Petra's POV
We settled down behind some bushes near the street. The moon dimly lit the dark blue sky and the breeze was chilly. Near where we would be sleeping there was this big, gray truck with three suspicious looking guys smoking cigarettes and leaning against it.
"Jesse!" I whispered, "Come here!"
"I'll be right back," she said to Brian. She walked over to the side where I was.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Over there," I whispered, pointing at the guys by the truck.
"What about them?"
"They give me a bad feeling. Something about them is off."
We both glanced over again. They were still just casually smoking their cigarettes and occasionally spitting into the ground.
"I just think we should keep away from them," I concluded.
"Yeah, you're probably right," Jesse agreed, "but they're not doing anything now, so we're safe."
"If you say so," I said as we walked back over to the group. I glanced back one more time to get a better look at them. One of them had pale skin and acne with a slouchy posture and black hair. I thought I recognized him from somewhere...
Then, it hit me. He was the guy who was beating up Soren the other day. But he was with two other guys now... what did he say about Pickaxe?
"Uh-oh," I said.
"What?" Jesse asked.
"That guy over there. He was the guy that was picking on Soren! And... what was that thing he said about—"
"Pickaxe would be excited to meet us..." she recollected.
"So... one of those other guys is probably him!"
"Crap. This is bad."
"What? What's bad?" Lukas asked.
"You see those guys over there? One of them is Pickaxe!" Jesse said.
"Pickaxe... who's—oh," he realized.
"Yeah. Oh," I said, "We need to move."
Unfortunately, they noticed us. They looked up and murmured something amongst themselves, then started over to us.
"Not really getting 'friendship vibes' from them..." Lukas said.
"I wish I had my armor right now. Then this will probably be a lot easier," I said.
Right, I'm not sure if we've explained this yet.
Back in the portal hallway, we lost our armor in a world we went into before the walker apocalypse one. We, me, Jesse, Lukas, and Ivor, arrived through the portal into that place, and before us was this huge palace with tons of people around it. Not too long after we arrived, someone shouted,
"Look! It's him! Get him!"
Suddenly, the crowd went nuts and swarmed all around us. We had no idea what was going on. They came over to us and grabbed Ivor.
"We got him! We finally got him!"
"Hey! Paws off the robes!" Ivor exclaimed.
"Hey you! What's your problem! We just got here!" Jesse exclaimed.
"Are you kidding?" someone from the crowd exclaimed, "He's the most famed criminal here! We've been trying to track him down for years!" Then he held up a piece of paper with someone who looked really similar to Ivor on it. Above the picture read wanted.
"Well, I'm afraid that you have the wrong person! I am not guilty of any crime!" Ivor shouted.
I scowled at him.
"...recently," he added.
"Oh ho, you just expect us to believe you?" a woman angrily asked.
"That's no criminal! That's Ivor!" Jesse exclaimed.
"Can it, pipsqueak. We're taking charge now."
They all grabbed onto him and began pulling him toward the palace.
"I am not affiliated with any crimes! Release me!" Ivor shouted.
"Wait!" – "Stop!" we exclaimed.
"And... there he goes," Lukas said.
"Come on," Jesse exclaimed, "We have to stop them! They've got the wrong guy!"
We started running after the crowd.
"So, what's the plan?" Lukas asked. Jesse considered for a moment, then said,
"We pretend we're part of that angry mob. Then we'll be able to sneak into the palace unnoticed, free Ivor, and get the heck out of here!" Jesse said.
"Sounds good," I said.
Our plan was successful... for the start. We got all the way to the part where we sneak around the palace before it failed.
Jesse, Lukas, and I broke away from everyone after they threw Ivor into a cell. We found ourselves in a dark abandoned hallway.
"Alright. Here we are," Lukas whispered, "Where to now?"
"Let's just poke around. See if we find any doorways or anything," Jesse whispered.
"Got it," I said.
I strolled down the hall to look for another passageway or something when I heard a noise from around a corner. It was making sort of a... swooshing noise.
I ducked down and carefully peered around the bend. The sound got quieter and quieter, so I assumed whatever was there was gone now. I got back up to keep looking when suddenly this weird looking thing shot out from behind the corner and started shooting something at us. I jumped in surprise and got out of the way. I had never seen this... thing before. It floated and looked like it was probably a machine. It had a hole in the front where it shot out these clear blobs.
The first one hit Lukas, and the force of the hit knocked him against the wall. It had hit his arm, so it was stuck to the wall.
"Ow!" he exclaimed.
"Lukas! Are you okay?" Jesse exclaimed as she dodged one.
"Yeah," Lukas grunted as he tried to break free, "but now my arm's stuck! What is this?"
"Some kind of... glue?" I suggested as I dodged one.
"We need to take this thing out before it—OOF!" Jesse exclaimed as she got hit. It didn't stick her to anything, just got onto her.
"Jesse!" I yelled.
"I'm fine!" she gasped, "Just knocked the breath out of me."
I got the idea to try to deflect the glue using my sword. I pulled it out and swung it one of the blobs. It just stuck to my sword. I tried shaking it to get it off, but then the machine shot me with some of the stuff, which stuck me to the floor.
"Well, great," Lukas said as he continued trying to get his arm out, "Now we're all stuck."
"Not all of us!" Jesse exclaimed with only some of the slime dripping down the front of her overalls. The machine spat some more of it at her, this time sticking her to the wall across from Lukas.
"Ow!" she exclaimed, "Never mind."
The machine spat at us some more, I guess to make sure we were extra-stuck.
"Okay! We get it! We get it!" Jesse said to it.
"Over here!" someone exclaimed from around the same corner the machine popped out of. By now it was just aimlessly shooting into space.
Two guys appeared around the bend. One had messy dirty blonde hair and freckles, while the other had combed out brown hair.
"Ha! Told you it would work!" the blond one exclaimed as he playfully nudged the other one on the shoulder, "Pay up!"
"Whoa, whoa, your 'machine' here is just aimlessly shooting now. Not doing its job," said the other one.
"Yeah, but it just caught three people! It did its job! What are you talking about?"
"Hey!" Jesse exclaimed, "What's going on?"
"What's going on?" laughed the blond one, "What's going on is my pure genius in action! That's what's going on!"
The brown haired one rolled his eyes and face palmed.
"Your 'pure genius?' Like, being convinced for the first eight years of your life that you're actually an ocelot?"
"Hey! That was a long time ago! I've changed! Just like how my revolutionary inventions will change the way we live for years to come!"
"So... uh, care to get us out of here?" I asked.
"Uh... no. No, no, no, I'm afraid... that cannot happen," said the one with brown hair.
"How come? We just need a little bit of help, then we'll be on our way and never bother you again!" said Jesse.
"Mm... no," the blonde one said, "Okay, so I make inventions for this palace to help things become a bit... easier."
"And they don't work. My dimwit brother always puts a self-destruct button on everything! And it's always in the most inconvenient locations! Like putting it on the bottom of the wheels of which it stands!"
"That was one time!"
"Oh my gosh, would you please stop arguing and help us out?" Jesse exclaimed.
"We already informed you that we cannot do that," said the brunette.
"Yeah. We work for these guys. Not for you guys," the blonde said.
"We're gonna have to take you to your cells now."
"What? Why?" Lukas asked.
"Were you not just snooping around the palace trying to find out where the prison cells are?"
"Uh, yeah," Jesse sheepishly said.
"But how did you know?" I asked.
"Hidden camera in this baby," said the blonde, tapping on a small screen in the machine.
"So, how are you taking us to our cells exactly?" asked Lukas, "Because... we're pretty darn stuck right now..."
"Yeah," the brunette said as he put his hands on his hips and turned to the blonde, "How are we going to get them unstuck without them escaping?"
"Oh, quit whining. You speak in italics too much. Leave it to me," the blond said as he cracked his knuckles.
The blonde took a hose from around the sides of his machine and pointed it at us. He readied his hand on a lever.
"What's that...?" Lukas asked.
"Oh, you'll see, my friends, you'll see."
He pushed the lever upward and suddenly a yellow gas emerged from it. It clouded my vision and began to choke me. I desperately gagged and wheezed trying to get a breath of air. I felt some tension around where the glue had hit me release as I felt the ground hit me.
Then I was out.
"Ugh... what happened? My head..." I muttered as I began to come to. I clutched my head in pain.
I looked around. We were inside of a small room with bars on one side. There were no traces of the glue on me.
"So now what?" Lukas asked, "All of our items and armor are gone!"
"We need to find a way out of here..." Jesse said as she began to pace around.
"But how?" I asked.
Jesse had her hand to her chin as she looked around the room.
"Let's dig our way out! We'll break these bars open and get our stuff back!"
"But, wouldn't that take a while?" Lukas asked, "and if we're digging for too long, guards might start to notice. And that would be bad."
"We'll just have to... do it discretely," I said.
"I guess so..." Lukas said reluctantly as he scratched his arm.
"Let's get to it then!" Jesse said, "Come on!"
We began to punch on the iron whick kept us inside the cell.
"Come on, prisoner!" a guard shouted from outside the cell. I looked over and saw two guards holding onto Ivor, who was trying to escape their grasp.
"Uh-oh," I said softly.
"Now what?" Lukas asked.
"Keep going! Get out of here!" Ivor yelled. We turned and quickly resumed our work.
"YA!" Jesse exclaimed as she finnally broke away the bars. We ran as fast as we could through them to a nearby chest which held our items and armor.
"Stop!" yelled a guard that was holding onto Ivor. He released his grip, leaving Ivor to the other guard, and began to chase us.
We had managed to gather our swords, but we had to make a break for it before we caught us. After full speed running out of the palace, we made it to safety, and soon found our exit portal.
Back in reality, the three boys continued to creep over to us. Once I had a better look at them, I noticed one also looked familiar. He had dark skin and brown hair and he was dressed in a loose gray shirt with a leather jacket in top and baggy, ripped jeans.
"Wait a minute," Lukas murmured, "That's Gabriel!"
----
Surprise!
Chapters will now be released on Tuesdays just because Wednesdays have become really busy for me ('cause I do have a life, if you're were wondering) so I just moved the date to Tuesday.
So, thoughts on this chapter? What will be the future of our two lovebirds, Maya and Brian? Is Gabriel the warier REALLY Pickaxe, or is this just his identical high school alternate-universe lookalike? Find out next Tuesday!
Oh yeah, message to @Ombrexithemermaid, expect to see your character coming soon!