Chapter 1: What Doesn't Kill You Only Sends You to an Island in an Alternate Dimension Filled With Monsters
Chapter Text
It wasn't the first time Milo found himself stuck in an alternate dimension. At least that's what he thought happened after he found himself hurtling through what he thought was a portal. The air certainly felt weird here. But it was certainly his first time stuck in an alternate dimension alone. Every time prior he'd always had been with someone. At least he had his backpack, but it didn't make him any less uneasy.
The orange traffic cones were certainly a familiar site to Milo. The crabs that were carrying them around less so. Milo had spent a lot of time around wild animals to know it was USUALLY a good idea to keep his distance. And so that was what he was going to do. But he wasn't going to just sit here on the beach surrounded by cliffs. The first step was going to be to get some height and see if he could see anything useful.
Of course, it wasn't the first time he scaled a cliff, and probably wouldn't be the last. He had prepared for that though, and it so it didn't take him long to scale the small cliff. Where he saw more trash crabs.
"Well that was helpful," Milo said.
He then turned his head 90 degrees to the right.
"Oh." There was a small town a couple miles down the shore, "Well I guess that's as good a place to start as any."
Milo started off in that direction.
Unfortunately, Milo didn't seen the green short humanoid looking creature until it jumped out at him.
"Look out!" a voice called, Milo whipped his head around looking for the source of the sound. A green, plastic robin hood looking thing threw a bunch of legos at the thing, scaring it away.
The thing turned into man, with a pink jacket and white hair, "Damn, a bootleg, would have loved to record that. Hey kid, you lost?"
The man looked at him closer, "Actually I don't think I've ever seen you? You're lost-lost aren't you?"
"I'm Milo," Milo said, shifting his backpack on his back, "And yeah, I'm pretty lost."
"From Mourningtown lost or new to New Wirral lost?"
"The last one," Milo said, "I don't know what Mourningtown is.... or New Wirral for that matter."
"You're acting rather calm for finding yourself lost on an island with monsters?" Eugene noted.
"I like to focus on finding solutions rather than dwelling on the problem," Milo explained, "Also, Is this another dimension? I've gotten lost in those before, and I think that's what this is."
"You... have?" the man asked looking baffled.
"Anyway, you wouldn't have any idea on how I could get home Mr....."
"Oh, Sorry. Eugene. Just Eugene." The man said, reaching out his hand for Milo to shake.
Milo returned the shake, "Nice to meet you? I'm sure this place is nice, but my mom's making her special stew."
The man grimaced, "Sorry kid, I don't think you'll make it home for dinner,"
"I'm sure there will be leftovers," Milo said.
"Let's head to town it's getting late, I'll explain on the way" Eugene said, "You're lucky you landed along the shoreline and not like. On Mount Wirral."
"People don't usually describe me as lucky," Milo said.
"Hmm," the man said, "Well, anyway, here's the brief. This is New Wirral, and your stuck here. We all are, for the past 100 years people have been washing up on new Wirral's shores
"You don't have a way back?" MIlo asked.
"Well, actually, we have our first real lead in about a hundred years... but it'll probably be a few more months before it pans out, if it does." Eugene said.
All of the sudden a whole swarm of the same kind of monster as the green one, except all these were black appeared, along with a large monster that seemed to bare some similarities to the black monsters, but also not quite.
"A rouge fusion swarm," Eugene grimaced, "Where did that come from,"
"Okay kid, I've taken a page out of Kayleigh's book. Here's an extra cassette player?"
"Okay???" Milo asked befuddled.
"I've already got a tape in it, so you're just going to put the headphones on and press play, can you do that?"
"Sure... this thing is ancient?
"I know right?" Eugene said, "Just follow my lead and we'll be okay... damn it I can't believe I ran out of smoke bombs,"
Eugene pressed play and turned back into the green man monster thing.
Milo hesitated for a moment before he pressed play himself, and turned into a moody floating sheep.
His head was swarming.
"Just breath," the man/monster said.
Milo look a deep breath. He was floating. The familiar weight of his backpack was gone, but so was the rest of his body. He had never felt lighter.
"Try to use a technique,"
"What?" MIlo asked.
"Just attack!"
"MIlo found himself smacking the monster with his hooves (which he now had).
The battle dragged on excruciatingly long but seemed to go by all to fast. Milo had found himself in violent conflicts before, even against wildlife but nothing like this.
"Focus on protecting yourself," Eugene told him.
Suddenly, the largest monster split into two?"
"What?"
Milo was feeling even more faint.
"We might be able to get away now," Eugene said, "Let's book it,"
Milo followed after Eugene as he ran away from the battle, who then detransformed.
"Okay, how do I de-transform?"
"Press the stop button," Eugene said.
"Press the stop button?" Milo asked, he didn't have the Cassette tape anymore?"
"Not like. You know how you pressed play to transform and attack. Press stop to... not do that." Eugene said.
Somehow that made a lot of sense, and Milo was able to turn back into a boy. Just regular old Milo.
"We better head to the hospital first," Eugene said looking over Milo, "You shouldn't be hurt, since your cassette didn't break,"
Milo nodded like that made sense, and tried to hand him back his cassette player.
"You better keep that," Eugene told him. Milo put it in an easily accessible part of his backpack.
He had a feeling he would need to use it again sooner rather than later.
"Eugene!" A voice called.
"Kayleigh! Viola!" Eugene
"Did you fight that Rouge fusion all by yourselves?" A redheaded woman in a sweater asked.
"Who is this?" A black haired woman, wearing a sleeveless longcoat asked.
"Milo," Milo said, he felt dizzy on his feet.
"Let's get back to town,"
"You must be tired young Milo let me help." the longcoat woman said, helping hold Milo up. "I am Viola of Messeline,"
"Milo Murphy," Milo repeated.
"I'm Kayleigh," the redhead woman said, "Not every day we have a new arrival. Eugene what did you do to the poor kid?"
"It's not like I planned to get attacked by a rouge fusion." Eugene defended, "Kids tough though,"
As soon as Milo hit the hospital he passed out. Despite the strangeness of everything else the hospital felt like a hospital. Sure it was smaller than your typical hospital, more like a doctor's office. But the scent of disinfectant was familiar to Milo.
When Milo did come to the one room hospital was surprisingly bustling. There seemed to be six people, besides him. The three who came with him, plus 4 other humans, and a dog. Hospitals usually didn't allow dogs, so seeing a dog in here was nice, but it made him wonder where Diogee was. Diogee always had a habit of ending up where he wasn't supposed to. Maybe he was here somewhere too.
"Oh, hey Milo. You're awake!" Eugene said.
"I hope we didn't wake you? Sorry, I'm Felix" A man wearing a pair of overalls and a white t-shirt asked.
"I can make them go," a woman, wearing a white coat who Milo was assuming was a doctor said, "But after they brought you back they insisted on staying, and then these stragglers came in, "I'm Dr. Pensby, you're Milo correct?"
"Right, and I've spent a lot of time in hospital" Milo explained, "I really don't mind, but..."
"This is Meredith, and Cass," Kayleigh introduced, gesturing to a woman with a smiley face pin pinned upside down on her black jacket, and a woman with purple hair in two buns.
The doctor looked immediately concerned, "Any pre-existing medical conditions?"
"Extreme Hereditary Murphy's Law," Milo said, "Though it's fine if you haven't heard about it. It's pretty rare."
"Can't say that I've heard of it?" The woman asked, "Though it isn't unusual for medical conditions to... resolve themselves upon coming to New Wirral. Have you noticed any symptoms?"
"Maybe?" Milo said, "Depends how common it is to get attacked by monsters?"
"What exactly is your condition?"
"Maybe the kid doesn't want to dump his medical history in front of a bunch of strangers he just met," Meredith said.
"he already said he was cool with us," Eugene countered.
"No, it's really fine," Milo said, "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Around me, or anyone else with Murphy's Law. I'm Milo Murphy."
The dog, which was in Cass's arms began to wiggle and bark.
"Do you like dogs?" They asked, "I think Barkley wants to meet you?"
"I love dogs!" Milo said, "I have one, named Diogee, he's the best,"
Cass gave Barkley to Milo, who immediately began petting his fluffy fur. Weirdly, the dog also has a cassette player with him.
"So when you say things go wrong, you mean like bad luck?" Kayleigh asked.
"Kinda," Milo said, and the bed he was sitting in broke beneath him.
"That's Murphy's Law," Milo said, standing up out of the wreckage, "I still have it."
"I guess I need to find a new bed," the doctor said.
"So... in your universe luck is hereditary?"
"I mean? Kind of i guess. It is for us. I think it depends. Murphy's Law is really an outlier?"
"So anything that can go wrong, will go wrong?"
"Around me."
A few anxious glances were passed around.
"It's really not as bad as you think," Milo attempted to reassure them, "I've dealt with it all my life so I've got a pretty good handle on things. I mean I've been abducted by aliens, and time traveled. I'm sure I can handle, whatever this is!"
"Really?" Meredith asked.
"Well, maybe not by myself," Milo admitted, "I only got through all of that because I had my friends helping me. I still have my backpack, but that's really only my second greatest tool."
"We can help!" Kayleigh volunteered, "
"Who exactly is we?" smiley face pin woman asked.
"We've fought archangels," Kayleigh pointed out though Milo had no idea what that really meant, "We should be able to help one kid out,"
"You have to understand New Wirral is already a dangerous place, so people will be wary of you,"
"Oh, I get that." Milo said, "It's like that at home too,"
"But New Wirral IS a place where people help each other out. So if that's what you need, we can do that!"
"I'm sure news has already spread about you being here," the doctor, whose name Milo still didn't know said. I'm sure we'll find you someone to stay with relatively quickly. But for now someone should tell Ianthe of the situation."
"I'll tell her," Kayleigh said.
"Ianthe?" Milo asked.
"Head of the rangers," Purple haired woman said.
"Can I come?" Milo asked.
"Shouldn't you get some rest?"
"I'm fine!" Milo said, "I recover quickly!"
"He's fine, he was just a bit worn out from transforming for the first time," Dr. Pensby said.
"Sure!" Kayleigh said, "You can probably talk to Ianthe yourself!"
"Well, I'm going to investigate a rumour in Cherry Meadows?" Cass said, "Coming with Barkley?"
Barkley barked in response, and, with a final lick of Milo's cheek, bounded off after Cass somewhere. Everyone else save Kayleigh and Eugene gave some excuse or another about being somewhere else. Milo grabbed his backpack off a side table, and followed Kayleigh and Eugene out.
Milo was surprised to find that the hospital was right on the water. As in the path outside of it wasn't a sidewalk but a dock.
"Harbourtown kind of expanded in every direction," Kayleigh explained, that includes towards the sea."
"That's cool," Milo said, "I love the ocean!"
"Really?" Kayleigh asked.
"Yep!" Milo said, "In fact my family has owned several boats. They usually end up sinking."
Kayleigh winced as Milo described his family. Milo didn't know if it was because of the sinking ships or family. Eugene gave a small snort of laughter.
"Hey, Eugene said something about everyone being stuck here?"
"Ha, yeah. We're stuck. Have been for a hundred years. Everyone here is either a castaway like you from different dimensions and times... or the children and grandchildren of castaways. The only way off this island seems to be well... anyway. Harbourtown's small and a little dull, but it's nice."
"It seems nice," Milo agreed.
Milo followed Kayleigh through what seemed to be a town square into a building that looked like it had been a ship at one point.
Two older women were talking, one dark haired and scared, and the other light haired with red tinted glasses.
"Ianthe, Wilma, this is the kid Eugene found!"
"Hi, I'm Milo!" Milo introduced himself.
"Nice to meet you Milo I'm Ianthe, the leader of the Rangers?"
"The rangers?" Milo asked.
"We're people tasked with keeping New Wirral safe. We do things like keep the local monster populations in check, run rescues and keep an eye out to make sure everything's smooth on the island."
"So you're.... kinda all the emergency services rolled into one?"
"I guess you could say that." Ianthe said chuckling, "I mean most of us aren't exactly well trained in first aid, or fire fighting. But we do our best."
"Awesome!" Milo said, "That's cool!"
"So Eugene, Kayleigh said you ran into a bit of trouble, with a rouge fusion, I know your not a ranger but do you mind telling me about it?"
"Nah, I help out Cass and Kayleigh enough," Eugene said, "It's really no problem. It was just. Weirdly close to town. And the swarm was a bit bigger than usual. Other than that it didn't seem unusual. Besides you know. Being a swarm. Milo was a huge help in fighting it off, despite his lack of experience.
"That's concerning," Ianthe said.
"It might just be Murphy's Law," Milo said.
"Huh?"
"Whatever can go wrong will go wrong around me. It might have been worse because I was there."
"Interesting," Ianthe said, "Speaking of you Milo, I suppose we need to find a foster family for you."
Something about that struck Milo sharply. A foster family. Someone who wasn't his family. The permanence of this situation was beginning to set in.
"We don't exactly get a ton of kids for new arrivals..." Ianthe explained, "But it DOES happen, so we'll get you set up in a foster family for now,"
"A foster family, Is there really no way home?" Milo asked in a bit shaky of a voice.
"Well, not that we've found... but maybe we'll get lucky. Cass has the first lead in a century." Ianthe said. Milo had heard that a lot and he hadn't been here for very long. They sure were banking a lot on Cass.
The sound of crashing was heard through town hall. Papers were flying everywhere, and a man was standing on the loft, leaning trying to catch some of them. He tripped. Quickly Milo tossed a self inflating air mattress over towards him to soften the blow. As soon as the man got off, dazed but seemingly alright, the air mattress started flying around the room as it deflated, knocking several people off their feet, even knocking over a fridge.
"Murphy's Law?" Milo said with an awkward shrug.
The group stared at the scene that had unfolded.
"So this happens to you often?" Ianthe asked. Milo nodded. Ianthe looked pensive.
"Maybe we can take him in dear," Wilma told Ianthe.
"We're busy," Ianthe noted, "I'm not sure we can give Milo the attention he needs,"
"It takes a village," she reminds her, "It's not as though we'll be on our own. The kid just needs a place to sleep and people to trust, we can do that."
"You make it sound simpler than it is." Ianthe laughed.
"Maybe," Wilma admitted, "But do you really have any better ideas... Carrie just had a baby, and you know how Mark and Alex are. This doesn't have to be permanent. "
"No, you're right," Ianthe said, "Milo. How do you feel about staying with Wilma and I?"
"I mean, if it's not too much trouble," Milo said, "Murphy's Law is a lot, I can look after myself,"
"No offense kiddo I'm sure you can look after yourself but we aren't letting a kid live on their own."
"That's fair," Milo said.
"Well Milo, Welcome Officially to New Wirral."
Milo wasn't sure how to feel about that.
Chapter 2: Cassette Based Education
Summary:
Thing have been going relatively well for Milo in Harbourtown. That was never going to last.
Notes:
Cassette Beasts unfortunately has like one child character. So I get to make shit up about New Wirral's child population. If you want details or clarification on Milo's classmate OCs I would be happy to elaborate. Otherwise, sorry for the OC focus, I wanted to worldbuild.
Chapter Text
Milo awoke to something licking his face.
"Diogee, I'm trying to sleep," Milo whined.
The dog barked, but... it wasn't Diogee's bark. Milo sat up startled.
"Oh... it's you Barkley." Milo said sadly.The dog whined softly, but Milo scratched his ears affectionately.
Milo missed Diogee. Immensely.
He missed his parents and his backpack and his friends and his sister a little more each day. He'd always figured he could handle Murphy's Law, so long as he had them to fall back on when he needed.
He'd been on the island for a month, and he was no closer to figuring out how to get off the island.
Or, maybe more accurately Cass hadn't given him any updates, despite promising him that they would.
"Wait a minute, Barkley. You're supposed to be at the Cafe aren't you? Your not supposed to be in my house?"
"My house," The words had slipped out before Milo could even stop them. This wasn't his house. His house, a real Ship of Theseus, was where his family was. His home.
His house was where he could send Diogee.
Milo noted the cool ocean breeze that drifted through his room.
There was a hole in the floor next to his bed. Milo couldn't really tell what had made it. It was probably fine, these things usually were, but it would have to be repaired and if by chance it WAS a monsters hole, someone would want to know there was a rouge monster in Harbourtown.
But for now, Milo moved a wooden box (that he had been using as a nightstand, New Wirral had an abundance of the things) over the hole for now. And he'd bring Barkley to Cass in the morning.
It was nice to sleep with a dog again.
The next morning Milo carried Barkley out to breakfast, digging his fingers into Barkley's thick fur.
"Good Morning Milo," Wilma said from the stove, sliding eggs onto a plate.
"It seems you found a friend last night?" Ianthe chuckled scratching Barkley's chin, "Where'd you come from there Barkley?"
"There's a hole in the floor of my room" Milo said a bit sheepishly. He had long grown used to having to explain night time incidents to his family, but it was a whole other thing to do so with people who had graciously allowed him into their home. There was a reason the only sleepovers he'd ever had were campouts or at his house. But so far Wilma and Ianthe had taken the whole thing in stride.
"A hole?" Wilma asked.
"I don't know where its from," Milo explained, "I put a crate over it for now though,"
"Well, I suppose we'll have to ask Wallace to go take a look at it," Ianthe said.
Milo nodded, he was already well acquainted with the ranger captain who doubled as the head of construction. They'd met after a couple walls he'd tried leaning on spontaneously fell. That said he was ALSO familiar with the ranger captain who was in charge of New Wirral's electrical system. Electrical systems had maybe overloaded and caused fires in his presence once or twice. Fortunately Captain Wallace and Captain Lodestein were amicable and welcomed the chance to make the community more robust. That much at least was familiar.
All that said, there were surprisingly few incidents for a town that wasn't Danville. Turns out, preparing for monster attacks is a lot like preparing for Murphy's Law. You never know what you'll face.
"Well, it looks like someone took advantage of the hole... but aren't you supposed to be with Cass? You little escape artist?" Wilma said scratching Barkley behind the ears, which seemed to please Barkley greatly.
"Actually, I think I heard Cass is out with Felix," Ianthe said, "Something about tracking down Felix's wayward brainchild..."
Milo didn't ask, but sat at the table and put Barkley on the ground.
"She didn't take him with?" Wilma asked.
"Then where is he supposed to be?" Milo asked.
"He's probably staying with Kayleigh or Eugene," Ianthe said, "Really, I thing the dog just lives at the Cafe. It just so happens Cass lives above the cafe,"
"It's a nice cafe," Milo said. And it was. He had liked hanging out at the cafe when he had free time. (Which was often). He didn't hang out there as much as Town Hall, but both he found were filled with interesting characters and were a good way to get to know residents. Really aside from the Heritage Centre (which Milo found very interesting, but after 100 year old artifacts nearly caught on fire it was agreed that maybe it wasn't the best place for him to hang out), and the Park (which was very nice, but also outside and thus vulnerable to weather), there wasn't really much else he could go. In general people only occasionally left town alone, and kids basically never.
"Well, you can drop Barkley off at the cafe before you head off to school, someone there will probably know where he's supposed to be,"
"Sounds like a plan," Milo agreed cheerfully, and sat down at the table, where Wilma had set a plate for him.
"So what are you two doing today?" Milo asked conversationally.
"Same old same old," Wilma said, "I'm afraid supply management isn't terribly interesting to talk about,"
"Penny, Captain Penny Dreadful, you haven't met her yet, said there's some strange activity in the New London area, so I'm planning on heading out to investigate," Ianthe said.
Milo nodded. He wasn't really sure what New London was, except probably not actually a town. But the point was Ianthe would be gone, maybe for a whole night. This had happened a couple times so far, someone called Ianthe out to some far reach of the island.
New Wirral had a lot of things, but dog food was not one of them, so Milo slid some of his eggs onto the floor which Barkley eagerly ate, licking every last bit of grease from the floor.
"Well, I better head out before I'm late for school, Milo said, shrugging on his backpack packed with things given to him by Captain Skip (another one of Milo's new favorite people, Skip always had all sorts of junk that they were willing to give Milo that turned out to be useful).
"Hey Clemence," Milo said, noting that only Clemence was here in the Cafe.
"Oh, my first customer of the day," Clemence greeted, "Bonjour Milo, Barkley,"
"What are your hours anyway?" Milo asked, realizing he had been in here at all sorts of hours,"
"Roughly 6 to Midnight," Clemence said, "Give or take an hour or two,"
"Those are pretty long hours," Milo asked.
"It is what it is, the people need a place to go." Clemence said, "And I don't exactly have anything better to do,"
"Do you ever do anything else," Milo asked.
"I go for walks, I take breaks," Clemence said, "I have no need to worry about leaving the cafe unattended. But I have no interest in transforming into a monster, and so here I stay. I find the interesting things come to me here,"
"Well, I have to go to school, and Barkley..."
"You can leave Barkley here," Clemence agreed taking a dog biscuit from beneath her counter and tossing it in the air where Barkley joyfully caught it, "I will welcome the company,"
"Bye Barkley!" Milo said cheerfully.
"Have a good day," Clemence said.
"Oh Hey Milo!" a voice greeted cheerfully, when Milo had only just barely made his way out of the cafe.
"Oh, hi Miki!" Milo greeted his classmate.
Miki seemed to have no qualms about approaching Milo, practically skipping up to him, her long loose black curls tied up in a swinging ponytail. It was weird being in a place where his whole class didn't seem to care. They were hesitant at first but seemed to quickly adjust to the rhythm (or lack thereof) of Murphy's Law.
"What brings you this way,"
"Barkley broke into my room last night, I was dropping him off at the Cafe"
"Oh lucky," Miki whined, "I wish we had more dogs here, you used to have a pet dog right?"
Milo held back a grimace from her phrasing of "used to", "Yeah, I do. Diogee,"
"My mom said she used to have a dog," Miki said, "His name was Peanut,"
"What kind of dog?" Milo asked.
"Something called an Ausland Shepard or something,"
"Australian Shepherd?" Milo asked, "Or... is this one of those interdimensional things,"
"That might of been it," Miki said with a snap.
Milo yanked her to the right as a large cargo box fell out of the sky and nearly crushed the pair.
"Huh, weird, did that come from the sky?" Miki asked, barely phased.
An old man poked his head out a nearby window, "What's the ruckus?"
"Stuff from the sky!" Miki called back to him, already poking her way through the shattered lumber to the equally shattered fruit on the inside.
"What is this?"
"It looks like watermelon," Milo noted, picking up a shard of the fruit by the rind, which was sticky with juice.
"Watermelon?" Miki asked, following Milo's lead and picking up a piece, "I don't think we have that here,"
"Really?" Milo asked. Milo
"Is it edible?" Miki asked.
"Should be," Milo said, and no sooner had the words come out of Milo's mouth was Miki biting into a piece of watermelon.
And then immediately turned and spit it out on the ground.
"It tastes disgusting!"
"Maybe it tastes different in another dimension," Milo mused, grabbing a tiny bite for himself. Same old same old. Apparently Miki just didn't like watermelon.
"Taste's fine to me," Milo said.
"It's supposed to taste like that?"
"Watermelon you say?" The old man still dressed in pajama's asked having walked up behind the pair, "It's been decades since I last had a bite,"
"It's good!" Milo said, handing a piece to him, which the man immediately took a large bite, chewing slowly as if to saver the flavor.
"Well I'll be, you two better run off to school, and maybe we can use these seeds to grow some more watermelon,"
"Yeah, we'll be off, bye Mr. Williams," Miki said, taking Milo by the hand.
"Bye Miki, Bye Mikey,"
"The names Milo," Milo called back.
"Don't take it personally, he's bad with names," Miki said.
Milo just nodded. It wasn't the first time.
Eventually Milo and Miki made it to the schoolhouse. A small building overlooking the water that flowed through the center of town that housed students from about 5 to 15. It had two rooms, one for "primary" students and one for "secondary", connected by a small hallway. No one had bothered to install a bathroom in the school. If you had to go to the bathroom, students just slipped out the back door to use the neighbors, an apparent improvement over the outhouse that apparently had been in use for much of the schools life. In many ways it wouldn't look out of place in a historical drama, but intermixed with the century old desks and chalkboard, were detailed diagrams of the human body, and a periodic table included elements not just through element 118, but 172, but some of the other elements were labeled weirdly, Argon was replaced with an element labeled "Goodon" (abbreviation Go) Magnesium and Manganese had their abbreviations swapped, and 13 was labeled with "Aluminium", and the table completely lacked Pizzazium... and Time Juice for that matter.
"Good Morning Jamie, Morning River!" Miki greeted their fellow classmates. Jamie was a kid, 12, with short sandy brown hair styled in an undercut, and equally light brown eyes that only briefly met Milo's. River had long black hair tied in a braid, that practically whipped around and smacked him in the face with how fast he had turned around to face them. River had Jamie nodded in acknowledgement towards them, and redirected their attention back towards their book.
"Thomas and Kiera aren't here yet." Milo noted. He was not used to be
"Nope," River said cheerfully, "You know Kiera! Probably leading Thomas on a wild goose chase through town."
As if summoned by the call of her name, Kiera, their youngest in their class at 11 year old, with straight blond tied into pigtails by green ribbons matching the color of her hair, burst into the room, "I have arrived!"
"We have arrived," Thomas, her 14 year old brother sighed running his hand tiredly through his short curly afro.
"Where's Ms. Jones?" Kiera asked.
"Hasn't come in yet," River said.
"And he's not going to she's home sick," Mr. Walker, the primary school teacher, said, "You kids are on your own today,"
"Aw sweet!" River said, "Day off,"
"No substitute?" Milo found himself asking.
"Substitute?" Miki asked.
"Replacement teacher?"
Everyone still looked confused.
"Oh I had one of those one time, I think!" Kiera said, "A temporary teacher, we don't have those here!"
"We can still do our work," Thomas said, "At least work on our math,"
"Boo!" River said.
"It's up to you how you want to use your time," Mr. Walker said, "I trust you will make good decisions." And with that he left the room and returned to his own classroom.
"I've got an idea on what we should do today!" River said, pulling his cassette layer out of his bag.
"Practice transforming?"
"I don't have a cassette player," Jamie reminded him.
"I meant head out of town," River said with an eye roll, "By ourselves!"
Jamie still looked hesitant, "Without an adult?"
"Well you don't have to come, but you won't be able to see any monsters in the wild either,"
"If I'm going out I'd go with an actual ranger," Jamie said.
"I'll have to go ask Laura if we can borrow our player," Kiera mumbled. Milo had yet to meet Laura, but it was his understanding she was Thomas and Kiera's older sister.
"You're not going," Thomas said.
"I'm going if you are!"
"You know, I'm going to stay behind," Milo said, "I'd rather not... well..."
Suddenly there was the sound of a loud roar, as the classroom wall came tumbling down, and a giant bullet tore through the classroom. Milo was getting the distinct feeling he might not have a choice.
ThatGamerSnake on Chapter 1 Sun 19 Nov 2023 05:41AM UTC
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SheepishWitch on Chapter 1 Sun 19 Nov 2023 12:41PM UTC
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