High On Mushrooms

Part Two: Chillin' Like A Villain

Chess stumbled slightly as they went out the back door, spotting a blonde boy with a beanie put his hand out to a man with a black-very suspicious-trench coat.

The man growled at him, yes, growled, and puffed out his chest like some sort of ape.

Chess decided to step in, seeing that the boy in blue looked like he would loose a fight to an alleycat.

"Hey," they started calmly, stepping in between the two boys, "there's no need for violence, pal."

Chess then did a shoo-shoo motion with their hand. The man looked from side to side before leaving as though nothing had happened, seemingly realizing it wasn't worth it to mess with them.

"Uh, thank you," the boy with the beanie said, making Chess spin around to look at him.

"Ben, there you are, you can't run off like that!" A blue haired girl hissed, running up to the two of them.

She then stopped short, seemingly surprised to see Chess standing there, "Chess!"

"Evie," was all they said in response, seemingly pleased though very confused.

"Oh, uh, Ben, this is Chess, child of the Blue Caterpillar, Chess, this is Ben." Evie introduced, standing close to the disguised king.

"Evie, he-uh...she?" Ben was going to tell Evie about the moments prior, but stopped short.

"Neither, love," Chess corrected, tilting their head to the side as they waited for Ben to continue his sentence.

As Ben continued, Carlos and Jay ran up, also exited to see Chess, "You guys know each other?"

Jay gave Chess a slightly awkward hug; awkward because he gave them a side hug, but Chess being much shorter than him he had to contort his body to hug them somewhat properly(Ben noticed Chess didn't look quite pleased with this gesture).

"What are all of you doing here?" Chess asked, extremely curious as to why this was happening.

"Well, Ben was going to come with or without us." Evie explained, though that didn't really answer the question.

"And you let him galavant around shaking hands?" Chess prodded, tilting their head to the side once again.

Carlos was about to say this is the longest he'd ever seen Chess stay present in a conversation with anyone, but before the words could leave his mouth, Chess looked off into the distance.

"So we've decided that they aren't a threat?" Carlos whispered to Evie and Jay, looking in between Ben and Chess.

Chess was putting the peaces together that this was probably what Uma had come to tell them, and Ben was watching them with curiosity.

"It could really go either way," Jay stated, sighing as he watched Ben so he wouldn't run off again, "but we're lucky they're the one that found Ben."

"So," Chess began, snapping the three out of their thoughts, "what was your motivation for showing up here?" They interrogated, their voice eerily calm, taking a couple wobbly steps closer to Ben.

Ben looked back at them a bit skeptically, not sure what relationship the others had with them. Also not sure if they were as harmless as they appeared.

He then looked over to Evie for guidance; the girl rushed over to him with the other two close behind.

Chess knew there was about a fifty-fifty chance they would tell the truth, as Chess had proven themself to be quite fifty-fifty in the trust department. They never let on much as to whose side they're even on in the first place. Hence why Harry isn't very found of them.