Walking at a heightened pace, Miro and the group make their way through the last section of the forest. They weren't out yet, however, but the trees were thinning and more daylight was meeting them as they walked. The atmosphere was still quite creepy, however, that is until they reach a small clearing with a huge, flat mushroom -about 5 meters wide- in the middle. And there, lying on top of it, bathed in Autumn sunlight from the clearing was…
"Lumina!" Kate yells, her and Miro running forward until they notice that the platform was occupied by other things. The two shadowy things turn what is supposedly their faces directly toward Miro, the gleaming red spot on their foreheads… gleaming, as per usual. However, instead of striking at them, the things simply jump away into the trees, lost to sight in an instant.
"…Why is it that those things are always covered in shadow?" Miro asks. Kate shrugs, and hey continue to approach Lumina, who looked to be unconscious. They climb onto the large toadstool and walk to her slowly. The others walk a bit closer, but don't follow them onto the fungus.
"Lumina…?" Kate begins, looking down at her. "Wake up, please. I'm sure that you have a whole ton of info to add to all of this."
Miro crouches down and looks at her sleeping face, humming at what he could do.
"Umm… Lumina? Are you gonna wake up, or do we have to start kicking?" He asks.
With a light sigh and a sleepy grumble, Lumina fidgets for a moment before slowly opening her eyes. As she gets her focus back, she looks upward and sees Miro's face looking back at her. With a start, she wakes up fully.
"AHA! I've found you!" She says, suddenly getting up and throwing Miro over her shoulder, running off with him. However, before she could reach the end of the mushroom, Kate intervenes by putting herself in Lumina's path.
"You're not going anywhere with him." She says stubbornly.
"Outta the way, Kate, I'm tired of you pulling us apart!" Lumina says, narrowing her eyes.
"'Us'? You think that Miro likes you?" Kate says, coming dangerously close to bursting out laughing. "Listen… Lumina, I don't know where this is coming from, but Miro is not yours!"
"If I could add my view on the situation…" Miro begins, hanging worthlessly from Lumina's shoulder.
"NO!" Both of the girls yell at once, turning their gaze back to one another in an instant.
"So, you're not gonna get out of the way, huh?" Lumina asks, re-adjusting Miro and putting one hand into a fist. "Then I'll just have to get you out of my way personally! My knuckles are tougher than granite thanks to all of the piano I've been playing!"
"Yeah? Well I just beat Nami in a fight! I can take you-"
"Umm, Mom kinda let us go." Miro says meekly. "You didn't technically 'beat' her-"
"Miro, SHUT UP!" Kate warns him.
"Uhh, guys?" Mathew says, making the first sound from the background group. "Look, we just did a lot of fighting. Kate's beat-up, Ricca's beat-up, we don't wanna go through this again today. Why don't we just sit down and discuss this?"
"…Okay, fine." Lumina says, allowing Miro to fall off of her shoulder and sitting down patiently. Miro, after a slightly-cushioned landing thanks to the fungus, sits up and also waits. Kate, Anna, Ricca, and Matthew follow suit. Finally, Lumina speaks.
"First of all, who are you?" She asks, looking at the three from Mineral Town.
"They're old friends." Miro says. "I haven't seen them since we were really young. I barely recognized them."
"Now it's our turn, what are you doing here?" Kate asks.
"I… Well, I voulenteered to help out on the farm when Jack and Nami went away. A while after they left, Hugh came to see me and said that he'd take over my job so that I could go out and find you, Miro. I accepted, of course, and now I've finally done it! I found you in no time!"
"But… But you were being kidnapped…" Miro sputtered, just as confused as the rest of them were. "What about those shadowy things?"
"Shadowy things? Kidnapped?" Lumina repeats, now also confused. "I was never kidnapped, nothing like that happened to me!"
"How could you not remember?" Miro asks. "Just now, they were here…"
"…She was sleeping, of course!" Matthew says suddenly, everyone turning to look at him. "Those… things must have moved her while she was sleeping, and left her to go just before she woke up. That explains how she caught up so fast! The only question is…"
"Why?" Miro finishes for him. "Why in the world would those things bring you to me? It doesn't make any sense… Oh, and there's one more question." He turns to look at Lumina. "How could you not notice that you woke up in a different place than you fell asleep!?"
"Well… I…" Lumina began. "just thought that I had covered more ground than I first thought…"
"Is there anything that anyone else wants to ask?" Matthew says, looking around.
"Yes, I still have a question." Lumina says. "What are you all doing here? Where are you going?"
They all look at one another uncomfortably and hesitate to talk at first. Finally, Anna pipes up.
"Well, you're gonna laugh when you hear this, but we found a book about me and my cousin Miro's family history,"
"And so we're following a map traced out of the stretch marks on their back," Matthew continues.
"So that we can find our way through the countryside," Miro continues after Matthew.
"And find a special place that we call the… Place," Kate finishes.
"Which might or might not be real." Ricca says, adding her recently acquired knowledge to it.
They all look at her, this being a surprise to everyone.
"Whoa, whoa…" Matthew says. "I hadn't heard that part before. Where'd you get that from?"
"William told me." Ricca says, sighing.
"William? Who's that?" Lumina asks, looking around at them.
"He is…" Matthew begins, trying to find the right words. "…an enemy. One of the biggest ones we have. He's working for all of the parents that are trying to get us back, and he's easily tough enough to do it by himself. Although… he won't be a huge problem for the next little while."
"He's not just an enemy…" Ricca begins, looking at the ground. "He's also an old friend of ours. It was always Anna, Matthew, me, and him, ever since we were little. But something's happened. We're not sure what, but he's lost his personality and gained unnatural strength… Also, he told me earlier that the parents told him that there is no such thing as the Place, and that there are dangerous things living where we are going. I don't know if it's true, I don't really care, I just…
I think… I hope that we can bring him back to normal somehow."
"All of this sensitive talk coming from the one who gave him a shot in the bolts?!" Miro says, giving her a look.
"Don't give me that! I had no other choice, and I apologized in advance!" Ricca snaps back.
"She what?" Lumina says, confused.
"Ricca sacrificed herself for the group, to fend off William." Matthew explains. "It was a desperate time so she took desperate measures…"
"Oh…" Lumina says, nodding in understanding.
"Anyway, if you can think of any more questions, we can talk while we're walking. The map says that we're nearly there!" Miro says, getting up. "So Lumina, are you coming with us, or going against us?"
Lumina also stands up, along with the rest of them. She thinks for a moment about this, and comes to a conclusion.
"…I'm with you. Consider me the newest good guy!"
-
At around that time, the group of parents continue to make their way down the train tracks. At this point, most of them wished that they had hitched a train as well. The tracks seemed to go on and on. Suddenly, a large poof of smoke appears in front of them, and Nami appears.
Jack is the first to speak, an obvious choice since this was his wife poofing out of nowhere.
"Hey, Nami, how'd it g- YOUR VEST!" He yells in terror, running over to her immediately and making vain attempts to tend to Nami's beloved vest. Nami seems to ignore Jack for a moment, but then pushes him away slowly. Jack looks at her in disbelief.
"It's okay, Jack." She says. "I couldn't have chosen a more fitting end to this old thing. Kate struck it down with a single, huge blow. She's definitely worthy of being in the family."
"Nami, we- we can still fix it!" Jack stammers. "We can find a new shoulder, patch it on, it can be as good as-"
"No, Jack, I think I'll keep it like this for a while." Nami interrupts him. "I kinda like it, it gives me more freedom in the left shoulder. And I feel like I'm younger, wearing something that has less fabric than most people would think appropriate."
"Umm… Well, okay." Jack says. "But what about Miro, and Kate and the rest of them?"
"I let them go." Nami replies. "They deserve the break. Besides, they seem pretty sure of themselves that there's something to find out there."
"…So what do we do?" Kai asks from the back of the group.
"We let them find it, and then drag them back once their curiosity's been fed." Nami explains.
"The only problem is, how do we catch up with them?" Mary chimes in. "We're consistently failing to make progress by sending people one at a time, so we'll have to use our superior numbers to our advantage.
"What about our intellectual edge?" The Jack from Mineral Town asks. Ann looks at him for a moment.
"'Our'?" She asks. "Jack, you don't have the intellectual edge over your own shadow!"
"They should explain the rules of Shadow Boxing better!" He says in some frustration. "How was I supposed to know that you're not supposed to actually punch the wall?!"
"…That's so pathetic, I'm not even going to laugh." Mary says, shaking her head in shame.
"To catch up with them, we need only one thing." Nami says, getting back on subject. She holds out the Teleport Stone.
"NO WAY!" Gray suddenly yells, breaking out of his body cast and running right up to Nami.
"Wow. Gray never yells. Or runs." Kai says, having recovered enough to no longer need to be in Nami's bag.
"What's the problem?" Nami asks, looking at Gray.
"The stone is damaged." Gray says, quickly returning to his old self. "It's far too much of a risk to try long-distance traveling with the entire group."
"Don't worry. I've considered this, and I know exactly what to do." Nami says. She holds the stone close to her face and suddenly spits on it. She then rubs the Stone with her baggy pant leg and holds it out again.
"Of course… The maternal Magic Spit! The spit that heals all wounds!" Cliff says from inside the body cast, watching from an opening in the plaster and bandages.
"Look, maybe that works on a child's boo-boo, but I'm not about to believe that you can repair a rare, powerful, magical artifact with saliva!" Gray says disbelievingly.
Nami holds out the Stone a moment later. To Gray's shock, the cracks and small fissures on it were completely gone. Nami smirks triumphantly and holds it out.
"Now, hold on." She says. "I'm gonna use every last bit of juice that this thing has left in it."
"A long-distance teleport with so many people…" Gray begins, slightly nervous. "This may be risky, but… okay."
The group closes in around her, and Nami shuts her eyes. The stone begins to shine brighter and brighter, and they all suddenly vanish in a large puff of smoke.
An instant later, they appear out of nowhere in the middle of a dismal, creepy surrounding, with old, crooked trees overhanging and blocking out quite a lot of sunlight.
"That wasn't too bad…" Nami says, opening her eyes and looking around. She realises where she had ended up quite quickly.
"Wh… Where are we?" Jack asks, looking around nervously.
"We're in the Forest of… umm… the bad one, the one with the long name." The other Jack says, lifting his cap to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He remembered this place from when he went on this very 'detour' long ago…
"It sure is creepy…" Kai says, trying to act calm and make his paranoid-glancing-around look like casual-scenery-viewing.
"Let's go." Nami says, beginning to walk and motioning for the others to follow. Suddenly, they hear the sound of something huge coming from behind them. Turning around slowly, they all look upward to see the same massive, living tree that Miro's group retreated from earlier.
"Oh, crap…" Mary and Gray mutter in unison (now we know where Matthew got it from).
"…Anybody have a plan?" Cliff asks, lying on the ground, covered in his plaster shell. "Running's not exactly an option for me…"
"Yep, I've got a plan." Ann says, beginning to approach the thing.
"Wait, no!" The Jack-who-is-married-to-Ann says, running in front of her. "I'm not gonna risk you getting hurt, I'll do it!"
"I'll help!" The other Jack says, running to his side. "You're my cousin, after all."
Pulling out a sickle and an axe, the two Jacks make a valiant charge at the gigantic tree. With a surge of valor and determination, they raise their weapons and-
CRUNCH!
…are crushed underfoot by their opponent.
"Ooh, they'll need an Advil…" Nami says, cringing slightly.
"Can I please do what I had planned now?" Ann asks.
"Yeeessss…" The two Jacks say, their voices obviously muffled by the giant, softwood appendage on top of them.
"Good." Ann says, walking over to Cliff's body cast. "Now hold still."
"I don't have much choice in the matter…" Cliff says. "But, uhh, why?"
"Let me put it this way, I was Discus Champion back in Highschool." Ann says. The visible portion of Cliff's eye seemed to widen considerably.
With less effort than people would think it would take, Ann lifts Cliff up and hauls him onto her shoulder. Despite Cliff's yells of protest, Ann then holds him out and begins swinging him around and around. She built up momentum until she finally released him, sending him spinning toward the tree. Connecting squarely on the tree's forehead, Cliff riccouchets off and sends it toppling backwards.
"We're not done yet." Ann says. "Guys, think of all of the thinks you have ever wanted to carve, build, or burn. 'Cause there's aaaaall of the material you'll ever need."
Every single guy in that group was suddenly hit with creative inspiration. Every handyman plan that they could never finish due to lack of lumber and/or Gotz yelling at them for stealing his tools suddenly came to mind, and they charged toward the tree gleefully to carry out their projects. Even Cliff, who had just as many desperate plans as everyone else, was so enthused with the opportunity that he forced his own bones to heal and broke out of the cast.
A few moments later, the entirety of the tree had been reduced to poorly-made decks, deck chairs, lawn ornaments, life size animal carvings, toys and any number of other 'creative' projects that the guys could think of. Nami looked rather impressed, and looked over to Ann.
"You managed to turn the instinctive stupidness of our husbands into an effective weapon… Maybe you actually can compare to me…" She says.
"I can out-cook you, at any rate." Ann says, turning away and beginning to walk. She speaks behind her back.
"Come on, boys, let's get out of here before anything else decides to show up."
A short while later, they begin to hear a soft sound. Almost like sniffling. Soon after they realize that it really is sniffling. As they walk around a large tree, an obscurely-placed toll booth is seen. The sound seemed to come from there.
"Should we check to see what it is?" Cliff whispers. The others nod and slowly make their way toward it. Once they had reached it, all of them stick their heads in the opened window and look down to see a figure crouched down in the corner, sniffling and crying.
"Harris?" Popuri says, not quite sure if what she saw was real.
"What in the world are you doing here?" Gray asks.
Stifling his crying for a moment, Harris turns to look at them.
"I was just asking for a… for a toll, but then he just, he…" He says incoherently in between sniffs.
"What? Who did what?" Nami asks.
"He… he POKED ME IN THE EYE!" Harris says, moving closer to them and showing his slightly-bloodshot eye.
"Ooooookay…" Cliff says, looking as confused and 'yeesh, this guy is pathetic' as everyone else. "Who was it?"
"You… your son!" Harris yells. "That evil son of yours, didn't pay his toll AND POKED ME!"
"You're beginning to disturb me, Harris." Mary says. "If it makes you feel better, I'm sure we can cover the price. We'll have to pay to get through, anyway."
"Well, okay…" Harris says. "Since he went through without paying, he's charged double, so all of your tolls together will be… 60,000g."
Everyone, minus Nami, widens their eyes just as much as Miro's group did when they heard this. Nami looks over to the guys.
"Well, you heard him. Pay up."
"WHAT?" The guys yell, looking at Nami in bewilderment.
"Quit whining, you have money on you." Nami says. "I'm sure you can afford it."
"B-but…" They stammer.
"We have other things in mind to spend our money on…" Kai says.
"Yeah…" The others chorus.
"For what?" The girls all ask.
"…Toys." Kai says.
"Presents…" Cliff adds.
"For you." The Jacks both say.
Gray simply nods, not wanting to agree to such a gigantic lie out loud.
"Yeah, right." Nami says. "Just split it between you. You can afford it."
Reluctantly, hesitantly, and very unhappily, the guys fork over 12,000g each. Tears were visible in their eyes as they parted from so much hard-earned money at once.
Harris counts the money quickly and raises the striped bar once he saw that it was enough. The group passes through, waving Harris goodbye and stewing over the price of government services nowadays.
-
"So you chopped up both of the trees?" Lumina asks, listening to Miro telling her what had happened so far.
"Well, Matthew helped, and Anna provided us with the chainsaws." Miro corrects her. Anna smiles proudly at this.
They had nearly reached the end of the Forest. The trees had thinned a considerable amount, and sunlight was drenching their faces nearly constantly as they walked. Lumina seemed very interested in hearing about what had happened to them during their travels, and also quite interested in just hearing Miro talk to her.
"And then, once we finished them off, a reeeeally huge one showed up." Miro says. "I'm talking massive, kinda like Van, only with a less hollow head."
Lumina laughs at this joke with a bit too much enthusiasm, the sound of this causing Kate's blood pressure to shoot up. She balls her fist tightly and grits her teeth, attempting to ignore everything happening around her.
"So, of course, we had to run off." Miro continues. He seemed completely oblivious that all of this cheerful talk with Lumina was bringing Kate dangerously close to having a conniption. Perhaps this was Miro's revenge for Kate going out of her way to annoy him all of these years.
"And you got away all right?" Lumina asks.
"Yep." Miro replies. "It was too big to move fast, so we just bolted out of there. And then there was this whole fiasco with Harris and a toll both that ended with the entire group of us dressing in Mexican outfits to sneak by. Ugh, if I never wear tight leather pants again…"
"Tight leather pants?" Lumina asks, sounding even more interested than before.
A vein in Kate's forehead was threatening to rupture big-time at this point.
"She's in her twenties, why can't she give up already?" Kate mumbles venomously to herself.
"Oh, and then Matthew and his dad had this fight, and Matthew won. He got hurt a bit, though." Miro continues.
"I bandaged it up, don't worry." Matthew adds in, pointing to his shoulder.
"Oh. Miro, did you get hurt at all?" Lumina asks.
"Not really. Just this little thing I got when we ran into those shadow-things that were carrying you off." Miro says, pointing to the cuts across his cheek.
"Oh, is it infected?!" Lumina says, alarmed. "Here, let me see! Let me kiss it better!"
Kate put herself in between Miro and Lumina so quickly, her shadow needed a moment to catch up.
"That WON'T be necessary." She says spitefully. "Miro's got me to go to if he's ever beat up. And don't worry, I'm plenty for him."
Lumina widens her eyes a bit, and then looks away sadly.
"Eeeee… Ouch." Matthew says, looking over to Ricca. "Congratulations, you're no longer the official 'third wheel' of the group."
Ricca glares at him.
"But you could be the official 'broken wheel' if you want." She replies threateningly.
"Err, right…" Matthew says, shutting up.
A few moments later, they finally exit the forest completely, the musty air finally gone. They're back in a plains-like area, flecked with occasional trees and some hills. After walking for a few more minutes, they walk up and down a hill, and come upon an amazing sight.
"No way…" Matthew says.
"Unbelievable…" Ricca says.
"How could…" Anna begins.
"Is this…" Kate starts to say.
"I think it is…" Miro says in amazement.
"Wow…" Lumina says.
Before them, bathed in the warm sunlight, making everything around it seem inferior in beauty, and marked right in the area of the map where the Place was said to be, was…
"A… A MALL…" They all breathe out in amazement, their eyes widened and their limbs trembling in anticipation.
Indeed, a huge mall stood in front of them. Any teenager's dream come true, the ultimate place of sanctuary and joy, now in their grasp after so many long days of traveling.
"It's so beautiful…" Matthew says, coming close to crying. "B-but how? How is it here? There's no town, there's no people, there's nothing but this…"
"Nothing but this gigantic place of happiness." Miro finishes for him. "…Well, what're we waiting for? ONWARD!"
And with a shout, they all begin scampering gleefully to their final objective, the long-awaited Place.
-
Back in the dark confines of the evil Forest, a certain person begins to stirr from his temporary coma. A hand begins to twitch, and then clenches into the ground, balling into a fist and crushing a rock it had grabbed into dust. Slowly, William's cold eyes begin to open again. He slowly brings himself to his feet, speaking to himself in the meantime.
"It will take more… than a mortal blow… in a very mortal place… to stop me." He says quietly, fully standing up. He then looks around him.
"I must know… whether or not there is a Place." He says, almost as though he were talking to someone. He waits a moment before speaking again, replying to some invisible voice.
"…There must be a reason why you can't tell me."
He waits again.
"…I understand."
Without another word, he turns forward and walks off… walking a bit funny, mind you, but still walking.