The Pens of Fate (Chapter 4 remake)

In the writing club, Artie's pen lay on its side as the group stared down at it, remembering what Ethan had done.

Adaline, the girl who had given the pens to them so she could get the one Ethan stole back, spoke up, "Artie's death and rebirth was not your fault, Cody. We will get through this, and Ethan will lose. Liz, you will take Artie's pen. Tina, you are now part of the student body, so we can get information on Ethan. Cody and Simon, we need a war plan." Cody, Simon, and Adaline stood in the club room, along with the masked girl, while the twins went to get dirt on Ethan. 

“What is our next move, Addie?” Simon’s brown eyes twinkled with a look of rage. 

“I can go to another world and bring back more allies, but that could be risky. If Ethan found out that there are other worlds and the one that I am from is the only real one, he would try and kill himself due to feeling lost in meaning,” Simon interrupted blurting out, “Then, let him. He killed Artie, Addie! Why does it matter if he dies by his own hands? It would be easy to get your pen back,” Adaline put up her hand to silence him, “I created all of you, yes, but in all the world's only a handful of people can live the way the Pens wrote in the Book of Stories. Ethan’s story must end with a victory by our hands and with no suicides on both parties.” Adaline’s eyes froze over as if she had dropped out of reality. When the group left and Adaline was alone in the club room, her knees came out from under her. She sobbed on the ground to herself, “Why did you not help him?” A low growl echoed in her mind... 

Tina was the new vice president and knowing Ethan’s eyes were watching her see if she knew what happened to Artie and what the next move was. Tina closed her eyes to think back to what Adaline had said... 

“Ethan is trying to find out the pen’s powers and weaknesses. To do that he has to know who the pen affected. So, act like everyone else and try to get one of the classes to do a school dance so we can see the Eval family to find out if they know anything about the pens.” 

Tina looked at the Reef brothers, “How would a dance help us?” 

Cody smiled, “One of the girls will go out with Ethan, or I can because of two reasons: (a) I’m the only gay guy in the club and (b) I need to do this for Artie. That way someone on our side can learn Ethan’s secrets.” 

Tina opened her eyes and thought to herself, Liz will never go to the dance with a psycho. As Tina walked into the student council room, all eyes locked on her. The president, Aaron Damson, the older brother of Phoenix High’s band’s lead singer, Ruth or “DJ”, stood staring out the window. 

“Excuse me, Aaron. I have an idea for the school’s festival.”

Aaron turned to face Tina with a smile, “Well, if it wasn't my childhood friend who saved my life.”

That’s one of Cody’s changes. Instead of saving Artie, I saved Aaron. That was probably Adaline’s idea so we could have an Ace in the hole, Tina thought as she stood in front of the student body. 

“I think it would be fun if the school had a dance during the festival.”

Aaron took his time to think hard about his answer, “That is a great idea, Tina! What should the theme be though?” 

“Leave it to my club, Aaron. You could ask DJ for the music choice for the dance. Maybe her new song?” 

When Tina walked out of the council room, Ethan was waiting by one of the hallway’s windows. 

“Hey, you’re Lizz’s twin sister, right?” Ethan’s voice sent chills down Tina’s back as she stared back into his dark green eyes, “Yeah, I’m Tina Willer. You’re Ethan, one of the freshmen from class 2-C.”

“That’s right. Liz was telling me that you have feelings for me,” Ethan said. Tina cursed under her so Ethan wouldn’t hear, Liz, if you can hear me. I’m going to get back to you. Tina then smiled, “Well, this is easier now that you know. I was hoping that,” she stopped and looked at the ground, unsure of how to form the words. Ethan smiled, “Yes, I would love to go to the dance with you.” ... 

When Tina got to the club room, four strangers were waiting for her along with Adaline, the Reef brothers, the girl with the mask who didn’t have a name yet because Adaline was still working on her, and Liz. Adaline looked up at Tina, “Tina, these are my elite gang of assassins. Their story is a work in progress as well as the Forgotten’s,” she pointed to the girl with the mask and then continued, “Meet Kelsey, Harper, Angel, and Lason,” Adaline pulled out a brown leather book that had a white feather as the bookmark, “ I got the idea from an anime, but I like the way mine turned out. Lawson's body has weapons built into it. Angel can shapeshift and bend like a rag doll. Kelsey can breathe underwater, in space, and lava without being burnt alive! And Harper can time travel, but we are only willing to use it if we need to. She can’t bring the dead back.” Angel’s beautiful chocolate-colored skin practically glowed in the sun coming in from the window as she took Tina’s hand, “It is so cool to meet you. This is the first time that we meet people,” Angel smiled as the boy named Lason ran his hand through his fiery red hair, “We were just “born”, he said the word born with quotations, “So you guys are the first things we see- I mean besides mom,” then Lason pointed to Adaline. 

Cody exchanged glances with Tina then looked at Adaline, “YOU’RE A MOM?”

Adaline smiled, “I created all the worlds through my writing therefore you are my children. This is the first time I put myself in the story. And because I am not a person in the book,” Adaline held up the little brown book, “I can’t be killed- at least that I know of, no one has tried to.” 

Later that day after school got out for the weekend, Ethan was waiting for Tina by the gate. 

“Hey.” 

“What’s up, Ethan?” Tina tried to hide the confusion when she spoke. Ethan smiled, “I wanted to get to know my date for the dance, so I can return your feelings.”

They walked to nowhere in particular, stopping at a playground so they could rest. “Well, my older brother is deaf and our dad was a cop till he died in a car chase two years ago,” Tina sighed. Ethan looked at her with those beautiful green eyes, “Sorry. I didn’t want to bring up any painful memories.” Tina looked at the ground, “Liz and I moved on, but Bonnie, our brother couldn’t. He wants to solve the last case dad was working on.” Ethan looked up at the sky, “I had an older sister, but she died when we were little. Our mom put us in an abusive situation and she locked us in a shed. My sister tried to keep me warm but ended up freezing to death. I was put into a foster family who loves me, but I can’t understand why Abby had to die.” Tina remained silent. Abby was the name of the classmate Artie tried to save. Who knew that she had a younger brother. Tina looked at Ethan, understanding why he was killing. He wants to save people like his sister. He killed Artie because he was worried that we would stop him. Tina’s heart was moved by Ethan’s heart and the way he thought about the world. 

“Ethan, is there anything that you would change about the world?”

Ethan put his arm around Tina. What’s going on? Tina thought as Ethan pulled her close to him, “I might change the way criminals are punished for their crimes.” Tina then realized that she had fallen in love with a psycho who had a hero complex.