Game Set, Play (w|w version)

Separated part 2

Liz continued to think about Peter until she dozed off.

A few minutes after Liz had fallen asleep, the shape-shifter walked into their hiding spot. It partially placed itself on top of Liz disguised as Gwen. It had a knife in one hand and approached its face to Liz'. The movement woke her up as planned.
The shape-shifter said, "Sshh. It's okay, baby."
It moved in to kiss Liz while preparing its arm to stab her. Liz punched the being in the face so hard that it was thrown away from her. The sounds of the punch and of the shape-shifter's landing fully awoke Gwen. Liz checked that the Gwen whom she had attacked wasn't the real one. When she saw Gwen against the wall, Liz brought down a lightning bolt to strike the Gwen-imposter. The bolt struck its left leg and it screamed. It stood up revealing that the bottom half of its left leg was gone. It skipped out of the cave as fast as possible leaving behind a trail of blue blood and morphing into another kind of being.
"What happened? You could have killed me!" exclaimed Gwen confused.
"I made sure it wasn't you before striking it."
"With your lightning. You hit... it before knowing it wasn't me." Gwen tried to calm herself.
"I have great instincts. 'Sides, you were trying to kiss me, which didn't really bother me but seemed off. The knife gave away it wasn't you."
"... That's a good reason. Seeing yourself lose a leg isn't easy to take in when you're waking up. Do you think it'll come back?"
"I think we're safe. It would have stuck around if it wanted to fight."
"Can you do me a favour?"
"Like what?"
Gwen said, "Don't tell Rose about the fake me trying to kiss you. She'll make jokes as if it was actually me who did it."
Liz smiled and responded, "No promises."

*

Alex's energy was almost completely drained from the hour of searching for the others with Peter.
Alex said, "We're going to have to stop soon. I need a break."
Peter suggested, "I saw a cave in the mountain back there. It's just a couple of minutes behind us. We'll be high enough that no one can attack us."
"Sounds good."
Alex turned around and headed back to the mountain. When the view of the mountain was clearer, Alex asked, "Where's the cave?"
Peter pointed and answered, "Over there. Do you see it now?"
"Yeah."
Alex transported the two of them into it.

Barely inside, Peter said, "I wish Sam were here. We could use some light."
"It's not that dark and we don't have to go far. It looks empty. C'mon."
"Hheeelllllllllllllllooooooooo" half-shouted Peter into the cylindrical space.
There was no reply.
As they walked farther, Peter said, "I guess you're right."
Alex sat against the grey rock wall.Peter offered, "Do you want me to help you? I could recharge you in a sense."
"Do you need to put your hands on me?"
"No. I never really had to touch and now, I don't even need to have my hands close. It just helps me focus my energy better. I can keep my hands to myself if you prefer.""Go ahead then."Peter began helping Alex recover her energy.
"Where do you think the others are?" asked Peter.
"I don't know."
"Do you think that they're in the snow region with us?"
"It's possible. We've searched most of it though. Then again, who knows how big this place is. They might be here but I feel they're somewhere else."
"Like where?"
"I'm not sure. The other places could be anything. A desert, a war zone, the woods, a deserted city, a circus —"
"A circus?"
"I'm using places I've seen in my games. There most likely isn't a circus one."
"Did you mean an evil circus with clowns chasing us?"
"Again, there most likely isn't one."
Peter preferred to believe that there weren't any evil terrains like the one in Alex's video games so he stopped asking questions and continued his work in silence.
When he was done, Peter leaned against the wall beside Alex.

Inside Peter's head

This cave is actually pretty nice. Movies always make caves scary or bad in some way. There's nothing scary about this cave or the last— I take that back. The dead bodies in the other one were pretty scary. This one's nice. I wonder how deep this goes. If Liz were here, she'd push me to explore it. With or without a light source. I wonder what kind of region she's in right now. Wherever she is, she should be okay. Even if the evil circus does exist. She can handle anything. She makes me braver. I wish that she were here. Alex's helped a little. I feel better with her than alone but she can only do so much. If I'm going to have to fight, I'm going to need Liz. If I'd be brave enough to fight then, I don't know. Maybe one day, I'll learn her trick for being brave. I hope so. I keep finding myself in different worlds or planets in dangerous situations. I'll eventually need to protect myself instead of running off or having someone else save me. I'm not sure which is worse: being lost in hundreds of worlds and together or stuck in some terrible place split up. Split up is worse, I guess. I felt a lot better being in a group rather than alone and worrying about everyone else. I guess Gwen and Sam are a lot more worried about me than I am of them since they can defend themselves. We did pretty well as a team last time. We were an untrained team, who didn't know what to expect, but we got through it. Together.