how vee, quite casually, disappeared from the earth

chap 4 - a hint of romance and anger

"Where. The. PUMPKINS. Is. ANANYA?" serrie screamed once they were back in the lobby, sitting in the bad kid chairs outside of alyelle's office. They had just come back from their dystopian raid- it didn't go well. They weren't able to recover ANYTHING, and birdi and vienna had found them - with pumpkin chunks in their hair, no less. Serrie was furious; pumpkins were her thing. Not theirs! They ratted them out haha- and alba and icy escorted them back to camp.

"I TOLD YOU THAT IT WOULD GET BAD!" sana reprimanded them. They were all still happy except for serrie - payton, cherrie, and the talking pumpkin all returned back in one piece. Serrie was furious when ananya didn't come back. I mean, talk about bad team spirit.

Sana was so freaking angry at them, like she knew it would happen. As if?? She couldn't tell the future.

"Come in!" called the harsh voice of the consigliere, yuna, who was inside the godfather's office.

Alyelle came in. there were bags under her eyes, possibly from the trouble these two have caused her. She sat still as yuna motioned for all three of them to go into a couple of chairs, and sana stepped in, shutting the door behind her.

Yuna and sana both stood against the walls. Alyelle stared at them unblinking, for a few seconds. They looked back at her, rigid. With fear or silent defiance, yuna didn't know. Her hand slowly inched over to sana's, and they clasped their hands together, hoping the young gamblers couldn't see. Hehehe foreshadowing?

Alyelle suddenly hit the table. Hard. "WHAT WERE YOU GUYS THINKING, SNEAKING INTO DYSTOPIAN LIKE THAT? EVEN SANA WARNED YOU TOO. YOU KNOW THAT YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO THE UNDERBOSS. WHAT GOT INTO YOU GUYS?? NOW I HAVE TO DEAL WITH ALL THE PAPERWORK AND ALL THE COMPLAINTS ALL THE HOST-Y STUFF JUST BECAUSE MY CAMPERS COULDN'T KEEP THEIR RIVALRIES ASIDE FOR ONE FREAKING TIME."

"Girl, calm down-" sana soothed, "it's fine."

"IT'S NOT? MISTY JUST CAME BACK AND NOW I DON'T EVEN GET TO SPEND TIME WITH HER BECAUSE I'M BUSY TRYING TO FILL OUT OF ALL OF THIS," she waved a stack of paper that was about as large as a couple of encyclopedias in serrie's face, "FREAKING PAPERWORK. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY DYSTOPIAN CAMPERS CALLED, SAYING THAT THEIR WRITING WAS DESTROYED? NOT TO MENTION BIRDI AND VIENNA SAYING THAT THEY GOT PUMPKIN PIECES IN THEIR HAIR, NOT TO MENTION THAT MIRA CALLED ME AND SAID THAT SHE'S SUING THE CASINO, AND DEFINITELY NOT TO MENTION THAT ICY AND ALBA ARE THINKING OF MAKING SANA THE LEADER INSTEAD. THEY THINK I CAN'T CONTROL MY OWN GAMBLERS?"

Serrie bit her lip. This was partially her fault, she was the ringleader; and she did slightly regret it.

"GIRL WHAT'S GOTTEN INTO YOU?" sana came over to alyelle, "y'all, I think she's just tired... i'll go put her to sleep. Or something." alyelle kicked her very graphically. Well, not very graphically- but still.

"I'll take her." yuna said sweetly, and then lowered her voice. "you know she's still ticked off at you about that cursed fanfic you wrote. For all we know, she might write another cursed one about you and me or something." alyelle grinned evilly, although the unruly mystery gamblers didn't really know what alyelle was so happy about.

"Good idea." sana said quietly, "alright." she waited until alyelle was successfully taken out of the room. She noticed that alyelle didn't kick yuna- oop.

"Guys, I told you it wasn't a good idea," sana scolded them, "serrie, you should be ashamed of yourself. You put the whole freaking cabin at risk! Because of you, we might have to forfeit this session. Without a leader - because I'm certainly not going to be the leader if alyelle is fired - we can't be a cabin. I expect you all to be on your best behavior when alba and icy come to inspect our casino. They'll be deeming whether or not it's a good fit for swc- and i swear to god, if you mess this up, there will be serious consequences." her voice cut serrie's skin like steel. If that's like a thing.

"Because of this, there will be consequences. You ALL are cleaning the tables and our pole - for pole dancing - for the rest of the month." at least it wasn't something worse. serrie gave a sigh of relief; although all too soon. "It has ALSO come to my attention that vee is missing. Nobody came to me about this."

"With all due respect," cherry began, "vee probably wandered off-"

"I don't wanna hear it." sana waved her hand, silencing cherry. "Although that little girl may have wandered off, you ALSO didn't tell me that ananya was missing. When YOU were raiding dystopian. Birdi, vienna, and mira were put under a truth detector; they don't know what happened to her. Because of you and your silly escapades, one of our campers is now missing, and another has vanished - although she probably did wander off."

"So for that, you ALL are going to spend day and night searching for all of them. Until you find them. No matter what." serrie breathed a sigh of relief; again, probably at the wrong time. "And you no longer have gambling privileges. The machines are all locked under your name, and campers are instructed not to play with you."

"WHAT?" payton screeched, unable to process everything. "ALL THIS FOR A LITTLE SNEAKING AROUND?"

"It wasn't just A LITTLE SNEAKING AROUND. Alyelle could be fired. You don't want that, do you?" they all looked back at sana's gray eyes, full of determination and anger, then looked down, ashamed.

"No." serrie muttered. Payton and cherrie remained still. Sana stared back at them.

"GO!" she shouted, cracking. "Or i'm gonna get you all kicked out of mystery!" they scrambled out the room and shut the door behind them.

"Heyy," yuna said flirtatiously as she stepped into the room as the three troublemakers went out, "alyelle's asleep."

"Heh." sana murmured coyly.

I guess the saying really is true; you never know what goes on behind a closed door.

Don't kill me pls. If u like it dw i'm writing a sana x yuna fanfic soon teehee </3

Serrie sighed as she was outside. Did she think sana was being overly strict? No. did she think the swc leaders were overreacting about what they did? Yes. they barely caused any harm. At all.

"Come on, guys." she said to a gloomy payton and a sour cherry, "we better start cleaning up the tables." it was the end of gambling time, so... looks like they were on janitor duty.

"Okay, there are 76 tables. You guys clean up 38 each!"

"But- that's only for 2 people-" payton was really good at math, apparently.

"Who said i'm helping?" serrie giggled and flounced off, "i'm going to look for cat and gamble with her!"

Payton and cherry stared at each other. "Does she not remember what sana said-"

"I bet she does. Or not. She'll figure it out once she gets to cat."

"Which one is cat again?"

"Lord of the cats. Or something." payton shrugged, and got a wipe from the toolbox. "I don't know how to clean tables... i never really tried."

"I'll show you!" said cherry, turning from a sour cherry into a ripe cherry. I'm sorry my comparisons are weird.

And that is how payton got a lesson in cleaning tables; no, i didn't know that i have a boring imagination.

Serrie walked down the busy street- it wasn't really that deserted, given the time of day; 4:20 in the afternoon. Well, she better start finding ananya and vee. Not that she was gonna try hard for it. Who cared, honestly? The only thing that was important about vee was those funny fanfics she wrote... maybe she'd try hard to find vee. She needed more of those- especially since she now couldn't spend her day gambling. Life was sad. She saw a brown hat and a dark-haired braid disappear behind a building.

What? She found vee this easily? Serrie laughed and ran over to the side of the building, excited. This was almost too easy.

A pumpkin fell on the ground next to her, and she looked up. The vengeful face of sini leered down at her, holding a knife. Pointed at serrie. Before serrie had any time to process, sini jumped on serrie.

Payton and cherry would be wondering where serrie was for a long time; perhaps even forever. Not everyone is meant to return, of course.