Young Writers Society

"Do I really have to make my point again?" Queenie huffed a frustrated sigh, "Here, let me make this as clear as possible, the gods danmed reaper doesn't matter. Who any of you are doesn't matter. Right now, we're all just stuck in good 'ol NYC with no idea why or how to get back where we belong, so if we could stop talking about all the other wacked-up BS that's going on here and focus on getting home that would be wonderful, thank you."

She was surprised to discover she hadn't grabbed her gun for emphasis. If she were talking to anyone else, she might have fired a shot, just to make sure they were paying attention, but she hadn't. Even a split second of considering why gave her the undeniable, but still rather annoying truth that she was afraid. Afraid of the reaper, of whatever brought her here, of the others, of everything.

She counted her weapons again, trying to calm herself down. Her heartbeat eventually stopped beating against her ribcage, and she glared at the group.

Lunis lowered his dagger ever so slightly. His face twitched as he looked at Queenie, but Taber realized it wasn't exactly anger. "But, it's important," Lunis said, lip twitching as his voice confirmed to Taber that the panther was embarrassed. Which was strange. Lunis never had any shame; it was one of the things that Taber always associated with the panther.

It almost Taber forget about tugging on Grim's robes and whispering to him, "Sorry about saying you're dead, I never got a hang of the whole ghost thing."

"It's alright," Grim said, but Ryder could hear that he was distracted - his gaze wasn't focused on Taber. It was focused on Queenie, and Ryder wished he could see what was going on underneath that hood.

The grim reaper shifted uncomfortably.

And that was when Ryder put two-and-two together.

"You know why we're here," he said. It wasn't exactly an accusation, but he knew he had finally figured it out. "Kirux brought us here because he knew you would know how to bring us back. Isn't that right?"

Kirux looked up at Grim.

Grim gave a little nod.

"Yeah," he said, his voice surprisingly small for someone so big, "I think I do."

Lunis raised the dagger back up, inching towards the skeleton (while the hound started sneaking over to him; Taber guessed that Kendrik was getting a little tired of Lunis playing with knives). "Well?" Lunis growled. "Why are we here? Why haven't you brought us back yet?"

Queenie glared at Lunis, "Do you really think that knife is helping?" she asked, only half rhetorically, and turned back to the reaper, looking him over carefully. She didn't know if the rules of body language applied to 'gods', but she suspected a reason behind his silence on the topic. For once, she decided to stay silent, to let things play out. She might as well see if her sister's signature move actually worked, or if 'The Reaper of Kroy' was just incredibly lucky, or just incredibly good with those knives of hers.

"I...I didn't mean to bring you here," Grim quietly said. "It was a mistake."

When no one said anything following his comment, he took what sounded suspiciously like a deep breath - could skeletons even breath? - and said, "I tried using a spell that would bring me from one place to another, but I ended up here instead. And I guess it brought you along, too."

"You don't know how to get back, do you?" Ryder guessed.

Grim hesitated, then gave a slow nod.

Queenie's lips twitched into a smile, meanwhile, murder filled her eyes.

"You mean," she said, deadly calm, "I'm stuck here, with no way of getting back, because you decided that a little bit of travel time was too much for you?"

Her shoulders shook with a soft laugh that grew slowly in volume as she thought about her situation. She was stuck in New York City, with a bunch of anthropomorphic beings from gods-knew where, the leader of a resistance -also from another world- and the grimm-gods-danmed-reaper.

Maybe she was still suffering from blood loss, but something about that was absolutely hysterical to her.

Her laughter cut off abruptly as she drew her gun, lining up a shot with the reaper's head.

"So, you're saying I have every reason to pull the trigger right now?" she asked calmly.

Kirux looked horrified behind Grim, and Ryder thought that Queenie was definitely taking things too far. But all that Grim did was stare down at her, eyeing the gun with what - on the face of a skeleton - looked like a lack of fear.

"...That won't do anything," Grim awkwardly said. "I, er, can't die..."

Kirux suddenly rushed out from behind Grim, taking a step in front of him as what almost looked like a weird hybrid between a key and a blade appeared in one hand.

He frantically signed something to Grim.

"Kirux, don't get in the way - she could hurt-" Grim paused. "You know how to get us back home?'

Kirux gave a hesitant nod, then turned back to Queenie and signed something to her.

Queenie didn't lower her gun, didn't change her expression, and didn't pull the trigger.

"You heard him, he'll live," she said, calmly, "Plus, I think putting a bullet in the reaper's skull might just make me feel a little better right now. And since I'm not exactly inclined to believe that you've had a way out this whole time that you haven't been using, I'm beginning to feel like I don't actually need any of you."

"It would still hurt him!" Kirux signed. He was really, really scared, but it was his duty as a keyblade wielder - and as Grim's friend - to protect him. He raised the keyblade into a more protective position, and backed up so he was right in front of Grim. "And I'm really telling the truth! I can make corridors of darkness."

"Those can go to other worlds?" Grim asked.

Kirux frantically nodded. "Uh-huh! I get tired after making them, and I made one really recently to get Taber's friend here, but I can go between worlds. It's how I look for Riku."

The boy with the eyes like his took a step forward, reaching out a hand with no fear and pushing the barrel of the gun down. "I don't know what's be said right now," he admitted, "but you're not going to be shooting anyone here."

She resisted for a second, then let the gun drop to her side. She glared, "What makes you think that's up to you?" she growled. If she wasn't going to shoot anyone before -which was up for debate- she definitely wanted to now. Just to prove a point.

She thought about Kirux's offer, mulling it over. He hadn't mentioned this power of his before, not even to the members of the group he definitely liked more than her. She didn't trust anyone who hid their cards like that. There was an undeniable chance that he could drop her off anywhere at all and leave her stranded.

She looked him over again.

He didn't seem the type to do that, but then, Briar didn't look the type to force a long and painful death upon someone out of spite, but they were still finding pieces of her last victim scattered throughout the city.

Well, the giant skeleton just admitted that he'd brought everyone to the city by mistake, Queenie had pulled out some kind of weird gun, Kirux had pulled out some kind of weird sword, and Ryder had talked Queenie down. Between the sign language, the threats, and the portals, Kendrik had absolutely no idea what was going on. But it made it a lot easier to sneak up on Lunis.

Smacking Lunis on the head, Kendrik reached out for and snatched Lunis's dagger when the panther turned around. Immediately pulling out his other dagger, Lunis snarled as he and Kendrik glared at each other.

"Hey, don't fight!" came Taber's trembling voice from behind Grim. "We need to work together!"

"Exactly what Taber just said," Ryder replied. His gaze never wavered - he didn't let it. Part of him, just for the quickest of seconds, wished he could be looking at her with his actual eyes, but he brushed away the thought as soon as it came. That would be giving in to what everyone thought of him, and Queenie's fear wasn't a good thing.

He could see it now, to some extent. She may have been getting irritated, but her actions were primarily driven by fear of the unknown.

"There's nothing saying I have to be a leader right now," Ryder said, keeping his voice solemn and strong. "But I won't allow people to be threatened here, especially when we need to be working together. Grim hasn't done anything to harm us, and neither has Kirux. The only thing that Grim has done was make a mistake, and I know we all have them."

"It's not like this idiot knows how to use a knife," Lunis said, taking a step forward.

Kendrik did the same, raising his knife and shifting into a fighting stance. "Show me," he said.

Well, it didn't look like they were going to walk away peacefully. Taber grabbed Grim's robes. "Can you please stop them?" he whispered.