Chapter 2 of 5

The Game is Afoot

Wilbur was already in full-blown panic mode when he woke his companions. Winona and Wilson blinked at him in sleepy confusion, unable to understand the words that he was frantically bombarding them with. He settled with simply pacing back and forth, tail flicking in agitation as the other two got their bearings.

Wilson was the first to notice Wilbur's issue.

"Where's We- er, Tyler?"

Wilbur glared at him and furiously motioned, knowing full well neither of them could understand his actual words. Still, he found himself talking out loud. "Absolutely no idea! Thanks for asking the obvious question!"

Until this moment, Winona had seemed fairly calm. As soon as the question was posed, though, fear pooled in her eyes and she started bouncing her foot with frantic energy. "It's freezing. It's so cold right now. He wouldn't have run off, would he?"

"He absolutely would've," Wilbur responded glumly. Wilson seemed to agree with the notion, even if unaware that it was posed.

"You act like he hasn't run off multiple times before," the scientist said with a sigh. Wilbur noticed him picking at his cuticles with a scowl. "To be honest, right now, that's kind of my last priority." He motioned towards a fire on its last embers, just a few feet away. "My current priority is finding something to keep that alive."

Winona blinked several times before nodding quickly. "Right. It wouldn't help if we froze to death, huh?"

They got lucky in location, at least. A dense evergreen forest surrounded the three of them, keeping the ground relatively clear of snow and the wood to be found fairly dry. It only took a few moments of stripping bark for Wilbur to find something better burning, and before Wilson and Winona even had the chance to try he was already working deftly on building the flames back up. It was a skill he had all but mastered in his four thousand years, so he was able to let his hands go on auto pilot as he ran over the scenarios in his head.

Scenario One: Tyler just stepped away for a moment and would be back before they knew it. Preferred scenario. Possible considering his intense need for independence and guilty desperation for approval. He would certainly sneak off to try to gather materials to bring back when everyone else woke up. Unfortunately, even as Wilbur looked, he couldn't see any footprints in the frost, and nothing seemed to be disturbed.

Scenario Two: Tyler stepped away for a moment and immediately got himself in deep trouble. Extremely likely, for many of the same points as the previous. Tacked on to those points is his aptitude for getting into the worse of situations with no effort and the fact that it was extremely cold right now and he had eaten nothing for five days, a fast broken only by a scrap of meat the day before. Again, no footprints.

Scenario Three: Tyler ran off after waking up first. Also extremely likely. Wilbur loved him, he really did, but the kid could be a total moron and absolutely had a Messiah Complex. There was a very good chance he woke up and decided for whatever reason that the rest of the group would be better off without him and fled without waking anyone up. If that was the case, it was almost certain he would perish to a mixture of freezing and starvation simply due to the fact that he barely cared for himself anymore unless someone else forced him to. In Wilbur's opinion, the worst situation, considering even if they found him again, if this was the case, there was a good chance he would fight tooth and claw to prevent coming back. The fire also bought in to this theory, with the idea of him trying to save them in some backwards way. But again, no footprints.

Scenario Four: Tyler had been kidnapped by something while asleep. Most unlikely. No signs of struggle or anything bigger. Immediately thrown out.

That left one last scenario... Scenario Five: Tyler was separated from the group as part of Maxwell's game.

No footprints. The fire could have been left by Maxwell. It would be preferable to him running off by himself, but the chance of him starving and/or freezing to death was still so high Wilbur felt sick to his stomach. It wasn't as if he couldn't take care of himself. It was that there was a good chance that he wouldn't because of that same stupid Messiah Complex.

Wilbur jumped to his feet as soon as the fire started back up, fully prepared to march off in search of their missing companion. It was as though Wilson could read his mind, though, because the scientist immediately gave a stern: "No, Wilbur. You're not leaving."

They knew he could say a couple of words, and luckily, one of them in his available library was a perfect one. "Stupid," Wilbur snapped at him. When Wilson narrowed his eyes, Wilbur wasted no time in baring his teeth angrily.

"Wilbur, stop. He's right." Winona sounded tired. "We got no food and no furs last world because of Tyler's... ah..."

Wilbur raised an eyebrow, daring her to continue. Guilt? Youth? Apparent eating disorder?

"...issue," she finished, although the word was definitely not what she had originally thought. She looked like she had bitten into something foul.

"He's a big boy." Wilson drew himself closer to the fire that Wilbur had reignited, ignoring the angry prime ape standing a few paces away. "He can take care of himself. We need to take care of ourselves first. Wilbur, you're the only one with natural fur. How well could you handle the cold, do you think?"

Wilbur simply stared back at him. How stupid was this guy?

"He lived on a tropical island. I doubt he has any cold resistance," Winona pointed out. At least she had a few working brain cells. Honestly, he was beginning to think that himself and the mechanic were the only ones with functional brains at all. "How many winters did you survive through? How did you get through those?"

"We had a robot who could handle the cold better than us, and Webber, who couldn't but did anyway out of spite. Even then, they weren't... this bad? I mean, it was cold and we all definitely nearly froze to death, but this is somehow worse."

Wilbur felt lead pool in his stomach at Wilson's words. They nearly froze to death in winters that weren't nearly as bad as this? What did that mean for them?

"Well, considering human nature, it would take about two weeks for us to starve to death," Wilson said. He was counting something on his fingers. "Of course, that wouldn't be very ideal. And there's always the likelihood of not being strong enough to hunt. The longest I would say without food without becoming too weak is... maaaybe two days?"

Wilbur scoffed. Imagine having to eat every day to keep full strength. When Wilson and Winona turned confused looks towards him, Wilbur held up six fingers. Six days a prime ape could go before weakening from hunger.

"I wouldn't stay in one place for too long," a voice rose from behind Wilbur. His instincts kicked in before he even fully registered the voice, and if it weren't for Maxwell's incorporeal form it was very likely the prime ape would have successfully mauled the man. As it was, he passed through the shade in the same way he had before. Maxwell quirked an eyebrow towards him, and Wilbur bared his teeth in response.

"Oh, come off it," Maxwell scoffed, waving one hand as if brushing it off. "It's been years, aren't you over it by now?"

Wilbur was, in fact, not 'over it'. He lashed his tail threateningly.

"Nevertheless, I'm here to welcome you to the second world." The Nightmare Captor opened his arms to motion to the landscape. He wore a long, frustratingly perfect fur coat that hung on his lanky frame. The furs of the collar shivered in the breeze. "You completed the previous challenge rather quickly, hmm?"

"Do you mind, William?" Winona snapped, rolling her eyes. She hadn't look in his direction at all, instead giving her full attention to clearing snow away from the fire before it melted into mud. "Can't you just let us starve to death in peace?"

"I'd prefer you didn't fail this early," he pouted. He made a circling motion motion with one hand and a burlap bag appeared in the air in front of him. It hovered uncertainly for a moment before landing with a dull thump. "If you're smart about it, that should last you a couple of days."

Wilbur's nose twitched as the scent of fresh meat touched his nose. He didn't move towards the sack, didn't even consider it. He simply kept his eyes focused on Maxwell, who was clapping his hands together as if dusting them.

"I'd rather starve to death than take hand outs from you," Winona said with a growl. Wilbur nodded in agreement and lashed his tail again.

Maxwell simply gave them a shrug and a smirk. "I won't take it back. If you want to let perfectly good food to go to waste, that's your issue. Although, I would suggest you keep your strength up and move quickly. After all, there's a hunter hot on your trail."

Confusion sparked in Wilbur's chest, but he didn't try to ask for any elaboration. That didn't stop Maxwell from giving it.

"It's been awhile since he's had a good meal. You might want to try to escape before he catches up."

"The Deerclops?" Wilson guessed. He rolled his eyes, seemingly unbothered. "Did you skip the part where we killed the other Giants? I think we can hold our own against it, even if it 'catches up'."

"Did I say it was the Deerclops?" Again, the smirk. Surely nobody would protest if someone tore this man to shreds. Who said it couldn't be Wilbur to do that? He might just be a projection now, but that didn't mean he couldn't get lucky one day and find the real thing. Every single freaking time he saw that smirk, the only thing that went through his head was the way he gave the exact same freaking smirk-

"Whatever it is." Winona waved one hand as if brushing him off. "Are you done? Can you go back to not existing?"

"You know, I was going to leave." Maxwell tapped his chin with one finger, humming thoughtfully. "But I'm only counting four faces here. That's peculiar, unless I missed something."

Wilbur's claws curled into the ground and fury burned hot and low in his chest. What twisted game were they playing at here?

"Oh well. I'm sure I've simply miscounted." He snapped his fingers, the fire burning a few paces away settling with smaller, more controlled flames and meat rising from the sack. Sticks and rocks followed the order, settling into a decent cooking set up, with fresh slabs of rabbit and beefalo roasting over it. The entire process took only a few moments without any physical effort from Maxwell's part. "Good luck, you four."

The second Maxwell vanished, Winona launched into a flurry of curses aimed at him. Wilbur and Wilson remained silent, although in Wilbur's case he was living vicariously through Winona's rage.

"So..." Wilson started when Winona's tirade fizzled out. "Are we all in agreement that Webber is hunting us?"

"Not really!" Wilbur protested.

"First off, stop calling him that." Winona pointed stiffly at the scientist. "Secondly..." She let out a frustrated shout and threw her arms in the air. "YEAH. Absolutely. Of course. That's absolutely the case."

"Even if that is the case, we kind of want to find him, right? Hunting is a very vicious term to use!"

Of course, neither of them could understand Wilbur. He wanted to snap. Of course, rage had been boiling beneath Wilbur's fur for the past several minutes, and he already felt quite close to exploding. Wilson and Winona hovered around the fire, debating among themselves about whether the food was safe or not. Instead of, you know, talking about the missing member of their group.

Wilbur wanted to rip his fur out. Nobody could understand spider or hound or dragoon or prime ape or anything useful.

"Wilbur, you know your speech is getting a lot better. I can't even remember the last time I couldn't understand you."

He gritted his teeth.

"Well, how am I supposed to bond with my buddies without speaking the same language?"

He hated this.

"Better than to have loved and lost! Ha! What a joke! I'd rather have never loved at all!"

This is what happens when you break your promise to yourself and let yourself love again.

Especially when your soft spot happens to be extremely stupid children. Stupid stupid stupid Wilbur. Next time I decide to adopt a child, I'm choosing one who doesn't have so many issues that everyone believes he would become a savage hunter.

He continued his low growling as he marched up to the duo by the fire. Wilson poked at the meat with a stick, and it dripped red juice as he did so. Winona looked significantly more concerned, her eyes focused more on the fire than the food. After a moment of consideration, Wilbur grabbed her hand and tugged on it.

"Huh?" She looked away and blinked several times as if chasing away the floaters formed from staring at the fire. "Wilbur?"

He pointed over to a tree.

"Um..."

Wilbur sighed in frustration and decided to just drag her. She let out a yelp of surprise as he overpowered her easily.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming! I'm coming!"

Wilbur released Winona's hand and sat on the other side of the tree, out of Wilson's view. She furrowed her brow as she settled in front of him.

"Sooo... what's up?"

Wilbur cleared his throat.

"Don't say anything to Wilson," he said immediately. "I will fight you."

The silence that followed was deafening. She stared at him, mouth half-open, as if incapable of comprehending what he just said. Really, though, it was the opposite. After all, they had only ever heard him speak a couple of English words before. Hearing two perfectly grammatically correct sentences in a row was probably similar to hearing your pet parrot tell you the quadratic formula and how to solve it.

"Okay, either I magically gained the ability to speak spider or-"

Wilbur quirked an eyebrow at her.

"...or you've been able to speak English this whole time."

"Well. Spider is a very hard language to learn. Took me fifteen hundred years to finally stopping mixing up the words 'food' and 'baby', which are very unpleasant words to mix up when spiders are well-known cannibals and will gladly eat their children if you even suggest it."

"So you..."

"Are you surprised? Wilson's been trying to catch me slipping the whole time."

She nodded slowly, almost unsure. Wilbur would've laughed if he didn't already want to scream at someone.

"You two aren't seriously believing this, are you?" Wilbur demanded, jerking his thumb back towards Wilson. "Like, are you seriously just going to not look for Tyler at all? You actually believe that that kid would be hunting us? What makes you think that would happen in any universe?"

"Let me get this straight. You've been going out of your way to make us think you couldn't speak English," Winona started. "And then you decide to reveal yourself to convince me to look for Tyler?"

Wilbur huffed. "Is there a problem with that?"
"No!" She immediately protested. "Not at all! I just... I didn't realize you cared so much for him."

"He's my boy," Wilbur said. "And apparently I care very much about preventing small children from dying because nobody wants to look for them."

"I never said I wasn't going to look for him. It just so happens I'm also in the business of trying to protect small children."

"Lemme guess. You're the older sister between yourself and Charlie."

Winona chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck. "Well... yeah. That obvious?"

"So then wait. If you were planning to look for him, why did you say that you believed he was the hunter?"

Something uncomfortable passed over Winona's face. She sighed and shook her head. "Wilbur... that probably is the case. No, don't give me that look-" she immediately snapped when he started to scowl. "Listen to me. Tyler is... he's not okay. He's a good kid, I know that. But that spider... isn't. He's getting worse, Wilbur." Her voice cracked, and Wilbur felt his heart crack in turn.

"I know," he whispered.

"They're breaking him even more."

"They are," he agreed quietly.

"He's hanging on by a thread. I've seen how dependent he is on us even if he doesn't want us to see. If separating him was on purpose, which I'm sure it was, then it's very possible this will be the final nail in his coffin. I don't know if he will be Tyler if we find him."

"I've met Webber before," Wilbur said hurriedly. "I've met the spider. He's not evil. Even if he takes control, he wouldn't hunt us down in the way Maxwell is suggesting." Wilbur grabbed his wrist with the opposite hand, gripping tightly. His claws left tiny imprints in his skin. "I don't know how long he would survive on his own, Winona. He's going to die unless we find him soon. He's going to freeze to death and we'll find his body but we'll be too late. They've gone too far this time. They keep pushing and pushing and pushing but there's only so much one person can take until you snap and then terrible, terrible things happen. People die. Everyone always dies so what was even the point-"

Hands suddenly grabbed Wilbur's arms and pried them away from each other. His breathing was shaky and uncertain, and when he turned his eyes back to his companion, he barely felt like he recognized her.

Darkness was threatening the edges of his vision, beckoning him into a deeper state of panic. Ugly, ugly thoughts swirled through his head, of betrayal and murder and hatred. His hands twitched, desperate to pull at his fur, but Winona held a firm grip on his wrists.

She released him for just a moment, and as she did, something cold was pressed into his hand. Grounding pressure on his shoulders. When the icy chill started to fade, melting into drops that trickled through his fur, more replaced it. He let out a long breath.

"What are five things you can see?"

He blinked hard, several times. His mouth was painfully dry, causing his throat to spasm with every breath. He had no idea why she was asking him that, but he forced himself to answer nonetheless.

"Snow," he finally settled on. His vision was so blurred he struggled to name anything, so guesses would have to suffice. "Bark. Trees. Um... you. My hands."

"Four things you can hear."

What is she doing? "Breathing," he choked out. That was a pretty obvious one. "Talking. Fire." He gripped his chest, melting ice seeping into the fur over his heart. "Heartbeat."

"Good. Three things you can feel?"
"My heartbeat again. Water." He transferred his touch back to the ground, feeling fresh powder seep into his fur. He released another shuddering sigh. "Snow."

"Two things you can smell?"

"Ice." His breath was evening out. He raised one arm to rub his wrist against his eyes. "You."

"Last one. One thing you can taste?"

Wilbur thought on that one for a moment. There wasn't much to taste, especially with a dry mouth. He settled on, "Dry."

Winona gave him a faint smile and waved one hand. "Hey, you back?"

He pressed the ball of his hands into his eyes until he saw colors. "Yeah. Didn't fully leave. Sorry, I..." He sighed. His head was spinning and he felt quite close to simply passing out. Or maybe just dying. Instead of doing either, he remained standing and conscious. After a moment of silence, he scooped up a handful of clean snow from nearby and licked at it in an attempt to rehydrate. He had been through much worse, and honestly, Winona's strange questions had worked fairly well in preventing him from slipping into a full-blown panic attack. The snow was cold and wonderfully refreshing when he swallowed it.

Winona waited patiently, clearly curious but unwilling to press. Instinct told him to remain quiet, but he knew she deserved some sort of explanation for the impromptu attack. "Stress," he croaked. "Um..."

"Hey, don't worry about it. I've had my own fair share of breakdowns just from stress. I'm just glad you snapped out of it before it got worse."

Wilbur gave her a wry smile. Despite having only just woken up, he was exhausted, wanting nothing more than to sleep for an extra ten years. He scrubbed at his face, groaning at the feel of drying fur. "Thank you. I... um... sorry. Yeah, it wasn't bad."

There was a sort of pitying look in Winona's eyes that he didn't want to try to puzzle out. He didn't really need her pity, after all. It was such a minor thing. "No need to apologize. Let's get something to eat, and then we can see about what to do next, okay?"

"What about Tyler?" He asked in a mutter.

"We have to think about ourselves first, Wilbur," she reasoned. "Or else we'll just get sick or die, and then everything will go wrong and that would be the opposite of good, right? I promise, we're not forgetting about him."

Wilbur pressed his mouth into a thin line. He hated to admit that she was correct. He kicked at the ground and sighed. "Okay," he said softly as he turned to go back.

"Wait, can I ask you something?"

Wilbur tipped his head in her direction.

"Why did you hide that you could speak English this long? Why pull me aside to reveal it instead of just saying something to both of us?"

"Well," he responded sourly. "I didn't want to get attached to either of you. It was easier when I couldn't interact with you."

"Then why me?"

"I was worried that you were just going to let him die out there." Wilbur flicked one hand out, tossing a look back the way they came. "And I greatly dislike Wilson, so you were my best bet."

Winona's laugh seemed entirely unintentional. It was a quick, sharp laugh, and she seemed surprised by it herself. It inspired a much more genuine smile to form on his face.

"Let's eat something- or at least spend a few minutes debating whether or not handouts from William is safe- and then we'll see about what we can do, okay?"

Wilbur nodded in agreement. "Let's be quick, though." A shiver crawled up his spine, and it was only partially from the cold. "I'm not sure Tyler is strong enough to survive by himself for long."