Rise of the Teenage Conquerors

Episode 1.2

Louis' normally interesting talk about his college soccer team and all the excruciating drills they ran through every day was a buzz in Leana's ears as she shoveled down the hot bites of her stew, hissing with pain at each spoonful but not willing to slow down and let it cool on the basis of perhaps being late to be at least half-an-hour early for the first showing.

"Slow down, Leana," her mother said with a laugh.

"The movie will be there when you finish," her father told her.

Louis snorted, scooping up a spoonful of stew. "I don't see what the big deal with all these Star Wars movies is, anyway. It's like one is released every day now."

"Every year," Leana corrected heatedly. "And Star Wars is the best movie franchise ever."

Louis rolled his eyes. "Right."

Leana took a deep breath. Arguing with Louis always brought out the worst in her, and she didn't want to be in a bad mood when she went to the theater. "I happen to like Star Wars," she returned, keeping her voice steady. She took a spoonful of her stew, giving her another moment to think. "It's amazing."

"It's boring," Louis retorted with a shrug.

"That's only if you don't have the brain capacity to understand it," Leana shot back, her composure slipping too quickly for her to snatch it.

"Hey!" her father interjected. "Louis, Leana, you each have your own very valuable opinions, and each of you will meet people in life who differ from you. So learn to have respect. Not everyone is going to like Star Wars, Leana, and Louis, just because you're in college doesn't mean you know more than your sister."

Louis and Leana shot glares at each other before returning to their stew.

Leana didn't like fighting with Louis. It made her angry, both with him and with herself, and the fights never ended well. But did fights ever go well, anywhere? She and Louis had a lot in common. They were both athletes, and both of them played soccer. Surprisingly, that was what most of their fights were about: soccer and the other athletic activities they did.

Leana shoveled down the rest of her stew and glanced over at the time. A 7:30 showing meant leaving now, at 6:30, in order to get to the theater, allow Lumina and Ben to stand in the ridiculously long concession line for the required popcorn and drinks while she and Lucas discussed the ludicrously high prices for snacks and the irritation they were currently feeling towards the other half of their friend group, and grab excellent seats, four in a row. The clock had just turned six. She had time, in actuality.

But because Leana didn't like to wait, she hopped up and began to clean the kitchen, doing what she determined was "her share" before darting into her room to grab the treasured ticket and her blue hoodie. Yanking it on over her head, she ran towards the door and yanked it open.

"Be careful!" her mother called.

"I will!" Leana yelled, stepping outside and closing the door. With a barely controlled pace, she headed to the elevator and palmed the down button, jumping anxiously from foot to foot as she watched the numbers above the elevator tick down to her floor. She'd run down the stairs, but somewhere in the stairwell a group of dirty looking college-aged guys hung out. They liked to change floors randomly, to surprise people who thought they'd had the guys figured out, and they were just so weird that Leana, for once, would rather take the elevator than risk running into them.

A ding from her phone caused her to pull it from her pocket and check her messages. Lucas had sent a smiley face and a thumbs up on their group chat.

You ready?

Leana grinned and tapped out hurriedly, Waiting for elevator.

Another ding, this time from Lumina.