Chapter Ten: Return to Threed, The Meeting of Three

Several more twists and turns later and Anthony found himself at another dead end. There was no present at the end of the path, but instead a sign. 'Watch for falling materials! -Brick Road.' Anthony looked around before turning around and jumping when the weird photographer guy was in his face again.

"Pictures taken instantaneously!" The camera guy raised his camera and grinned. "I'm a photographic genius if I do say so myself!"

"Where did he come from?!"

"Okay, get ready for an instant memory! Look at the camera… ready… say, Fuzzy Pickles!" A flash of light later and Anthony had to blink away the spots in his eyes. When he opened them, the phantom photographer was gone.

There were three cries of confusion, one from him, two from the voices in his head, before he began walking again. There was a quacking noise and Anthony tilted his head in confusion before a duck waddled around a corner further down the path. "Uh…"

"Quack!" The duck waddled closer, and Willow began cooing in his head.

"Aww! It's a widdle duckie wuckie!"

"Don't you dare start OwO'ing or I swear to god I'll find a way to break out and leave you here."

"UwU!"

"Oh, god dang it!"

Anthony ignored them both and knelt down. Something was off about the duck…his suspicions were quickly proven correct when the duck's wide and comical eyes flashed, and Anthony felt his senses distort. A moment later he was back to normal and saw that the Mad Duck had fallen over.

He shook his head, "well, that did nothing. Might as well take it out before it reveals that it's incredibly dangerous, like the Worthless Protoplasms or whatever." He waited for an affirmation from his head but shrugged when nothing came. He raised his gun and fired, sending a pellet through one of its comically large eyes, causing it to explode and send blood and the various fluids in its eye to splash out.

Anthony shivered and rubbed his own eye, feeling tingling in it as he imagined it happening to him. "Ugh, hate that feeling… It's why I never watch gory movies…" He waited for a response, but when none came again, he began getting worried. "Guys? Sapphire? Willow?"

Silence. "Alright, that's slightly worrying…" Anthony continued walking, eventually finding another present at a dead end and opening it to find a croissant. He split it in half, giving one half to Bubble Monkey and the other half to himself. Walking along several more pathways until he reached yet another dead end. "Ugh. I hate mazes."

At least this Brick Road put presents at the dead ends, or he'd be even more annoyed. Rooting around in the present, he whistled and pulled out a Stun Gun. "Holy crap, really?" He turned it over in his hand and weighed it, before smiling and throwing his Pop Gun in his bag. The electrical currents the Stun Gun could shoot out would take care of creatures much easier than his modified Pop Gun, plus, he wasn't limited by having to reload or risk running out of ammo.

Eventually, he made his way to the end of the maze, and smiled when he saw a sign that read: 'Way to go! Please come back again! -Brick Road.' Anthony walked out of the hole in the wall that led back outside and met with a balding man that was muttering to himself. "Maybe it was too easy…?" The man shook his head and smiled at him, "My name's Brickroad, the dungeon developer. I've devoted my life to making dungeons! How did you enjoy this one?"

"I don't usually like mazes because of all the idiotic dead-ends, but I suppose the presents at each one made it a bit more bearable. I'd say it was rather good."

"Ha! Thanks, kid! One day, I'll create the best dungeon in the world!"

"How will you accomplish that?"

"Well, by combining my skills and Doctor Andonut's intelligence, I can become 'Dungeon Man,' the first combination of human and dungeon in history!"

"Uh, right." Anthony's mood soured when he head his 'father's' name.

"Anyway, we should meet again after I've become Dungeon Man!"

"Sure." Anthony waved goodbye to the guy and continued to walk south. After a few hours of walking, with thankfully very few encounters with animals, he reached a cliffside that he couldn't scale, but he did see a hole in the cliffside to the west. Entering it, he was almost immediately assaulted by a horde of Rowdy Mice and shrieked as he fell back. He kicked one away and brought up his Stun Gun to blast another away. Bubble Monkey laughed with a 'kikiki' sound and smacked the third mouse away. With his gun now delivering an electrical shock that would short out his opponent's nervous systems, there was no need to aim for any vital points, because hitting them anywhere would do damage.

He punted another mouse away, before feeling several scampering up his back. He jumped and tried to wipe them away frantically, before running through the cave systems as more and more scampered after him. With so many he would quickly be overwhelmed, so he needed to go, now! He leaped over a mouse that tried to grab onto him before he suddenly felt drowsy. He stumbled and held onto his head, before falling over unconscious.

"A… Ny… Nt… Hon… Anthony!"

Anthony felt a jolt of energy shoot through him, and Sapphire's voice echoed through his head. "Those slugs, they can use some kind of Hypnosis ability like mine, take them out!" he felt adrenaline course through him and he shot awake, just as a mouse was jumping at him. He rolled aside and saw one of the slugs that Sapphire had told him about and squashed it underfoot. With that out of the way, he continued running into another 'room' in the cave system.

He saw a rope on a small cliff wall and climbed it, scrambling onto a ledge where the hordes of mice couldn't reach him. He heard rustling and turned to see a small mushroom kicking at him before he grabbed it by the cap and threw it into the sea of mice. He pulled the rope up onto the ledge so none of the mice could follow him.

He scooched back until he heard a 'clunk' noise, and turned to see a human skeleton. He shrieked again, and almost fell off of the tiny alcove he found himself on. After scrambling around a moment to hold on, he slowly edged closer to the skeleton. "Imagine it's one of the models from class, imagine it's one of the models from class…" It was disgusting and disturbing, but if the dead man had anything useful he could use, then he had to push past his disgust.

The skeleton had a bag on its back, and pulling at it caused the skeleton to fall apart. He coughed at the dust in the air, before rooting around inside. His eyes lit up when he spotted a Bottle Rocket before realizing that it wasn't as large as his original one, and would pack less of a punch. Either way, it would be useful, and he placed it in his bag.

The only other things inside the bag were a rotten burger and a cheap bracelet, so he placed the bag back by the skeleton before crawling back to the edge of the ledge. There were still dozens of mice down below, so he grimaced and leaned back against the cave wall to wait them out.

He must have fallen asleep sometime during his wait, because all of a sudden, he found himself back in the cell that Sapphire and Willow were in. The first thing he did upon seeing them was to cross his arms and lift an eyebrow. "So, what happened there? Why'd you both start giving me the cold shoulder?"

"It's not like we wanted to," Sapphire answered, shaking his head. Or at least Anthony thought he was since the only impression he got of the boy was a shadowy figure shaking itself. "Whatever that duck did disrupted our PSI. Willow couldn't do anything for a while, and I couldn't be the signal booster she needs to communicate with you so much."

"Pardon, you're telling me a duck took out the PSI abilities of two Chosen children?" He began clapping, shaking his own head. "Astonishing."

"Hey, why don't you try fighting an enemy that can directly counter your special power," Willow pouted.

"Anyway," Sapphire butted in, "We should be back to communicating when you wake up."

"Of course. Well, I might as well get in as much sleep as I can, considering the sea of mice that probably still needs to disperse." Sapphire shivered at his words, while Willow giggled.

"Yeah, see you in the morning then. Hopefully, you get us out of here soon. Being stuck in here for basically a full day now is torture."

"Hm." The room blacked out fully, and after what seemed like a few seconds Anthony awoke. He stretched and jumped when he accidentally touched the bones of the dead guy, before crawling to the edge of his tiny perch, and looked down to see that all of the mice had vanished. He threw the rope down and climbed back down.

"Testing, testing, this thing on?"

"From what I know of you, I don't think your brain is usually on." there were several slapping sounds and laughing, causing Anthony to roll his eyes.

"Pardon, but could you not?"

"Yeah, whatevs." Anthony brushed off his hands and began walking, before coming to a dead end several minutes later.

"Really? I'm out of the maze and I'm still finding dead ends?" He looked around the room, before seeing a length of rope above him on the ledge. "Alright, now how do I grab that…" Bubble Monkey tapped on his shoulder and pointed to his mouth, causing him to roll his eyes and hand him a stick of gum. "Now then." He began tapping his chin and muttering, not noticing Bubble Monkey float up and grab the rope.

He started as the rope dropped onto his head, and looked up to see Bubble Monkey crawling down to jump onto his shoulder. "Oh. Right." He ignored the laughing in his head as he crawled up the rope, almost falling back down when two mushrooms jumped at him as he reached the ledge. He quickly ducked back down and watched them sail over his head, falling to their doom.

He smirked to himself, only for Sapphire to burst his bubble. "Yes, congratulations on outsmarting a piece of fungus."

Anthony rolled his eyes and wiped his hands on his shorts, looking around. To the left was a lit up doorway that led outside, while to the right was a… Anthony winced as some sort of pressure slammed into his mind, and he stumbled back, nearly falling off the ledge. Bubble Monkey whimpered and hid behind his head. What could be causing that? Anthony slowly approached the doorway, entranced, until a large shadow began filling up the doorway.

"You… You are not Sapphire…" Anthony's mind grated as the voice slammed through him. "But… ah. I feel him on you, his presence… You are one of the Chosen! This is not your Sanctuary, but I will gladly kill you, for daring to come alone! For Lord Giygas!"

Suddenly, Sapphire and Willow's voices reached him, as if they had been drowned out by the menacing creature's voice. "RUN!" He turned and began sprinting, Running out of the cave and into the chilly Winters air. He continued running for several minutes, assuming that no matter how badly that monster wanted to kill him, it wouldn't abandon that Sanctuary, or whatever.

"Well, I guess we found where another Sanctuary is," Sapphire muttered.

After running some more, Anthony slowed to a walk, huffing. Both out of breath, and at the sight ahead of him. Ahead was Stonehenge, the mysterious rock structures, and further south, he could spot the metallic building that was his 'father's' laboratory. Bubble Monkey perked up all of a sudden and leaped off of his shoulder. Anthony watched him go and snorted when he spotted the monkey running towards another monkey with a bow in its hair. Or her hair, he supposed.

He shook his head as he began walking through Stonehenge, looking at the mysterious rock structures. He heard a rustling behind him and looked back, expecting more dogs or a goat, and instead saw what looked like a large caveman, with the large club and all. "Uhhh…"

"I think you should get going."

"Yeah…"

The Cave Boy roared and began stomping towards him, causing him to scream and begin sprinting away. He heard it stomping after him before he scrambled around the side of one of the stones and hid behind it. The Cave Boy stomped around and looked for him before scratching their head and stomping back. Anthony waited a minute to make sure they were gone, before sighing and walking towards the laboratory.

He walked up to the laboratory's front door and breathed in. Here it goes. He'd be seeing his 'father' for the first time in ten years.

Anthony entered the laboratory, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the man with white hair and glasses standing at a table and looking through a microscope. He shifted awkwardly and cleared his throat. When the man didn't respond, he repeated his action but louder. When the man still didn't respond, he walked over and wrenched the man away from his work. "AHEM!"

"Hm?" The man calmly adjusted his glasses. "And who are you?"

Anthony immediately felt rage build up, but Sapphire and Willow began calming him down from inside his head, so he just sighed and raised his head to look the man in the eyes. Or glasses, he supposed. "I'm Anthony." No response. "Anthony Andonuts."

"Ah, my son!"

"Yes. Anthony." He stressed his name. How dare the man call him his son after punting him away to a boarding school for a full decade!

"Ah, right…" an awkward silence fell over them before the man cleared his throat. "So, I'm glad to see you're such a healthy boy."

"Really? Wow, that contradicts the fact that you never visited, or even called to check on me!"

"Er, those glasses look good on you."

"What an amazing compliment."

"…want a donut?"

"...Screw it, I'm hungry. This doesn't mean I like you though."

"Uh…" the man coughed awkwardly, "well, I was only offering, I don't really have any, and I'd like one too…"

"Great."

"…Have you already checked out Stonehenge?"

"Yes, and was almost attacked by a Cave Boy."

"Well, at least I asked… hmm… okay. By the way, why are you here?"

Anthony's fists clenched, and Sapphire and Willow had to quickly soothe him again before he did anything. "I need to meet with two friends in Eagleland. Sapphire and Willow. Apparently, you have some way of getting me to them quickly."

"Ah, how did they know I've been working on a Phase Distorter, a machine to connect two points in space and time?"

"They're psychic."

"Oh, okay! I thought I recognized one of those names! Willow is the special girl from Twoson isn't she? Either way, the Phase Distorter isn't complete yet, so you'll have to take the Sky Runner." He walked to into a back room, and Anthony followed him, but not before grabbing a broken pipe and putting it into his bag, because why not? It could be a long flight, something to fix would take some boredom away. Andonuts held his hand out to show him a large, steel-gray ball that looked similar to a rounder version of a UFO, with an antenna atop it. "It's a little old, but it'll certainly help. When you board, just listen to the message that comes from your destination."

"Let me guess, it's 'your destination is on your right?'"

"Well, if it's on your left then it'll tell you that your destination is on the left."

"Whatever," he sighed. He walked forward and examined it, finding a doorway with a button next to it. Pressing it caused the doorway to open up and let him in before it closed behind him.

Andonuts' voice echoed from outside, "let's get together in another ten years or so!" Anthony's eye twitched before he began flipping switches.

"So, where exactly are you guys?"

"We don't know our exact location, but we'd say near the Threed graveyard."

"Alright, I'll land there and then begin looking around for you two."

"I'd be careful, lots of spooky zombies and ghosts were huddling around the graveyard when we investigated!"

"You're joking."

"She's not," Sapphire deadpanned.

"Sure. Whatever. I'll go with it, undead here I come." He looked down and found a button labeled 'launch,' and quickly pressed it. A moment later and the ship began lifting into the air, and Anthony quickly made sure he was strapped into his seat. Suddenly, it dropped back down and Anthony hissed as he hit his head on the roof.

"What happened?" Andonuts' voice echoed again, "try pressing the button again!" Anthony grumbled and did so, and the ship began lifting off again with a worrying groan.

"This thing is totally going to crash," he muttered. The Skyrunner lifted up through the roof of Andonuts' lab, before flying high into the clouds, to the west. Anthony settles back into his seat, trying to get as comfortable in the confined quarters as he could.

Hours quickly passed, and Anthony could see through the window various places in Eagleland when he had finally reached it. The city of Fourside, the massive Dusty Dunes Desert, and finally Threed. However, even though it was still day, Threed looked dark and dreary. And it wasn't just from the infected, dark blue landscape, but there was a stark contrast between when he had been flying above the clouds, and when he flew below them.

And it wasn't just that the clouds were thick and blocking the light, but in the distance, he could see a break in the clouds that light was flowing to, to the north of Threed. It almost looked like a vacuum, every scrap of light that managed to break through the cloud cover was siphoned and sucked towards that area.

"I guess you'll have to check over that way then."

"Yes, such an anomaly could be attributed to a monster base or some such event."

"Yeah, whatever you say." The Skyrunner began lowering itself even further until it was skimming just barely above the gravestones of the cemetery. The machine began circling until it was hovering over a pathway near the center of the graveyard.

"…Sapphire, do you hear that?"

"Yeah…"

Anthony began preparing for descent and landing before the console sparked. "Oh, crap." The machine rose up several meters, and Anthony looked out to the sky. "God, if you're listening, If you make sure I survive, I'll promise I'll begin praying."

"Your destination is directly below you! Thank you for flying with the Skyrunner!"

"Willow, move!" The Skyrunner dropped like a rock, smashing straight the ground and deep underground. Anthony shrieked and closed his eyes before the rumbling stopped. He opened his eyes to find himself in an underground cavern and breathed a sigh of relief before the Skyrunner suddenly exploded.

"Gah!" He was tossed clear from the burning wreckage and rolled across the cave floor, before coughing out a puff of smoke. "Fun." He slowly got up and cracked his back, before looking around the cave. It looked eerily similar to the meeting place between him and the two psychics, except much brighter due to the hole in the ceiling.

He looked over when he heard coughing, and saw two figures near a large metal door. One of them wore a striped red and blue shirt, with blue jeans and sneakers, with a red baseball cap atop his head. The hat covered extremely brown hair, nearly completely black, with similarly colored eyes. They were such a deep brown that it looked like they were all pupil, no iris. He had a yellow backpack on, with a baseball bat in his hand, which he was brandishing in defense.

To his right was— Anthony blushed and looked away, considering the girl's pink dress had ridden up when she fell back from the crash revealing her… undergarments. "Willow, you okay?"

"A-Okay!" She jumped up, and Anthony could finally look back. Aside from the pink dress, she had a white sash around her waist which held a frying pan, for some reason, and atop golden blonde hair was a bright red bow with a small bag on her back as well. She had crystal clear, beautiful blue eyes, and was clasping her hands together as she smiled at him. "You finally got here, Ant!"

Sapphire lowered his bat at that, nodding. "I figured it was you, but just wanted to make sure." He walked over and held a hand out, a mischievous grin on his face. "Howdy, I'm Sapphire, as you already know."

"I'm Anthony, which you also already know." He shook his hand before he brushed the back of his head. "Wow, that really scared me…I suppose that the Skyrunner is now out of commission." They both looked back to see the smoldering wreck. "Well… here I am." He smiled a little embarrassed. He might have been talking with them for near two days now and met with them in his dreams, but this was physical now, they were face to face. "I'm not very strong, near-sighted— very near-sighted, kind of shy, and tend to be a bit reckless when it comes to explosives."

"Sounds good to me," Sapphire grinned, with Willow nodding along.

"I hope we can be good friends, then." He smiled and bowed to them, before Willow giggled and jumped forward, hugging him.

"Of course! We'll be the best of friends!"

"Yep! Welcome to the group!"

Sapphire observed the boy, folding his hands behind his head. He had blond hair, just a bit paler than Willow's and not as golden, with glasses covering his eyes. He had some kind of blue suit jacket and pants or something, Sapphire didn't know, he wasn't very good with clothes. Although the bow tie he wore did look pretty funny. He spotted the boy's Stun Gun in his hand, as well as his messenger bag.

"So…" he started, looking back at the door they were locked behind. "Got some way of opening that?"

"Of course!" The boy rooted around in his bag as he approached the door, before pulling out the Bad Key Machine.

"I remember that!" Willow skipped behind him and looked at it. "It was so cool!"

"Indeed," Anthony nodded. He held it up to the door's keyhole before the machine scanned it and inserted itself. The door gave a click before Anthony grasped the doorknob and pulled it open. "Ladies first."

"Why thank you, kind gentleman!" Willow giggled and walked out, followed by himself, and Anthony last. Willow laughed, "Anthony went last, so are you a lady too, Sapph?"

"Hell no, I'm a queen!" He strut forward and Willow laughed, while Anthony shook his head. "Now, let's get outta here!" They began following a stone path that seemed an unnatural blue.

"Even the stones are a sickly, dark purple," Anthony muttered.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's nothing that can't be corrupted by Giygas," he sighed back.

"If everything will be corrupted, then we'll just purify everything!" Willow cheered.

Both boys chuckled at her words and began ascending a staircase carved out of the stone. At the top was a ladder, which Sapphire climbed first since he was the sturdiest and could take any creatures that were waiting above better than Willow or Anthony could. When he got to the top he pushed aside what felt like a stone slab, to reveal that they were below a grave.

He climbed out and saw the hole in the ground that the Skyrunner had created before he turned to see Willow helping Anthony out of the hole since he had climbed up after her. For some reason, the boy was blushing and looking away. "Alright, so we know we need to go north. We could try that path we found before we were captured, remember it, Willow?"

"Yeah, but I'm willing to bet all those zombies are still there, and ready to bite us!"

"So we'll need a way to lower the zombie population, without getting killed ourselves," Anthony muttered.

"Maybe we should talk about this back in town, I don't want to get ambushed again."

"Rightio!"

"Of course."

They began making their way back into town, to see that even fewer people were out than before, and that was saying something. "So, What do we do?"

"Perhaps ask around the town? We might be able to find someone, or multiple people, planning on how to defeat the zombies."

"Yeah! We can shine our own light on this place and fill it with hope!"

"I don't think we're going to amass an army to take down the zombies," he dryly responded. "But that is a good idea. Come on, let's look around." And so began the search. Whenever they attempted to talk with someone they either ran screaming because they thought the three kids were zombies in disguise or didn't know anything.

"This sucks," he sighed. "Nobody around here is trying to fight against the zombinos!"

"Pardon?"

"Yeah," Willow sighed. "The town's lost all hope!"

"Then it's a good thing that's my special move! Now, let's put some PSI Hope in these peoples hearts!"

"You kids lookin' ta fight the zombies?"

"Yes indeed!" Sapphire spun on his heel to see a man wandering out of an alleyway. "And who are you?"

"Arms dealer. After all, people need to defend themselves, so I give them what they need."

"Cool! That sounds like stuff you could use, Ant!" Sapphire fished some money out and handed it over. "Here, buy something if you think it could be useful."

"My thanks. Pardon me, but what items do you have in stock?"

"Take a look!" As Anthony began looking through the guy's stuff, Sapphire folded his arms.

"So, how about we draw all of the zombies into one place, then I can blow 'em all up at once with Hope?"

"That could work, but there were a lot of zombies… Could you take out every single one with a single Hope?"

"If I can't, then I'm sure a PSI Fire from you will take out the rest!" She nodded at his words before Anthony wandered back over. "So, what'd ya get?"

"Several explosives, a couple of extra bottle rockets, and some rust promoter."

"...Maybe I shouldn't have given you so much money."

"I do not have psychic powers, I have to be useful somehow."

"So what'll you kids do now?"

"I presume we shall find somewhere to draw in the zombies, someplace easily destructible that no one shall care about, so we can destroy them all at once."

"Hm… I've heard that some people want to trap the zombies in the circus tent, but they would have no way of getting out safely."

"Maybe we should talk with them," Willow suggested.

"I've also heard that there's another, weirder circus tent to the south of town. I recommend checking that out since it could be the work of the zombies."

"Alright, thanks!" They began walking away and Sapphire folded his arms behind his head. "So, check out the weird tent first, or the people fighting against the zombies?"

"The tent! I bet there's a bunch of monsters there!"

"Pardon my language, but that's bloody idiotic. We should check with the people planning a defense first."

"Guys, guys, let's not have an argument within literally the first hour of meeting each other face to face. We'll check out the weird tent first, because if it really was created by the zombies, or something similar, then we should destroy it quickly."

Willow nodded happily, while Anthony hummed his acceptance at his logic. As they walked down the road, Sapphire had to stop himself from bumping into a kid running down the street. Anthony immediately crossed his arms, "Watch it, kid, you almost bumped into us."

"Sorry!" Sapphire raised an eyebrow as he looked down and almost burst out laughing. The kid was wearing a pumpkin on his head and looking up at them through it.

"What the heck are you wearing?"

"A pumpkin!" Several more kids began running up, all of them also wearing pumpkins.

"Aw!" Willow giggled and leaned forward, "and why are you wearing pumpkins?"

"For protection from the zombies?" Anthony asked. "I don't believe that fruits could protect you that well."

"No, from you!"

Danger.

Sapphire jumped back as the kids began spitting high-speed seeds at them, grabbing Willow and Anthony to pull them back as well. "Whoa!"

"Get them!"

"Use your magic on them! Don't you have some weird magic?!" Anthony cried.

"No, we can't!" Sapphire dodging another barrage of seeds, before winding up and smashing the pumpkin off of one of the kids' heads, knocking them out in the process. "We could do some serious damage!"

Another child tried jumping on Anthony, but the blond boy simply fired his taser at them, electrocuting them and knocking them out. Willow stopped another child from attacking him from behind by smacking them away with her frying pan. "Shield α times three!" Sapphire jumped forward and threw shields over himself and the other two Chosen, before placing his back against theirs to smack away another child.

"Ack!" One of the children tried spitting seeds at Anthony, but they simply bounced off his Shield, letting him get in a blast from his taser. "Dear lord… You really do have powers…"

"We've been telepathically talking for two days!"

"Take this, you meanies!" One of the children suddenly pulled out-

Danger.

"A bomb!" In the child's hands was a stick of dynamite, which they quickly lit and threw.

"PSI Freeze β!" Willow aimed the blast of ice at the ground, which quickly created an icy wall. The bomb detonated against it, sending shards of ice flying away. "Alright, that was awesome!"

"Nice work, Willow!" Sapphire called as he bat a child away.

"Indeed!" Anthony chimed in. One last blast from his Stun Gun and the final kid went down. "Now, such instantaneous freezing! That's some powerful Glaciokinesis! The wall it created is about seven feet tall while being four feet wide, so the amount of energy that you expended…" He continued talking, while Willow blinked.

"Uh, what?"

"Well, that was a thing." Sapphire ignored the science babble and knelt down to check the pulse of the children, and nodded when he felt pulses in all of them. "They're still alive. Good, I don't think I could handle killing a person, or a kid."

"Yeah, now, onward to the spooky tent!" Further south they exited the town, to come upon what almost looked to be an inverted version of the circus grounds to the north. Where there had been reds were dull browns. Bright blues were now deep purple. And happy clowns were now— oh god clowns.

The various dark blue and purple clowns turned as they spotted them, and frowned. Sapphire immediately stepped back and brought out his bat. "Stay back, demons!"

"Sapphire, they are clowns. They pose no threat." He was immediately proven wrong when a clown jumped forward and bit down on his shoulder.

"ZOMBIE CLOWNS!" Sapphire screeched and powered up a Flash α. The explosive light slammed into the zombie and detonated, shredding their bodies while causing others to begin crying uncontrollably. Anthony fell back and clutched his shoulder, tears of pain forming as he let off a scream of pain. "Willow, turn them to ash!" He slid over to Anthony, lighting up his hands with a Lifeup α.

"Fire α!" The wave of flames lit up the darkness and quickly roasted the zombies, Except for the few that dodged. One of them staggered as Anthony fired his taser, biting his lip to ignore the pain. Several zombies suddenly jumped forward causing Willow to fall back as she bashed one aside.

"Hyah!" Sapphire moved forward to cover her and smashed one zombie to pieces, before holding his bat in a bunting position to protect himself from another before smacking it away. A stick of dynamite flew over him and landed in a cluster of zombies, before detonating and blowing them all apart. "Whoa!"

"Well, I did say that I had purchased explosives from that Arms Dealer," Anthony explained as he pulled out another stick. Although since there were only a few zombies left, Sapphire just bashed aside the one, while Anthony zapped another and Willow froze the last.

"That's done with…" Sapphire put his bat away his bat and sighed. "Now what?"

"Let's investigate this tent," Anthony suggested. They walked up to the front of it, but couldn't find an entrance. "How are we supposed to get in?"

Sapphire narrowed his eyes as he felt a thump in the back of his mind.

Danger.

"Get ready, something's about to happen." His clairvoyance, it was telling him that an enemy was there. But where? There was nothing around him… He edged towards the tent, but when he reached out to it, there was a flash of light, and Sapphire was sent sprawling backward.

"Sapph!"

"Sapphire!"

Danger.

Sapphire rolled to the side, just as yellow liquid splashed onto the ground where he had been laying. Willow helped him to his feet, just as he saw what had attacked him. "Oh, you're kidding me." Anthony facepalmed next to him, a disbelieving expression on his face.

The tent roared as it suddenly grew a face with incredibly sharp and massive teeth, and piercing eyes. "Gaaooorrg!"

"This is insane…" The tent bulged, building up more of the yellow fluid. All three Chosen grabbed their weapons and stood fast, as the Boogey Tent attacked!

The first three Chosen have met now, and we're back in Threed. Oh yeah, and now they're fighting a sentient tent. Earthbound is freaking weird.

Felt like this was a good place to stop. I've pretty much already finished writing the fight, now I'm just writing the rest of chapter eleven. I think I wrote a pretty unique take on the fight. Guess I'll see what y'all think when I post the next chapter.

Alrighty then, leave a review if you'd like and enjoyed the chapter. Now I'm going to sleep because it's one in the morning and I don't want to forget to post it in the morning. See y'all next chapter.