* ThReE * Together

Hiding underneath.

Tai handed Kei's and my weapons to me. Then he looked at me and asked, "Did you get attacked by random limping people, too?"
"Not people but a person. He said something like, 'I'll take you to him first.' But that was all he said, then I knocked him out."
"Lucky, I had like a dozen people attacking me! They trapped me in some rusted cage. I had to slam myself out, and now my shoulder's gonna have a huge black and blue mark. They just left me there, which I thought was weird. I yelled for help, and I heard Kei yell, 'I'll come back for you!' But I guess that's when he started getting chased down."
"I think it's weird that the man that attacked me said he'd take me, but the big man ended up taking Kei," I said, thinking of a reason.
"That's true. Well standing here won't help. Let's follow the footprints," Tai said and pointed to the ground.

We followed the path for what seemed like hours, and it took us to a forest. The footprints were muddy prints now and very noticeable. Tai was obviously bored and tired, and eventually he looked at me.
"How did that guy walk so far without starving?! I'm gonna die!!" he whined.
I sighed, "Here take one of the energy bars I got from the restaurant."
I handed him the bar, and he ate it like a starving cow.

An hour later, we ended up coming through a clearing of another town. A young boy came up to me and asked, "Did you come from the old town, too?"
"Yeah, kind of. Have you seen a big man carrying a boy with him?" I asked with hope.
"Yes-yes! The big man said the boy was bad and needed punishment. Are you looking for the man?"
"Yes, could you please tell us where he went? Is he still in this village?"
"He went to the big mansion. It's not hard to notice," the boy pointed to a big stone mansion.
"Thank you so much! Bye, little guy!" I said and lead to the mansion with Tai.
"Well, a big mansion sure hides the evil guy's presence," Tai joked.

We walked up to the mansion and knocked on the door. No answer. We knocked again, and this time the door opened slightly revealing a well-lit room of gold. We looked at the floor and saw muddy prints, but they disappeared at the big man's muddy boots on a rug.
"Maybe we should have waited to come in here when it's daytime out. Being in an evil guy's mansion at nighttime reminds me of scary games," Tai said with a fake shiver.
"Maybe Kei's in some secret library entrance that's guarded by possessed people," I said with a joking tone.
"That's not a bad guess," Tai chuckled. "Let's look for a library!"
We went up the fancy stairs with our guns ready for anything. We opened doors to bedrooms and studies, but no sign of living things...well no sign of dead things, too. Besides the dead hamster in it's running wheel. We finally found a huge library. It had a staircase to the ground floor, which I thought was cool.
"Should we start removing books? Or look for a puzzle?" Tai asked, looking at paintings.
"That won't be necessary, kids," said a familiar burly voice.
We looked up the stairs to see the big man with Kei on the ground beside him.
"Yes! Easy puzzle!" Tai said, pumping his fist to the air.
The man threw a disc at Tai and said, "Stupid child." But Tai dodged the thing easily and pulled his guns out and apart.
"Stupid? Really?" Tai said and distracted the man.
The man was about to say something, but I cut him off by throwing Kei's bulky knife at the man's shoulder. The knife made a bloody mess on his shirt, and he quickly pulled it out and threw it to the ground near Kei. I noticed Kei waking up slowly and looking at the knife. The man jumped from the second floor and ran at me with rage and mad speed. Tai quickly shot at him, but he didn't stop running. The man grabbed me by the neck and held me high. I heard Tai still shooting, but then he stopped suddenly. Then I saw Kei on the man's back cutting his throat and pulling him off me. The man fell down dead, and I fell on my knees breathing my air back. Kei looked at the man then to Tai, who was standing there baffled. Then Kei came and helped me up, and Tai joined.
"Thanks, are you all right?" I said, breathing normally now.
"Yeah, I don't know why the man brought me here, but he just kept me unconscious as long as he could. It seems I'm so important to be saved," Kei said, looking at me with his goofy grin.
"Well, duh!" Tai cut in. "Taryn and I can't do all this stuff on our own! The more muscle and brains the better!"
"Agreed," I said with a smile and gave Kei his weapons back.
"Well, I was chosen before other friends? Isn't that best?" Kei said, smiling at Tai.
"Stop smiling at me, you freak! But truthfully...other friends? Yeah, you're best," Tai said thoughtfully.
Chuckling, I finally said, "Let's get out of here, before zombies start bursting through the windows."

We ate at that town, then headed back to the Coby Region. We sat at the central park on a bench thinking and talking about things. For example the beginning conversation that I ended:
Sitting there Tai was glaring at Kei.
"What?" Kei asked.
"I hate you," Tai said calmly.
"Really, why is that?" Kei asked, smirking. "Do I look dashingly evil to you or something?"
Tai stared at him with disgust, "'Dashingly'?! Dashingly is my butt!"
"Please, shut up, you two! You act like you're married!" I said, cleaning my gun calmly.
They stared at me with their heads tilted.
"Well, it shut you up didn't it?" I said, looking at them and smiling.

After Kei gave some suggestions to the next location, we heard a loud squeal. Tai, noticing first, perked his head up quickly and blinked in shock. Kei and I looked up calmly.
"Aw, no," Tai said, grabbing his head in fright.
In that second, it seemed like a roadrunner came here with the dust flying right behind it in clouds. But it ended up being my best friend here hugging me tightly and yelling, "Taryn!! How have you been!?"
"Good, Shylo! How about you?" I said with a smile.
Shylo let me go and said, "Great! So what are you guys doing?" After that, she scanned each of us then stopped on Tai.
"No, not the face!" he said, covering his face.
"Oh, silly, I'm not gonna hit you. Not unless you don't answer my question," she looked at him closer.
"We're looking for the Rulers and going to kill them, because they killed our parents! And they want to rule the world!" he said like a big flood of water just spilled out of his mouth.
"Want to come, Shylo?" I added kindly.
"Of course! I'm pretty much ready. Let's go!" she said, clenching her fists in anticipation.
"First," Kei pushed in, "we need to figure out where we're going. Taryn, which location do you like best to check?"
"I like the Mainland best. Sounds like a simple evil person place to start," I answered with a small chuckle.
"Sounds logical to me," Tai added in, smiling.
"I don't plan on making any decisions! But I'm here to help!" Shylo said with a huge grin.
"Then...onward to the Mainland!" Kei said, pointing to the sun to be purposely dramatic in a weird way.

Reviews

[Ace D Portgas]

Good chapter! They finally got a new member to tag along with them to defeat the rulers

I would say my only beef is that the big guy was defeated pretty quickly. I was expecting more of a fight between them

Other than that, sweet chapter!

[Dance Or Die]

Awesome!! :D