CHAPTER 9

This Leader Thing

The newest video started exactly the same way the last one had. In the plane, watching Mikey shuffle past Jon, Dylan, and Casey standing in the door to the cockpit. For a moment, people suspected somehow the same video had been posted twice. They were proven wrong when instead of zooming in on the three at the front of the plane, it focused on the trio in the back. But it was apparently near the end of the conversation, so very little information could be gathered.

"So after Lancer talks to everyone?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah, it'll probably happen soon," Danny nodded, gesturing around the plane. Mikey was already gone, along with several other people.

"Should one of us stay behind, in case something happens to the people left on the beach?"

"No. If there smart, they won't go anywhere."

"Of course they're not smart," Sam scoffed. "Did you see them yesterday?"

"There isn't really a lot we can do about that," Tucker shrugged. "The more people looking for food and water, the better."

"He's starting," Danny said, sliding out of his seat. The camera followed Tucker's gaze out the window, where Lancer was standing in front of their classmates and the others stranded on the island.

"—lucky to find some food yesterday—"

Lancer's spiel started in the background but went generally ignored by the viewers as Tucker squeezed past Jon and jogged over to Sam and Danny.

"Mr. Lancer?"

Tucker snickered along with Sam as they watched their teacher jump, but they shared a look when everyone's eyes started shifting to their raven haired friend. When Danny abruptly cut himself off, Tucker and Sam seemed to have a sort of silent conversation, consisting of a lot of glares, before Sam picked up where he left off. Tucker seemed to have a light of victory in his eyes at the fact that he wasn't the one explaining, although that quickly fell to annoyance when Paulina started talking.

"Wouldn't animals have already attacked us?"

"Not necessarily," Tucker interjected. As he went on to continue his explanation, the camera started to move through the gathering, focusing on a few faces. Grayson, who looked to be annoyed, exasperated, and overall just tired of the teenagers around him. Kwan seemed to be rolling his eyes at Paulina, and Star was studiously ignoring everything in favour of checking her nails.

"Pray to Cas!"

Star paused in her 'studying' and looked back at Rux, before turning back and scoffing. "Stupid nerds."

"You do realize she's probably a college student, right?" Kwan asked.

"So what? There's lots of stupid people in college," Star snapped back, effectively quelling Kwan's argument. The viewers had to agree, Star wasn't wrong. "She should be doing something helpful, instead of shouting random things."

"You should be doing something helpful too," Kwan pointed out.

"I will, maybe, when there's something helpful to do."

"And she probably will too."

Star just shrugged in response, obviously uninterested.

"—you three know who should and shouldn't go?"

"Why is Lancer listening to those losers?" Paulina, who had remained in a sulky silence since earlier, scoffed. "Between Fenton's wacky parents, with their ghost grudges, and Manson's magic they're probably the reason we're stuck here."

"Of course you're right," Star nodded enthusiastically while glaring and Sam and Tucker, who were now telling people if they would be going or not.

"They seem to know what they're doing."

"Whatever. But when we die, it's all their fault."

"I can't die, I haven't even kissed the ghost boy yet!" Paulina cried out.

"Then don't do anything stupid to get yourself killed," Sam interrupted as she stopped in front of the pair. "Not that he'll ever kiss you anyways."

"Like you would know, Goth freak," Paulina spat.

"Maybe I would," Sam countered, before staring the three up and down as if calculating their every strength and weakness. "You two can come. Paulina, you're staying here."

"I didn't really want to anyways, that just means I don't have to make my hair worse walking through that forest," the Latina said, but Sam had already moved on to Grayson.

"What are you doing?" Grayson asked as Sam's amethyst eyes raked over him.

"Deciding whether you'd actually be helpful out there, of it you'd just get in the way." Sam replied casually.

"Most of you are just high schoolers, of course I'd be helpful. If you say otherwise, there's no real reason for me to listen to you."

"Why? Because you're an adult? That reasons a little ridiculous. Besides, you could actually be useful."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Grayson asked, clearly insulted.

"Dude, just take it. That's as much of a compliment as she can give," Tucker said from behind. Grayson scowled but said nothing more as the camera moved back to the A-listers

"Great, so besides us it's just a bunch of losers, and now my hair is going to get worse," Star sighed dejectedly.

"We can fix it when you get back," Paulina reassured her.

"Jon's going too," Kwan added.

"He's an A-lister, but he's practically a loser," Paulina said, and Star nodded in agreement.

"He wasn't the one who got kicked out when Danny was dating Paulina," Kwan said bitterly, sparking a few curious questions among the viewers, but he didn't elaborate. But Paulina was obviously insulted, because she marched away from the group with an indignant huff. It had been a surprise to many that Paulina had stayed where she was in the first place, since that implied that she was actually willing to go back into the forest despite her assurance that she didn't want to.

Lancer started to call the others together, and the two A-listers instantly moved to the front, probably on part from pure habit. Being high up on the high school food chain, they had to be used to standing at the head of a pack. No matter how ineffectual leaders they could really be. Star didn't acknowledge neither Sam, nor Jon and his two followers when they joined them. Although Kwan did give a half-hearted "hey".

Star frowned a little when Sam ended up about a step or two ahead, but didn't protest. This time the video skipped directly ahead to when Star pointed out the bananas, since nothing of interest happened during the walk over. When Lancer called for the break, Star walked over to Grayson.

"So what company do you own?" Star asked casually.

"What?"

"You said you were here with your business partner—" A flicker of sadness crossed Grayson's face. " —and that implies that you both run a company. So what company do you own?"

"Why do you care?"

"I'm bored, and you're name sounds familiar," Star shrugged.

"Acerodon."

"I can't remember it. Kwan, do you know?" Star looked over at the jock.

"I don't know. My family's not rich, remember," Kwan shrugged.

"Oh, yeah. I totally forgot. So what do you—"

"Damn it!"

Star's question was cut off by Danny's shout.

"They're so annoying," she muttered as Danny apologized and explained the situation.

"The weird girl?" Kwan's question seemed to draw her attention back to the conversation

"No wonder it was so quiet," Star sneered.

"Great, now we have to go look for those idiots," Grayson sighed beside her. "Although I think we should just leave them to find their own way."

Star seemed to agree with Grayson, because she was nodding and rolling her eyes at Sam's outburst.

"I'm just saying, we could get lost or hurt looking for them. And I already told you, I'm not letting some kids tell me what to do."

"Well, you don't have to, because Danny already went to look for them!"

"So now that kid is going to get himself killed."

"Probably not, with the kind of stuff he gets out of," Star laughed.

"What kind of stuff?"

"Usually ghost related stuff. You did buy his family's tech, apparently. Didn't even know they sold that stuff," Kwan shrugged. "A lot of Amity's ghost attacks happen at the school, and a lot more of those happen around Danny."

"And none of you think that's a little strange?" Grayson raised an eyebrow, voicing the thoughts of many viewers.

"I don't know."

"Not really," Star shook her head.

"Huh," mirrored the action, but more in disbelief. "It's security detail, by the way."

"What is?"

"What my company does, we train and hire out body guards, private security. Things like that."

"Cool," Kwan grinned.

"Okay, everyone! We've been resting for about ten minutes, I think, so we should start looking for food now. Don't forget to keep an eye out for William, Ruxandera, and Daniel. And remember to stay close!"

"Ugh, let's go. I'm hungry," Star said. She grabbed Kwan's wrist and started dragging him into the trees. They stopped and stared at the numerous plants. "You like nature, what do we look for?"

"I really only know the basic stuff. Names of plants and trees, not if they're edible, unless it's really obvious," Kwan said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Okay, so what's the obvious stuff?"

"You know, berries, dandelions, I can recognize herbs and stuff, but those aren't that useful on their own."

"Whatever, let's just look. We found bananas yesterday, so who knows what there'll be."

Kwan nodded, and the pair started rummaging through the bushes. It was like they expected pull some leaves aside and instantly find a patch of strawberries. Considering the bananas, it was certainly possible, but highly unlikely. Letting out an annoyed sigh at another literally fruitless search, Star was reaching to brush aside a plant with long leaves, when they moved. She hesitate, then pulled the leaves back revealing…

Nothing.

Star, and the viewers with her, breathed freely in relief. Although the viewers knew something was going to happen soon. In fact, that something happened right then.

"Um, Star? Don't move," Kwan whispered. Partially obeying Kwan's request, she stayed standing as she was. Slightly bent over with one hand out, but she turned her head towards him. Kwan, however, wasn't looking in her direction. Instead he was staring straight in front of them. So Star followed suit, dragging her eyes across the ground, over the plant she had first focused on, and up towards the trees. The viewers didn't see it at first, with its translucent green skin. If it weren't for the way it was shifting, creeping closer and growing larger, they probably wouldn't have noticed it at all. About two or three metres in front of Star was a large, ghostly cobra that just kept getting larger. First it was the same height as her, then it was towering over, then its head brushed some of the highest branches.

The viewers were given a quick look at the two A-listers' expressions. Both were obviously afraid, but Star was absolutely stricken. Her whole body was shaking and her eyes were flitting about wildly.

"Ms. Deslisle, what's wrong?" Lancer could be seen over Star's shoulders, hidden in the trees and not within the ghostly cobra's sightlines.

Star gave the barest shake of her head and flinched when Kwan's hand closed around her arm. She followed his guidance and lifted her foot to step away. At the same moment, the cobra seemed to coil backwards.

"Kwan—"

When she put her foot down, it lunged. Star screamed as he was knocked to the ground by a combination of Kwan tackling her, and the cobra's body slamming against her shoulder.

"You get the idiots, I'll get Danny!"

"Right!"

"Come on, we gotta run!" Kwan urged, pulling Star to her feet. They were too panicked to notice that the ghostly cobra was already gone. They ran blindly, passing Tucker, and the techno-geek's hand shot out to stop them.

"Dude, don't follow it!" He waved to the tunnel of destruction that the A-listers had been unknowingly heading for and shoved them in another direction. Tucker's head whipped around, as if searching, and he shouted off into the trees. "Stay together!"

And then he was running too, jumped bushes and fallen trees, and ducking under low branches. He was joined moments later by Grayson. The older man couldn't move as deftly, but his athletic abilities were fairly impressive for a businessman. Of course, now that the viewers knew what he did, maybe it wasn't that impressive. No one could be too sure about how long they were running for or how far they had ran, but eventually the four of them stopped and collapsed against a tree.

"Have we lost it?" Kwan asked, looking around as if expecting the cobra to burst from the underbrush.

"I don't think it was actually even chasing us," Tucker answered between pants.

"Does anyone, like, know where we are?" Star looked expectantly at the other three.

"We weren't exactly running in a straight line," Grayson huffed. "So no. We don't know where we are, and no one else knows where we are. But shouldn't there be more of us?"

"Sam went to find Danny. I have no idea what happened to Lancer, and I don't think the other three were even in the same area as us," Tucker said.

"So what do we do now?" Kwan asked, looking instinctively to the adult of the group.

"Hey, I train bodyguards, I don't teach wilderness survival.

"Um, shelter, I think. Yeah, Danny would probably say shelter," Tucker nodded. "I'm pretty sure you're all as hungry and thirsty as I am."

The others nodded in agreement.

"So you're probably just as tired. We sort of ate yesterday, and I think it's… four days? No, three days. You can survive three days without food and water," Tucker said.

"We find shelter, rest for the night, and look in the morning, basically," Grayson summed up.

"Yeah, basically."

They picked a random direction and started walking. As thoroughly lost as they were, the group probably couldn't get any more lost. If anything, they could be walking back towards the beach. Again, no one could be sure how long they walked for, but in no time at all the sky in the video was getting dark. The quartet was stumbling down a rather steep slope, following the logic that water had to run down, so while looking for shelter they might as well look for that too. Star suddenly slipped, her leg sliding out from under her, and she fell forwards.

"Star!" Kwan shouted.

She didn't fall far, just slid down for a couple of feet, but the girl was no doubt exhausted and hardly seemed to have the energy to stand.

"Please tell me there's a five star hotel past that tree," Star grumbled as Kwan helped her up.

"Not really, but it'll do," Tucker said, beckoning the others towards him. The tree Star had griped at was a strong looking oak, and from what the viewers could tell, it was sitting on what had once been a flat outcropping on the slope. But the earth under it had fallen away, meaning that there was a natural shelter made from the thick roots that held the tree straight. Without hesitation Tucker crawled inside, scooting back as far as he could. There appeared to be lots of room for the others. Kwan shrugged and followed suit on the opposite side.

"It's no five star hotel," Grayson smirked in Star's direction, and he too settled underneath the roots.

"Foley, if I wake up covered in spiders and bugs, I swear," Star left her threat open to interpretation as she slid beside Kwan, pushing him over a little to sit on the outside. "And don't get any 'bright' ideas."

"Hey! Tucker Foley has class!"

"No you don't, geek, shut up."

Star was grumbling, tugging her fingers through her hair and doing her best to remove the dirt, twigs, and leaves. She glared openly at Tucker, no doubt blaming him for the state of her blonde locks. Kwan looked to still be waking up, blinking frequently and yawning, while Grayson was brushing off his suit. Which, considering the circumstances, was still in pretty good shape. He had discarded his jacket at some point, and the white dress shirt was stained with dirt, but it was still relatively neat.

"You said we're finding food?" Kwan asked as he rose to his feet.

"Hopefully," Tucker nodded.

"How are we going to get back to the beach?"

Tucker blinked, staring at Kwan, then slapped himself. "Of course, the beach!"

"Foley, it's too early for shouting, what are talking about?" Star asked, working at a particularly tangled section of hair.

"How we're going to get back to the plane! No one actually said anything, but you were all thinking it, right? Well, the beach, that's all we need. Once we get to the beach, if we just follow it then we'll eventually get back," Tucker exclaimed.

"Okay, but what about food?"

"Water's more important, I think, and Kwan! You had that run-off thing, right? If there's a large source of water, it's going to run off into the ocean. It's simple. We follow the beach, and then if we find some kind of run-off, we get water from there."

"And if it's salt water?" Grayson asked with a raised brow.

"Um, then we follow it inland? Waterways usually connect, and salt water river usually turn into fresh water once far enough inland. And food… we just won't walk on the beach. We stay in the trees a little, and while we're walking we can look around. That works, right?" Tucker was obviously excited. His eyes gleamed behind his glasses and, if he were a couple years younger, he would probably be bouncing.

"And what direction do we go?"

"Oh. Um, good question," Tucker chuckled, then looked up to the sky. It was still a little dark, with the sun hovering over the pink tinged horizon. "Does anyone know where the sun rose from the plane?"

"I think you could see it through the windows, from the side with the door," Star answered, scrunching up her nose as she thought.

"Which means that was east, which is that way. Basically we need to go any direction except for north until we reach the beach, and from there we head south," Tucker grinned. "One more question. Anyone have any idea about which direction we ran in when the cobra came?"

They all exchanged glances, thinking back to the events of the previous day. It was highly unlikely that, at the time, they were paying attention to where the sun ones when compared to where they were running.

"That's where we were heading, right?" Kwan offered, pointing in the general direction they were walking the previous day.

"North-west," Grayson said, looking from the sun to Kwan. "With any luck that means we'll be closer to the western edge of the island.

"Cool, dude! Then we go this way," Tucker spun around and started walking with the sun, which was just barely visible through the leaves, at his back.

"Pff, who says only Danny can do this leader thing? It isn't so hard," he said to himself as the others started following, completely oblivious the conversation being held behind him.

"Why do the losers keep leading?" Star asked.

"I don't know, no one else really is," Kwan shrugged. "And I thought you didn't want to listen to a bunch of teenagers."

"I don't, but we're not dead yet, so I guess I will for now," Grayson answered. Star and Kwan exchanged glances as Grayson jogged ahead to catch up with Tucker. With a sigh, Star followed and Kwan was right behind her.

'See' you next time!