"Sparklez so owes us after this, right?" Tom whined, dragging his feet as they headed back to the shore.

"No Tom, Sparklez owes us." Tucker gestured to himself and Sonja who was following closely behind him lugging several gold bars.

"Oh yeah!" Tom grinned, perking up immediately.

"You could at least help to carry them." Sonja groaned as she attempted to adjust the gold laden bag to a more comfortable position across her shoulder, blowing her dark hair out of her eyes as she did so.

Tom pretended to consider her words for a moment before laughing and skipping ahead.

Tucker and Sonja followed him begrudgingly.

~~~~~~~

"It's getting dark out." Sonja commented, looking up.

"He'll be fine." Tucker reassured.

Sonja looked up at him, slightly offended.

"I know that! I meant that this endeavour is going to cost me sleep." She frowned.

Tucker chuckled.

"True, he can't pay us back for that."

For a moment, there was silence as they continued walking forward.

"So uh, does Jordan even have any gold?"

"...we're never getting this back, are we?"

"Man." Tucker groaned. "Why do we have to be nice."

"Maybe we can force him to be our slave til he pays it off."

"He'd be working for life." Tucker chuckled.

"Hey, we've got quite a long life ahead of us anyways."

"True. Near immortality has its shortcomings."

"Though," Sonja's voice became softer. "It's been different...with Jordan around, I mean. It's been...nicer."

"Kinda, yeah. It defenitely became a little livelier, I guess. I mean, sh*t hit the fan aftet he arrived."

"That's what I find weird." Sonja interjected. "Since so much sh*t has gone down, why haven't we been sent on any assignments? Don't get me wrong, I like the break and all, but...it's worrying."

Tucker looked down at his girlfriend somberly.

"I-"

"Guys!"

Sonja and Tucker both froze at Tom's whispered shout from ahead. Glancing at each other, they hurried forward as silently as possible until they spotted him crouched behind a large hedge, looking over it at something.

Tom turned and upon noticing them, nodded his head towards the other side of the shrubbery.

Sonja raised her head, feeling Tucker do the same next to her. For a moment, neither understood what they were seeing, then umderstanding dawned on them unanimously.

Tucker let loose a sigh of relief as he felt Sonja squeeze his hand tightly.

"It seems they underestimated our little damsel." Tom grinned.
~~~~~

Jordan's legs were beginning to ache as he continued forward, the flames above him that had once flickered encouragingly down at him, seemed now to mock him.

He had begun to notice that once he got far enough away from one, they flickered out. He had tried turning around at one point, but the darkness behind him was total, and he thus found himself unable to do anything but surrender to the path the lights would have him follow.

He had also begun to have the uneasy feeling of something watching him. He knew it was probably just his nerves speaking, but he couldn't shake the feeling. However, as aforementioned....it was dark.

He rubbed his cheek ruefully, the sting was gone, but the area still felt heated. That one was going to bruise too.

He couldn't believe she had hit him! However, it still raised the question of how much she knew. She had obviously been offended by Jordan's non use of honorifics, so did that mean that there were still followers out there?

Jordan shook his head. Why would a follower of Ianite be so freaking violent? It didn't make sense. He was pretty positive that Capsize was just going to kill him rather than trade him off anyways. And besides, after the way he was treated, he wouldn't want her as a teammate anyway.

Jordan nearly shrieked when a loud noise interrupted his thoughts. However, his terror was quickly replaced with relief as he recognized the annoying sound.

He had forgotten about the chat!

Quickly, he swiped his hand to open the board and accepted the call.

"Tucker? That you?"

Jordan's ears were immediately bombarded with sound.

"Jordan! Where are you?"

"Dude, is that him?! Sick escape skills, Sparklez!"

"I was so close to getting a slave..."

Jordan grinned in relief.

"Well I've been following these lights..."

"What?"

"Yeah, there are these cool little flame orbs-"

"Have you gone mad?"

Jordan flinched as Tom's voice cut through his sentence.

"I uh..."

"Look, you're lost aren't you?" Tucker interrupted.

Jordan didn't reply, his silence answering the question for him.

A sigh echoed over the call.

"Alright, Jordan. There should be coordinates in the top right corner. Just read those off and stay put."

"Are we just going to ignore what he said?"

"Tom." Tucker's voice warned.

"Are they supposed to all be zeroes?"

For a minute, there was no reply.

"Well sh*t."

And with that, the call cut out, and Jordan was once again met with eerie silence.

Frantically, he tried calling Tucker back, but the whole hub filled with static. Disheartened, he closed the screen.

"Nothing to do but go forward, I guess." He murmured, once again opting to move ahead, the growing bruise on his side aching with each step.

"That looks mighty painful, don't it, Phil?"

Jordan's head snapped up at the voice.

"Aw look, you scared him, Tom."

"Oh, ...sorry 'bout that."

"Who are you?" Jordan spun, head whipping around frantically in search of the voices.

"Who am I?" The first voice asked.

"Or who am I?"

"I..." Jordan stammerer.

"What about me?" A chipper third voice chimed in.

"Well..."

"I feel left out." A fourth, deeper voicr added sadly.

The voices seemed to be coming from right in front of him, but there was no one there.

"Why can't I see you? Where are you?" Jordan asked, trying to keep the fear from his voice.

"We're right in front of yo-...ooooohhh we didn't turn it off, did we?"

"You mean you didn't turn it off."

"Hey! He can't see you either!"

"...so?"

"So that means you-"

Suddenly a figure popped into existence in front of Jordan, lighting the entire area up. Despite himself, he let out a small, girly yelp.

The figure reminded him of a humanoid volcano. His body was plated in tan, rocky armor that glowed with heat, molten light poring from every crack and opening. It looked inpossibly heavy, however, the figure moved about with ease.

"There! I did it!" The figure announced happily.

Without warning, two more figures appeared on either side of him.

The one to his left was covered from head to toe in dark blue robes bordered in an almost luminescent aqua blue, his eyes glowing from beneath his robes were of the same color, vivid against his skin, which was pitch black. The one to the right seemed the most normal of the group, looking for all the world like something from a steampunker's dream with large, red lensed goggles bordered in bronze. The rest of his face, excluding his mouth, was covered in a leather mask. A forest green shirt was tucked beneath a leather vest covered in an assortment of tools. A pick was hanging from a red sash around his waist and black trousers were partially covered by thick, leather boots.

And the fourth...

Jordan felt a hand cover his mouth.

"Don't mind the appearances." The voice whipsered. "We're not here to hurt you. Nod if you understand."

Jordan nodded quickly, swallowing down his fear as the hand released him. Jordan spun his head, however, there was no longer anyone behind him. He turned back to find the figure floating in front of him instead.

Ths figure was nearly completely covered by a tattered, charcoal cloak bordered in dark, crimson red that ran down the length of his body, making him ghostlike as the long tatters did little to hide the fact that the figure seemed not to have legs. The only part of his body that was visible was his face, and even cast in the hood's shadow, Jordan could see that the skin was flat and black with crimson trails like tear streaks running down from where eyes should have been.

"My apologies for my...friends. It has been a while since we've seen a new face." The fourth figure tilted its head apologetically.

"Wh-who are you?" Jordan couldn't keep the stutter from his voice.

"Sir Waglington, at your service." The figure bowed. The others, as if spurred on by his statement rushed forward.

"And I'm Phil!" The steampunk added happily.

"Tom." The blue cloaked figure waved.

"And I'm Matt!" The volcano man extended his hand.

Jordan looked hesitantly at the hand, the air shivering at the heat.

"Ehm. Matt?" Tom nudged the flaming man gently.

"Hmm? Oh!" Matt looked down at his hand before withdrawing it quickly. "Sorry 'bout that."

"No problem." Jordan smiled in what he hoped seemed reassuring, but came out more like a nervous twitch.

Ignoring the previously awkward moment, Matt jumped up, spreading his arms excitedly, causing the flames along his body to flare up, lighting up the area in a blaze of light.

"And we're the wizards!"

A/N

Yo!

I didn't end it horribly!

...

For once ;P

So I was going to do the taggy thing, but I couldn't figure out how to tag people I wasn't following.

Sooooooo

That didn't happen.

I got out of school today because it was supposed to ice.

AND IT DIDN'T.

SO I GOT OUT FOR NO REASON! HAH!

So you get this chapter on my dumb my school!

Ciao!

~TuRtLe