Church Buddies!!!1

Passage 15 (The Grande Finale)

"Okay.. we gotta be sneaky." Polly stated, leaning down and beginning to dig up the ground outside the church. Mud was piled to the side of the hole as each gang member made their way down the hole, each digging their own little lane of the tunnel.

"Christ, it smells like.. worms down here." Johnny said, squinting as his afro wafted dirt into his eyes. "Uh.. yeah. Obviously, we're underground. It's like something out of a story.. I don't know how all this ground above us is holding up without falling down and crushing us all if I'm honest." Neil tapped the ground above his head, speaking slowly and strangely peacefully.

"Phew.. we've been digging for hours! How far left, Polly?" Luceil asked, her hands shaking from weakness. "Luce, it's been 10 minutes. Either way.. we don't have very far to go. We're aiming for the girl's bathrooms. I mean.. we can't let Lake see us. So that's the best place to be, cause Sir Lake Saldmi would not be hanging out in the girl's bathrooms." She paused briefly, "Unless he's some weird motherfucker."

Eventually the eight ended up beneath the girl's toilets. Jingil reared her spade and used the wrong end to bump the mud above her. Some fell down onto her, yet, she kept going. "We're almost in." She whispered, hitting a solid block through all of the dirt. "Ah." She said plainly, tapping it some more. They had reached the bathroom floor, and were smacking into the tiles.

Polly crawled over and pushed the tile up, sliding it away across the bathroom floor. After disabling four decently sized tiles, the gang were able to crawl up into the toilets and brush themselves off. They had each used some of the more swampy mud from the puddles outside to paint their faces with warrior stripes.

Luceil looked into the toilet mirror and posed, pouting at herself with her hand on her hip. "Luceil, stop looking at yourself." Polly ordered, catching her own reflection next to her sister's. "Yeah, Luce. We have more important things to be worrying about right now." Joseph dragged her away from the mirror and over to the bathroom doors.

"Okay, now we've gotta sneak around. Like.. ninja style. I think we should go to my old office first. He always used to talk about how nice it looked and how much he wanted it.. let's start there. We've gotta get to the bottom of this.. and then when we're done, we can build another church and live happily ever after!" Smith smiled happily, making the others look at him in disgust. It seemed bittersweet, but they knew he was just a naturally happy person, so they were forced to put up with it.

The gang snuck down the hallway and tiptoed as quietly as possible. They heard Lake's voice from all the way down the hall, talking to himself. "You rule the world.. you rule the world, you rule the world, and Christianity is gonna die!" He chanted happily in his Texan accent.

"Scum." Joseph whispered, leading the gang down the hall as they were pressed against the wall. Slinking down the hall slowly, they suddenly came to a halt as Joseph stopped the line from moving. "What's wrong?" Smith whispered to him as Lake continued rambling in the background. Joseph had reached the door of Smith's office, and had fallen into complete silence. He turned around and put his finger to his mouth to silence the others.

'I'll go in.. Johnny, come with me. The rest of you.. stay here.' He mouthed to them, watching some nod and the others salute him as if he was a God. Johnny tiptoed forward to the front of the line and nodded to Joseph, signalling that he was ready to enter the office.

Joseph took a deep breath before turning his head into the door, showing that Lake was sat facing away from the door. Feeling a little less anxious, Joseph accepted his fate and stepped into the office. Johnny quietly followed him, trying not to make any noise as his polished shoes hit the floor. The shorter boy stepped closer to Lake, pulling out two of his pistols, one in each hand.

Suddenly, Lake burst out laughing. Joseph paused, standing completely still. Johnny did the same, as he was startled. "Well, well, well. If it isn't Joseph Heaux and Johnny 'polo'!" He turned around in his dark, swivelling chair. Joseph face-planted himself while Johnny stayed frozen in place.

"I've been expecting you. I knew you'd be back.. only to fail again, eh?" Lake smirked, tilting his head slightly. Joseph's nervous expression turned quickly to anger as the rest of the group stood outside and listened in.

"This time, I am not gonna fail! I'm the one here with two damn guns, you stupid bitch! I'm about to fuck you up, homeboy!" Joseph smiled to cover his anxiety, holding both guns out in front of him, pointing straight at Lake's forehead. "You think you're so tough, don't you? You're only a little, stupid, delusional kid! What a cute little girl." He said aloud and watched Joseph scowl at him. "Call me a girl again, and this bullet will be straight through your hollow skull." He threatened him.

"Ohh Joseph. You really don't know what you're talking about, do you? You're not tough, you're scared. Your dad wasn't tough, he was scared. Your dad's clone wasn't tough, he was scared. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And you're no exception to that rule."

Joseph's eyes began to tear up as his hands shook, almost dropping the gun in his right hand, yet soon recovering. As he tightened the grip on the trigger, Lake whipped out his own gun and pointed it back at Joseph. He stared forward in shock, unsure of what to do. "I'd be careful what you do, if I where you, cause if you shoot, I'll shoot too." Lake shifted his gun to point at Johnny, making Joseph gasp.

"I'll give you two options. You can either:
1) Kill yourself and sacrifice Christianity, but Johnny gets to live..
Or..
2) Johnny dies, but you can survive and join me."

Joseph stood in shock at the options presented to him. He'd never actually thought about whether he'd end his own life for Johnny, but at the same time he didn't trust Lake one bit. If he were to kill himself right then and there, would Lake even let Johnny live? Or was it just a clever lie to eliminate them both effortlessly? Joseph wasn't sure, but he didn't want to find out.

Suddenly, the unthinkable happened. None other than George Bush bursted in through the door and grabbed Lake by the neck in an attempt to throttle him. Lake shot the gun mindlessly, out of pure shock. The bullet struck straight through Johnny's thick afro, leaving a large bullet shaped hole through the middle.

Before anyone had time to react, the room was set alight, exploding as the church collapsed in on itself. Johnny shielded Joseph with his Afro as the rubble rained down onto the two, sandwiching them in between the bricks and the floor. The shrieks of Smith echoed through the collapsing hallway as he was tragically hit by multiple bricks. Johnny made an attempt to grab him, but it was too late, and he was crushed by a gigantic cross that had fallen from the ruptured ceiling.

Tears ran down Johnny's face as he wished the event would be over, Joseph quivering next to him as he was briefly covered by the afro. However, one of his hands had been slammed by bricks and other forms of rubble.

The Kid-Mafia had managed to run back to the tunnel they had dug, taking shelter underneath the women's bathrooms that were currently also being obliterated. They were overall grateful to have survived the explosion.

When all was silent, Johnny lifted Joseph up and the two crawled through the rubble, eventually finding steady footing and meeting up with the Kid-Mafia.

The two boys looked at each other and smiled, Johnny still crying and Joseph's eyes watering from all of the dust and ash. Joseph held out his fist and went in for a fist-bump with Johnny. After a moment of wiping his eyes, Johnny complied and returned the fist-bump. They then crossed themselves and looked at each other once more, still in shock of what had just happened.

"We did it, buddy." Joseph stated, punching Johnny lightly on the arm. Before Johnny could reply, a small note fell from the sky, presumably after being thrown up there by the explosion. It floated down from the sky like an angel, except a very scarred, almost unreadable angel at that.

Joseph plucked it from the air and held it out in front of himself and Johnny, reading it quickly. The two boys stared on at it shock. It was shocking to both of them, yet, nothing could top the events of that day as a whole. The day was almost as action-packed as the last chapter of a hit book. Wait..