• Inconspicuously, I held in my laughter as the two boys walked into the gothic-fantasy-hippie restaurant—Den, they set their things down and walked off together, still looking mean. As soon as they were out of sight (I think they went to the bathroom), I exchanged a look with Are. Her forest green eyes were twinkling with laughter and her thin lips were firmly pressed tightly together, compressing her laughter. That told me we had the same thought, one I don’t care to entail here (but I hope you guess at regardless).
    As we lost our interest, I turned back to my calculations. Are, however, looked around and a smile settled on her lips as she spotted our friend, Cuddles. Are waved her arms over her head in hopes of catching Cuddles’ eye, which she didn’t, as she (Cuddles) walked out with her boyfriend, Tree. Are and I sighed (and I watched her surreptitiously as her face fell), we didn’t understand what she saw in that pathetic specimen of a male Cro-Magnon, but we allowed her (reluctantly) to make her own stupendous, mind-blowing mistake.
    At the sound of some cacophony, Are and I exchanged glances, knowing our friends were here. We looked up to see our “Chimera Clique”, as we called ourselves, coming up, laughing at the two boys who had previously gone to the bathroom, whom the girls had undoubtedly spotted doing something I could only guess at. They were still looking mean, but if the shorter one (wore green) was really embarrassed, as I thought, or if his shirt really was wrinkled more than it had been when they left, or his lips redder, then I’d say I was definitely “in the right ballpark.” Are and I closed our eyes and furiously held in laughter.
    When our friends spotted us, they smiled, but as soon as they reached our regular table, complete with our names carved in our own little languages along the circumference of the table, they automatically split us up. Nala, our blonde friend, sat at my immediate left and Miyuki to my right. On either immediate side of Are sat Blu and Mint. Are and I exchanged looks and rolled our eyes at their stupid tactics, then focused on the unexcused, unexplained, and unacceptable absences of Kay and Jazzy, made noticeable by the fact Jazzy’s “jelly chair” and Kay’s plush “royal chair” were empty. (I loved the fact that the owners loved us so much that they gave us special seats and our own personal table.)
    I raised my eyebrows, but before our friends could answer with the shrugs I could see coming, our food arrived. Are and I had taken the incidence of our early arrival, to order for all of us. I had told the waiter to wait approximately twelve minutes prior beginning to cook, and thus, here it was, only approximately twenty seven seconds after the girls arrived and were “situated.” Midnight stared in disgust at her health (meaning ugly looking, too thick, and pretty nasty) smoothie. Blu looked confused at the giant portions of food in front of her; while Miyuki looked, in horror, at the tiny morsels of food placed in front of her. Nala, well Nala just gave me a look when a disgustingly juicy and meaty hamburger was set down in front of her. Are and I just innocently began eating our salads, leaving the house specialty veg-head tacos for later.
    As our friends switched their meals (Nala got the smoothie; Midnight, got the hamburger; Miyuki got the large amount of food; Blu had the small amount), Are and I watched the door for our AWOL friends.
    “So, the convo today is about our short term and long term goals. I guess we have to proceed without LK,” I said after about three minutes of watching the red oak doors open and close without any sight of our friends.
    Are nodded, “My short term goal is to procure my Masters from Jocey.”
    “Um…I wanna meet my Wyatt!” Midnight exclaimed, jokingly—inside joke, if you don’t get it, you weren’t meant to, “I want to finish the Gods and Goddesses story.”
    ‘Which you have yet to title,’ I thought. As if tuned into my inner thoughts, Are shook her head disapprovingly.
    “I want to finish my story too!” Blu exclaimed, in a voice that said she was about to go into detail about her story, which we had all read and had problems with her depictions of our alter egos. I groaned and rolled my eyes once again to get the headshake from Are. I know we need these girls in the future, but sometimes I feel they’re excessively below my intellectual levels.
    I sighed, “My short term goals are in this order of brevity: A)Do not fall flat on my face when I get up and walk,” I heard them laugh though I was gazing away from them, at the sinuous, scarlet red curtains hanging from every entrance of the Den. A smile eased its way onto my lips at the sound of their melodious giggling, “B) Finish one and or all of my current books, all of which I have titles for, by the way,” Are actually kicked me underneath the table! “C) Get my Masters from Jocey as well.” I glared at Are for forcing me to mess up my order of the list, “D) Last, but not least, to trip Are when we’re leaving.”
    My friends laughed—except Are, that is—and Nala was next, “To stay vegan until Christmas and win that stupid bet.” All of us held in laughter, remembering the many different ways we’d tried to sabotage her in the last three weeks.
    “I want to stay with Con at least until Christmas,” Miyuki said, causing all of us to groan in unison. She was another mistake dater.
    “Now, lifelong goals?” I asked, grinning. Are caught my eye and flashed me one of her secret grins. I was lost in that grin so I didn’t quite catch any of our friends’ goals. Are broke eye contact with me for some reason, I guessed she had been paying more attention to them than I had. Are looked back at me after saying something to someone that was incomprehensible to me in my Are-smile-struck catatonic state, and slipped me another one of those mind numbingly beautiful conspiratorial grins and nodded to the others. This time, I knew even through the haze of my mind, that her smile was a sign to tell them our goal.
    So, in an almost prefect single voice, together we said in our no-nonsense, completely serious voice, “We plan to systematically take over the world to make it a better place for all. Your place in our plans will be revealed to you soon enough.”



    I stared at the television; on all channels, Are and Jessa’s faces were staring back at me. I couldn’t understand that, I mean no offense to them, but they just really aren’t that important, no one is. And although Jessa was an eerily good actress, Are didn’t really have the right range of emotions to be on anything—unless she was acting as an emotionless alien. But I was curious for why they were on every channel. Couldn’t be for some boring genius person award, that would be on the geek channel—not that it wasn’t. So I sighed and began to listen to the news report. Within ten minutes of it, my mouth was hanging wide open and my phone was ringing. Blindly, I flipped it open, greeting the caller with a weak hello.
    “Have you seen the broadcast?” Kay was asking—practically screeching, I might add—me with some emotion in her voice I couldn’t recognize. Unconsciously I nodded, before remembering she couldn’t see me.
    “Um…yeah…” I heard Kay go on into a full story about how surprised she had been and all that without really listening, “Kay, I’m um…I’ll call you back later, okay?”
    “Sure I gotta call Charlene anyway.”
    I numbly picked up the remote and paused the television, thinking, ‘That’s a good pose for them…’
    “They actually did it, they took over the world.”


    “I don’t trust it,” our brown haired “Grudge Girl” friend said.
    “I mean yeah, they’re our friends, but how’d they get all this power? And more importantly, can we be sure they won’t see us as a big threat and get rid of us?!” Nala asked, biting her bottom, pink lip. Her head was tilted forward with her wavy, daffodil blond hair spilled into her blue-flower eyes.
    “Now I can barely sleep, ya know? All those times they said they were gonna rule the world, and we thought they were joking! Think about the time Jessa told us she was gonna kill us, and how. Was that a joke or serious, too?!” Miyuki ranted, her green eyes so much like Are’s scanned the room. Her eyes on any one thing were ephemeral, except for the places she maybe thought could be a hiding place. Her brown hair was pulled back, an obvious sign of her unease.
    Mint sighed, and in her loud, boisterous voice, said, “We know they’re crazy. But they’re still our friends, and to plot against them seems…I dunno, wrong.”
    Nala shrugged, “I’d rather be safe than sorry. Where are Jazzy, Kay, and Cuddles?”
    Blu chose to ignore the question they probably all knew the answer to but Nala, in her confusion, had forgotten, “I don’t think it’s safe. If they were really our close friends, they’d have told us more than that they were just gonna take over the world. They would’ve let us help! There’s only one choice. We have to eliminate them.”

    A voice not on the screen in the scene of my friends, interrupted, “And the conversation stays like that for a while before the skinny one convinces them assassination is right, ma’am.”
    I looked up, biting my thumb—skin and nail, biting, not sucking, just biting in an irritated fashion—at my defense agent, Derick, and flashed him a smile before glancing at my Are. He was only being so formal to show the confused twin owners of Den, Kari and Elphaba who was in charge here. My Are seemed calm outwardly, but her eyes reeked of grief. They had gone through with their plans, and I had almost been killed. Only by complete luck had Derick—our protection—stopped the mercenary.
    It had hurt; hurt really bad to know our best—and only, currently—friends had conspired to kill us. They thought us actually able to hurt them. That hurt deep inside, but Are and I couldn’t afford to let it be known. We had to find them, and before the extreme Pro-AJ groups caught wind of their little escapade to have us killed. Those groups would tear them apart for that.

    At first, I had hoped it was a joke, or a warning; them showing me everything’s not as safe as it seemed. I mean what was I willingly to believe when a man wearing ninja attire, fully equipped with many sharp, pointy things appeared in the Den with the Chimera Clique symbol emblazoned brazenly across his chest? For a while, I can’t even tell you how long, I just stared at the symbol, forgetting all the thing Derick had taught us in the five months we’d taken control of the world. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, so I just stood there, staring. Are had her back to the intruder—and me—and was typing something most likely important into the main database. When she turned around, surprise! Big guy with a knife to my throat, whispering into my ear.
    “Quiet and I may not kill Green,” he breathed into my ear, “Now very carefully turn to me. I want to see those pretty blues as you take your last breath.”
    I whimpered, chewing on my bottom lip as I began to turn to him. I felt the moment Are turned to look because the man tensed. I pretended not to notice, psychopathic killer 101 says not to let the killer know you see signs of weakness or humanity, it just pisses them off. I also pretended not to hear the small noise Are made as I continued to turn, although it took all I had in me not to turn back to her. When I was looking up at him, into his eyes, I heard Derrick’s sock clad feet padding towards us, but apparently, this wasn’t a particularly good ninja for he apparently didn’t hear it.
    Derick came up and saw what might had been an embrace between the ninja and I, save the curved knife poised at my neck. Are was frozen in fear as she saw Derick creeping p. I continued to stare into the dark eyes that were singing of many different, conflicting emotions. I couldn’t—or rather, wouldn’t understand. I didn’t let him know until it was too late, that his end was near. I looked over his shoulder, and Derick was there.

    Are touched my shoulder, as always, screening my emotions and gave me another one of those special smiles. She nodded to the screen, “We have to deal with this, first. Then you can meditate and hold whatever séances you need.”
    I nodded and turned to Derick, “We have to find them.”
    Ho nodded, and turned to do a mainframe data search. A few moments later, he looked up, frowning, “They must be in hiding.”
    I frowned and looked at Are. We both sat on either side of Derick and our fingers began flying across the keypads. He stared at us for a few seconds before results began flying up: where they had been, how long, their average speed, their last vehicle, how much they’d be likely to take with them, etc.

    Derick looked from one girl to another, noting the expressions on their faces. They were passionate, the expressions of true leaders. Any doubt he’d had of them completely disappeared. They would find their friends, and then? Then they’d rule the world with no opposition.


    “Eureka!” I exclaimed. Are gave me a look to which I answered with a shrug, “I found them,” I said simply.
    Are raised her right eyebrow, “Are you sure?”
    “Yes, Skeptics-Are-Us, I am sure,” I said, printing off the coordinates and throwing the paper to Derick, “They’re here, let’s go. Now.”
    Derick raised an eyebrow and Are stopped typing. She looked back at me, saw my overeager eyes, and smiled ever so slightly.
    She looked at Derick, “She’s excited. She means pretty please with a katana on top, because she’s somewhat worried. They haven’t moved in about four days. They’ve been moving constantly, at least once everyday. We hope they’ve become cocky, but what if they’re hurt?” Her eyes were pleading the case for us. They were overflowing with her normal encaged emotions.
    Derick ran a hand through his hair looking at the two of us and sighed. He knew Are spoke of both our fears and it was part of his job to relinquish them, “Fine,” was his monosyllable reply.
    I smiled, for a moment I had feared he wouldn’t let us go find/save them.


    I awoke to hear people moving, many people. Or maybe it was just my imagination, either way; I tilted my head to listen. Yup, sure enough, there were eyes on us…wait. Where were the others? I sat up and there were flashlights trained on me, ones that reminded me of the ones Jessa’s mom bought when we lost power for a week. In other words, there were police flashlights aimed at me.
    I jumped to my feet, “Blu! Nala! Miyuki!” I cried desperately, groping in the blinding light for my friends, my things, anything to calm me down.
    “They’re here; Midnight, and now you’re coming with us. We have to talk,” that was Jessa’s voice.
    I felt my panic escalate, they were here. They were really going to kill us and there was nothing I could do to stop them.
    “Midnight, it’s just us and a guy, singular. If you really want to run…then you can,” Are said, lowering one of the flashlights. I saw her green eyes speak differently.
    It hurt me to see her like that, so I decided to go with them. Jessa’s tanned face lit up with joy and her blue eyes connected bizarrely with Are’s and they seemed to speak to each other in their own freaky way.


    “First you take over the world, using unmentionable tactics, and now you kill your own friends—no, sorry, your pawns!”
    Before I could stop my stray thought it was there, ‘The tactics are only unmentionable because you don’t know what they are.’ With, or without the thought, I flinched, hearing the hurt, underlying accusation that was screaming out at me from the way she wouldn’t—couldn’t look at me, and so she aimed it all at Are with unnerving vigor.
    “We didn’t—”
    “Don’t say anything. Don’t lie! You’re going to kill us, aren’t you?!” her voice slapped me like a branding iron.
    Are stared at our friends blankly, “We’re in a room with four of you and only one man to keep you from hurting us. Derick, please leave,” Derick raised an eyebrow, as if he were wondering what Are was up to, but left as far as the door. I closed it behind him and Are handed each of our friends a sharp weapon.
    “If you mistrust us so, kill us.”
    A bleak, confused silence ran through the room. Blu stared at us in shock, Nala’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, Miyuki’s mouth dropped open, and Midnight (even though she believed us) gave us a look telling us she thought we were being completely stupid.
    Blu looked down at the blade, and then at us, “How do we know that guy won’t come barging in here if we decide to do it?”
    “You don’t. You have to trust us, just as you did before we took over. Before you became all insecure and…confused and…jealous,” I stared at them, this was a mere jealousy problem! A smirk crept onto my lips even as I fought it, “You guys are jealous,” I said in a teasing tone and laughed, closing my eyes.
    Next thing I heard was a clang of metal against metal. I opened my eyes to see Derick had knocked Miyuki’s knife from the air, where it was probably in a beeline for me; Miyuki always was violent when she was teased.
    Are spoke quickly and clearly before they could start in on betrayal again just because our bodyguard had kept them from killing us, “You remember in old times how the king would have a vizier or a group of advisors? Well, that’s what we need you guys to be, only under a different title. You guys,” she nodded towards Nala and Miyuki, “Are closer to Jessa, and she decides to listen to you more than most people. You two would be the Left Hand; you will help Derick with defense, offense, and Jessa when sorting out public disputes: coups, fights, etc. You two,” she looked now at Blu and Midnight, “You guys are the Right Hand, you guys would help me make the laws and enforce them. Will you assume these titles?”
    Our friends stared at Are (they seem to do that a lot), until the thought of power and (I hope) their trust of us overrode all other contradicting thoughts. Well, either that, or Derrick’s dangerous glare made them decide it would not be in their best intentions to try to kill us.
    “Um…sure…” they said in different ways, but all meaning this same two-word phrase.
    Now that that was over, Derick turned the evil glare upon are and I, “Those were the dumbest tactics in the world. Remember the agreement. Don’t. Do. That. Ever. Again.” Are and I exchanged glances and nodded vehemently, an act that did not go by unnoticed by our friends. The look in their eyes said that when they had the chance, we’d be subject to severe questioning.


    I was right. They ambushed us the moment Derick no longer thought them to be a serious threat to our safety. Are and I were walking calmly—not. I had linked my left arm with Are’s right the moment Derick turned his back.
    “We’re off to see the Wizard! The wonderful Wizard of Oz!” I sang, skipping in the opposite direction of Derick, and tugged Are along beside me. I glanced over my shoulder, to see Derick staring at us, bewildered and laughing really hard.
    I was watching him, not where I was going, so I ran into one of the high (HARD) walls bordering us in the area (of course, derrick’s idea) so no one could attack us from the ground. I pulled Are down before me, and slammed down on top of her. Ha ha.
    “Thanks for cushioning my fall Airy-Head,” I said with a smile, looking down.
    She glared at me, “I hate you.”
    Next thing I know, I hear many set of feet running over and four heavy sounding things plopping down around me, onto the lush, soft green grass.
    “So…what’s your agreement with Derick?” Nala’s voice was fake casual and right next to me. I groaned and rolled off of Are, onto the grass. I looked up at Nala and nodded towards Are, indicating she’d tell.
    “Well,” Are began, “We found Derick about two years ago. He’s a mercenary with a vision of peace. When we talked to him, he was reluctant to help us. Nevertheless, the day before we started our plan, he came to us, somehow, knowing all of our plans. He said he’d help us and be our bodyguard while we were getting started as long as we followed his conditions,” Are stopped and the others were suddenly aware I was sprawled out on them. My head lay on Nala’s lap, where she was absentmindedly stroking my hair. My back was on Are and posterior on Miyuki’s lap. My legs were stretched the distance between Miyuki, Midnight, and Blu with my feet neatly laid on Blu’s lap. They all glared at me, but only Midnight and Blu knocked me off of them and moved directly in front of Nala and Are. They looked at Are for her to continue, but she remained silent.
    “What were the conditions?” Blu inquired.
    Are set her hands on my stomach, “His conditions were that we obeyed his wishes, meaning we did what he said. As you probably (hopefully) realized, these walls were his idea/demand. In addition, that we put him in charge of our “army” or whatever we choose to call it; another demand was that we have an armed force.
    I smirked, “In essence, we’re a family. Him being the annoying older brother whom we listen to more out of fear of what he’ll do. Me and Are being the brilliant twin sisters, and Pama and Squidy, the dog and cat, being the only real adults in the whole place.”
    They stared at me for a few seconds before bursting into raucous laughter.
    “The dog and cat though?” Mint exclaimed through her giggle fit.
    My lips twitched and I picked up my phone as it rang, playing Ur So Gay (by Katy Perry), “Gibadeebo?” I answered.
    “What is up with this Jess? I come back from the farm to hear you and Are took over the world!” Jazzy’s incredulous voice and words made me crack up.
    “Late Jazzy, real, real late.”