The teleporting ride was the same as usual. Having five or so seconds just inside of some strange blue timewarp and then coming out on the other side. Except the only thing different is where they end up. This time it was a town. A simple town with little normal houses, all wooden, some two stories some, one story and that's about it. The town was also completely engulfed in a not so, but still pretty thick fog. It was essentially a ghost town and that's what Rico was going for.
"I d-don't have very good vision." Zuzi spoke, "This definitely does not help."
"Well none of us can see through this." Marshall told her.
"Ah, this place. It was a nice little town before it was abandoned. When everyone left it was just forgotten about. I decided to use this to my advantage and now this is what it is! Also, don't even think about flying over the fog little one. You won't like the outcome." Rico explained to them.
"What'll happen?" Rocky questioned.
"There are some... Things, a thing that can't find you right now. But if you get out of the fog, it will one, push the fog away from your area. Two, it will see you and will kill you." Rico explained.
"Well then let's just look around as always." Ryder suggested, and the pups agreeing.
"I'll tell you where the portal is, right now. The thing I mentioned out of the fog has it. So good luck." Rico told them, helping but it wasn't good information really.
They began walking down one of the streets. As they did one of the houses just fell over next to them. The whole house just collapsed that instant while they were walking by. No one was hurt by it. The worst that happened was Marshall got hit with a small log but it didn't do any damage.
"I see the theme here." Rubble said, expecting this to happen many times.
"We need to be careful going through here." Marshall agreed.
"I-I-I know more about Ser- uh, Rico than anyone here. If we leave this f&fog, Rico wouldn't have anything that would instantly kill us." Zuzi explained, "He has no ability to do th-that in the first place."
"God damn it if I'm gonna kill any of you it's gonna be her!" Rico blurted, saying it very quickly.
"You already blew one of my legs off! Why do you need to-need to kill me?" Zuzi questioned.
"Simply put, you're a bitch." Rico told her, with all the confidence in the world.
"That's nice." She replied, "A-aight, l-let's start going now."
When they walked they were very wary of walking near houses none fell over, but a mailbox did and it lightly scrapped Rubble. Nothing to be seen anywhere. They could barely see away in the fog. It seems like Rico might be brightening up just a tiny bit and keeping them from actually getting things. They've only gone down one street though and there's still time for Rico to have done something to help them.
"The first street has nothing." Ryder told, "Onto the next."
"Before you go and do that, let's make this a bit more interesting..." Rico said to them.
"Do you have any self-control?" Zuzi asked to him, in an annoyed sort of tone.
"Girl. If you are a supposed maniac going through and collecting people to murder during their movies, do you think they have self-control? I need help and live like being forced into this. Killers don't have self-control dumbass, why would you even ask that?" Rico responded.
"You need help." Zuzi said, toned down.
"Yes, I do." Rico replied, "Now are you ready?"
"No, not really." Skye answered, with no expectations.
"Too bad."
Rico then caused a tornado to immediately strike in the area. It took up everyone because it appeared near instantaneously as well as being right on top of them. It didn't take them to high up though, and not for long either. What happened though was that everyone was launched to a different place. Some different directions some different speeds, but they all flew away from each other. No one knew where anyone was.
Zuzi woke up in the most impossible of places. If you're taken by a tornado and flung, you aren't supposed to end up in some underground tunnels. This was either a dream, or some crazy mind games from Rico are going on at the moment. It was the latter. She went from above ground in a tornado to underground.
"Um, what?" Zuzi asked aloud, being genuinely dumbfounded.
Zuzi saw a little note engraved in the wall to her left, which was dirt, the tunnel she was currently in was entirely dirt, and she whispered it aloud to herself.
"This is your punishment." Is what she read.
It was already terrifying being stuck in dimly lit tunnels lightened with only torches, underneath no one knows where, but Rico really wanted to punish Zuzi for being a nuisance.
Zuzi heard faintly spoken feminine whispers coming from one of the ends if the tunnels saying, "You deserve this."
"I-I-I-I r-really, um, I-I don't, um." Zuzi actually couldn't speak.
"Come closer. Come closer." The voices kept speaking to her.
Zuzi wished and wished it was all a nightmare but she had to face the facts that Rico was out for genuine blood. He wanted her dead and terrified. He now despised her. He doesn't seem to like anyone, but Zuzi was defining Rico's hatred at the moment. Zuzi just stood there never spoke, but definitely thought. She was not going towards the voices unless she was forced to move. She was shaking like crazy as you would imagine.
"This has gone on long enough." The voices whispered more.
Zuzi then began hearing a faint metal banging sound coming from the opposite direction of the voices. It was slowly but surely making its way to her which left her with a decision. Zuzi decided to start walking away from the metal sound, which was towards the voices.
"That's it." The voice whispered.
Every torch she went passed burnt out in the spot, and every time it happened there was always told breeze that blew over her. The metal was sounding farther away, but the voices kept whispering to her as she walked down the mentally traumatizing tunnel. Then, all the sudden, ever noise stopped and every torch went out. Zuzi was in tears out of fear right now and stopped dead in her tracks. After it all ended there was just a walking sound, coming from the direction the metal naming was. It was very quickly running towards Zuzi and even when she tried to run it was faster than her. It had a burning, echoing sounding hiss when it got close to Zuzi. Zuzi only had three legs so she had no chance to outrun anything relatively fast. This was one of those things that three legs just couldn't keep her away from. As the sound got so close that it seemed like it would be right in front of her, she closed her eyes and waited... Nothing happened though. The hiss just echoed out of existence and she was left in silence once again.
That was only short-lived until severed hands immediately started ripping out of the walls and reaching for Zuzi. Everywhere she went new hands just popped straight out of the wall and tried to grab her. Some of them even did! They only ever got her legs, and when they did Zuzi would have to struggle to escape. At this point, she was just running into the abyss of hell. When she was running, the hands still grabbing at her, a flash of light happened and there was just a ghostly creature standing at the end of the tunnel. Head turned diagonally, gray face staring directly at her. At this point, Zuzi was left without hope and ran directly towards the figure. When she reached it, it picked her up by the throat, pulled her closer, and screamed an ear-piercing hiss and disappeared dropping Zuzi to the floor. Zuzi just kept running, praying for any glimmer of hope to arise.
It did! Hope did arrive! Zuzi actually managed to get out of that tunnel into a much bigger sort of dome-like room. It wasn't a break, though as what is seemingly what is going to kill Zuzi, butcher knives started falling from the ceiling, inching closer and closer to Zuzi. If she wanted to live she had to enter a tunnel to get away from the knives. Turns out this room seemed to be the entrance to all the tunnels, so she just ran straight to one and was safe from the knives.
She wasn't out of the woods yet! Right then and there another flash happened, revealing... Her, except with all legs and dead. A dead Zuzi was in front of her. Zuzi at this point was thinking about just letting go of everything, but she's never one to do that. So she pranced towards her dead self and nothing happened, it just stood there, eyes following Zuzi's movements. Zuzi went to walk past it, but horrifically one of the severed hands ripped out of the side of the dead Zuzi and grabbed Zuzi in a grip that she could barely escape.
The end of this hell came when a huge pile of dirt just fell on top of her right after she escaped the arm. Only her one back paw was hanging out and she was left buried. Buried inside of the traumatizing hell you ran through for what seemed like a year.
Rubble was just simply thrown to another side of the town. The landing hurt quite a bit but it was all good after that. Besides, he just looked around for a short while and found Marshall, who had the exact same thing happen to him. So they clearly weren't in a very terrible situation. They ended up just searching around themselves, hopefully waiting for the others so appear sometime or another.
"Hey, Marshall. Do you think we can escape all of these movies?" Rubble asked.
"We've escape three already." Marshall replied, "The only casualty was Zuzi's leg."
"Didn't Rico say that he has much worse in store?" Rubble questioned.
"Stay optimistic, Rubble."
Skye wasn't even inside the town anymore. She was inside the fog still, but no buildings or streets to be seen. She was just on a hill, probably close to the town. She decided to go right which got her to the end of the fog but she didn't go in because she was afraid about what Rico had said before, so she turned around. It actually took her quite a few minutes to find a way to actually get to town. When she got there though she couldn't enter, there was a fence around it.
"There has to be an entrance to the town somewhere." Skye said to herself, now beginning to feel chills from the fog.
She went right, found nothing but when she went left there was a turn in the fence. She followed that and there was the entrance. It was a completely different area of the town but she was in the town at least.
Chase got a stroke of genius for a second when he shit his net as he was falling to keep from hitting the ground very hard. The only one that wasn't hurting at all was Chase. He was in an extremely obscure part if the town, and even before he walked around some of the houses were already collapsed. It was clearly the bad part of town. How a town like this even managed to have a bad part was strange but it was there.
"I should be able to find everyone again." Chase mumbled, "Unless they ended up with or in a worse situation than this."
He walked a bit down what seemed like the main street, stretching across the entire town passed all the homes and connected to the ones with houses. He found Skye while walking too, so now he had proof that at least she was okay. No proof of the others but he was almost certain they were.
"So what happened to you, Skye?" Chase asked her, a little while after they started looking for the others.
"I was thrown outside of the town." Skye explained, "I was on a hill."
"Anything could've happened to the others in that case." Chase replied.
"Hopefully nothing too bad."
Ryder and Rocky landed on the same street, just opposite sides of it. They met each other within a minute of landing, they had clear injuries but none threatening in any way. Their goal was to just find all the others, in hopefully good shape. You never know with a tornado but judging by the power it had on the two of them there seems to be little to worry about what could be happened to the others.
"Where do you think they're ended up at Ryder?" Rocky asked.
"Could be anywhere. Tornados are unpredictable." Ryder responded, but not appearing concerned.
"Rico is unpredictable." Rocky replied, "He has way too many tools."
"He does seem to have way more than he should."
"Thinking about it, how has Rico not been caught yet? His excuse was not good." Rocky questioned, now just thinking about it.
"No one would suspect anything like this." Ryder answered, "He also takes people from all over everywhere to keep all suspicion spattered. He probably takes a lot of low profile people and pups a lot of the time."
"For a crazy killer, Rico actually seems pretty smart." Rocky said, and genuinely meaning it.
"Doesn't seem like a good thing."
"Can you use your megaphone, Chase?" Skye suggested as it would help with finding everyone quickly.
"Don't know if it's a good idea. Rico said there is something out of the fog that can't find us and that would definitely draw attention." Chase explained although he hadn't thought about using the megaphone before.
"So would a tornado." Skye responded in a sort of joking voice, but it was meant to be true.
"Touche." Chase responded to her, "Also why wouldn't Rico just tell it where we're at?"
"Yeah, I don't think Rico is all truth here." Skye exclaimed.
Chase took out his megaphone and let Skye talk into it. She never gave him a chance to talk as she just stepped up and did it. They just had to hope that everyone was around, they heard it, and that Rico telling the truth. Which seems responsible. Because Rico.
Both Rubble and Marshall heard Skye's voice echo calmly through the town. It wasn't very loud, nor quiet, but they were able to tell where it came from. A light pole fell down directly in front of Marshall while they were rushing to where they heard Skye and he tripped right over it. He just gathered himself and acted as nothing happened. It didn't that long a while until Marshall and Rubble found Chase and Skye.
"Three more." Chase said when Marshall and Rubble came.
"Just gotta hope they all get here."
When Ryder and Rocky heard the voice they immediately began to run towards it. Rocky actually ended up getting stuck one time when a house fell down on top of him, but he was far enough away to not get fully hurt by in and just his body wedged. Ryder was able to pull him out pretty easily and they continued on their ways. It took them a little longer than it should have because Ryder had to often stop for Rocky. If a house falls on you, its gonna hurt. They did make their way back to the group though and the team was all back together.
"All but one now." Chase spoke first.
"She's what I'm afraid of." Marshall told, "Rico just told us he really wanted her gone."
"She's tough. She lost a leg and moved on." Skye added.
"That's a big detriment though." Rocky explained, "Hard for her to move easily."
"She might just be taking a while because of that." Ryder reassured although he was a bit scared too.
"We just have to hope."
Hope they did. Nothing heard from Rico since the tornado hit them and they couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing. He has a reputation for spilling out information that he probably shouldn't have, so he could honestly be of use to them if he makes a mistake. He was gone though, which definitely isn't abnormal.
"Hey everyone I found one of those radio things." Rubble called out, as he was just looking around he found of in the missing window of one of the houses.
"Another one of Rico's story monologues?" Chase questioned, going over to Rubble along with the others.
"I think so." Rubble said as he pressed the button to start the audio.
"There are two kinds of people. Those who think this generation is good, and vice versa."
"Y'know it seems like this generation is just, burning in a sense, and we're just here, patiently waiting. Let's put this into a much easier perspective to understand. All the icons of the world are just getting older and older, changing with time, and the time will eventually come. So who's gonna come and change all this? Who's the next 'hero' gonna be? No one knows, and we're just waiting."
"Everyone changes, Y'know? Do you truly believe all the things you once did? Every single thing you believed at one point, have they held up? Y'know, and this is something that I have always thought about. Some have different opinions or do different things than others. Are you the one up in the front, being a part of it all. Or are you the one who just sits and watches? Are you the brick, or the architect? Think about this in any sense you want... It'll trace right back."
"Think back to all the things you once thought. Maybe you wanted the world to burn or maybe you wanted everyone to live peacefully. Something like that, I'm willing to bet you still think the same. You still want this world to be one way, but it's not. What am I to say though? I'm one pup and you don't need to listen to a word I'm saying. You're in control of what you want to think and believe."
"Don't be afraid to repeat things. 'Doing the same thing over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.' Change it up a little bit, but never be afraid to bear the burden of repeating. Whatever happens, happens. You may not be able to control what happens. But you can."
"Makes you think..." Marshall said after a while of silence after the audio.
"These have been mostly stories about Rico." Rocky told, "This was way different."
"Rico has definitely changed." Skye replied.
"He just went insane at one point it seems." Chase added.
"However he once was, he is still trying to kill us for his own movies. We need to stop that." Ryder explained, although he definitely was thinking.
"We can't do that without Zuzi." Marshall said as she was pretty much part of the team at this point.
"We'll just have to wait for her then."
And wait they did. They just say there and hoped and waited for her to come. They called into Chase's megaphone every one in a while, but with every passing minute, all hope seemed to drift slowly away. They were going to wait a long time there, but with how long it took each of them to find each other and now how long it's taking her, it seemed all too out of reach.
