Flipside

Part 5, Part 1

PART 5: THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Pepper was sobbing.

The one person who cared about her was dead.

"Ah, so you do have feelings!" Mallory's sarcasm wasn't helping at all.

"Mallory, not now." Gregory sighed.

"It h-hurts..." Pepper remarked suddenly, clutching her chest.

"Heartbreak..." Sasha gasped.

"Isn't that just a figure of speech?" Asked Nevin.

"Not here." Charles sighed. "If you lose a loved one, it's common to have heartbreak." A red heart shape appeared in front of Pepper, slowly losing its colour. She gasped in pain and fell to the ground. The heart started cracking.

"Ouch." Marsha flinched.

The heart suddenly crumbled into dust and Pepper stopped breathing.

"Well that was sudden." Commented Mallory.

"That's all you have to say?" Michael turned to glare at her.

"Yes." She nodded.

"Calm down. This is a wakeup call, guys. We need to get a move on and do whatever we need to do." Marsha announced.

"Not until you enlighten us with a heroic speech." Gemma said sarcastically. Unfortunately, nobody could even tell that she was being sarcastic, so Marsha mounted a tree stump. Yes, they left the town.

"Two of our allies have fallen..." she started, unsure of how to pull off a heroic speech. "And they wouldn't want us to mope around until death catches us. It is our responsibility to take down the leader... I think? Don't quote me on that." She scratched the back of her neck.

"It is our responsibility to take down the leader... I think? Marsha Smith, twenty-eighteen. You're welcome for me quoting you." Mallory smirked.

"Now we're talking! Keep being sarcastic, it's bringing us together as a team!" Nevin cheered.

"We need a team name." Gregory turned to him.

"Team Hunters!" Mallory pitched. "Because we hunt Reapers!"

"That's behind you, Mallory." Gemma sighed. "Team Saviours?"

"I like that one." Marsha nodded. "On with the heroic speech!" Everyone was actually listening. "Okay, so this might seem like hell right now." A pause. "Okay, yeah, it's basically hell on Earth, but that won't stop us! I hope, anyways. God, I suck at this stuff. So, our gameplan is, like, to live and murder some Followers. Okay, that sounded unnecessarily violent, but it's true."

"I like unnecessarily violent." Mallory smirked.

"Wait! I have a better team name!" Screeched Nevin. Everyone looked at him in anticipation. "Team Puberty!"

"No!" They all cried at once.

"Okay, I can't take this seriously anymore." Marsha laughed, dismounting the tree stump.

"The feeling is mutual. I was sarcastic when I asked for a speech, you know." Giggled Gemma.

"Oh. No, I didn't know." Marsha blushed in embarrassment.

"It's okay, it can sometimes be hard to detect my sarcasm." She nodded. "You were doing okay until Mallory quoted you."

"Thanks." Marsha nodded.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I was asked to not quote something! How could I resist!" Mallory rolled her eyes.

"By taking the world's impending doom seriously?" Michael looked at her. She gave him a look. Not a glare, but a I'm so done with you look. He quickly broke out in nervous sweat. "I mean, if you want to, we could all lighten up a bit, I guess." He muttered in a single breath.