ‘on’ switch for these things,” Norman directed Chester, fishing the Imagination record out of his new tote. “I guess I’ll put the music on and hope something happens.”

Eventually Chester fumbled around and turned on the miniature keyboard and the boxy machine, the bright blue of its digital display beaming proudly. When Norman lowered turntable’s stylus onto the outside groove, Music and Lights’ intro filled the air and played in the boys’ ears in full stereo, not a speaker or a studio monitor in sight. Chester’s face screwed up like he smelled something terrible, but he was nodding his head as though he really dug what he was hearing.

“Holy shit, this is nice,” Chester complimented with a joyous grin, dancing and jumping around the room without a care.

Norman felt a bit of earned pride at Chester’s words. He accidentally leaned a bony elbow on one of the white pads of the boxy machine and in an instant, the song stopped playing through the way he remembered it went. A minuscule, barely-a-second’s worth of the intro repeated over and over again, looping back in on itself perfectly, truncating the previously intricate bassline down into two strong notes. The light keyboards now played out of place, but not unpleasantly so.

Chester gawked at Norman incredulously. “How’d you do that?!” came the blond’s inevitable question.

“I dunno,” Norman lamely replied, staring at the mysterious music box apprehensively. “That’s… this is what I kept hearing in my head. After I listened to it the first time at the Exchange.”

Chester walked up to the drum machine and experimentally tapped another pad in time with the loop and it shifted forward, now playing a beep! at the same time as the snare-clap and taking out the first bass note. He jumped back like a kid getting burned by an oven’s flame, and the room seemed to thrum with unseen energy, expanding and contracting the walls like a rubber balloon. “Trippy,” Chester breathed.

Press buttons and let my imagination run free, huh? Norman took a deep breath and, with a shaky hand, pressed another pad.

“-Girls, you got – pretty girls, you got – pretty girls, you got – pretty girls, you got-” the vocal sample from the chorus repeated endlessly, chopped up at just the right point and playing in time as the intro’s sparse bass line, but mixed in with the open drums and sparkling, rhythmical percussion from another part of the song Norman had forgot he’d liked.

“Dude! Dude!” Chester gurgled excitedly, jumping around the project studio on the balls of his feet. “This sounds amazing! What the hell made you loop it up like that?!”

Norman didn’t have an answer – he wasn’t too sure himself. “It got stuck in my head and I wanted to see what it would sound like, so I just… thought it and I made it.”

“Maybe that’s how it works,” Chester reasoned, hitting the stop button on the turntable. “Whatever you hear on here-” he pointed at the turntable, “-you put it all together on these things,” he indicated at the drum machines and the lone synthesizer. “After that, we perform it in front of everyone at that Jam Session thingy!”

This was insane. All he’d done was move around parts of the song and it sounded like something completely new, something that was closer to how he’d heard it. Not physically, with his ears and his brain, but it was like-

What my ears wanted to hear, Norman concluded, sparing an astonished glance to Chester. He’d already read his mind. The blond hopped onto one of the stools and spun around, grinning conspiratorially at his cabinmate.

“Let’s see what else we can do!”

As they worked and played into the night, neither noticed the big machine’s wheels in the back, lighting up and slowly turning, spooling a wide, flat material between them.

///

They wouldn’t end up leaving the Tape Factory until well after dinner had started.

In fact, if Chester hadn’t checked his watch sometime around eight-forty, chances were that they’d have missed dinner altogether and stayed there until neither one could stay awake. Messing around for hours, coming up with new loops and ideas from Music & Lights had been the type of fun Norman only dreamed of having back home. Now, though, they had to hurry before dinner was over so their cabin could complete the Cabin-Building Activity for the day and get themselves an official nickname.

They rounded the corner quickly, passing by the girls’ Cabin Eight and running down the trail that led to the Mess Hall. The oil lamps that lined the trail illuminated the surroundings with soft, orange candlelight. “I hope you picked out a good one,” Norman huffed, pushing up his hoodie’s sleeves as he moved his feet. “The guys’re gonna be pissed if we don’t come through!”

“Don’t wig out man, I told you, I got it!” Chester reassured him, stepping wide over a stray log. “I just hope we’re not too late to get somethin’ to eat!”

The mismatched pair made haste as quick as they could; officially, dinner was over at nine, but they held out hope that the Campmaster kept it open to announce everyone’s new name. The long walk became rather short when one ran as fast as they could. Chester checked his watch – 8:55PM. Five minutes left!

They finally came up to Cabin One and hit the curve that led straight through the girls’ double doors. Without hesitation (or provocation, for that matter), Chester leapt and dramatically kicked the doors in with a loud bang!, striking a heroically dorky pose.

Before either could actually think about how they’d entered, the eyes of a hundred and eighty-five campers, sixteen camp counselors, three kitchen chefs, and a dozen-and-a-half camp staff – including a startled Switch – snapped directly onto them.

Norman suddenly felt very small.

Chester laughed nervously. “Uh… sorry we’re late?”

Bruno pinched the bridge of his nose with a longsuffering sigh. Over at Cabin Three’s table, TJ and Charlie Brown held up square signs that read ‘9.3’ and ‘8.1’, grinning widely.

“Oh, sweet, we were waiting to see what Cabin Three came up with!” Switch said, completely ignoring the awkward atmosphere. “Mr. Madrigal, if ya don’t mind?”

Chester and Norman made their way to their table, passing by the silent peculiar looks and stifled laughs from every table – Norman spotted Lydia at Cabin Two’s table and flipped his hood up, pushing Chester along to hurry past her and her snickering cabinmates, blushing to the roots of his spiky hair – and Chester finally fished out the record he’d grabbed and handed it to Mister Madrigal.

The cover depicted a pair of guys walking in the street of a neighborhood sparsely littered with palm trees. Both were looking at the invisible eye of the camera, one slimmer with a pair of jeans and a khaki button-up short sleeve, the other more on the husky side with a big grey hoodie and a boombox resting on his shoulder. In an cokebottle green box in the top left was the duo’s name, People Under the Stairs , and to the right in the same color but standing on its own was the album’s title, O.S.T.

“I saw the cover and I just liked the way it looked,” Chester answered the unsaid question, gesturing with his hands excitedly. “All I needed to hear was the first song and it came to me – call the cabin The Staircase, and we can all be-”

“The People Under the Stairs,” Bruno finished, shaking his head as a grin slowly grew over his bearded face. “Not bad, kid. Anybody opposed to that?”

Norman himself thought it was pretty perfect – not the least because it was also the name of one of his favorite movies, but that was another story. The other guys seemed happy with it, even a begrudging Dib.

“Alright, cool, that settles it!” Switch declared, lifting an authoritative finger high in the air. “Cabin Three on the boys’ side will now forever be known as… The Staircase!”

The earth beneath everyone’s feet began to shake and quiver, more powerfully than it had ever before. A blinding flash of blue burst through the air of the Mess Hall’s still-uncovered ceiling, and as soon as it started it cut out abruptly like nothing had happened.

The Campmaster grew a sneaky grin as he faced the congregation of campers and counselors. “Good teamwork and creativity, y’all,” he praised them with a giddy smile. “Every cabin came up with something, I think, matches your collective personalities to the tee. I hope the new digs are to you guys’s liking.” And with that, Switch whistled and casually stepped out of the boys’ side of the cafeteria.

As people followed him out, Chester could hear gasps and elated chattering from the girls and guys alike. He and the guys of The Staircase hurried out of the door and couldn’t believe the sight that laid before their eyes.

Each and every cabin had been changed into something incredible. Cabin Eight, the closest to the lake and the Mess Hall, was transformed into a 1960s space age mish-mash of sleek steel and neon stripes wrapping around the edges of the oblong-shaped building. In radiant, multicolored bubbles around each individual letter was the name, The Astro Lounge, shining from a pole stuck in the ground right next to the cabin. A group of guys, Chester assumed were from Cabin Eight, were loudly whooping and cheering, freaking out as they quickly ran up the stairs to get reacquainted with their lodgings.

Chester, Norman and the rest of his gang rushed down the illuminated trail, eager to see what their decision had turned their old cabin into; and it certainly didn’t disappoint.

The previously regular-looking wooden cabin was replaced with a tall, wide, dark green building modelled after a simple flight of steps, climbing all the way up to a high fourth step. Big, circular windows were plastered in the middle of each “step”, with the bottom entrance door a homey peach color with a viewfinder and a doggy door. In graffiti bubble letters that seemed to leap off of the surface, an oak-colored wooden sign was planted into the ground beside the small stairs that led into the cabin, reading out, The Staircase.

Somehow, Switch had made the inside much bigger than the outside. The wide first floor held the same small kitchen as before, but it was now joined by a living room area with a humble little television against the wall. There were stairs that led up three stories with a room on each side, making up six rooms for the twelve boys of Cabin Three.

“Holy shit!” TJ cursed excitedly. The other guys scrambled about, hopping on the comfy blue couch and turning on the TV or messing around with whatever they could get their hands on.

Chester held out the side of his fist to Norman, a proud smirk set on his mouth. “Appreciate ya for coming with, Norm.”

Norman bumped it back, and in the back of his mind he imagined that this is what the beginnings of a friendship looked like. He decided it didn’t feel too bad at all. He gave a wry grin back to him. “All in a day’s work, McBadbat.”

Snoopy passed by with Woodstock on his shoulder and stopped in front of the two. The beagle lifted his cool-guy sunglasses and waggled his eyebrows, before lowering them back down and going on his merry way.

“Charlie Brown’s got a weird dog,” Norman decided. Chester agreed.