The Caves of Despair….Not!:

Zane reached a hand out and grabbed Lloyd by the shirt, stopping him from running down to the formidable maze of caves down below. "Lloyd! Wait! We need a plan of action to find the Golden Weapons…and let's review the history of this place first…."

"No one who enters is ever seen again. There, we know the history of this place." Kai grumped as he folded his arms.

Zane frowned as he stared at the younger boy for a second, before shaking his head. "What about the wildlife here?"

"It's a canyon in the middle of a large forest. Despite what people might think, it only has a few types of snakes as well as mice and spiders. One of the types of snakes is poisonous." Nya and Jay countered in unison.

Lloyd looked up at Zane expectedly. "Can we go down now?"

Zane ran his fingers through his hair as he wondered why he ever agreed to this. "We still need a plan."

"Can't we just follow the humming?" Cole, who had been unnaturally silent doing the whole conversation, spoke up.

"What humming?" All of them asked in perfect unison.

Cole blinked, before whispering quietly. "What do you mean by that? Can't you hear it? Someone's humming down there…" Without thinking, Cole sprinted down the side of the canyon.

"Cole! Come back here! People get lost down there all the time!" Zane gave chase, panic flooding him.

By the time they all arrived at the bottom of the canyon, Cole was nowhere in sight…

~With Cole~

Cole was nearly memorized by the rather persistent humming. He had passed a lantern awhile ago that lit itself up when he picked it up, lighting the dark caves so that he could see where he was going. Not that he was paying any attention of course. Turning to follow the humming down yet another path, he didn't notice that he was coming up on a dead end until he suddenly crashed in a large boulder. Yelping, he took a step back. "Hey guys, I think someone is trapped behind the boulder here…"Cole turned around to see that no one was with him. "Guys?! Oh no." Cole began hyperventilating as he crouched down in front of the boulder.

The humming stopped suddenly, making the cave appear to be deathly silent. A minute later, a loud grinding noise filled the cave as the boulder slowly rolled away. A large brown dragon padded out of the cave behind the boulder, looking down at the small terrified teen below its feet. Bending down, it gently nuzzled him. Startled, Cole looked up to see the ginormous dragon hovering above him. All color fled his face as he scrambled backwards away from the dragon. His mouth dropped open as an earsplitting scream tore right out of him in horror. "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

~With Zane~

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Cole's voice tore through the air, making Zane's heart skip a beat with terror as he scanned the area for any sign of the teen.

~Back with Cole~

The dragon took an involuntary step back, ears flattening against his head. A low growl of surprise escaped the dragon, before he turned and…shrank down to the size of his palm. Tiny wings flapping, it landed on and continued nuzzling Cole. Cole took a shaky breath as he slowly reached to touch the dragon's scales. Upon touching the scales, he was amazed to find that they were dry and hard to the touch…and felt exactly like a rock out in the desert felt like. "Hmm, rocky little fellow aren't ya?" Cole blinked, a grin crossing his face. "That's what I'll call you! Rocky! Uh, Rocky…have you seen anything like a golden weapon around here. Also someone was humming earlier. Do you know where?"

The now dubbed Rocky flapped his wings eagerly as he flew up and circled Cole's head, before heading back to the cave he was just in. Cole stood up and followed him, interest peaked. As he continued on the path with his new guide, the humming began again. A loud gasp tore from him as he ran on ahead. "I hear the humming again!" he sprinted to a smaller cave in the back of the cave Rocky led him to. Right smack in the middle of the cave was a pedestal….with the scythe of quakes resting on it. Cole moved closer to it and reaching out, poked the powerful weapon. Immediately there was a bright light and explosion that knocked Cole backwards….

Once the stars in his eyes stopped dancing, Cole sat up to find that the scythe of quakes was gone, but there was a box sitting on the pedestal now. After checking that he still had Rocky with him, he picked the box out and turned to leave.

….

Kai tackled Cole the second the boy stepped out of the maze of caves. "Cole! You're alive!"

"Why did you think I wasn't alive?" Cole wiggled away from his acting weirdly friend…only for his best friend to tackle him.

"Cause we heard you scream! Then it was just silent!" Jay bawled loudly as he buried his face into his shoulder.

"I'm fine. Rocky just startled me is all. Once I got used to him though, it was fine." Cole assured the bawling, smaller boy.

Jay sniffled, even as Zane crossed his arms. "And who might rocky be?"

Cole grinned before holding his arm out…which Rocky gently landed on. "Rocky! Meet everyone, everyone meet Rocky."

"Oh wow! A real life dragon! Wait…we were supposed to be looking for the golden weapons." Nya paused as she recalled the reason they were here.

Cole began to bounce out of excitement. "I saw the scythe of quakes! I mean the others weren't there… only then there was this bright light and it disappeared and this box showed up." He then handed the box to Zane…who opened it to find another flashlight inside of it.

"Another flashlight…and this one has the symbol for ice on it." Zane hummed out of interest as he flicked the light on. A blueish-white glow shot out of the flashlight, though it didn't appear to do anything…until Kai slipped the map underneath it. Once again the map showed underneath the strange light. Only this time it lead them elsewhere…and had the symbol for ice on it.

"The Frozen Wasteland? But we were there just last year and we didn't see anything like a golden weapon hiding place there." Nya pouted at what she thought was a dead end.

Zane shook his head as he carefully put the map and both flashlights away. "The map leads further into the Frozen Wasteland than what we had gone in."

"Oh…"

"We need to stop somewhere and buy new winter clothes for this trip." Zane commented casually.

"Yeah!"

A/N: Done! Hmm, I wonder what happened to the scythe of quakes…and that persisting humming that only Cole could hear! Next stop is…Zane abandoning the group due to a strange humming noise!

Review!

SkyTalon