And we're back! I don't really have much to say, other than that.

But will Roselyynn and Thunder be able to tolerate Wilfre as they're trying to find their companions? Will they end up confronting White Blaze once again?

I own nothing but my OCs.

Here's chapter 8!

-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 8: Working with Wilfre

When Maelynn, Rikki, Aurora and Penelope were hauled off, upon trying to reason with the hardy Whiteclaw Chieftess, they learned a few things about her and her clan, and why exactly they were in Watersong.

"Why are you so insistent on taking us away? Are we going to be hostages or something?" Maelynn asked the Gato as they were moving. They didn't stop moving, as they had somewhere to be. Still, she answered.

"No. We intend to release you. We're only taking you away for your safety. Raposa are not to interfere in the affairs of the Whiteclaws and Blackpaws. They will only be hurt in response, and that is not the way of the Phoenix." She replied back, confusing the four.

"Why are you in Watersong then? There is no need to wage war in a peaceful place like this. You've caused enough destruction." Maelynn indicated. White Blaze disagreed with her, but it wasn't because of the war. It was the part about destruction that got her.

"It wasn't we who caused the destruction. The clan of the Raven has gone against the way of the Gato people. They've allied with a Raposa in the darkness and have gained much more powerful weaponry than before. It was they who caused the destruction, not us." explained White Blaze.

Aurora frowned at them. "But why are you in Watersong? You didn't explain it, Miss White Blaze." The Chieftess glared at them, causing the quartet to freeze up, and were silenced. She looked away and continued to speak.

"The clan of the Raven is lost now, and are bringing death and destruction as result of whom they are following. They are cunning and may try to escape, but the Phoenix always follows. Even their own chieftess knows we will rise from the ashes and hunt them. They threaten the good of the world with their actions."

Aurora leaned over to Rikki and whispered, "Wow, she sure spews a lot of exposition about birds. What is she, an ornithologist?" White Blaze's ears stuck up as well as their tail and they immediately stopped.

Then, her demeanor changed. "I-I am not a bird scientist! I was talking about the symbolic birds of our clans and how our actions are similar to our birds! Were you not getting that from what I was saying?"

"Nah. You sounded like a bird scientist to me." Aurora bluntly replied. White Blaze's face reddened up before she turned away and began walking faster. Alarmed, Elanor and Aelius pushed the four and they had to walk faster to keep up with their speed.

Welp. This was going to take a while, wasn't it?

XxXxX

(Jivin' Rooftops)

Roselyynn and Thunder currently hated all that they were doing. They fought through waves of Baki and statues that were trying to kill them, but at this point, they were farther than they initially had to go in Jivin' Rooftops. And from there, more and more was shattered and broken.

They were unsure why they still hadn't seen much of the Whiteclaws or Blackpaws yet. Weren't they supposed to be fighting after all? Unless… did they stop fighting?

No… no, no. That couldn't be it. And it didn't look like they were waiting to fight…

"Hmph. This is strange." Wilfre suddenly stated, breaking the two creation heroes out of their thoughts. They were unsure why Wilfre was suddenly saying that, but they listened anyway.

"What is strange, Wilfre? If it's some kind of evil monologue revealing your plan, we're not listening." Roselyynn stated, crossing her arms. She was close to childishly ignoring all he had to say.

Wilfre shook his head at the two of them. Regardless of such, he decided to at least clarify what he was talking about. "You both know that I don't monologue. I feel that something seems off. We're nearing the point where the opposing tribes are to be fighting, yet none of them are in sight. I feel like we might be nearing a trap set by one of the two tribes."

Flipping her pink hair, Roselyynn crossed her arms again and stared at Wilfre. "Oh really. Then why don't you summon one of your minions to see if we're nearing a trap? You're really good at doing that." Wilfre's eyes glared at Roselyynn's, and he huffed at her.

"No matter what we do, it'll let either side know we're here. We'll need to take an alternate route to prevent detection." He explained, waving his hand and opening up a white portal. Roselyynn and Thunder gasped and stepped back. It was troublesome he could open a portal without his scepter, but the two of them didn't know what he was going to do.

Hastily, Roselyynn and Thunder drew their respective weapons and aimed them at the shadowy Raposa. Wilfre raised an eyebrow at them and analyzed their weapons. He clicked his tongue at them disapprovingly once he determined what he was going to do in this situation. "Hmph. You still don't trust me despite the fact we have a truce."

Wilfre snapped and dismissed the portal and crossed his arms. "Look, how else are we going to get across this area without some kind of trap being triggered? We can't get captured like your friends."

Thunder tried to pinpoint another route (though it was difficult. They were close to getting out of the Jivin' Rooftops area and there was mostly rooftops and apartments in this area). Upon seeing they could only go forward, sheepishly, he stated, "Well, it's not like the road is going to suddenly blow up in front of us, right?"

The three of them paused when they heard something whooshing at them. Perplexed, Roselyynn and Thunder looked around, trying to figure out what it was. Wilfre looked up and panicked, seeing that of a missile flying down from the sky. Without any kind of permission, Wilfre suddenly set up a protective barrier around himself and the heroes and covered his ears.

The protective barrier was like a shadowy shell. Roselyynn was disgusted by the barrier mainly due to its essence, and crinkled her nose at it. "Wilfre! What the hell was that…" Roselyynn had no time to scold Wilfre once they heard a shattering kaboom outside of the barrier. It protected the three of them from the blast and any debris thrown from it. Once the shaking and destruction stopped, a few minutes after, Wilfre dispelled the barrier.

Knowing that one of the two clans was causing the most destruction, the fact that missiles of all things were being fired indicated two things. 1) That was likely what caused destruction in the main area of Watersong in the first place; and 2) the Gato clans were out for each other's blood. Roselyynn and Thunder had a sliiight feeling that it wasn't the Whiteclaws who would go and blow up parts of a peaceful Raposian city in a fight against an opposing clan. They seemed a bit more primitive, if anything.

Now, Roselyynn and Thunder were appreciating Wilfre's shadowy abilities a bit more than usual. As Wilfre pulled out a familiar but tattered page, Roselyynn asked, "Well. Thanks for saving us, I guess. Do you think you can make a bridge or something?"

Wilfre summoned a trident and shook his head. "Nope. I'd need a template for that. This old trident template is the only thing on me right now." The creation heroes sighed as their old foe looked across the ravine made by that missile. He figured that there was only one thing he could do right now.

He opened another portal and stared at the two of them. "This is the only mode of transportation we can really use right now. We're almost at the end of this place, and now, we need to find your friends." The two heroes looked at each other and groaned before hesitantly going into the portal. Wilfre followed them, and when another portal opened, they reappeared at the door at the end of the level.

Upon going through, they reappeared on the other side and went through the door back to Watersong. However, Wilfre proceeded to disguise himself as a random townsfolk Raposa out of some kind of paranoia. Roselyynn and Thunder looked back at Wilfre confusedly, not getting the disguise. He shushed them and urged them to not give him any unnecessary attention. He wasn't well liked by the Watersonians for obvious reasons.

In fact, he wasn't liked by the Lavasteamians or the citizens of the DOTROTPOTUSF (the long abbreviation for the Democracy of the Republic of the People of the United Space Fortress) in Galactic Jungle. It was mostly for what he did during the end of the Isolation.

Well, it was for literally everything he did during the Isolation. He wrecked homes and civilizations, drained out the color, misled certain people's trust (like Jowee) and basically became a well-known, public threat to four different Raposian societies.

He had to disguise himself if he wanted to live (or prevent from any bodily harm). Though Wilfre would blend in as a face in the crowd, a problem was that everyone was panicking because everything was exploding. The invading Gato were good with causing destruction in the rooftop and theatre district. There were townsfolk in a panic in the streets and main plaza. Nobody was stupid enough to run around, of course, but they were uncertain whether or not they should not be grouped up and should go somewhere else.

Roselyynn, Thunder and Wilfre all had this feeling that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to be in the plaza right now and also that it probably wasn't where White Blaze and her tribe were at the moment.

Seriously. Why would the Gato bother to set up camp in the middle of a city currently stuck in cat warfare? It would be too easy and cause more harm than hurt. They had to be on the outskirts of town somewhere.

The three who were forced to put up with each other were able to head out on the outskirts of the city undetected.

XxXxX

(Watersong- Town Outskirts)

It was now simply a matter of figuring out where White Blaze was. The only level Wilfre had directly been in was in the Abyss one (Roselyynn remembered that pale vividly. She nearly drowned to death there if the Creator hadn't quickly given her scuba gear).

Symphonic Falls and Rockin' Ruins were the only two places that would seem likely for White Blaze and her tribe to momentarily set up camp. With Rockin' Ruins though, it had to be the area before going into the cave. It seemed unlikely for a cat race to set up their camp in a cave mostly filled with water, pirate Baki, and tubas that shot spike balls up at whoever was swimming.

When you weren't in the City of Watersong, the wildlife there had this habit of being particularly dangerous when one really got down to the idea of it. To once again prevent from gaining much attention, Roselyynn, Thunder and Wilfre went over to the forested area around the spring and where the Symphonic Falls was located.

Thunder pondered and carefully analyzed the two areas. He felt like Symphonic Falls would be the best place for the Whiteclaw Gato to set up camp. In some aspects, it was less dangerous, but it was also a better hideout.

"…Y'know, maybe they hid in the Symphonic Falls? There's better opportunities to hide in the area around there and there's less water."

Roselyynn disagreed. She thought it would be the Rockin' Ruins. Sure, water was there and the wildlife was a little more dangerous, but it meant they'd only have to look in one spot. Plus, it was a ruin. It would maybe hold some kind of cultural significance to them.

…Then again, it seemed like the Gato didn't care much for any culture the Raposa had due to how reclusive and isolated they were.

"…Thunder, why the hell would they hide in a waterfall area? That's like saying they decided to set camp in an abyss."

"An abyss is the exact opposite of a waterfall though."

"What do YOU know about water!? You can literally breathe underwater and not need scuba gear due to your adjustments. Then there's me, and because of how I was shaped, I will DROWN underwater if I don't have scuba gear. Penelope probably would too!"

"I'm pretty sure a waterfall and an abyss are two pretty different things."

"And I'M pretty sure you literally don't know what you're talking about."

"Ok, so what do YOU know about water, Roselyynn? Obviously, we're talking about two different things."

"An abyss is basically a giant cavern filled up with seawater, and a waterfall is basically water running from a river falling down from a flat surface."

"You obviously have no idea what you're talking about now, because it's more complicated than that."

"Yeah, but I'm not some kind of water scientist or a marine biologist!"

"What does marine biology have to do with anything?!"

Wilfre was starting to wonder just how stupid these two were despite their status as Creation Heroes. A fish would probably know way more about how water worked than they did, and that was saying something. He decided to try another tactic as the two were arguing. He took a deep breath and focused, trying to detect any shadow goo essence in the area.

He almost immediately picked it up in the direction of Rockin' Ruins, allowing him to determine that that was where the Gato were as well as the others.

The currently-disguised shadow Raposa promptly stopped Roselyynn's and Thunder's argument by interrupting them. "They're in the Rockin' Ruins. We'll need to look through there in order to find their camp."

"Huh?" the two of them asked before Roselyynn paused.

"Oh. Well, I guess I was right, wasn't I, Thunder?"

Thunder glared at Roselyynn and stopped her (or at least tried to stop her) from talking. He didn't think she had proven any kind of point to him yet, as they hadn't looked there and they didn't know. "…We haven't even looked in Rockin' Ruins yet, so don't get all high and mighty."

Wilfre wondered how he was going to put up with these two idiots while trying to find the others. Their arguing had already annoyed him enough.

There was also the fact that he was used to dealing with Roselyynn and Thunder in small doses (except for when he was disguised as Sock. For some reason, they weren't as annoying and now they seemed to be making some kind of conscious effort to annoy him).

Hopefully this partnership would end soon.

-o-o-o-o-

I didn't initially write an endnote for this chapter until I edited through it. Still, writing the group dynamic between Roselyynn, Thunder and Wilfre is fun: especially as they're allying themselves with an old enemy and they're hesitant on trusting him.

Other than that, I don't have very much to say in regards to what will happen next. You'll just have to see.

Like usual, please review if you'd like, please refrain from flaming and please tell me how I can improve.

I will see you all in the next chapter.

Ciao!