Young Writers Society

"WHO DARES SULLY THE FACE...." began Harry before a hand was promptly slapped over his mouth by an annoyed and sleepy sounding James.

"Please go back to sleep so we can all have some peace," he murmured.

There was a muffled shout from Vankous and Harry was doing his best not to burst out laughing. Stean, standing next to him looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or roll his eyes.

In the end Stean settled for removing James' hand from Vankous' face before shaking both of them properly awake.

"You two have been out for long enough, get up, there are some friends to meet," said Stean.

"What?" yelled Vankous, jumping up and doing a full 360 as he was expecting some sort of attack. He was currently missing his usual lab coat, being glad in a brightly colored shirt and shorts he had proclaimed was appropriate "holiday wear". The clear pulse of magic Harry could see from them were potentially the only reason he'd kept them on despite their 'light' teasing when he'd first donned them.

Next to him, James put his suit back on frighteningly fast, turning him from this world's most easygoing tourist, to this world's most overdressed tourist in his full suit and tie that also doubled as his superhero outfit because for some reason he thought that was a sane thing to do. At least it had a climate adaptive temperature liner that would ensure he wouldn't be roasted in it.

"I don't see anyone," said Vankous, sounding suspicious.

"That's cause you're not really looking," said Harry, shaking his head, "follow me, come on we're all going into the cabin."

"Ohh," came a realization from James not too long after that when he spotted Mage and Soul.

"Its that kid from that one random day in a forest," said James.

"Ohhh...interesting, he has a friend that looks very suspicious," said Vankous.

Harry could already see where that would end up going.

The four of them trooped up the beach and towards the duo of Mage and Soul.

"So, Mage, I'm sure you remember these two clowns," said Harry, ducking down to dodge James' incoming punch long before James had even bared a fist.

"Soul, meet Vankous and James, I apologize on behalf of that terrible outfit," said Harry, this time ducking out of the way of a bolt of purple energy, courtesy of Vankous.

Another laugh escaped Mage as he watched the chaotic interactions between Harry and his friends. It had been stressful interacting with them the first time around in that forest, but it was hard to feel tense in a place like this and with his best friend here with him.

"It's okay," Mage said, smiling.

He waved at Vankous and Stean.

"Hi," he said.

Soul gave an awkward wave of his own.

"Hello," said James, "that's a cool suit."

"Yes, I have to agree, but also terribly inappropriate for this particular setting, did you get very lost or..." said Vankous, letting that hang in the air.

"Shhh," chorused Stean and Harry at the same time. It was hard to judge who was more surprised at the other having joined in.

Before they could sort that out, Vankous frowned in their direction. "What?"

"Code SI - PDA 14," whispered Harry.

"That mea...ohh..why though?" asked Vankous.

"Just go with it," said Stean, also catching on.

Soul glanced over at Mage to see if he knew what the code meant, but Mage looked just as confused as Soul felt.

"It's normal where we're from," Mage defensively said, even though it really wasn't. If the two had known what the code stood for, they would have just let the conversation die without the comment. As it was, Soul would have been happy to switch topics.

Vankous frowned at Harry. It didn't take a telepath to know that it was a lie.

Harry just shrugged and gestured towards the cabin. Vankous hmphed but kept his mouth shut, plastering a smile onto his face, even though it was clear from his eyes that he wasn't going to rest until he actually found out the truth behind all of this. James, to his credit, did a much better job of pretending like that was all normal and nodding before proceeding to immediately change the topic.

"So you guys here on vacation?" he asked.

"Hmm..perhaps we can talk properly once we're in the cabin," Harry suggested, or talk on the way. I don't think you want to stay in this sand too long.

Soul and Mage nodded in agreement.

"That's a good idea," Soul agreed. Giving a quick glance at Mage to make sure he was following, he started for the nearby cabin. The sand in his metallic boots rubbed uncomfortably against his feet, but he knew he wouldn't be able to even take off said boots until he could get into a private room.

Harry nodded and began to make his way to the cabin, expecting everyone to follow suit. It wasn't a particularly long walk, the cabin was supposed to be pretty close to the beach after all and he remained silent.

Behind him he could hear James asking the question about the vacation again before he found himself in front of a large wooden door. Harry took a step back to look at the cabin. It was a homely little thing, at least on the outside, designed to look like rather rustic. The inside was much the same, although various bits of sneakily added technology meant it was pretty luxurious.

Harry slid the the cap off the large brass handle, scanning his fingerprint. There was a beep and a flash of green light before the massive door slid smoothly into the side of the wall.

"Here we go," he said, stepping in.

Soul took a step back when he heard the beep and the flash of light. Mage seemed startled, too, but nowhere near as startled as Soul was. Not for the first time, Soul wondered how Mage knew Harry—and how he was so used to everything they had encountered so far.

After recovering from his initial shock, Soul started to follow Harry inside.

Harry pushed the door all the way back, tapping the door on the side to activate the magnetic doorstop so that everyone could get in without too much of a hassle. Tapping the wall next to the doorframe, switched the lights on as a monotonous female voice announced. "Power On"

As the darkened cabin lit up, revealing a small living room of sorts, with two large and rather comfortable sofas around a small and completely useless fireplace, something didn't seem quite right. The small living room, had a passageway, which led down to a kitchen and four bedrooms, only the bedroom doors appeared to be open this time and something seemed to have fallen out.

"Are the bedsheets..." began Stean, sounding as confused as he felt at the moment when Vankous yelled.

"Not again!!" He proceeded to immediately charge at the bedsheets, while James just looked thoroughly confused.

Harry took a second look at those bedsheets. Just as her realized, these were not ordinary bedsheets by any stretch of the imagination, they proceeded to fly up, tangling Vankous and sending him sliding down the hall. Four bedsheets then immediately flew in their direction.

Mage's eyes widened as the sheets moved without anyone touching them, and widened even more when four other sheets started heading for where he was standing with everyone else. Though Mage couldn't see it, Soul's eyes grew bright and wide underneath his helmet.

"Are those ghosts?" Mage managed to get out, voice high with terror. He scooted closer to Soul, but fought the urge to grab onto him.

"How-What-" Soul stammered.

Harry let out a sigh, turning to Mage and Soul with an apologetic smile.

"Soo...this was this bedsheet conspiracy I mention, don't worry they're not possessed or ghosts or anything, this is just a very badly done and very illegal spell that just hasn't been properly scrubbed from the universe yet," said Harry, knowing the other two potentially wouldn't understand half of that. Hopefully they'd understand enough to sort of know what was going on.

Sunshiny get stuck
A common, bald frog dances
after the chocolate

The four bedsheets sang the same thing in unison. Harry and Stean groaned in unison, while James plucked out a pen from the breast pocket of his jacket, taking the cap off attaching it to the back. He spun it in a circle, another green light flashing, before the micro weapon elongated, expanding until he was holding a full size handgun. Behind the bedsheets, Vankous got to this feet, purple energy already flaring to life around him.

Harry turned once again to Mage and Soul. "I apologize on behalf of the terrible poetry, but really these things are more nuisances than anything, just stand back and this will be dealt with pretty fast, or if you want to fight one, go ahead, they don't do much in the form of actually causing harm."

"Is this normal here?" Soul whispered, eyeing the sheets and the magic being prepared around the room.

"I don't think so," Mage said with a shake of his head. "We didn't fight any sentient fabric the last time I was with Harry."

Soul was suddenly reminded of how badly he needed an explanation from Mage about how exactly he had met Harry before, but he didn't get a chance to ask one of the questions. A bedsheet darted across the room and wrapped itself around his armor. It wouldn't have been as bad if he wasn't wearing armor, but it managed to get caught in all of the cracks between the armor's different parts. Soul struggled to get free. A few seconds into being tangled up, he still wasn't making much progress.

And then Soul smelled smoke.

He looked over to see that Mage had his flame Sin in the palms of his hands.

Soul froze mid-struggle.

"...Are you going to set the sheet on fire?" he asked.

"I don't think darkness would help," Mage replied.

"But the sheet is going into my armor, which means the flames would, too-"

Before he could finish his sentence, the sheet pulled forward, yanking Soul along. Mage stumbled back to avoid hitting Soul, but tripped and put his flaming hand right on the sheet.

"No," began Harry, before changing his mind, considering it hadn't been too long since the previous incident. "Okay, maybe yes...but its usually not common or anything."

"We can discuss that after we get rid of these stupid things," chimed in Stean, stepping closer into the room and marching towards one of the sheets.

As it to prove his point, the bedsheets launched an attack. One jumped towards Vankous, wrapping around his hastily erected purple shield. James suddenly found a bedsheet wrapping tightly around his handgun, blocking off his access to the trigger as he cursed the person who'd discovered cotton.

"Its really not his fault," pointed out Stean as he grabbled with another sheet, grabbing it before it could grab him and easily tearing it in two. Before the thing could pick itself up he tossed it right out the door, hands glowing green for a second before a brilliant laserbeam fried it into ashes.

The fourth bedsheet however decided to wrap itself around Soul. For a moment, Harry was offended about being ignored by the bedsheet. Then he realized that was a silly thing to be offended by and stepped into help out poor Soul, especially as he saw that Mage had somehow managed to set said sheet on fire while it had tried to yank on Soul.

Behind him, he could hear Vankous muttering a flame spell of his own to burn the sheet while James called out more unflattering names and somehow managed to get the gun to cock back.

Harry turned to the Soul predicament. The sheet being on fire was a good thing, it being on Soul while it was on fire was a bad thing, especially since he couldn't just throw water at the problem. There was only one solution, this was going to get awkward.

Harry leaped towards Soul, giving him an impromptu bear hug and effectively smothering the flames as his body proceeded to glow dark cyan, absorbing the energy from the flames and robbing them of power.

He quickly stepped away, satisfied the flames were dealt with, although the now mildly charred bedsheet was still strapped to Soul.

Soul froze when Harry suddenly hugged him. It took him a moment to realize that Harry was trying to snuff out of the flames, and another moment to realize the sheet was still attached to him. He sighed in relief when he noticed that Mage's flames had weakened the sheet. All it took was a little tugging, and the stunned sheet was pulled free.

Mage sheepishly set the sheet on fire again, this time burning it for good.

"Thank you," Soul said to Harry. Mage still looked mortified next to him.

Harry did a mock bow.

"The Darkness at you service." He had no idea what compelled him to do a Vankous and go extra dramatic on that one, but it felt oddly appropriate to the moment.

Speaking of Vankous, the sheet wrapping around him proceeded to immediately burst into flames and within second there was one bedsheet remaining. Before anyone could jump up to deal with that particular one James fired a shot, blasting a hole in it.

Harry jumped in front of said bullet, catching it before it could blast a hole in the smooth cabin walls. The sheet, moving sluggishly as it unwrapped itself from the gun, leapt towards Harry. With a lazy flick oh his hand, he sent it flying right into Vankous shield where it promptly combusted on impact.

Harry turned to Mage and Soul. "Soo...welcome to the cabin. I promise the couch isn't going to get up and bite or anything. Behind him, Vankous winced at the mention of the couch.

"Definitely not," stated the wizard firmly.