And we're back! Finally, a certain degree of mystery is revealed, hurrah, and another bit of it begins!
Thanks go to MrLRocks78 for all those lovely reviews! Remember folks, reviews really do equal inspiration! (Not really, but still...) And thanks to all my lovely favouriters and alerters, and my readers, even if you don't leave a review!
Third chapter, here we go!
Chapter 3: Sentence
"Uh, well, this isn't what I expected when I woke up this morning," Honeydew chuckled. Xephos smiled, but couldn't bring himself to join in with Honeydew's laughter. The fact remained that they were in a jail cell. It wasn't even a nice jail cell at that. All iron bars and stone floors. Anora had just dumped them in their cell and run off. It'd been quite strange; she actually looked worried. And she'd avoided meeting Xephos's eyes, actually ever since she'd told the Watch member they were shapeshifters. Xephos frowned.
"Hellooooo? Lewis?" Honeydew asked, waving a hand in front of the spaceman's face. Xephos snapped out of thought.
"Sorry, friend. Just thinking..." he apologized.
"Well, come on! Pull it together, man!" the dwarf huffed. Xephos nodded. There was a moment of silence, and then Honeydew asked, "So...uh...what the fuck do we do now?"
"Well, I don't think we want to be overly hasty here," Xephos mused.
"Oh come on! We can't wait out the rest of our lives in here!"
"And we still have that golden apple quest to finish up...But on the other hand, if we escape, we're going to get chased." Xephos looked around. If there was an easy, stealthy way to escape, it'd make things a lot easier. The cell was pretty basic. It just had two beds, a bucket and a jug of water. 'Except, hang on...' High up, out of reach, was a small barred window. He wasn't totally sure, but he suspected that if he looked through it, he'd be just above ground-level, looking out onto some street. That suspicion was backed up by the street noises filtering in from the window. 'It's not like anyone can fit through those bars anyway.' There was a loud shout from outside, and Xephos winced. They could have at least made sure prisoners got some peace and quite. 'Geez...Wait, isn't that Jasper?' There was another shout. 'Yeah, that sounds like him...'
"Was that...?" Honeydew asked.
"Yeah,"" Xephos responded. "It sounds like he's right outside on the street. If we could just get up to the window, we could get his attention." And the most obvious solution would work easily.
"Let me up on your shoulders, Simon!" Xephos commanded.
"Excuse me?" Honeydew asked.
"You know, because then I could reach the window?"
"Oh, yeah. Just stick me on the bottom, yeah..." Honeydew muttered, but he bent over with a grin so that Xephos could clamber on. The spaceman took a flying leap, and managed to scramble onto Honeydew's back. As the dwarf straightened, he adjusted his position until he was crouching on said dwarf's shoulders. Honeydew moved so that they were right under the window, and Xephos stood. 'WOAH!' His foot slipped, and he was on the edge of falling. He made a frantic flail for the window's iron bars. He caught them, barely, with the tips of his fingers. Pulling himself up against the bars, he peered through them into the bright light beyond.
It took a few moment for his eyes to adjust to the brightness, but in a second, he could make out pairs of legs walking about in the street outside.
"Anora, let them go!" Jasper's voice called out again. Xephos noticed two pairs of legs standing still, a couple of meters apart from each other. The one pair, clad in black boots, stepped towards the other.
"I can't! What they did was wrong, Japser!" It was Anora's voice this time.
"Please, they can help," Jasper pleaded desparately. The other pair of boots, pretty blue and white ones, stamped hard.
"I can handle it!" Anora yelled. "I'm not such a babby that I can't find one missing Skylord." Xephos had a moment of confusion. 'Skylord? What Skylord?' He didn't know of any missing ones; Lysander would have asked him for help.
"They're heroes, and what's more, they're actually Lysander's friends," Jasper retorted. "They'll make things a lot easier."
"Lysander's friends, huh? Then why were they stealing apples instead of looking for him?" Anora shot back, but it sounded off, like her heart wasn't in it.
"They don't know Lysander's missing." The arguing pair fell silent. 'Wait, what? Missing?' Xephos could barely believe his ears.
"They have enough to deal with anyway..." Xephos only just caught Anora's soft murmur.
Finally, Jasper said, voice strained, "Good luck. Without them, you'll need it," and the black boots walked away. Xephos craned upwards, bending his neck painfully. But he finally caught a glimpse of Anora's face. It wasn't what he had been expecting.
From his angle, she looked more vulnerable than anything. She stared at the dirt, fists clenched, and Xephos knew exactly what she was thinking. After all, it was the same thought that'd run through his mind countless times during the Sand Wars. 'You have no idea what to do, do you, Anora?'
Honeydew suddenly poked Xephos's ankle. "Get Anora to get us out of here!" he muttered impatiently at the spaceman. Xephos looked down for a moment and nodded at his friend, before craning to see Anora again.
"Anora!" he called. She gave a start and looked around curiously. "Anora, down here!" Xephos said again. Her gaze finally fell upon the barred window, and her face fell.
"Oh, it's you."
"Ouch, that burns!" Honeydew yelled from below. Xephos allowed himself a small chuckle at his friend's response, before becoming serious again.
"Anora, please, you have to get us out of here!" Xephos pleaded. Her frown deepened.
"I can't," she said.
"Oh, come on! It's not about us anymore! If Lysander is missing, that could mean trouble for the whole of Minecraftia," Xephos snapped.
"Oh, you heard that..." Anora murmured.
"Yes, now let us help you find him!" he yelled, finally losing his patience.
"I can't!" Anora shouted back. Her frown wobbled, and she blinked furiously. "I can't; I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
"Huh?"
"I didn't mean to say it, about you guys being shapeshifters, but then I panicked and it all went wrong and...I'm so sorry, Xephos."
"Wait, what?" he asked, completely and utterly confused.
"There's been a huge wave of shapeshifter-related crime recently, and, well, they've just introduced a death penalty for any shapeshifter crime." It took a few seconds for her words to sink in. 'Death penalty...but...'
"But that means-"
"Yeah, you'll be executed if you're found guilty. And because of the nature of shapeshifters, you won't even be let out of there until your trial."
"WHAT?" Honeydew screamed, his dwarvish accent becoming stronger as he began to panic. He let go of Xephos's legs. The spaceman wobbled, and as Honeydew ran for the barred door of his prison, he found himself with only the iron bars of the window to hold himself up. His fingers screamed in protest as his feet scrambled against the smooth wall. And as he tried to keep himself up by the window, he didn't notice Anora leaving until it was too late.
"Come back!" he yelled at her boots, but she was already around the corner. He lost his grip on the bars, and tumbled back to the floor of the cell.
-OFFICIALLYSANDERFANGIRLPAGEB REAK-
Pralius buttoned up his trousers. Sighing, he surveyed the decrepit Watch bathroom. He felt the familiar frustration. 'The Watch deserves more; hell, I deserve more!' The bathroom would hardly even be fit for a creeper to blow up. He moved to the basin, and rinsed his hands in the stagnant water it contained. It was freezing, sending a chill up his spine. He snatched his hands out quickly, drying them on his pants. The water was almost unnaturally cold. A flicker of suspicion ran through his mind, as he remembered the reports of strange activity in the Desert. 'Undead activity...' His hand crept to the hilt of his sword. From behind him, he could almost feel an evil presence.
He whirled around, drawing his sword. A second later, he froze, and stared at the completely normal room. For a moment, everything blurred. But it was back to normal in another moment. Everything was fine; he didn't know why he'd been so worried. He pushed away the last of his concerns, and turned back to the basin of water. Above it was a cracked mirror, and he took a moment to glance at his reflection. Pralius absent-mindedly combed his fingers through his hair, so that some of it flopped in front of his eyes.
He liked his eyes now. They'd always been a rather disappointing grey. But that had changed. He grinned at his reflection, and his reflection grinned back, with it's bright, glowing, red eyes.
Pralius knew what he had to do, what he'd been itching to do since the "heroes" had been brought in by that weakling, Anora. He ran a finger along the blade of his sword. A few seconds later, blood welled from the cut the blade had left. His smirk widened. He strode out of the room, ready to fulfill the urge, the urge to torture and murder and slaughter.
Xephos: Flippin' heck! My back still hurts from falling down from that window!
Anora: Servers you right, jerk.
Arashi: Anora, stop abusing my Xephos!
Anora: Your Xephos?
Arashi: Oh, did I say "my"? I meant...uh...
Jasper: Jasper's
Arashi: Yeah, Jasper's Xephos...WAIT WHAT?
Lysander: Remember to leave a review saying anything at all! Otherwise...
Arashi: I might just let Jasper get Lysander into his fungeon...
Lysander: Oh...Notch...