For this story (and probably the rest of my stories at some point), I'm probably going to stop putting Author's Notes in unless I find it necessary to make a comment. For this story, it's mostly because it's getting frustrating to write notes, especially as it's starting to seem unnecessary. I have a stockpile of chapters to post for this, which is fortunate compared to my other works.

I own nothing except for my OCs as per usual.

Here's chapter 12.

-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 12: Worries and Forms

After 2 days' worth of sea travel, the heroes landed in Lavasteam at night. They didn't intend to go out into town at night, so they rested from travelling, and after a nice dinner, the creation heroes rested in their cabin under the ship's deck. Despite that Roselyynn and Thunder were easily able to rest, Penelope was not, and she stared up at the ceiling in a long silence. She had kept getting this strange feeling of death looming over her.

She was also having issues with properly sleeping. As much as she wanted to rest, she didn't have the will too. For the first time in what seemed to be a long while, she heard the Creator speak. "You seem troubled about something, Penelope. Is something the matter?"

"I keep feeling like there's more to this situation than it lets on. I don't think that it will be so simple to just go to White Tuxedo's fortress—wherever that may be—and just end everything. That looks to be the path we're progressing, and I fear that we're going to make an error in our judgment."

"You do have a well-rounded sense of judgment." commented the Creator. "And you can also sense when things are amiss. Though I can somewhat see into the future, and I cannot be entirely certain, I do understand where you're coming from. I don't think you'll make a life-risking error, however. I'm certain you'll be fine."

"What if we're NOT?" Penelope cried, causing Roselyynn to stir in her sleep, but she did not wake up.

"If you're not? Penelope… there's no need to be distressed, is there? All I can tell is that your journey is far from over. I don't think it will be so easy for you to go and take White Tuxedo down like with Wilfre."

"Maybe…" The rabbit grumbled, no wanting to think too much about it. "I hope Mari and the others are ok."

"You'll see them soon. I know that they're fine, at least."

Penelope's eyes lit up with a bit of hope. "Have you been able to properly communicate with Mari?"

"Fortunately, I have been able to somewhat communicate. From what I've heard, Mari, Jowee, Heather and Circi are well. However, they're confined at this time. Mari has been able to keep the Book of Life on her." The Creator indicated, and Penelope sighed in relief at such news. It seemed strange hearing the term "Book of Life" because of the fact that around here, they had been so accustomed to having the Book of Truth around.

Penelope felt her insomnia slowly drain away, and she ended up falling asleep.

XxXxX

As soon as the rabbit fell asleep, she felt like she had woken up in a white space, yet it wasn't empty. The skies were a pale grey, and white clouds swirled about. There seemed to be a misty air about, and a tall figure emerged from the mist. They were in a shimmering, white gown lined with gold. The chest piece had a soft golden yellow color down the center, with white fabric outside of it. Her skirt followed suit, except it had the design of a world being created, with trees and rivers and land appearing to be drawn upon the fabric. They also had long and wavy brown hair that went about midback, emerald green eyes, pink lips and a crown atop her head.

Penelope recognized the instance of this dream almost immediately. It had been a long time that she had directly spoken with the Creator through a dream, let alone see her. But… weren't they just talking?

"I'm sorry, Penelope. I should've said more, but it's harder for me to explain and describe things over showing them in a dream." The Creator said solemnly. She clasped her slender hands together, and her eyes seemed sad and regretful. "Still… I just had one last thing to add. Mainly of the future and where you'll be going. I… can't see the result of anything, but all I can tell is that you'll be going there next."

Penelope was surprised that the Creator could predict their path. Out of curiosity, she proceeded to ask, "Going where?"

"Let me explain…" the Creator calmly spoke. A pencil appeared in her right hand, and she began to draw on the air, creating that of a map. "Nothing much is to happen in Lavasteam, nor in Galactic Jungle…"

The Creator sketched out the points on the map. It seemed that the route from the Raposa Village, to the Renard Village, to Watersong and finally, to Lavasteam, had already been plotted out. "Then… you'll be going to what looks like White Tuxedo's fortress. My vision begins to fog up from there, but the destination after that confuses me."

"Destination after?" Penelope asked, appearing to raise an eyebrow in perplexion.

The Creator nodded, and drew the path to it. "The destination… I believe it's the Gemstone Isle. But I don't understand why you'd ever need to go there… it's so peaceful. Unless, there's more that's going on that my vision won't let me see…" Now, the Creator appeared to be quite bothered with the idea that she wasn't providing enough information. It seemed to be disturbing her immensely.

"I… I'm so sorry… I'm trying to see more, but I can't see anything."

Penelope smiled, though the smile was nervous. "Trust me. It's fine. There's nothing to worry about. It's nice to see you every once in a while, even if it is in a dream-"

The Creator bit her lip. "But… but it's NOT fine! I'm supposed to be the Creator, and I can't even help predict a good path or properly guide you!" She exclaimed, appearing distressed. "No matter what I seem to do, everything seems to go wrong."

"Not really." Penelope replied, before thinking of her allies. "I mean, you didn't go wrong with Roselyynn and Thunder. Those two are your best heroes—they're strong, competent, reliable and far more stable than I am. I never understand why you kept me, as I'm broken and corrupted."

The Creator sighed, and a smile appeared on her face. "To be honest, Roselyynn and Thunder have their flaws. Despite her strength, Roselyynn still has her limits. In fact, she's more sensitive than Thunder as she's human-like. She nearly drowned when they were in the Abyss, and I had to make use of the older flipper template. Thunder, on the other hand, is practically the perfect model."

Pondering on it a moment, the Creator let out another sigh. She rested her head in her left hand.

"Despite such, I've always felt a certain disconnect between Roselyynn and Thunder. Technically, they were created not too long after you, and yet… I just never felt as attached to them. Maybe it was because I created you, and then we worked as a team for so long that I didn't feel as close to them." She supposed, looking troubled. Penelope felt like she was starting to sweat. The Creator was really worried about this, wasn't she?

Penelope bit her lip and tried to soothe the Creator's anxieties. This truly wasn't as big of a problem as she was making it. She waved her paws in a frantic worry. "Creator… you're really overthinking this. It wouldn't be good for you of all people to stress out like this. Just calm down, breathe, and rest. I'm certain everything will be fine."

The Creator took a deep breath and gently beamed at Penelope. "I hope so…I pray that all will go well, and I hope you have a good rest of your night, Penelope." She told Penelope, leaning down and patting her on the head. Penelope wished the same, and her dream faded out as the Creator moved away.

Penelope's actual awakening was abrupt.

XxXxX

"Penelope! Wake up! We need to do something before we go into Lavasteam!" Roselyynn spoke in a loud whisper. Someone was slightly shaking the small, but older heroine awake. Penelope groggily opened her brown eyes and shifted them to the younger heroes.

And honestly, she wasn't all that impressed to be woken up, especially when it still seemed to be early in the morning. Her voice was slightly raspy from her tiredness. "…What is it? What's so important?"

"We need to figure out a name for the disguise Wilfre is going to use." Thunder answered, taking his hands off Penelope. There was a long, awkward pause, and Penelope questioned why in the hell they bothered to ask.

The rabbit raised an eyebrow at her two younger 'siblings' and frowned. "...Seriously? Can't you just let Wilfre figure one out? He could create two disguises and give them names. There was Salem… and then there was… Sock."

Penelope started to slightly understand their concerns, especially with the expressions the two made on their faces. "…Ah. Still, I think Wilfre is more than capable of figuring out his own-"

"We started making a list, and we wanted to know if you wanted to add any input." Thunder indicated, with an innocent blink.

'Oh my god' was the only phrase that came to Penelope's mind upon hearing that. She slowly face palmed and shook her head. "My. You're really taking this seriously, aren't you? That's good (please tell me that you just came up with random names and didn't put any meaning behind them)-"

"We tried to think of names that would fit with Wilfre…" As soon as Thunder said that, Penelope tuned out what he was saying. All it looked like was that his lips were moving and no words were coming out of it. Penelope looked as clueless as a Baki before she tuned back in when Thunder asked, "Um… I know it's early, but do you have anything-"

"Caelestis, Nigel and Vincent." Penelope immediately answered, half-amazed at the fact she came up with names so fast. She couldn't believe she was helping with something as stupid as coming up with names, especially at this hour.

She wondered how Wilfre was going to react to this. He probably was going to be just as unimpressed as she was.

Penelope was surprised to find that she was right when they met up in the Map Room later than morning and Maelynn was discussing the game plan of what they needed to do and check up on in Lavasteam.

"Wilfre, as you're going to be key to the team, it's natural that you're going to need some kind of disguise. If you're in your shadow form, or if you go into any of your other two disguises, you're likely going to be burned at the stake." Maelynn indicated with a wave of her paw.

Wilfre nodded, crossing his arms. "That's expected, I suppose. A lot of people don't like me for what happened last time. I suppose I'll-" Out of excitement, Roselyynn and Thunder interrupted.

"We came up with a name list in case you're having trouble."

The room went silent. Wilfre seemed to have been taken off guard, while Maelynn, Rikki and White Blaze gave the two heroes weird looks. Blaze was the first one to speak out of all of them.

"…When did you two find the time to make a names list?"

"Last night, at about 2 in the morning." Thunder replied, his voice still full of energy despite the fact that it meant he and Roselyynn didn't get much sleep.

Wilfre's expression slowly morphed into that of being completely and utterly confused, amazed, and unenthusiastic to the idea. "Oh god." The shadow Raposa grumbled under his breath, hoping that they weren't serious.

As soon as they started reading off names, and when Wilfre found that yes, they were serious about doing something that Wilfre was more than capable of doing himself, he didn't know whether to applaud them for their effort or question them for why they even bothered.

As they got to the end of the list, Roselyynn added, "Oh, and Penelope contributed some names. She only contributed three, but the ones she suggested were Caelestis, Nigel and Vincent. She came up with them pretty fast. It took Thunder and I a few hours to come up with most of ours."

Penelope nervously sweat as soon as they brought that up, and Wilfre slowly turned to her. He didn't appear to be very pleased with the idea that she helped with the names list. "You helped them."

"Hesitantly. Very, verrrry hesitantly." The rabbit quickly replied, defending herself in a panic.

Wilfre let out a long sigh, amazed at how much time the heroes had on their hands.

"…Vincent is fine." He grumbled, and Roselyynn and Thunder were happy that their combined suggestions (plus Penelope's three) did something. "But for the record, just let me come up with names next time."

Penelope's ears perked up, and she proceeded to glare at him. "You literally named one of your disguises Sock. Salem was a pretty good name, but Sock. How could you name someone Sock and get away with it?"

Wilfre huffed and looked away. "Oh please. You know how well Sock worked."

"I swear that you only called that disguise Sock because he had a giant sock hat and you couldn't come up with anything better. Need I remind you that you FORGOT the hat on Turtlerock, and it led the heroes to you? That was one of the stupidest things you have ever done."

"Why are you even criticizing me for that? It was shortsighted of me, yes, but the heroes were going to find me eventually."

"They found you because of something you stupidly left behind on accident. Not only that, but you made them feel betrayed and bitter. Just look at Thunder. He looks like he's going to chuck his sword at your head like it's a javelin toss in the Olympics." Penelope spat back, before pointing at Thunder. Wilfre looked at Thunder, and appeared panicked when Thunder did seem to be angry and bitter at that memory.

Maelynn bit her lip. "…I'd appreciate it if we didn't get to where we brutally murdered each other on the Cavalier Soleil. Let's move on from the past, and focus on the future, alright?" She requested, trying to settle down the tension. Thunder calmed himself down, and Wilfre sighed in relief that he wasn't going to die today.

There was a pause as the tension settled down. Maelynn nervously smiled, unsure what to say now. "Um… Wilfre? Could you please change your form?" She quickly asked the shadow Raposa. Aurora chimed in needlessly.

"Well, try to do so if you can. If your form changing ability has been removed somehow, that's no problem—"

"I'm still able to change my appearance fine. I was thinking of what to change to." Wilfre interrupted, and Aurora paused. Instead of being quiet, she spoke again.

"You could've indicated that in the first place!" Aurora exclaimed. Despite that she had been yelling, she wasn't actually angry about the situation. As soon as she spoke, she shifted back into a calm, gentle state. Wilfre stared at her in confusion and sighed.

With a snap, a surge of shadow went around Wilfre's body. When the shadow vanished, it revealed a Raposa with inky black fur that with a tuft of it that thickly curled up at the top of his face, a long sleeved white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a charcoal grey vest, a bowtie, and patched up, grey pants that were also rolled up and seemed to have some ink on them. They were unsure if the pants were actually overalls, as the vest made it incredibly hard to tell. Wilfre, or 'Vincent', messed with the fur that had curled up.

Roselyynn, Penelope and Thunder weren't as fine with the form as they could've been. However, it was mostly Penelope who was annoyed. "Black fur? Why did you go with BLACK fur? Doesn't that make you suspicious?!"

"I think he'd be more suspicious with grey fur or orange fur." Roselyynn stated with a wave. "If I remember correctly, Sock had orange fur and Salem had grey fur. Wilfre also normally has grey fur too, but that's probably irrelevant. If his outfit choices were too similar to Sock or Salem for that matter, that would also deem him as suspicious."

"His fur is black though. Wouldn't black fur be suspicious?"

"Not necessarily." Roselyynn continued to insist. "As long as 'Vincent' doesn't act too similarly to Wilfre, Sock, or Salem, he's in the clear. And noting that, Wilfre has to be careful with how he acts anyway as he's supposed to be on the low."

Penelope appeared to raise an eyebrow at the taller hero. "Um… why are you defending Wilfre? You don't appear to be amused with him anyway."

"That's because he still decided to bother to change into a RAPOSA when there were three other things he could've potentially changed into." Roselyynn continued.

White Blaze huffed. "Nah. He'd be less suspicious as a Raposa. If he changed into a Gato, he could be mistaken for a Blackpaw. It'd be odd if he changed into a Lapin because they're incredibly reclusive; and then the Mus commonly stay in their own communities unless they have to move." It was good that Blaze was at least aware of these things. Maelynn, Rikki and Aurora couldn't help but agree, and Roselyynn and Thunder's tension was eased.

Now it was just a matter of actually getting off the Cavalier Soleil and going into Lavasteam.

-o-o-o-o-

This will probably be one of the last few endnotes unless stated otherwise, similarly to the beginning note. Working on the interaction between Wilfre and the others, as well as Penelope conversing with the Creator and her fellow Creation Heroes (to a minor extent) was quite fun.

Other than that, I don't have as much to say.

Please review if you'd like, please refrain from flaming, and please tell me how I can improve my writing. I really appreciate hearing the feedback so I can work on refining my writing style.

I will see you all in the next chapter.

Ciao!