Quest for the Omnistone

Chapter 27: Pan-tastic Ideas

Steven:

"I told you to zap him. Zap him! Not me! I'm your cousin! Why on Tyton would you zap your cousin?" Max complained, holding a chunk of ice to his head.

I sighed. We were slowly making our way to Hangman's tree with the Lost Boys after an unsuccessful search in the Indian camp. "I said I was sorry. I forgot about the Gauntlet, okay?"

"Yeah, and now look what happened!" he slammed his watch and transformed into... "Slash!" But as soon as he appeared, he changed immediately into Phantom Zero. "See? Because of that lightning bolt, Orange Hood used the Gauntlet on me!"

"Come on. You gotta admit Max, it was cool how you went flying through the air!" Slightly said, jumping up and gesturing with his hands.

"And landed right into a little blue bird's nest!" Cubby added, flapping his arms like a bird.

"And on a happier note, we saved Tootles and Tiger Lily from the rogue earth-benders on time." I stated.

Max raised a finger to say something, but he was interrupted by a loud: "Peter Pan, you complete Pan-compoop! Get back here!"

As we rounded the bend, we found Crystal soaking wet and chasing Peter around Hangman's tree, occasionally throwing rocks to try and slow him down. Johnny and Raj were meditating in front of the hideout entrance while Clam and Danny were having some sort of earth sculpture contest.

"Come on, Crystal!" Pan laughed. "Was it that bad to take an extra dive in the Lagoon?"

"You pushed me in! You pushed me!"

"Well, I think that was a Pan-tastic idea!" Max exclaimed.

"Ha! See, Crystal? Now lighten up! I was just having some fun."

Crystal muttered something under her breath and did an unusually high kick, hitting a nearby bush.

"What happened?" I asked Johnny as the Lost Boys began fighting over two helmets they got from the earth-benders.

With his eyes still closed, he replied. "We searched and searched but found no trace. The mermaids weren't much help either. As we were about to go back, Peter suddenly said that he found it. Crystal went over to check and Pan pushed her in. 'Payback for last time', he said. Then... well, you saw what happened."

"Did you find it?" Danny asked, abandoning his sculpture of Hook.

"No. And what's worse is that Max got touched by the Gauntlet." I jerked my head towards Max, who was trying in vain to transform into Slash. As they went over to talk to Max, I went over to talk to Crystal. "That was quite a high kick."

"The signal's strong." She muttered, examining a map of Neverland. "Hm? Oh, one of my best friends, Jac showed me."

"Jack? Who's he? How come I don't know about a Jack?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "First, it's J-A-C. And it's 'she', not 'he'. Second, I met her in seventh grade. You always came home during the holidays at that time."

"Oh. Her name is Jac? It's not a nickname or anything?"

"It is." She replied simply, giving me a look that said 'Yes, but I'm not telling you because we have more important things to do right now.' She tapped a few things on the map and it shrunk into the shape of a dog, which began sniffing around.

"Hey, why didn't you use that spell earlier?" Lazlo asked.

"I didn't think about it until a friend of mine mentioned it back when we were in the Lagoon. And hey, you can't just do a tracking spell so easily."