The Key is Music

Chapter 3

Not reread or edited. 

The rest of the gang had finally arrived, and luckily the triplets had a Tackle Bramble tournament so they wouldn't be disrupting them. Dex had his own half of the room, scattered with different types of metals and wires, and lots of other... stuff, that well Keefe hadn't the slightest idea as to what they were, or what anyone would use them for. On the other side of the square room Sophie, Keefe, Linh, Tam, Marrella, Stina, Biana, Fitz and Wylie were packed in tightly trying to come up with an idea to shut down the Neverseen, for good. The speakers as Dex put it would be a fantastic distraction, but the question was: what would they do with the extra time that they would gain from the distraction? Their plan had to be clever, and unexpected, it couldn't be something the Neverseen expected them to do when their distracted. A grin lit up Keefe's face as an idea formed inside his head. Tam rolled his eyes, 

"Oh no, I think FunkyHair here has an idea." He warned, casually leaning against the wall, as if every single one of his ideas would be terrible. Sophie stopped her anxious pacing and eyelash-tugging and turned to faced Keefe, giving Tam a glare in the while. 

"Let's just give him a chance, okay? He might surprise us, Creativity is his strong suite." She said rationally to the group. They all mumbled or nodded their agreement. Keefe smiled genuinely at Sophie,

 "Thanks Foster, and I bet it's better than anything Bangs Boy has come up with." He said, shooting Tam one of his trademark smirks, and of course he gave one of his trademark eye-rolls. 

"Just tell us your idea already." Tam said irritably, pulling his bangs down further. 

"I'm getting to it," Keefe responded, just as irritably. "well we obviously can't take them down one by one... plus we don't how many hideouts or members they have... we're going to have to trick them, make them somehow shut down their own organization. What we need is to uncover enough of their members and get disguises that match their appearances, when their distracted we change into them and get holograms of us, then say we defeated ourselves. They'll think mission accomplished, the only problem now is how to get them to shut the Neverseen down..." He said, just letting his whole idea flow out, even if it wasn't solid yet, his thought process was just as useful, Right? He looked around him, everyone was just staring. "What? I can have a good idea once in a while can't I? We can't put all pressure on Lady Fos-Boss here, even if she's brilliant and always comes up with an an awesome plan at the last second." He said casually, sending Sophie a wink. Right on cue, she blushed, and aggravated emotion waves were sent his way. It was so easy to make her blush or make her feel any emotion really, it was hard to think that she didn't... no, he was not  going to go there, he was never going to go there, not again. 

"Okay, that is ridiculous. How would we make that work? It's not that bad, but is it doable? And even if we did do that we'd need to make holograms too, unless..." Sophie said her brow scrunching up as she came up with another one of her brilliant plans for them all to come back from the battle in one piece. 

"Oh look, now Foster's the one with the idea." Keefe pointed out, pulling a box of Prattles' out of his pocket and sitting down on a cobalt blue armchair. He unwrapped one of the candies and shoved it in his mouth, digging around for the pull string pouch that contained a mystery Prattles' Pin. He spread open the strings and reached his hand inside, revealing... a MoonLark. Why would he get a super rare MoonLark? He didn't deserve it, if it wasn't the real MoonLark what was the point. He stuffed the pin into his slacks pocket and sat there eating candy, like he got a common stegosaurus or something. Wylie came and took the cobalt blue armchair that sat right next to his. 

"What'd you get?" He asked calmly, but from the look in his eye the words meant more than that somehow. He had to come up with a lie, and fast. But the only other Prattles' pin he had was the banshee from Sophie's note. 

"Eh, I'm more in the mood for candy." He said, settling for something vague. 

"So you didn't even look at it?" Wylie asked, disbelief painting his face. 

"Nope!"

 "Really? Cause I saw you looking at it all sad-like and then stuffing it in your pocket." He challenged, worry lacing his voice as he spoke. 

"Oh, well... I'm not getting out of this am I?" Keefe asked, although he already knew the answer. 

"Nope!" Wylie said, using Keefe's words from earlier. He made himself a little more comfortable in his chair and gave Keefe a look that seemed to say: "You Better Tell Me Right Now Or Else I'll Use Other Methods That You Won't Like The Feel Of."

 "Fine, i'll tell you later." Keefe conceded with a sigh. Wylie tilted his head,

 "Why later?" He asked genuinely curious. 

"When there aren't so many... people around." Keefe responded, trying not to point out that that person was mainly Sophie. But his eyes strayed to her anyway, Wylie turned to look where his gaze landed and gave a knowing smile.

 "Oh, I see. Come to Solreef after this meeting." He finished, standing up and walking toward Dex. Ugh, did he just agree to tell Wylie all about his well... love for Sophie? He had done such a great job in avoiding this subject, and now here he was sitting dumbfounded, dreading his talk later with Wylie. How did he even get himself into this? I guess that's not important, the important part is that he did, and now he's going to have to deal with it. Hopefully it wouldn't be as humiliating as he was picturing. 

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When the gang had finally come up with a decently good plan, the sunset was long gone, and the wind brought goosebumps apon his skin. After a few minutes of stalling so Dex could get the songs ready to play, he would play the music through the six speakers they would hide around the meeting place. While the Neverseen were distracted every one of them would drink an elixer bought from Slurps and Burps to make them look like Neverseen members. Tam would shroud teenagers willing to help, that looked like them in costume with shadows and when they were done transforming they would reveal themselves and apear wounded or dead. The only problem they had now was to uncover enough Neverseen members for all of them, plus search Foxfire for willing canadates, since the Black Swan didn't have any other teenage recruits except them. They would also need to see what the next step was in the Neverseen's plan. Their plan was deeply flawed but it was the only thing they could come up with at the moment. 

As Keefe gazed at the bright full moon, his hand wandered to the pocket that held his MoonLark. But it wasn't really his, he didn't deserve to possess something with such a spectacular meaning. High-Pitched shouting cut through his ears like a newly sharpened knife, 

"MUM! BEX STILL WONT GIVE MY MOONLARK PIN BACK!" Either Rex or Lex yelled at Juline. He could see the dark cluster of them approaching the ice castle house. 

"Oh honey, just give the pin back to your brother, please." Juline said rationally, dreariness obviously present in her voice. 

"BUT MUM! I WANT A MOONLARK! THIS WAS MY PRATTLES' BOX TO START WITH AND REX SWITCHED THEM!" Bex argued, hugging the pin closer to her body. Keefe put on his best fake smile, and walked toward the yelling cluster of figures. When he reached the screaming triplets, he pulled his MoonLark pin out of his pocket and showed it to Bex. 

"If you give Rex his pin back I'll give you mine." He said temptingly, waving it before her nose. She bit her lip as if she was considering her options, ultimately nodded and handing Rex his pin back. Keefe laid the pin in her clammy, warm, calloused hands and walked away, not wanting anyone to see the hurt expression on his face from giving away his MoonLark. But it wasnt really his MoonLark, it never would be, she never would be.