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Introducing the Lookout Guard: PART TWO |
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When Josh woke up the next morning he went to work with a zeal he’d never felt before. Usually he resented his job. In his lust for normalcy he would rather have any other job. But today he wanted to go to work. His thoughts were still dominated by the strange girl who’d saved him last night as well as The Seer’s cryptic statements of the future. This girl was supposed to be important and he didn’t doubt it.
He was good at his job on all accounts; he knew that he could be better if he ever applied himself. He should’ve been able to take those vampires on but he’s just been caught so completely off guard. Still, he didn’t like being saved by a girl. He wanted to meet her again, to talk to her. She was, as The Seer had aptly said, something strange.
“The Winds of Fate blow strongly around this one,” said a girl in a teasing voice. It was Hannah Harmon. The other girls around her laughed as she said this. His crew was mostly girls and awful lot they could be at times. Madison Carson was the ringleader. Her hair changed as often as the weather did. For the moment it was purple with a neon blue streaks in it. She was fairly tall and had her own style about her. It was mostly punk rock stuff. In the bizarre female hierarchy that truly ran his crew August Mass was next in line. She was the poet of the group and so her hair was died black to match her make-up and clothes, as she was also the group’s resident Goth. She wasn’t gloomy or anything, in fact the light spirited Madison had the darker personality.
After August was Hannah, who’d spoken. Hannah was the shortest of the bunch. She dressed sloppily as when she wasn’t at work there she was off painting. Hannah had followed Madison’s lead and died her hair various colors. She was usually more restrained than Madison. For the last few months it had been a sort of bright orange. It brought out the red in her eyes. Unfortunately for them her was the only restrained thing about Hannah, her work had a rather loud style about itself.
“I see you’ve all heard about The Seer,” said Josh as he opened his locker.
His crew’s commons was where he spent most of his time since his office was essentially uninhabitable. It was a nice place to just hang out and unwind after a day of demon hunting. It was the perfect spot to relax when he wasn’t on patrol, or when he was trying to avoid being put on patrol duty. Where he was standing now was in the locker room, which was lined with old beat-up looking lockers. None of the locks worked properly and were more trouble than they were worth. All of the lockers were different colors, thanks to Hannah. Through one set of doors was the bathroom; through the other was the lounge. He could see the lounge through a large glass windowpane.
The lounge was by far the nicest and biggest part of the commons. It had a few comfy chairs, a large couch and a big screen TV. There was a fridge in the back on the other side of the door and it was part of a sort of small, makeshift kitchenette that had completely mismatched appliances that barely worked. Each crew made their commons their own and, as with the lockers, Hannah had taken care of theirs. It was full of shades of red and brown. That was the toned down version that she’d been forced to do. Her original idea had been a little extreme.
“Yeah, we heard,” said Madison. He slammed his locker shut and walked over to the lounge. He slumped over in his favorite chair, tired from lack of sleep, and he looked around. Most of his crew had already gathered. He did a quick and silent head count.
Matthew Ford immediately rushed over to his side. Matt was a short sniveling little man who was never far from Josh. Most of the time the greasy, pimpled teen annoyed Josh to the point where he’d nearly jinxed him on a daily basis. Josh put up with him because he was basically a servant and did whatever he was told to do. Josh thought of him more like a disease that he couldn’t cure no matter how clean he got.
In front of the television, annoying the guys, was the local premadona, Isabella Leffler. Her hair was all done up from her dance practice. That meant that was normally long golden locks were completely gelled back into a tight bun. She was a white, lacey spaghetti-strapped shirt with a short, soft pink skirt. She always had to be dressed fashionably and he had no idea why.
Josh noticed two guys talking over in a corner. One was Ethan Anderson. His brown hair was spiked up and he was wearing an earring that matched his nose ring. He was dressed in a ripped up black t-shirt and baggy black pants and boots. Out of the corner of his eye Ethan was watching Madison, as he did often enough. He was talking to Anthony Bremer, who was lazily dressed in a football jersey and sweatpants, as he was just about to head off to soccer practice. Tony had let his straw like hair grow out to his shoulders and styled with bangs that sometimes covered up his eyes.
Ace Luke was dressed in old camouflage pants and a tight black t-shirt as he bent over to riffle through the fridge behind Josh, muttering some sort of complaint about lack of food under his breath. He retrieved a can of soda and closed the refrigerator door and leaned on it. He lazily tapped the top of the can with his fingertips before his opened to a loud hiss of carbonation. Ace had short, cropped brown hair and matching eyes. He was tan, on the tall side and had his fair share of muscles. He liked to work out, the only guy that Josh knew who did.
Not far from Ace was a group of chatty girls including Abigail O’Henry, Olivia Gordon, Eva Grey and Caitlin Miller. Abigail had unnaturally curly brown hair and sharp blue eyes. At the moment she was waiting for Olivia to make coffee as she played with the cord that tied up her brown capri pants. She wasn’t paying much attention to her surroundings but still could call for Olivia to finish the coffee.
Olivia had long blonde hair, big glasses and dressed oddly. She was by all definitions a nerd, she acted like nerd and she dressed like a nerd. Olivia was currently in a khaki shirt and had a dark blue sweater vest on top of a white-collar shirt, which were both tucked neatly into the skirt. She had knee-high white socks and dirt-caked tennis shoes on her rather large feet. She was shy so Abigail could basically trick her into doing almost everything for her.
Eva Grey was the second most annoying person on the crew, barely being behind Matt and it was a close call. She was about the exact opposite of Josh. She over-achieved, like to make plans, was motivated and above all preferred to clean. She was tidying up the commons, while everyone else, especially Josh, made it messy. Magicals had no middle ground between slobs and neat freaks; they were either one or the other and usually slobs. Eva had her hair cut short in a style known as the pixie and because she was blonde and had green eyes she looked like a very angry Tinkerbelle at times.
As Josh looked at her Caitlin left the group in the middle of their apparently riveting conversation and walked over to Isabella to talk about more girl stuff that Josh would never have a chance of understanding. She was the only one got a long with the rather stuck-up Isabella. Caitlin was currently dressed in tight and overly blue jeans, blue rubber crocks and a nice pink shirt. She had soft red hair that she straightened every day relentlessly. She had large, golden hoop earring popping out from her hair.
A commotion near the door brought Josh’s attention to the three members of his crew as they entered the lounge. Andy walked in first, dressed in black again so that is simple but elegant silver cross shown out.
He was accompanied by Martin Carson; he was Madison’s twin brother. They had the same face but other than they were as different as two people could be. Madison was a confident, punk rock, drum player, while Martin was an introverted, classical pianist. He had what was Madison’s natural dark brown hair and they had the same red eyes.
The last crewmember was Connor Dex. He was the tallest of the crew and he more than his fair share of muscles. The combination made him a frightening figure to face. The fear that he imposed was increased exponentially by the fact that he was in dire need of a bath and for someone to explain to him the purpose of a hairbrush. The clothes he was wearing were a fade and well-worn brown leather that nearly matched his matted brown dreads that clumped together just below his shoulder blades. He wasn’t horrible grimy but still the only thing that shown out from his stone-like face were his bright and strangely golden eyes.
Josh opened his mouth to speak now that his whole crew had finally gathered but before he could even squeeze out a single word Matt jumped in.
“Everyone! Quiet up!” yelled Matt, even though he really didn’t have to yell, “Josh has something to say!” Josh shot him a dirty look, which went utterly unnoticed. He shut his mouth out of spite but he had something to say.
“I expect that by now you all know about what happened to me and Andy last night,” said Josh as he sat up.
“How’s destiny treating you by the way?” asked Ethan to the response of a few barely stifled laughs.
“Cute, really. Look, guys here the deal: there was something about that girl.”
“What? You got a crush or something?” asked Tony.
“Shut it, I’m being serious.”
“He really is,” said Andy, “She killed all of those vampires with complete easy. I mean that fifth one, she wasn’t even looking at it. It was directly behind her and she didn’t take her eyes of Josh and managed to hit it right in the heart with her first shot.”
“She had her eyes on you?” asked Madison.
“I said stop joking around. Look, I want to talk to her again and seeing as we’re on duty tonight anyways I figure it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for her. We’ll go in teams: Connor, Ethan you’re with me; Andy, you’re with Tony and Ace; Matt, you’re with Hannah and August; Madison, you got Martin and Olivia; and a group of four with Abby, Is, Eva and Cait. If you guys find her page me and bring her to The Diner.”
“Everyone got that!?” yelled Matt.
“Shut up, Matt,” said Madison.
Josh spent most of the day filling out, borrowing, useless, paperwork. He often wondered how strange it was that the Lookout Guard essentially operated out of tree but at the same time they insisted on killed trees with all of this countless paperwork. Josh wasn’t sure why he even bothered since he never made the effort to turn any of it in. But somehow completely all that work that seemed to have nothing to do with his actual job gave him a strong sense of being the leader.
Josh didn’t see himself as being a particular good at being the leader. He was absolutely horrible at making decisions. And as Josh saw it, the main job of the leader was making all of the hard decisions. Normal choices were hard enough but the hard decisions were close to impossible. He didn’t understand why the Guard had placed him in charge of the crew seeing as how he lacked any motivation to become a good leader. Apparently he could inspire confidence and instill loyalty in his crew, not that he could notice over how much they annoyed him.
Eventually he finished his daily reports, which he considered even more under par that usual. He couldn’t focus, not that he was any good at doing that on a normal day. But today he was even less focused that ordinary; he just couldn’t stop thinking about the strange girl and The Seer’s cryptic words. Apparently this girl was supposed to change his life. He didn’t feel changed. At the moment all he felt was a strange urge to do something. He was driven to find the girl again. He’d never been so determined to do something before in his life, it was a strange sensation.
As soon as the sun set he was ready for patrol. For the first time ever he was ready before Matt. It was almost like he was actually the leader. He’d very reluctantly taken the post and never bothered to embrace the role to begin with. Technically he wasn’t embracing the role yet, he was just excited.
“Wow,” said Matt as he walked into the locker room, “You’re ready?”
“Why do you sound so surprise?” asked Josh.
“Well, because you’re, well, you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you know what I mean.”
“Obviously I don’t otherwise I wouldn’t have asked.” As he said this Madison and Martin walked into the locker room to grab their gear.
“Wow,” said Martin in shock as they stopped in unison and stared at him.
“You’re actually ready,” blurted out Madison before she could stop herself. They, like Matt, were gawking at him like there was some sort of strange purple, squishy monster on his head, sticking its mind controlling tentacles into his brain. He could understand where they were coming from.
Patrol was his least favorite part of the job. No matter when he had it the weather was horrible. To him it was always windy, rainy, cold or just all around gloomy. He always got attacked just as his shift was ending making the previous horrible hours pointless. And even though he was doing something active it actually meant more mind-numbing paperwork. Overall it was more trouble than it was worth.
“Okay, that’s just weird,” said Caitlin as she walked in with a group of girls.
“What are you, possessed?” asked Isabella and Josh stood there trying to look indignant but not quite managing it correctly. He was a little angry but he got it. But just because they were right didn’t make it any less insulting.
“Wow, hey Josh,” said Ace as he walked in with the guys. They usually met up before patrol, as did the girls. As the leader he noticed that basically the girls all came together and first then a few minutes late all the guys came together. It was something that was eerily similar between magicals and mortals.
“Why is everyone so shocked?” asked Josh, “I am the team leader! I can do leader-type things if I want to.”
“But you never do,” said August.
“Yeah, mostly you’re all ‘this sucks’ and ‘this is pointless’,” said Hannah.
“You’re all very funny, really. Now can we get to work?”
“You really want to find this girl again, don’t you?” asked Ethan.
“I thought that I made that clear. So ever get out there and do you’re jobs.”
“You should talk,” said Madison.
“Ethan, Connor, you’re with me,” said Josh and they left.
 Zegwarian310 · Tue Jul 24, 2007 @ 07:04pm · 3 Comments |
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