Young Writers Society

In spite of the growing rumbling, Lunis found himself clamping a hand over his mouth and trying to stifle a laugh as Pride pulled himself onto Apophis's shoulder. Even more so when Kellach squeezed his way through the group to get to Aegeas.

"Why don't you carry me?" Kellach said, resting a head on Aegeas's shoulder.

"Don't-" Aegeas said, but Kellach had already grabbed onto Aegeas's shoulders and was hauling himself up.

Aegeas leaned forward, groaning. By some miracle, he was able to keep himself steady, but awkwardly stumbled along.

"Thanks," Aegeas grumbled.

Kellach set his head over Aegeas's. "You're welcome."

Kaito slowly turned and glanced down at Aquarius.

The demigod faltered when he noticed the attention, a blush quickly spreading across his face when he realized what Kaito was suggesting. "You're barely taller than me," he whispered. "And I can walk fine on my own."

"But I'm big and strong, Aquarius," Kaito whispered back. "I'm going to be like this for so long. We have to make it count!"

Aquarius stared down at the ground. "I don't think you could put me on your shoulders without me hitting the ceiling," he weakly protested.

"Then I'll carry you on my back!" his chosen enthusiastically exclaimed, his voice growing noticeably louder than before. If they hadn't all been able to hear the conversation before, they could surely hear it now. "Can I please carry you, Aquarius? Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

When he glanced back up - face still flushed - he saw Kaito giving him his signature begging look. Aquarius lost all of his determination the moment their eyes met; Kaito had won the moment he decided to use that tactic.

"...Okay," he consented.

Kaito gave a triumphant cheer and promptly bent down in front of Aquarius, helping the demigod onto his back before cheerfully marching up the front of the group.

It wasn't long before Aegeas walked into what looked like a storage room. Aside from a few boxes stashed against a corner, the dark space was almost completely empty. He wasn't a fan of the knobs and bolts on the metal walls, or that the door that led into the room had been slightly ajar. But the lack of windows made it look secure enough.

As Aegeas hauled Kellach into the room, it became increasingly obvious that Kellach wasn't about to get off anytime soon. And, with the rumbling now definitely in a human's hearing range, time was of the essence. After a few seconds, a plan wormed its way into Aegeas's mind - the river otter smirked as he leaned forward, grabbed Kellach by the arms, and threw Kellach over his head.

Unfortunately, Aegeas overestimated how much force it would take, and how imbalanced he was, so he found himself crashing onto Kellach a few seconds later.

Rolling off the other otter, Aegeas quickly pulled himself up, coughed a few times, and looked everywhere else in the room. Lunis arrived a few seconds later, set Mal down on the floor. The panther gave both otters an odd glance, but said nothing.

"We'd better get those boxes out," Aegeas said, pointing to the boxes in question. "Who's willing to help?"

When they arrived in the room, both Kaito and Apophis put down the people they were carrying. All present quickly agreed to help move the boxes. Some were able to do it faster and more efficiently than others. Ari and Zion just moved one box after the other, neither strong enough to carry more than one at a time. Apophis lifted up groups of boxes with tendrils of darkness, and Kaito and Aquarius followed suit with strands of highly concentrated water.

Pride was the last one to join in on the efforts; he had watched the group for a minute or two before his true form began to appear underneath him and do the same as the last three had done. Tendrils of darkness with little staring eyes picked up box after box, transporting them from the room to the hall outside.

All that magic seemed a bit overkill for a pile of boxes, but at least they were all out of the room quickly enough. Lunis didn't like that they were so close to the door - the last thing he wanted was to have one of the walls cave in while the ship got tossed around - yet they were running out of time. The hallway grew darker by the second, and particles of sand had already started to settle on the floor.

Slamming the door shut, Lunis looked back at the others. "Are we ready?" he said.

Kaito and Aquarius exchanged a look. After the first of the two took a deep breath and the second closed his eyes, water began to coat the surface of the room. It didn't take long, but Zion still felt a pang of worry as they noticed how dark the ship was becoming.

Then the water had run its course, and the walls were sufficiently cushioned.

"We're ready," Kaito confidently said.

"I'm guessing we should probably sit down," Apophis suddenly suggested. He sat down in the corner of the room. "So we're not swept off of our feet if this ship starts moving."

Ari, Zion, Pride, Aquarius and Kaito all followed suit. Zion instinctively sat closer to Ari, wanting to shield their host if anything regarding the plan went sour. Aquarius and Kaito seemed to have the same train of thought. Pride tried to sit on his own in the center of the room, but Apophis wasted no time in bringing the now struggling homunculus over to the corner he was in.

When water started pouring through the room, Lunis grabbed Mal and moved over to one of the corners. He didn't want Mal to drown - he could still be useful. Besides, as dark as the room was getting, it'd be too easy to trip over the lion.

Squeezing into the corner, Lunis tried to ignore the feeling of water rushing along his back and legs, or that chills that seeped into his bones. As he felt Aegeas and Kellach scooting closer, squeezing him into the wall, he tried to growl at them to stop, but all that came out was sort of a broken hiss.

And then the rumbling began.

The moment the rumbling began, Kaito and Aquarius instinctively clung to each other. It didn't matter that they had coated the walls with water to protect themselves, and done everything else that they could to ensure that they would be safe. The noise was terrifying when they couldn't see the source, and Kaito could only hope that things would turn out alright.

For a minute, Lunis thought everything would be fine. The room trembled, and the otters pinning him to the wall didn't help, but somehow the ship was holding up.

Then he heard a snapping noise in the distance, and a pit settled in his stomach.

The room began to tilt at an angle. Aegeas pulled Kellach out of the way as Lunis slammed into the wall to the right. As the water started to shake and drag itself in their direction, the otters yelled something at Lunis. It took a few seconds for the panther to realize that Mal was face-first in the water. He quickly tossed the lion in their direction.

Just in time for the room to flip upside down.

Lunis threw his arms out as he plummeted to the floor. He'd just have to time the landing, and then hopefully use his climbing skills to -



"Get up, moron."

The panther blinked his eyes open, seeing a paw tap against his face. He looked up to see Mal glaring down at him.

"You've been out for a while," Mal said. "Makes sense, since you poisoned your dumb a**."

"What are you ta-" Lunis began, before seeing the gaping hole in the wall in front of him. That explained why the floor felt so hot.

Mal glanced back. "Everyone's fine," he said. "I checked. Dunno if they're awake, but I think the water did a good job. Good thing it lasted enough for me to get those stains off your pants. Why do you even keep that stuff around?"

It was about then that Lunis realized he wasn't wearing anything. "I hate you," Lunis growled.

"We've established that," Mal said, throwing Lunis's pants at his face. "Get dressed."

When Kaito woke up, it was to the feeling of a pounding headache. He tried to sit up, but then he let out a groan and promptly fell back onto his back. Everything hurt. Even though the water must have done some job cushioning things, it must not have protected him from the full extent of the jostling.

He heard someone give a similar groan from beside him, and realized that Aquarius was curled up into his side. He shook the demigod gently, not wanting to scare him by rousing him abruptly. After a few moments passed, his eyes finally fluttered open, and he tried getting up with the same lack of success. "Li-" Aquarius started to say, only to hurriedly shut his mouth when he saw the look of horror on Kaito's face. "Kaito, are you okay?"

"Besides everything hurting, yeah." He cast a quick glance over at the other side of him. Apophis had just gotten back to his feet, and Zion was helping Ari to hers. That left Pride - he was in the middle of covering his eyes with a hand.

"What's wrong?" Kaito asked. He frantically sat up, Aquarius sitting up beside him and leaning against his side as Kaito stared at the homunculus.

"Lunis isn't wearing any clothes."

Kaito's eyes betrayed him as they traveled over to Lunis. A startled yelp left his lips, and he instinctively covered Aquarius's eyes with his hand to prevent the demigod from seeing as well.

Mal saw a black blur run through the room and leap out of the hole. He internally shrugged. Would Lunis be mad at him? Probably. Would Lunis try to get revenge? Probably. Could Lunis have died otherwise? Absolutely. That panther had no idea what safety was.

But that was something to worry about later. Mal headed over to the otters, who were starting to pull themselves off the ground.

"Are you alright?" he said, reaching a paw out to Aegeas, who was now leaning against the wall.

"Yeah," Aegeas said, taking in a few deep breaths and wincing. He rested the side of his head against the metal, arms limp and at his sides. "Must've hit my head against something."

Kellach pressed a paw against the back of his own head. "Same," he said after flinching. "I'm not sure it was the walls, either. It felt kind of...fuzzy?"

The otters slowly looked at each other. Mal wanted to come up with some kind of comment, but he decided it'd be better to not make any more enemies.

"And are the rest of you okay?" he said, turning around. He tapped his staff against his shoulder. "I can heal anyone who isn't."

"Can you heal people even if it's not a broken bone or a bloody cut?" Kaito asked from his spot on the floor, turning his head so he could get a good look at Mal. "I think I'm just a little sore from being thrown around, but it would be nice not to feel so in pain."

There were murmurs of agreement from around the room.

"It'd be a little stupid if I could fix bones but not take care of bruises or sprained muscles," Mal said. He walked over to Kaito, crouching down and tapping Kaito's shoulder with the staff. "Anywhere specific that it hurts, or just everywhere?"

"Everywhere," Kaito miserably said, flinching when the staff touched his shoulder. He couldn't tell if he was about to get a bruise, or if the touch just reminded him that the pain was there. Whatever the case was, it hurt.

"It hurts everywhere for me, too," Aquarius said, still refusing to get up from Kaito's side on the ground.

Mal rolled his eyes. "You'd better hope it's just on the surface, because I had to take a long nap to get over healing dumba** back there."

Still, he set the staff against Kaito's shoulder and closed his eyes, concentrating. A pinprick of light showed up at the edge of his vision, growing into the general outline of a shoulder. Sure enough, just surface bruises and sores. Mal gripped his staff a little tighter - the sores and bruises started to patch themselves back together, fading away. The light grew, shooting through veins, twisting around bones, and making its way into Aquarius.

A minute later, Mal had a clear view of Kaito's and Aquarius's insides. Not exactly something he wanted to see, but that had always been a part of his trade.

Mal loosened his grip on the staff. The light blinked out, and he opened his eyes.

"There," he said, voice slightly slurred as his eyes swam. Not as bad as he'd been expecting, but he'd probably have to take another nap soon. "Done."