(A/N) Anyway, welcome back, and to save all the trouble of all the reviews that come in while I write this chapter, I'll just say thank you to all of you now. Ok, you don't care what I have to say. Wait a minute, yes you do! You come here to listen to me to tell the story. I can make you wait for eternity……………. And now I'm done!
American Dragon: Jake Long, Dragon Double
By Dark Magician Boy
Chapter 8: The Temple of the Oracle
Tears continued to slip down Rose's face as Jake slowly walked up to her.
"What did you just say?" he asked, a heavy tone of panic in his voice.
"We have two days to find the antidote, or your grandfather will die of an ancient poison that I gave him under a spell of hypnotism," she cried, and she leaned against Jake.
"Wait! How do we know you're not lying, and still in league with the Huntsclan?" Trixie asked.
"She is not lying," Fu Cat said, hopping up to Rose's shoulder and licking off her tears. "I read her mind. She has been trapped within it, being forced to watch and suffer as her hypnotized mind took control and poisoned grandpa," she finished, and continued to lick Rose, trying to calm her down. Then she looked back at the group.
"Though I am gifted with the ability to read minds, I am also cursed to tell nothing but the truth," she explained, and they relaxed.
"We need Kara and Sara. They said something about the Temple of the Oracle, and how it had secrets," Jake said, pulling out his cellphone, and dialing their number. In a few minutes, the twins arrived.
"Now, what was that thing you said the temple had?" Cameron asked Sara.
"That it was really cool, and had spells and potions and stuff," she said, and laughed cheerfully.
"Then that's the place we need to be," Jake said, turning toward the two.
"Oh, well sorry, but only oracles can go there," Kara said glumly, and the group dimmed.
"That isn't fully true," Fu Cat said, and everyone in the room turned toward her.
"Shui taught me a trick. I need to read the mind of an oracle while they are seeing the future, and a portal will open. You must run through the portal, and your mind will temporarily shed your body, making it vulnerable to anything while your mind travels to the temple. Oracles do it to stay longer, and only a certain spell can bring back one that is not an oracle," Fu Cat finished, and the mood lightened.
"We'll do that!" Jake said, and Fu Cat looked at him.
"But we'll have to wait until one of these four oracles gets a vision," she said, and Jake slumped.
"Well, we have two days to wait," Jake said, and Fu Cat looked at Sara.
"I'll read your mind, and wait for visions," she said to Sara, and Sara clasped her hands together cheerfully.
"Oh yay! I get to help!" she said gleefully, and Fu Cat focused her eyes directly on her.
A few hours passed anxiously, and Jake continuously checked Grandpa's pulse, but it stayed the same, weakly beating, but barely making it by.
Sara had a vision or two, something about Spud getting a brand new skateboard, and they began to get impatient.
"Let your mind drift, don't focus on me," Fu Cat instructed Sara, and Sara closed her eyes and giggled.
"Ooh, is this a game? I like games," she said, and suddenly, her eyes flashed open, glowing yellow.
"Jade's dress will rip on stage," she said, and Jade grimaced.
"Aw man, I worked all night on that thing," she said sadly, but then, a very good thing happened. A portal, looking like two different colored spirals mixed into one, swirling in front of them.
"Oh yay! We did it!" Sara said, and she grabbed Kara by the hand, then jumped through. A second later, their two bodies popped out, unconscious.
"Where does this thing go?" Trixie asked nervously.
"Maybe behind the moon, and beyond the rain, or…Somewhere over the rainbow," and Spud began to sing that oh so famous tune.
"All I know is, I ain't sayin' hi to any munchkins while we're there," Trixie said, and she pushed Spud through, then jumped in herself. The two of them popped out, also unconscious.
"But I don't have my water wings," Fu Dog said sadly. But Fu Cat grabbed him by the fur, and stretched it to the extent until he sling shot through with her, and they also popped out on the pile of unconscious people, unconscious themselves.
"Well, looks like we're going on a trip," Cameron said, walking up to the portal with Jade.
"Oh, you are gonna love it there," she said excitedly, and she pushed him through, then jumped through herself, then popping out, well, you know.
Jake took his first step through with Rose, but I will pause here to go to another area.
In the Huntslair, the alarm map went off again to show another explosion of magic, except this one was a portal.
The Huntsmaster examined this, began to panic, grabbed his staff, and flew off toward Jake's house.
Ok, back to Jake's living room.
Jake was taking his first step through, with Rose right behind him, when the Huntsmaster crashed in through the door.
"Huntsmaster!" they both yelled, and Jake tripped through.
"Rose," he said, taking a step forward, Rose taking a step back.
"If you take even one step into that portal, I will hunt you down, and do things so horrible to you, I mustn't even mention," he said, taking another few steps forward.
"I am not your puppet anymore," Rose said quietly, and at that moment, Jake's hand rematerialized from the portal, and pulled Rose through.
Huntsmaster yelled in frustration, but then, noticed the gradually shrinking portal.
He took advantage of this, and sprinted into it, just as it shrank into nothingness.
Meanwhile, in some sort of limbo, Rose opened her eyes to see herself, floating above herself!
She looked around to see everybody, in the same predicament, floating above their unconscious bodies.
"Ok, we have to leave now," Jade said, pointing to a slowly forming Huntsmaster.
"But can't he just follow us?" Cameron asked, as the group began to lift into the air, and through the ceiling.
"He doesn't have an oracle to lead the way," Sara said cheerfully, and they took on full speed as they flew out of Jake's living room, and out of New York, flying over the Atlantic Ocean.
"I hope I get frequent flyer miles for this," Spud said, rolling over onto his back and pretending to do backstroke.
"All I hope for is that there are airbags when we get there," Trixie said, flapping her arms, thinking it would come to some use.
"Trixie, when it's just your conscious mind, you kind of, can't get hurt," Jade explained, going into a freefall toward the ocean, then rocketing back up. "We won't be there for about another half hour, so take your time and fly around. Even though you'll still be going at max speed with everyone else," Jade finished.
"Cool," Fu Dog said, diving into the water and coming back out, totally dry, then flying a few miles up, then diving back down.
Rose rolled over onto her back and took a breather as Jake glided over to her.
"Hey," he said, as a hello kind of hey, and Rose turned her head.
"That was a close one," Jake said, and Rose nodded.
"But after that, I realized," she said, and Jake leaned in.
"I can't go back to my apartment," she said sadly. "Ever again."
Hearing this from a few feet away, Jade soared over.
"Don't worry," she said, and Rose turned.
"You can live at our house. Aunt Shui wouldn't mind. In fact, she would be ecstatic. Or
even…"
But then, Cameron came over and smacked his hand over her mouth. "I think," he started.
"She gets it," Cameron finished., and Jade nodded.
So for the next twenty minutes, the group floated and flew towards Greece.
Fu Cat drooped toward the surface of the ocean, and attempted to catch some fly fish. But they simple flew through her as if she was a ghost.
But in a few minutes, a land mass was in sight, so it meant that they were about five minutes away.
They flew over Africa for about three minutes, then Egypt for about two, until they finally reached the continent of Greece, and landed.
Nobody could see them of course, so they were free to run about. But they knew they had a job to do.
"Start looking for cracks in the Earth," Jade instructed, and everybody began to run about, running through people, buildings, and what not.
It took them around ten minutes before they heard Spud screaming from far off, so they ran for him, until they found that he had tripped on one.
"Ok, who's going in first?" Jade asked, and Trixie stepped up.
"Let's get this over with," Trixie said, and she made a perfect dive into the crack.
"Who's next?" Jade asked, and Fu Cat dragged an unwilling Fu Dog into the crack.
Jade saved herself the trouble, and said "Ok, I'm going in next," she said, and Cameron turned his head towards her.
"Really?" he asked.
"No," she said, and pushed him in, then jumping in after.
Rose, Jake, and Spud took each other's hands, and jumped in, falling into the Earth.
Jake looked down, and saw everybody else ahead of him, then sprouted his dragon wings, then turned toward Rose.
"Race ya," he said, and Rose smiled, going into a dive form.
"You're on," she said, and they both plummeted toward the glowing white light at the end.
"Coming through," Jake said, maneuvering past Fu Cat and Fu Dog.
"Excuse me," Rose said, and she managed past Jade and Cameron, who smiled at each other, sprouted their wings, and joined the race.
Spud managed to fall down to where Fu Cat and Fu Dog were.
"What's with them?" he asked, pointing down.
"Race," Fu Cat said, and Spud nodded.
They fell further and the light seemed to never get any closer, until finally, it began to get brighter, and brighter, then so brilliant, they had to shut their eyes very tightly.
Spud had his arms over his face right as he landed with a THUD, and slowly, he opened his eyes to see that he was on the steps that led to a diamond temple, glowing brilliantly in the darkness.
He got up, and saw the group was ahead of him, and ran after them, up the long set of stairs until he caught up.
The group entered the main room, which was lined with scrolls draped from the ceiling, and the walls had ten doors.
"Ok, we each look through the scrolls, then a door per person," Jade said, and they split up through the enormous room.
Jake sifted through a pile of scrolls, and picked one up, which writing was written down on immediately.
"You will win several coupons to a video game mart in a few days?" Jake said, confused, then he looked into a door.
He opened the door to an oasis which mermaids were sitting on rocks, who waved at him, attempting to attract him into the desert beyond the door, and it almost worked.
But then, Rose rushed over, slammed the door, and glared at Jake, who smiled sheepishly.
Spud threw a giant scroll out of his way, then opened the door in front of him, and saw a witch at a cauldron, who gestured him into the room with a menacing look, and Spud slammed the door shut, clearly scared.
Cameron opened his door, which led to a chrome room, with several men floating around in spacesuits.
"Hey! What's a kid doing here with us on the moon?" one of them asked, floating towards the opening, which Cameron closed tightly, and locked.
Trixie opened her door, and saw a wide set of teeth, about to chomp her, before she slammed the door, frightened out of her mind nearly.
Fu Dog pawed open his door, and saw King Kong staring at him through a window, and Fu Dog pulled the door shut.
Jade opened hers slowly, and saw a very dark room which was lit by one candle, and a pair of glowing red eyes.
"Come in," she heard a scratchy voice say, and she locked up the door, and leaned against the door.
Fu Cat nudged her door open, and saw rows upon rows of books and strangely shaped bottles.
"I found it!" Fu Cat yelled, and everybody ran over, and rushed into the room, then began to look through the shelves.
"What's it supposed to be called?" Cameron yelled from one side of a giant shelf.
"It's called venenum rememdium," Jade informed, pushing aside a purple bottle.
"What color is it?" Rose yelled from one end of the room.
"Blue!" Sara yelled from another end.
Spud pushed aside one that was labeled S.O.D.A., and he shrugged, popped the cork off, and took a sip.
"SPUD! NO," Jade yelled, but Spud was already morphing.
His legs began to extend, his upper body shrank, and his head hit the ceiling as Jake came over.
"What happened to him?" Jake asked.
"He took a drink," she said, but then a look crossed over her face.
"You know, I never get a chance to be in here. How about you say we have a little bit of fun," she said, and she grabbed a yellow potion, took a gulp, and zapped into the form of a giant lizard.
Rose came over, and realized what was happening, and decided to join, grasped a pink bottle, popped the top, and took a drink. In a few seconds, she took on the form of J. Lo herself.
"Ai," Jake yelled of confusion, took a red one, drank it, then turned into some sort of a cross between a bird and a dinosaur.
Trixie slipped open a gray potion, drank it, and her eyes turned gray, and she turned scaly.
"What are you all doing?" Fu Dog yelled, and then he realized.
"Oh cool! Potion games!" Fu Dog said happily, and he saw a brown one, grabbed it in his mouth, and drank till the last sip was gone. He suddenly turned into some sort of squid with wings.
"What are you all doing?" Fu Cat yelled, forcing each of them to freeze.
"We have a job to do!" she said, and she grabbed a random vial, pulled the cork off with her teeth, then splashed it over them, morphing them back to normal.
"I FOUND IT!" They heard Sara yell from a few shelves away, and they ran over to see a blue bottle, resting in her hands. It was exactly as Jade had described it.
But at that moment, a chunk of the wall blew away, and the Huntsmaster marched in, holding his hand out.
"Give me that potion!" he demanded, baring his staff.
"Protect the antidote," Jake said, as he and Cameron morphed to dragon, and the rest of the group ran off into the library of potions, which a second later, they realized was a labyrinth they had already gotten lost in.
"Ah, a challenge. This only takes away more time from the old dragon," Huntsmaster, and Jake remembered.
"Think of my Grandpa while fighting. His life is on the line," Jake said, and he and Cameron walked forward.
"We must protect the potion, defeat the Huntsmaster, and most importantly. Beat the clock," Cameron said, flying up into the air with Jake.
"At all cost."
(A/N) See, they have a chance at saving Grandpa. Stay tuned for chapter 9, or something like that.