Chapter 3

The next morning, Harriet came out of her room and went downstairs. Will was sitting in the living room sofa, simply smiling to himself.

"Good morning, Dad," Harriet said.

"Good morning, Harriet," Will responded, still lost in his daydreams.

Harriet walked up to him, noting the off look in his face. "And what are you so happy about?"

"Hmm? Oh..." Will seemed to snap out of his trance. "I'm just waiting for the others to get here."

"I see. Going to hunt some more rare monsters?"

"Well, not exactly. We've gotten some reports of a spacecraft at the Ruins of Frozen Light, and we're going to investigate it."

"Oh, I get it. There's no telling what kind of rare monsters you'll find in there, huh?"

"Indeed..." Will smiled as he seemed to drift off again.

"Hey, I know just what you need!" Harriet dashed into the kitchen.

At that moment, Senel came into the house. "Good morning, Will."

"Good morning..." Will replied, still daydreaming.

Senel moved in front of him, studying his facial expression. "Uh-oh, you've got that monster maniac look on you..."

"Indeed..."

"He sure does," Harriet added, returning with a stack of notebooks and setting them on the table. "Here you go, Dad; here's your notebooks. And I'll be right back."

As she headed back into the kitchen, Senel looked at Will again.

"So Will, did you find out anything more about that spacecraft?"

"Not a thing..." Will replied, his mind still absent.

"Will..." Senel reached out, snapping his fingers in front of Will's face. "Snap out of it!"

"What? Oh!" Will shook his head. "Sorry...I suppose I am excited about this investigation."

Harriet returned yet again, this time with two cups of coffee. "Here you go, Dad. This'll wake you up. And I made a cup for you too, Senel."

Senel took the cup reluctantly. "Are you sure this is any good?"

"Of course it's good! It was made by me!" Harriet told him. "My cooking is getting better every day!"

Will shot Senel a silent glare.

"Oh, you're right!" Senel said, intimidated by that glare. "Of course you're getting better! And since you're on a roll, do you think you can whip up an omelet or something?"

"Okay!" Harriet skipped into the kitchen again.

Will and Senel took a sip of the coffee, and their faces instantly grimaced.

"On second thought, we're really not that hungry..." Senel called as he and Will poured the rest of the coffee into the plant in the center of the table.

The front door opened again, and this time Chloe, Jay, Grune, and Shirley walked in. Will and Senel now stood up.

"All right, is everyone ready to go?" Will asked.

The group nodded silently.

"Wait a minute," Senel interrupted. "We're still missing Norma and Moses."

Will gave an exasperated sigh. "All right, I guess we'll wait a few minutes for them to arrive."

Only half a minute passed before Norma arrived, entering the house casually. She only looked down in front of her, with no expressions on her face.

"Oh, Norma's here," Grune gushed. "I wonder where Moses is?"

"Norma, have you seen him?" Senel asked.

Norma stared down at the floor for another moment before giving Senel a look. "No..."

"Well, we'll wait for him just a little longer," Will said. "If he doesn't show up, we'll just go on without him."

"Personally, I wouldn't mind that at all," Jay remarked.

"There's no big hurry to get there, so I think we can afford to wait," Chloe said.

"But we don't know how dangerous this thing is," Senel pointed out.

"I wonder what we'll find in this spacecraft?" Shirley asked.

"Rare monsters, of course," Harriet said. "Right, Dad?"

"We don't know that, Harriet," Will told her.

"Wow...I wish I could go to the Ruins of Frozen Light, too."

"But don't you have school today?"

"Yeah...I guess I'd better get going, or I'll be late. See you later, guys." Harriet took her backpack from the bookshelf and left the house.

A moment of silence passed as the group stood in the room, patiently waiting for the bandit to arrive. Norma stared at the floor for another moment before looking up at each of her comrades. A slight smile flashed across her face as she looked down again.

"Oh my..." Grune clasped her hands together. "Maybe we'll get to go into outer space. That'll be so much fun, wouldn't it?"

Norma looked at her from the corner of her eye. "Yeah...it would," she said in a low voice.

The party shot her a look, as they didn't quite recognize her tone.

"Norma, are you feeling all right?" Will asked.

Norma stared at the floor again, before looking up at the historian. "I'm fine, Teach. In fact, I've never felt better."

"She's probably plotting some mischief as always," Jay said.

"Yeah...that's exactly it," Norma said.

Will shrugged. "Well, it doesn't look like Moses is coming, so we'll go ahead and head out. Let's go, everyone."

"Hmm...I wonder what's keeping Moses?" Grune pondered.

"He's always late," Senel said.

Jay shook his head and shrugged. "Well, it's his loss."

Senel, Will, and Chloe turned and left the house. Norma finally looked up and turned to Grune. Stepping right in front of her, Norma grabbed the back of Grune's neck, pressing her mouth firmly onto Grune's. Jay and Shirley exchanged a confused glance.

Norma held the kiss without a single motion. Grune's eyes opened wide as her body became paralyzed. After another moment, Norma slowly pulled back, releasing Grune, who slowly put her hands to her stomach, lowering her head as her face squinted in pain.

"I'm going to look for Red," Norma said in the same low voice. "We'll meet you at the ruins."

"Okay, I'll go tell the others." Shirley went past them and left the house.

"Why would you want to look for Moses?" Jay asked. "He's just a pig."

Norma shot him a look. "Maybe I'm in the mood for pork today. In fact, I'm in the mood for all sorts of things."

Flashing him a smile, Norma turned and casually left the house.

"I don't believe this..." Jay muttered to himself.

Grune slowly raised her head, turning to Jay with a sweet smile. Somehow, Jay couldn't help the feeling that there was something peculiar about that smile.

"Uh...w-we'd better hurry!" he stammered as he ran past Grune, leaving the house to catch up with the others.

--

When Senel, Shirley, Will, Chloe, and Jay arrived at the Ruins of Frozen Light, they looked up at the huge silver saucer sitting on top of the complex.

"Wow...that's pretty big," Senel remarked.

"This is great..." Will cooed. "I'd better jot down my notes at once. Wait'll we encounter all of the alien lifeforms inside that thing."

"Disgusting alien lifeforms, for sure," Chloe muttered.

"We won't even know what to do when we find these lifeforms," Shirley said.

"I can capture one and take it back with us," Will said. "I can study it from there."

"How do we get inside the spacecraft?" Shirley asked.

The group paused as they looked up at the cliff.

"We can't climb up from here," Will said. "There might be a way into the spacecraft inside the ruins."

The others nodded in agreement.

Chloe looked around, realizing that some of the party members were missing. "Guys...what happened to Norma and Grune?"

"Norma said she was going to get Moses and then meet us here," Shirley told her. "I guess Grune went with her."

Jay rolled his eyes. "Was that really necessary?"

"Of course, Moses is one of us," Senel said. "We really should do these things together – all of us."

"Oh, that's right...Moses is our decoy," Jay added. "Whatever would we do without him?"

"Well, they'll either show up, or they won't," Will said. "Let's go on inside."

The group nodded and began to enter the ruins. They walked through the long blue corridors of the Frozen Light Ruins, but saw nothing at all. That was odd all by itself, as there were normally monsters lurking about.

"This whole place looks completely deserted," Senel said. "It's almost scarier than when the monsters were here."

"I wonder what happened to them?" Chloe said.

"Maybe..." Will began to ponder as he slowly looked around. He turned his body slowly, until he glanced at the party members...including the three who had been missing when they arrived at the entrance. "Well, there you all are!"

The others turned, also surprised to see Moses, Norma, and Grune standing behind them, as if they had appeared from nowhere.

"Well, I see you finally decided to join us," Chloe said.

"Where'd you guys come from?" Senel asked.

Moses and Grune stood still, their eyes looking away.

"Oh...somewhere," Norma said flatly.

The others looked at her for a moment, before restoring their attention to Will.

"So Will, you were saying?" Senel asked.

Will shook his head. "Never mind. Throwing around guesses won't solve anything. Let's move on."

The others nodded, but Norma, Moses, and Grune kept their heads down with the nod. As the party began to move deeper into the ruins, the trio raised their heads and silently began to follow. Walking down the corridors again, Moses, Norma, and Grune trailed several feet behind the others, blankly staring in incoherent directions.

The party stepped into yet another room, which brought back some painful memories for both Senel and Shirley. This was the room where they had discovered that Stella was still alive, after believing that she had been dead for three years. But that wasn't important anymore. After all, Stella was still alive...right?

"We've searched almost the entire ruin, and we haven't even seen a single monster," Chloe said with a sigh.

"Maybe they're all in the spacecraft?" Shirley suggested.

"But how did they get in there?" Jay asked.

Will pointed to a door to the left of the chamber where they had originally found Stella on the Legacy. "There's one more room we haven't searched yet."

"Got it, let's go," Senel said.

Moses, Norma, and Grune started to follow as the party walked towards the last room, but then paused. They waited for the others to leave the room before facing each other with a nod. Turning to their right, they walked across the room, where a camoflauged door slowly came into view. The door slid open, and the three stepped through into a room with two large blue cylinders on either side, which extended from the floor to the ceiling. Stella and Walter stood in the center of the room as the three approached them.

Pulling out a blue marker, Stella knelt down, slowly drawing a pattern on the floor. It was a single star pattern, and when she was done, Stella looked up, giving each and every one of them a casual glance, but not a single word. Then the five of them – Stella, Walter, Norma, Moses, and Grune – stood at each corner of the star pattern, turning their backs to the center. Then they closed their eyes...

The other heroes stepped into the last room, which was only empty, with computer terminals lined up along the walls.

"Well, guys, it looks like we've reached a dead end," Senel said.

"So there's no path into the spacecraft at all," Chloe added.

Will studied the computer terminals, reaching out to press some buttons, but then thought better of it. "I'd better not mess with this."

"So what do we do now?" Shirley asked.

"It appears that there's nothing we can do," Jay said. "We can't seem to get into the spacecraft from in here. The only way would be to find some way on top of the cliff outside."

"But does anyone know how to fly?" Senel asked. "Shirley?"

"I can't fly, but..." Shirley paused for a moment, and then lit up. "Walter!"

"Hmm, you're right," Will said, recalling how they first referred to Walter as the "flying man."

"He had those black wing things," Senel added.

"Walter's true name was Delques – 'Black Wings,'" Shirley told him. "If we ask him, he'll surely look into this for us."

"He'll do it for you," Jay pointed out. "He won't do it for us."

"So it's settled then," Senel said, before thinking, As much as I hate the idea...

"Well, there's no reason to stay here any longer," Will said. "Let's head back."

"Hey..." Chloe said out of nowhere. "What happened to Norma, Grune, and Sandor?"

The party looked around, realizing that the three went missing again.

"They disappeared again!?" Senel snapped. "First they're not here...and then they just appear out of nowhere, and then they disappear again!? Are we losing our minds!?"

"Settle down," Will told him. "They're probably exploring elsewhere...or getting into some mischief."

"Or they chickened out," Jay spat.

"I can't imagine Grune chickening out..." Shirley said softly.

Will led the group back into the previous room, but the other three members where nowhere to be found.

"They're not in here either," Chloe said.

"They probably left already," Senel said.

"I don't think so," Jay told them. "I can sense them somewhere...hiding."

Senel looked around, but saw nothing. "Norma! Moses! Come out; this isn't the time for games!"

"Never mind," Will said. "There are no monsters here, so they should be fine. Let's go."

"Those three always have to have the last laugh," Jay remarked as the others began to leave. "I wish I could see how hard they're laughing when they come out and find us all gone."

Shirley stopped next to him. "But we can't just leave them here..."

Jay gave her a look. "And why not? They came here on their own, did they not? Well, they can get their butts home; I'm leaving."

As he followed the others, Shirley paused and looked at the side wall. Slowly approaching it, she gently ran her hand across it. She then realized that the others were on the verge of leaving her behind.

"Hey guys, wait for me!" she called out as she ran to catch up with them.