Ah, back to school. So lots of homework and stuff. Ick. But here I am, writing instead of doing that. Who said procrastinators never succeed?

I pressed my back against the stone wall, barely breathing. Peering around the corner slightly, I saw two men standing in front of the door I assumed my mother to be behind. From what I could see without giving myself away, they both carried large spears, unusual weapons, but very dangerous. I had to find a way to take them out without getting a spear to the neck.

I slid back around and fished through my mission bag. My hand closed around a couple of throwing knives. Knife throwing wasn't my forte, but if I could hit any part of them and get them to drop the spear, I could dispatch them easily.

Glancing back around, I gripped the knife in my right hand, twisting it to fly straight for the man on the left's hand. Taking a deep breath, I flung it forward, watching it flip in the air, and finally embed itself into the man's wrist.

The guy cried out and dropped his weapon, holding his bleeding hand. The guard next to him dropped his own and moved to help his injured comrade. I took this as my cue to jump out and knock them both out.

I jumped on the one helping his comrade's back, and cut off his air to send him into dreamland. Crawling away from him, I knocked the other guy with the bleeding hand on the side of the head, making his eyes swirl and his body crash against the stone floor.

Smirking to myself, I moved back to the door. Just as I reached up to test the lock on it, I heard a thick thump nearby.

My head shot up, and I immediately set my guard back on. Had those guys had comrades waiting nearby? Had I been caught? I hoped not. This would all be so much easier if I could just get my mother without being caught.

"Edward!" I heard the familiar cry of my best friend just up the stairway I had come down. "Bella told us to get out!"

"I don't care! She's gonna do something—"

And the vampire came into my eyesight. His sentence stopped and his eyes locked with mine. I opened my mouth to say something, but at that second, Lucky came plowing down the stairs, having obviously tripped and slammed smack into Edward's side. Edward, of course, barely flinched at the collision, while Lucky was sent sprawling onto the floor, holding his face in pain.

I felt like an anime character, with the large bead of sweat falling over my head. I smacked my forehead visibly and glared at the two.

"What the hell are you two doing here?" I growled.

Lucky scrambled up and held his hands up in a defensive manner. "I'm sorry, Bella! I tried to make him follow orders! But vampires are hard to stop!"

I sighed. "Edward, I told you to get out of here."

"I know."

"So why are here!" I clenched my fists so hard, I could feel the nails biting into my palm.

"I heard what Lucky was thinking. You have a plan to destroy this place, and the only way to do that is from the inside." Edward frowned, angry. "I'm here to make sure you don't do that."

"Seriously, Edward?" I rubbed my eyes, exasperated. "You really think I'm on a suicide mission? You don't think I'd plan an escape route before I blew the place to pieces?" I glanced over to Lucky. "And I should have warned you to watch your thoughts."

"Sorry, Bella." Lucky muttered sheepishly. "I really tried."

"I know, Luck." I turned back to the door. "Now, I guess, you'll have to assist me. I need to investigate this room. You two will watch the door, understood?"

Lucky nodded quickly. "Gotcha, chief!"

I turned to Edward. "And you, Edward?"

"I'm going in there with you." He folded his arms, stubborn.

I growled to myself again, biting my tongue. He was lucky he hadn't been born on the island and chosen for ninja training. He'd have been exiled before he could even think about reaching full ninja status. The boy didn't follow orders to save his life. And they were to save his life.

Damn it all.

"Fine." I gave in, reaching into my bag again. I handed him a throwing knife. "You will follow me in. Guard my back, understand?"

He nodded eagerly now. He gripped the knife and watched as I kicked the door, not bothering with the lock at all.

The stone door cracked against the wall and rang throughout the hall. Whatever. Too late now. I stepped inside, pulling out my trusted knife, and holding it at the ready.

Edward and I crept inside, taking in everything this room had to offer. It wasn't very big. It didn't even really look like a room. It was thin and long, more of another hallway then a room. Still, we followed it, keeping to one side of the walls.

Then I noticed something.

It was getting hotter.

As if that was possible. Before we walked into this room, I was already pretty warm. Now, as we moved farther and farther down this hall, the heat seemed to grow. There was some heat distortion lingering in the air, and my breathing was getting shorter. Yeah, something bad was ahead.

"Hey, Edward. Be careful. I'm getting a bad feeling something's up ahead."

He nodded, but didn't say anything. That annoyingly overprotective, worried look he'd adopted lately was back on his face.

"Easy, vampire-boy," I muttered, trying to calm him. "Nothing bad is gonna happen to me, or to you. We got this."

I said it to him, but I think it was more to ease my own nerves. This was going to be bad. I could feel it.

We came to an opening in the stone. I stopped Edward from moving forward and surveyed the room. The heat had peeked here, and I could hear something beeping in the background.

The room was large, the largest I had seen so far. It was empty though. None of the machines I'd seen earlier were down here. No scattered papers. No signs anyone had been down here.

My communicator buzzed in my ear, signally someone had hit the button to speak to me.

"Uh, Bella?"

"What is it, Lucky?" I answered, my eyes still watching the room. I had that prickly feeling on the back of my neck you got when someone was watching you.

"I think we have an issue."

"What did you do?" I frowned at the floor, focusing on what my best friend was saying.

"Nothing. But, I just had to take out a squad of Ponta patrolmen, and I think they signaled for help before I could dispatch them all."

I grimaced. "Alright, follow me and Edward down the hallway behind the door. Get here as fast as you can."

"Understood, chief. Be there soon." And he released the button.

I rubbed my eyes again, and sighed. This mission was slowly deteriorating from my original plan. I looked up, ready to give Edward my angry glare, only to find he wasn't beside me anymore.

He was pressed up against the wall across the room. His ear was flat against the rock, and his eyes were glazed over, like he was focusing hard on something.

"I hear something behind this wall. A voice."

"Really?" I came over and put my own ear against the wall. "I can't hear anything."

"No, it's someone's mental voice." He told me. "But it's kind of muddled, like the person isn't fully conscious."

"What are they thinking about?" I asked, pulling away from the wall.

"It's something like…" He listened for a moment. "'I wonder what they're going to do next.'" He said aloud, and then cut off. "And I can't make anything else out. Like the thoughts just stopped."

I leaned my back against the wall and folded my arms, thinking. "That could mean this person is in some serious pain. I know that thinking becomes harder the more pain you're in, unless you're thinking about the pain." I muttered to myself. "But the only person I could think of that the Ponta would torture like that would be my mother."

"You think she's behind this wall?" Edward asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know for sure. But even if it's not, we should probably get them out of there."

He nodded and moved to hit the wall, as though he would break open a pathway. I stopped him, however, and scanned the wall closely. There had to be a switch or seam for a door or something….

"Ah, here we go." I mumbled to myself. Barely visible for the shadows was the seam of a door. I slid my hands across the space, trying to push it open or find someway to jam my fingers in and pull it open. "Damn it," I cursed under my breath. "No dice."

"Isn't this where we break through the wall?"

I shook my head. "No, Lucky said he thought people were getting ready to storm us. We need to leave as little a trail as we can." I told him, scanning the room again. "There has to be a switch or a card lock or something laying around."

Edward scanned with me, using his vampire sight to aid my human eyes. We couldn't find anything at all. There was nothing around that stood out. How could that be possible? There had to be a rise in the wall or a shift in the floor or something. Nothing.

Suddenly, Lucky burst into the room, panting heavily and heaving his shoulders. He looked as though he could barely stand he was so exhausted.

"Lucky?" I said, going to him. "What's going on?"

"Well, they did call for help." He gasped, leaning on his knees. "I ran here as fast as I could. I was watching my step, I swear, but I hit a button and something started clicking at me." He explained, sitting himself on the ground. "I got nervous, so I sped up, and it got really hot."

I nodded. "It is hot down here." I agreed. "But where was this button at?"

"It was far down the hallway. Just inside the entrance. It was barely visible, so I wasn't watching out for it."

Edward and I locked gazes. "Well, Lucky, looks like you found the switch we were looking for." I told my gasping comrade. "Now all we have to do is figure out what to do next."

Well, now I'm dying to go read my book. I had quite a bit of fun with this chapter. Lucky always amuses me. I often imagine him in real life situations with me. Heheh, but I'm just weird like that.