Young Writers Society

Kellach started squirming as soon as he saw the others holding back laughs. "Hey, no, knock if off!" he said, trying to grab at Aegeas's arms.

On the bright side, Aegeas immediately pulled Kellach down the nearest hallway and let go. On the other hand, Kellach didn't have to turn around to know that something was a little amiss - Aegeas's arms had been shaking.

"Sorry," Aegeas said, staring at the floor as Kellach turned around.

"What for?" said Kellach, but he could already guess. He set his forehead against Aegeas's.

In the darkness of the dimly-lit hallway, it was hard to read Aegeas's expression, but his voice did a good job of that. "It was supposed to be a joke, and I know you were joking around," said Aegeas, "I, freaked out for a second there."

"'s fine," Kellach said, setting his paws on Aegeas's shoulders. "We don't know where we are, we're working with complete strangers, and the people we do know suck. It's okay if we're doing dumber things - we'll have lots of time to ourselves when this is all done with."

Aegeas nodded. "Yeah."

The giggles immediately faded as Aegeas and Kellach left the group, an awkward and uncomfortable silence taking its place instead. Apophis and Pride exchanged a brief look, as well as Ari and Zion - leaving Kaito to feel absolutely awful about his reaction. Aquarius grabbed onto his hand, but it didn't help in the slightest.

"It's cool!" Kellach called back when he looked over and saw everyone else standing at the start of the hallway. He kissed Aegeas on the forehead and walked over. A couple of glances back, Kellach breathed a sigh of relief - Aegeas was following him.

Turning back to look at the others, Kellach shrugged his shoulders, trying very hard not to look away. He wanted to have at least some of his dignity intact. "We got a bit carried away?"

"I did, too," Kaito quietly said, not meeting Kellach's gaze when the otter looked back. Aquarius' grip on his hand tightened, but he didn't feel any better. "I'm sorry for laughing."

"Nah," Kellach said, rubbing the back of his neck, "That wasn't it; he doesn't mind that stuff at all. I just kinda freaked out, and that made him freak out."

"...Okay," Kaito said. He didn't fully believe him, but he knew there was no way to keep that particular conversation going. He fell back into silence as the group continued on their way, Aquarius staying much closer to him as they traveled through the wreckage.

Hnng, Kaito didn't believe him. Kellach wasn't sure why - Aegeas really had flipped out for a second, but that had all been Kellach's fault. And Kellach was generally a pretty charismatic liar, so not getting someone to believe the truth was a little ironic.

Fortunately, it didn't take too long for them to catch up to the others.

"Get me off of here!" Mal said as Aegeas and Kellach walked into the room. They'd heard him for a little while, complaining and hurling insults, but didn't get why until they saw him suspended, robes caught on a bent beam.

"No," came the muffled voice of the panther. On the other end of the dark room, Kellach spotted a figure lifting and rearranging boxes, as though searching for something. At first, it didn't make too much sense - between the holes on the ceiling and the walls, and the somewhat steep angle of the floor, there didn't appear to be anything in the room worth staying around for.

Then Kellach heard something faintly whirring.

The moment the whirring registered to the group assembled, they each hurried to prepare for whatever it had come from. Aquarius and Kaito both created a burst of water around their waists and hands. Shadows shot out of the ground underneath Apophis. Pride's shadow began to spread across the room, eyes standing out among the darkness. Zion appeared alongside Ari, and Ari held out her hands in fists.

"...Does anyone know what that whirring is?" Apophis finally asked. "Or did we just all overreact to a noise?"

Mal rolled his eyes. "No. Nice theatrics, though. Lunis thinks he found some weird thing in here, and he's trying to see what it is. If it was dangerous, I think we would've noticed by now."

"Bombs can take awhile to explode," Kaito pointed out. He didn't want to say it, but there was nothing preventing whatever was causing the whirring from having a delayed reaction.

Aquarius's eyes widened in response, and he clung to Kaito's side.

On the other side of the room, the panther froze. "Does a bomb look like this?" he said, hauling out something covered in tarp and carrying it over to the others. Aegeas swore it was glowing blue, but he couldn't quite squeeze through everyone else or preserve enough of his dignity in running away.

Peeling the tarp off, Lunis revealed a small bronze pedestal. Set in the center was an iron stick, a blue light resting on top of it. Other than the light itself, which whirred and made a ping! sound as it blinked, there didn't appear to be any moving parts on it.

"I don't know?" Aegeas said, leaning away from it.

"Me neither," said Lunis, staring down at it. "But we have it now, so we might as well figure out what it does."

"I never said it had to be a bomb," Kaito quietly corrected, staring down at the strange device. He had never seen anything like it - Earth and Minecraft didn't have anything to compare it too. After a moment of hesitation, he reached out a hand to poke it-

-only to be beaten to the punch by Apophis.

"Maybe I fiddle with it," Apophis suggested. "I'm the one who can't die here."

"I can't die, either," Pride said, taking a step forward.

Apophis immediately blocked his way.

"You have a limited amount of souls in your stone," Apophis argued. "I don't have a stone - I'm just immortal as it is. It's safer for me to check it out than for you."

Even though the panther could die, he still didn't feel especially inclined to give it to Apophis, especially since he'd put the most effort into finding it. Still, he didn't see anything wrong about Apophis poking it.

Nothing happened. No new noises, no change in color, not even an explosion.

"Does this thing even do anything?" Lunis said, staring down at it.

"Well," Mal said, "Maybe you could-"

The panther tugged the lion's robes, cause Mal to growl as some of the fabric tore. No need to let Mal say something impolite.

Apophis studied it for another minute before finally turning back to the rest of the group with a shrug. He had absolutely no idea how it was supposed to work, and something told him everyone who hadn't spoken was just as clueless.

"We might as well keep it," Lunis said, tucking it under his arm. "Does anyone remember where the captain's room was? That sounds like a good place to go next."