So, what's the story behind this cave?" asked Lincoln.
Lucy grinned. "Pretty typical. Someone was murdered there. Murderer was lynched. Now the victim supposedly haunts the cave, sometimes possessing explorers and making them commit suicide. There have been enough deaths that they've set up warning signs saying it's haunted and you're risking your life by going there."
"Then why are we going there?" muttered lynn sr.
Lincoln bit his lip. Lucy she was goth after all Lincoln glanced towards Clyde who was leaning over the back of the seat and as such had a good view of everyone in the van.
Lincoln shrugged and looked away.
"It's a haunted road trip," Paige replied to Lucy 's question. "We go to places that are supposed to be haunted, whether it's something I researched beforehand or we just happened stumbled across it."
"…I don't like it. Can't we just go home?" asked Clyde .
"If you don't want to explore the cave, you can stay in the van," said Lori .
"No, I can't," said Clyde .
"We do kind of need you guys if we want to stay safe," pointed out Lynn.
"We all have charms to protect against possession, so I think we'll be okay if she sits out this case," said Lucy .
Lucy huffed. "You're not going without me."
Lynn sr was relieved to see the cave coming up. "We're here." He turned off the van and turned to face wife and kids two. "Everyone ready?"
"Yep!" rita gave Lynn sr a peck on the lips. He gave her a goofy grin.
Clyde looked away from the scene with a frown. "Yeah," he said morosely.
Others just moved to the back of the van and opened the doors.
After taking a moment to light a couple of torches (They weren't affected by ghosts so they would use them when they could get away with it.) they walked into the cave.
Mystery immediately realized they were working with something much worse than a resentful murder victim. The amount of malice in the air, the fog saturated with dark energy…If it wasn't a demon, it was at least something that could be compared to one.
And Lucy looking with a smile. Mystery would have to look out for them this time.
They came upon a split in the cave. A sign (with actual skulls for some reason) seemed to indicate where the four paths led, but the letters on it had faded too much to read.
"Okay, time to split up," said Lucy .
Mystery's eyes widened. Oh no…
"Should we do the usual?" asked Lincoln. He wanted to ask lucy what she and lynn had argued about last night. It had been loud enough for him and Clyde to hear it in his room next door, but not quite loud enough for them to hear the actual words.
Luna grin nervously. "Actually, I was hoping to talk to others-"
"Oh come on!" interrupted Lucy.
"No, really, I think we need to talk."
"I'm so excited" lucy then turned on her heel and marched off down the right tunnel. "come on guys, you better not follow!"
"Lucy , wait!" shouted Lynn as she and luna Lori ignored the command and ran after .
As well Luan, Lana, Lola, Lisa, Leni, Rita and lynn sr and Paige went to the other paths
Lincoln ' eyes widened. "Hey, Guys , don't-" Too late. "Oh no…"
"They're going to yell at each other again, aren't they?" asked Clyde.
Lincoln sighed. "Probably. The only other time I saw lucy upset …" He winced. "Long story short, others make fun of her reader a princess pony book."
Clyde a face. He fell sorry for lucy. "Should we go after them?"
Lincoln thought for a moment. He wanted to make sure they were okay, but he also wanted to give them some privacy. Plus, the sooner they finished exploring, the sooner they could get home and work on putting this behind them.
Although, that would mean being alone with Clyde .
"Let's just explore the other path," decided Lincoln.
"Okay."
The two were faintly aware that Mystery had decided to follow them, but assumed it was because he didn't want to have to deal with the shouting that would come from the Lucy and Lynn .
Actually, it was because the malicious energy seemed to be focusing more on the two boys, which was a bit odd in Mystery's opinion. He'd have expected it to go after the girls with how upset lucy was.
"Whoa! Lucy wait up!"
"I said I don't want to talk to you!
"What's your problem?!"
"I told you! You wouldn't listen!
"Because what you said didn't make sense!"
"You just didn't want it to make sense!"
There was a lot less talking with Clyde and Lincoln. Neither knew what to say. Lincoln felt uncomfortable around Clyde and part of why he wanted to finish this quickly was so he wouldn't have to be alone with him.
Clyde knew that he was making Lincoln uncomfortable and why but didn't know how to make it stop short of staying away from Lincoln. He didn't want to stay away from any of them though. He loved them! Yet Lincoln and Paige were spending more time away from them. And and his sisters weren't getting along.
Were they going to fall apart? Clyde wasn't sure he'd survive losing them.
The tunnel ended and opened up to a cavern. The path came to a sudden stop at least a hundred feet above the ground.
"Lucy, look, I get that you're upset."
Lucy rounded on . "Then why are you doing the same thing?!"
Make fun of me for princess pony book!
"That because your a goth!"
I just need a break!"
Lincoln looked up. "Stalactites. I wonder if there are stalagmites." He walked to the edge.
Clyde massaged his hand. It was tingling uncomfortably. "Don't get too close to the edge. It's really slippery."
"It's just for a moment." There were stalagmites. Lincoln frowned. A couple of small figures were down below. "I think I see paige and my family."
Clyde's arm was really feeling bad. Was it spreading? Was this natural? He opened his mouth to ask Lincoln if he could see anything.
But nothing came out.
Clyde realized something was very wrong as his mouth clicked shut against his will. Before he could think of some way to alert Lincoln, the left side of his body leapt forward and pushed Lincoln just as he started to turn around.
Lincoln went over the edge, only seeing Clyde's left side grinning.
Clyde grabbed his arm, but it was too late. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to throw himself off the cliff after Lincoln, but he couldn't move, couldn't even make a sound.
Lincoln was terrified out of his mind, didn't want to die, felt angry, and he'd been right about him!
"You're so selfish!" shouted Lucy she Lori start arguing along with the others except Paige rita and lynn sr who were the on other side
milliseconds before Lincoln landed on and was impaled by a stalagmite they were standing next to.
Everyone turned and screamed. Lincoln had exactly 2.3 seconds of life left, which were used to realize Paige and loud family had just seen his murder and then wish that this wouldn't ruin their life.
At the same time, Mystery had realized that he had waited far too long to combat an entity that was even more dangerous than he thought. He transformed into his true form, tackled Clyde's body to the ground, and bit into his shoulder.
The entity half cursed and tried to reach behind to attack Mystery. It was a bad angle. Mystery quickly used a powerful exorcism spell. It only managed to push the entity back into Clyde's arm. Mystery had been expecting that though, set up several seals on said arm to trap the entity inside of it, and tore it away from the rest of Clyde's body.
The entity, now trapped in a prison, was cut off from the power stored in the cave and the energy just generated from Lincoln' death. Said power and energy was promptly absorbed by the only other incorporeal entity: Lincoln
The power acted on Lincoln's last thought and shot into Paige and the loud family's eyes. The 13 froze up as the dying wish went through their minds, isolating any memories containing Lincoln associated with him, locking the memories away, and putting up blocks to keep them from being able to remember or even notice the missing memories. Within a few seconds, the two slumped forwards, faces blank.
Since Lincoln' body was right in front of them, the aforementioned blocks were making them immediately ignore and file away what they were seeing continuously, making it so that they couldn't perceive reality or react at the moment.
Up above, Clyde was free from the entity's influence and was now screaming incoherently for Lincoln. Mystery flinched guiltily. He could have stopped that. The entity tried to attack him. Mystery growled and shook it around. He would need to find some way to get rid of this thing.
And Mystery abruptly realized that Clyde had stopped moving and shouting. He'd lost a lot of blood very quickly. If Mystery remembered correctly, that could send a human into shock.
Mystery gave the injury a quick cauterization and checked Clyde's pulse. His heart had stopped.
Mystery had already lost one pup. He wasn't going to lose another. He quickly turned Clyde over, sliced a paw open, and used a pair of tails to lift Clyde up while he let blood drip into Clyde's mouth. After making sure that the blood had been swallowed, Mystery lay Clyde back down and quickly pressed down on Clyde's chest in his own version of CPR.
Clyde let out a loud gasp and started coughing. Mystery relaxed a little…which the arm took advantage of to wriggle out of Mystery's mouth. Mystery snapped at it while quickly positioning himself over Clyde.
Mystery quickly grabbed Clyde with his tails and jumped to the cave floor. He grabbed the arm and yanked it away
The arm slipped out of Mystery's grip and scurried away. Mystery took stock of the situation.
Lincoln: Dead. There is nothing Mystery can do except come back and see if he becomes a ghost.
Clyde: In shock and in serious need of medical attention. Even with some of Mystery's blood he wasn't out of the woods yet.
Loud family : their eyes seemed to have a orange glow to their eyes
Paige: Physically unharmed but unresponsive with a orange glow to her eyes. Looked like Lincoln had done something to her and family that was preventing them from doing anything.
Mystery concluded that while he wanted to get rid of the thing in Clyde's arm, he had to get the surviving others to a hospital ASAP if he didn't want anyone else to die. He turned to look at Lincoln' limp body.
"I'm sorry. I'll come back."
And then he ran.