The sound of thunder had awoken Cherry from her slumber. It was Friday, the day after the performance. Their body was a little sore from the Sotry battle, but they’d live.
Rubbing her eyes, Cherry reached for her phone & checked her notifications. There was a weather alert for rampant thunderstorms, & an university-wide email informing students that classes were cancelled. Cherry didn’t have any classes today anyway, so they didn’t care.
What she did care about, though, was the weather alert. It was the middle of February! It shouldn’t be storming, especially not in Ohio. Determined to get to the bottom of this, Cherry opened up the group chat to inform their friends about it. Unsurprisingly, the group chat was fairly active this morning.
Leslie: ya so nat’s birthday is today & i was thinking of getting her something :p
Nora: well what does she like
Leslie: ummm she likes cool bikes & punk stuff
Leslie: i think
Leslie: havent known her for very long
Juniper: didnt she try to steal the book from us
Kalani: yea she did do that didnt she 🤼♂️
Leslie: well YEA but
Leslie: shes nice. & pretty
Ignoring the current conversation going on, Cherry decided to hop in.
Cherry: yo.
Nora: oh hey
Leslie: gm cherry!
Kalani: wassup 🐎🤹♀️
Cherry: yall seen the weather.
Juniper: yea. storms. classes canceled
Nora: since when did you care abt the weather cherry
Cherry: since now apparently.
Cherry: i think this thunderstorm is a little sus if u ask me.
Kalani: lol sus 🟦
Cherry: oh whatever
Cherry: point is it shouldnt be storming in february.
Juniper: are you sayin theres
Juniper: like
Juniper: some kind of villain making the rain
Cherry: all im saying is that these villains tend to be back to back. pim & auctioneer were back to back, & we just fought that sotry dude last night.
Cherry: clealry there’s something going on.
Cherry: clearly*
Kalani: clealry
Nora: clealry
Leslie: clealry
Juniper: get their ass
Nora: anyways i thought you didnt care abt the hero stuff
Nora: you even said the outfits were dumb & stupid
Cherry: i think studying psychology is dumb & stupid too that doesnt mean im not a psychology major.
Cherry: also like theres a prophecy or whatever. :/
Kalani: i mean
Kalani: australia has storms in february 🌧⛱
Leslie: oh yeah true
Cherry: that’s entirely off topic. also we’re not even in australia.
Nora: if we WERE to be in australia though it would be perfectly fine for it to be raining
Juniper: february storms bring march flowers i guess
Cherry: we literally aren’t in australia. we’re in ohio.
Cherry: & i say we investigate this right now
Kalani: well classes are cancelled so we might as well 💥💥
Kalani: not like i have classes today anyway 🧦
Leslie: but i still have to get a birthday present for nat :0
Cherry: ok fine.
Cherry: we can go shopping afterwards at the mall.
Leslie: yippee :-D
Nora: alright i’ll meet u all downstairs
Sitting up, Cherry turned their phone off. “Alright..” she yawned. “Let’s do this.”
-
The sounds of rain hitting the ground seemed to be unavoidable. No matter which direction you went in this city, the rainfall wouldn’t let up. Storm sighed as thunder roared in the distance.
The young Celestial was sitting on her cloud, which was currently a dark gray. As her name would suggest, she has the ability to control the weather (or more particularly, the rain). It’s not necessarily controlled by her emotions, but sometimes that does happen, & right now is one of those such cases.
Yesterday was rough for her, especially considering what Mr. Moon had told her the night before. Storm’s mother, Sun, had been gone for 2000 years, & she had just learned last night that they were, in fact, alive & currently living on Mercury. It was a horrid feeling, having the knowledge that this had been kept a secret from Storm for over 2000 years. She still loved Mr. Moon, of course (nov was her father, after all), but she was mad at nov right now. For good reason.
As the pitter-patter of the rain hit the grass in the field, another voice came approaching toward her.
“Storm?! Storm! There you are!”
“Spring?! What are you doing here?!”
It was Spring, Storm’s sister & best friend. She was a lot more cheerful than Storm was, & it clearly showed.
“If you’re going to Earth, I might as well too!”
“You’re not supposed to be here!”
“You’re not supposed to be here either!”
“..fair. You should get back to the Castle, though. Mr. Moon & the others are probably losing their minds right now.”
“Oh, don’t you worry! We’ll be fine!”
“But.. y’know..”
“I bet you Juno isn’t even around this area! Plus, this is our first time ever being on Earth. We should explore it some, at least!”
Storm sighed, her cloud getting slightly lighter in color.
“I guess you’re right.” she said. “Can we stay here for a bit longer, though?”
“Of course!” Spring smiled, sitting down on the grass. “I don’t mind at all! Keep the rain coming, girl!”
-
“Jesus christ!”
The group, all bundled up in their rain gear, stepped outside of the apartment complex & was immediately blasted with the most amount of rain & wind they’d ever been met with.
“It’s like a thunderstorm out here!”
“Yea, clearly.”
“So, Cherrypop, how are we supposed to find the source of the rain in the first place?”
“What, do you expect me to think things through? You’re the smart one in this group, Nora.”
“You’re the psychology major! Don’t call me the smart one!”
“You’re majoring in medical engineering!”
While Cherry & Nora were having this discussion, Kalani had pulled out his phone & opened up the weather map.
“Look,” Kalani said, pointing toward the map. “The red is where the storm is the most intense, so that might be where the source is.”
“We’re not going to the part of the storm that’s the most intense.”
“It’s not like it’s a hurricane! We’ll be fine!”
“Alright, fine. Let’s go.”
The group piled into Cherry’s car as they started driving toward the red point on the map. Kalani sat in the passenger’s seat, keeping an eye on the weather map in case anything happened to change.
Despite the danger that comes with riding during a storm, it was actually quite nice. The sound of the rainfall hitting against the windows was relaxing.
“Has the map changed at all?” Cherry asked.
“Nope.” Kalani replied. “Still the same.”
“Alright.”
“Do you think we could turn on some music? It’s a bit quiet in here.”
“Sure, go ahead & connect your phone.”
Juniper whipped out faer phone & connected to the car via Bluetooth. Ae started playing aer playlist, which just so happened to have started with Spring & A Storm by Tally Hall.
“Huh. Fitting song.”
“It’s not spring. It’s still winter.”
“But there is a storm.”
“Whatever. Let’s just continue driving.”
-
“What do you meanSpring & Storm are gone?!”
Two Celestials, Mr. Moon & Time, stood in a room with two thrones, both labeled with the sun & the moon respectively. Mr. Moon sat in the moon throne as Time stood before nova.
“I- I don’t know! I told them about Sun & they left the castle! What if they get lost or hurt or-”
“Calm down, Mr. Moon.” Time put a hand on novs shoulder. “Tell me, do you know where they are now?”
Mr. Moon went silent.
“Mr. Moon. Tell me. Where did they go?”
“..Earth.”
“EARTH?! Why EARTH of all places?! Don’t they know Juno’s down there?! Why didn’t you try to stop them, Mr. Moon?!”
“I- I tried! They wouldn’t listen to me! I... I’m a horrible father, Time..”
“No, no you aren’t! You’ve done the best you can raising Spring & Storm for the past 2000 years alone. Besides, they’re just children. Children are known to act out.”
“But they ran away to EARTH, Time! That planet’s like a death trap!”
“Just breathe, Mr. Moon... they’ll be fine. I’m going to go tell Fate. Will you be fine on your own?”
Mr. Moon curled novs legs up to novs chest, hugging them ever-so slightly.
“Fate probably already knows. She knows everything, after all.”
“If she knows everything, she’ll know Spring & Storm will come back safely. I’ll be back, Mr. Moon. Just hang on tight.”
“..ok.”
-
Cherry parked her car in an empty parking lot, right next to a massive field.
“Are you sure this is the place?”
“That’s what the map says, so it’s gotta be.”
“In the field?”
“In the field.”
“At least it’s not a restaurant, or an auction house.”
“True. Let’s go.”
Unbuckling their seatbelts, the group hopped out of the car & started walking into the field. The rain fell heavy on them & the ground, lightning crackling in the distance.
“Maybe we should have brought umbrellas.”
“You think?”
“Honestly, with how hard this rain’s coming down, it probably would have broken the umbrellas.”
“If we stay out here any longer, it’s gonna break our bones.”
“That’d be fun to explain to a doctor. Like, ‘Hey, doc. Broke my arm. Yea, it was raining outside.’ Y’know?”
“The doctor wouldn’t believe you if you said that.”
“The doctor could take one step out in this field & believe me.”
“Hey, what’s that?”
Nora pointed over to something in the distance. It looked to be 2 kids, sitting & talking. One of them looked like they were on a cloud.
“Are those kids?”
“Looks like it.”
“What are they doing here in the middle of a thunderstorm?”
“How’s that one sitting on a cloud?”
“Hey, maybe they know why it’s raining!”
“They’re kids. What could they do?”
“Uh.. magic.”
“...yea, fair.”
Adjusting her raincoat, Cherry walked up to the two kids.
“Cherry, wait!”
The two kids appeared to both be girls, & they both had long, pointy ears as well. Not like that was much of a concern to Cherry. After all, if magic was real, then people with elf ears can be real too.
“You.” Cherry pointed at the girl sitting on the cloud. Both of them looked up at Cherry.
“What do you want?”
“Did you make this rain happen?”
“Maybe. What’s it to you?”
“Stop the rain. Now.”
“Make me.”
Sensing that a fight was about to break out, Leslie & the other girl quickly intervened, carefully pulling Cherry & the storm-cloud girl away from each other.
“Hey- Hey! Woah! Everyone calm down!”
“We don’t need a fight here, ok?”
“Well, maybe I wanna fight!” Cherry unzipped their coat, revealing their red tie necklace.
The two girls gasped.
“Wait! Is that one of the necklaces from the prophecy?!”
“You know about the prophecy?!”
“Of course we do! We are Celestials, after all!”
“Spring!! You can’t just tell people that!”
“But the necklace! They’re the heroes!”
“We don’t know if they all have necklaces!”
“We do all have necklaces, for the record.”
The other 4 unzipped their raincoats slightly, revealing their necklaces.
“Oh. I stand corrected, then.”
The girl that wasn’t on the cloud (her name was Spring, as the other one had said) reached her hand out for a handshake.
“It’s nice to meet you, heroes!”
“It’s.. nice to meet you, too.” Cherry said, hesitantly shaking her hand.
“I’m Spring, & that’s Storm!” Spring pointed at herself & then pointed at Storm.
“I’m Cherry. That’s Nora, Leslie, Juniper, & Kalani.” Cherry pointed at all of their friends in the order in which they said their names.
“Hey,” Kalani started. “If you two are Celestials, aren’t you supposed to be up in the castle?”
“Oh, you actually read that part of the book?”
“Of course we did.”
“Well, yea, we’re supposed to be in the castle, but.. well.. it’s a long story.” Spring hummed.
“We’ve got time. We should probably get out of the rain, though.”
“Yea, speaking of the rain, can you turn it off?”
The two Celestials glanced at each other, processing the question. After a moment, they turned back to look at Cherry.
“Only if you do something for us.”
“Alright. What is it?”
“We want to g-”
“We want to experience a day on Earth!”
“Spring!”
“What? It’s true!”
“I mean, yea, but I’d rather find a way to get our parents back together!”
The group looked at each other.
“I mean.. we could do both.”
“You can?!”
“We can?”
“Yea. Classes have already been cancelled today anyway, so.. we might as well!”
“Besides, we need to go to the mall to get Natalie a present anyway! This is a great opportunity to do that!”
Storm sighed. “Alright. One day on Earth. & then you’re getting our parents back together. Got it?”
“Hey, hold on a minute here!” Cherry said. “Do we look like marriage counselors to you?”
“I don’t know what a marriage counselor is, but I’m sure it couldn’t be that hard.” Spring shrugged
“Plus,” Storm twirled a strand of hair in her finger. “If you don’t do it, the rain stays.”
“Ughh. Fine.”
Storm snapped her fingers. All of a sudden, the rain was gone. It was a bright, sunny day now.
“Alright!” Spring cheered. “It’s time for the best day on Earth ever!!”