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duhragonball · 5 years

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Dragon Ball Z Movie 13: Wrath of the Dragon

Kind of wild that I made it to Movie 13. I want to call it the last movie, but it’s not. “Path to Power” was released several months later, and while Movie 13 used to be the final film under the Dragon Ball Z branding, it was eventually followed by “Battle of Gods” and “Resurrection F” in the 2010′s. Kind of wild how the 2010′s are nearly over. I was just getting used to it being the 2010′s.

I’m tempted to think of this movie as a finale in some sense, because it’s set after the Kid Buu fight, but DBZ doesn’t end there. There’s a three-episode epilogue set ten years after Kid Buu. Really, this movie is just the first in what became a long list of Dragon Ball projects set during that ten-year period.

This was, I think, the last DBZ material released by Funimation before they started re-dubbing things for the Orange Brick Sets and Dragon Ball Kai. I remember attending a Funimation panel at a 2006 comic convention where they talked about this movie, and some of the voice actors were kind of sad that this would be the last time they would portray these characters. At the time, it certainly seemed that way.

So this movie premiered in Japanese theaters on July 15, 1995, after Episode 270 of the anime, and before 271. So if you were a fan in Japan, you could watch Vegito and Super Buu in hot vore action, then go see this movie a few days later, and then watch Super Buu turn Vegito into candy, which strangely isn’t hot vore action.

The release chronology kind of surprises me, because I just got so used to thinking of this movie as an epilogue to Dragon Ball Z. It kind of is, in a way, because the Dragon Ball manga had already finished up in May 1995, which is probably why this movie lines up so well with post-Buu continuity. Everyone who’s supposed to be dead is dead, and everyone who’s supposed to be alive is alive.

This one is my second favorite movie after Fusion Reborn, so I kind of wanted to consider what makes it the second best. I mean, it’s a matter of taste, really, but I think it’s a question worth asking.

So let’s get down to business. This one opens with a kid holding a sword. He had an ocarina, but he dropped it, and he looks like he’s in some trouble.

Then a giant monster steps on him, and he’s dead. A mysterious voice declares that Earth is next. Ominous!

Unlike every other DBZ movie, this one doesn’t feature the opening theme music, just a title card, which looks bad-ass by the way.

And here’s the title of the movie, which in Japanese was “Dragon Fist Explosion!! If Goku Can't Do It, Who Will?”

In lieu of a theme song, the credits roll over the next couple minutes of the movie, which I’ve always found to be a really nice touch. All along, I’ve been admiring the looming sense of finality in DBZ, and this is a good example of what I’m talking about. It’s July 1995. The manga is over, which means the anime will be over soon, and as far as anyone knew, this would be the last movie, and it just sort of quietly proceeds with its business. Z stands for the end.

This scene is mostly just to establish the Gohan and Videl are fighting crime as a team now, with Gohan as Great Saiyaman and Videl as Great Saiyaman Mark 2. Not sure why Gohan stopped wearing a cape, or why he still has that bandana and sunglasses. He only switched to that because his Saiyaman helmet was illegal in the Tenkaichi Budokai, but that’s long over. Videl got a helmet, so why can’t he wear one to match?

The weird thing is that Videl’s costumed identity is public knowledge, but Gohan’s isn’t? They go back to class, and everyone just seems to know that Videl is still fighting crime like always, but as Great Saiyaman 2, or Great Saiyawoman, or whatever. But Gohan pretends he just went to the restroom, like he used to do in the Great Saiyaman Saga.

Weirder still, everyone knows Gohan is the Great Saiyaman. He unmasked at the tournament, after all. I thought this movie might have forgotten about that, except Sharpner even points it out when Gohan returns to class.

Incidentally, I’m not sure it makes sense for Gohan and Videl to still be in high school in this movie. It’s set after the Kid Buu fight, but they use the Dragon Balls in this movie, which means it must take place one year after they wish for Shenron to erase everyone’s knowledge of Majin Buu. So wouldn’t Gohan and Videl have graduated by this point? They’d both be about 18, wouldn’t they?

Then Videl gets another call on her radio watch, and the cops want the Saiyaman duo to deal with a strange old man who climbed Raenzel Tower. Videl seems to think that sort of job is beneath the Saiyamen, but they hang up on her, so she’s stuck.

So Gohan has to ask to use the restroom again, after he just got back. He says he ate bad frog meat, like that does anything but raise further questions. Erasa seems really confused, like she doesn’t know what’s going on. Also, it kind of looks like Sharpner, Erasa, Gohan, and Videl are all sitting apart from each other in this movie. Maybe there was some falling out?

So here’s Raenzel Tower. I don’t know that the scenery in this movie necessarily resembles any particular real world city, but this all feels a lot more like Japan than the world of DBZ. That’s been kind of a gradual trend since DBZ began. You’d see fewer and fewer animal-people in crowd shots, and by the Majin Buu arc you almost see none at all. Now that I think of it, Satan City looks and feels a lot more like a “real” city than West City ever used to. That car at the start of the movie had wheels, for example.

Anyway, this red dude has climbed up the tower and he’s threatening to jump, because he’s so despondent. Gohan tries to talk him down, but he won’t cooperate, and Videl gets fed up and dares him to jump.

So he does, much to Videl’s surprise, and then the guy complains that they almost didn’t save him in time.

For some reason, Videl is just irritated with this whole segment of the movie. I guess she really didn’t like getting called out for this mission, and she probably doesn’t appreciate this guy pretending to be a suicide jumper just to get their attention. Also, she really wants to get back to school for some reason. Maybe she just really digs whatever book they’re reading in English Lit.

Aw, look at that dog!

So this red dude is named Hoi, or Hoy, I forget which spelling Funimation went with, but the subs call him Hoi. Climbing the tower was just a ruse to get Gohan’s attention so that he could enlist his aid in freeing Tapion, the great hero who saved Planet Conuts in the South Galaxy 1000 years ago.

Gohan wants to meet the guy, but he’s stuck inside a music box and can’t get out. Hoi wants to release Tapion, because he claims that there’s going to be a terrible crisis on Earth. That’s why he’s spent the past thirty years searching for this music box, because he thinks it’s the only way to save the Earth.

To open the box, you just have to turn the handle to play its song, but the handle won’t turn, no matter how hard Gohan tries to force it. Tapion then explains that he wants to make a wish to Shenron to open the music box, and that’s why he came to Gohan, because he found out that Gohan’s circle has had dealings with the Dragon.

So Gohan takes the box to Bulma’s house, where she scans it with her... whatever all this stuff is. This kind of looks like the bridge of the Enterprise, now that I think about it. Anyway, she can’t make heads or tails of it, and Goku can’t force the handle either, so they decide to gather the Dragon Balls.

As they head out to search for the Balls, Hoi expresses gratitude for finding this kind of help on Earth, which prompts Goku to ask him if he’s not from this planet, and he kind of backpedals and acts like he lived here his whole life. Seems to me that if he already knows about the Planet Counuts in the South Galaxy, then he must not be from Earth at all. And even if he is an alien, why would he feel the need to hide that from Goku? He’s an alien too, after all, so I don’t think that would make him suspicious.

For some reason, Videl is now really excited to see Tapion now, becase she’s “so interested in heroes.” Did she decide Hoi’s story is on the level, or is she just warming up to the idea?

Krillin searches for a Dragon Ball in a carnival haunted house. This is his only real contribution to the film.

So in no, time, the gang finds a bunch of Dragon Balls. I’m not sure how they could split up like this, though, unless Bulma made multiple Dragon Radars.

The seventh ball is in a lion cage at the zoo, so Goku just jumps in and takes it, because Goku does whatever he wants. That lion’s lucky Bulma promised him shish kebabs later, or otherwise Goku would have just eaten this guy raw right in front of everyone.

I can’t figure out Videl’s outfit in this movie. From the back, it looks like shorts, but from the front it looks like a skirt.

Anyway, Shenron grants the wish and zaps the music box so hard that it shocks Hoi.

At first, it doesn’t seem to have had any effect, but then the handle starts to turn and it plays its song.

Okay, so this is a weird place to bring up continuity, but isn’t it odd how Shenron only granted the one wish? Dende upgraded him to grant two or three, depending on the wishes, so he should have at least asked if the gang wanted something else before he split.

Anyway, there’s a big light and sound spectacular while the box opens, but Hoi’s eyes glow red and he has this extra-sinister look on his face. Hmmmm...

Then Tapion comes out, and he’s kind of pissed that they released him. He draws his sword and demands to be put back in the box, but the box fell apart when it opened, so it’s impossible.

What I don’t understand is that, later in the movie, Tapion acts like he knows Hoi, which implies that he recognizes him on sight. If so, why doesn’t he just kill him here, while he has the chance? Or would killing him not accomplish anything?

Then he leaves in a huff. Trunks thinks Tapion is awesome, but everyone else is kind of puzzled, because he didn’t even thank them for getting him out of the box.

Later, Trunks and Goten track Tapion down to... a junkyard I guess? Goten isn’t sure this is a great idea, but Trunks wants to meet this guy and hear all his hero stories.

You know, this is really a beautiful shot. Watching this again, I guess the main difference between this and Fusion Reborn is that this movie is much more grounded. There were colorful shots like this in Movie 12, but they were mostly fantasy scenes of heaven or hell, or those extra-cartoony shots of the city. Movie 13 achieves similar beauty in the mundane. Instead of a mountain of needles surrounded by crystal jellybeans, we have a crane looming over a rusty storage tank.

Inside, Tapion’s just sort of brooding and freaking out. When Trunks peeks in on him, he’s kind of taken aback by what he sees. Maybe this isn’t a tank. I’m not sure what this place is. Maybe a derelict factory?

Hey, it’s a barbecue! Goku was a good boy for not eating those lions, so he gets shish kebab. Or whatever this is called. There’s like a cocktail weenie and a shrimp and a pickle on the thing.

Everyone wonders where Hoi went off to, and Master Roshi starts drunkenly blathering about how he’s harassing women, just like he’s about to start doing. Why are Roshi and Oolong even in this scene?

Gohan knows which way the wind is blowing, so he heroically puts himself in front of Videl so Roshi has to go through him to molest her. It looks like Roshi’s poking Gohan in the dick, though. Master Roshi belongs in jail.

He gets fresh with Bulma, so she smacks the shit out of him. Why does she keep inviting him to these things?

There’s a cute moment here where Goku notices the boys trying to swipe food off the grill, so he scoots some closer so they can reach it. Again, this is down-to-earth stuff you can’t get in Movie 12.

Okay, maybe this is a junkyard, what with all the wrecked cars here. In any case, Goten and Trunks are taking food to Tapion’s lair.

Tapion keeps telling everyone to get away from him, so Trunks leaves the food behind and promises to come back tomorrow with more.

So then there’s a monster attack, and wow, these are some great scenes. Again, very real-life-y, compared to early Dragon Ball material. The only distinct Dragon Ball imagery here are the Royal Military uniforms on the soliders. Otherwise, it would be very easy to mistake these for some other anime.

That’s not a bad thing, by any means, because I’d say all these realistic city scenes help make the characters stand out more.

So it’s not actually a monster, but half of a monster. The lower half, to be specific. Gohan wonders if this was the terrible crisis Hoi warned about earlier in the movie. I guess when you’ve lived Gohan’s life, you really can’t be sure if a creature like this is related to Hoi’s warning or not. It could be some completely different crisis starting up.

Videl wants to do their usual routine on the creature, but it attacks them during their pose. For some reason, Videl is super into the poses in this movie. Other than one episode of the TV series, this is the only time we see Great Saiyaman 2 in action, but I guess it makes sense she’d dive into the role. If she was eager to wear the costume, she must be up for the whole nine yards.

So Gohan fights this thing for a bit, and he discovers that it’s intangible most of the time, and it’s only solid during the moment when it’s attacking something else. I don’t think I ever noticed before that Gohan figures this out so early in the film.

So Gohan seems to do pretty well against the creature...

And Videl thinks he’s won, but Gohan’s not convinced.

The monster has a knack for vanishing and reappearing, kind of like Janemba, but without the pixelation effect. It’s more of a fog kind of thing. But then it seems to disappear for good, and when Gohan and Videl search for it, they find Tapion playing his ocarina.

They also spot Hoi lurking nearby, but I doubt they’d recognize him in his ninja getup.

Later, Trunks brings more food to Tapion’s hideout, but he hasn’t eaten the last meal he left, and Tapion still won’t talk to him. Later that night, Tapion falls asleep and drops his ocarina, and then he’s attacked by the top half of a monster...

It nearly kills him, but he manages to pick up his ocarina and play it, and this makes the monster fade away.

The next morning, Trunks finds the place shredded from the monster attack, but he’s relieved to see Tapion is still okay, so he leaves breakfast for him.

Then we get this scene where Videl and Bulma are washing dishes together, and she tells Videl how Trunks is sneaking food to Tapion, because he looks up to the guy like a big brother figure. Trunks is an only child, you see, and he envies Goten’s relationship with Gohan. Videl’s an only child herself, so she can relate.

What I don’t get here is when Bulma replies “But you’ve been so keyed up lately”, and Videl seems unnerved by this and says “It’s Trunks’ power that is keyed up!” I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Videl’s reaction almost resembles how she acted when Chi-Chi asked her if she had thought about marriage in Movie 12. Was Bulma trying to imply that Videl has a thing for Tapion, and it got mistranslated? I dunno.

On Trunks’ next visit to Tapion’s place, Hoi intrudes and tries to steal Tapion’s ocarina, but Trunks manages to get it instead. Hoi unmasks and asks Trunks to give him the flute, because Tapion is the danger he had been warning about earlier on. He claims that Tapion is connected to the monster that Gohan fought the other night.

You know, one thing that never really gets clarified in this movie is where all of this is happening. I would assume Tapion’s lair is in West City, since that’s where he escaped the music box, and why would he go to another town to find a junkyard? But Gohan and Videl always did their superhero stuff in Satan City, so I assume that’s where they fought the monster.

Anyway, I never understood why Hoi expected Trunks to trust him in this scene. Initially he told them all that Tapion was supposed to save them from a crisis, and now he’s accusing Tapion of being part of the problem.

Then again, I guess Trunks might be somewhat conflicted, since Tapion’s been acting very mysterious and moody this whole time. But Tapion asks Trunks to trust him, and after a tense moment, Trunks does. He gives Tapion the flute and Hoi leaves empty-handed. I guess you could say that Trunks went with his gut. From the beginning, Trunks saw something he liked about Tapion, and he decided to trust that first impression over Hoi’s exaggerated warnings.

Trunks prepares to leave before Tapion chews him out again, but instead Tapion invites him to stick around and join him for dinner. Awwww.

Later, Bulma informs Videl that Trunks has invited Tapion to spend the night at their home. Speaking of which, doesn’t Videl have her own home? Why is she spending all her time at Capsule Corp. these days?

So Trunks shows Tapion all of his toys, but a toy robot catches Tapion’s attention. It separates into two halves, sort of like that monster. Hmmmm...

Later, Tapion tells Trunks about his little brother, Minotia, but Trunks falls asleep during his story.

As he watches Trunks sleep, he can’t help but be reminded of Minotia, and just so there’s no misunderstanding, that was the kid we saw die in the opening scene of the movie.

So Tapion leaves Trunks to sleep, only to run into Bulma in the hallway. She’s wearing this shawl, or maybe it’s a blanket or something. It looks cute, is my point. It also looks very different from what we usually see Bulma wear.

She just looks a lot more like a regular person instead of some genius billionaire inventor. She kind of reminds me of the older Chi-Chi from the History of Trunks special. Anyway, she invites Tapion to stay at Capsule Corp. all the time, but he’s afraid of what might happen if he does.

She wants to know what he’s talking about, but it’s a long story, so she puts on a pot of coffee. I always thought it was tea, but that looks like a coffee pot to me. Also, there’s an entire fruit basket just in case anyone gets hungry in the middle of the night. Speaking of Vegeta, imagine if he’s in this room, just out of the frame, sullenly chewing on an orange while Tapion tells his gloomy origin story. Vegeta eats oranges with the peel because no one ever told him not to. Bulma can’t tell him now because it would be awkward after all this time.

All right, so here’s the deal. One thousand years ago, on the planet Conuts, they had this totem that absorbed all the evil will on the planet. I don’t know if that’s legit, or some kind of superstition, but the totem was this big stone sculpture. One day, this “sect of warlocks” from some other place showed up and turned the totem into “phantasm” named Hildegarn, or Hirudegarn. Then they turned it loose on Conuts’ population. Hoi was one of the warlocks.

Man, I love this shot of Bulma. This is really the difference between Movies 12 and 13. 13 has it’s share of fantasy stuff going on, but there’s a certain distance to it. In Movie 12, the characters are right in the thick of it all, but here, it’s an ancient tale being told to a regular lady over coffee. There’s a certain weight to all of this that none of the other movies really achieve. For one thing, Bulma now realizes that she was deceived by Hoi, and their fun afternoon of summoning Shenron to meet a hero was actually part of Hoi’s plot to destroy their world. So if things go badly from here, she’s at least partly responsible for whatever happens next. You don’t get that complexity in the earlier movies.

Conuts was able to defeat Hirudegarn eventually, thanks to a pair of swords and flutes that were empowered by “God” to control the totem. I think the idea is that the Kami of Planet Conuts was in charge of this, sort of like how Dende, the Kami of Earth, oversees the Dragon Balls. But they might actually mean a higher power besides a DBZ-style Kami.

Anyway, Tapion and Miotia played the ocarinas, which had the ability to immboilize Hirudegarn, and while they did that, a priest cut the monster in half with one of the swords. The subs suggest that there’s only one special sword involved here, but Tapion and Minotia are both equipped with them, so I think that means there are two. Maybe Minotia’s is just a regular sword.

Here’s the priest, by the way. I kind of like his design better than Tapions? Anyway.

So that put an end to Hirudegarn, right? Well, not quite. I guess they couldn’t just kill the thing, so they did the next best thing and sealed each half of the phantasm in Tapion and Minotia. Tapion got the top half, and Minotia got the legs. But even that wasn’t good enough, because the warlocks kept trying to attack the brothers to take back Hirudegarn.

So they ended up getting sealed inside music boxes. I think that may be the Kami of Conuts there in the background. The one with the multicolored halo. As we’ve seen, these must be special music boxes, since Goku couldn’t even turn the handle on one.

Then they shot the music boxes into space, just to make sure they would be as far apart from one another as possible. And that’s how Tapion ended up on Earth, and why Hoi came to Earth. He told Dragon Team that he wanted to free Tapion to save the universe, but he actually wanted to get Tapion out of the box so that he could get the top half of Hirudegarn out of Tapion.

Aw, man this shot from the aquarium is awesome. This really is a great movie. I think it’s a matter of taste. Critics would probably complain that the battle at the end is kind of short and disconnected from the rest of the story, but this movie is telling a quieter, more emotional story. I think Movie 12 is better, because I prefer the louder, goofier tone it has, but it really is a matter of personal taste.

Anyway, it’s a safe bet what happened to Minotia. At some point, Hoi tracked him down, managed to release the lower half of Hirudegarn, and used that to kill Minotia, as we saw in the beginning.

So it’s up to Tapion now to make certain Hoi can’t gain control of both halves, or else Hirudegarn will destroy everything. And as we’ve seen, he can’t go to sleep, or the monster will emerge from his body. That worries Bulma a great deal, so she offers to build him a chamber to serve as a replacement for the music box. At least, she thinks she can do it, since she still has the pieces from before, and she believes if she analyzes them that she can whip up a substitute.

I like that about this movie. Bulma hears out this poor kid’s story, and she’s like “Well, I’ll build you a box that’ll let you sleep!” and it won’t even take her very long. Tapion’s supposed to be this magical hero, but Bulma has a bit of that same aura herself.

All she asks in return is that he spend some quality time with her son, and he’s happy to do that. Also, Majin Buu’s dog is here for some reason. At least, I think that’s Bee.

Then she steps outside to tell them it’s ready, and she’s still in her pajamas, so I think this means she was up all night working on this thing. Bulma’s awesome.

So this thing looks ridiculous, and I have no idea how it’s supposed to work, but I guess the idea is that she reverse engineered whatever mojo the original music box had, minus the part where a grown man could fit inside it. Why did she bother adding the gold trim to the sides? Because Bulma, that’s why.

Meanwhile, the lower half of Hirudegarn is attacking somewhere else, and I guess his tail can open up to reveal dozens of tentacles.

I guess this is how Hirudegarn feeds? It’s pretty gross. It suddenly occurred to me to search for Hirudegarn fics on AO3, but I’m pretty sure I don’t wanna know.

Then Tapion gets some sort of psychic feedback, maybe? I’m not clear on what’s going on, exactly, but it blows up the bedroom Bulma built for him. So did it just never work to begin with, or is Hirudegarn becoming powerful enough to overload it somehow?

So Bulma calls in Goku, Gohan, and Goten. Goku acts like he’s searching for clues, but let’s be real here, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He only picked up that gear because he thought it was made of chocolate.

Then Tapion stumbles back into the house, and he explains that the upper half got loose again, and he’s having more trouble controlling it. He somehow got it back inside his body, but he asks the others to kill him before it gets out again. Bulma offers to build a sturdier room for him, but he seems to think we’re past that.

Then Hoi shows up with the lower half of Hirudegarn, and they attack. Trunks gives Tapion the ocarina, but it doesn’t work this time.

I don’t think this ever really gets explained properly. Is Hirudgarn getting too strong to contain, or is Tapion’s power over him weakening? Or is this because Hoi is doing something to help get Hirudegarn loose? Or is it because Minotia is dead?

Anyway, now Hirudegarn is finally reunited, and Hoi is convinced that he’s now become invincible. In the dub, Hoi explains that he’s the sole survivor of a species called the Kashvar, who believe themselves superior to all other forms of life. The subs never get into this, but it’s a bit of lore that I enjoy.

Hoi’s a pretty cool bad guy. I like how he suckered all the good guys. I like how he resembles Babidi but not too closely. And I like his naughty red color.

So there’s not much Tapion can do from here, so Trunks moves him to a safe distance an tells him to let them handle things from here. Magic ocarinas and music boxes worked pretty well for a while, but now it’s time to do this the DBZ way, which means throwing down, mang.

There’s a trailer for Movie 13 that was included in the video file I downloaded when I first watched the fansub of this movie. In it, Masako Nozawa as Goku explains the premise of the movie, and how there’s this monster who’s going to wreck the world, and then she screams “I WON’T LET ANYONE DESTROY THE EARTH!” It’s awesome.

So there’s a couple of issues with this fight. First, the elephant in the room is that Gohan’s the strongest guy in the movie, but Goku’s the one who makes the big save at the end. The movie does a decent job working around this, but that leads into the second problem....

Which is that nobody can actually touch Hirudegarn now that he’s reunited. I guess he’s stronger and faster than he was when Gohan fought the legs, so even though Gohan knows he can only hit him while Hirudegarn is attacking, it’s a lot harder to pull that off this time. But what you end up with is a lot of footage of the Saiyans punching trails of mist, then getting clobbered. It’s good for building suspense, but it’s not very inspired compared to some other movie fights. Movie 8 was pretty one-sided, but at least the gang could hit Broly. It just never hurt him, which indicated how tough he is.

At one point, Hirudegarn turns solid so he can grab Gohan, but this sets him up for an attack by Vegeta, who finally shows up in this scene to bawl out Hirudegarn for attacking his house.

But he gets the same treatment as everyone else. Hirudegarn flings him into a nearby office building, and Vegeta expends the rest of his power just shielding himself and the bystanders from Hirudegarn’s fiery breath.

Goku tries to help him, and he just gets clobbered for his trouble.

So Goten and Trunks try to turn the tide with fusion, and for a hot minute, Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks seems to have an edge.

After a volley of ki blasts, it looks like Hirudegarn just keels over and dies. Oh, hey, that’s the same tower Hoi was climbing on when he first showed up. So I guess this whole movie takes place in West City? Only we saw Gohan and Videl in Orange Star High. Ah well.

So it looks like Hirudegarn is dead or dying, but...

It turns out he was just molting. Did Tapion have any idea that he could do this? I wonder.

So Gotenks is the first to fall. One swat from Big H knocks him down to the ground so hard that he de-fuses on the first bounce.

Gohan and Videl are next. I’m not sure why this thing keeps trying to crush Gohan, unless it’s because he’s the strongest one in the group. Maybe that was their way of acknowledging this.

So that leaves Goku to hold the line on his own, but he doesn’t last much longer. Just when it looks like there’s no one to defend West City...

Tapion returns with his ocarina. He hasn’t exactly had a winning track record with this lately, but it’s the only card he has to play, so he’s giving it all he’s got.

With a herculean effort, Tapion manages to seal all of Hirudegarn into his own body. Trunks runs over to congratulate him...

... but this was only a temporary measure. Tapion hasn’t beaten Hirudegarn. He’s just holding him for a moment, long enough for someone to kill him before Hirudegarn can escape again. And since Trunks is the only one on his feet, its up to him.

It’s an impossible choice. Trunks is just a boy. This is too much for a kid like him, but there’s no other way. If he doesn’t act now, Hirudegarn will escape, and there’ll be no way to stop him. That’d be hard enough, but he loves Tapion like the older brother he never had. It’s too cruel that he should have to do this. And yet, what else can he do?

But before Trunks can decide, Hirudegarn busts loose, and the ocarina breaks. So Tapion won’t be able to try that stunt again. I’m not sure he’d be able to stand the strain even if he could try again. Hirudegarn is just too powerful like this.

So yeah, it looks like a total shut-out for Hoi. Yessir, looking pretty rosy for the last Kashvar...

OH SHI--

HAHAHAHAHA HOI’S DEAD! I love this part! Did Hoi ever really have any control over Hirudegarn? I mean, he wasn’t exactly telling him to do anything he wouldn’t have been doing anyway. Nice knowin’ ya, you sorry bastard.

But everyone else is still screed. Hoi couldn’t conrol Hirudegarn and Tapion can’t contain him and the Z-Fighters can’t beat him, so what does that leave. Yeah, Trunks didn’t have to kill Tapion, but it looks like he’s going to die here no matter what. Z stands for the end.

But not yet.

Yeah, now I see why I had so much trouble telling what city this was. It’s not West City or Satan City. Hirudegarn needs to update his GPS, because he somehow ended up taking I-65 straight into Goku Town, population: get wrecked, son.

Hirudegarn goes to attack Goku, but before he can do that, Trunks jumps in and chops off his tail with Tapion’s sword. Yeah!

That got him good, but Goku wants Trunks to stay out of this one. Gohan tries to tell Goku that Hirudegarn has a weakness, but Goku’s already figured it out. He needs to goad Hirudegarn into attacking, and then use that moment to hit him with everything he’s got.

Fortunately, Hirudegarn is happy to oblige, and he starts punching Goku, while Goku doesn’t do much about it. He just no-sells each blow, taunting Hirudegarn to try again.

Maybe this fight’s better than I gave it credit for. The mistake the Z-Fighters made earlier was that they kept trying to strike Hirudegarn, which only left them wide open to his counterattacks. The key here is to stay on the defensive, and lull Hirudegarn into remaining solid.

Of course, you’ve still got to be sturdy enough to weather this kind of storm, but that’s why Goku’s using Super Saiyan 3. Gohan could have done this himself, but he got beaten up before he could come up with this strategy. Goku can make it work, but he can’t stay in this form for very long, so he probably only has one shot at this.

But if he doesn’t do it, who will?!

Hirudegarn goes for one more punch...

But this time Goku jumps over his fist and...

DRAGON FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST!

AAAAAAAGH! His punch exploded!

And it turned into Shenron this is nuts!

Hirudegarn knows he’s done fucked up now!

Yeah, say goodbye to your kidneys, asshole! You thought you could just step on Capsule Corp.! That’s where Goku gets his shish kebab, idiot! There’s gonna be hell to pay now.

OH YOU THOUGHT WE WERE DONE? Guess what, now the ki dragon that shot through you is gonna wrap around you and strangle you to death!

Also, it explodes again, so yeah, that’s the end of Hirudegarn.

Victory for Goku! And the moral of the story is, don’t send a flute to do an exploding punch dragon fist’s job.

Later, the good guys reassure Tapion that they’ll wish all of Hirudegarn’s victims back with the Dragon Balls. Well yeah, but it’ll be months before they can make another wish, so that’s kind of awkward.

As for Tapion, Bulma has apparently built her own version of the time machine used by Future Trunks in the Androids Saga. Either that, or she refurbished the duplicate time machine Cell used to arrive in this timeline. This movie doesn’t play too well with Dragon Ball Super continuity, but fuck the Zamasu arc, it was stupid and this movie rules.

So I guess Tapion’s going to go back in time to when everyone he knew and loved was still alive on Conuts. I think the dub indicated that he was going to prevent Minotia’s death somehow, but I’m not sure how that would work. Anyway, Trunks is sorry to see him go, but Bulma says they can just use the time machine to visit him. Wait, so does she mean she has a second time machine? Becase I don’t think they’re getting this one back.

Before he departs, Tapion gives Trunks his sword, saying he won’t be needing it anymore. So that’s pretty cool.

And as the time machine fades away, Trunks watches it go with his new sword on his back, and the credits roll...

... with scenes of Future Trunks in action. Clearly, Toei wanted to connect these two versions of Trunks. I think a lot of fans have mistakenly assumed that this movie is trying to suggest that this is the origin story for Future Trunks’ sword. Maybe Future Trunks met some alternate version of Tapion, but I think this story was just making the point that Kid Trunks would admire a hero who resembled Future Trunks in a lot of ways, including the sword and the stoic, selfless personality.

But yeah, that’s Movie 13. It’s not as flashy as Movie 12, but it never comes close to being dull, and the Super Dragon Fist at the end is the cherry on top.

youtube

Plus, you’ve got the excellent ending theme, “Ore Ga Yaranakya Dare Ga Yaru” by Hironobu Kageyama.

#dragon ball #2019dbliveblog #dbmovieliveblog #wrath of the dragon #movie 13 #goku #gohan #trunks #goten #vegeta #bulma #tapion #hoi #hirudegarn #videl #master roshi #oolong #krillin

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comicteaparty · 5 years

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September 21st-September 27th, 2019 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from September 21st, 2019 to September 27th, 2019. The chat focused on the following question:

How would you describe the target audience for your comic? Did you intend to aim at that audience, or did it just happen?

Deo101 (Millennium)

My target audience for millennium http://millennium.spiderforest.com/ was and is LGBT youth. Specifically teens. I know when I was a kid reading a story where gay people are just kind of... There? No jokes, no stereotypes, more than one... That would have helped me a lot. So I'm trying to make that for other kids! I think the story has reached a much wider/older audience then I intended, but I know it has helped at least some LGBT youth/young adults and that's all I could ever ask for.(edited)

spacerocketbunny

The target audience for Ghost Junk Sickness is definitely queer youth and young adults! Much like what @Deo101 (Millennium) is saying, basically we wanted something like the cool action scifi comics we read when we were younger with good queer rep that's integrated and normalized in the universe! As it turned out though, the audience we reached has been all over the place ranging from older women to big biker dudes?? Every time we go to cons we can never guess who'll purchase a book because the range is so varied! I'm sure we still reach the original target to an extent but the rest is all over the map it seems! I don't think it's a bad thing, it's just been pretty unexpected

Deo101 (Millennium)

Not bad at all ^^ more like a pleasant surprise!

spacerocketbunny

Exactly!

Deo101 (Millennium)

I think those other, older people are also looking for a story to reach their inner child... And I think that's great

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Lol, I feel the similarly way about my own story. My goal was definitely to make something me as a kiddo would have loved, which essentially would have been shonen stories but with a female majority cast. I think I already figured my target audience would be similar to me, but I've been consistently surprised by how many male identifying folks like it. I guess I do like that they can hang though X) Anyway, these are my floppy, post work out thoughts. Hopefully they make sense.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

The target audience for Phantomarine (http://www.phantomarine.com/) was never super clear from the beginning - I just wanted to make something I'd like as a teen. Luckily (or unluckily! in terms of describing it to people ) the story is a mishmash of a bunch of different genres. It's not quite a ghost story, not quite a pirate adventure, not quite a fantasy epic, but it has elements of them all. And it does seem to have attracted people who like those different genres. It may not be easy if I ever want to publish it properly (it's a little difficult to describe my 'brand' ) but as it is, it's got everything I would have liked when I was between 14 and 18.

My happiest surprise is hearing about the younger kids who have read it, understood it, and really enjoyed it. Knowing that 10-12 year olds can appreciate my work is really awesome. I try to keep the language and scary/questionable content at Harry Potter levels, but I like having some of the depth/maturity of stories like The Golden Compass. If they like Phantomarine now, I really hope they find extra enjoyment with it as they grow up. It's going to be a ride!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Gosh, I get that feel of being multi-genre and not knowing quite how to describe your Brand X') I feel like I've gotten better at defining it over time but it's still a struggle to briefly describe what my thing even is some days. Also Golden Compass I'm always excited to find other comic folks who were also influenced by that series.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

It's my gold standard for the right blend of fantasy, reality, and maturity. It's just the best

keii4ii

The target audience for Heart of Keol (https://heartofkeol.com/) is extremely tiny, but it does have appeal for people outside of that niche. I make it for myself, and the relevant aspects of "myself" here are: a) Grew up in Korea, is living (or has lived for an extended period of time) in a predominantly English-speaking part of the world b) Bonus points if they spent some time living in rural Korea c) Is into slow burn drama about characters who could be described as being "genuine" and probably "lawful" as well d) Likes the aesthetics of fantasy settings, but is more into the mundane, almost slice of life, side of drama e) Is very much into reading between the lines for more emotional stuff. Reads a lot of heart from sceneries, possibly more than from faces. (I have face blindness and this affects how I experience comics both as a reader and as a creator)

Obviously people who meet both a) and b) are gonna be harder to find! But if one can meet c), d) and e), that's enough to enjoy the comic the way it's meant to be enjoyed, or so I hope.

The reason a) and b) matter is because it affects how the setting/aesthetics come across. To someone like me, the old Korea setting feels homey, warm, nostalgic. It's like a shorthand for "sit down and enjoy this heartfelt slow burn tale." But to others, Magical Asia might feel exciting and exotic, which isn't really what the story is meant to be, so there may be some dissonance.

seetherabbit

I haven't given much thought about the target audience for Vulperra. (https://vulperra.com/) other than then it's probably for people who like adventure, fantasy and cartoony-ish animals

Cronaj

My target audience is kind of all of the place. Initially when I began scripting my comic, Whispers of the Past, I was really into anime and manga, especially ones like Attack on Titan that were a gritty fantasy. However, since then, my style and story have changed tremendously. My target audience now tends to be young women, aged 15-25, who enjoy detailed world building in high fantasy and are definitely into family drama in story telling. Initially, I wrote the story to fit certain perameters that I myself enjoyed. For example, I am particularly obsessed with the idea of the mundane meeting the fantastical and amazing. The quiet lull of ordinary life juxtaposed by the rigor of magical entities. I specifically focus a lot on drawing beautiful artwork for the panels, because I myself am a picky-pants when it comes to selecting comics I want to read. Another one of my obsessions is a fantasy setting so detailed that you feel like if the story ended, the world would still live on. (One of my inspirations was the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini, in which the author essentially wrote several languages, similar to Tolkien.) In reality, my readers tend to be women aged 30+ (probably who watch k-dramas like I do), and a lot of D&D players. It's fun really, discovering how much of my own hobbies bleed into my stories.

AntiBunny

Early on with AntiBunny http://antibunny.net/ I was hoping for fans of scifi and film noir. What I got were fans of classic cartoons and furries. Which is fine by me really. Furries are nice people who are passionate about their hobbies (and spend money).

Jonny Aleksey

A superhero audience was always the intention for J-Man (http://jonnyalekseydrawscomics.com/the-undefeatable-j-man/), but specifically, right now, I'm aiming for something all ages. Slightly teen drama, cartoony but grounded. My inspirations were Spectacular Spider-Man and the DCAU so anyone who likes that is the readership I expect. Hopefully I can reach people who are on the fence about superheroes. The all ages aspect is something newish relatively speaking. When I started my webcomic I wanted to stay away from the "deep real edgy" tone I made when I was in high school (shiver). It took me a bit to really get that tone down. I don't use curse words and only mild blood, but occasionally stuff that borders on teen+ go through. (there's one instance in #5 where J-Man's face gets burnt by the villain that might've been a bit much) I don't think the all ages banner is going to restrict me from telling certain storylines/character development. Just means it won't be excessively grim.

Erin/Leif & Thorn on Kickstarter

The target audience for my webcomics is LGBT nerds who want stories that give them strong feelings, and who like SF/F, anime, competent characters that don't have to take turns with the Idiot Ball to keep the plot moving, and cats. Admittedly that last bit might be redundant, since everyone on the internet likes cats.

Ash🦀

I’ll be honest with you, I’m the target audience of my comic. (http://www.fwmgofficial.com/) it’s not out yet (it’ll be out October 31st) but as the writer I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. Mostly, it’s just targeted to young adults and autistic people. I never got to see people like me in comics, so I wrote a comic where an autistic person can be the hero too, even in his own way. For me, I figure whoever likes it likes it and that’s good enough for me. (also furries. Definitely targeted furries)

Kay Rose

@Ash🦀 cant wait to read it!

Ash🦀

QwQ thank you!!

MJ Massey

So far Black Ball is pulling in a mix of people who like the vintage aesthetic (1920s and art deco with some old-school macabre for some reason?) and people who like shonen manga, which is great. Even if Black Ball isn't specifically macabre or strictly shounen (though I myself have made shounen battle manga-esque comics in the past)

DaemonDan (The Demon Archives)

Audience of my comic... Per Google it's 18-35 year old men from the US and Russia XD Which makes sense given it's a pretty hard sci-fi with a lot of military action from dudes in power armor and etc. Though I try not to go too "high octane action!1!" and explore more psychological elements too.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble #comic tea party #ctp

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iasfuturekings · 6 years

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Can you give us a step by step process on how you made the aesthetics for the families of Nohr and Hoshido? You used photoshop for them, right? It’s okay if you don’t want to give us a tutorial though, since it’s time consuming! Your aesthetics are wonderful.

I don’t mind. It’s fun answering questions about the technical aspects of building this blog. This isn’t exactly step by step but should do the trick.

1. Deciding a Template - I don’t remember where I got the panel template I used for the Nohr family (I think I found a simple 6 panel thing and modified it with a center diamond to show the logo). For all I know, I might have custom made it. I do remember using Template 69 by maxiresources which I found on @welovetemplates for the Hoshido aesthetic posts. 5-6 images is reasonable number to show different aspects of a family or individual’s personality in my opinion, so I went with that.

2. Finding Photos - A lot of these photos are really stuff I come across by chance or me going through a lot of image sites and galleries.

I have a higher preference for photos that are royalty free to use, so I really like using Pexels and Pixabay since they have really high quality royalty free pictures, especially for generic scenery, animals, flowers, and plants.

I also use screenshots and photoshoots for TV shows, especially medieval dramas or fantasy, so most times I try to find high quality screencap sites for that specific show or, if I’m especially desperate, I turn to Pinterest. I personally don’t like using Pinterest because it’s extra harder to find the right source to attribute it to, and I usually try to reverse Google image search things.

In some cases, I also have to modify the picture. For example, for House Minett, I change the hair color and clothing color to suit the house’s color. The way I do it is by using Filter Adjustment Layers > Hue/Saturation so I can adjust the color and not have to directly color over the actual picture.

3. Picture Placement

One of the great thing about templates is that you can clipping mask photos into the layers you make and you don’t have to mess up the layout. So I’ve actually made a mini tutorial about something about this subject, so you can refer to that.

As for which photos to place where, I usually like to balance dark and light colors so that the layout looks varied and interesting. I try to avoid showing a subject’s full face because I want a “faceless” quality that doesn’t associate the concept of the aesthetic to the actual person or show it’s from and because usually I’m not focused on the person, I want the viewer to focus on the clothes and the hair. In the rare occasion I do show part of the face, it’s to capture the energy that a facial expression can bring into a photo.

4. Color Adjustment

Usually in the last part of making the post, I make minor color adjustments. I usually like to tint photos a bit so they all fit the house’s color scheme, so in Lovell’s case, all the photos have a blue tint to it somehow.

5. Examples

Let’s discuss an example to make things easier to understand. House Lovell’s one of my favorite aesthetic posts, so I’ll just post it here for example.

The first photo in the top left is really dark, and then it’s surrounded by lighter pictures of metal so it makes stuff stand out more and it doesn’t look like some dark edgelord fest.

The tone I had going for House Lovell is that they’re a bit on the austere side of things, but they’re still nobility. Their style is a minimalist sort of elegance, and there’s no overt displays of wealth like jewelry and really pretty clothes. If there is anything that is stylish, it serves a natural purpose, so the silver platter is ornately decorated, but useful for holding fruits and whatnot, and there’s more display of chainmail as a form of fashion and function combined.

And lastly, greyhounds are the cutest.

Anyways, hope this was helpful!

#fire emblem fates #fe14 #fire emblem #ask #tutorial #author #long post #Anonymous

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dramallamadingdang · 7 years

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Overdue Replies

Holy crap, this is long, OMG. I’m so sorry.

For @pensblr, @bunsblr, @shaonharryandpannisim, @newlibertysims, @fuzzyspork, @littleblondesim, @kayleigh-83, @penig, @damask-wallpaper, @acquiresimoleons, @sim-pudding-faces, @digitalangels, @celebkiriedhel, @unoriginalkirsten, @alicephant, annnnnnnnnnd @landgraab.

pensblr replied to your photoset “More paneling because I wanted some with narrower individual boards. I...”

Thank you! Love the high-res textures. Lately, I have been on a swap-out as many low-res textures as possible kick.

Ohhhhhh, then you are either going to love me or want to murder me in my sleep. Possibly both. :)

But yeah, I decided I wanted all the things high-res for this new Strangetown project. Mostly because I’m going to be photo-editing all the pictures and I want things as nice-looking as possible to start with and not have to worry about pixellation in the background if I’m taking close-ups and stuff. So, that means I have to make a lot of crap since I’m pretty much building a downloads folder from the ground up for it. Build mode first, since I’ll be building lots for the place soon...

bunsblr replied to your photoset “More paneling because I wanted some with narrower individual boards. I...”

One can never have enough paneling!

That’s my feeling! It’s versatile! You can use it inside as paneling or outside as vertical siding. Both were big mid-century, which is pretty much what I’ll be building so...yeah. One sets of walls, multiple purposes.

shaonharryandpannisim replied to your photoset “More paneling because I wanted some with narrower individual boards. I...”

I had resisted the pull of those sofas. But I can NOT, for the love of Maxis, resist THESE.

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.

newlibertysims replied to your photo “Napoleon, not being an asshole. For once. He actually got along quite...”

That street needs a Cat Licking sign.

Orrrrr the cat needs to stay out of the road. Then again, cats like roads. Nice and waaaaaaaaarm.... :)

fuzzyspork replied to your photo “Napoleon, not being an asshole. For once. He actually got along quite...”

It's a good thing random cars don't drive past the lots in TS2. XD

They do when you have that fire hydrant that makes car pool vehicles drive by occasionally! I’m not using that in this neighborhood, though. Not yet, anyway. I don’t reckon it has much vehicle traffic, what with there being only three households and all. :)

littleblondesim replied to your photoset “Meanwhile, over at the pool hall, schmoozing with Review Guy has its...”

http://www.wordlab.com/name-generators/ :)

See, I knew someone would point me at one! :) *is lazyass* Thank you!

kayleigh-83 replied to your post “Your game is so ugly. Maybe it's about time to step it up to 2017.”

In which my eyes roll so hard they fall out of my head and across the floor...... lmao honestly anon, get a life.

They have a life! IT IS FULL OF CHEAP WHISKEY! ;)

kayleigh-83 replied to your photo “I can’t be the only one who thinks the poses that Sim-kids strike...”

So agree! I kind of wish Sims retained some of it as they age, like maybe more active Sims stayed more "active" sleepers? Would have been extra cute!

It would have been! I mean, some people never grow out of being restless, flailing, bed-hogging sleepers. *side-eyes husband*

kayleigh-83 replied to your photo “Heh. Took a break from hurling invective at the game’s lighting to...”

That's such a creative idea to make Sim paintings out of it! I love hanging art or photography in my Sims homes that are of their own world, it adds a kind of realism I appreciate! Just like we would hang photos or paintings of our own world.

I have always kinda wanted to do the “take in-game pics and turn them into family pictures” thing...but I’ve never actually done it. One, because I just don’t have the patience to do posing. Two, because even if I had the patience I’m utterly bewildered by poseboxes. Like, how on Earth do you keep track of which box has what poses? Especially because most of them “helpfully” give the poses names like “Pose 1.” I’m just all WTF when it comes to them.

But I can do scenery pics as paintings/photos, yeah!

fuzzyspork replied to your photo “Heh. Took a break from hurling invective at the game’s lighting to...”

NICE! Also, if you ever want to hate something that used to be fun for you, just do it as your job for a while. XD

Exactly! That’s why I really didn’t want to be a musician when I grew up! I wanted to be an architect! Unfortunately, math and I have that whole hate/hate relationship going on, so no architecture degree for me! And, as it turns out, music is the only bankable talent I have, given that I have no interest in having a “real job” with bosses and stuff because I’d just get my ass fired if I tried to have one. So, here we are! Thankfully, it didn’t kill my lurve. Probably because it’s such a wide-ranging field, so if you hammer on one aspect of it as your job, there are all sorts of other things you can do for fun.

penig replied to your photoset “OK, game-graphics nerds! I haz question! (Yes, @celebkiriedhel, I’m...”

I had to look intensely to see what you were talking about. I do notice that in my game and I think of it as realism. Because you can see the lines between panels and breadths of wallpaper IRL.

Well, yeah, I can see that with wallpaper. It does have seams IRL, at least. But for flat painted walls, where the “gradient thing” is the most noticeable because there’s otherwise no pattern to distract your eye? Yeah, that doesn’t work as well. :) *still busily hurling invective at Maxis and their stupid lighting calculations and going why, why, WHYYYYYYYYY?!*

damask-wallpaper replied to your photoset “Technicolor was a series of processes used in filmmaking mostly...”

What a fun idea! Who doesn't love the technicolor look?

I love, love, love old movies, with a special fondness for B-movies from the 50s/60s done on the cheap with bad Technicolor when Technicolor was no longer cool. So, yeah, I love the look, myself, whether it’s done well or badly. I think it’ll be fun to photoedit pics for retro-Strangetown.

I kinda wonder if it might be possible to get ReShade to make the game itself look like it’s in Technicolor, but I’ve never managed to get ReShade to work with my TS2 install, so I can’t experiment with that. :(

acquiresimoleons replied to your photoset “Since his mama had decided to visit, Steven made a special dinner....”

Yaaay werewolf! (I'm pretty sure that's what's happening anyway lmao)

Yup, he’s a werewolf! :) I’ve always liked the transformation sequence in TS2. It’s so drama-ful. :)

sim-pudding-faces replied to your photo “And then it was time for Baby Aaron to grow up… Ermagerd, he’s cute!...”

Aww.. lil guy is trying to be stud at an early age, eh?

It’s all about the laydeez! Or maybe about the bois! Or maybe both! Dunno what he’ll like yet. But yes, a stud from infancy, he is. ;)

digitalangels replied to your post “Your game is so ugly. Maybe it's about time to step it up to 2017.”

I'd love to see how anon's game looks to see what is "stepping it up" in their books but I bet they're too much coward to give their name for us to see. And anyway, isn't half of the point in Sims games customizing it to look how *you* want *your* game to look like or have I been doing it wrong all these years?

Yeah, it’s kind of funny how such people who leave such messages don’t give you any points of reference. “Stepping it up” is meaningless without such things. I mean, how else are we to know if we’re “stepping it up” properly?

No, really, I think some people are just really offended by non-Maxis-match and/or using older CC and/or shinier hair/skin textures these days. But, I’m uninterested in Maxis-match (for my own game; I like looking at other Maxis-matchers’ pics, though!), and I like a bit of shine because we do not live in a matte/cartoony world, so such folks and me will just never see eye-to-eye when it comes to game aesthetics. And that’s OK by me, but apparently not by them. Or something. I’m still going with “bottle of whiskey + nothing better to do on a Friday night so let’s *hurr hurr* try to make people angry” theory. To each their own!

newlibertysims replied to your photo “GilsCarburg, in moody Technicolor. ;) OK gotta stop fiddling with this...”

Reminds me of lazy, hazy, crazy days of...fall. XD

Fall! Fall is good! I can’t wait to get this whole summer business over with! I need to live in a place where it’s fall year-round. Which pretty much means another planet, but hey! I’m game for that!

newlibertysims replied to your post “Your game is so ugly. Maybe it's about time to step it up to 2017.”

Nothing wrong with being 2008 hot. Just ask Jenna Marbles!

*had to look up Jenna Marbles because I’m totally un-hip to the whole “youtube personality” thing* But yeah! Totally! Other than finding my soulmate in 2013, I think this decade totally bites, personally. Actually, now that I think about it, so far this century ain’t so great, IMO. Tonight, we’re gonna party like it’s 1999. ;)

penig replied to your post “Your game is so ugly. Maybe it's about time to step it up to 2017.”

I think, from the voice of certain anons you've responded to lately that you've picked up my stalker. She doesn't like taking responsibility for what she says by putting a face on. And she is persistent as heck.

O RLY?! Oh, the fun we will have, then! Bring it on, anon, bring it on!

fuzzyspork replied to your link “Tips For Manipulating The Sourness Of Your Sourdough”

Ah! I needed this too! I always hated the sourdough we used to make because it was way too tangy (hubby loved it though). He works for a German company and one of the managers offered him some of her 100+ year old starter. I'll have to give it a shot.

Oh, yeah, totally. I’d definitely take her up on her offer. Even if it’s not to your taste to start, you can futz with it. You could even split it and develop a tangier starter and a not-so-tangy one, to suit both your tastes. ‘Course, then you’ve got double the upkeep, but it might be worth it...

fuzzyspork replied to your post “Your game is so ugly. Maybe it's about time to step it up to 2017.”

TS2 is 13 years old. I have no idea what "step it up to 2017" even means.

Right? I mean, TS2 is almost from the last century and all. Why must we force it into crappy 2017? I think it would make it cry. ;)

...Unless we’re talking 2017BCE. That would be cool...

celebkiriedhel replied to your photo “Steven does the annoyed potty-training faces, too. Yes, it’s an...”

But what a manly hairy chest!!

Yeah, the GilsCarbo men are hairballs. ;) Well, the three of them so far, anyway. ;)

celebkiriedhel replied to your post “acquiresimoleons replied to your post: ...”

I used to keep mine on top of the fridge - the top of the fridge was warm from the motor. :)

That’s a good spot, too! The fridges in our places are built-ins, though, so you can’t put stuff on top of them. Which actually sort of sucks, but on the other hand the aesthetics of built-ins please me, so....Rock, hard place. ;)

celebkiriedhel replied to your link “Tips For Manipulating The Sourness Of Your Sourdough”

Thanks for this! I used to make my own bread when I was younger, and I miss having a sourdough starter living in my house.

It is rather fun when the oldest thing in your house is a living being. :)

celebkiriedhel replied to your post “Your game is so ugly. Maybe it's about time to step it up to 2017.”

LOL. Lets play 'How old the anon is'! My guess is early teens, with an entitlement phase of a toddler.

Yeah, if the “whiskey + lack of social life” theory isn’t correct, then I’m going with Age ~15. (No offense to sane 15-year-olds out there, but some of y’all...) Of course, being 15 and the “whiskey + lack of social life” theory aren’t necessarily mutually-exclusive, so...

unoriginalkirsten replied to your photo “And then it was time for Baby Aaron to grow up… Ermagerd, he’s cute!...”

That is spectacular baby balancing right there!

Like those folks who can balance spinning basketballs on their fingertips! Of course, balancing a spinning baby is far more impressive...

alicephant replied to your post “Your game is so ugly. Maybe it's about time to step it up to 2017.”

Lol how dare you have a game that you find aesthetically pleasing �� anon is a poo head.

Is it just me, or is “poo head” just a way better insult than “shithead?” I mean, the former, when done right, is just so much more condescending. (And not in the Regency-era sense of the word, either. ;) ) But yeah, I agree. :)

landgraab replied to your post “Your game is so ugly. Maybe it's about time to step it up to 2017.”

"I don't like *your* game, so change it!!!"

Pretty much, yeah. Ya gotta wonder how anyone would think that such a demand would actually work, that anyone would just change everything about what they do in the game because some people don’t like their aesthetic. I mean, it’s not like those of us who don’t conform to “popular” trends are somehow unaware that we’re not conforming to popular treads. Especially when our general pattern in life is being deliberate in our refusal to conform to popular trends about anything, not just a silly game. ;)

#pensblr #bunsblr #shaonharryandpannisim #newlibertysims #fuzzyspork #littleblondesim #kayleigh-83 #penig #damask-wallpaper #acquiresimoleons #sim-pudding-faces #digitalangels #celebkiriedhel #unoriginalkirsten #alicephant #landgraab #replies

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violaswimmer · 8 years

Text

Well, Shit. (A Voltron Fanfiction Chapter 8)

Hey y’all! Sorry for the wait! Chapter 9 is on the way! Thanks again for all the support! Also I have decided that this story will be 10 chapters! So expect chapter 9 soon and then it’s on to the final chapter!

Want to read from the beginning? Here you go!

http://violaswimmer.tumblr.com/post/156859812181/well-shit-a-voltron-fanficiton

CHAPTER 9:

http://violaswimmer.tumblr.com/post/157710839871/well-shit-a-voltron-fanfiction-chapter-9

CHAPTER 10:

http://violaswimmer.tumblr.com/post/157841715481/well-shit-a-voltron-fanficition-chapter-10

Lance has admitted all of his secrets and he’s feeling better by the day. But the things he said begins to bother certain members of the team.

Chapter 8: Well, Fuck Yeah.

The team held onto Lance while he cried for a long time and when he finally got a hold of himself he was rather sad that they let go. Shiro had a hand on Lance’s back, gentle and firm and Lance was grateful.

“Hey buddy, how are you feeling?” Shiro asked, sounding a little concerned.

Lance knew his eyes were red, he could feel them getting hot and puffy. He rubbed away his tears with the back of his hand before nodding.

“Yeah I’m feeling better.” Lance said, “We should probably head back.” He said, taking a last look at the colorful scenery. Everyone followed suit taking a long look too, beginning to understand why Lance would come here to think, it was calm and peaceful.

Lance got up, legs a little shaky and the rest of the team followed. Lance climbed into the Blue lion while the rest climbed into the Black lion, giving Lance the time to process everything that had just happened. He just admitted to a lot of stuff and he felt bad about it. They had enough problems as it is and here is Lance, freaking out, running away and admitting every dark secret. He shook his head, he needed to stop thinking like this. They were a team and he was a part of that team and what affects one affects all. He shouldn’t feel bad for having an emotional break down, even if it was embarrassing to admit. It wasn’t his fault.

Lance sat in front of the control panel, letting it all sink in a little bit before closing his eyes and leaning back, allowing Blue to enter his mind. He saw through her eyes again, watching as the rest of the team climbed into the Black lion. His team. Their team. He knew that now.

He still couldn’t believe that they had apologized to him. But to be honest he couldn’t believe a lot of things right now. It would take some getting used to. Blue ascended into the light yellow sky, glancing back at the green ocean before floating among the stars. The Black lion following right behind. This time as Lance floated he looked at the dark beauty around him and space finally began to feel like home.

When the lions landed in their hangars, Blue had to enter with Black in Black’s hangar because well, they broke theirs a little while ago. So when Blue landed in the hangar, Lance took a little time to come back to himself and just sit and breathe. When he did finally emerge from Blue, climbing down the ramp, Allura and Coran were waiting for him with the rest of the team behind them.

As soon as Lance’s feet hit the hangar floor, Allura barreled into him her arms flinging around his neck in one of the tightest hugs he’s ever had (and he was best friends with Hunk). Lance hesitated, was he even allowed to hug her back? She’s like a space princess. But eventually he did, gently placing his arms around her back.

“Lance, I’m so sorry I’ve been so hard on you. I’m sorry I didn’t realize what was happening sooner. I failed you as your leader, however I’m going to do my best to be better.” She paused, “You are a part of this team. We would not be the same without you and I mean that.” She said.

Lance took a moment to bury his face in her beautiful hair, it reminded him of his oldest sister, before letting her go only to be attacked by Coran who gave him an equally crushing hug. What was up with these Alteans and their death hugs? Lance squeezed back, hard.

“You silly boy, I’m so sorry. I’m supposed to keep you healthy and make sure everything is going fine. But I failed to notice anything amiss. Remember you are the blue paladin of Voltron, someone who helped defeat Zarkon and has saved the universe more times than we can count. You are so so important my boy, please remember that.” Coran said, backing up but still holding onto Lance’s shoulders, squeezing them before letting go.

Lance could only nod, not sure if he could open his mouth and not burst into tears again. Coran clapped him on the back and they all began to exit the hangar. But Lance was stopped by a gentle hand on his shoulder that belonged to Shiro. The rest of the team gave a curious look before continuing out of the hangar leaving Lance and Shiro alone with their lions.

Lance looked at Shiro with curiosity and slight nervousness. But Shiro looked kind of nervous himself so it made Lance feel better.

“Hey Lance, I just wanted to say that um… about what you said… you can always come talk to me. If you want to. I don’t usually sleep much either so if you ever need company…” Shiro trailed off scratching his neck, “I hope you know that you can come to me, anytime. Really. My door is always open.” Shiro said.

Lance blinked, a little surprised but he nodded.

“Yeah… uh thanks Shiro.” Lance said.

“Also, one more thing.” Shiro said before taking a deep breath and straightening his shoulders, “I wanted to apologize. I know I haven’t been the best leader to you or even a good friend and I should have. Pidge and Hunk made me realize that.” Said Shiro.

“What? No, Shiro you’re-“ Lance began.

“Let me finish.” Shiro said, raising a hand to stop Lance from talking.

Lance shut his mouth.

“I know that I have been kind of ignoring everyone on the team, except for Keith. I’ve been paying a lot of extra attention to him and I realize that now. It might be because I’ve known him for so long, however that’s not an excuse.” Shiro took a breath, “I realized that when you were gone, I didn’t know much about you or Hunk for that matter. So when you were sleeping the day after you got out of the healing pod, I asked Hunk about you… and I realized I hadn’t even tried to get to know you this entire time despite everything we’ve been through and how long we’ve been together as a team.”

Shiro set his shoulders, looking determined.

“But I’m going to do better, I’m going to be better so that you and everyone on the team can trust me and tell when things are going on. I’m going to try really hard.” Shiro took a breath, “But I need this to be a two way street, and when you’re ready I hope you’ll come talk to me, instead of hiding things like before. Can we do that Lance?” Shiro asked sincerely.

Lance took a minute to process everything Shiro had just said. But he nodded.

Shiro smiled, “Good.” And he was about to turn to leave when Lance started to talk.

“Shiro wait, now it’s time you listen to me for a minute. Shiro, you’re a great leader. I know that. And um… don’t ever think otherwise okay? I really look up to you and I know you’re doing your best. Can you sometimes be a little narrow sighted? Yeah, sure but hey we’re all human here right?” Lance said with a smile, “That includes Keith, by the way.” Lance said cracking his first Galra joke before moving on, “So don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re honestly not much older than me and look at what you’re trying to do. Protect the universe, that’s like crazy stressful. So just cut yourself some slack okay?” Lance said, smiling at Shiro.

Shiro let the words wash over him. How was Lance so good at this? Every time something happened to him he just seemed to bounce right back and make the other party feel better. He understood everyone and what they were saying. He was just… so good with people. Understanding them, listening to them and giving advice, reminding Shiro that he too was just a person. It was funny how much Lance understood others yet had no idea when it came to himself. Shiro smiled.

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks Lance.” Shiro said.

The two paladins smiled at each other before walking out of the hangar together. Lance feeling better by the second.

Everything returned to the way it was, except this time everyone paid more attention to Lance. Or Lance felt that way. But really they were just acknowledging him more than they had previously. It was something that Lance was slowly getting used to. He cracked more jokes because he’d actually get a laugh or two before they moved on to serious subject matter. Lance spent more time with everyone and when he saw his hallucinations he didn’t bother to hide it, not that he fully acknowledged it either. Lance was sure if he just started to talk to empty space that would kind of freak everyone out even if they knew what was up now.

Lance rejoined missions and he loved it. At first he was a bit nervous not having flown Blue in battle in a while or the fact that he hadn’t formed Voltron in a while either. But when he and Blue flew together his worries disappeared and they fought the Galra and anyone else just as they had before. And Voltron was even easier to form when they were together, if a little overwhelming. Not only were Lance and Blue together but they were also together with everyone else. Lance could feel how powerful the lion bonds were and it was kind of crazy. Another thing Lance was going to have to get used to.

After a couple of days Allura came with a suggestion.

“I think we’re going to visiting the planet Kann with the Noo and Goo.” Allura said to the team who were gathered around the dining room table for dinner.

“They requested that Lance make an appearance there once he was recovered, since we are near the planet and have yet to find a distress beacons I think now is a good time.” Allura said.

“Really?” Lance asked, eyes lit with excitement.

Allura smiled, “Really.” She said.

Lance laughed and gave a shout of excitement.

Keith spoke up, “When we went to go ask for allies to come and get you they agreed right away when they knew you were in trouble. They said you helped them make negotiations smoother.” Keith stated, “I was wondering when exactly you did that… I can’t remember you sneaking off to talk to them last time we were there.” Keith admitted.

Lance blinked, a little embarrassed.

“Oh yeah… I did it when everyone was sleeping.” Lance admitted.

“The Noo and Goo don’t need to sleep as much because their days are longer and the nights are pretty short. So when I figured that out, I don’t know, I just had this crazy idea that I could help somehow.” Lance scratched his neck thinking back, “I guess when we were down on the planet and Allura was trying to negotiate with them to join together and join the Voltron alliance she kept making it about the bigger picture. Which is great and works for a lot of people but I thought that maybe they were more concerned about how it could benefit them right now. So I went down to the planet while you guys were sleeping and asked each party what they were most concerned about at the moment, like what needed fixing right now.” Lance smiled.

“It turns out they were pretty concerned about the same thing. It’s just that they had different ways of going about it. So the next night I went down again and I told each party about the other. They were pretty stubborn but by the end of it they were willing to meet. So they did, we didn’t get very far but I think it was enough to show them that they weren’t so different from each other after all. Then the next day they sign the negotiation agreement!” Lance said beaming.

“I didn’t tell you guys because, most of the time my ideas get shot down because they’re not the greatest or most thought out. And I thought that I should just do it myself, that way if it went wrong you guys could just blame it on me. But I just had to try and so I did.” Lance finished.

Allura blinked, “Lance you are so observant.” She stated like it was a fact.

“What? No-“ Lance began.

“No really, you are. I think I need you to help me negotiate more often. I hadn’t even realized that that strategy might work. Usually I just try the same thing every time maybe with a little variation but of course, you’re right. Every planet and people we come across is different! And so they need different treatment and approaches! Honestly you’re brilliant Lance!” Allura said with absolute sincerity.

Lance was a little floored, the Princess never complimented him that way before. So he just sheepishly smiled.

“Thanks Princess.” He said quietly, a light blush on his cheeks.

And so it was decided they were going to Kann within the next two days and Lance was so excited to see them again. Although they had been hard to talk to at first, he actually became quite good friends with the Noo and Goo on the planet. The sleep deprivation was totally worth it.

They did land on Kann two days later and the size and intensity of the crowd was almost too much for Keith to handle, but luckily he didn’t have to deal with them. They were here for Lance, not anyone else on the team. So Keith watched as the crowd grew bigger as they descended toward the planet’s jungle surface. Bright feathered faces and shiny bright scales made a cascade of every color of the rainbow as fish and bird humanoid aliens waited for Lance to climb out of the blue lion.

The rest of the team descended from their lions with Lance emerging a bit afterwards, whether it be because he needed a little time to himself before being attacked or for dramatic flair, Keith wasn’t able to tell. However Lance did eventually descend the ramp from his lion and the sound was so loud that Keith was convinced that he blew an ear drum. The aliens shrieked and yelled as their beloved paladin came to them, some not waiting until he made it to the ground to greet him. Instead they climbed up the ramp, grabbing him by the hand before Lance was completely swallowed by the crowd still shouting from glee. Keith smiled to himself, Shiro stepping up behind him to watch, the rest of the team following suit.

“They really do love him.” Shiro stated with satisfaction and wonder.

“Yeah.” Keith agreed.

Keith felt a slight pain in his heart as he watched though. What was it? Jealously? Maybe. He wondered how Lance became friends, or more like a hero to an entire planet in the three days he was here. He was amazed by his ability to befriend people and wondered why Lance had ever let him step foot in the Black lion when Lance was clearly… better. He was just better and he didn’t even know it.

Keith still thought about what Lance had said to them on the beach.

So I worked hard really hard. Really hard. I got to the top of the cargo pilot class and when I was upgraded to fighter class I thought my hard work had paid off. But I only got in because Keith dropped.

And believe me they really liked to remind me of that. Every time I fucked up they would remind me that I was just a replacement for the best pilot of our generation.

In the Garrison I was already competing against you Keith, even if you weren’t there… I honestly hated you. I don’t anymore but I was jealous and mad and I didn’t even know you. I’m sorry about that.

Keith knew that Lance wasn’t blaming him now, but the thought that he had really bothered him. Lance honestly didn’t like him, at least in the beginning. Although Keith always thought he was just a big goofy flirt that annoyed him, but he never hated Lance. But Lance admitted that at some point he had hated him but that he had changed his mind. But why? Keith never made any attempt to fix the problem so why did Lance consider him his friend, if that’s what they even are now. Keith thought they were but he wasn’t so sure. If he could actually get Lance out of that crowd anytime soon, he’d ask.

Keith got his opportunity during the banquet that the Noo and Goo held for their blue paladin to celebrate his full recovery and to thank him for his hard work. The start of the party was spectacular with drinks and food lining every flat surface. Lance was surrounded for what seemed like forever but towards the end of the festivities Keith noticed Lance was nowhere in sight. Keith went looking around. The party was taking place in a castle made from the vegetation of the jungle around them as well a glowing crystal which was like a clear version of the Balamerian crystals they’ve seen. It was really beautiful. The Goo claimed that their underwater castle was better, however they agreed that a party on land was more suited for the human paladins.

Keith exited the main hall, looking for someplace that Lance would go. It took Keith a minute to think about it but eventually he concluded that Lance probably wanted some fresh air, and he was right.

Keith found Lance on a balcony overlooking the water, quite a way from the rest of the party. Lance was bent over the railing, head resting on his hands, staring out at the scenery. Even Keith admitted that it looked pretty peaceful.

“Couldn’t handle the attention?” Keith asked with a smirk.

Lance didn’t even flinch.

“Yeah, something like that.” Lance said straightening but still looking at the scenery.

Keith joined him in the staring, letting the breeze go through his hair.

“Are you… okay?” Keith asked.

Lance turned to look at him slightly before looking at the landscape.

“Yeah I just needed a minute. They mean well but everyone is kind of a handful, reminds me of my own house back home.” Lance said, laughing.

Keith nodded liked he understood, he didn’t really although since living with everyone on the Voltron team he was getting better.

They stared in silence for a while before Lance began to turn away, Keith knew it was now or never so he gently grabbed Lance’s arm, surprising him.

“Hey, wait. Can I ask you something?” Keith asked, suddenly nervous.

Lance blinked but nodded.

“Yeah, sure.” Lance said. Keith dropped his arm and Lance rejoined Keith, watching him.

“I um… I was thinking about everything you’ve said and um….” Keith scratched his neck, this was very hard, “I was wondering… are we friends?” Keith asked sincerely, he was slightly embarrassed by the question. He didn’t think you normally asked this sort of thing but he had to know.

Lance looked a little shocked by the question too but he nodded.

“Yeah, I think we are!” Lance said with certainty.

Keith relaxed, well that was good to know.

“Why do you ask?” Lance asked him, looking concerned.

“Well, all the stuff you said at the beach I felt like you were blaming me. Which I think part of the stuff is my fault but then I know you’re not but… I felt like you were. Then I realized I didn’t do anything to try and change your mind. So I thought we were friends before, but friends don’t just fight with their friends and I realized that’s all I did with you. Fight. Shiro’s my friend and I don’t fight with him so I guess I was wondering because… when did you decide to be friends with me?” Keith asked, he knew he was babbling that the words were falling out and probably didn’t make a lot of sense but he couldn’t stop himself.

Lance blinked and then looked at the scenery again, thinking hard before turning back to Keith.

“First of all, I’m sorry I made you feel that way. You shouldn’t feel bad because of what I thought of you when we first met. Yes at first I hated you, but I admired you too. I wanted to be you, cool, talent but you know, without the mullet.” Lance smiled, receiving a punch from Keith, “God, be gentle with me!” Lance laughed.

He continued.

“In terms of when I stopped I think it honestly was the goo fight when the Princess locked us in handcuffs, and I realized I didn’t hate you. I didn’t necessarily like you, but I didn’t hate you. Since then I think it’s gotten better. But I think I became your friend while Shiro was missing.” Lance admitted.

They were silent for a little bit. For Keith spoke.

“When he went missing, I thought for sure you would try to convince me not to pilot the black lion. Given the recent times you accused me of being reckless, which is true. But why did you turn so suddenly? You were the first one to tell me to lead Voltron.” Keith said.

“Well before Shiro went missing I knew he would want you to pilot the black lion when he was gone.” Lance said.

Keith looked shocked.

“What? It’s not like you two are actually good at keeping secrets.” Lance stated with a laugh, “Anyway when he really did go missing I just pushed everything aside because it was go time. I figured if you did try to run off and do something stupid I’d be able to keep you in line. I knew you were best suited for the job. Sure you’re a bit of a hot head but you’re the best pilot and I sure you’ll be a good leader with some practice. You’ve already become better with people and evaluating situations so you’re improving no worries.” Lance said with a smile.

“But I’m not the best! You are!” Keith practically shouted, Lance looking at him surprised.

“You’re selfless, able to make friends with an entire planet in three days, you can adapt to situations quickly, you understand everyone around you and their motivations, and you can fly you’re lion through your bond! You’re… amazing Lance. You just can’t see it.” Keith said.

There was a stunned silence between the two of them. Then Lance spoke.

“But I can’t make the tough decisions. You can.” Lance said taking a breath, “No matter what you say, I don’t have the guts to be a good leader. Maybe all those things you said are true, but in the end I can’t make the call. What’s a good leader if he’s only willing to sacrifice himself?” Lance asked.

Keith’s memories flashed across his mind. Lance’s face as he pushed Keith and Pidge over the console board, eyes hard and smile sad.

“That’s why you’re second-in-command and not me. You’re willing to make those calls, I’m not. I’m too attached to everyone and everything. I can’t do it. But that’s okay with me. That’s why you and Shiro are the leaders. Not me.” Lance finished.

Keith nodded, understanding.

“I haven’t thanked you.” Keith said.

Lance blinked, “For what?” he asked.

“You were the first one to not make a big deal of me being Galra. You kept me in line when Shiro was missing and you’ve saved my ass as many if not more times that I’ve save yours. Thanks, Lance.” Keith said with a genuine smile.

There was a pause before Lance’s smile broke across his face.

“Yeah no problem, man.” Lance said.

They looked at the scenery one more time before rejoining the party.

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officialcherubcampus · 4 years

Text

CHERUB Jr - Spies in Training

WHAT IS CHERUB?

You’re not allowed to know where CHERUB campus is and don’t bother searching on any maps, because you’ll never find it.

CHERUB Campus is so secret that you’re not even allowed to fly over in an aeroplane. But if you could, you’d see more than a dozen buildings, a forest big enough to get lost in and lots of neatly trimmed grass. You’d also see tennis courts, football pitches, an outdoor swimming pool and one of the scariest, muddiest, assault courses in the world.

If you looked out of the aeroplane with binoculars, you’d be able to make out some of the children who live on CHERUB campus, riding their bikes, playing sport and walking along the gravel paths between lessons.

You might think you were flying over some posh boarding school, although the uniforms would seem a bit weird.

Cherubs - as the children who live on CHERUB campus are called - don’t wear blazers and ties. They wear waterproof boots, combat trousers with lots of pockets for putting equipment in and coloured T-shirts. It makes them look a bit like soldiers.

Only very clever children are picked to become cherubs and they are expected to work extremely hard in school. As well as normal classes like history, English and maths, cherubs have to do special lessons: karate, kick boxing, survival skills, espionage, and computer hacking.

These lessons aren’t always as exciting as they sound. In fact they can be just as difficult and boring as normal lessons. But cherubs have to learn tons of extra stuff because they’re training to be spies.

WHAT USE ARE KIDS AS SPIES?

The most important thing for any spy is that the people you’re spying on don’t know that you are one.

Because no sensible grown up believes that kids work as spies, cherubs can get away with all kinds of stuff that grown up spies can’t.

WHY ARE ALL THE CHERUBS ORPHANS?

Mums and Dads are very protective of their children. So are grannies, grandads, aunties, uncles, foster parents, or whoever else looks after them. They like making sure that you cross the road safely, they like tucking you into bed at night and always knowing where you are and what you’re up to.

Mums and Dads would never let their children go off on dangerous missions and become spies. That’s why every child on CHERUB campus is an orphan.

And since it’s impossible to be born without having two parents, it means that every single cherub has a sad story to tell about how they became an orphan. This book starts with one of those sad stories.

If you don’t like sad stories, you might like to skip the first two chapters and go straight to chapter three where all the chasing, fighting and rolling around in mud starts!

(1) THE BIGGEST HOLE IN THE WORLD

Playing in holes is fun. The biggest hole in the world is in America and it’s called the Grand Canyon. It’s more than a thousand kilometres long and two kilometres deep, which means that if you fell into the deepest part, you’d have three and a half minutes to regret putting your foot on that slippery piece of rock before you finally hit the bottom and went KER-SPLAT.

Lots of people play inside the Grand Canyon. They climb up the walls, they ride rafts down the river that runs along the base and some people even jump off the edge in hang gliders and fly down to the bottom.

If you think that flying to the bottom of the world’s biggest hole with a little glider strapped to your back is too scary, a more sensible option is to go down in a helicopter.

Lots of people do this and during tourist season dozens of helicopters swoop in and out of the canyon, keeping close to the edges. Most passengers get a thrill out of seeing the scenery whiz by, though it has been known to make some of them a bit queasy.

The pilots who fly into the canyon are very skilful and helicopters are very safe, so things never go wrong.

Well, almost never...

(2) YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO FLY!

Five Years Ago

Four year old Zoe King and her three year old brother Rob were on holiday in Arizona. They spent the night in a motel a few kilometres from the Grand Canyon.

Before setting off to visit the canyon the next morning, the two youngsters were taken out into the desert sunshine and made to stand on the bonnet of their family’s rental car.

Their Mummy, Daddy and older brother Louis stood alongside them and they got a lady who was walking by to take a photograph so that the whole family could be in it.

Afterwards, the King family got in their car and set off for the canyon.

When they arrived, Rob escaped. The toddler clambered between the metal railings and leaned over the biggest hole in the world before his mother dragged him away.

“You’re a very silly boy, Rob King,” she said sternley. “Stay away from the edge or I’ll make you wait behind when everyone else rides in the helicopter.”

“But I want to goooooooooooo in the helicopter,” Rob whined.

He kicked at the desert sand and made a big fuss as his mum grabbed his hand and marched him towards the heliport.

By the time the five members of the King family arrived at the landing pad, Rob’s face was a mess: bright red, with snot and tears running everywhere.

To make things worse, Rob’s twelve year old brother Louis wouldn’t let him look through his binoculars and his four year old sister Zoe was behaving like a perfect little lady and generally showing her brother up.

But Rob forgot about his tantrum when he saw the helicopter coming in to land. It was silver. It had an American Indian painted on the side and it made such a racket that he jammed his fingers into his ears.

The pilot jumped out, dressed in a flight suit, ear protectors and sunglasses. He opened the back doors while the blades pulsed just a few centimetres above his head and helped two overweight men to clamber out.

As the men waddled towards the terminal building, the pilot waved the King family towards his helicopter. But he frowned when they got close. He leaned inside his craft and pulled out a measuring stick.

He lined it up against Zoe and Rob and shouted terrible news over the roar of the blades:

“They’re too short to fly, Mrs King. You have to be taller than my stick to ride in my helicopter.”

Rob’s mum looked very upset.

“But it was so expensive,” she said. “We booked tickets for the whole family as a special treat.”

“It’s in the terms and conditions, maam. You should have read them. Our safety belts aren’t designed to hold small children.”

“What if my husband and I hold on to one each?” Mrs King asked.

“I’m very sorry, but it’s against regulations. I could lose my licence if I let you do that.”

Rob was too little to understand what was going on as a smiling lady came running out of the terminal building and handed ice creams to him and Zoe.

“I’ll make it up to you both,” Rob’s mum said, as she leaned down and gave her two youngest children the kind of smile she usually saved for injections and trips to the dentist. “You’ll have to wait inside, but we’ll only be away for twenty minutes. The lady will look after you and she says they have a play area and a big box of toys.”

Zoe looked upset, but Rob was more concerned with tearing the wrapper off his ice cream, as his parents and older brother climbed inside the helicopter.

“So long, suckers!” twelve-year-old Louis said, giving his little brother and sister a wave, as the pilot slammed the door of the helicopter and jumped into his seat.

Zoe looked upset, but Rob was finding his chocolate covered ice cream a highly satisfactory alternative to a helicopter ride, especially when he got inside the big glass terminal building and saw the play area with a giant model helicopter and a trampoline.

“Cry baby bunting,” Rob sang to his sister, as he raced up the steps of the slide with his ice cream held aloft in one hand.

As he glided down on his bum, a flash of orange light tore through the window, followed by an earthshaking bang.

Everyone started screaming.

When Rob hit the bottom of the slide, he raced outside behind all the grown ups to see what was going on.

“Mummy!” Zoe screamed, holding her hands over her face.

The air was filled with black smoke and the smell of jet fuel from the exploded helicopter. Chunks of smouldering metal were scattered all around in the snad.

“Oh lord,” a large man cried as he stared up at the cloudless sky. “I just saw a family get inside that thing.”

“Mummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,” Zoe screamed again.

Rob felt very strange. He was too little to understand what had just happened, but the hot sun was making his ice cream melt all over his fingers to he thought he’d better concentrate on licking it up.

Rob’s mum always got cross if he made a big mess with an ice cream.

(3) COMPUTER HACKING CLASS

Rob King was now eight years old. He lived on CHERUB campus and was training to be a spy.

He didn’t remember much about his dead mum and dad, but he could remember the helicopter crash and hadn’t eaten a mouthful of ice cream since that sad day.

Ice cream seemed like extremely unlucky stuff.

It was Friday afternoon and Rob was in computer hacking class with seven other kids. Each kid had a computer on the wooden bench in front of them. Their task was to unscrew the metal case, remove some of the bits inside, pull out a wire on the back panel, install a special thingy called a key-logger, then put everything back together again.

And they were only allowed ten minutes to do it in.

“Two mintues left,” Miss Weller said firmly.

Rob felt hot and the tension was making his stomach turn somersaults. He’d pulled lots of stuff out of the computer and fitted the key-logger. But now he had a pile of bits left over and couldn’t work out where they’d all come from.

Even worse, three other kids had completed the task and the rest all had the covers back on their computers and were calmly finishing off.

“Ninety seconds remaining.”

Rob looked helplessly at the loose wires dangling inside the computer and the green circuit board in his hand. He glanced pleadingly at the dark skinned girl who sat at the next bench, with her task complete and her arms neatly folded.

Her name was Lyra. She was also eight years old and she was Rob’s room mate and best friend - even though she was a girl.

“Connect that to the yellow wire,” Lyra whispered, trying not to move her lips.

But Miss Weller was the sort of teacher who could hear someone farting three floors down.

“Don’t help him, Lyra,” Miss Weller said angrily. “This is not a team assignment.”

Rob had taken Lyra’s hint and fitted the yellow wire to the circuit board. But he still didn’t have a clue where to fit the board inside the computer.

Even worse, everyone else had now finished. The room was silent apart from the sound of Rob’s white gloved fingers fumbling helplessly inside the computer case.

“Thirty seconds left, Mr King. You’d better get your skates on.”

As Rob made a desperate last attempt to force the circuit board into the wrong slot, it made a sharp crack and snapped in two.

“Nooo!” Rob gasped.

His hopeless task had now become an impossible one. And to make things even worse, a couple of his classmates sniggered at his misfortune.

“Time’s up,” Miss Weller said airily, taking a final glance at her watch. “Everyone who has finished their task can leave. Have a lovely weekend and don’t forget to read chapters thirteen and fourteen in time for Tuesday’s lesson.”

All the kids except Rob and Lyra grabbed their backpacks and filed out of the small computer hacking workshop.

“You can go, Lyra,” Miss Weller said.

She shrugged. “I’ll wait for Rob. We’re going paintballing together.”

Miss Weller looked surprised. “I thought you were both banned from paintballing.”

“It was only a three week ban,” Lyra said. “It ended yesterday.”

Miss Weller tutted. “I’ll tell the medical unit to expect heavy casualties if they’re letting you two back on the paintball range.”

“We’re not that bad, Miss,” Lyra said, grinning guiltily.

Miss Weller now stood beside Rob and looked at the tangle of wires inside the metal case.

“A disaster,” she announced, shaking her head. “How old are you Rob?”

“Eight miss.”

“Nearly eight and a half, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Miss.”

Miss Weller shook her head gravely. “In less than a year and a half, you’re going to turn ten and be sent on CHERUB basic training. You’ve lived here for more than two years already. You’ll be expected to pass first time and qualify as an underage spy. But that’s not going to happen if you produce sloppy results like this, is it?”

“No, Miss,” Rob said sheepishly.

“You’ve removed circuit boards and wires that you didn’t need to touch and you snapped that piece by trying to force it into the wrong slot.”

“Sorry, Miss.”

Miss Weller tutted. “Will sorry cut it when you’re working as a spy? What if that computer belonged to a drug dealer or a terrorist? Your life might be in danger if you messed up their computer. Have you even read the chapters in the textbook?”

“Of course,” Rob lied, as he shot an evil glance at the battered copy of the CHERUB Guide to Computer Hacking on the desk in front of him.

“What did the chapters tell you to do with the DVD drive?”

“Unplug it?” Rob guessed, as Lyra frantically shook her head.

“Hah,” Miss Weller said triumphantly. “You haven’t read it. Those chapters don’t say anything about the DVD drive. Do you even know waht a key-logger is?”

“Something to do with, erm ... logging keys?” Rob said weakly.

“Once installed, a key-logger records everything typed by the person using the computer. We can return to the computer a few days later, remove the key-logger and we’ll know every password and security code that the owner typed in.”

Miss Weller grabbed the hacking guide off of Rob’s bench and pressed it firmly against his chest.

“Study it properly,” she said. “I’ll be expecting you to repeat this exercise after class on Tuesday. If you mess up again, I’ll make you run twenty punishment laps around the athletics track. Is that understood?”

(4) ZOE - THE EVIL SISTER!

Rob and Lyra bolted out of the classroom and slid down the banisters to the first floor. They flung their heavy backpacks into their bedroom, making a noise that startled the two guinea pigs who lived in cages on the window ledge.

“I’ll just give Emily and McFlurry some carrots,” Lyra said.

“There’s no time,” Rob gasped, as he grabbed another backpack that he’d already packed with a towel and a clean set of clothes to put on after paintballing. “We have to get there first and nab some good equipment.”

Lyra knew Rob had a point. The CHERUB paintball shooting range had thirty-five sets of guns and protective gear. If you arrived late, you ended up with one of the tatty old guns that didn’t shoot straight, a battered helmet and a padded suit that smelled worse than feet.

“I’m faster than you, I’ll catch you up,” Lyra said, as she grabbed a plastic bag filled with carrot sticks and began sliding them between the bars of each cage.

Rob ran out of the bedroom, scrambled down to the ground floor and raced off across the squelchy football pitches towards the paintball range.

Paintball was all about running around in a helmet and padded suit, getting extremely muddy and shooting at your mates with brightly coloured paint pellets. If there was something in the world more fun than paintballing, Rob had yet to discover it. And today he was even more excited than usual, because he’d been banned from paintballing for the past three weeks.

Getting hit by a paintball doesn’t usually hurt, but it’s dangerous to shoot someone from close range and Rob had gotten in very serious trouble for shooting his big sister Zoe from less than the two metre minimum shooting distance.

Even though Rob couldn’t run as fast as Lyra, he was still quick and there was some good kit left when he arrived at the changing hut on the edge of the paintballing area.

The mud splattered room had three long wooden benches. A bunch of noisy eight and nine year olds were excitedly changing into protective gear.

Some had only just arrived and were still peeling off their boots, while others had already zipped themselves into thickly padded suits, strapped on protective helmets, pulled down their face visors and slid on gloves.

Rob happily grabed the last two really good guns and rummaged inside a plastic crate until he found overalls for himself and Lyra. All the overalls were muddy and disgusting, but he’d found a couple that were slightly less disgusting than some of the others.

“Thanks, mate,” a girl growled from behind him.

Rob turned to see the girm faces of his sister Zoe and her half German best friend, Gerda.

Zoe was only a year older than Rob, but she was much bigger. She looked more like an eleven year old, with a beefy neck and powerful shoulders. Gerda wasn’t quite as scary, but was still bigger than Rob.

Rob backed up to the wall and shook his head.

“This stuff is for me and Lyra,” he said. “I got here first.”

“I got here first,” Zoe squeaked, mocking her brother’s voice as she gave him a shove and snatched the gun out of his hand.

Gerda quickly grabbed the other gun and the two suits. “Danke,” she growled, using the German word for thank you, but clearly not meaning it.

Rob was upset, but he’d never let it show in front of his sister. He screwed up his face and tried to sound fierce.

“I don’t care what guns me and Lyra have got,” Rob said. “We’ll still wipe the floor with you two.”

“Oh, I’m sooo scared of little Robee,” Zoe giggled, as she gave her brother another shove. “You said little shrimp.”

(5) WHEN I GET HOLD OF THEM...

Ten minutes later, fifteen pairs of cherubs stood eagerly at the wire gate of the paintball compound, with their visors down and pockets stuffed with ammunition.

Rob scowled at Lyra. “I’m gonna get my sister so bad,” he said. “I don’t care if I’ve got a rubbish gun. When the gates open, I’m gonna follow her and...”

But Lyra shook her head firmly. “We’re not here to go after your sister. We’re here to have fun and win the game.”

“But we’ve got to get my sister back,” Rob said indignantly. “She ripped off our guns.”

“Zoe and Gerda are bigger, faster and older than us. If we pick a fight with them we’ll lose,” Lyra said sensibly.

Lyra usually acted a bit more grown up than Rob and he realised that she was right, as usual.

“Us getting banned from paintball was totally bogus,” Rob moaned. “Zoe shot me from close range before we shot her, but we were the only ones who got done for it.”

“Forget Zoe,” Lyra said. “There’s nothing you can do about her.”

“Why does Zoe always have to pick on me?”

“You’re almost as bad as she is,” Lyra reminded Rob. “You broke her CD player, you poured water on her school books, you even put itching powder in her underwear drawer that time.”

Rob cheered up enormously as he relived one of the happiest moments of his life: “Oww, oww! Miss, my private bits have gone all red!!

The paintball game was being run by a fearsome looking instructor called Mr Pike. He clapped his giant hands together to get everyone’s attention.

“OK you horrible brats,” Mr Pike yelled. “The rules are simple. You must obey the safety code at all times. The game lasts for forty minutes. Each team has ten envelopes and there are ten letterboxes hidden around the paintball compound. Whichever team posts a letter in the most boxes wins the game. If you get shot three times by a member of another team, you’re dead. As soon as you’re killed, you must raise your hands above your head and leave the training compound by the nearest exit.

“Today we also have one extra rule. We’ve had a lot of rain over the past week and some of the trenches are very muddy and waterlogged. Therefore, all trenches are out of bounds.”

Mr Pike raised a whistle to his lips as he opened the gate of the compound. “Spread yourselves out and don’t start shooting until you hear my whistle.”

The thirty youngsters all cheered as they raced into the compound. Lyra watched to see which way Zoe and Gerda went before dragging Rob in the opposite direction.

(6) UNDER FIRE

“It’s so good to be back playing paintball,” Rob grinned, as his boots slipped and squelched across the muddy ground.

It was spitting with rain. The canopy of dripping leaves over their heads made it dark and creepy as they jogged past tree trunks splattered with brightly coloured paint from hundreds of previous battles.

As well as the trees, the compound had a number of manmade features designed to make paintball games more exciting: small wooden forts, climbing nets, rusted cars with all the glass removed and pitch black tunnels full of mud and rats that only the bravest cherubs venture in to.

Lyra stopped running when she spotted a red plastic box nestled between two trees. It was lucky to find one of the mailboxes before the exercise had even started.

As Lyra crouched down to post one of the ten letters, Rob twisted his boot deep into the soggy ground. When Lyra turned around, Rob flicked his leg forwards and splashed her with mud.

“Aaarghhh!” Lyra giggled, as she retaliated by skimming her boot through a deep puddle.

A great wave of muddy water pelted Rob’s protective suit.

The mud fight might have turned more serious, but Mr Pike blew the whistle to start the game. Within a second, Rob and Lyra heard the distinctive pulse of air from a paintball gun and ducked down as two green pellets whizzed between their helmets and splattered into the tree trunk behind their heads.

“Ambush,” Lyra shouted.

“That was too close,” Rob gasped as he and Lyra ducked down and started running.

More paintballs whoosed through the low branches and soggy leaves around their heads.

After running twenty metres, they reached a wooden fence and dived behind it, but not before Rob felt a distinctive stinging sensation in his bum.

“I’m hit,” he yelled, as he looked over his shoulder at a splat of yellow paint stuck to his trousers.

But there was no time to stand around worrying. Rob and Lyra both raised their guns into firing positions and peered through slits in the wooden fence.

“Can you see them?” Rob whispered, knowing that his companion had a knack for spotting tiny movements in the darkest places.

Lyra nodded. “See the branches moving between the two trees over on the left?”

“I see ‘em.” Rob nodded.

“You move around that way,” Lyra said, pointing towards a line of shrubs. “I’ll blast them out and you can nail them as they try to escape.”

“Good thinking,” Rob nodded, as he crept away.

He crawled through the undergrowth on his belly, to a position twenty metres away between two prickly bushes. He gave Lyra a wave to signal that he was ready and eyed his opponents - two friends of his called Mark and Craig.

As Craig crept towards the little red mailbox to post his letter and score a point, Lyra jammed the muzzle of her paintball gun between a broken section of fence and began rapid firing.

The first shot hit Craig on the back and Lyra’s blaze of paintballs forced him and his companion to retreat.

Unfortunately for Craig and Mark, they ran directly into Rob’s line of fire and he showed no mercy, blasting Craig once and Mark twice before they made it into the trees.

“Run and hide, you wimps,” Rob yelled triumphantly as the two boys scrambled away.

“Two hits on each of them,” Lyra smiled as she walked towards Rob.

They made a high five with their thickly padded gloves.

“Nice shooting,” Lyra said.

“This is the greatest game in the world,” Rob said, as he grinned from ear to ear.

Lyra spoke breathlessly, “Let’s go find another mailbox.”

(7) HALF AN HOUR LATER...

After thirty minutes of paintball action, Lyra and Rob were exhausted. Their legs ached, they had sweat pouring out of their hair and they could hear their hearts banging in their chests. But they didn’t care because they were having so much fun.

“Do you think they’ve gone?” Rob whispered, as he lay flat on the ground behind a line of shrubs.

Brown water dibbled down Rob’s visor as he pulled his face out of the mud and looked up for an enemy that had shot at them a few moments earlier.

“Only one way to be sure,” Lyra said.

She sat up, half expecting a paintball to come flying out from behind a tree and explode against her helmet.

But it didn’t.

“Whoever they were, it looks like they’ve cleared off,” Rob said.

The pair stood up and looked around cautiously. They each had two splats of paint on their suits, meaning they’d be dead if they were shot one more time.

“It was definitely around here somewhere,” Lyra said as they started walking.

“Right there,” Rob grinned, as he spotted the red mailbox hidden in a bush.

They’d seen the box before they’d been shot at, but hadn’t been able to post their letter because they’d come under attack as soon as they got close.

“Now we’ve got nine points out of a possible ten,” Lyra smiled, as Rob slotted the envelope into the box. “Eight or nine points usually wins the game, so we must be in with a chance.”

“Seven minutes to go,” Rob whispered, glancing at his watch as they scurried up a small hill. “Where do you think that last mailbox is? If we get to it, no one can beat us. They can only draw at best.”

Lyra shrugged, “We’ve hardly been over the east side, I bet it’s over there.”

“Oh wow,” Rob gasped, as he looked over the top of a hill into a meadow.

Lyra thought he’d spotted a mailbox, but then saw that it was Zoe and Gerda. Gerda was leaning against a tree, holding on to her ankle like she’d twisted it or something. Zoe had her back to them, with a distinctive blob of green paint across it.

It was perfect. Within a second of seeing her sister, Rob raised his gun up to eye level and blasted off three well aimed rounds. Each one splattered into Zoe’s back between her shoulder blades, making her stumble forwards.

“You’re dead, fat head,” Rob hooted.

Lyra had shot Gerda in the side, but Gerda dived forwards and managed to crawl away into the undergrowth, despite clearly having something wrong with her leg.

Zoe spun around angrily with her gun and almost pulled the trigger. But the rules of the game said she was dead, which meant she wasn’t allowed to shoot back and there were surveillance cameras all over the compound to make sure nobody cheated.

“Butt wipe,” Zoe yelled sourly, as she stood up.

But Rob and Lyra had allowed their triumph over Zoe to interfere with their concentration and Gerda had slipped out of sight.

Despite being injured, Gerda managed to scramble up the hill through the undergrowth and rattled off a shot that hit Lyra in the thigh.

“Now I’m dead,” Lyra complained, as she scrambled behind a tree and handed the final envelope to Rob. “Take it, try and find the last mailbox.”

Rob gave Lyra a friendly pat on the back. “There’s not much time, but I’ll do my best.”

(8) ZOE’S REVENGE

As Rob raced off between the trees towards the eastern side of the compound, Lyra walked downhill towards Zoe and thought she’d try being nice.

“Good game today,” Lyra smiled.

Zoe looked Lyra up and down sniffily, trying to decide if she was worth talking to.

“Wasn’t bad I suppose,” Zoe said, as she unscrewed the ammunition clip from her paintball gun.

The two girls headed towards the gate together, eyeing each other warily while holding their hands in the air to show that they were out of the game.

“We posted eight letters,” Zoe said. “I reckon we’re in with a chance of winning.”

“We’ve got nine already,” Lyra said brightly. “I don’t suppose Gerda will get any more with her dodgy leg.”

Zoe didn’t like the idea that she wasn’t going to win and gave Lyra a mean look.

“You were out of order, shooting me when Gerda was injured.”

“Oh give over,” Lyra said acidly. “It’s not against any rules and it serves you right for stealing the guns off Rob in the changing room.”

Zoe bunched her chunky fist in Lyra’s face. “Maybe you should shut that mouth of yours, before I cram this in it.”

“It’s sad that you and Rob don’t get on,” Lyra said thoughtfully. “I mean, I know most brothers and sisters have fights, but you two really hate each other.”

“Shut your gob,” Zoe said. “It’s none of your business.”

Lyra didn’t fancy pushing her conversation any further. Zoe was tough, clever and would probably make a very good spy when she passed basic training. But she certainly wasn’t a very nice person.

A few seconds later, Zoe proved that she wasn’t very nice by grabbing Lyra around the neck. She dragged her away from the path and into a giant boggy puddle.

“What are you doing?” Lyra screamed, as Zoe’s beefy arm crushed her windpipe. “Leave me alone. I can’t breathe.”

“You think you’ve got porblems now,” Zoe sneered, as she stopped walking at the edge of one of the trenches that had been declared out of bounds. “See how you like it down there.”

Zoe let go of Lyra’s neck and gave her an almighty shove. Lyra skidded down a slippery embankment, before splashing head-first into thirty centimetres of runny mud.

The freezing sludge blinded Lyra as it poured inside her helmet and filled her nostrils. She coughed violently as she sat up, ripped off her helmet and spat out a mouthful of foul tasting liquid.

“Ooops,” Zoe grinned, as she kicked a giant clump of mud down on to Lyra’s head. “Well tootle-pip, I’d better be going.”

“I’m gonna get you for this,” Lyra shouted, as the lump of mud slithered out of her hair and splashed into the water. “You wait and see if I don’t.”

(9) THE LAST POST

Rob had to locate the final mailbox and post the tenth letter. He was puffed out, but that didn’t stop him sprinting as fast as he could towards the eastern side of the compound.

A couple of shots rang out as he ran. One whizzed by just a few centimetres in front of his chest, but he didn’t stick around to shoot back, because there were only three minutes until Mr Pike blew his whistle to end the game.

With less than two minutes to go, he spotted the last mailbox. It was strung up between two trees, several metres off the ground. The only way to post the letter was to climb up a rope net tied beneath it.

Normally, Rob would have taken a good look around to make sure nobody was hiding out in the trees, but there wasn’t enough time to be cautious, so he grabbed the letter out of his pocket, jumped on to the net and began clambering up.

His heart thudded as he reached up and pushed the soggy envelope through the metal flap. As the flap noisily snapped shut, another sound erupted and a splat of red paint hit Rob in the back. A second splat hit his gloved hand, making him lose his grip and a third whacked his thigh as he slid down the net.

“OK, OK,” Rob grinned. “Stop shooting, I’m dead.”

He didn’t care that he’d been shot. It didn’t hurt and he’d posted the tenth and final envelope before getting killed, which meant that he and Lyra couldn’t be anything less than joint winners.

As Rob grabbed hold of the net to haul himself off the ground, he heard Mr Pike blowing his whistle to signal the end of the game. Rob flipped up his face visor as his friends Mark and Craig jumped out of the trees. Their padded suits were caked in mud.

“So we’re wimps are we?” Craig grinned, giving Rob a friendly shove. “At least we didn’t get killed. How many letters did you post?”

“All ten,” Rob said proudly.

“Oh,” Mark said, sounding a little sad. “We only got nine. We thought we were in with a chance of winning.”

“Never mind,” Rob said. “You might have won if you’d killed me a second earlier.”

Mark and Craig both nodded in agreement.

“We won last Friday though,” Mark shrugged. “You can’t win ‘em all.”

“I’d better run back and tell Lyra. She’ll be well happy when she hears that I posted the last envelope.”

(10) ZOE’S PUNISHMENT

When Rob arrived back at the noisy changing hut, he stepped past all the other kids and found Lyra sitting on a bench with tears streaming down her face. Her hair was caked in mud and she had a big graze down her cheek.

“What happened to you?” Rob gasped, putting her arm around his best friend’s back as he sat on the bench beside her.

“Your idiot sister happened,” Lyra said, pointing at Zoe.

Zoe stood at the opposite end of the hut, facing the wall with her hands on her head.

“At least Mr Pike caught her doing it on the video cameras,” Lyra continued.

“Doing what?” Rob asked.

But Mr Pike charged into the hut before Lyra could tell him.

“RIGHT,” Mr Pike shouted furiously as he slammed the metal door.

He grabbed Zoe by the scruff of her muddy vest, bundled her into his office and shut the door so that nobody could hear what he was saying. But Mr Pike shouted so loud that everyone heard anyway.

“What on earth do you think you’re playing at, young lady...? Pushing Lyra into a trench is unacceptable and don’t you dare lie to me. It was not an accident. I saw exactly what you did and you’re going to be severely punished.”

Rob smiled at the thought of his sister being severely punished, but nothing seemed to cheer Lyra up.

“Come on, mate,” Rob smiled, giving Lyra a squeeze. “You’ll be fine once you’ve warmed up in the shower and had some dinner.”

Mr Pike continued to rave at Zoe in the office. “You are banned from all paintball activities for two months. You are going to run fifty punishment laps over the next week and do you see this?”

Rob looked through the glass in the office door and saw that Mr Pike was holding up a grubby towel.

“When all the others have taken their showers, I am going to give you this rag and make you clean the entire changing room with it,” Mr Pike yelled. “You are going to scrub every bench, every floor tile and every wall until there is not a speck of mud to be seen. I don’t care if it takes you an hour, two hours, or even if it takes you until midnight. That room is going to gleam.”

Mr Pike stormed back out of his office and glowered at everyone else.

“I am now in a very bad mood,” Mr Pike shouted. “Unless you lot want to join Zoe King on cleaning detail, I suggest that you take your showers quickly and quietly and then head off to the main building for your dinner.”

Rob noticed a tiny smirk on Lyra’s face as he rubbed her back.

“That’s the spirit,” he said.

Mark and Craig sat on the bench facing towards Rob and Lyra. They’d already pulled off their muddy boots and started undressing to go in the shower.

“Here’s the thing,” Craig said, as he pushed a fist inside his boot. “None of us likes Zoe, and the muddier it is in here, the worse her punishment is, right?”

“So, what are you getting at?” Rob asked.

“This,” Craig said, as he squished the muddy sole of his boot against the wall and used it to draw a thick brown line.

“Oh yes!” Rob giggled. “Zoe’s got to clean that up, hasn’t she...? And this,” he added, as he scraped his own boot across the front of a radiator.

Lyra cheered up quite a bit as she swept her hand through her muddy hair and made brown palm prints on the wall.

There were quite a few kids in the room who’d been pushed around by Zoe and it wasn’t long before they were all rubbing muddy clothes along the walls and scraping boots on benches.

By the time everyone had showered, changed into casual clothes and headed off for dinner, it looked as if Zoe would be lucky if she finished her punishment by midnight.

(11) MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

Rob and Lyra had eaten a big dinner in the CHERUB dining room. Now they were lying on their beds feeling stuffed. Rob was concentrating on a particularly difficult section of his computer hacking textbook, while Lyra had finished her homework and was flipping through a store catalogue.

“I want to get your sister back,” Lyra said bitterly. “She’s always pushing us around.”

Rob rubbed his eyes as he looked up from his homework. “Zoe’s still over there cleaning up mud,” Rob smiled. “I reckon it’s a fair punishment for what she did.”

“But we’ve got to show her that she can’t keep being horrible to us,” Lyra said. “She cut my face and made me cry in front of everyone.”

“She’s bigger and stronger than us,” Rob said. “You said it yourself: if we go after her, we’ll probably come off worst.”

“We will if we just go chasing after her like idiots,” Lyra smiled. “But not if we plan it all out carefully.”

The room went quiet for a couple of minutes as the two youngsters concentrated on their books.

“Eureka!” Lyra yelled, as she tore a page out of the catalogue and showed it to Rob. “Look at item C.”

Rob looked at the picture of the biggest, meanest, water cannon he’d ever seen, before reading the description written beneath it:

Item C. Drenchmaster 5000, air powered soaking gun. Holds two litres of water. Exclusive air pump system squirts water up to forty metres. Quite simply the most powerful water gun available. NOTE: This item is unsuitable for children aged twelve and under. Price £16.99. Catalogue number 261 272

Lyra tapped on a banner at the top of the page that said, Special offer, buy one get one free.

“Imagine if we sneaked up behind her with two of those Drenchmasters and... BLAMMO!”

Rob rolled back on his bed and cracked up laughing. “That’s a cool idea.”

“Do you know when the best time to get Zoe and Gerda is?” Lyra asked.

“When?”

“They always put on ear rings and fancy clothes when they out shopping. They walk around the mall pretending they’re all sophisticated, like teenagers or something.”

“I’m up for that,” Rob giggled. “I’d even pay some money towards the water guns if I had any.”

Lyra’s face dropped. “I thought you had thirty quid. You were saving up to get the hard drive for your Playstation.”

Rob shrugged. “I was, but I bought that Arsenal shirt instead, remember?”

“Bums,” Lyra moaned. “I was hoping you’d lend me some of your savings to pay for them.”

“Sorry,” Rob said. “All I’ve got is three quid. Haven’t you got any money at all?”

“Fifty-three pence and a one Euro coin left over from our trip to France.”

“I guess that plan’s out the window then,” Rob said, shaking his head. “Christmas is months away, our birthdays are even further...”

“Maybe someone will lend us the money,” Lyra said. “You could ask Mark or Craig and I could mention it to some of the girls.”

“Doubt it,” Rob shrugged. “Maybe they’d lend us if we were just a few quid short, but nobody will lend us the whole sixteen ninety-nine.”

“We could ask our carer for an advance on our pocket money,” Lyra said.

Rob burst out laughing, “You’re dreaming. You’d have better luck trying to rob the bank of England than getting extra money out of Mad Madeline.”

Lyra growled and pounded her fist into Rob’s mattress. “I’ve got to get my hands on enough money to buy a pair of Drenchmasters.”

A thought popped into Rob’s head as he looked at the toys and games scattered around the room.

“Why don’t we try selling some of our stuff?” he asked brightly.

(12) EVERYTHING MUST GO!

Rob and Lyra crawled around the floor looking for things they didn’t play with anymore. They ended up with a backpack stuffed with an odd assortment of Playstation games, action figures, Lego sets, a couple of DVDs and even a giant pink bunny called Mel that Lyra had slept with every night untill she was six years old.

They headed out into the corridor and began knocking on the doors of the other kids in the junior block, carefully avoiding rooms where older girls who were friends with Zoe lived.

Rob sold a Tonka truck and a big stack of trading cards to a little five year old called Martin. Lyra sold a couple of CDs and a Playstation game, but when they ran out of doors to knock on, they were still short of their £16.99 target.

“How much have we got?” Rob asked Lyra, as they turned back into their room.

“Six pounds sixty-four,” Lyra said miserably. “Even with the pocket money we had to start with, we’re still seven pounds short.”

Craig stuck his head through the doorway. “Did you sell much?” he asked.

“Not enough to get the Drenchmasters,” Rob said, as he stared miserably down at his socks,

“Shame,” Craig said. “I’ll take those two Playstation games if you want, but I can’t pay you until pocket money day.”

“No way,” Lyra said. “Everyone will have money on pocket money day, but we want to go to the shops tomorrow.”

“Oh well,” Craig said, looking at his watch. “It’s nine o’clock. I’d better start getting ready for bed, or Madeline’s gonna do her nut.”

“Is that the time?” Rob gasped, as he glanced around at his clock radio. “I thought it was earlier.”

“See yous tomorrow,” Craig waved, but as he headed out into the corridor he had a brainwave and turned back. “Here, you know who might be able to help you?”

“Who?” Rob asked excitedly.

“Kyle Blueman,” Craig said.

Kyle was a sixteen-year-old cherub who lived in the main building. Everyone on campus knew him because he was always trying to earn money by making and selling pirate copies of movies and video games.

“How can Kyle help us?” Lyra asked.

“He gets kids to run errands and do jobs for him,” Craig explained. “Jake Parker made over two-hundred pounds copying DVDs for Kyle and Wendy made a mint selling photocopied Harry Potter books.”

“And you think he’ll give us a job if we go over and see him?” Rob asked.

Craig shrugged, “It’s just a thought. But if you want to see Kyle tonight, you’d better hurry up. Madeline will be locking up any minute now.”

Rob and Lyra looked uncertainly at each other.

“What do you reckon?” Lyra asked.

“It’s our only chance of getting our hands on the money in time to go shopping tomorrow,” Rob said. “We might as well give it a try.”

As Craig stepped back to his room, Rob and Lyra belted out into the corridor and started running downstairs to the ground floor. Unfortunately, their carer, a chubby woman called Madeline Darko, had beaten them to the door.

“And where exactly do you two think you’re going at this time of night?” Madeline asked, as she turned a key in the lock.

“Miss, we just have to pop across to the main building to see someone,” Lyra said.

“I left my comic over there at dinner time,” Rob added.

“Did you really?” Madeline said as she tapped on the face of her watch, clearly not believing either excuse. “It’s two minutes to nine and I can assure you, you’re not going anywhere except upstairs to the washroom to brush your teeth and then back to your rooms to put your PJs on.”

“But...” Lyra said.

“No ifs, no buts,” Madeline said firmly. “If you two aren’t in bed in ten minutes flat, I’m going to want to know why. Now move it.”

(13) THE DARKNESS

Rob and Lyra cleaned their teeth, put out the light and climbed into bed. Madeline stuck her head inside their room to make sure they were both behaving, but their heads popped up as soon as she shut the door.

Lyra flicked on her torch and pointed it at Rob. “Are you ready?”

“Ready,” Rob nodded, as he swung out of bed.

He pulled jeans and a hoodie over his pyjamas, before sliding his feet into his trainers and heading for the door.

“Quietly,” Lyra cautioned, as Rob grabbed the door handle.

Rob poked his head out into the corridor and looked both ways to make sure that Madeline wasn’t around.

“Looks OK,” Rob said, as he crept into the corridor and moved quickly towards the swinging doors that led on to the stairs.

The exit door was locked, so they headed down an unlit corridor that had classrooms on either side, turning the knob on each door as they went. The first three doors were locked, but - much to Rob and Lyra’s relief - the fourth one swung open into a maths classroom with graphs and counting charts on the wall.

Lyra placed a chair by the window, then stood on it and reached up to unscrew the catch that locked the window. While she pushed the chair out of the way, Rob opened the window and swung his leg out over the ledge. He slid his bum off and his trainers crashed noisily on to the gravel path that surrounded the building.

“Ssssssssh,” Lyra said anxiously.

But there’s no quiet way to jump on to gravel and Lyra made as much noise as Rob had done. They both looked around anxiously, but there was no sign of Madeline coming after them.

CHERUB campus is big and it was over a kilometre from the Junior Block, where Rob and Lyra lived, to the main building where all the older cherubs who were qualified to work as spies lived.

As they crept around the side of the junior block, Rob and Lyra eyed two electric golf carts standing under a canopy. The carts were used by teachers and other staff to move quickly around campus. Children were only allowed to use them with permission and they’d only get it if they had something heavy to carry, or if they were looking after another kid with a serious injury like a broken leg.

“Let’s drive,” Rob grinned.

“Are you mad?” Lyra said, shaking her head, “We’ll be made to run about a million punishment laps if we’re caught driving a cart without permission.”

Rob shrugged, “But we’ll get to the main building and back so much quicker, which means there’s less chance of getting caught.”

“Well I suppose,” Lyra said. “Bagsy I’m driving.”

Rob wasn’t too happy about Lyra driving, but she raced off and was in the driving seat before he got a chance to complain.

“Bags I’m driving back,” Rob said, as Lyra flipped on the headlamps and squeezed the accelerator pedal.

(14) KYLE BLUEMAN

Rob and Lyra parked the electric buggy at the rear of the eight storey main building. There was a permanently staffed reception desk in the front entrance, so they had to sneak through the fire doors at the back and walk upstairs to Kyle’s room on the sixth floor.

They felt nervous as they moved along the corridor. There would be big trouble if any of the staff caught them out of bed.

The older cherubs lived in the single rooms that branched off both sides. Most of the doors were open because there was a party going on. Loud music thumped out of several stereos and teenagers lined the walls holding cans of Coke and paper plates, while a banner had been hung from the ceiling saying, Happy Birthday Gabrielle!

Kyle lived in room 616, but when Rob and Lyra reached the door, they discovered a blonde haired boy called James leaning against it snogging his girlfriend.

“What are you two squirts doing up here?” James asked. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“We’re looking for Kyle,” Rob explained.

James tutted, before knocking on the door. “Kyle, I’ve got a couple of little customers for you out here,” he said.

“Just a minute, James,” Kyle answered from inside.

As Rob and Lyra waited anxiously for the door to open, three girls charged out of a room across the hall and began fighting with pillows.

“Sorry, little dude,” one of them shrieked, as a pillow skimmed over Rob’s head.

The whole scene of older kids partying, snogging and chasing around made Rob and Lyra uncomfortable. When Kyle opened his door, they barged inside without waiting for an invitation.

“Come in, why don’t you?” Kyle smirked as he pushed up the door. The slender teenager was dressed in baggy jeans and seemed younger than sixteen.

Rob looked all around and marvelled at the neatness. Everything in Kyle’s room was tidy, from the stacks of magazines on the bedside table to the polished boots lined up on a rack near the door.

“If you’ve come looking for DVDs, I’ve got them all,” Kyle said, as he knelt on his carpet and slid an aluminium case out from beneath his bed. “Three pounds for movies, five for Playstation games, two for music CDs.”

“Are they pirate copies?” Rob asked, as Kyle flipped open the box, revealing almost a thousand silver discs.

“Of course,” Kyle grinned. “You can’t get real ones at those prices, but they’re all tested and guaranteed to work.”

“Where are the games?” Rob asked, as he knelt down excitedly and started flipping through the disks.

“AHEM,” Lyra said, noisily clearing her throat. “We didn’t come here to spend money.”

Kyle looked surprised as he stood up. “Well what did you come here for?”

“We were hoping you could help us to earn some money,” Lyra explained.

“And how am I supposed to do that?” Kyle asked.

Visiting Kyle had seemed like a good idea when Craig suggested it, but now Lyra felt stupid.

“Someone told us you give kids jobs to do,” Lyra explained. “Selling stuff and that.”

“Jake Parker said you paid him nearly two hundred pounds for copying some DVDs,” Rob blurted.

Kyle suddenly sounded annoyed. “Jake Parker is a big mouth who nearly got me kicked out of CHERUB. No offence, but I don’t trust little kids to work for me anymore and even if I did, I wouldn’t pick you two. I hardly know you.”

“Can I buy this?” Rob asked, as he slid a Playstation game out of the case.

“Sure,” Kyle said. “Five quid.”

“No you can’t,” Lyra said angrily. “We’re saving up for the Drenchmasters.”

“You might as well give up,” Rob said. “We’re never going to get the money and this game is a total bargain.”

Lyra tutted and stamped her foot. “Oh go on then. Buy your stupid game.”

Rob grinned at Kyle and handed him five pounds in change. Kyle reached across the room and put the money in his desk drawer.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” Kyle said, sympathetically. “I tell you what though, seeing as you came all this way to see me I’ll let you have another game for half price.”

“Sweet,” Rob said, as he started flipping through the pirated games in Kyle’s case. “Two pounds fifty, they’re like forty pounds in the shops.”

“What can I say,” Kyle grinned, “I’m a nice guy.”

Rob picked another game out of the rack and happily handed Kyle the money, but his smile vanished when he saw the angry scowl on Lyra’s face.

(15) ILL GOTTEN GAINS

“I’m sorry, Lyra,” Rob said, as they reached the bottom of the stairs and headed back towards the electric cart.

“You spent all our money on two stupid Playstation games,” Lyra growled. “You don’t care about my feelings at all, do you?”

“I’ll let you drive the buggy back,” Rob said.

Lyra huffed as she got into the driving seat. “You know, when I buy the Drenchmasters tomorrow, I’m not sure if I’m going to let you use them.”

“Well we’re not getting them anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

Lyra grinned mischievously. “Aren’t we?” she said, as she peeled a twenty pound note out of her tracksuit top.

“Where did you get that?” Rob gasped.

“When you gave Kyle the five pounds I watched him put it in his desk drawer. I noticed that he had about a hundred pounds in there. I sneaked in and pinched a twenty while he was selling you the second disk.”

Rob’s mouth dropped open. “You stole Kyle’s money,” he gasped angrily.

“Keep your stupid voice down,” Lyra said.

“Are you insane?” Rob spluttered. “Kyle’s sixteen, if he finds out that you nicked his money, he’ll kick our butts.”

Lyra shrugged. “He had loads of money in there, he’ll never notice.”

Rob was shaking his head. “What’s gotten in to you, Lyra? You’re usually more sensible than me, but you’re acting like a total nutter.”

Lyra grabbed Rob by the scruff of his hoodie and pulled him close. “I’m sick of the way Zoe treats us,” she snarled. “Tomorrow, we’re going to get her back, or die trying.”

(16) THE SHOPPING MALL

Saturday is a free day for all the cherubs who live in the junior block. They can hang around in their rooms and play, go swimming in the campus leisure pool, play sport, or go on an outing in one of the CHERUB mini busses.

There are usually six choices of outing, which include ten-pin bowling, trips to the cinema, caving and go-carting. But the most popular choice is always shopping, especially amongst the girls.

Lyra and Rob hadn’t got back to their beds until past ten o’clock and almost overslept. They scooped down bowls of cereal as fast as they could and made it to the mini-bus heading for the shopping centre seconds before Madeline closed the sliding door.

“Phew,” Lyra gasped as they stepped along the cramped aisle inside the packed mini bus.

They ended up sitting directly opposite Zoe and Gerda. The two girls had both put their hair up. They wore high heels. short skirts and carried matching handbags.

“Ooooh look at the ladies in their fancy clobber,” Rob mocked.

Zoe tutted. “We can’t all go around with greasy hair and dirt under our nails like you and your tomboy girlfriend.”

“Hey,” Lyra said angrily.

Lyra was a bit of a tomboy, but she had a habit of thumping people who said it to her face.

“Did the little tomboy wash all the mud out of her hair?” Gerda asked sarcastically, as Madeline drove the mini-bus through the main gates of CHERUB campus.

Rob noticed that the backs of Zoe’s hands were all red and sore. “How long did it take you to scrub the hut?”

Zoe shrugged, trying to make out that the punishment had been easy. “Not long,” she said.

“You weren’t back when we all went to bed at nine o’clock,” Lyra said.

“You two are totally immature,” Zoe spluttered, as she raised her palm. “So talk to the hand, ‘cos the face ain’t listening.”

It took half an hour to drive from CHERUB campus to Shopping World. It was one of the biggest shopping centres in the country, with just about every shop you could think of.

The only trouble is that Shopping World is always packed on a Saturday. Madeline yelled out instructions as she led twenty cherubs across the giant car park towards the main entrance.

“Under eights must stay with me,” she yelled. “Eight and nine year olds can go off on their own, but one of you must have a mobile phone and you must stay in pairs at all times. We’ll meet back outside WH Smith at one thirty sharp. Do NOT be late.”

(17) ITEM 261 272

Rob and Lyra raced along the shiny floored corridors of Shopping World to the catalogue store.

“They’d better be in stock,” Lyra grinned as she entered.

And they were.

Five minutes later, they emerged through the automatic doors, each holding a huge cardboard box with a brightly coloured Drenchmaster 5000 inside.

They found a bench, tore open the packages and began removing the mass of twisters, clips and wires that held the guns in place.

“I wish it was black,” Rob said as he raised the brightly coloured gun up to eye level and aimed it at passing shoppers. “That would make it so much cooler.”

“Let’s fill ‘em up and try ‘em out,” Lyra said.

Lyra went into the ladies and Rob into the gents. Unfortunately, the sinks at Shopping World had the kind of taps that you had to keep pressed down with one hand, which made filling up the guns a pain.

After several minutes, and several concerned looks from adults using the toilets, Rob emerged with water splashed down his t-shirt and soggy tracksuit bottoms.

“They’re really heavy now they’re full,” Lyra said.

Rob spotted a chubby woman accompanied by some of the youngest cherubs approaching the bathroom.

“It’s Madeline,” Rob gulped. “She’ll do her nut if she catches us with these.”

Unfortunately, they were stuck in a corridor and their only escape route was through a fire door. The pair charged through the door and outside into bright sunshine.

They were in a courtyard at the back of the shopping centre, which was designed for giant trucks to pull up and make deliveries to the shops. But there were no trucks or grown ups around at this time on a Saturday and the flat concrete had been taken over by hundreds of pigeons.

“Let’s try this baby out,” Rob grinned.

He grabbed the handle on the side of the gun and pumped it frantically to build up the pressure inside. A little gauge on the side of the gun showed when it was fully charged.

“I hope this is good,” Rob said, as he prepared to pull the trigger.

Lyra knew what Rob meant: there were lots of toys in the world that looked amazing in catalogues and on TV commercials, but were complete rubbish when you got them home.

But the Drenchmaster 5000 wasn’t one of them.

Rob broke into a huge grin as two streams of water roared out the front of his gun. One pigeon took a direct hit and hundreds more fluttered into the sky as the powerful jets sprayed the concrete.

“Wow,” Rob giggled, as Lyra frantically pumped her gun.

She aimed the gun at Rob’s lap and gave him a tiny squirt.

“Ha-ha, you peed yourself.”

Rob turned his gun to get Lyra back, but when he pulled the trigger all he got was a little dribble out of the end.

“Man, it runs out fast,” Rob said, then he realised Lyra was giving him one of her most evil grins. “Don’t soak my clothes, Lyra,” he grovelled. “We’re here to get Zoe and Gerda, remember?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Lyra said. “I won’t squirt you if you tell me how lovely I am.”

Rob tutted. “Lyra, you’re lovely.”

“Hmmmmmmm,” Lyra said thoughtfully. “You didn’t really sound like you meant that. Say it again, with more feeling.”

“Lyra, you’re as ugly as a pig’s butt and you smell even worse,” Rob sneered, before spinning around and running away.

(18) THE GREAT FOOD COURT STAKE OUT

Lyra only squirted Rob a little bit when she caught him. They went back inside and refilled their guns.

They were too heavy to drag around all morning and Madeline would go bananas if she caught them walking around Shopping World with loaded Drenchmasters, so Rob and Lyra decided to hide out in the food court and wait for Zoe and her friends to get lunch.

The food court was huge, with McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and hundreds of round tables. They found a table right at the back, stashed their guns beneath it and waited.

The only thing worse than waiting a long time for something is waiting a long time for something that you’re excited about.

Rob and Lyra killed time by eating Happy Meals, trashing the action figures that came with them and then making paper aeroplanes out of the cardboard packaging.

When they ran out of cardboard, Rob found a newspaper that someone had left behind and they made giant paper aeroplanes and started throwing them about.

Eventually, a security guard came over and told them to stop messing about because they were disturbing customers eating at the other tables.

“There she is,” Rob grinned, when Zoe, Gerda and two of their other friends finally arrived.

The four girls joined the queue at Burger King. They all wore boots and short skirts, and carried handbags.

“They really think they’re something, don’t they?” Rob sneered, as he sprung out of his chair. “Let’s go blast ‘em.”

But Lyra dragged him back.

“They’ll just run off,” Lyra said. “Wait until they’re all sitting down. Then it will be much harder for them to get away.”

“Good thinking,” Rob nodded.

So they waited another few minutes as the four chattering girls bought themselves burgers and sat at a table on the opposite side of the food hall.

“They haven’t even seen us,” Lyra grinned. “You creep up behind that wooden partition and I’ll come in from the other side.”

“OK,” Rob said, trembling with anxiety.

Rob grabbed his Drenchmaster and bent down low, so that you could barely see him moving between the tables. He ended up crouching beside the partition, less than a metre from the table where Zoe, Gerda and their two friends were unwrapping their burgers.

“I really want to go back to Claire’s Accessories,” Zoe babbled as she took a delicate bite out of her cheeseburger. “I got the blue beads, but I’d really like the pink ones...”

“Ooooh you’ve got to get them,” one of the other girls said. “They’ll really go well with that blue top you bought last week.”

“And you should get that nail varnish with the glitter in as well,” Gerda added.

Rob heard a clanking noise, like someone tripping over a chair leg.

“Oh look, it’s Lyra the little tomboy,” Zoe tutted. “What are you creeping around for, bonehead?”

“You’ll see,” Lyra shouted, as she raised her Drenchmaster.

Rob bobbed up from behind the partition just in time to see the twin jets of water blasting Zoe and Gerda in the head.

Rob aimed at Zoe from the other side and hit her from point blank range, then moved his aim down so the water blasted all the food on the table and sent trays and cups of Coke and Fanta skidding across the tabletop and clattering into the four girls’ laps.

“My best top,” Zoe wailed, as her friends waved their arms in the air and screamed like insane cats.

Zoe sprung angrily out of her seat, vaulted over the partition and charged towards her brother.

Rob scrambled backwards, but Zoe knocked him down and pinned him to the floor. Water dripped out of her long hair as she twisted the gun from Rob’s grasp and held the nozzles right in front of his nose.

“Prepare to die, freak,” Zoe said.

Fortunately for Rob, the security guard wrapped a fat arm around Zoe’s waist and plucked her off the floor at the exact second she pulled the trigger.

Unfortunately, the guard was yelling, “How dare you behave like this in my food court,” at the top of his voice and the two streams of liquid shot into his mouth.

Rob clambered off the floor, as the guard roared with anger. He looked for Lyra and spotted her sprinting between tables with Gerda and the other two girls chasing after her.

Rob decided to run away, but he gulped as he saw Madeline and a train of little kids steaming towards him. He spun on his heels, only to find another security guard closing in on him from that direction.

Rob was trapped. All he could do was watch the chaos for a few more seconds before an angry adult grabbed hold of him.

Lyra tripped over a chair leg and got bundled by Zoe’s three girlfriends, while Zoe wriggled free and floored the soggy security guard with a well aimed Karate kick.

Rob stared at the food and drink all over the floor, the watery streaks and puddles everywhere and the shocked expressions on the faces of diners at the surrounding tables.

He felt light-headed and his stomach had shrivelled up into a tight little ball.

Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

(19) THE MOST TROUBLE, EVER!

Madeline was too angry to shout. She calmly ordered all of the kids back to the mini-bus and drove to CHERUB campus with a furious red face and her fingers gripping the steering wheel so tightly that Rob thought it might crumble to dust.

When they arrived, Madeline told Zoe, Rob, Lyra and Gerda to go upstairs and wait outside Miss Green’s office.

Miss Green was the Head Carer, which meant that she was in charge of all the cherubs who lived in the junior block. You only got sent to Miss Green’s office if you were in BIG trouble.

The only other time Rob had been sent to Miss Green was when he kicked a football through his bedroom window twice in one week.

Rob hadn’t got wet, but Zoe, Lyra and Gerda were all dripping onto the vinyl floor outside Miss Green’s office.

Miss Green sat inside while Madeline explained what had happened at Shopping World. The four kids couldn’t hear this explanation, but after ten minutes they heard Miss Green stand up, pound on her desk and yell at the top of her voice.

“This is totally unacceptable.”

Rob, Lyra, Zoe and Gerda all jumped to attention as Miss Green ripped open her office door.

“I didn’t start it, Miss,” Zoe blurted. “Rob and Lyra bought the water guns.”

“Did I ask you to speak?” Miss Green shouted, with a roar that made Rob wonder if flames were about to shoot out of her mouth.

Rob felt like crying as he promised himself that he’d never go along with one of Lyra’s crazy plans again.

“This is too serious for me to deal with,” Miss Green said. “You’re all going to have to come with me to Dr McAfferty’s office.”

Rob gulped. He’d never been in enough trouble to get sent to Dr McAfferty’s office before.

Dr McAfferty was the Chairman of CHERUB. He was in charge of everything and he was the only person who could kick you out of CHERUb and send you back to an ordinary children’s home.

“Please,” Lyra said, as she started to sob. “This is all my fault. Don’t take me to the Chairman. I swear I’ll never do it again. I don’t want to get expelled.”

Gerda burst into tears next and that was enough to set Rob off.

“Not the chairman,” he sniffled. “Please Miss Green.”

Zoe liked to think she was tougher than the others and refused to cry, but she started turning very white and by the time they arrived at the Chairman’s office in the main building, she looked so pale that the Chairman’s secretary asked if she was going to be sick.

(20) AN UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

Madeline and Miss Green went into the Chairman’s office to explain what had happened. It only took a couple of minutes, but Rob was so worried that his arms were shaking and the wait felt as if it went on for a hundred million years.

Dr McAfferty was an elderly man who spoke with a Scottish accent. He was usually very friendly. Every year he dressed up in a Santa suit and handed out presents on Christmas morning. But after hearing what had happened at Shopping World, he didn’t sound friendly at all.

“Rob and Zoe King, come into my office now,” Dr McAfferty yelled, from behind his big oak desk.

“Sit down,” he added, as the two siblings shuffled into the room.

“I didn’t...” Zoe said.

“Quiet,” Dr McAfferty yelled. “Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it. I want you both to sit still and listen carefully.

“Now, I get the feeling that despite being brother and sister, you two dislike each other. Is that true?”

“Yes, sir,” Rob and Zoe nodded.

“I find that very sad,” Dr McAfferty said. “But some people don’t get along and that’s just the way the world is. However, while we don’t expect everyone here on CHERUB campus to like each other, we do expect everyone to behave themselves. The battle that’s going on between you two has lasted far too long and it must stop, right now.”

To make his point clear, Dr McAfferty picked up a heavy book and thumped it against his desk. Rob and Zoe both jumped, before the chairman continued his speech.

“Miss Green tells me that you’ve both been made to run punishment laps, you’ve written letters of apology to each other, been confined to campus, been confined to your rooms, been banned from various activities, but you still keep getting in trouble. Can either of you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t boot you both out of CHERUB?”

“It was Lyra’s plan,” Zoe said. “She admitted it in front of Miss Green.”

“Me and Zoe could be put in different parts of the building,” Rob suggested. “If we don’t come near each other, there won’t be any more trouble.”

“No,” Dr McAfferty said firmly. “You two must learn to get along with each other. If there is one more row, fight, or any other kind of incident between you two, I’m going to kick both of you out of CHERUB. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Zoe and Rob said.

“But I’m not going to make it easy for you,” Dr McAfferty added. “You’re going to have to prove to me that you’re worthy of your places at CHERUB.

“As you know, most of the rooms in the junior block are designed for two kids. But on the fifth floor, there’s a small room that’s only big enough for one bed. It hasn’t been used for a few years and it’s pretty dingy. But I’m going to have a set of bunk beds put in that room and you two will be sharing it for the next six months.”

“But...” Zoe gasped.

“Sir, no,” Rob gasped. “Anything but that.”

Dr McAfferty smiled. “If you don’t accept my offer, you can pack up your bags, say goodbye to all your friends and we’ll find you somewhere else to live.”

Rob and Zoe glowered at each other.

“Well, I suppose,” Zoe said.

“I don’t want to get kicked out,” Rob shrugged, “So I guess I haven’t got any choice.”

“I guess you haven’t,” Dr McAfferty smiled. “And remember, if there’s so much as a squeak, a scream, or an object being thrown inside that room, you can both pack up your belongings and say goodbye to CHERUB.”

“What about Lyra?” Zoe asked bitterly.

“Lyra will be punished,” Dr McAfferty said. “But that’s my business, not yours. Now go back to your rooms and start getting your things ready to move up to the fifth floor.”

(21) THE DINING ROOM

Madeline told Rob and Zoe to get lunch in the dining room before doing anything else.

Rob was so miserable that even finding his favourite fish burger and curly fries on the menu didn’t cheer him up. Zoe stood behind him in the queue, but they didn’t speak to each other and found tables on opposite sides of the room.

Lyra had been kept back to recieve her punishment from Dr McAfferty and by the time she joined Rob, he was licking ketchup smears off his empty plate.

“You should count yourself lucky that you’ve only got to move in with donkey breath,” Lyra said. “Because it was my idea to buy the Drenchmasters, I’ve got to run ten punishment laps every day for the next month, I’ve got to scrub dishes in the kitchen every night and all my pocket money for the next month is going to pay towards cleaning up the mess at Shopping World.”

“I’d rather do all of that than spend one night sharing a room with Zoe,” Rob said. “Besides, I’ve had my pocket money taken away too.”

“Pah,” Lyra said. “You got off light.”

“I was thinking,” Rob said. “Would you mind looking after McFlurry for me? I don’t want him in my new room. There’s no window and Zoe will probably try to poison him.”

Lyra thought for a second before nodding. “I don’t mind feeding him and doing his water bottle, but you’ll still have to clean out his cage whenever it stinks of wee.”

“Deal,” Rob nodded as he felt a large hand sliding around the back of his neck.

Lyra felt a hand sliding around her neck too.

“Fancy bumping into you two again,” Kyle said.

Rob and Lyra both gulpled.

“Hey Kyle,” Lyra said, trying to sound innocent. “Is something the matter?”

“Yes there is,” Kyle said. “Before I left my room last night, I looked in my drawer and found that some money had gone missing.”

“How strange,” Lyra said.

“It wasn’t us,” Rob added. “There was a big party going on outside, maybe someone snuck into your room and took it.”

Kyle slowly shook his head, “I locked my room when I went out. The only ones who came into my room were you two.”

Lyra frantically shook her head. “We didn’t take your twenty quid, Kyle. I swear.”

Rob smacked his hand against his forehead as Kyle grinned triumphantly.

“How did you know it was twenty quid then?”

“You just told us,” Lyra said.

“I told you some of my money went missing, but I didn’t say how much.”

“Oh...” Lyra gasped.

“Luckily for you, I’m not a snitch and I’m not the sort of person who goes around thumping eight year olds,” Kyle said. “But I do want my money back.”

“The thing is...” Lyra stuttered.

“There’s a bit of a problem,” Rob explained. “We spent it.”

“On what?”

“A pair of Drenchmaster 5000s,” Lyra said.

Kyle thought for a second, before breaking into a grin. “Drenchmasters are a good laugh,” he said. “Give them to me, plus the two Playstation games I sold you and we’ll call it even.”

Lyra shook her head. “You can have the games, but Miss Green confiscated the Drenchmasters after we used them at Shopping World.”

“Well, whatever,” Kyle said. “You two still owe me twenty quid. Now, I know you little kids get six pounds a week each. So in two weeks, you’ll have enough to pay me back and -”

“No we don’t” Rob interrupted, “We’ve both just had our pocket money confiscated for three months.”

The boy called James who’d been outside Kyle’s room the night before came up to Kyle and slapped him on the back.

“Hey, Kyle,” James said, “why are you hassling eight year olds?”

Kyle turned sharply and glowered at James. “They might look small and innocent, but these two nicked twenty quid off me last night.”

“Good for them,” James grinned. “You’re always conning people with that dodgy gear you sell.”

“James, can’t you butt out?” Kyle asked. “I’m trying to do business here.”

“Leave them alone, Kyle,” James said firmly. “They’re only little and it’s not as if you’re short of a few quid.”

Kyle swept his hand through his hair and thought for a few moments.

“OK,” he said finally. “You two can forget about my money, but I’m warning you both, stay away from my room or there’ll be trouble.”

Rob and Lyra smiled at James as Kyle walked away.

“Cheers, James,” Rob said.

“You saved our butts,” Lyra added.

James put out his hand and Rob and Lyra gave him a high five.

“I heard what you two did at Shopping World today,” James grinned. “Everyone’s talking about it. It sounds hilarious.”

“You reckon?” Lyra said miserably. “I bet you wouldn’t say that if you’d seen our list of punishments.”

(22) AND NOW, THE END IS NEAR

Rob stumbled into his new bedroom holding two giant boxes of clothes and toys and threw them on to the bottom bunk.

The room was horrible. It smelled like rotten fruit, the wallpaper was peeling off and there wasn’t even a window. Zoe sat on the top bunk with her legs swinging over the edge.

“There’s not enough room for all your junk in here,” she said acidly.

Rob looked around and saw that Zoe had already brought in more than twenty boxes of stuff.

“There’s no room because you’ve got so much junk here already,” Rob said angrily. “And I want the top bunk. I can’t stand sleeping with someone else making the springs squeak on top of me.”

Zoe smiled, “Well I got here first and I’m bigger than you, so tough titty.”

Rob slumped miserably on to the bottom bunk, which looked like being his for the next six months. Then he had an anxious thought about his glass picture frame. He’d deliberately left it on top when he packed so that it didn’t get squashed and break, but everything had tumbled out of the boxes when he’d dropped them on to the bed.

Rob snatched the frame from beneath his spare boots and was relieved to see that the glass hadn’t broken.

The picture inside was the one that had been taken of his family just a few hours before his mum, dad and older brother Louis died in the helicopter accident.

Rob reached towards the only shelf in the room and saw that Zoe had already put a ghastly pink and yellow frame with daisies on it up there. But as Rob closed in, he saw that Zoe’s frame had exactly the same picture inside it.

“Hey,” Zoe said as she jumped down off the top bunk.

Rob was expecting to get thumped, but he was surprised to see Zoe smiling at him.

“I didn’t realise that you had that picture too,” Zoe said.

“Of course,” Rob nodded, “I love it. Mum and Dad’s heads look a bit funny on your one.”

Zoe flushed red with embarrassment. “When I was little, I used to kiss their faces goodnight.”

“Ahh,” Rob grinned. “Do you ever wonder what they’d be like now, if they were still alive?”

Zoe nodded. “Our Mum would probably have some grey hair, Dad might have gone bald.”

“Or gotten fat,” Rob grinned.

“Louis would be eighteen,” Zoe said. “He’d probably be at university, with a girlfriend.”

“Yeah,” Rob said. “He might even have had a job, and bought us presents.”

“I can’t hardly remember,” Zoe said. “But I still think about Mum and Dad every day.”

“And me,” Rob nodded, as he felt a tear welling up in his eye. He looked around and saw that Zoe was upset too.

“You know what?” Zoe asked, as she pulled a coin out of her pocket. “I don’t reckon Mum and Dad would want us to fight all the time. I’ll toss you for the top bunk. Heads or tails?”

“Heads,” Rob said.

Zoe flipped the coin and tried to catch it, but it slipped between her fingers and rolled across the grubby floorboards.

“Looks like heads,” Zoe said. “You get the top bunk.”

“Nah, you keep it,” Rob said. “You’ve already got your duvet and pillows up there.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Zoe said.

As Zoe climbed back on to the top bunk, Rob sat down on his new bed and smiled, because he’d just had the first normal conversation with his sister since...

Rob thought very hard and realised that it was the first normal conversation he’d ever had with his sister.

“Here, Zoe,” Rob shouted. “Are we friends now?”

“We’ve got to live together in this room for the next six months, so it’s probably best if we try not to kill each other,” Zoe said.

“I reckon that’s what Mum and Dad would have wanted.”

Rob saw Zoe lean over the side of her mattress and reach down with her beefy arm.

“Shake?” she asked.

“Sure,” Rob said.

Then he reached up and grasped his sister’s hand.

#CHERUB #cherub books #Robert Muchamore #Cherub Jr

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