Young Writers Society

One moment, Syl was sitting happily in his tree, counting the seconds till Eli would be there. The next, he was in a building of some kind, and couldn't detect any life nearby. He Took a deep breath and moved slowly until he found a wall, placing his hand on it. Soon enough a person's whisps could be spotted coming around a corner of some kind, maybe threw a doorway.

"Oh thank god." He started, keeping his hand against the surface "Could you help me, i don't know how I got here or where I am-" The person trips, and falls against him. Syl thankfully manages to stay standing, but not without consequence, as their lips meet.

Syl shoves them away immediately, sputtering and spitting on the floor which he's standing on, shouting "gross, ew gross" and other things appropriate for an 11 year old. It's likely ringing down the halls, as hes shouting rather shrilly.



"Hey Ollie!" Noah called out from behind him, Ollie stopped for just a second, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before continuing to walk, waiting for Noah be damned. "Ollie!" He tried again, this time extending out his name in a whiny tone.

"What, Noah?" He asked as the taller boy ran in front of him. He turned around and began walking backwards in front of Ollie, an annoying habit of his that always made Ollie's commute home at least five minutes longer. He flashed a smile, his fangs showing.

"So, I got the place to myself tonight, and I was wondering-"

"No."

"How long are you going to hold this against me?" He stopped in his tracks, and Ollie walked around him.

"I don't know, however long it takes for vampirism to wear off maybe? How long is that again? Oh, yeah, forever. Silly me." Noah was trailing close behind him now. Only two more blocks.

"Why are you holding this against me! I wasn't myself, you know that! I hadn't eaten and it's not like its even that big of a deal!"

"That doesn't even dignify a response. Fuck off, Noah." He stops walking.

"I- Ollie, please." Ollie ignores him, and keeps walking.

He opens his apartment door and locks it behind him, dropping his bag on the couch as he walks by to the kitchen.

His world fades around him, and he finds himself standing a few feet from a classroom door. He cautiously takes a look around and looks down, finding his skirt looks like that of a school girl's, and not the pretty baby blue one he was previously wearing.

The fuck did Noah do this time?

He steps forwards a few steps and into the classroom, just barely, looking between the people sitting at the desks. He doesn't see Noah anywhere, thank god, but he does see a few peculiar figures, who look like they might be in the same boat as him. '

He picks at his skirt, the materials aren't as high quality as he's used to, and its bothering his skin, even through his fishnets.

Ezra wasn't sure exactly how long she was zoned out, but who wouldn't be a little confused in her predicament.

She glanced around the room, scouring the ever-growing myriad of freakshows until her eyes landed on the small green man. Faerie. Whatever.

"Hey, Absinthe fairy. You said you were an expert in pocket dimensions, right?" She asked abruptly, cutting off any conversation that was going on. At the odd looks she received, Ezra cleared her throat. "Oh, uh... Ezra Miller, uh, a human from Earth. Starting seeing magic shit a few months ago. Still don't know what's going on." Her green orbs flicked across the room, both waiting for a response and inwardly cursing her awkwardness.

Brian winked at Ezra. "You'll get there, kid. We all do."

Ah, seniority. What a drug.

...And some kid was screaming outside in the hall. They might have been real.

"I'll go check up on that," said Brian. "Seeya in a minute."

___

He found a raccoonish kid, blue uniform incongrous with his homeless looking cape and sandals. The kid was being hounded by a Sakura with too many pigtails. (She looked like a Sakura.)

It was probably a real kid. His design wasn't nearly trashily marketable enough.

"Oh, Syl-kun, you naughty boy," said the Sakura blushily, "I'm just your babysitter, ever since you were-"

Brian flitted over, and pushed the Sakura noncommitally with his foot.

"Oi," said Brian. "Stop harrassing the kid, please."

"Help!" yelped Sakura. "Oh, I'm being assaulted! ASSAULTED!"

Sakura ran away.


Brian stooped a little to talk to the child, realised that actually made him shorter than said child, and straightened himself out.

"Hey, kid." he said. "Y'alright? You've just been kidnapped by a possibly-sentient mini-dimension, don't worry about it. I'm an expert."

"...Kid?" Brian asked gently.

After a few minutes of uncomfortably watching the poor kid rocking in place, he decided to carry him into class with a levitation spell and sort it out there.

Detention was held in a classroom practically identical to the last one, but for copious wads of bubblegum thickly coating the underside of every desk and chair, mildly transgressive slogans scratched on the surfaces, and stark, unusually purple lighting.

Brian, Shakespeare boy, Puck, Ezra, and anyone else who had been baselessly labelled 'delinquent' had been awarded for their fortune with detention. The rest of the students were pushed into various club activities. Brian didn't mind.
Here he had time to think about some very useful things while he contributed to the collection of desk etchings. (They were sorely lacking in lewd alchemical references.)

Well. Actually there was one more thing detention was lacking. And that thing was Mr Pasty's demon friend, his taut, tanned muscles stretching that poor uniform to its limit... A spot of drool fell into the desk etching.


Lulubellamaria slammed the door open into an unfortunately placed fish bowl, smashing it. Tears blasted out her face like two fire hoses.

“Is it true, Brian? Are you cheating on me with Sakura!?”

“Who?” said Brian insensitively. “There’s at least five Sakuras here! I thought I was safe, I thought there was only four, then this one-” he gestured snappishly at a girl with almost more hairclips than hair- “Fell on me from the balcony in a goddamn flying squirrel suit!”

“So it’s true! How could you!" Lulu wailed. "You betrayed me, after we saved forty beached whales together last summer, and you, Sakura, you betrayed me too, after I saved your life by performing CPR when you were wounded from doing a tripendicular ice skating backflip at the 2007 Tokyo X-Games!!!”

Sakura walked over to Lulubellamaria, her many hairclips clattering with each step. She patted Lulubellamaria on the head.

“Oh, poor little Lulubellamaria,” she said patronisingly, “Poor, under-endowed Lulubellamaria, that was my twin sister, Arukas. You never had my love. You only had Arukas. And I mailed her to Cuba.”

“What?” said Brian, lost entirely.

“WHAT!!???” screamed Lulubellamaria.

A girl with spiky blue hair burst through the second-story window and superhero landed on the floor. In seconds she held Brain by the collar against the wall.

“Make it up to my sister, punk,” growled Celine. “I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna go to Cuba and get Arukas back, and you’re gonna get her a cake, and you’re gonna get Lulubellamaria a cake, and then you’re gonna marry her, so as not to bespoil her maidenly honour. And then you’ll commit seppuku right on the church floor so you don’t embarrass my family anymore.”

“We were never dating in the first place,” Brain protested.

“Damn sleaze,” said Celine. “This is why I hate boys.”

A teenager sporting a 50’s greaser haircut who somehow looked older than Brian despite being an actual teenager opened the door rebelliously. He glared at Celine, locking the two of them in optical combat.

“Lay off, tomboy,” he grunted.

“You can have him, gorilla-fingers.” said Celine. She dropped Brian, and went to comfort Lulubellamaria.

“Who are you?” Brain asked from the floor.

“I’m Kumokuze! I'm your bro, bro!” yelled the impressively raspy-voiced youth. “I’ve been your best friend ever since we were kids! We grew especially close last year when you donated your kidney to save my mother’s life!”

Brian stood up, but continued to look perplexed.

“Ohmygod you idiot,” cried the teacher, who had been here the whole time, “Everyone knows that story! Were you even there?”

“He’s just being modest,” said Lulubellamaria, wiping her tears on Celine’s shirt. “That’s just such Typical Brian.”

“And he’s always been that way.” said Kumokuze, with a heartfelt manly sniff. “Ever since we were kids.”

When Puck had told Arthur that he thought it would be cool to live in an anime, he hadn't meant like this.

Puck hadn't even done anything wrong. (Yet.) He might have caused a little bit of a disturbance in the classroom, but that wasn't a reason for a detention. It seemed like everyone in this school hated and feared him, save for Arthur. It gave Puck a feeling he didn't quite like in his chest; an accidental swipe a little too close to the truth.

And he didn't even have Arthur with him right now. The force that had brought them here - whatever it was - had frustratingly decided that Arthur wasn't the type of student who would get detentions. Which was right. Arthur was. Maybe that was why Puck felt so out of it right now. Arthur got straight As - a concept Puck was still grappling with - and never once got in trouble when he was in school. Any trouble he got in outside of school was usually Puck's fault.

And while the last thing that Puck wanted to do was accept that there was just a little bit of merit to their roles right now, he knew he would be stupid not to see it.

Puck rested his head on his desk.

"This is like a bad fanfiction," he muttered.

Wherever Arthur was, he was hopefully having a better time than Puck was.


Arthur was not having a good time right now.

Puck had been whisked off to detention without a single word of warning - Arthur couldn't even protest that his boyfriend had done nothing wrong. Then the other students who hadn't been put into detention started hurrying off to club meetings. From the way that Emberleigh (Emberly? Emberleighy? How was he supposed to spell her name?) kept trying to pull him in the direction of the theater, he had a sneaking suspicion that he was supposed to be in drama club.

But Arthur wasn't good at acting at all.

Puck was the actor. Puck was the one who could come up with a fake identity in just a handful of seconds. Even if the identity was a little cliche and over the top, he could switch between who he actually was and that persona seamlessly. And Puck liked hamming things up, too. Arthur couldn't ever do that.

Emberly was in the middle of tugging his arm (again) when he caught sight of a poster hanging up on bulletin board nearby. All of the posters were childishly simplistic, but this one had just enough information.

An occult club, meeting in a room right down the hallway.

Arthur glanced between the poster and Emberleigh.

What would Puck do to get out of this?

"I, uh, need to use the bathroom," Arthur awkwardly said. Emberley let go of his arm and looked a little uncomfortable at the thought, so he must have been doing something right. "I'll meet you in the theater?"

Emberleigh nodded.

"Okay," she said, a shy blush spreading across her face as she turned away from him.

When she was out of earshot, Arthur gave a quiet sigh of relief and tried to take his first step in the direction of the occult club.

But he suddenly couldn't move.

He felt like he was pushing against air; every time he tried to take a step forward, he'd be pushed back another step. Whatever had brought them here didn't want him to abandon the drama club - and probably Emberly.

Arthur took a deep breath.

He glanced around the hallway that was thankfully empty. Making a deal with a figurative - or possibly real - devil was the only way to go.

"Er, hi," Arthur hesitantly said. "I'm guessing you can hear me right now, but I have a request."

The pressure lessened a little.

He took another deep breath.

"I'd like to go to the occult club's meetings-" The pressure grew stronger. "-but I know you want me to go to the drama club instead. You have a role in mind for me that I honestly don't think I can fill, but I know I can't do anything without your permission. So...can you please let me do both? I can keep the occult club a secret from everyone except Puck, if that helps?"

There was an awkward silence.

Arthur hadn't expected a response, but he still wished the hallway wasn't so quiet.

But then the pressure disappeared.

Arthur looked around again, then gave a tiny smile.

"Thanks," he said. He knew that he'd probably have to go to the drama club first; he had promised Emberleigh he'd go there. But once he found out what role he was playing, he could go to the occult club's meetings whenever his character wasn't in the scene.

He started heading to the theater, only to stop a few feet from where he had started.

"...And could you let Puck out of detention?" he asked.

Puck didn't magically appear at his side; it looked like there was a limit to the bargaining.

Arthur let out a sigh before continuing on his way.

Conner was, quite, and without justification, swept away into the very depths of the school - though there were still windows showing naught but a paper landscape scribbled together with crayon - wherein he was seated at a desk designed for someone with shorter legs than he. As he contorted his body into positions he hoped would fit more neatly within the confines of the desk which was bestowed upon him like some device of torture from the abyss, or even, perhaps, the twisted imaginations of those who tainted their food with blood to live beyond their natural years, a commotion of some kind was occurring near the door.

Oh, his luck! Why must it forsake him?

Suddenly, like a flower blooming in a winter storm, the lovely lady who so doted on him appeared in the doorway, a terrible blush upon her cheeks and her books clutched to her chest. She said a word to him when she came to sit in the desk beside him - for all the others were suddenly occupied by students who hadn't the pleasure of sitting in them before - a single word which was like a soliloquy all on its lonesome, expressing the deep affection for him which she had so callously, but badly, hidden before. That word was a stammered, "B-baka!"

He gave her a charming smile as she settled into her seat and drew so very far into herself that her shoulders were very nearly higher than her head. A pair of boys began to tease her.

"What's the goody-two-shoes doing in detention?" one of them said uncleverly.

"Did you turn in too much homework, Aika-chan?" the other one said with an equal amount of imagination.

She gave them such a scowl that they were forced only to act as though they weren't in the least intimidated as they continued their taunts.

Connery then felt a shove from behind, a taunting push as though to tell him to step in and interrupt the scene unfolding beside him.

Oh, what foolishness! He would never dream of stepping in to defend a girl whose scowl could melt flesh and bone should the world allow it. His reluctance, of course, had nothing at all to do with the bulging muscles and intimidating sneers practiced by the ungentlemanly men who teased her so.

There came another shove, then another, each more aggressive than the last until he was forced from his seat. With another push, he was shoved right into the chest of one of the boys, and so it became clear that Connery's own height was far inferior to the bully's, and his muscle mass was also too small to be intimidating.

Still, the bully appeared to take issue and offense to his brashness, and he backed away, his face white as a sheet. "I-I don't want any trouble!" he squeaked pathetically, then turned to his equally horrified friend, "Let's get out of here," he said with a tone that suggested he wanted to save face, and with that, the pair darted out of the room.

"I didn't need your help, Baka!" Aiko swooned, doing the closest thing to falling into his arms as she could whilst still maintaining her dignity by standing so abruptly that her chair was knocked over and shoving him away.

Really, a kiss would have sufficed.



Raziel was walking down the hallway on her way to the next classroom in her schedule, which was written in crayon for reasons she couldn't quite grasp, when a pair of burly-looking boys who appeared to be several years older than any of the other students, but Raz wasn't sure what was what anymore, came barreling down the hall in her direction. She stepped out of the way, but one still managed to run directly into her, his face becoming buried in her chest.

Her wings twitched behind her as she regained her balance, and when she looked down at the boy his face was bright red. A medical condition? She wasn't even sure if these students were human, let alone why his face had suddenly gone the color of red wine.

"G-Genesis senpai!" he stuttered, looking up at her with his head still mostly buried in her bosom.

Suddenly he lept back and rubbed the back of his neck, then seemed to rethink that as well as his arms both snapped to attention at his sides. "I-I'll get back to class!" he said, and then he was gone.

Raz watched him run down the hall, then looked back down at her schedule. It was different now. She looked at the numbers on the doors, then turned around and walked in the direction the boy had run off to.

"Something isn't right," said Brian, standing on a stage in the assembly hall, accepting a plastic trophy for his cardboard cutout of a baking soda volcano.

Even the plastic here didn't feel real.

"What's wrong, Brian-kun-chan?" said Lulubellamaria, who was apparently a teacher today.

"You're not having second thoughts about our professional relationship as child prodigy student and mature adult teacher, are you?" she said, blushing under her horn-rimmed spectacles.

"I'm almost 30, so no." said Brian flatly.

Lulubellamaria ignored him, and called out the next lucky recipient of impressively uninspiring plastic.

“Arthur! Arthur-kuun! It’s time for your award for your baking soda volcano!”

Brain squinted at Arthur’s cardboard volcano. It was bigger than his. Were they being pushed into some kind of rivalry? He hoped not. That sounded like work.

Oh, what horror! What blasphemous conspiring! What a twisted world this was that he, the talented and revered Connery Blight, was seated in the audience to watch grubby, untalented jesters stand upon a stage to receive awards that Connery had not so much as been given the opportunity to apply for.

Truly, there was no injustice greater than this!

The salt which was so brutally rubbed into the ever so terrible gash in his pride was the project which bore his name on display off to the side, shoved there so callously, in such a fit of petty resentment, by the other contestants whilst Connery had his back turned. In its place, in in the place of all the other projects all neatly aligned along the wall of the gymnasium, was the seating for the audience.

Cleverly, they had moved all of the other projects, too, to hide their real intent. Truly, they had moved Connery's project out of the way of the direct eyeline of those receiving awards, for if they had to stare directly into the masterpiece of Elmer's glued pictures and cardboard letters that was Connery's presentation on the stretchiness of various kinds of socks, they would hang their heads in shame and lament their treacherous pride, falling to their knees to give Connery his well-deserved awards.

But, alas, the cowardly contestants stood there with their unwieldy lumps of scientific mumbo-jumbo they called volcanos, receiving awards, without Connery standing on an elevated platform between them.

And the looks on their faces almost appeared like they didn't care!

Connery crossed his arms indignantly and stewed in his simmering rage. The audacity of these people!



Kate rounded the corner, but the room she came to was most defiantly not her History classroom.

"What the fuck...."

Arthur blinked.

The last thing he remembered, he had been standing in the hallway of the school. He had just bartered with the school to let him join multiple clubs. Puck was locked up in detention; Emberleigh was waiting for him in the theater.

So why was he in an assembly hall?

At a science fair?

Getting an award for something he had no memory of making?

More than a little distracted, Arthur went to receive his prize. The teacher wanted to gush about his apparent brilliance for a bit, but he started heading back towards the volcano before she could get too far into it.

He stared at the volcano.

"...Pres?"

Arthur looked over to see Puck standing a few feet away, looking as confused as Arthur felt. Puck started moving towards him - a grin starting to spread on his face - but was cut off before he could get any closer by a swarm of almost featureless girls. It was like the school had just given up on trying to come up with background characters.

"Congratulations, Arthur!" Emberly suddenly said from behind him. Arthur pulled his eyes away from Puck for a quick second to see that Emberly was standing just a few feet away with a blush on her face. "I knew you would win an award. You're too smart not to."

Arthur looked back at Puck. If he really was smart, he absentmindedly thought, he would be able to find a way to help his boyfriend. He couldn't even figure out how to get away from Emberly, much less free Puck from the swarming mass of girls around him.

...An idea started to come to mind.

A very Puck-like idea, but it was hard not being inspired by him after spending so much time by his side. He glanced between Emberleigh and Puck. The school was only letting Emberly near him, and Puck always liked changing things up when he got the chance...

But if he was going to make this work, he'd need to get away from Emberleigh and get close enough to Puck to let him know his idea. He couldn't figure out either part, but he knew Puck could take care of the first issue if he just got over to him.

...Seeing how Puck was still clawing through the horde of girls, Arthur was doubting that would be happening any time in the near future.

"That's enough," said Brian, and stole Lulubellamaria's microphone.

"Puck, Arthur, Connor- I think I forgot some of your names- all you real people- I'm doing some serious research on local time mechanics, I'm going to steal every single clock and calendar in this entire building, I already grilled everyone here off-screen on what day is it, is it is, I'm going to cross-reference it all, you guys, and it's going to make SENSE, and I WILL find out how time works in this pocket dimension, we're gonna map the hell outta the fundamental mechanics, and I'm gonna find out who's running this joint, and if you-"

Brian stopped to take a breath.

"If what I just said didn't make you want to shoot at least one of us in the head, please stop by the library if you wanna argue with my methods, I could use some good counter-points. Bye."

He flew off the stage, and dumped his plastic trophy on a random bystander on his way out.

Brian then proceeded to steal every clock and calendar in the building, along with several whiteboards, and flew them to the library at very illegal speeds.

Before Puck could even ask how that would possibly help them figure out what the Hel was going on, Brian was already gone. It wasn’t like Puck would have been able to move anyways. He was still stuck in a group full of NPC girls.

The school must have decided that it liked him more as a popular boy than the bad boy they had been trying to paint him as before. He was starting to wish everyone still saw him as a terrifying bully - then he could actually get to Pres's side.

He thought for a moment.

An idea coming to him, Puck couldn't help but smirk. All it took was one quick transformation and a bit of shoving, and a redheaded girl managed to slip past the group and dart over to Arthur's side.

"Hey Pres," he said, giving a wave. Emberly gave him a blank stare from behind Arthur. The school must not have registered that Puck could change his form just yet. All of the featureless NPCs were giving frantic looks around them, and only Arthur really seemed to notice he was there. "I thought I'd make a little change to get myself free - I should have thought of that sooner!"

Arthur let out a sigh of relief.

"I was trying to think of how to get you out," he said, "but Emberly wasn't letting me leave and I didn't know how to distract all of your..."

"Mindless lovers?" Puck suggested.

"I was going to say fans, but that works, too," Arthur said.

The two of them gave each other a look and smiled-

-only for the moment to be ruined by Emberleigh opening her mouth.

"Arthur, we really should go look for your friend," she said. "Who knows where he could have gone! He could be lost in some dark corner of the school."

Arthur and Puck exchanged a look.

"We should split up," Arthur said. "I can search here, and you can search in..."

Oh, now he saw what Arthur was trying to do. And after that little bit of form changing to manipulate the school, he was starting to get an idea.

"The library," Puck suggested. "Maybe he's with Brian."

Sorry not sorry Brian.

Emberly nodded, gave Arthur one last, longing look, and then slipped out into the rest of the school.

Which finally left the two of them alone.

"Puck, I had an idea-"

"What if I change my form to Ember-"

"If the school thought you were Ember-"

They both stopped and stared at each other. Puck smirked; Arthur gave him that cute smile he had always loved.

"It looks like I'm rubbing off on you!" Puck said. He gave a little stretch "And transforming into Emberly should be a breeze. Just need to make one small adjustment."

A second later, an almost exact copy of Emberleigh stood in the redheaded girl's place. The only difference was the uniform Puck had went with. Emberly had been wearing the yellow dress from Ouran; he made one that matched Arthur's currently blue school uniform better.

"There!" Puck said, trying out the voice a little. "One stereotypical anime love interest with a questionable spelling of her name."

In an act of defiance - and to test if the plan had actually worked - he grabbed onto Arthur's hand.

And waited.

And waited.

After a minute passed, the two of them exchanged another look.

"I think it worked," Arthur whispered.

"Looks like it," Puck agreed. "Want to go see how it holds up against the actual Emberly? We could also see how Brian's local time mechanics thing is working out - I don't think he's getting anywhere, but..."

He grinned.

"I'm just happy that this stupid school isn't stopping us right now," he said.

Arthur smiled. "Me too."

A few moments later, the two of them were heading towards the library - hands intertwined.

Brian stared at the materials he had spread across the table, as though staring hard enough could set them alight.

“There’s no internal consistency.” he growled aloud. “None whatsoever.”

It was useless. Brian pushed everything off the table, flipped it on its side, and leaned a large whiteboard (which had also been stolen) against it.

According to his personal space-time stopwatch, he had been in this pocket dimension for five weeks, two days, three hours and five seconds.

On the third week, Arthur, Puck, Connery, Raziel, Artemis, Brett, Pearl, Ezra, Cornyx, Jabril, and Syl had appeared. Artemis, Brett, and Pearl had vanished shortly after arrival. That left nine. Cornyx, Jabriel (pity, he was SUPER hot), and Ezra, he had lost track of a few hours ago. Maybe five. Puck was missing. Four.

Brian drew dots, and he drew lines. He marked every event, every arrival, every disappearance, any happening by which the passage of time could be contextualised. He had to steal three more whiteboards to fit it all.

"Wow, that sure looks complicated," piped a chirpy little voice. Embyrlie? Close enough.

"Yes, it is." said Brian.

"You must be a genius, Brian." said Embehrlee.

"Don't patronise me." said Brian.

"EMBERLIE, I NEED SOME PATRONISING," Brian yelled in frustration, a quarter of an hour later.

"You can do it!" shouted Embyrlye.

"Thank you!" shouted Brian.