2am, Camp Campbell, 13 days after the Anomaly
Daniel pitched his tent among those of the campers in the deadest hours of the night. After three successive failures at killing any of the campers, the lot of them would wail on him immediately if he turned up in broad daylight, so with a little planning, he had decided to rely on the element of surprise.
Daniel made sure he was awake at 6am, in case any early risers were to stumble upon him in his sleep and narc on him. All was still outside as he polished his sacrificial knife. Gradually, however, all of the campers began to stir awake and queue outside the mess hall. All except Max, who stared at the extra tent with extreme suspicion.
"Max, come on. They'll be serving us breakfast any minute." Nikki pleaded.
"Nah, you go on ahead. Something seems off. See that extra tent? That wasn't there when we tucked in for the night."
"Maybe someone else wanted to sleep on their own for the night." Nikki suggested a plausible explanation.
"There's 10 of us, and like, 6 or 7 tents, usually. Why would David and Gwen keep a spare tent in storage when we could have been using it this whole time?"
"Max is right. It does seem odd for a new tent to spring up suddenly in the middle of the night." Neil added. "We should let David handle it."
"Well then go get him. I'll wait here so he doesn't miss it. You know how he is." Max told them, standing in front of the suspicious looking tent.
With the other campers otherwise engaged, Daniel took his opportunity with both hands and grabbed Max, pulling him inside the tent. Max was about to scream, but Daniel shushed him, sliding the flat side of the knife across the back of Max's neck, a veiled threat that made his skin crawl, stopping him from alerting his friends.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Max asked indignantly.
"Well, seeing as we have plenty of time, allow me to explain it to you. Remember when you and your friends played that little game with me, using Xemug's likeness to send me away to Antarctica? Turns out Xemug doesn't take kindly to anyone deceiving his loyal followers. Such insolence and mockery is an insult to his very name." Daniel cackled.
"Funny how you refer to him in the third person. Aren't you literally describing yourself? Or is Xemug just a product of your own delusion?" Max jibed.
Daniel twisted the knife a few degrees, just enough to prod into Max's skin and make him wince. "You're on thin ice, boy. I don't want to have to kill you, well, not like this anyway. I was hoping for more of a spectacle. Xemug has always preferred public ritual sacrifices. Plus I need to teach David and the others a lesson in humility. One that they'll remember for the rest of their lives."
"I see your point. It'd be a huge shame if you weren't able to show off the greatness of Xemug in front of such an appreciative crowd." Max retorted with heavy sarcasm, grinning to himself as he began to think of a scheme.
"Don't test me." Daniel threatened, adjusting his position so that the knife was now in front of Max's neck.
"Okay, so what are you going to do?" Max asked. "Use me as bait?"
"Pretty much." Daniel replied.
Outside, Nikki and Neil had just arrived at the counselor's cabin, knocking on the door furiously. Gwen got out of bed in a rude state, trudging over to the door and opening it with one loose swing.
"Kids, it's not even chow time. Why are you even up?" she asked, dressed in her pyjamas.
"There's an extra tent in the camp. We were wondering if you or David knew anything about it." Neil explained.
"I don't know anything (yawn) about a new tent. David!" She called out in the direction of his room. David appeared almost immediately, fully dressed and ready for another day of running the camp.
"You called?" David responded, in his usual chipper tone.
"Know anything about a new tent being set up?" Gwen asked.
"Nope, that wasn't me either, unless Campbell or Quartermaster have something to do with it, but then again they should have run that by us first… anyway, uh, you want me to check it out?"
"Uh huh. Max will point out which one it is." Nikki spoke as they rounded the corner and into the tent circle. "Hey, where d'he go? He was right here!" Nikki pointed at the tent that Max should have been standing in front of.
As if on cue, the jagged edge of a knife sliced through the fabric of the tent, laying a triangular carpet on the ground onto which Daniel walked, holding Max in a headlock so he couldn't escape, nor move his chin enough to speak.
"Good morning, campers!" Daniel announced, brandishing his knife at them as Max tried fruitlessly to squirm free.
"Daniel! Put him down!" David pleaded.
"Are you sure about that? Think carefully about what you say." Daniel replied, holding the knife in front of Max. "You do realise why I am here, right?"
"You're here to sacrifice us to your 'god' or whatever." Ered answered in a deadpan tone. "We know, heard you the first time."
"That was supposed to be rhetorical." Daniel frowned, muttering through gritted teeth. "Anyway, now that I have your attention, David, I would like to demonstrate what Xemug wishes on those who use him for selfish purposes."
"Oh, so it's about that, huh." Neil jibed, recounting the time the camp tricked him into going to Antarctica.
"We should call the police." Gwen, having gotten dressed in her counselor uniform, decided enough was enough and turned around to get the phone.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Daniel grinned smugly, as the glint of his knife shone in the sunlight.
Gwen, realising her situation, growled in frustration as David stood, his feet like lead weights unable to move. Nikki looked around frenetically as everyone seemed to freeze, out of fear for Max's life. Suddenly, Nikki turned to face the Southwest, and raised her voice.
Taaaangllllle! She yelled, her guttural roar echoing through the forest. At the Overlook, Tangle, Whisper and Belle perked their ears up at the sound.
"That sounds like Nikki." Belle looked over at Tangle.
"She needs our help!" Tangle stood up, pounding her fist into her hand. "Come on!" She darted out of the treehouse with Belle and Whisper not far behind.
Daniel stared at Nikki in confusion at first, and then anger.
"What did you just do?" Daniel interrogated, keeping a menacing figure as he stood over her.
"Uh, I panicked." Nikki lied quickly.
"Really? Cos it sounds like you were calling for backup." Daniel stared Nikki down, beads of sweat rolling down her head as Daniel leaned ever closer.
While he was distracted, Tangle, Belle and Whisper arrived. Using her long bushy tail, Tangle flung Belle at a nearby tree, as the wooden robot herself pulled her own tail, using her inbuilt reflex to rebound off the tree, and body slamming into Daniel's back.
Daniel was bunted into the ground, dropping both Max and his knife, which also clattered onto the dirt, out of his reach. Daniel made a grab for the knife, but was quickly stopped by Whisper, who was standing on it, and Tangle, who wrapped him up in her long tail and held him still.
Whisper then pressed Daniel's knife into the ground further and aimed her wispon at it, staring sternly at Daniel the entire time. Before he could protest, she shot a beam of light at it, which snapped the knife into a glittery collection of useless shards, which David wasted no time in picking up and binning.
"You know I'll be back." Daniel garbled, trying to strain himself free. "My lord's work is not over yet!"
"Nah, you're finished." Tangle chuckled, giving him an extra little squeeze for good measure. "Hey, tall lady. Is there some law enforcement somewhere I can hand him off to? I can't just hold him in my tail forever." She called to Gwen.
"Sure, I'll get the phone." Gwen replied.
"Don't bother. David's phone is in my tent. I'll get it." Max scrabbled himself off the floor and dusted himself off, before fetching David's phone and handing it to Gwen, who promptly phoned the police.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"Hello, police please." Gwen replied, as she went through the series of questions the operator gave her. "No, this isn't an active situation. But he has an existing warrant for arrest pertaining to mass murder." Gwen urged.
Upon hearing this, Whisper rounded on Daniel and aimed her wispon at him.
"The police are coming, Whisper. You can stand down." Tangle turned to her calmly. "I know this has brought up some bad memories, but I've got it handled." She reassured her, as her tail strained to hold Daniel's weight.
Gwen finished her call and handed the phone back to David, while Nikki, aware of Tangle's struggles, ripped off one of the ropes of Daniel's tent and tied his hands together with it with Ered's help. Gwen then took a bike lock from the Counselors Cabin, cuffing Daniel to a nearby tree, finally allowing Tangle to rest.
Once the police had finally carted Daniel away in handcuffs, Belle, Tangle and Whisper now realised that the whole camp's attention was now firmly on them.
"Alright kids, let's just settle down a bit. It's not even 8am, and we've already had an eventful day." Gwen announced, gesturing everyone to take a seat in the circle of tents.
"Weren't we just about to have breakfast?" Nerris asked.
"Yeah, that's a much better idea. Come along, you three." Gwen agreed, ushering the campers into the mess hall.
"Uh, I'm Tangle, and…
"And I'm Gwen. I'm sure you guys have lots of questions, but I'm sure we'll get to know each other better soon." She promised, as she let them inside. "It might be better if your introduced yourselves to all of us."
Belle, Tangle and Whisper sat at the table furthest from the door, as the kids lined up to eat whatever the grownups had made for them. With everyone sat down, Gwen took a moment to make an announcement.
"Now, as you may be aware, we have a few new faces with us this morning. I will hand the floor over to them in a moment but if you have any questions, please be respectful, yadda yadda etcetera, you know the rules by now, thank you. Tangle, the floor is yours.
Tangle took the cue to stand and began speaking. "Alright, so I'm Tangle, and these are my friends Whisper and Belle. You may have noticed we look a little different to you guys.
"We've seen stranger stuff before." Harrison responded.
"Alright, that makes this a bit easier. As I was saying… yes, kid with the pointy ears, what's your name?"
"Nerris." The girl replied, putting her hand down. "Where are you guys from?"
"We were just about to get to that." Tangle continued "You could say we're from a different world to here. We sort of got thrown here by some large chain reaction."
"An anomaly." Belle simplified.
"You mean a dimensional wormhole, like an energy spike that ripped a hole in the space-time continuum?" Neil asked.
"Yeah. Like that." Tangle replied. "We were fighting this evil scientist named Dr Eggman when it happened."
"He's bald." Whisper smiled, opening up a little bit.
"Unfortunately, that's probably the only thing about him we can smile about." Belle took over. "We could go into detail about the list of things he has done to hurt us and our people, but the list of crimes is so long it would take us all day."
"And I'm guessing you want to get back to your world in order to stop him from wreaking havoc again?" Harrison asked.
"Precisely." Tangle answered. "Any more questions?"
"Are you guys heroes?" Space Kid asked.
"I guess you could say that." Tangle replied. "It's kind of what we do."
"Are you going to stay with us?" Preston asked.
"We're nearby. We can check in from time to time, if Gwen and David are okay with that." Tangle replied.
"If we are going to come here and visit sometimes, perhaps you could tell us your names?" Belle suggested.
"Oh, yeah." Nikki took the floor. "You already know me, and Max, but we also have Space Kid, Ered, Dolph, Neil, Nerris, Harrison, Preston and Nurf." She listed, pointing at everyone as she named them.
"Thanks, Nikki!" Tangle gave a thumbs up. "Unless you guys have any more questions? You can go about your day as normal, as possible as that may be. We'll be at the Treehouse southwest of here if you need us." She concluded, as the trio took their cue to leave.
Max and Nikki watched the trio go, and no sooner had they turned away, they spotted Neil pondering hard at a scrap of paper.
"You okay, Neil?" Max asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Yourself?"
"I might need the help of Gwen's psychology degree, but other than that, I'm okay." Max responded.
"What are you doing?" Nikki asked.
"You know that dimensional wormhole they went through? I think I've found a way to get them back home." Neil replied.
"You mean make a portal that actually works?" Max responded. "That singularity gate thing you made before almost broke the universe, and that was only a few weeks ago."
"You mean the day when Nurf made clones of himself from a 3-D printer? That machine was working perfectly fine until Nikki broke the controls. Anyway, once I have these calculations done, I'll give them the low down." Neil explained.
"Nice." Nikki peered over at the paper, which showed a crude diagram of the portal, among a series of equations that she couldn't understand. About an hour after everyone had finished breakfast, Neil had completed his calculations and was ready to show them to Tangle and co.
"Ok, I'm done. Where did they say they were again?"
"Oh, I'll show you." Nikki offered, taking Neil by the hand. Heading out onto the path southwest, they shortly arrived at the Treehouse. Neil climbed up the rope ladder and knocked on the door frame.
"Hello?" Tangle poked her head outside to see Neil waiting patiently, and let him in.
"Make yourself at home." She spoke,as she and Neil sat down. "What was it you wanted to know?"
"Actually, it's something I wanted to tell you. You know how you mentioned you were stuck here? While you were talking, I started thinking of a few ideas on how to get you guys back, and noted them down on here." Neil explained, waving his scrap of paper in the air.
"Let's see!" Belle peered over their shoulders to look at the drawing.
"Does this make any sense to you, Belle?" Tangle asked.
"It looks like it might work, so long as you can get enough energy to power it."
"That shouldn't be a problem." Neil assured. "I already have a solution for that. it'll take me a while to implement, and get all the material, but I'll get it working."
"I can lend a hand if you need anything. I'm pretty good at building things, especially if it's made of wood." Belle offered.
"We'll let you know." Neil waved himself off.
"Bye for now." Tangle waved back as Neil headed back down the rope ladder and met back up with Nikki, before they walked away back to camp.