Pen Island vs Nicola Island RP!

[Jessica]

 Jess trudged the path towards the castle that adorned the middle of the island. She felt the warmth of the sun on her back, and the grainy feeling of sand between her toes. Various minions had already been put to work at digging trenches around the castle to prepare for the inevitable battle with the neighbouring island. Why inevitable? Because no one can resist the treasure underneath the castle. No one.... The layers to get through it though.. Syka's mouth began watering at the thought of all the blood that would be spilt over the prize. But it would remain theirs though. Her's and Josh's. Screw the minions. They can starve. Or farm. Yea, farm would be better. But she carried on, a sliver of drool sliding down her snout. The great treasure was not of concern to her right now. Protecting it was.
 "I swear, this is the last time I let Josh name an Island." She muttered under her breath as she felt the packed down dirt underneath her feet turn to stone as she started to ascend the steps into the Castle. As she neared the top of the steps, she stopped and looked behind her, gazing out at the sea around the island. It was beautiful, the only dot on the horizon being the other island, several miles away. No doubt were there minions preparing to assault the island, in seek of the treasure that rested underneath her feet. She pushed up the final few steps and pushed open the castle doors, walking in towards the war room immediately, where no doubt His Supreme Douchelord would be awaiting a report.
 The cooler air of the castle was thick with tension as minions suited up for battle. Their eyes were wrought with fear, determination and stupidity. Some wanted to prove their worth. Others wanted to show off. Others had no idea what they were doing. A few gazed at the shark as she passed by them, her tail constantly rubbing her bikini bottom lower than it should be. Fewer still were stupid enough to keep looking as the girl as she turned around and threw them out the nearest window.
 Syka knocked twice on the war room door before entering.
 "Sir, intelligence reports show that we may be outnumbered as much as three to one.. Of course, we will see how many can make it through the waters to get to our island." She chuckled darkly as she graced into the room. The stage was set..

[Quinn]

A sigh of contentment escaped Quinn's lips. It was a beautiful day. The sun was warm, but not burning. Big, puffy clouds rolled their way across the sky. She strolled along the beach with a fruity little drink in each hand (the kind with the umbrellas – what was their purpose again?), feeling the breeze on her face and the sand between her toes. All in all, a lovely experience.

Of course, she had to remind herself to find her shoes. That may become a problem later, seeing as the island was dotted with skeletons. If she cut her feet on anything, there would probably be infection involved. Hell, the place was even called "The Island of No Return" before Nicola renamed it “Nicola Island”.

Quinn rolled her eyes and sipped her peachy beverage. Nicola Island. How creative.

Speaking of Nicola...

She turned to face a skeleton sitting against a nearby tree. “'Ey. You. Have you seen Nicola anywhere?”

Silence.

“Well, I didn't expect you to, but thanks anyway.”

More silence.

“Can I join ya?” she asked, motioning towards the tree. The skeleton made no objection, so she sat down next to it. “Here, you can have Nicola's drink. Not like she's gonna get it.” Quinn placed Nicola's glass in the skeleton's limp hand and leaned back to drink the last dregs of peach.

The skeleton remained motionless.

Quinn looked at it inquisitively. “What? You don't like cherry-pineapple? ...No? Guess it's mine, then.” And with that, she took the other glass and drank deeply.

Suddenly, Quinn choked on the drink. Red drops flew from the glass in every direction as she pretty much hacked up her right lung. Seriously, she was almost sure she saw it lying on the ground when she was done coughing up a storm. Before long, though, she straightened up and collected the second glass from the ground. The punch was everywhere; some had seeped into the sand, and a few drops were even in her hair, but what concerned her most were the splashes of red on her cutoff shorts and cute little bikini top. “Great,” she muttered. She would need a change of clothes. Her extra clothes were with her other packed belongings at the camp... and with Nicola.

The clothes were in the camp. The camp was with Nicola. And Quinn didn't know where Nicola was.

How could Quinn just lose Nicola? She's got bright orange stripes in her hair, for Christ's sake.

Of course, it wasn't like any of this was Quinn's fault. She had innocently wandered off for a minute or so, and now she couldn't find the camp again. Obviously, this was Nicola's doing. Nicola was always in the camp, and Quinn couldn't find the camp. Therefore, Nicola had somehow unwittingly moved the location of the camp while Quinn was out. It was the only logical conclusion.

...

Yes, the only logical conclusion. Stop giving me that look.

...

Okay, so maybe she messed up a little bit.

[Nicola]

Nicola scooped up more sand and let it filter through her fingers absentmindedly. She liked the soft feel of the grains as they slid smoothly between her pale, stubby digits. The sand probably felt good between other people's toes, too. It was also really small, and there was a lot of it, and each grain was a slightly different color, some of them dark brown and others a light tan. Some of them were sparkly. The sand going through Nicola's fingers was bone dry, but the sand closer to the shoreline was damp.

Thinking about the damp sand made Nicola think of the word moist. She wondered why so many people hated the word moist. That word reminded her of cake. Nicola liked cake. Thinking about cake made her mouth water. Thinking about her mouth watering reminded Nicola of how thirsty she was. Thinking about how thirsty she was reminded Nicola that Quinn had left a while ago to make drinks for the two of them, and thinking about that caused Nicola to wonder where on the island her tall blond cohort could possibly be when the two of them were supposed to be sipping fruity drinks and making battle plans on this neat little map of the two islands that Nicola had drawn in the sand.

She looked proudly at her map and quickly realized that it had been erased by her deft sand-filtering.

"Well, so much for that," Nicola said, pushing herself to her feet and looking around at her island.

Quinn was missing and Nicola had no map. She couldn't very well make battle plans with no advisor and no map, so she decided to rectify the situation straight away by going off in search of Quinn. She figured the camp would be fine left here, seeing as the only other inhabitants of the island were all skeletons, and the weather didn't look to be ready to storm any time soon, so the camp would be safe from the elements. She was also pretty certain that she would be able to find her way back to the camp pretty easily even though Quinn apparently hadn't. It wasn't like Nicola Island had previously been named The Island of No Return or anything that might indicate that Nicola would not be able to return to her camp. Oh wait.

On that sour note, Nicola set off across the sand, following the shallow indentations in the sand that she figured would probably be Quinn's footprints. It wasn't too difficult, as the wind had blown any old footprints from their skeletal pals smooth, making Quinn's prints easy enough to pick out. The stripes in her hair glowing in the sunlight like traffic cones, Nicola skipped across the beach in search of Quinn.

[Jo]

Joshua sighed openly. This meeting was beginning to tick him off - they always threw them together at the times he found most inconvenient. Yesterday, he was chilling on the castle roof. Today, he had finally found the c0cktail bar. Anything with a schedule Josh automatically hated. He thought the idea of forming any kind of war council was abhorrent, but Jessyka had absolutely insisted. It had to be done, she said to him, batting her large eyes in his direction and even wrapping her tail around his ankle in some bright spark of affection. Regrettably it worked.

And where had that gotten him? Now he was sitting at the head of a dark but eerily furnished room, listening to yet another minion pipe up about his wise idea to fill the underground maze full of lions. It was stupid, but of course was met by a wave of enthusiasm and multiple rounds of slapping on the back that brought about so much emotion the minion was almost in tears by the time he sat back down. There had only been one disagreement – and that was from an underling who thought they should fill the maze with spiked elephants instead of lions.

Joshua rubbed his temple with his index and thumb and, with his other hand, drummed his fingers across the polished mahogany top. His discarded tropical swill lay neglected and still within a coconut, lying off to his side somewhere. He almost felt like throwing it at the next minion who suggested any other silly ideas they had neither the time nor resources to undertake; which was certain to be soon. War meetings were meant to resolve issues of conflict, but these guys only seemed to be creating them.

He wished he could leave but he knew Jess wouldn’t be pleased with that. After all, Joshua was only on this council in a mad bid to please her. As long as she was happy, and entertained, she wasn’t constantly seeking his companionship – and the minions that dotted the island were amusement enough for the dopey, cutesy shark. Besides, if Joshua left, the situation would more than certainly diffuse into a civil war.

And that was when somebody had rapped the door. Twice. Joshua didn’t even need to look up to recognize who it was.

"Sir, intelligence reports show that we may be outnumbered as much as three to one... of course, we will see how many can make it through the waters to get to our island." The minion’s voice who had called out this response wavered towards the end. Jess had shot him a wry grin, exposing her pearly sharp daggers for teeth, and so the minion hurriedly made his way back to his seat and pulled his hat so far over his head so that he could hide his embarrassment. Joshua wondered for a second why they did that – it wasn’t as if they could see each-others face anyway.

Jess seemed to stare questioningly into the room, and Josh glanced in her direction. She wanted a report; was war imminant? Were they prepared enough? Could the “games” begin? The minions could tell her. And before she could stop him he was already out of the room and pacing through the castle, out the palace postern, and trailing towards the one place of the island he hadn’t quite explored yet. The jungle.

[Quinn]

“Drinks, Nicola? What drinks?” Quinn asked a nearby shrubbery with exaggerated gestures. She had abandoned the skeleton earlier to wander in search of the camp, and it gave her plenty of time to practice her excuses. “Silly Nicky. I didn't say I was getting drinks.” She giggled a little and shrugged. Unfortunately, the action of shrugging brought forth the empty glasses, which she had been holding behind her back. She casually tossed them behind some scenery before continuing. “I said I was leaving to, um, think! Yeah, that's it.”

The shrubbery looked unimpressed.

Quinn facepalmed, feeling her face grow red with shame. “You're right. She'd never buy it. Uh, gimmie a sec...” She paced around a little, picking the up the discarded glasses before circling back to the shrubbery.

“Oh, right! The drinks! About that. You see, it's kind of a funny story.” The girl grinned sheepishly, toying with a lock of her hair in the picture of ditzy innocence. “You know me, always getting lost and, err, losing things.”

...No, you don't.

Crap.

This was hopeless. Quinn picked her way through the various plants, determined to return to her camp, belongings and best friend. Enough with the stupid stories. She would just explain the whole thing and ask for forgiveness. That is, if Nicola still remembered. After all, that girl was notorious for her absentmindedness, and Quinn had kind of choked on the drink, so karma had already played its part, right? Right? Yeah, sure. Good enough.

It wasn't long before the blonde found a familiar path and re-entered the camp. What had Nicola been doing while she was gone? Quinn remembered a bit of babbling about battle plans against the nearby Pen Island, which, while creative, was far more awkwardly and pitiably named than Nicola Island.

Why were the two islands preparing for battle, anyway? Was it a friendly sport, or did someone seriously tick off someone else? She seriously doubted that Nicola was angry – she hadn't seen Nicola angry in all their twelve years of friendship. But their actions might have somehow angered Jess, or maybe Dan asked them for help in reclaiming the Island of No Return. Whatever the case, Quinn didn't know if they were really ready for a war. The only other people she'd seen on the island were Dan and Nicola, and she hadn't seen Dan in a long, long time. Then again, she was pretty sure Dan had some minions of his own a while back. Where had they gone? Maybe she only ever walked in the uninhabited areas of the island or something.

After noticing how quiet the camp was, Quinn stopped her internal monologue and looked around. Wait a sec, where was Nicola?

Oh, great. This was just... great. She had taken all the trouble of finding the camp again, and Nicola was already gone. She set the empty glasses in the sand beside a really mussed-up drawing that might have once been a tarantula, or perhaps a chair. In the sand were also two sets of footprints winding into the distance. Had Nicky left with a stranger? Perfect. Some creepy minion probably found her. She probably invited him to tea and asked him polite little questions about himself.

Actually, those prints looked a little familiar. She compared her feet to them, and one set was definitely hers. Good, no creepers. The other, smaller prints must have been Nicola's, and they looked like they were following Quinn's older trail.

She didn't know what to do. If she followed Nicola, the two of them would be stuck in an endless loop of looking for each other. On the other hand, if she didn't follow, she would feel like a jerk.

So Quinn took a third option: sprinting.

Something in the corner of her mind shook its head and sighed, knowing this would have embarrassing consequences. But thinking things through wasn't exactly her forte, so she just kept running.

[Dani~]

Daniel was laying on one of the beaches on the outskirts of the now called 'Nicola Island' after being overthrown. He was staring up at the sky thinking of ways to reclaim the land he once had. "Maybe this... No, that wouldn't work. Or how about that idea. Nah, things would go wrong with that." He sighed and continued to look at the clouds pass by.

Moments later, Daniel quickly got up and smirked. "HA! This is the perfect plan! Nothing can go wrong with-" He was cut off by a wave splashing him, leaving him all wet. "Cursed water. When I retake my land back, water will be banned! Banned I say!" With that, he started to walk towards the nearby forest to find minions. Monkey minions.

"Now then, how will I be able to get them to follow me though?" He thought to himself. Daniel looked to one of the trees where he saw a couple of monkies fighting over a banana. "Of course! Bananas! I'll find some bananas to lure them over to where I need them!" He started to climb the easier trees to pick up some of the fruit as he cannot climb too well.

[Jessica]

 Jess had only just got into the room. Josh was already making a mad dash out of the room. Why was he so against this idea? It would be fun. Killing things was fun for humans, right? ...Right?

 She stood awkwardly in the room as the minions gazed at her. Scampily clad shark girl? Taken, but still eye candy. Slaps were quickly doled out before said shark stormed out of the room. Not what she was hoping for. Now she had to find Josh, and get information from the one person on this island that didn't think girls were sex toys. Or, at least didn't think with his ****. Or.. whatever. The only person on this island that looked her in the eye.

 She stopped for a second, just outside the room, and took a long inhale of the scents around the room, and quickly set after Josh's. It was fairly easy to pick out, being the only human to walk the island in god knows how long. Through the castle, and back out the grand doors. Where was he going? Out in the open with no walls to run into, or through, she started into a sprint, but only for about ten seconds before she got bored of it, and already figured out where he was going.

The jungle, of all places. Why???

She could hear his voice already.

"Why the hell not?"

[Nicola]

Nicola, having taken a few shortcuts where Quinn's footsteps took a more circuitous route, came to a tree with a skeleton sitting under it. She gasped at the sight of the skeleton and the red splotches scattered across the sand, which, had she inspected more closely, would have proved to carry the scent of cherry-pineapple flavoring. But Nicola was not one to inspect things more closely, and went immediately to hug the skeleton.

"Quinn!" she shouted, wrapping her arms around the limp skeleton and sobbing loudly. "You were too young to die - I never thought that I would lose you so soon in our lives. It is a tragic day indeed! For today, the world was deprived of not only a good war advisor, but also a good friend."

The skeleton made no move in objection of its alleged identity, so Nicola went on hugging it.

The girl finally relinquished her grip on the skeleton and stood, wiping the tears from her cheeks and setting her jaw in determination.

"I will avenge your death, Quinn! You will not have died in vain, I will--"

Nicola's sentence was cut short by a sudden force barreling into her, sending both her and whatever had crashed into her tumbling down the nearby hill, rolling and rolling for what seemed like forever until Nicola was starting to feel queasy and finally the world stopped spinning in circles. That's when she noticed that the light from the sun was being blocked by lots of leaves and realized that she must have accidentally rolled into the jungle, further into the unexplored depths of the island. Having taken sufficient note of the scenery, it took the absent-minded girl a few more seconds to realize what was on top of her that had knocked her down in the first place.

"Quinn! You're alive!" she exclaimed squeakily, immediately catching her friend in a tight hug.

[Jo]

It only took a brisk jog up the short strip of golden shore ‘fore Joshua drew short of breath. Tiny, immeasurable globules of crystal traced down his furrowing brow, which felt mildly pleasant and cool considering it was just sweat. Choked for breath, he stretched- and stared back at the prints of his own rather destructive path. The sprint from Castle Douchelord had left rather an impression on the landscape; glistening yellow pockmarks were left in his wake leaving Joshua to feel slightly upset at destroying the wet, smooth, even shoreline. The beach wasn’t the only thing that was wet.

He wasn’t just sweating; that wasn’t what had been keeping the boy chill for another unprecedented sunny day. Upon peering skywards, Joshua was spat upon. The sky had been split unevenly; the nice weather was, unfortunately, not overcast here. Even though the horizon above the Isle of No Return was a deep cerulean, the sky above Pen Island was a smear of slowly amassing grays of multiple different shades. The scowl written on the boys inched slowly across his jaw. The weather was matching his worsening mood perfectly.

If he was going to explore the jungle, he was going to have to do it quickly.

With a newly regained vigour, Joshua tore up the water's edge and towards the more tropical section of the island. The faraway palms didn’t look so far away anymore- if palm trees could think, they’d probably notice the faraway kid too. Scores of sultry birds chattered noisily overhead and soared towards their tropical forest fortifications. The jungle itself was mostly a dark green, with pink and browns and yellows sometimes bleeding through the trees.

It wasn’t all too long before he was doubled over by a palm and gasping at the ground again.

[Quinn]

It wasn't until she was lying on the jungle floor that Quinn realized that sprinting blindly towards her friend was a very, very bad idea. "Stupid..." she muttered to herself as she lifted her head.

The jungle was something straight out of a documentary. Birds and insects chirped incessantly in the trees. The air was hot and heavy with water vapor, sunlight beamed through the canopies in little dappled patches and brightly-colored flowers were clumped in every direction. Once again, there was no sign of Nicola.

How did that happen? Quinn could have sworn she had bumped into her cohort earlier, which was what dumped her into the jungle in the first place. They couldn't have been that separated.

As if on cue, whatever she was resting on moved.

"Quinn! You're alive!" Nicola proclaimed, her pitch rising in surprise.

Alive? Of course she was alive. She guessed being alive was definitely something to celebrate... ish? Nicola, on the other hand, seemed very emotional, and Quinn soon found herself being squeezed a little too tightly.

"Yeah. I'm alive," she replied a little breathlessly. "That's great."

She appreciated the hug, but Quinn couldn't help thinking that the whole "living" thing might not last long if she ran out of oxygen.

[Dani~]

Daniel was nearing his collection of bananas for his monkey minions. He had to make sure that he collected enough to get as many as possible to follow him.
"13...14...There! 15 bananas! That should be enough." He breathed in hard. "Wow, that was hard work. But it's not over yet as I need to get the monkeys attention. Ah, I know!" He waved one of the fruit around, hoping that the animals would see.

About 10 minutes of walking around waving a banana in the air, Daniel had noticed that behind him there were a small group of monkeys following him. "Well... This is a good start." He smiled with confidence because his plan was working.

The next step of his plan was to find the evil known as Nicola and Quinn as they were the ones who overthew him and renamed the island. He looked up at the sky while walking in a seemingly random direction. "Hmm... It looks like clouds are starting to form. I better find the others before it starts raining and my minions will flee. But where would they be?"

He started to walk faster and faster trough the jungle as if there were no tomorrow. The monkeys managed to keep up though.

[Nicola]

Nicola let go of her friend when she realized that Quinn wasn't as ecstatic as Nicola that she was alive. Getting out from under Quinn and standing, Nicola looked at the forest surrounding them, searching for the way that they had come so as to get back to their camp. She stood there for a few moments, then turned back to Quinn.

"Yup, we're lost!" she declared cheerfully. "Let's go this way!"

She grabbed Quinn's hand and, against any protests, skipped merrily in a random direction, wondering if it was the right way but also curious as to what they might find if it wasn't. The scenery around them grew stranger and more exotic, many vibrant flowers and peculiar insects thriving in the land around them. It certainly seemed to indicate that the two girls were headed deeper into the jungle, but Nicola was having so much fun seeing all these new things that she hardly cared. Quinn definitely knew this, as Nicola was dutifully pointing out every. Single. Thing. She. Saw.

"Look at that flower, its petals are all upside-down like an umbrella! And look at that frog, it's purple and has eight legs! And that bug, its eyes are inflating like balloons! And look at those mysterious ruins, they've got cool rune thingies all over them! And that tree, it-- oh wait."

The absent-minded girl back-pedaled a few steps to take another, longer look at the ruins, approaching them carefully with Quinn in tow. Surely enough, in that clearing was an impressive, ancient-looking building that was incredibly worn with age and overgrown with mosses and vines and other strange plants from the island's exotic jungle. The parts of the building that were still visible were covered in strange shapes that looked like some sort of code or ancient language, and there was a grand staircase leading up to an impressive entrance into the building. Nicola was fascinated.

"Weird! I didn't really take this as the sort of island to have any cool old buildings like this -- I wonder who built it? Ooh, and there's a big doorway in the front, just waiting for us to go in! Can we explore the ancient ruins, Quinn?" she asked her friend excitedly. "Please, please, please, can we?"

[Jessica]

Trip! Face full of dirt. "Agh! Not what I wanted!" Jess sighed before pulling herself up off the ground, and readjusting her bikini top. She looked down and saw her previously damp body was now covered in sand. "Agh! Definitely not what I wanted!" She muttered under her breath, before looking back towards the jungle. Then back at the water and the comfort of not having sand all over her.

"He can't get too far... I can pwobabwy wash off in time..." Jess sighed and walked quickly to the ocean. The sand between her feet didn't have the same, interesting feel. Now it just felt annoying. All the games and fun stuff she had planned was ruined! "Josh is such a meanie-pants... Hmph!" Her legs carried her towards the water faster now, and she threw any minion that gave her a weird look in the first direction came to mind. Which was all of them.

By the time she had reached the water, there were disgruntled minions in random places and stuck in trees. As soon as the water enveloped her feet, she broke into a sprint before diving into the water, and letting it sooth her anger. Her gills quickly sprang into action and she felt water sliding between the slits in her neck for the first time in what felt like forever. Forever being a couple hours, but time drags when you have the attention span of a five year old.

She put her legs into action, and she propelled herself quickly through the water towards the river that led towards the jungle. She felt started to feel the currents of the river pick her up, and she relaxed her legs and let it carry her. After about twenty seconds, she got bored of doing nothing, and flicked over to the shore and surfaced. She climbed onto the back, making sure not to dirty herself again.

After straightening herself out, and stretching needlessly, she drank deeply from the air, letting the scents of the jungle waft into her mouth like tentacles.

Mmm... Octopus.... She absent mindedly thought to herself. Her stomach started to growl. Another distraction she didn't need, and had she been paying attention she might have picked up on the faint odour of tea and scones, a definite sign of her missing, British friend. However, the delicious, salivating taste of octopus danced on her tongue, not the faint, fanciful taste of  the stereotypical British tea and scones. The best tea and scones. Oh no, not them.

Octopus. But there were none around to sate her hunger. She'd have to have something less conventional. She opened her mouth again to detect the scent of prey. Nothing in particular, anything really.

Well, anything with meat and blood...

[Quinn]

Without explaining any of her earlier theatrics, Nicola merrily reported that the two were lost, without much hope of getting back to the camp. Eager to explore, she took hold of Quinn's hand and started skipping. Quinn was very unhappy with this decision – they didn't know where they were going, she was quite sure that she could follow without the whole hand-holding thing, and being dragged around made it harder to avoid any trees in her way. And, this being a jungle, there were lots and lots of trees for her to crash into.

“Nicola.”

The only reply was cheerful humming.

Quinn stumbled over a root and dodged some low-hanging branches before trying again. “Nicky? Ni-coooo-laaaaaaa... Hey! Look at me when I'm talking to you!”

Nicola appeared to take no notice of her friend, instead focusing on their surroundings. And, as she had a knack for pointing out the painfully obvious, she began to avidly tell Quinn about everything in sight. “Look at that flower,” she said, pointing to a cluster of pink blossoms Quinn had noticed earlier, “its petals are all upside-down like an umbrella!”

“Mm-hm, yeah. Very nice.”

“And look at that frog, it's purple and has eight legs!”

“It what?” Quinn asked in alarm. No frog on Earth should ever, ever have eight legs. But she couldn't see it anywhere, so maybe Nicola had made it up.

“And that bug, its eyes are inflating like balloons!”

Now, that one she actually saw. Quinn was mildly disgusted and absolutely sure that they were going the wrong way. Nicola, completely unperturbed, went on to babble about the totally normal rune-covered ruins that they were walking past. Quinn tugged on her cohort's hand, and the two walked back to take a closer look at these ruins.

Quinn took an immediate liking to the crumbling building. The architecture was simply picturesque. Its structures were delicate, almost fairy-like, which must have been quite a feat considering it was made of stone and was probably hundreds of years old. Big, fancy runes were carved into every facet; both awe-inspiring and simply delightful. A pity about all of the plants, though. Sure, they were pretty, but Quinn wanted to see it all.

Nicola was staring up the unnecessarily large, inviting stairs and was already mid-rant by the time Quinn tuned back in to the conversation.

“– just waiting for us to go in! Can we explore the ancient ruins, Quinn? Please, please, please, can we?” She was evidently resisting the urge to jump up and down like a child in a candy store.

Quinn took this moment to reflect. They were on a supposedly uninhabited island formerly known as the Island of No Return, wherein they set camp, got lost, saw a bunch of unnatural little life-forms and finally stumbled upon some kind of ancient ruins covered in an unknown language. Sounded kind of like a movie. That could only mean that they would do something stupid and doom humanity.

She shrugged off this thought with ease. There was no way that could happen. Movies were fiction, duh.

Nicola was still staring at her with those large puppy-dog eyes.

“Let's go!” Quinn replied, taking a few steps up the stairs. “There's no way I'd pass this up.”

[Jo]

The fact that Joshua had been tapped on the shoulder, subsequently making him jump, was the first of two odd things to happen in a manner of moments. He clawed at his back as he felt a stubby index jab him. Jess? No, she was back at the castle, to his knowledge. So who could it be?

Still panting hard, Joshua turned around to greet his disturber. It wasn’t quite what he was expecting. It was barely reaching four foot of the ground, and this was due to the bright orange hat it wore that made it look like a traffic cone. Joshua suspected it to be a minion. Tight blue robes clung to every inch of the underling’s skin, either dripping with sweat or rainwater.

Joshua stared at his new accomplice for a while, with a quizzical expression. As if questioned, the minion returned the gaze with its own. It seemed to register Joshua from some place at some time; its yellow eyes darted across the boys face in recollection. It looked like two flashlights had been installed into the back of the minion’s skull. Except for the piercing yellow gaze, Joshua couldn’t make out any features of the minion’s face.

The next thing to happen was the second thing to catch Joshua off-guard.

Leap. Without much noise at all, and very little warning, a large, slobbering, toothy sabre cat dove in between Joshua and the minion. Growl. The minion backed off, reaching into its satchel, whilst Joshua found himself staring into the eyes of a beast. Howl. More cats hurdled through the undergrowth, surrounding Joshua in a matter of seconds.

“Run, you idiot.” The boy cursed, out of fear more than anything. There was a small chance the minion could escape, but no time at all for Joshua to even think about running, and he was certain his chances against a pack of wild cats proved to not be in his favour.

Nothing could’ve prepared him for the third thing to happen.