____[Ren pov]____
I crept around the room, Bdubs was making sure Doc was okay, Grian, Pearl and X were going through drawers and cabinets. The man with the stripe in his hair... Joel I think it was? He was getting a talking to by his... girlfriend? Wife? One of the two, and the fish boy was clinging to the elf, oddly enough the elf didn't seem to mind it.
Me on the other hand, I was definitely not messing around on the computer, trying to get any information on.. anything really. Nothing so far, just a few empty files and such. It looks like this computer was cleaned out, nothing in trash or on the desktop. I fiddled around on the search engine... of course, no internet. Then I glanced onto a small app on the Home Screen, the texture matched the background.
I clicked it and a heard a whirring sound. My ears twitched, the sound wasn't from the computer, I glanced around in circles. It was coming from every corner of the room. Being unable to pinpoint the origin of the sound kinda scared me, my tail tucked itself between my legs.
"Ren"
I jumped and spun around, Pearl, it's just Pearl.
"Hey Pearl how ya doi-"
"Cut it out, something is up"
My ears pinned down to my hair, "yeah, uhm, I'm working on that dude, sorry" I brushed it off and walked away, the noise got louder as I moved closer to this... thing. It was some kind of machine, with a red button, and who could resist a red button.
*click*
*Whrrrrrrrr*
____[Xisuma pov]____
My head... oh lord where are we now?
I sat up once again, starting to hate the motion. It was dark, we were outside... which was new.
People seemed to wake themselves up, I glanced around. We were all on a deserted street, houses lay on each side of the road where we woke up... a neighborhood. my mind supplied numbly.
"Outside is new" Jimmy, the cod boy, said. I nodded, "we should check houses" I mumbled, walking over to the closest home I could find. The rest of the group followed, mumbling about some kind of sounds they were hearing, I would have to rely on them to tell me about that due to my helmet being far too thick to hear much other than the loud voices behind me.
"X-I-Suma, do you hear that?" Grian asked me, nudging his way into the home and clinging the door open. "No, just you"
I felt someone else brush past me, walking over to the living room couch. Jimmy, he walked slowly and flopped onto the probably soft piece of furniture. "Jim? What are you doing?" Joel asked. "They said it safe here, listen" Jimmy whispered. The room went dead silent, The blue haired boy and Ren walked over to the floor next to Jimmy and sat down, seeming comfortable.
"You're right dude, we can trust 'em" Ren mumbled, leaning his head back and sighing contently.
I looked around at the rest of the crew, Bdubs was clinging to Doc, his arms rapped around Doc's head as he was carried around. Pearl and Grian had sat down and curled up onto a recliner. Joel and Lizzie were leaning against a wall, eyes glazed over from tiredness.
"Guys, I know you are tired but we don't have time for this. Let's go" I said, Doc looked ready to follow but everyone else hadn't even flinched.
"Doc, they say it's safe, we should stay, we aren't getting out of here we could stay here" Bdubs mumbled. Doc looked at the smaller, confused. "Who said that?" Doc asked. "The voices, they said it's safe, put me down so we can stay"
It took a moment for it to click into place in my mind. "They're hypnotized... in some way" I murmur. Doc seemed confused "why aren't we hearing voices then?" I glanced at Doc, Bdubs' arms forced his ears to fold down, that's why Doc couldn't hear anything quiet. Doc seemed to realize that just after he questioned me and took back the question.
"So just Ah.. cover everyone's ears?" Doc asked. I nodded and headed over to Grian. Putting my hands over his ears, after a moment of a confused Grian I told him to cover his ears. He did...eventually and walked around the room in circles, hands over his ears "lalalalalalala I can't hear you! I am not being controlled again! Lalalalalalaaaaaaaaaa"
I did this to a few others while Doc had gotten Bdubs to wander around in circles with Grian, Doc forcing his ears to pin down to his fur.
____[Jimmy Pov]____
Hands over my gills I wandered around the house with Scott, I tripped over a loose floorboard and had landed I-into a wall?... past a wall?... through a wall? I don't know...
I had arrived in a large warehouse looking area, going infinitely in every direction. I spun back to the wall I had gone.., through.... And started banging onto it. Soon a familiar elf fell through. I caught him and lifted him upwards.
Then Joel fell through, then Lizzie, and the guy with the helmet and Grian and Pearl. Bdubs fell on his face because nobody went to catch him, and the creeper simply walked through like it was nothing. The Red ki- Ren cracked his sunglasses on his way through.
Scott had grabbed my wrist and dragged me around, and I grabbed Lizzie, who grabbed Joel, who grabbed the creeper with a lab coat who grabbed Bdubs who grabbed Ren and so on and so forth until we were all being dragged around by a frustrated elf.
"Scott, do you know where we are going?" I asked as we took yet another turn. "Nope" he stated so matter-a-factly. We turned right then Scott stopped and doubled back, causing me to almost fall over. "Scott! Calm down! We're not gonna go anywhe-" Lizzie paused when Scott looked back at the group, smirking.
Behind him was a small metal door with a sign that read, 'hub enterance lvl1' Scott opened the door, grinning and pulling us into the entrance.
____[Lizzie pov]____
We entered a long hallway with a door across the hall reading 'hub exit lvl 0' I let go of Jimmy and leaned over to Joel. "Hey, babe you can let go of Doc now, we won't get lost" I mumbled. Joel let go of the creeper cyborg.
By the way my husband was breathing... he was still worked up, usually he would build way too much or do a pvp battle to compensate, maybe pull a few tnt pranks. But none of that was here. "Joel, breathe for me, you're going to be able to do whatever you want when we get back to your empire. Then I'll help with your castle, but for now, please just try to calm down." I said to him.
Joel, in turn, tried to force himself to relax... oh lord.
We walked on and on for ages just talking, we hoped that if we got to the end there would be some sort of exit sign or something. Joel was talking to the 'hermits' as they called themselves, whilst I just watched the other interactions.
"Maybe once we get out of this hellhole I could finally kill Doc with my new and improved walking skills!" The boy with the bandanna shouted. The creeper cyborg scoffed at the statement. "You often use humor to deflect trauma." He said "Thank you"
"...What? I didn't say that was a compliment!" The shorter smirked and spun to face the hybrid. "What I'm hearing, is you think I'm funny." The cyborg elbowed the other. "At least I'm not mortally terrified of a hallway."
"Nah uh! You are just as scared as me! You use really big words when you get scared!" "Oh really? Do you want to get into this topic shortie?!" "Yeah, I do beanstalk!"
"You literally go to bed at 7 every night"
"W-well you're an insomniac!"
"Wow low blow, oh wait... sorry I should have expected that from someone your size"
They went on and on with random insults, I leaned over to the one with a helmet on. "Hey.. uhm X was it? Do they always argue like that?" The other chuckled "oh yes, all the time, you can practically see the old married couple vibes from them."
I glanced at them, still arguing, "reminds me of another familiar somehow-not-a-couple-yet" she mused, glancing at Scott and Jimmy who were silently arguing about who knows what...while holding hands.
____[Grian pov]____
My feet ached and the ceiling was too low to fly in... ugh. The doors were spread far apart, and the hall went on forever. Pearl and I had resorted to counting the doors near the back of the group. "five-hundred-eighty-eight" I mumbled "five-hundred-eighty-nine" Pearl read the number on her side. "Five-hundred-ninety"
"Five-hundred-ninety tw-"
"I AM DONE WALKING! IM GOING IN A ROOM YOU ALL CAN FOLLOW IF YOU WANT!"
That was Timmy,
Oh lord.
I watched Tim slam open a random door and walk in, Scott and a few others following suit. Pearl and I ran up to join them and rushed in right before-
*BAM!*
The door slammed behind us all... and dissolved into nothingness. Great.
I glanced around the room, it was small, only a bedroom and a small bathroom attached to it. The room was dark as well, the room being illuminated by a single computer screen. Joel, Lizzie, Tim and X sat on the bed while Doc sat on the gamer chair even when Bdubs said he wanted it. Ren was leaning against the back of the chair while Scott stood in front of Tim, lecturing him about not lashing out.
Pearl and I peered around the chair to see the computer, a zoom meeting was displayed on it.
There were faceless people... eight kids and one adult, none of them had faces... oh god.
The adult spoke, even without her mouth.
"Okay class, today is test day, I will share you the test now, NO CHEATING! Good luck!"
A test popped up on screen, displaying a text and a few comprehension questions. I glanced off to the side to see a phone. A phone.
I snatched it up and tried to call Mumbo's number, no answer.
I tried Impulse's,
No response.
Zed?
No?
Cleo?
"COME ON! SOMEONE PICK UP!"
I shouted.
I tried to call someone else when the numbers entered incorrectly.
I hit call anyway, hoping something would happen.
____[Pearl pov]____
"Oh gosh, where are we now?" I sat up and looked around, rubbing my head to ease the pain. We were all in a large 90's arcade. The place was lit up by a multitude of multicolored lights. It was huge,
A few others awoke, mumbling about the arcade and how Ren picked the wrong answer on question twelve or something. We had woken up in a circle, in the center was a slip of paper with five lines of text. A checklist by the looks of it.
Lizzie snatched up the paper and read it aloud.
"Complete all tasks on this list and you may return home"
Exited gasps and enticed grins infected the group. "Task one, find and play street fighter. Seems simple enough." Lizzie pointed out. "Uhm, problem, this place is huge!" Jimmy shouted, seeming mildly scared. "Plus" I hoped I got enough attention saying that "we don't have tokens to play any games"
Groans chorused throughout the group. "Well, we better get looking" X sighed before standing up. "Go in pairs, we meet here in ten minutes, sound good?" We all nodded before I turned to Grian. Giving him the classic 'be parters with me bestie' glance.
___
We set off in a random direction and found a food and drink area... with a slushie... "I dare you to drink it!" Grian blurted out. "Fine but you have to drink the almond water stuff!" I dared to ask. Grian nodded and grabbed the almond water and I grasped the slushie. "On three" Grian murmured.
"One"
"Two"
"Three!" We both yelled
I downed the drink instantly, suddenly I felt... refreshed, like I just drank a strength potion. Grian grinned as he set down his cup. "Done! Do I look poisoned?" I shook my head and giggled, "how about me?"
"You look like you drank three speed pots and called it slow"... "so Etho then?" Grian nodded. I glanced up at the clock to see we were late to the meetup by two minutes, crap.
"Gri we gotta go!" I grabbed his arm and dragged him back to the main area.
____
"Where have you been?" X asked sternly, "uh- uhm... we were definitely not drinking possibly dangerous drinks on dares" I said. "Oh god, are you okay?" We both nodded.
"So at least it was better than our run, we ran into Scott and Jimmy fighting over fighting in street fighters" Joel shouted.
Lizzie looked down at her list "one task left, I can only assume one of you drank a 'galactic slushie' and an 'almond water'??" we nodded.
"All we have to do now is play Mario cart... and not fall off rainbow road.....great"
____[3rd pov]___
"And there goes Bdubs' turn" X groaned as Bdubs' cart fell off the map. We had resorted to taking turns until someone won a match without falling off the map.
"Doc you're up against me" Joel murmured, sitting down in front of the screen, holding a wii stick controller. Doc sat down to Joel's left, grinning. "3, 2, 1, hit play." Jimmy said, exited for his turn.
Nobody expected this from Doc, the guy who said he didn't have time to play games because he needed to work on some redstone project or another.
But SERIOUSLY? He not only lapped Joel, he hadn't fallen off once. He won.
"Explain."
The first thing anyone said.
Not, 'how do we go home?'
Not 'where is the exit?'
In all fairness this was Bdubs asking the question so...
"Ren said I was bad a video games when we hung out right before this season."
"What? So did someone at one point say you were bad at redstone so you obsessed over it?" Pearl asked jokingly.
"Pretty much"
...
"So how do we get home Lizzie?" Joel asked. Lizzie looked down at her paper and smiled softly.
"We go through some glass doors."
----
"So this is goodbye?" Jimmy asked. X nodded slowly, "see you later guys!" Grian yelled before rushing through the doors. "Oh no" Jimmy groaned "What?" Scott asked, holding the door open for the blonde. "he said 'see you later', not 'goodbye' we are doomed." Jimmy whined before walking through the doors, Scott following.
"Bye Hermits!" Lizzie shouted as she rushed through the doors dragging Joel with her.
"Oh lord" X said, looking down at his communicator as he stood on the door frame. "What?" Bdubs asked.
"Grian found a rock monster"
The last three rushed through the doors at that.
_______________
Rose closed her laptop at that, pausing her music.
she had rushed the last bit, and felt a little bad doing so, but it was either that or probably not finishing at all. she sighed, slightly disapointed at the work she made 'god I'm tired now...' a new woman walked into the room, one with straight blonde hair and a cozy looking blanket wrapped around her. 'Rose? it's half past 2 am? why are you up?'
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(word count: 2526)