Young Writers Society

"What if we can straighten it?" Apophis asked, folding his arms as he looked the steering wheel over. "It does look a little loose, but I'm sure one of us has someway to keep it in place if we can straighten it again."

The panther stared into the gap between the wheel and the base, then shook his head. "It looks like one of the ropes got ripped up," he said. Lunis knew that ropes wasn't the right word, especially with the way that these things seemed to hum when he pressed his ear against them, but he couldn't think of anything else. "Even if we could shove the wheel back into place, I don't think it'd do anything.

"I wonder if the device would help?" said Mal, gesturing to the rod.

Lunis picked it off the ground. "Worth a shot," he said. He looked back at the others. "None of you like this thing, so you probably want to stand back."

While most of the people present followed through with the suggestion, Apophis moved closer to it. With its true purpose unknown, and him being the only truly immortal present, he wanted to be nearby in case something went wrong. If worse came to worst, he could always use his body to shield the others.

As he lowered the rod into the wires, Lunis didn't know what to expect. He had no idea how either of them worked, and they were both otherwise useless, so it'd make perfect sense if they worked together, wouldn't it? At the same time, he suspected that it also depending on him using the rod right, which he was a lot less confident about.

So he was more than a little surprised at the beam of blue light that sprouted from the gap in the wheel and the base. While the wheel clicked and started to spin, Lunis leaped back. The rod went flying out of his paws, soaring past the railing and into the sand behind him.

The wheel stopped moving, stopped making noises, stopped flashing colors.

The panther clung onto the railing, pressing a paw against his chest and taking a few deep breaths. Mal, who'd taken one of the wheel handles to the face, rubbed his forehead as he stared into the gap.

"It's fixed," the lion said slowly. "But I'm not sure what else it did."

The group collectively stared at the fixed wheel.

"...What was that?" Liz whispered.

"It looked almost like alchemy," Pride mused, getting a little closer to it.

"I don't think it's alchemy," Apophis said, giving the wheel a hesitant poke.

"I've never seen magic like that before..." Zion added.

"I don't want to stay here and figure it out," Lunis said. Glancing around, he grabbed Mal by the arm, setting the lion over his shoulder. Mal, who was probably far too used to this, rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and grumbled. "We should get out of here."

"But where are we going to go?" Ari asked. "There's not really anywhere for us to go down, and we can't stay here."

Lunis shrugged. "We need to find a safer place," he said, before yawning and showing his fangs. "And I want to take a nap."

"We could go out," Liz eagerly suggested, pointing at way lay beyond the wreckage. "Aquarius and I can make water, and I'm sure there's something out there that we can eat if we're out there for long enough to get hungry."

The panther crossed his arms. "What would we even do out there?" he said. "It sounds hot and boring, even with food and water."

Liz faltered.

"...Walk?" she hesitantly said. "There has to be a reason we were brought here, right? Maybe it's out there, instead of in here."

"The only thing out there is sand," Lunis said, "And I'm pretty sure we weren't brought here to, I don't know, eat sand or something?"

Despite her tallness, Liz managed to make herself look just a little bit smaller at the comment. "The desert's the only thing we can see," she said. "...Maybe there's something beyond what we can see from here? And I couldn't guess why I was brought to Minecraftia like this until I found Aquarius, and he was all the way under the water."

"It's worth a try," Aegeas said. "If we don't find anything, we can turn back."

Lunis rumbled. He didn't feel like leaving the airship, but he didn't exactly want to go up against Aegeas. "Fine," he said. "But if we end up eating sand, that's on you."

Liz resisted the urge to give a childish cheer as the other members of the group gave nods in agreement, letting a smile slip through when Aquarius slipped his hand into hers.

"Then let's go," Apophis said. "The sooner we can leave, the better."