Song of the Chapter: Final Boss - Nitro Fun (Electro)

(Tristam's POV)

We get back to the hotel at about six in the evening. We dump our vegetables in the mini fridge and Eveelyn returns to the girls' room without so much as a glance at the rest of us. She was uncomfortably quiet throughout the entire trip. Whatever it is, it's none of my business.

However, I do want to leave again. I need some fresh air by myself. I'm feeling nervous, anxious, and walking around by myself always helps. I privately tell Stephen Walking where I'm going, and I'm about to leave when the door bursts open, probably kicked down.

"GUESS WHAT." Noisestorm practically shoves me out of the way and I crash and fall into the little bathroom. "SO WE WENT FIREWORK SHOPPING, RIGHT, AND I STARTING FILLING OUR CART AND THEY SAID I COULDN'T BUY THEM BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE IDENTIFICATION AND SO - "

"He got us kicked out of Wal-Mart," Phantom cuts him off and pushes him over on top of me. "And also, now he's stuck here, because he started yelling and they caught his voice on the security."

"You've got to be kidding me," Stephen groans. "Your first day and you've already gotten kicked out of Wal-Mart and added to the security."

I know that as the unofficial leader and organizer of this mess, I should take care of this problem and figure out what to do, but all of my mind is occupied with one thought: he could still be here. I need to clear my mind before I make any important decisions.

"Please tell me you still got them," Stephen says as I slip out of the room.

"Don't worry," I can hear Phantom answer. "I took care of it and we've got them in the other room."

I'm out of earshot by then and move quickly down the stairs and out into the cool air of the city. I have no idea how I'm going to find him, but I have to try. He's my best friend, and I know that anything could happen with his emotional instability.

I walk fast, my eyes scanning the streets, looking for something, anything, to help me find him.

Someone taps my shoulder and says, "Excuse me, sir?" I turn around and barely have time to notice the guy before he suddenly cries, "Leo!" and shoves himself onto me. His face is buried in my chest and coat and his arms, weak as they are, are gripping me tightly, unwilling to let go. He's sobbing, too, and through his choking gasps, I can hear him whispering, "I knew you'd find me. I knew you'd find me."

I immediately recognize him. "Braken!" I grab him back, holding him tight. "I've been looking for you for a long time. I can hardly believe it!"

People are giving us strange looks, but neither of us care. We're too happy to have found each other. We were separated when the MI broke the label meeting, and I had been more worried than I knew was possible. Now I've found him.

"We have to go back to the others at the hotel," I say after a moment.

"Hotel?" He looks up at me with his deep blue eyes. "There's more?"

"We've been gathering the others up and we're at a hotel for a while. We're planning a rebellion. Come on."

As we walk back, taking our time, I ask him about how he'd been doing, all while studying him to make sure he's physically as well as he can be. He's thin and pale, and I realize that it's because he's been living on the streets, taking that over going back to his father. I don't blame him. I tell him a little about the camp in the forest, but there's not much to tell.

Our conversation is cut short by the sound of sirens, speeding past us. Without thinking, I pull Braken into an alleyway, just in case.

The MI are on the hunt.

●•●•●•●

(Nitro Fun's POV)

Someone knocks on the front door, but I don't feel like getting up to answer it. My mom will just answer it anyway. Instead, I continue my work on my laptop. In reality, I should be doing homework, but I'm procrastinating, as usual, and working on more fun things. I listen to a few interesting video game sounds through my headphones before I hear my mom calling me.

"Yeah?" I yell back, still too lazy to get up.

"Someone important is here to see you."

For some reason, an alarm goes off in my head. I don't know any important people, and I'm not doing anything too illegal. I jump up, suddenly full of panicked adrenaline, and peek out my window. Sure enough, it's them. The MI's here.

"Coming!" I answer my mom, fighting to keep my voice steady. "Just a second!"

She tells me to hurry up, and I almost laugh. I'm hurrying faster than she's probably ever seen me move. I quickly save my work and slam my laptop closed, stuffing it into my bag after dumping all the school stuff out. I grab my chargers for my electronics and add them to the bag, along with my gameboy, old DS, and games. I'm still planning on getting more ideas from them, plus ... I'm not going to lie; I really love games. My phone's currently at forty-three percent, but I have a portable charger I can use later. I grab what little snack foods I can find, along with a shirt, but don't have time to grab anything else, because I can hear the MI officers yelling at me from down stairs.

"Just a second!" I repeat, frantically zipping my bag and pulling on my jacket. I still have my shoes on from earlier, so I run to the window, pausing only to grab a notebook with scribbled ideas all over it. As a quick second thought, I tear out a page and write 'SORRY' on it for my mom. I leave that and pull open the window. There's a tree five or six feet away, and I think I can make it. With a deep breath, I sling my backpack over my shoulder and jump, hitting the tree hard.

Through the open window, I can hear the MI officers running up the stairs. I drop down to the ground and run, only looking back once as the two soldiers break into my room and duck out the window. "There he is!" one of them shouts, pointing. "Get downstairs to the car. We'll catch him faster that way."

I sprint across the street, my bag banging against my back, my heart pounding like a drum, and my panicked breaths catching in my throat. The city's only a few blocks down. I can cut through yards and duck into crowds to avoid the MI, but I can only do that for so long. My wallet's in my backpack somewhere, but I've never been one to have a job, so the most I've got is maybe fifty bucks.

I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, or maybe I'm stupid, but I'm not letting them take me and my music that easily. I'm not going down without a fight. Round one, my gamer side says. The MI car pulls around the corner, turning on its sirens. I duck into the nearest store lining the city's main street. The next one over happens to be a video game store, but I tell myself that that's the place they'd expect me to hide in. Not some ... I look around and silently groan. Not some women's clothing store.

"Can I help you?" the lady at the front says, sounding pretty annoyed.

"Yeah, actually. Um ... my sister's birthday is today, and I might have sort of forgotten to get her a present." I'm totally lying. I don't even have a sister. But I give her the most innocent smile I can and laugh in embarrassment.

"Oh." The woman now seems less bothered by the fact that a teenage boy just barged into her store. "What does she like?"

I glance around quickly and point to the back, where necklaces are lined up neatly. "Jewelry."

"Let's go take a look."

Let's not, my conscious says.

Shut up, I tell it.

We make our way to the back of the store and start looking. I know I'm going to have to buy something, since I came here on 'short notice' and all, so I'm looking for the cheapest piece of crap I can find.

There. A silver necklace with a red jewel tear drop at the end. That's small and cheap-looking. I pick it up and check the price tag. I sort of want to throw it at the wall afterward. Sixteen bucks?! I don't have that kind of money to waste on some necklace I'll never need.

"Some girls like smaller things," the lady says, unaware of my internal rage. "That one's nice."

"I'll take it," I say automatically, eager to get out of this place full of inconveniently priced jewelry.

We go and I check out, glancing behind me. I heard the sirens go past while we were browsing the necklaces, but I just want to make sure. They're not there, so I thank the woman as politely as I can and force myself to casually stroll out of the store. Once I'm out of sight from inside, I let out a huge sigh of relief and take out the necklace. I shove it in my pocket and throw the bag and receipt away, although as soon as I do, I realize that I could have totally returned it tomorrow and got my sixteen bucks back.

I'm debating whether to grab it back out of the garbage can, all while my conscious is singing you win! but then I see the MI car pulling around the corner, slowly this time. They went in a circle. Perfect.

Round two! my gamer side yells. Fight!

I am not going to fight them, I tell it, sticking my hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking.

Trying to be casual is pretty hard, I figure out, because after only a few seconds, they've turned on their sirens again and are speeding up to catch up to me. I break into a frantic sprint, dodging people and poles and only tripping over a tree once. It doesn't matter. They're in a car. I'm on foot. I'll tire out and they'll catch me before I can do anything about it.

I spin around the corner and someone grabs my backpack, yanking me into an alleyway. I yelp embarrassingly and trip over myself, landing oh-so-gracefully on my butt.

There's two older guys standing over me. The taller one holds out his hand to help me up, and I awkwardly take it. He's wearing a long black coat that goes down almost to his knees and has black hair. The other is shorter, with a pale face, brown hair, and frantic eyes. He's wearing a green scarf, too, though it's not really that cold.

"Who are you running from?" the first one asks. "No one runs that fast without someone chasing you. I've been watching you."

"That's creepy," I mutter.

"The MI caught on to you, didn't it?"

I nod, my mind working even faster than it usually does. That voice is almost familiar. I try to study him unawkwardly, and notice the pair of triangle glasses on in his hair and the symbol on his shirt, under his coat. Suddenly realizing something, I glance at the other one, taking note of another symbol - a logo - on his dirt-stained and oversized hoodie. The realization hits almost like a physical blow.

"You're Tristam and Braken!" I shout, but Tristam quickly shoves his hand over my mouth.

"Not so loud," he grumbles. "It's not like we're hiding here to attract attention."

"I was so worried about you guys after I heard about the MI crashing the meeting and ..." I let my voice trail off, since Tristam's hand is still blocking the sound and I can't understand anything I'm saying.

"They're after you because you make music?" he asks.

I nod and he releases me. "Uh ... of course I do," I say slowly. "I'm Nitro Fun."

"WHAT -" Braken yelps and it's his turn to get Tristam's hand slapped over his mouth.

"You're Nitro Fun." Tristam gives me a strange look.

"Yeah ... so?"

"You're Nitro Fun."

"Yeah, I thought we went over this."

"You're -"

"Yes! I'm Nitro Fun. You're Tristam, he's Braken. Ta-da! Introductions 101. Can we move on?"

"But you're a kid." He's staring blankly at me, like he can't believe it.

"Not a kid, exactly, but yeah, I guess so. Where are the others?"

"He's just a kid."

"You were, what, seventeen when you first released, so why is this such a big deal?"

"You're just -"

"Okay, yes, I'm a kid and I'm acting better than you, mister adult. WHERE ARE THE OTHERS? ARE THEY OKAY?"

The MI car speeds past our hiding place again, sirens blaring. Finally, that seems to snap Tristam out of his trance. "Yeah, yeah. We'll wait for a clear and then I'll take you two to the hotel."

"Great, the coast is clear." I start to march out onto the sidewalk, but Braken grabs me and pulls me back.

"They're still out there," he whispers, his voice panicked.

"Good job. Gold sticker for you. They're not here, so we're clear." Honestly, I'm getting pretty annoyed. I sure hope these guys are better when they're not threatened like this.

"Alright," Tristam says. "We're clear; let's go."

I roll my eyes and follow the two out to the sidewalk.

Nitro Fun wins! my conscious shouts.