Wish You Were Here

Infiltration

Not even 20 minutes after we left, the brothers were already fighting after trying to sing a simple song. Poppy and I sat off to the side while we watched the event unfold. Branch looked terrified and had the same expression on his face as the day BroZone broke up.

"Why do you think I left?! So no one would treat me like you did!" I couldn't defend nor could I attack John. I knew he treated his brothers poorly sometimes but he never once treated me horribly in any way shape or form.

"You know what, Spruce?"

"It's Bruce!"

"Thank you, Clay!"

I twisted my head to the side so as to not watch them fight. This was almost as hard for me to watch as it was for Branch. The last time they fought like this was the last time I ever saw Floyd. Branch was quick to chirp into the fight by reminding them that we're all here to save Floyd.

"Branch is right. Once this is done, we can all go our separate ways." Clay and Bruce both nodded in agreement and I could feel my heart aching. I don't want them to leave again, I've gotten used to having them around already. Both Branch and I simultaneously said the same thing,

"Wait, what?" John uncrossed his arms clearly realizing that the two of us didn't want them to leave and explained how he didn't think we'd all live together. There's too much I wanted to show them when this was all over. I wanted to show them all the photos of Branch from the years they were absent, how much better I got at fashion, how much more independent I had gotten as I was able to make an honest living for me and Branch. They can't leave, I've been wanting them back for so long.

"Tiny Diamond, pull over. Now." Rhonda came to a complete stop making all of us stumble. Bruce scoffed as he watched Branch make his way to the door.

"Don't be a baby, Branch." Once his hand gripped the door knob, he turned his head and threw a dirty look towards his brothers.

"I stopped being a baby the day you guys walked out on me. This time, I'm walking out on you." That one must've hurt. The way he said it sounded like that had been bottled up inside of him for years. He shut the door behind him and walked off leaving us all here.

Before he left, he threw a crumpled up piece of paper onto the floor, so I walked over to it and unballed it. It was the music sheet I gave him to draw on the day his brothers left. On one side were the notes, and on the other was a drawing of his bunker, covered in glitter and stickers spelling out his brother's names including mine. I recognized this drawing from him showing it to Floyd but I never realized this was the bunker. I threw the sheet into my pocket and felt that fight or flight instinct come back.

"What is wrong with you guys?! You're all mad at John for treating you like shit when you treat Branch like he's nothing. Where were you when he needed you the most?! Did you even know that your grandma isn't here anymore? No, you didn't. Because you weren't around. You left your baby brother to be taken care of by me! He told me once that I'm more of a brother to him than any of you were. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Poppy, come on."

I finished my yelling at them and signaled Poppy to follow me. She scurried over to me and we both left Rhonda, leaving them behind. I could see Branch not too far ahead, so I grabbed Poppy's arm and started running over to him. Once we reached him, we both jumped onto him giving him a hug. Based on his reaction, we definitely startled him but he hugged us both back. With a sigh of defeat, knowing we wouldn't leave, he spoke out,

"Thank you guys." There was a small bicycle ring from behind us and we saw Tiny cycling in our direction.

"Tiny! You're coming too?"

"What can I say? I was motivated by Branch and Veneer's speech, now let's roll!" We all somehow managed to fit onto the bike and made our way to Mount Rageous. That was until Branch processed what tiny said and looked at me.

"Wait, your speech?" I don't really know what to say back to him. The way I lashed out at his brothers was purely fuelled by my instincts to protect Branch at all costs, so I didn't even think about what I was saying.

"Yeah. Figured that I should let out some of my anger at them too. Besides, I love you Branch." He smiled and hugged me gently and I hugged him back. It was interrupted by a quick flash from Poppy's camera and we both shot our heads up.

"What? You two have such a cute brother relationship." I giggled at Poppy and saw Tiny point ahead of us.

"Look everyone!" Mount Rageous was honestly beautiful. There wasn't a dull color in sight or somewhere that wasn't blasting music. Every surface was covered in glitter or diamonds and looked so cartoonish. They had gravity defying roads which we were about to drive down.

After about 10 minutes of trying to figure out how they work and feeling sick from turning upside down so much, we were able to find and park in front of the Rage Dome.

"The quickest way in will be through the roof" My eyes shot open seeing how high up the roof was and I gripped my stomach running a few feet away from them. My stomach released chunks of glitter up and out through my mouth making a small puddle of glitter vomit on the sidewalk.

"Eww..." Branch sounded appalled by what he was seeing but I wiped my mouth and turned around to see all of them.

"Okay, I'm ready." Poppy grabbed gummy gloves out of her hair and threw each of us a pair. The wall we had to climb was about 1000 troll-feet tall but Branch and Poppy said they'd both climb on either side of me to make it a bit easier.

We finally made it to the top and I surprisingly didn't feel like throwing up again. That was until I watched Branch jump down and fall towards a moving fan blade. He made it through thankfully and stopped it for us, so me, Poppy and Tiny all followed.

"Floyd should be in one of these rooms." We kept peeking through all of the openings in the vents until we saw a large dressing room with a perfume bottle on the vanity. Poppy was the first to point it out.

"Look! There he is!" I could only see the overhead view, but in the bottle was clearly a troll with pink hair. My heart was beating out of my chest with how scared I was.

Fuck fuck fuck, it's for sure him.