I smiled and dove into the water after Roxie. I liked how energetic she can be, but yet be so shy too. 

I felt the cold water flow though my gills. It felt really good since the Lonesome Flats area was very dry.

I looked over at Roxie, who was swimming around in the water. Her yellow and hot pink hair flowed behind her as she continued to swim. She looked back at me with sparkling teal eyes and smiled.

I smiled back at her. 

The two of us swam for a bit and decided we should get some rest, it was night. We did have a really long day after all. 

We swam around a bit to find some big enough rocks that we could rest on. They were kind of hard, but it would have to do.

I lied down on the rough surface and tried to get comfortable. I tossed and turned, not being able to fall asleep.

I looked over on my left side to see Roxie sleeping on another rock. She was facing the other way, but I could see she was also having a hard time falling asleep. 

I smiled at a thought and got up. 

I swam over to her bed and laid down next to her. Immediately she turned over and hugged my chest. I was a bit shocked from how quickly she reacted, but I pulled her closer and wrapped fins around her, allowing me to pull her in closer. 

She smiled when I placed my hands lightly on her back, which made me smile too. I closed my eyes and soon enough was in a deep slumber.

The next morning, I was the first to wake up. I flickered my eyes open and looked down at Roxie, who had her face snuggled against my chest and she was still wrapped in my fins. 

I closed my eyes again, loving the feeling.

I opened my eyes again once I felt Roxie's eyes blinking open. 

She back away from my chest and blushed a bit. "Good morning." I said, giggling a bit at her reaction of waking up in my arms. 

"Goo-good morning." She said, stumbling on her words, still in shock of the position we were in.

I decided to hug her closer, so she knew it was okay. She smiled slightly, still blushing, and hugged me closer too.

We sat like this for a minute or so, but the I decided to break the silence. "We should get a move on if we want to get to Vibe City." Roxie sat up and nodded.

The two of us got up and turned the opposite ways. I started to blush a little, but it was light enough that you couldn't notice it.

Roxie grabbed the bag she brought and we were off...again.

We swam up to the surface as Roxie got the map that Trollzart gave us. "I think it's just at the right of this river." She said. We both turned our heads, hoping to see something other than sand. 

No luck.

We both got out of the water and started to walk on our fins. "That's odd..." Roxie said as I peeked at the map. "It looks like they live right around here..." 

Just then I noticed multi colored lights hitting the ground. I looked up and my ears went down. "Um, Roxie..." I said, nudging her.

She looked up from the map to me, then once she noticed I was looking up, she looked up too.

I looked down at the map, then back up quickly. "They live in a UFO!?" I said in questioning shock.

But I couldn't get a response, because a clear bubble appears around me. Roxie was also in a separate one that lifted the two of us off the ground. 

"Wha-what's going on!?" I screamed, hoping she could hear me still. She just shrugged as her ears when down too. She wrapped her arms around her body and looked up to where we were going.

I decided to look up as well. I was in shock to figure out we were heading right toward the UFO.

Oh no... I thought.

The bottom of the UFO opened up, swallowing the two of us whole. 

I closed my eyes, thinking it would be worse than it actually was. I slowly blinked, noticing us going through a narrow pipe. 

I opened my eyes more to notice all the stuff around the spaceship. There were hundreds to thousands of funk trolls walking around. Some standing on two, some on all fours. 

I heard a quick whoosh sound go over us. My instincts made me look up to see a hovering disk. Once it passed, I noticed it had a few funk trolls on it. 

I gasped in awe. I turned back around and saw Roxie. She had her hands pressed against the bubble, looking out in awe as well.

I smiled as she released a light lavender glow. But then I saw her look up and her ears dropped down again.

I looked up to see another opening we were heading to. I took a deep breath and braced for what was coming. 

There was a bright flash, then we were in a different room. This room had golden walls with golden bubbles. There was a purple transparent floor that was surrounded by golden grass-like flooring.

We lightly were set down on golden bubbles as our bubbles popped. We looked at each other and giggled a bit.

But the the two of us fell silent when we heard footsteps heading towards us. We quickly turned our heads towards the noise, then at each other.

"I bet that's them." Roxie whispered into my ear.

Two trolls walked into the room. One had light blue skin, royal blue hair, and silver and gold streamer that covered her body. The other had light purple skin with magenta fur, purple and pink dreadlocks, and a golden cape wrapped around his golden tinseled body.

The two walked over to us. I looked up at them, which made my ears go down a bit. I was a pretty tall troll, my parents always told me I was super tall. I was taller than everyone else in the reef, even than some of the adults. 

I was a good 3 to 4 inches taller than Roxie, but compared to the funk leaders, they were 7 inches taller than me.

"Hey you two!" The light blue troll said in a cheerful voice as she brought her head down to our level. "I'm Queen Essence, but you can call me Essence, and this is my husband, Quincy. What brings you two to Vibe City?"

"Um we, uh, came to warn you...a-about Queen Barb..." I managed to spill out. 

Quincy came up from behind Essence. "What are you talking about...?" He said confused.

"Queen Barb is coming to take your string." Roxie said. She seemed okay with all thing, even though they were maybe a foot taller than her. 

"What!?" The funky couple yelled. 

I jumped up a little at their booming voices. I guess Essence noticed. "I...I'm sorry if we scared you..."

"N-no, it's fine, i-it just startled me." I said after I recovered a second later.

"Hey! Mom, pops, what's going on? Is everything okay?" 

I turned my head to see a pink funk troll with blue dreadlocks with gold rings orbiting some of the strands.

"We...don't know." Essence said, turning to the pink funk troll. "Um, this is my son, Darnell."

"Mom! You know I go by D now." D said rolling his eyes in a playful way at his mom.

This made everyone laugh, but I just couldn't...it...reminded me too much of my parents. Roxie noticed and placed her hand on my shoulder. I smiled a bit.

"Okay, D!" She said, emphasizing his nickname. "This is King Trollex and...what's your name?"

"Oh, I'm sorry for not introducing myself, I'm Roxie." Roxie said quickly.

"Oh, no worries. This is King Trollex and Roxie, D" Essence concluded.

"You can just called me Trollex." I said.

"Well, nice, welcome to Vibe City." D said before turning to his parents. "But I heard you two yelling, whazzup?"

Essence looked at me and Roxie, then Quincy, and said to him. "They said Barb's coming to take our string."

"What!?" He turned to us. "Are you for real?"

Like Delta, they all thought it was a whole prank.

The family looked very shocked when they realized. "You...aren't joking...are you...?" Quincy asked.

I put my hand on my heart as we both nodded. 

"Are we the first?" Essence asked.

"No...ours was." Roxie started to say. "She...took our string first..."

It did make sense though. I was the youngest, and weakest...

I still had strength in me, even though the string was far way, but oddly enough, I was getting less weak.

That's when it hit me.

"Wait!" I yelled, making the four of them turn to me. "They're almost here!"