fandomhigh | Fandom High Graduation Ceremony, Class of 2008, Saturday Afternoon (Part II)

Entry tags:

!event: graduation

Fandom High Graduation Ceremony, Class of 2008, Saturday Afternoon (Part II)

After the last diploma had been handed out, the graduates were sent back to their seats, and Principal Washburn returned to the podium, to give her final speech and end the ceremony.

It was then that the rumbling started.

Odds were, if you asked the average citizen of Fandom to describe the town, they would tell you about the school, and the shops, and the beach and preserve, and all the areas of the island that existed above ground. But what they wouldn't describe was the island's biggest secret - beneath the ground, hidden from all of the town's inhabitants, was a city of ancient machines, designed to keep Fandom connected to every dimension it has ever touched, allowing people to continue to come from all over to live and grow on the island.

Although the existence of the underground city has always been hidden from Fandom's citizens - a safety measure, to ensure that none of Fandom's more power-hungry students or teachers try to use the machines for harmful purposes - it has not been a secret to everyone. During the night, fae and faeries of all sizes and power had come to make their way underground, and seize control of Fandom's machines, determined to have the unparalleled dimensional access for themselves. Although they were followed, the Wild Hunt had never caught its prey, and while the people of the town were occupied with graduation, the faeries struck, beginning to activate the machines.

But what the faeries didn't realize was that not all of the machines controlled access to dimensions. One machine in particular, one of the first to be activated, controlled the access to the city from above ground. As the machine chugged along, a section of the island lowered a few feet underground, allowing access to the city, the machines, and the faeries.

Of course, it just so happened that this section of land was where the platforms had been laid before graduation, and where the graduates had all been seated. As the platforms sank, a clear bubble covered the area where they'd been, allowing the audience to watch, but preventing them from being able to interfere or help. It was up to the graduates to defend themselves, and get rid of the fae.

[~~Wait for the OCD, please!~~ OCD is up! Have fun!]

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"Of course," Anders said with a resigned sigh; having lived through two previous Fandom graduations at least meant he wasn't completely caught flat-footed here. So yay for that?

"Hell of a time to forget my yo-yo," he grumbled. But it wasn't like he hadn't learned to improvise after living through enough Fandom invasions, and he'd sort of come to the conclusion that these graduation incidents were just one more wacky Fandom way to show everybody what they'd learned. Sighting one of the fae he thought ought to be in range, he carefully pocketed the tassel off his mortarboard, took careful aim, and flung it like a frisbee, hard.

Not the most aerodynamic frisbee, but he hoped it didn't go too wonky on him.

He'd been watching the fight, learning, really, he was new.

"Nrrgghhh?"

The mortarboard thunked happily off the back of this fae's head (and it wasn't hard; he was tall for his age). With a fundamentally dumbly surprised look on his face, he turned around. Slowly. Slowly.

"Why you do that?!" he demanded, raising his mace defensively.

"It's graduation," Anders said, kicking a chair at him. "Everybody's here to see us get our diplomas, you guys broke up the party, we kick your asses. That's how these things go."

This, with a clearly implied tone of 'Duh.'

Whoa whoa whoa chair!

The fae shut his eyes tight and swung his mace wildly, and then there was a chungggg when the head of the mace hit the chair and it went flying past him.

Mostly past him. It took about five seconds for him to scream in pain, big red stripes digging into his skin where the chair had hit-- "Our party!" he declared, bolting for Anders at the nearest possible opportunity.

The mace was kind of new, but he figured he could work it as a battering ram.

Oh, people . . . well, sort of . . . charging at him. Anders was familiar with that. Granted, the mace-turned-battering ram was a new twist, but if he'd learned anything over the past three years it was that Adapting Is Good.

He set his feet and made a 'bring it' gesture as he grinned just a little ferally, but he had his weight on his toes, ready to move.

"Our party, dammit!"

The fae ducked his head, his feet scrambling hard against the ground. Had to make this one count for all of fae-dom and prove and--

Things like that he couldn't really focus on when he was trying to bring a human down with a mace. "We got the party now! We stealing the party!"

He thought it sounded dramatic and impressive. Even more so if he was going to succeed in his charge and strike the human straight in the stomach.

The nice thing about spending years playing the forward guard position ~~thank you last night's episode for that detail~~ was that you had plenty of practice at evading people charging at your stomach, even though it was usually with their shoulder.

"You --" Anders pivoted at the last second and made a grab for the mace, a little too close a call since he was used to timing that move against a shoulder -- "picked the wrong party to steal, you . . . whatever the frak you are!"

"Faaaeeerie," he whimpered, as suddenly he seemed to have lost some control over his mace. Not that he was going to let go.

He tugged on it, instead. "Leave alone!"

"Leave alone?" Anders demanded incredulously, trying to twist the mace either out of the faerie's hands or use it to throw him somehow. "You made a sinkhole in the front lawn!"

"Pretty!" He tugged on the mace some more, but glanced around to admire their handiwork. It was really quite a nice hole. "Mine."

"~~Do you have a flag?~~ Come an' get it," Anders growled, tugging harder, and this time kicking out at the faerie, approximately knee-level, or so he hoped.

"OWWWWWWWW," he complained like a big baby, still tugging, even though Anders's kick had made contact. "Have it. Let go."

"You want it that bad?" Anders planted his feet and threw all his effort into pulling -- then let go.

The fairy--never that bright, and obviously new to his job--fell over backwards onto his behind. "HEY! NO FAIR!"

"Yeah, well." Anders could have made a pun about that, were he the punny type. Instead, he spotted a folded chair on the ground and kicked it at the faerie. "Last I checked there's no referees here, so who's gonna call the foul break?"

The fairy looked at him dumbly, but skittered back from the chair nonetheless.

"Not a sports fan, huh?" Anders sighed. "Figures."

His expression didn't change. However, he'd finished cradling his mace to his chest for a little bit and decided to take an experimental swing at Anders's head.

As you do.

Anders ducked -- mostly, enough to avoid a concussion but not quite enough to escape getting clipped on the ear, and yelped. "Oh, motherfrakker, that is it!"

His hand flew out, earning him some bruised knuckles from the chair that he hit, but at least he made a successful attempt at grabbing it and swinging it at the faerie.

He tried to duck, but instead took the chair almost full front on his body. Sizzling and smoking and screaming ensued, but he didn't drop the mace.

And cue Anders making the bzuh-face. "Dude, it was just a chair . . ."

"OWWWWWWWW." He took some steps backwards, then made a half-hearted swing of the mace.

Anders followed, got a two-handed grip on the back of the chair and swung it again. "Seriously, do you have any idea how much landscaping work that's gonna be to fix?!?"

"Land--" He looked at Anders with a great deal of confusion, not understanding the term. So, no change there, really.

He whimpered as the chair hit his arm and side, dropping the mace to the ground.

Yeah, actually Anders had no idea how much landscaping work it'd be either, but he was quick to leap toward the mace and try to kick it out of reach. He'd have felt a bit more guilty at the whimpering, as he prodded at the faerie with the chair's legs, except for the whole mace-to-the-head thing.

Fandom High Graduation Ceremony, Class of 2008, Saturday Afternoon (Part II)

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