Oh here's the next chapter! OMG I can't believe how far this story has come! I never expected it to be this long! Well I hope you wonderful readers out there enjoy this!

Kurapika: If everyone's as excited as you are, then we have a serious problem on our hands.

Me: *frowns* Aw, suck it up Blondie.

Gon: Rhia owns nothing! Including the song!

Killua: *smirks* Especially after learning about copyright-

Me: Enough out of you and the freaking copyright!

Kurapika: Okay I think that's enough from both of you.

Me: I agree! Story time! YES!

Chapter 21: Forming a Plan…

RHIA'S P.O.V

I sighed. What was going to happen? We were left stranded on this godforsaken boat without any information on it what-so-ever!

"It's been about five hours now," Leorio said, walking to the edge of the ship. "Do you think they'll come back?"

We had all gathered together on the deck of the ship. I looked up and shaded my eyes with my hand. The sun was already blazing overhead.

"This sure is a bad way to run a hotel," Leorio continued. "I mean, what kind of managers take off and leave their guests in the middle of the night?"

"I know what you mean." Tompa said, nodding. "Who do they think they are? We paid a lot of money for our rooms."

"But we gave it to them, it's not like they robbed us." Kurapika spoke up.

"Oh really?" Tompa challenged. "They took our treasure and skipped out on us! If that's not stealing I don't know what is!"

"You've got that right." Leorio said, turning to us. "Hey Tompa, we actually agree on something."

"Oh great. Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

Leorio stuck his tongue out at Tompa.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh grow up you two."

"So you're talking about the treasure?" Hanzo said as he walked forward. "Actually I was just in the manager's room a minute ago…they left it all behind."

My eyes widened. "Huh?"

"So do you think they forgot it here?" Gon asked, swinging his legs off the edge of his seat.

"No of course not." Killua said, sitting next to Gon. "Why would they do that?"

Kurapika put his chin in his hand. "This leads me to believe that they had another reason for leaving when they did…"

I messed up his hair. "Yeah you keep thinking Sherlock."

He only glanced at me in annoyance.

"Do you think it's another part of the Exam?" Hanzo asked.

"I can't be sure. We simply don't have enough information to go on at this point." Kurapika mused.

We were all silent. I could tell that this was taking a toll on everyone's nerves. Except for Kurapika that is. He was still his annoyingly calm self.

Then the three brothers- the Amori Brothers- started talking.

"Hey bro, if the Examiners are gone who's going to cook for us?"

"I don't know; someone here must know how to cook."

"I wouldn't count on that if I were you."

The youngest sighed. "Great. We're stranded on this island with nothing to eat! I'll starve to death!"

I sighed. "Talk about pessimistic." I said in a bored tone.

"Why don't you three calm down." Hanzo said in a commanding tone. "If we get hungry we can always catch some fish or something." He turned to Kurapika. "We need to start working out a plan on what to do next."

I nodded. "I'm with him on this note."

Then a voice called out. "Hey come here a minute!"

I turned around and saw Ponzu, one of the only other girls in the Exam. She was waving to us.

I looked at Kurapika. "Well? Come on slowpoke!"

He blushed. "Rhia!"

I giggled as I ran away and he ran after me. I heard Tompa mumble something like "Ah, young love." I resisted the urge to knock him into next week.

xxXXxx

Ponzu led us to a radio, where Pokkle- the boy with the funny purple hat- was working on it.

"Is that thing broken?" Gon asked.

"No, the radio is still in working order." Pokkle replied.

"We're not exactly sure why," Ponzu added. "But no matter which channel we try, we still can't get a signal."

I crossed my arms. "Well that's weird."

"Okay, so what does that mean?" Leorio asked.

Pokkle continued to play with the knobs on the radio. "Well, since we can't contact anyone, it's like we've been stranded here on this island, the 37 of us, and no one else."

No one said a word for a couple minutes.

"Huh?" Gon spoke up. He looked at Killua. "Hey did you hear that strange sound just now?"

"No I didn't." Killua said.

"Really?" Gon said, more to himself than anyone.

"We shouldn't just stand around here." Hanzo said. "Let's all split up and search the ship for anything that might shed some light on this."

"That's a good idea." Kurapika said.

"Then let's go." I said, walking out the door.

"Maybe you should stay here and keep trying with the radio." Hanzo told Pokkle.

He nodded. "Yeah sure thing. I'm on it."

I was walking down the hallway when I felt someone grab my wrist.

"Oh no you don't."

I raised an eyebrow. "Blondie what are you doing?"

"You get into enough trouble on ships," he said, taking me with him. "I'm going to make sure you don't cause any mayhem."

I pouted. "Oh yeah, cause I totally did that on purpose."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh Rhia…always the dramatic one."

I huffed and walked faster. Although that meant that now we were walking side-by-side.

We walked into a room that had a desk and a table in it.

"This must be the manager's quarters." Kurapika said, finally releasing my wrist. We each went to a different corner of the room to look for stuff. I didn't find anything worth finding though, just a bunch of dust and other useless stuff.

I sighed and put my hands on my hips. "There's nothing in here that could help us Blondie." I said. "Come on, let's look in another room."

"Hold on Rhia." he said, holding up a hand.

I paused in stepping out the door and looked back at him. He was picking up a crumpled piece of paper and staring at it.

I walked over next to him. "What is it?"

"I think it's a map." He answered. "Come on, we have to show this to the others."

I followed him out of the room and towards everyone else.

xxXXxx

We were gathered on the ship's deck once more.

"So, who found what?" I asked with my hands on my hips.

"Look at this." Leorio said, stepping forward. He was carrying a big cardboard box. We all peeked inside.

"Compasses?" Hanzo said.

"Yeah. And funny enough there's 37; one for each of us." Leorio said.

"That's interesting cause I found these measuring tools." Hanzo said, holding them up.

"I searched through the manager's quarters and found this." Kurapika said, bringing out the map.

"What's that a map of?" Gon asked in awe.

Kurapika pointed to a spot. "This here would be the Battleship Island where we are now," he explained. "And this line indicates the route to a place called Zevil Island."

"Heh." Chuckled one of the examinees. "They obviously left these things behind for us to find. It must be part of the Exam."

"They're telling us to get to Zevil Island!" said another, hitting his palm with his fist.

"Alright boys, we're going to Zevil Island!" the first one announced. "It's a good thing the ocean's calm today."

"I don't think it's gonna be that easy." Kurapika said.

"Huh?"

"With the map and compass we can determine what direction to take, but even so we can't be sure how far away it is."

"What difference does that make?" Leorio asked.

"The water does look pretty calm," Kurapika said. "And there's no sign of a storm, but if we don't know the distance to the island then we can't predict how long the journey will take or how much food we're gonna have to bring."

"Or water." I added with my arms crossed.

"All we need is the directions." The obnoxious examinee declared. "We'll just keep following it until we get there with as much food and water as we can carry. It's probably all part of the Hunter Exam."

"Why take unnecessary risks?" Kurapika said. "Have you forgotten that every phase so far has included all sorts of traps? I mean, even if this is part of the task, how do you know this map isn't one of those traps?"

"Come on, relax." Leorio said. "You can't be suspicious about every little thing. I mean I think it's pretty obvious they just want us to find our way to Zevil Island."

"I'm not that suspicious, and I'm not trying to stand in the way." Kurapika defended. "All I wanna say is that I think it would be safer to wait until nightfall so we can use the stars to chart our course as accurately as possible."

"Wait until after nightfall? You've got to be kidding!" Number 220-the obnoxious examinee-cried out.

"Hang on, I'm going to agree with Kurapika on this one." Hanzo said as he stepped forward. "We need to proceed with caution. It sure seems like this could be another thing we're going to be tested on, but it's a lot different from anything else we've had to do so far. I think we gotta all work together on this."

"I agree." I said. "What Blondie and Hanzo say makes sense to me."

"That's a bad idea." Came a voice from behind us. "Any fool can see that this is part of the Hunter Exam. And there could even be a time limit too."

"The one thing we don't need more of right now is speculation Gareta." Kurapika said, walking up to him. "Do you have any proof to back that up?"

"I found the water tank." Gareta replied. "There's hardly any drinking water left at all."

A murmur of shock went through the small crowd.

But Gareta wasn't done yet. "From what I can tell we don't have much time until we completely run out. So things are gonna get ugly if we stick around here. We came here for three days." He said, holding up three fingers. "We spent the first one scavenging for treasure. Which leaves us with two. So that means it must be possible for us to get to Zevil Island within those two days."

"Yeah you're right!" Gon cried. "That makes sense."

I frowned. I was getting a really bad feeling about this…something was…off. Just not right.

"Okay let's find us a boat!" The middle Amori brother announced.

"Alright boys, let's head for Zevil Island." Another examinee stated, leading a group of men behind him.

"Hey wait!" Hanzo cried. "If we all head out on our own, and if anything goes wrong then we're done for!"

"Feel free to stay here if you want!" They retorted.

Kurapika turned to Gareta angrily. "Why'd you go and do that? You might have put a lot of people in danger."

"Getting rid of the competition is part of the Exam." Gareta replied. "I'm gonna survive at any cost; I don't really care what happens to anyone else." Then he walked away.

"So…what are we gonna do now guys?" Gon asked.

Leorio turned to Kurapika. "Kurapika, I totally understand where you're coming from, but Gareta actually has a good point you know."

Kurapika looked agitated now. "I'm only trying to make everyone understand that we should proceed with caution."

"I know. We get it already." Leorio sighed.

"…I still think Kurapika's right." Hanzo said. "But I'm starting to doubt if it's such a good idea to wait around until after dark. In the mean time, why don't we split up again and scour the ship for anything that might help us get to the island."

"Anything's better than just waiting around." Killua said. "Hey come on Gon, let's go to that place we found."

"Yeah!" Gon cried in response as he and Killua ran off to who-knows-where.

"And what are you going to be doing?" Leorio asked Hanzo.

He sighed. "I'm going to try and talk some sense into those numbskulls. The more people we can get working together the better our chances are. Let's all meet back on the bridge if we find anything useful okay?"

"Sounds good." Kurapika said. He turned to me. "Alright Trouble come on."

"Oh so you call me 'Trouble' now?" I asked as I followed him inside the ship.

"Well you call me 'Blondie'."

I huffed. "Touché."

xxXXxx

So how was that? Oh I wonder what's going to happen next! *giggles* Sorry this took so long. Please give me some nice reviews! The more reviews I get, the faster I'll update! Tee hee!