The D&D Chronicles: The Adventure Begins

by TurboTasticKingCandy

A group of friends, who are fans of playing Dungeons and Dragons, learn that the world of their game is real, and is closer to their home than they think. Soon, together with the help of fantastical allies of Elves, Drawfs, Trolls and other mystical and bizarre creatures, must save their home and the D&D multiverse from forces of evil, or all will be lost.

23. In Plain Sight

The D&D Chronicles: The Adventure Begins

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Chapter 22: In Plain Sight

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9:50PM

"Alright, Jerry, just one or two more deliveries and then it's hometime." a delivery driver, whose name tag had the name 'Joe' on it, spoke to his partner, Jerry, as they drove to the final stop on their delivery drive.

Jerry let out a small yawn as he then said, "Man, I can't believe that we'll be delivering some fancy-shmancy spy gear to a little kid."

"I know, if it were me, I'd be getting a racing set or a cool guitar." Joe said with a chuckle, "I think this kid's dreaming of becoming the next James Bond. Or Tom Cruise."

The delivery guys chuckled a little as they came to stop by some houses, as they both got out from both sides of the truck to get out the deliveries that were needed to be given to the customers, but as Jerry was nearing the backdoor of the truck, he heard something from his right. Almost like a rustle of bushes.

He turned and looked around, but there seemed like nothing there.

Possibly.

Meanwhile in the bushes, something watched as Joe and Jerry opened the back and got out two packages, while Joe headed down ahead to one house, Jerry walked over to the other one where the truck was parked.

Seeing that it was clear to move, the thing crawled quickly to the truck and looked to the back that was opened.

And there, crawling up into the back of the truck, stood a creature, just about one meter tall and with scaly reptile-like skin, large batlike ears, three sharp claws on its feet and hands and equally sharp teeth.

Crawling inside, it called to its mates from the bushes, speaking in creepy-like gibberish words, and three more of the creatures appeared and arrived up to it, one of them having a white tuft of fur (or mohawk) on its head, almost like a stripe of sorts.

The striped creature spoke to one of the creatures as it gestured to the front of the truck, showing its part of (possibly no doubt) being the leader, as the second creature responded with a mischievous giggle and hurried to the front.

The second creature went up to the front of the truck, and opened the hood of the truck, revealing the truck's engine. Letting out a giggle, it pulled out a few of the engine's wires.

The striped leader then commanded the other two to look inside the truck for something, as all three then entered the truck and started looking and sniffing around, like they were searching for something within all the packages and boxes.

One of the creatures spotted a marker pen, and then called to its partner, getting the other creature's attention, as it then drew a mustache on its face, then acting quite posh, earning some chuckles between them. That was until the leader snarled at them, as if a way to tell them to stay focused.

"Was someone at the house?" They heard Joe asking his partner from outside.

"Nah, no one was there tonight." Jerry replied, "But I've let them know that I'll be back again tomorrow night to try again and see if they're in."

"Good for you, guess it's time to get back and then we go-What the heck?!" Joe's words were cut off as he and Jerry saw the small bit of damage to their engine.

"Not again!" Jerry said in disbelief, "Billy and Kate weren't kidding about how their truck kept getting damaged on some nights, and the damage they had was far worse! Darn teenagers…"

"Almost like the work of Gremlins if you ask me." Joe stated, "Better get the kit out to fix these wires."

"Gremlins? Really?" Jerry asked, getting the kit out.

"What? My uncle told me stories about them during the war."

The creatures, these… Gremlins finished sniffing and checking all the boxes and crates. What they were looking for wasn't there.

Soon, they started to hear the engine of the truck. It was fixed. And it was time to go.

The leader and one of the gremlins jumped out of the truck, joining the one that sabotaged the engine, but as the last gremlin (who drew its mustache) jumped out, it didn't know that the truck pulled back. And then… splat!

As the truck drove off, all that remained of the gremlin was a splattered pile of green goop, the body seemingly flattened a bit, its arms and legs spread out a little too.

One of the gremlins chuckled at the little misfortune, while the leader looked down at its fallen comrade, then looked back at the truck, then chuckled as it thought up a mischievous idea. It heard those two talking about coming back tomorrow night. And when they do…

Boy, are they in for a surprise.

---

Brady Oaks Museum of History and Culture, the next day…

It was that time again.

The school field trip to the Brady Oaks Museum.

On some of the months of every year, the museum was basically one of the biggest choices to take the students of Brady Oaks High School to, beside amusement parks, or camping sites or any other various trip sites.

For Patrick, his sisters and friends, it is one of the places that they sort of enjoy at times, especially for some of the cultural stuff that they had on display.

The museum was run by the Curator, Zelda Hanami, who was tall with shoulder-length black hair, green-blue eyes and appears to be of Japanese descent. She wore a purple jacket and ankle-length skirt, as well as black high-heel boots.

"Though contemporary media might lead you to believe European history is full of swords, magic, dragons, sorcery, and scandal, I assure you the truth can be quite interesting." Miss Hanami spoke in wonder, though most of the children in front of her (with the exception of Jim) only looked as if they wanted one of the swords she mentioned to impale them. "There's no better pace to start than Renaissance Era pottery!"

While most of the teenagers and kids collectively groaned and hung their heads, Patrick, his sisters, their friends and even Victoria and some of her friends just shrugged with small interest, while Jim was all but amazed.

Before she could continue, Sturges cleared his throat. "Perhaps, Ms Hanami, since we have limited time, it would be better to let them wander around the museum themselves, don't you think?"

As the school group perked up on that, the curator just shrugged with a smile as she said, "Very well."

Upon hearing that, within seconds the school group were instantly off to explore the museum.

---

The school group have been going to the museum a few times, even out of school as well, most times to get the chance to see if there was anything new put on display for the museum, such as new exhibits and items on display.

Today, of course, was a bit of a special routine at times, as Patrick's group was allowed to explore different exhibits they liked, such as the Retro and/or Artwork for Patrick, or the WWII for the twins, and so on and so forth.

During the walk around, Callum, Ezran, the twins and Chuckie were having a small wander, Chuckie explaining the different prizes he would get depending on the number of points he earns on his Chubby-Tracker.

"...I walk fifty thousand steps, I get the t-shirt. A hundred thousand steps is the water bottle. But if I get five hundred thousand - oh man, you guys, that's when things get interesting!…" Chuckie said to the twins.

"Hey, would it be cool if you gave us 75% of your earnings?" Raph asked, he and Hazel smirking a grin.

"No way, get your own." Chuckie said with annoyance.

"What about 65%?" Hazel offered.

"No." Chuckie sternly replied.

During the conversation, Ezran stopped as he noticed a closed off area of the museum.

"What's up, Ez?" Callum asked, as he, Chuckie and the twins joined up.

"I'm not sure," Ezran replied, "what do you think is going on in the next room?"

"Must be a new exhibition under construction." Patrick suggested, as he and his sisters joined them for a moment.

"Do you think it's for a new found treasure?" Chuckie thought aloud.

"Not sure, but I'm sure we'll wait and se-oh no, you don't!" Patrick said, before getting cut off as he and Callum stopped the twins in their tracks to enter the closed off room, grabbing them by the back of their shirts.

"Aw, c'mon." Hazel groaned, "We just want one peek."

"Yeah, well the last time you snuck in, you got us in a huge mess of trouble and had us trapped in a scary detention in a magic school!" Callum snarled at them.

"Is there a problem here, kids?"

A new voice, female, caught their attention, as two security guards walked up to them.

One was a young African-American woman with short dark hair done in locks, and the other was a young male with long, pale blonde hair tied into a ponytail and had light stubble on his chin, both of them at the age of 18, dressed up in security uniforms.

"Um, no, ma'am," Patrick replied, eyeing the twins along with the others, "no problems here."

"We were just wondering what's going on in the next room." Raph blurted out.

"Raph!" Callum growled.

"What? We were." Raph shrugged.

"Well, I'm afraid that we can't let you in there," the male guard stated, "it's under construction and completely off limits to visitors."

"But, when will it be open?" Hazel then asked, getting the stink from Callum next.

"It'll be open when we're ready to open, kid." the male guard replied, as he seemed to eye her a little.

"Don't worry, we don't mean to be a bother." Patrick said, as he and the others escorted off.

"We understand," said the female guard with a smile, "hope you enjoy the rest of the museum."

As they headed, Grace and Simon looked at each other and nodded, before heading off to stay in character and do their job…

---

Mediaeval Exhibit

Chris and Luz were having a nice time enjoying some of the architecture from the mediaeval era, especially that of the artwork and tapestry.

Chris was looking at one of the portraits that had several proud men (and a woman among them) all in suits of armor in many styles and designs, gathered around a proud man, while wearing armor too, was also wearing a cape and a crown.

He remembered coming to this picture a few times when visiting the museum, and the guidebook he once used helped him out, explaining that this was a portrait of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The emblem on the suits of armor shows a sword in a large rock (representing the legend of the sword in the stone) with a sun behind it.

When looking at King Arthur, he seemed to look alot like Callum and Ezran's father, a tall man with angular features and a goatee, only with different skin, hair and eye colour. His skin was Caucasin, had short blonde hair (the same colour as his goatee) and blue eyes. Additionally, he wore a red and gold patterned tunic, as well as a black cape and silver armor with gold engravings. He also wore a golden crown with a fairly small, green diamond near the bottom of it which stands as his monarchy of Camelot, the kingdom which he ruled over.

In his hands was the legendary sword, Excalibur, a large European sword with a golden hilt, a large red ruby contained in it, as well as a curled spiked cross-guard.

Next to him on his left was Sir Lancelot, one of the best knights known in history, though as Chris took a good look at him, his appearance looked oddly familiar, with ginger hair and a goatee… though he couldn't put his finger on why…

Lancelot wore a common suit of knight's armor, but had a prosthetic left arm and shoulder that is white with golden clockwork.

His sword, known as Arondight, was medium-sized, with a brown cloth-wrapped handle and a golden pommel. The guard was intricately ornamented with a large replica of a golden bird-like structure. The blade was emblazoned with certain designs. Though the tip of the blade looked like it was partially damaged during battle.

On Arthur's right, was Sir Gawain, who was known as one of the greatest knights, and was a close companion of Arthur. Chris liked him as it reminded of his friendship with Patrick.

Gawain was about the same age and height of Arthur, had Caucasin skin, with emerald eyes, messy, very dark hair (almost either black or very dark blue) with a matching short stubble beard. He also wore a light green suite of knight's armor, complete with a breastplate (the chest area), pauldrons (the shoulder areas), vambraces (the forearm areas), white gloves, cuisses (the thigh areas), poleyns (the knee areas), greaves (the leg areas), and sabatons (the feet areas) with gold engravings. Underneath the armor was a gray inner layer, possibly chainmail.

Weirdly enough, seeing him almost reminded Chris of Patrick, especially as green was one of his favourite colours.

Next to Lancelot was Sir Galahad, who seemed to be a very old man with grey hair. He was also quite short and stout. He wore a common steel-colored suit of knight's armor with a belt in the front.

Alongside him was Sir Lamorak, known for his strength and pride, as shown by the cocky (yet friendly) smirk on his face. He was probably quite a young man, between 18 and 19, had grey hair that was brushed to the right side of his face and reached to his ears while his neck area was kept short and gold eyes. He wore the silver knight's armor that was adorned with gold and black accents. Underneath, he appeared to be wearing a gray undershirt and black trousers. He also had a good build, and kept his sword sheathed on his left hip, like he was ready for battle.

Next to Gawain, was the female member of the knights, a young woman at the same age as Lamorak, between 18 and 19, who had green eyes which could be described as "dazzling". Long black hair framed her face with a fringe parted on the right side and a side braid placed over her left shoulder. From the portrait, it appeared that she was wearing some kind of dark eyeliner and eyeshadow.

She had on a mauve purple coat-like torso armor and shoulder guards with golden hemline with matching gauntlets and high heeled metal shoes with dark pink toe caps. Under the armor, she had on a violet shirt and dark grey leggings.

This was none other than Sir Percival, the only female member of the Knights of the Round Table, holding in her hand was her rapier, Laevatein, a long, thin double-edged silver blade. Like most other traditional rapiers, Laevatein had a golden cup hilt decorated with lines and a golden knuckle bow extending from the rim of the cup hilt to the sword pummel, which was golden as well and pointy. It also had a white and straight grip.

Alongside her was another knight, middle-aged, holding his helmet in his arm, revealing his fair skin face with his blonde hair and mustache, with a stubble goatee, as well as his blue eyes.

This was Sir Bedivere, a wise, yet kind-hearted knight, whose armor gave off a small tint of light blue.

Next to Bedivere was Sir Robin, like Lancelot, he had messy ginger hair and brown eyes, and under his grey armor, he wore a blue-green shirt underneath. In his arms was his lute (a medieval version of a guitar), no doubt showing that he had a taste for music.

The last knight that stood next to Lamorak, stood out from the others, while the others had proud smiles on their faces, this one had a serious, stern look, his arms folded and looked away like he didn't care.

This knight was a slender and strong man with fair greenish skin, big shoulders, long reddish-orange shoulder-length hair and he was nearly half bald, matching thin long eyebrows which nearly formed a unibrow, protruded forehead, green eyes with small pupils and slightly yellowish eye scleras, greyish-purple circles around his eyes and jagged and broken fingernails.

He wore a knight's armor that was in imperial red colour.

When he and others before him would look to that knight and asked about him, the answer would be that his name was Sir Ruber, a knight who once served the Court of Camelot, only to have betray them after becoming obsessed with greed and power, wanting to rule himself with Excalibur in his hand, resulting in his exile long after the portrait was made.

Luz, too, was looking at several portraits, one portrait was of Arthur again, only this time with two women and another man.

Learned from this, this was basically the family portrait, which had Arthur, once again in the same armor that was on the portrait that Chris was looking at.

Standing by King Arthur's side, was a tall, beautiful woman with a slender build, blue eyes, rosy cheeks, thin pink lips, a small nose, long platinum-blonde hair, and pale skin with a light dusting of freckles.

This was Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere, who wore a teal dress with a sweetheart bodice with bronze trim and dark teal, maroon and purple rosemaling on the skirt and bodice, a black long-sleeved turtleneck blouse with red and teal crystal-shaped prints on it, a long, magenta cape, a small, gold tiara, dark brown flats with gold outlines and teal tights underneath, and her hair woven in a French braided crown twist bun held together with a blue ribbon. For her gloves, she wears longer, light turquoise gloves with teal prints on, that go with her outfit.

The other woman was a tall, slender, pale-skinned young woman with dark pink lips, grey-green eyes and short, grey-streaked black hair with frizzes.

Her outfit was a long-sleeved grayish-brown tunic with dark red collared dress underneath, black leather gloves, a dark brown belt with a purse and a dagger on it, dark brown-and-red striped leggings and brown boots.

The other man that stood by the couple and the other woman stood out from them, like the previous painting, while the three had smiles, he had a solemn face.

This middle-aged man was tall and thin with pale skin, brown hair (that showed several spots of grey with age), and grey eyes. He sported a neat goatee that was dotted with gray. He wore an intense expression. His clothing consisted of mostly dark gray, black, and red robes, and he carried around a long silver staff with a dark blue gem embedded to it.

No one was quite sure who the woman and man were, and that even if they really were family, it looked like there were no details and info about them in the museum.

"Still trying to figure out who they are?" Chris asked with a smile, knowing that Luz has been playing a bit of a game of who the two figures with Arthur and Guinevere were for quite some time.

"Still no clue," Luz shook her head, "but, I've been thinking, and I'm still sticking to one of my big guesses that those two could be the parents of Arthur, I mean, that woman could be the mother, who else would be proud of their son getting married, and the father might be all 'Meh', with that usual skeptic look."

Chris let out a small chuckle, as they started to move on, "I highly doubt that woman could be the mother, still, it's a good possibly-oof!"

As he was walking, Chris accidentally bumped into someone, causing them to accidentally drop a notebook and a few bits of papers.

"Oh, sorry about that," he said, picking up some of the papers, then looked up, "here let me help with all… this?"

It was that moment as he looked up, he was face to face with a young woman at the age of 16 like him, Causican skinned and red eyed. She wore a black choker, a grey crop top with strings shaped like a star to resemble an inverted pentagram to hold it up, while wearing a black hoodie over it. She also had fingerless gloves and shorts with a crescent moon cut on the right side, wore black knee-high socks and high-top sneakers. She had a piercing on her right eyebrow and two piercings in her ears. Her head was also shaved on the right side.

Chris felt a little stunned, staring at this goth girl, who looked a little nervous and shy, before realising and remembering what he was doing.

"Sorry, uh, here you go." he said, handing her the papers, as the goth girl realised this, and nervously (and quickly) got back the papers.

"Um… thanks…" she replied, as she looked at him nervously.

Chris just stood there, a small bit of stuness on his face, which caused her to look more nervous as she rambled, covering her head with her hoodie, "What's wrong? Is there something on my face? I'm sorry, I look terrible…"

"No, no, there's nothing wrong with your face!" Chris quickly replied, calming her down, "It's alright."

The girl let out a sigh of relief.

Chris nervously scratched the back of his right ear as he added, "To be honest, I think you look… quite nice."

The goth girl turned to Chris, and blushed a little upon hearing that, taking off her hood, and let out a small smile, which in return, Chris smiled back a little too.

"I'm Chris, by the way." Chris introduced himself, "Chris Williams."

"I'm… Luna." Luna replied "Luna Lupin."

"That's, uh… nice name." Chris smiled, "Very nice to meet you, Luna."

"Thanks…" Luna nervously replied, before walking away to a bench, and then sat down as she got out a book and started reading it.

Luz, meanwhile, seeing what had happened, approached Chris, as she had a sweet grin on her face.

"I see what's going on." she smirked.

"Wait, what?" Chris asked.

"You like her!"

"Me?!" Chris cried a little, "Luz, I only just met her!"

"If you say so," Luz smiled, "but there's nothing wrong with talking to her a bit more!"

Luz then dragged Chris over to Luna, as she happily sang, getting the goth girl's attention, "Hel-looooo!" she then chirped, "I believe you two may know each other?"

"Uh… yeah…" Luna replied, a little uneasy, "Chris. Right?"

Chris just nodded his head in reply.

"Well, I'm Luz. I'm one of Chris's best friends!" Luz introduced herself, before complimenting, "I like your hoodie."

"Um… thanks."

"It goes well with your… moon shorts…" Luz added, awkwardly, while Chris facepalmed a little.

"Right…" Luna replied, a little uneasy.

"Nice day, huh?"

"Yes - it's lovely." Luna replied, "Almost as lovely as this book." Luz still stood there, "That I will continue to read." Luz continued standing "As soon as you leave."

"Yeah, you're right," Luz muttered to Chris, "I think this girl's possibly a lost cause."

"What's it about?" Chris asked, to Luna's surprise.

"What?"

"Your book." Chris replied, "Does it have a name?"

"W-well, it's… it's nothing much… but it's a story about these young children, who have the ability to turn into wolves after their werewolf father died, having to be raised by their human mother," Luna explained, a little shy, "and throughout the story, they try to decide on the path of being human or wolf in their future."

After explaining that, Luna looked at Chris, and looked a little nervous, as she said, "You think it sounds a little weird…"

"N-no, not at all." Chris replied, as Luna looked and saw his small smile as he added, "I think that story sounds… quite sweet."

"Do… Do you think so?" Luna asked, as a small half smile came up on her face.

"I'm pretty sure of it." Chris smiled back, as he and Luna began to enjoy their small conversation, Luz, meanwhile, smiled at this, and began to continue exploring.

Just then, she thought she heard a conversation going on, one of the voices being Jim.

"At first, I thought it was an alien, definitely not human," she heard him say, as she walked over and saw that he was talking to a few students, "like some sort of monster."

"Yeah, right." one male teen said, rolling his eyes and walked away, chuckling in disbelief.

"Just give it up, Jim." said one female student, as she rolled her eyes too.

"No, no, it's true, I have photographic evidence." Jim explained, showing them something on his phone, as he then showed the image to Annie, Nancy and Samamtha, who were among the group.

Annie wore a white t-shirt with pink sleeves and an orange flame symbol on the front, light blue jean shorts, a yellow jacket with pockets and a dark frog symbol at the back that was tied around her waist, a pair of white socks with pink colors at the toe areas and a pair of purple and white sneakers.

Nancy had on a grey-blue hoodie that had the symbol of a 20-sided dice stitched across the chest, dark blue jeans and black socks with brown slip on shoes.

Samamtha, meanwhile, wore a blue and white striped polo shirt, a short pink skirt, white socks, and a pair of black Mary Jane shoes with small heels.

Annie gagged a little at what she saw, "Is that what you saw, Jim?"

"Never seen something like that." Nancy stated, as she observed the picture.

"Exactly!" Jim said, happy deep down that someone was believing him.

"Looks more like a dead frog to me." Samamtha just said in a deadpan tone.

"Sam!" Annie said in disbelief.

"What? I'm just saying," Samamtha replied, "besides, it's like those gross frogs we had to dissect."

Luz then approached Jim, who was still looking at his phone, and asked, "What were you trying to show them, Jim?"

Jim looked happy to see her, turning around and showing relief on his face, as if he'd been expecting to see someone much worse. "Hey, Luz, uh, I just wanted to show the others this weird thing I found on my road a while back." He held out his phone to Luz, showing the image that he was talking about. "Whatever it is, it's not normal." He spoke in a suspicious voice, shaking his head.

Luz agreed with him. It was not normal.

On the picture, next to Jim, who was shown on the corner of the screen, a green, four-limbed creature looked as though it had splattered into a pile of green gloop, batlike ears half-liquified and red eyes staring glassily in different directions.

---

Meanwhile, at the same time…

Patrick, his sisters and Chuckie (who decided to tag along) were on one of the top floors of the museum, enjoying each of the artworks and outfits from past eras.

It was then, during one of the look arounds, Patrick suddenly spotted Victoria, who was looking with admiration at a beautiful dress inside a glass casing. The dress inside was white and red, puffed sleeves and a simple golden embroidery of flowers around the belt.

Unfortunately, next to her, was Biff and some of his cronies, the leader currently looking like he was trying flirt with Victoria with admiring eyes at her.

As she gently touched the glass, Victoria whispered, "Look at that embroidery."

"Hey, sorry if you got caught up in that little tiff between Kirby and I," Biff said to her, "but I want you to know, since joining the play, I feel like there's another side of me that really wants to come out."

Victoria knew most of it was fake, but played along anyways, "Apology accepted." She looked back at him, "You were a jerk."

And while she was still looking at the dress, Biff noticed Patrick and some of his friends watching, and made fun by going behind Victoria, and acted like he was holding her and made kissing noises, earning several mean chuckles from his gang.

She did look back, however, and found Patrick with his sisters and Chuckie, who were talking to him. She locked eyes with him and quickly looked away with a small smile.

Back with Patrick, unaware of Vicky and being focused on Biff, groaned an annoyed sigh at what Biff was doing.

"C'mon, Patrick," Chuckie said, "don't let Biff get to ya. Victoria's a smart girl, she knows Biff is a jerk."

"Maybe…" Patrick said, before admitting, "but I'm worried that she might think that I'm a jerk. I mean, all this Paladin stuff and protecting magical creatures have been getting in the way of this play stuff!"

It was true, sometime following learning that Biff was his understudy, Patrick did all that he could and made sure to be on time for rehearsals, sometimes he made it, and most times he didn't, and Biff had to take his place, and the latter has been growing more and more a little.

Because of this, Patrick was worried that he might have blown it to be with Victoria.

"You heard Chuckie, Patrick," Taylor smirked, "being a girl myself, I know about how girls feel about those they don't really care about. They would act like they care with sarcasm, and that is what I've noticed right now with her and Biff."

"She's right, Patrick." Hilda nodded in agreement.

"Exactly, and this is the perfect moment!" Chuckie smiled, "Take her hand, use those pretty little lips of yours and talk to her!"

Patrick just gulped, wide eyed, as he watched Chuckie walk over to where Vicky was, and panicked in a half whisper half scream, "Chuckie! No, no! Wait! Wait!"

Chuckie still walked over and approached Biff and his gang, "Hey, Biff! Did you hear about the Neanderthal exhibit?" He used a hand to cover half of his mouth, "Some of them could be… Topless." He wiggled his eyebrows and left.

Biff perked up with interest, as did the boys of his gang, as he said, "Nice!" then looked to his gang, "Cave ladies."

The boys were quite intrigued by that, so they followed him as he said, "Sexy ladies here we come!"

Sticky, however, looked a little annoyed as she followed them and said, "Hello! Sexy girl right here!"

"Huh… oh yeah, sure Sticky, whatever." Biff just shrugged, like he didn't really care.

Chuckie then gestured to Patrick to come over to Vicky, as the young Paladin took a deep breath and walked over to her, looking back to see his sisters giving him the thumbs up of support.

"Hey, Victoria," Patrick said, getting her attention, "You doing alright?"

"I'm fine, Patrick. Just admiring this dress." Victoria replied, as she looked back at the dress, "It's beautiful."

"Yeah." Patrick nodded in agreement, while looking at Vicky with a smile as he thought to himself, 'But not as beautiful as her.'

"Wish our play had these costumes." Patrick stated.

"I know, right?" She stole a glance in his direction, "Though, with our school budget, I'll end up doing the balcony scene in my bathrobe."

"Hey, if anyone could pull it off, it'd be you." Patrick complimented, "You're the only one on stage who looks like they know what they're doing."

She puffed with a smile, as they walked over to the rails, "Tell that to my parents. The one time I get a B, what's their advice? Drop the play."

"Are they crazy? You were born for this."

Patrick saw Taylor nearby, mouthing 'Get closer' to him.

"It's like," he stepped closer, "your calling. My mom would be stoked if I ever found something to be so passionate about."

Vicky nudged him with her elbow as she laughed a little, which he returned with a light chuckle of his own, "Well, you're pretty passionate yourself, Mr. Guru. What about you? What's calling you, Patrick Lee Kirby?"

While she and Taylor watched their big brother doing well with his chat with Vicky, Hilda looked across the railed balcony and spotted something on the other side.

There, on the other side, was Frida and David, who were doing their own looking and observing at the artwork they were looking at, though seeing them made Hilda a little sad.

It had been a while since the incident with Eda's Owl Beast form, and Frida and David decided to take a break from the whole 'nearly get killed' situation that they had upon learning of Patrick becoming a Paladin.

When the two soon spotted Hilda looking at them, giving them a small sad smile and a tiny wave, Frida and David had sad, unsure looks on their faces, before walking over to see what else to look at, much to Hilda's disappointment.

"Aw, look, it's Nature Girl there."

When she was surprised to hear that voice, she frowned as she recognized it well.

She turned and saw a young girl, about halfway her age (11 and 1/2), Causican, long, hollow, blonde hair that had a strip in it, with bell-shaped bangs and dark blue eyes. The hair of course was not long so it didn't partially cover her eyes. She wore a purple jacket with a short hot pink dress, a periwinkle belt and black leggings with cream-colored boots. She wore heavy purple eyeshadow and lavender hoop earrings, and on her head was a lovely diamond tiara.

While Biff was the most well known bully in school, there was another who was a rival to Hilda, and that was Coraline Pacifica.

Coraline was the typical richgirl, her family being one of the richest of Brady Oaks, with the enjoyment of being 'Miss Popular' in Hilda's class, and always had a knack on looking down on those being 'weirdos' like Hilda.

Besides her tiara, around her neck was a lovely malachite necklace in the shape of a heart, which was given to her as a family heirloom, known as the Maiden's Heart, as the gem had one flaw, as if one were to take a closer look, they could see what could be a beautiful maiden, sleeping like Sleeping Beauty, though standing up.

She wasn't alone as she had a few friends with her, that Hilda also recognized.

One was a boy who was also Hilda's age, had a light brown complex and brown hair, wore a dark greyish purple top with a reddish orange scarf, black trousers and grey shoes, on his head, he wore a red and orange beanie hat with ear covers.

This was Trevor Kevine, a boy that Hilda met a long time ago with his friends when she tried to make friends of her own, unfortunately, it didn't last long, as Hilda got mad at Trevor for nearly harming some ducks at a duck pond, showing that he was a bit rude and enjoyed pranks and hurting animals (he felt like it for the latter).

Along with him were his other friends that Hilda knew about, a girl and two boys, Kelly, Bagsy and Anders.

Kelly was a caucasian-skinned girl with blonde hair in two braids. She had three freckles on both sides of her face. Wore a dark gray sweater and a black skirt. Her leggings were maroon red, and she wore a scarf the same color as her leggings, and her shoes were darker.

Bagsy was a caucasian-skinned boy and had dark blonde hair the same color as David's. He wore a medium light medium dark blue sweater and some black leggings. His boots were red and similar to Hilda's. He had a scarf with the same shape and pattern as Hilda, but red. He also wore a blue and red beanie.

Anders was a short and somewhat chubby boy. He had brown skin and had hair darker than his skin. He wore an orange vest, black pants, and orange white-soled shoes with a light cream bear hat and white glasses.

A girl next to Coraline was about Hilda's age as well, Caucasin, had silver white hair that braided in a ponytail, hazel coloured eyes, light blue glasses, wore a shiny blue jacket and a pink skirt over a brown striped shirt, matching brown leggings with pink polka dots, and black boots.

This was Sapphire Edmonds, Coraline's friend, who had similar traits to Coraline, though Sapphire appeared to be more of a follower with Coraline as the leader.

Along with them were two older boys, about two years older than Hilda, one had messy black/brown hair, with a sleeveless blue jumper and a white tee shirt that had a broken game controller with words underneath, saying 'Camper: Deal with it!' (no doubt that he was a game camper in his spare time) and had navy blue jeans and yellow sneakers.

The other had short, light brown hair, half-moon glasses, braces and a shirt of what looked like two images of a cockerel and some toy chatter teeth (whatever that meant), black pants and blue shoes.

They were Burnie Church and Matt Tucker respectively, and they too, were bullies that usually picked on Hilda and the other kids, Coraline, meanwhile, had a secret crush on Burnie.

Hilda just groaned a little as she saw the poses of young bullies approaching her.

"Hilda," Coraline smiled, as she looked to Hilda with a smirk, "I see that you're by your lonesome now."

Hilda just looked at her with uninterest, and said, "Oh. Hello there, Caroline."

The rich girl stiffed at that, before acting calm as she chuckled, before glaring at the blue-haired adventure girl, "Yeah, no… it's pronounced Coraline."

"That's what I said."

"No! You said Caroline!" Coraline sternly replied. If there were a few things that Coraline didn't like, was anyone mispronouncing her name ('CAROL-ine' instead of 'CORAL-ine') even if it is accidental.

Hilda still frowned as Coraline continued, "Real shame, first, Harry disappears, and now I've heard that Scout Girl and Scaredy Cat are no longer talking to you."

The others giggled and chuckled at that (Trevor, though, felt a little uneasy about that).

"We're still friends!" Hilda growled at her, before admitting a little, "We're just… taking a break…"

"Whatever…" Coraline said, with not a care in the world, "It's not like there's anyone else who would like to be friends with you. They probably just up and leave within an hour or two."

"You know, like, what do you think happened to that Myers kid anyway?" Sapphire asked.

"Maybe he just ran away," Matt smirked, "you how much that his parents have been arguing for a while."

"Myers's parents, right?" Bagsy said, "About them not quite getting along for a while?"

"Or perhaps he was abducted?" Kelly suggested, "By aliens?"

"Please, that's dumb!" Burnie scoffed.

"Perhaps he was taken by his dad?" Anders then said.

"Maybe he did…" Burnie said… before eyeing Hilda with a mean smirk as he started to add, "so he can kill him!"

Hilda was shocked at hearing that, while she also heard about Harry's parents not getting along, his dad always loved them as his mom, then she looked at Burnie with anger in her face as she growled, "Take that back!"

"Why, he's just as good as dead." Burnie still smirked, while Matt chuckled darkly (while Coraline lightly chuckled, uneasy with that suggestion, but nonetheless chuckled to Hilda's misery).

Trevor, meanwhile, was not happy about that, and said, "Hey, just leave her alone! We don't know for certain if he's dead or not."

Burnie glared at Trevor, before sneering back to Hilda with a dark grin, "I don't care. If I say he's dead, he's dead."

"Leave me alone." Hilda snarled.

"Or what?" Burnie grinned, "What are you gonna do abo-?"

"Is there a problem here?" Taylor's voice got the group's attention, as they saw her, arms folded, standing behind her little sister with support.

"No." Burnie just shrugged with a sneer, before heading off with Matt as he added, "We're just leaving."

"Whatever…" Coraline rolled her eyes, before mockingly waved her fingers goodbye as she looked to Hilda, "Later, Nature Girl."

"Yeah, Nature Girl." Sapphire repeated, as she and Coraline, along with Kelly, Bagsy and Anders, walked off with giggles and snickers.

Hilda watched them leave, before seeing Trevor looking back at her, mouthing "Sorry." to her, before joining up with the others.

Hilda let out a sad sigh, before looking up to her older sister and said, "Thanks for that."

"Anytime…" Taylor said, with a small supportive smile.

Though Hilda just looked down in concern, thinking about what they said about Harry, as she wondered where he could be.

Just then, they noticed Luz, passing by the young bully poses, approaching them, with a worried look on her face.

"Luz, what is it?" Taylor asked.

"Trouble." Luz panted, catching her breath after fast walking to find them, before she began explaining what Jim had shown her.

Back with Patrick and Victoria, their chat was going quite well, "Hey, so, I've gotta ask; If you weren't gonna show up at some of the rehearsals, why did you join the play?"

"Honestly, I kind of auditioned by accident," Patrick scratched the back of his neck with his hand, then brought it back down, "but I'm glad I did. I really like the company."

She beamed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, "Aw! Thanks."

He raised an eyebrow, "Um, I was talking about Jim."

It took a second, but she got it. Victoria laughed, putting a hand on his shoulder. The two of them saw the kind smiles on each other's faces.

Time was almost up when Taylor approached them and tugged Patrick away with a forced smile.

Patrick smiled apologetically and waved goodbye to Vicky before turning to his sister regretfully, as she brought him over to Luz, "This better be good, girls."

Luz was panicking, "It's actually kind of bad. We have a problem."

Patrick's smile faded, "What kind of problem?"

---

Later that evening…

Patrick poked the green goop with a stick a little as Luz said, "Voila."

AAARRRGGHH! took a sniff, and then shook his head, "Not voila. Gremlin."

Blinky sighed wearily. "Yes, indeed a gremlin, I'm afraid."

The party waited until it was late enough for Jim to surely be in bed, and then snuck out from their respective housing to inspect the lime goop splattered on the road.

Above them, the moon and stars shone brightly from where no clouds covered them, like a million eyes judging. Soft swooshes of a breeze occasionally briskly fled by them, but for the most part it was quite a nice night. Distant cars made chugging noises that blew over to them through the air, echoing like a quiet and fizzing radio.

Jim's house happened to be situated in the loneliest section of Brady Oaks's urban sprawl, with only a few neighbours and a back garden that led straight into the menacing woods. Tall trees towered above the roof of the bungalow, nesting a few crows that would occasionally let out a screeching caw.

The party were currently observing the dead creature that was nearby Jim's house, until Hogsqueal took a closer look, sniffed it, then poked his finger in the goop and, to the humans' disgust, tasted the bit of goop on his finger as he said, "Yep, it's definitely a gremlin."

"Did you really have to do that?" Chuckie said in disbelief, "Gross."

"Quite disgusting, if you ask me." Alfur nodded, as the little elf tried to hold off getting sick.

Changing the subject, Ezran looked up to Blinky and asked, "What's a gremlin?"

"Sort of like the goblins you said you encountered. Nasty troublemakers. Ruthless tricksters." Blinky explained "Petty street vandals who would leave a wake of destruction. This is not good."

"Well, one's dead, justice was served." Patrick tossed aside the stick, "We should get back and train for Kriv."

Blinky shook his head vigorously, raising a finger like a point. "Oh no, Master Patrick - when it comes to gremlins, there is more than just one… there are many!"

"But like you said, aren't they like goblins?" Taylor asked.

"True, but they are ten times worse." Rayla stated.

"Miss Rayla is right," Blinky nodded in agreement with Rayla, "gremlins are the perfect agents of chaos! Though, different from goblins, they are more clever, intelligent, mischievous…"

"Dangerous." AAARRRGGHH! added.

"Exactly, dangerous too!" Blinky nodded at that as he continued, "They have caused more damage than any other creature, be it troll, goblin or any other species around this or any other realm!" his yellow eyes then scoured the environment for the moment, as though another little gremlin might pop up at any given moment. Alas, all that could be heard nearby was their own breathing, and the trees rustling in the breeze. He looked back to the kids and continued, "In fact, Balasar needed a small bit of our help in trying to get them under control, as these troublemakers have caused damage around your home realm since something you humans sometimes called… W.w.i.i?"

"Wait… you're saying that the gremlins REALLY did damage trouble back in World War 2?!" Patrick cried, as he and the other humans were a bit stunned and shocked about that.

"Guess that veteran was right about gremlins causing trouble after all…" Chris muttered aloud a bit.

"I was wondering what that meant, but yes!" Blinky replied, "And they caused many accidents around your human world in the past," he began to list the incidents, "such as the Memphis runaway escalators of 1972, the 1969 Super Bowl, the East Coast power failure of November 1965, a lesser known power failure a month later in Texas, New Mexico and Juarez, Mexico, the closing in 1963 of the New York Mirror, the 1962 collision of a runaway train, jet plane, and a seagoing tanker at Danzig, Poland, the Bay of Pigs paramilitary fiasco of 1961, the three day episode at the Onawa, Iowa, buttonhole factory in 1957, countless casualties and incidents during this 2nd World War you mentioned, and the disappearance of Vansk which was, until 1936, the largest city in Siberia."

The human kids were downright gobsmacked when hearing all this, who would have thought that gremlins were responsible for so much of that damage over the years?!

Though as Patrick, Taylor and Chris looked at Hilda and Luz, they then had a small smirk on their faces with a 'told-you-so' look after hearing this, as they've once believed all that, as did Jim, but no one believed them.

"I can't believe that gremlins were the cause of all that!" Taylor said, stunned with disbelief.

"I know," King said, before snickering, "just think of all the destruction of my enemies if they were my army!"

"Focus, King." Eda said, snapping him back to reality, especially as the allies of the kids eyed at him.

"But he does have a point," Asriel said, "gremlins are not to be messed with."

"Indeed," Alfur nodded, "they are quite a rough bunch."

"And now, a flock of gremlins are here, in this town." Blinky added, "And, as for the unfortunate soul who ran over this small fellow, may Skaargen's swift blade have mercy!"

The blue troll suddenly spat on all four of his hands, clapped them together and then put one to his heart with the other three behind his back. Perhaps a trollish way of warding evil?

"And how so?" Taylor asked, as she and the others were starting to get a little nervous and worried about what the answer would be.

And that answer came as Blinky held out ten of his fingers as he replied, "Naturally, at times, chaos caused by gremlins is ten-fold."

Callum's eyes grew wide, "Are you saying whoever ran this guy over is in serious trouble?"

"Pretty much, kid." Sans shrugged.

"A delivery driver left a sticky note on Eli's house!" Raph said, as he and Hazel had come back after scouting ahead to Jim's house, "Wait for it."

"The gremlin might have gotten squashed by the delivery truck!" Hazel added, revealing the sticky note.

"Hey, let me see that," Patrick took it from Hazel and read the time. "If the driver's returning at eight, we need to be here, too. I'm not gonna let some poor guy become a victim of some gremlins on my watch."

Blinky smiled as he saw the determination on the young Paladin's face, "Master Patrick, answering the call!"

"Dude! Stakeout!" Raph cried in excitement.

"Super sneaky!" Hazel added.

"Past my curfew!" Chuckie happily added also.

"Then at 8, we shall strike when they least expect it!" Papyrus said proudly, joining in the kids' excitement, as the others nodded in agreement to be prepared for later tonight.

---

(French Accent) 10pm

"Bah! It's already ten o'clock." Blinky grumbled, as he, Patrick and the others were on lookout in different position posts to keep watch for any signs of the gremlins (as Patrick, Blinky, Hilda, Taylor, Twig, Luz, Alfur and Asriel were in one spot), though they were waiting for far too long that some were on the brink of getting bored, such as Blinky, "Ugh. It appears the only thing being delivered is failed expectations."

"Well, at least there's no sign of gremlins." Patrick stated, as he looked through a pair of binoculars, before handing them to Blinky, who began to inspect the foreign object that could only fit two eyes, and got out a walkie talkie and contacted the 2nd group (formed of Chris, Chuckie, AAARRRGGHH!, Sans and Papyrus), "How's it going over on your end, team 2?"

"All good in the hood, Paladin," Chuckie spoke through team 2's walkie talkie, as he, Chris, AAARRRGGHH! and the skeleton brothers were hiding behind a nearby fence, yet, instead of staying still, Chuckie ran in place as he spoke into the small intercom that fit in his hands, "except I can't stop moving. My love of stakeouts is being ruined by my overwhelming need to obtain swag. - Other than that, nothing unusual."

"You are unusual." AAARRRGGHH! stated to Chuckie.

"Warhammer, out." Chuckie said, finish his call.

"Wait… Did you say… Warhammer?" Rayla's voice spoke through the walkie-talkies, as she was part of the 3rd group, along with Callum, Ezran, the twins, Eda, King and Hogsqueal, were in another position, not far from the Patrick's team was, as Rayla asked the question with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, yeah," Chuckie replied, "since we're part of team of heroes defending every realm in the multiverse from our fav monsters and villains like that from D&D, we gonna need cool code names, like me, 'Warhammer', and you could be 'Moon Blades'."

King snickered at that.

"Moon Blades… really?" Rayla asked, not amused.

"I think that's pretty cool." Ezran stated.

"Ditto." Hogsqueal added.

"Yeah… we're not doing that…" Rayla counterstated.

"Aw…" Luz groaned, "I had a cool code name for King, 'King Cutie'."

"And we're not using that either!" King groaned.

"Warhammer to Paladin and Moon Blade," Chuckie's voice cut off the small argument as he said, "the package has arrived!"

Sure enough, the teams spotted a pair of headlights dragging onto the pavement, lighting the way as the delivery truck conveyed down the quiet street, and they quickly ducked down into hiding to watch what might happen next.

The teams watched as the two drivers from before came out of the truck, as Jerry went over to the back of the trailer and collected the package for Jim.

"How many deliveries have we got left?" they heard Joe ask.

"Just this one and your lot, and then we're ready to go." Jerry replied.

"Alright," Joe nodded, as he took his share of the deliveries, before saying, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"I know, I know…" Jerry mumbled, as he carried the package to Jim's house, while Joe headed elsewhere.

"Okay, guys, let's get that guy out of here before it's too late." Patrick said, as he and Taylor started to head towards the delivery guy, only to be quickly grabbed by two of Blinky's four arms, pulling them back down, as Blinky had a worried look as he looked through the binoculars.

"Wait!" he cried, quietly, "His fate may already be sealed. Look!"

Blinky handed the binoculars back to Patrick, who took a good look at what the six-eyed troll meant, as he, and the others, soon saw each street light suddenly dying one by one, darkening the road, save for one street light.

"They're here…" Blinky nervously stated.

They all then heard some mischievous, high-pitch snickering down the street, and looked in the direction of where it came from.

Soon, stepping out of the shadows, the lead gremlin with the tuff stripe on its head appeared, it then looked around, and then looked back in at the darkness, before letting a out a gibberish sound, and walked forward, as it was then followed by several more gremlins, as they let out gibberish cackles and giggles as they went.

Patrick, Hilda and Luz looked at them as they passed, and were shocked upon seeing them, as they all quietly said, "No way…"

Patrick looked as he saw the gremlins heading towards Jim's house, "Quick, guys!" he said, as he started to get up, "We're not gonna let an innocent person-whoa!"

Before he could finish, Patrick was pulled back down by Blinky (a little gently, just to add), as the six-eyed troll said in hushed panic, while holding the walkie-talkie, "Great trouble! There appears to be far more than I had anticipated. Stay down and don't make a sound. There's a possibility they'll attack any in their path in a frenzied state."

Back with Jerry, unaware of what was happening, arrived at Jim's house and rang the doorbell, to which Jim instantly responded as he opened the door.

"Yes! My spy gear has arrived!" Jim said with excitement, as he looked to the delivery man, "Thanks so much!"

"No problem, kiddo," Jerry replied, before handing him a clipboard and a pen, the clipboard containing a delivery form, "care to sign these, please?"

"Oh, okay," Jim said, as he looked at the forms, then called out to the other side of his house, "Mum! A little help please?"

The gremlins, meanwhile, were getting closer by the second, while the others could do nothing but watch, as Taylor said, "But that's Jim! He's in our classes."

"He was in your classes." Blinky said, as the groups looked to see the gremlins reaching the truck.

The leading gremlin looked from behind one of the wheels to see if the close was clear, then looked to his fellow gremlins and spoke in a mischievous gibberish, before gremlins began hoarding onto the truck, while the leader and a few went inside it.

Everyone watched as the gremlins began attacking the truck, breaking the windows and mirrors, fiddling with the wires, piercing the tires and even disassembled parts of the truck.

More damage was done inside too, as some boxes were tossed out (the group could swore to have heard some things shatter inside some of them, knowing that some of the items in some of the boxes were very fragile).

"Oh, my gremlins." Luz said, stunned by what she and the others were seeing.

"Unexpected." Alfur said, baffled, "Their dispute isn't with the driver at all, but rather the transportation that had flattened their kinsman."

As they watched the gremlins continue attacking the truck, Hilda thought she saw a few gremlins coming out of the truck, carrying with them a few boxes for some odd reason.

She then looked further, and she thought she was seeing things, but somewhere near Jim's house behind a fence, she thought she saw Redcap and two goblins that kidnapped her and her friends a while back, as the gremlins handed the boxes to them (one goblin falling over carrying a box that was a bit heavy, earning some chuckles from the gremlins).

"Oh, careful, Miss Hilda," Blinky said to Hilda, as she was starting to get a little worried at what she was seeing, "we have to make sure that we don't get too afraid."

"Wait, I thought one of the rules of being a Paladin was to be afraid as well as being brave." Callum said through the walkie talkie, a bit confused, as he remembered the rules following learning Patrick was a Paladin.

"That is true, dear Callum," Papyrus explained, "and this is one of these examples of being brave. However, with gremlins…"

"Unsure." AAARRRGGHH! spoke up a little.

"Exactly," Blinky nodded, "gremlins, as I said, are dangerous, and their mischievous ways can be very sadistic, up to the point of playing, as you call, cat and mouse with their victims, sometimes due to anyone who's completely terrified in their presence."

"Hold up, that's a bit too much!" Luz stated.

"Wait, does this mean that they could smell fear too?!" Chuckie asked, scared, before taking a sniff of himself and gulped, "Oh, no! I can smell it, too."

"I don't know, but please stop, or they will kill us!" Blinky snarled through the walkie talkie, only to hear a small yelp from Chuckie from this.

Quickly covering the speaker with his hands, Blinky and Patrick's group watch with fear as three gremlins pick their heads up and sense something was nearby, one of them even sniffing, before they turned their heads, followed by the other gremlins and their leader and saw Patrick's group, who were scared stiff at being caught, Twig even whimpering at the sight of the gremlins too.

"Perhaps I made my point too loud." Blinky gulped.

The leader with the stripe on its head looked at Patrick's group, and let out a dark chuckle, as it said, "Ki-ki… Caca!"

Then, Blinky instantly bolted out from the group's hiding spot and yelled, "RUN!"

The others realised that they were in big trouble, and instantly followed Blinky's actions and ran like heck, the others escaping their hiding spots to join them, while the gremlins charged after them, cackling and growling as they went.

Meanwhile, Jerry had just exited Jim's house, "Thanks, folks, have a nice evening."

He then saw Joe and came up to him, "Oh, hey there, Joe, just delivered my last package for the evening. Bet the kid's gonna have a blast with that kit."

"Uh… yeah, that's great." Joe replied, almost like he wasn't paying attention, and looked a little stunned, before saying, "Say, Jerry?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened to the truck?!"

Jerry looked at what Joe meant, and was gobsmacked at what he saw.

There, where the truck stood, was now in complete disarray, tires flattened, windows and mirrors broken, the steering wheel pulled out from the driver's seat, and even delivery boxes were damaged too.

"Aw man," Jerry groaned in shock, "we're so gonna get fired for this…"

"You think?!" Joe cried.

---

Back with the others, the team were running like the wind, as the gremlins continued chasing them.

Suddenly, Patrick heard the familiar click of his amulet and pulled it from his pocket to see why it had clicked, however, the three colourful glowing orbs sank into his heart, and the top armor appeared over his sweater.

"Now is not the time for armor!" Blinky cried back to Patrick, "It'll only slow you down!"

Sure enough, while Patrick was able to run before with the armor a few times, it was starting to get a little top heavy for him, as well as Patrick's run began to slow.

"You think I'm… trying to do this?" Patrick cried back, as he started to pant.

"Your armor is responding to your emotional state!" Blinky warned him as he continued running, "Control your fear, or you'll be dinner!"

"I'm trying to!" Patrick yelled back, as he tried to stay calm, but due to the gremlins chasing him, it made things way too difficult. But luckily he was suddenly picked up by AAARRRGGHH!, who had also picked up Chuckie, Callum and Ezran as they continued running. Luz and Chris, meanwhile, were picked up by Eda on her staff.

"Thanks, big guy!" Patrick smiled, hanging onto the big troll's hairy back.

"No problem!" AAARRRGGHH! replied, before swatting away several gremlins that tried to attack the kids.

Asriel, Rayla, the skeleton brothers and Eda too, had to fend off the gremlins that were trying to get close, as they all used defensive kicks, punches and even spells to cast the gremlins away from the group.

As the armor finally disintegrated into nothing as they continued to flee, Chuckie was alerted by his tracker, as it beeped, getting his attention to his wrist to see.

"Oh, my gosh! I just got a free t-shirt!" Chuckie said with excitement, "This is so much cardio-oh!"

While Chuckie was excited for the points that he just earned, he didn't notice the gremlin that managed to jump onto AAARRRGGHH! and grabbed the chubbie kid's outstretched hand, causing Patrick, Callum and Ezran to grab his feet, trying their best to keep Chuckie with them as he was not only near the closing in gremlins, but was also so close to making contact with the pavement.

"Get it off, get it off, get it off!" Chuckie screamed, and after many poundings on the concrete, the gremlin finally released the flesh of Chuckie, taking the Chubby tracker with it as Chuckie was pulled up back onto the safety net of AAARRRGGHH!.

"No! My points!"

"Your points?!" Callum cried at him, "Our lives, Chuckie!"

The gremlin regained its footing and shook its head, the tracker beeping on its neck. It growled and then rejoined the chase with the other gremlins.

"They're still gaining on us!" Hogsqeaul cried.

Blinky shouted back at them, "We need to find a refuge! Delta Rune and Trollmarket's too far."

"Cut through these backyards!" Chuckie pointed between some increasingly familiar homes, "We'll get to my house!"

The group instantly did that as they cut through each yard as the gremlins followed quickly behind.

While the others jumped over the fence, the large troll gently set his human friends over the fence, "Up and over." he said, as he let them run with the others to Chuckie's house as he lifted Blinky and Papyrus (Sans having appeared on the other side already before the others did for some reason best unexplained) over before he jumped over himself.

The group reached the backdoor of Chuckie's house, as the chubby kid, as quickly as he could, got out his keys. He dropped them once or twice, until he finally got it in the door, just as the others heard the gremlins getting closer as they reached the fence.

"Hurry, Chuckie!" Taylor cried, "They're getting closer!"

"I'MGOINGASFASTASICAN!" Chuckie yelled back, quite fastly before adding, "Don't rush me!"

Chuckie soon managed to open the door, allowing him and the others to get in, however, as AAARRRGGHH! tried to enter, he got stuck, leaving Patrick, Luz, Hilda, Callum and Ezran outside.

"Crud!" Callum cried, "Quick! Get the big lug through!"

Patrick and his group pushed hard from outside while the others pulled, to get the large troll inside the house, all the while the gremlins were nearing Chuckie's house as they reached the fence.

"The gremlins are getting closer!" Ezran nervously cried.

Then, Patrick instantly realised something, and looked to Luz and Hilda, "Girls! We're such idiots! They're gremlins!"

"We know that they're gremlins, Patrick!" Callum cried out.

"No, wait, he's right!" Hilda said, as she and Luz got what Patrick was saying, then Hilda turned to Luz, "Luz, if those gremlins are like the ones we've seen, then maybe…"

"Way ahead of ya!" Luz winked, as she grabbed her pen and paper and quickly started doodling.

Following what happened with Eda, Patrick and Luz thought it would be good to carry around some notepads of paper with some pens in order for Luz to use the light spell that she was able to both discover and master.

"Luz, whatever you're doing, do it fast!" Callum cried, as the kids saw the gremlins starting to pop up from behind the fence and jumped over, racing towards the group, "They're getting closer!"

"Got it!" Luz cried, as she finished drawing several light glyphs, and touched each one, setting off flashes of light, blinding the gremlins as they almost reached their prey.

"Bright light!" most of them cried in chants, "Bright light!"

"Light to bright!" hissed the leader, before it snarled, as a sign for the gremlins to retreat back over the fence into the dark of night.

"Yes!" Patrick cheered with Hilda and Luz, while AAARRRGGHH! was finally able to get into the house, and they, along with Callum and Ezran, rushed in too, as the lights from the light glyphs continued to shine before fading, "I can't believe it really worked!"

As the gremlins retreated over the fence (including the one who still had Chuckie's chubby-tracker on as it beeped), the leader looked back to the house where the others retreated inside, and grinned wickedly.

"Cha-ka, Ca-ca!" it growled, before vanishing into the night, chuckling darkly as it left.

---

Meanwhile, inside the house, the gang were catching their breath inside the kitchen until a human voice called out, startling them.

"Charles?" the voice, an elderly female, spoke, "Is that you?"

"Yeah, Nana! Don't mind us!" Chuckie replied, as he waved his friends to the stairs, Patrick leading the way to the boy's room.

"We'll just be in my room." Chuckie added, as he then got out several snacks, such as crisps, candy bars, soda and two or three apples, along with a few leftover cooked meatballs from the fridge, before saying to his Nana, "You just binge-watch another show and keep the cats inside."

---

"Does… anyone else want a snack?" Chuckie said, nervously, as he sat on his bed, staring at nothing as his hands fed his mouth quickly. Callum joined him a little while eating, as did Hogsquael and AAARRRGGHH!, "I find stress eating calms me down."

Patrick and Blinky, meanwhile, were, during that time, pacing, until they stopped as Blinky turned to Patrick, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him in crazed panic, "I'm sorry to say, Master Patrick, but your town is infested with gremlins!"

"Okay, I can agree that that is a bit of a problem…" Patrick said, as he shrugged Blinky's arms off him.

"But, hey, on the bright side, you and Luz got rid of them by scaring them off with Luz's light spell." Rayla grinned.

"Yeah," Ezran nodded, "good thinking, Luz!"

"So, that was that light glyph spell that Patrick and Hilda explained about," Alfur said with intrigue, "quite agreed, good work, Miss Noceda."

"Heh, it was nothing," Luz replied, "it's just that bright lights, especially sunlight, is very deadly to gremlins, after all."

"How did you figure out the gremlins' weakness was various bright lights?" Blinky asked, stunned, "Did you read the book with Master Patrick?"

"Wait… that was in the book?!" Patrick replied, stunned, before replying, "It was actually in the Gremlins movies!

Hilda nodded, "That's right, and one of the rules was to keep a mogwai away from bright lights, as it could kill it with too much, unless it's a gremlin, of course." she then added with a smile, "We watched and enjoyed the Gremlins movies, creepy but fun! The gremlins we faced even looked like them too."

"Wait, you and Luz watched those films?!" Taylor said, before eying Patrick, "You let them watch those films?! They're rated 15!"

"Hey, I made sure to watch those films with them," Patrick said, before shrugging with an awkward grin, "besides, the girls really liked those films. Not to mention they're the one horror films I'd prefer to watch too."

"Plus, the Mogwai are so cute!" Luz added.

"Mogwai?" Rayla asked.

"The adorable little creatures of the film, like Gizmo," Hilda explained, "though they come with 3 rules, the 1st is, of course, keep away from bright light, 2nd is not to get it wet or it will multiply, and the 3rd and most important rule of all, is to never feed it after midnight."

"And that turns them into gremlins!" said Luz.

"That is… strange," Eda said, "while I understand that bright light thing, I don't think we've seen our gremlins multiply upon getting wet."

"Still, it seems bizarre that these gremlins we've faced and the gremlins from those films of yours are oddly connected… probably." Alfur said.

"Um, I hate to continue this odd coincidence, but I think we're getting off topic," Callum spoke up, "we should probably focus on the gremlins we're dealing with now!"

"Callum's right!" Chuckie said, panicking while munching on some biscuits, "We gotta get my Chubby-Tracker back. As long as they've got it, they're just gonna get stronger and faster."

"Must find den." AAARRRGGHH! grumbled, as he yoinked the bowl of food from Chuckie and chewed the bowl and the food held inside in one bite.

"Den?" Ezran asked.

"That's right," Hogsqeaul said, "like goblins, gremlins would have a small habitat for them to return to, so they do… whatever gremlins would do…"

Blinky nodded, "Yes, we have to find this gremlin den and eradicate them at once before they seek their revenge."

"Revenge?" Taylor squeaked.

Papyrus pointed to them, "On you lot, my dear humans."

"Yes," Blinky nodded, solemnly, "and they now know where Master Charles lives." Chuckie paled at that.

Hilda looked to the side, before looking to the others, "Speaking about goblins… call me crazy, but I thought I saw some back when the gremlins were attacking the truck."

"You did?" Patrick and Taylor asked their little sister, while others looked at her confused, as did Twig, as he tilted his head one side.

Hilda nodded and continued, "While the gremlins were attacking the truck, I saw a few of them exiting the truck with a few boxes in their grasps, and then brought them over to those goblins, one of them was the red-capped leader that we faced a while back, too."

"That is peculiar…" Rayla said.

"Is… that a problem?" Chuckie asked.

"It is," Blinky stated, "gremlins and goblins are rarely seen working together. Like for a long time, to be correct."

"But if Hilda said she saw some goblins with those gremlins, surely it's this one time." Hazel suggested.

"That's kinda out the window at the moment, kid." Eda just shrugged it off.

"But still, what do you think they were doing with those boxes, anyway?" Raph asked.

"I'm afraid that would be a matter for another time," Patrick said, as he looked to the party, hoping to formulate a game plan, "right now, we need to find that gremlin den."

Chris looked to Blinky, "You must have some idea on it's whereabouts."

Blinky shrugged, "Haven't the foggiest. It could be anywhere."

A familiar noise caught Blinky's full attention, after hearing a small chatter from the dollhouse, Blinky bends and looks into the window, finding the minxies, Jaq and Gus, making themselves feel at home, as they now had a few more minxies with them, three males and three females.

Two of the males were identical, wearing blue shirts and yellow hats.

The females all wore lovely little dresses with bonnets and aprons, such as one that was sitting next to Jaq, who wore a blue hat, pink dress and apron.

"Great Gronka Morka!" Blinky shot up and cried in surprise and shock, as he turned to Patrick and the other kids and asked, "What are those minxies doing in this dollhouse?"

"Charles!" the voice of Chuckie's grandma spoke through the door, getting the other's attention, "I don't recognize that voice. Who is that?"

"Just a friend, nana!" Chuckie replied, "You know I do have more than one."

"No you don't." his nana's voice called out, which disappointed Chuckie a little.

"Don't you remember, Blinky?" Patrick explained, "You told me to take care of the minxies, so we're taking care of them."

"Chuckie was happy to lend us his nana's old dollhouse, and gave these little guys a home." Taylor added.

"Of course, I remember what happened," Blinky said, before stating, "but to be honest, I was only talking about sparing just the first two minxies! I didn't expect you to get more of them!"

"Oh yeah," Hilda nervously grinned, "we kinda thought that they'd end up only being just the two of them, so we found several more of them."

"And we even gave them names!" Luz added with a giggle, before introducing the minxies that were in the dollhouse, "Firstly, there's Jaq and Gus, whom you've already met, then there's Luke and the twins, Bert and Mert, though, honestly, we can't quite figure out who's who, and next to Jaq, is his little sweetheart, Mary and-"

"Letting you know that you can't keep sparing lives all the time, especially if there comes a time that the next opponent won't be like the minxies!" Blinky pointed out, cutting Luz off, "After all, rule number 2 is always finish the fight, and that means killing, besides sparing, your opponents!"

The kids stared at Blinky on this, until Taylor pointed out, "Blinky, we are just kids."

"She's right," Patrick agreed, "I mean, I couldn't kill Jaq and/or Gus when I first met them, I mean, I nearly had dinner with it. None of us are killers."

Blinky had to sink in a little on what the Paladin said.

"I am."

Chuckie's shy response caught his friends off guard a little.

"Wait, you are?" Callum asked.

"A cheerfully chubby lad like you?" Rayla added, "No offence."

"None taken, but yes," Chuckie replied, before explaining "Detective Snuggles. Nana warned me not to leave my chocolate lying around. But it was just after Easter, and I had pulled in a big haul. I never thought that the cat would find my stash. But he did. And by the time I found him, it was too late."

"Death by chocolate…" Chris sadly sighed.

"I suppose there are worse ways to go, I guess." Eda just shrugged, earning a little glare from Luz and Blinky, as a way of saying that she wasn't helping.

"That wasn't the worst of it." Chuckie said, as he started confess as he sort-of broke down, "I never had the heart to tell Nana, so, to cover up the murder, I used to eat his cat food just to make it look like he was still around." Chuckie sobbed after that confession, earning some awkward looks and raised eyebrows from the others, as he sniffed and added, "And I liked it."

Deciding to change the subject, Patrick looked back to Blinky as he said, "Besides that, the 1st rule was also to be afraid as well as being brave, which could be quite tricky, especially when dealing with gremlins, that it's hard to be brave, when you're down right terrified by gremlins, who could use that fear to play cat and mouse with."

Patrick then sighed, as he sat down on the bed besides Chris and Luz, as he admitted, "I'm sorry. I'm just not fully good at understanding your rules at times. I'm not ready for Kriv, Ghoular, or finding a stupid den of gremlins."

Blinky placed a hand on his shoulder, "As your trainer, I can only advise, not make your decisions. I understand. You're human. You're learning the rules in your own way." Patrick and his friends smiled as he said that and then added, "AAARRRGGHH, the twins, Eda and I will try and seek out this den, wherever it may be."

"Alright, thanks, you guys." Patrick smiled.

"Aw, don't mention it, kid." Eda grinned.

"You just focus on your studies. It seems life has thrown enough at you for one day." Blinky said, as he gave the human kids a reassuring smile… before turning it into one of disbelief, "But minxies in a dollhouse?!"

This earned a nervous and awkward smile from each of the kids on that.

---

Brady Oaks High School, Gym, the next day…

"Okay, kids, listen up," Coach Cruz called out, as the kids, all in gym uniforms, lined up as he continued to announce today's gym activity, "I don't wanna hear any groans, moans or even clucks, squarks or cock-a-doodle-dos from you chickens, when I say…" he held out red ball in his hand, as he said one word, "Dodgeball."

Most of the kids cheered at this (including Biff and his gang), while Patrick and the others looked uneasy at this.

"Split into two teams." Cruz announced, "Team Scarlett vs. Team Crimson."

"Uh, coach?" Callum raised his hand.

"Yeah, Crimson?"

"Aren't these the different names for the colour red?" Callum asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Are you an interior decorator, kiddo?" Coach Cruz said, sternly glaring at him.

"Um… no." Callum shook his head.

"Then if I say your crimson, you're crimson, got it?" the coach said, earning a quick nod from Callum.

"Any other questions?"

Chris then raised his hand, "Can we review some safety guidelines?"

"Sure," Coach Cruz nodded, before saying, "Any chubby kids are not target practice! Looking at you, Tennant!"

Soon as the coach blew his whistle, the game of dodgeball was underway, with Biff and his gang being part of team Scarlett, while Patrick, Chris, Luz, Callum, the twins, Chuckie, Taylor, Annie, Nancy, Sam, Jim and Luna were part of team Crimson (the younger students, like Hilda and Ezran, were allowed to sit, watch and support the teams).

"Dodge this, Kirby!" Biff yelled, as he threw several balls at Patrick, who was able to dodge some of them, most of them managed to hit the twins and Jim.

As Chris was dodging his fair share of balls, he accidentally bumped into Luna again.

"Oh, sorry about that." Luna shyly said, as she gulped before ducking an incoming ball, "Again."

"Hey, it's alright," Chris replied, "it can give us more time to catch up from our last talk."

"Maybe…" Luna said, a little uncomfortable.

Just then, Luz popped up, startling Luna a little, a small grin on her face as she asked, "So, how did you two get along yesterday?"

Chris groaned a small sigh as he replied, "Yeah… our conversation went.. quite a bit well, thanks for asking."

"Oh, hey… uh, Luz, was it?" Luna greeted her.

"Yep!" Luz nodded.

"You complimented my hoodie."

"Sure did." Luz grinned, before ducking as she quickly added, "Head's up!"

Chris and Luna turned and realized what she meant, before quickly ducking as several dodgeballs shot by them, missing them by a few inches.

Just as one dodgeball was about to hit Luna, Patrick came in and used another ball to deflect it.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Y-yes, thanks…" Luna nodded.

"New friend of yours, Luz?"

"She's Chris's new friend, actually." Luz smiled, pointing to Chris.

"Really?"

"Yep," Chris sighed, before smiling as he introduced the shy goth girl, "Patrick, I like you to meet Luna Lupin." he then gestured to Patrick for Luna as he then added, "Luna, this is one of my best friends, Patrick Lee Kirby."

"Very nice t-to meet you." Luna smiled a little.

"Same here." Patrick smiled, before the group continued dodging attacks from the other team.

"Boom, just cleared a new game plus." Nancy grinned, as she was currently oblivious to what was happening, as she was playing her Nintendo Switch, though she had luckily missed two balls, one was heading her way.

"Incoming!" Annie cried, as she took the bullet, saving Nancy from getting hit, though knocked Annie down instead.

Nancy noticed what happened and smiled at her friend, "Whoa, thanks, Annie."

"Hey, no problem." Annie groaned a little.

"C'mon, girls, remember to get your heads in the ga-OW!" Sam was just telling them to focus, only to get hit by a ball, as she turned to the opposing team and snarled, "Hey! Watch the face!"

Meanwhile, Patrick and Chris had just taken side with Chuckie. The three of them were levelling the other side. Well - Patrick was throwing the balls, Chris was catching them, and Chuckie was just standing there, holding his ball, sulking.

Patrick caught a ball aimed at him, before snapping him out of his glum state, "Hey, come on, Chuckie! You gonna get your head in the game, or do we have to do this all by ourselves?"

Chuckie just threw his ball down and kicked the ground, pouting, "Why bother taking another step? My Chubby-Tracker's gone. Life's so empty when you're not racking up points."

Callum, back in the game, turned to him, exasperated, "Chuckie, the Chubby-Tracker was only a motivator! You can still get fit for your tryouts without it!"

"But it's not as rewarding!" Chuckie whined.

"Guys! We need to focus, not fight!" Patrick sighed, then knocked out two that were about to hit Chuckie, "Besides, I thought you'd be more concerned about the gremlins that might come back to kill us."

Chuckie gulped a little while still sulking, "Oh, yeah, you're right."

As the game continued, Patrick, of the whole team, was able to outmanoeuvre any ball that was thrown at him (thanks to his training in the Hero's Forge), as he ducked, jumped, flipped and twisted in many directions, stunning both teams and Coach Cruz, who raised an eyebrow in stunned shock.

Biff, meanwhile, kept throwing the dodgeballs at Patrick's team, but it slowly began to be like he was more focused on Patrick at the moment, and the more he kept missing Patrick, the more he kept throwing more balls in a raging fit, hopefully to get a hit.

"Go, Patrick!" Hilda cheered from the sidelines, seeing his brother show off his incredible reflexes.

"Nice reflexes, Kirby." Coach Cruz complimented with interest, as Patrick dodged the 17th ball Biff had thrown at him, "Keep this up, and you might have a spot in the dodgeball team!"

"At least your training's paying off." Chuckie admitted to him, before a ball struck him in the face, and several more collided with his stomach.

"Man down." he groaned, until one more hit him straight in the 'nards', causing everyone to wince at the pain Chuckie was in, as he collapsed to the floor, holding his sensitive area and squeaked in a high-pitch voice, "My Gronk-nuks!"

An extra ball hit him in the face, as Biff cheered cruelly, "In your face! You're out, Wolowitz!"

"Tennant, show some respect!" Coach scowled at him, before helping Chuckie up to the benchers to get some ice.

While that happened, Biff caught a flying ball and chucked it at Patrick, who then ducked. Instead of the ball taking down Patrick, it hit the two balls that Jim was holding, sending him to the floor also, the balls leaving his grip and his glasses laying beside him. Patrick rolled to the two balls, grabbing them and flipped forward as he tossed them, the two red death balls striking down 3-D and Terrance.

"Good aim, Patrick!" Chris smiled, as he and Jim shared a high five with Patrick, who chuckled happily.

"Thanks." Patrick smiled back.

"That wasn't a bad shot." Luna complimented, as she and Annie joined in.

A slow clap soon caught their attention, as Biff approached them, a smirk on his face as he said, "Pretty good, Romeo, but kiss your Juliet goodbye."

As Biff began acting like he was making out with a girl, Patrick began to get annoyed at this, "Leave Victoria out of this!"

Luna saw Patrick getting mad at the bully's mockery, as she slowly approached him, "Patrick, don't let him get to y-"

Just then, a ball smacked Luna in the face, knocking her down, as Sticky, the one who threw the ball, snorted as she yelled, "Take that, gothy!"

3-D, who got up, gave her a fist bump on that.

Chris glared angry that Sticky hit Luna off guard, and then approached her, kneeling down next to her to help her up.

"Luna, are you-?"

"GET OFF ME, I'M-" Luna suddenly… snarled, for an unexpected reason, much to his surprise, before Luna took a deep breath, and sighed, "I'm okay…"

Chris was stunned by this, he had never seen Luna act like that before, wondering what was with her as she walked to get some ice for her head.

Patrick, meanwhile, was now peeved at what happened, "Alright, that's it!" he then grabbed the nearest ball, "Pucker up, Biff, and kiss this!"

Everything happened like it was in slow motion. Patrick threw the ball, causing Biff to duck from it, letting the ball continue to fly, finding a new (and unfortunately unexpected) prey who had just started to come through the door: Victoria.

"NOOO!" cried Patrick.

"Oh, snap!" Chuckie cried, as everyone watched in shock (and a bit of horror).

"Hey, sorry that I'm l-oof!" Victoria could muster, just before the ball finally made contact with Victoria, knocking her out down like a bowling pin.

Soon, most of the team members approached the injured girl, as a guilt-ridden Patrick looked in horror at what he just did, "Oh my gosh! Victoria, I am so sorry!"

Coach Cruz blew his whistle as he then approached Victoria, "Ooh, headshot. Don't worry, Belle, we'll take ya to first aid."

---

Later…

"So, she has a fat lip. People pay good money for that sort of look." Chuckie said, outside the changing rooms, as Patrick was lightly banging his head on a nearby locker, "She should thank you."

"Not helping, Chuckie." Taylor said, annoyed, before looking at her brother with a comforting, yet concerned look.

"Patrick, please, you have to stop. You've been hitting your head on that locker for 17 minutes." Taylor said.

"She's right," Luz stepped in, "Victoria is gonna be alright, despite what happened back there."

"And just when I was making up ground." Patrick glumly pointed out, stopped hitting his head to look at the others, "Why do I have to get so worked up over her?"

"Hey, we're red-blooded teenagers. We're powerless to that sort of thing." Chuckie explained, before adding, "Except for me, though. I got it all figured out."

Deciding to ignore that a little with the others, Hilda looked to Patrick, "Patrick, I don't think that a sore lip from a dodgeball is gonna ruin your chances with Victoria forever."

"Maybe… but the whole play thing will be," Patrick stated, "because of the whole Paladin business, I had to miss most of the rehearsals, and if this keeps up, I'll never be able to be with Victoria afterwards." he then sighed, "Maybe the play thing was a mistake…"

"Hmmm… are you certain about that?"

That familiar voice took Patrick and the others by surprise a little, as they turned to see Mr. Sturges standing there, his cane in his hand.

"Oh, uh, hi, Mr. Sturges." Patrick greeted his teacher, "What are you doing here?"

"I actually came looking for you, actually, wanting to tell you that Miss Belle is doing fine." Sturges replied, "A small bruise, yes, but she'll be back on her feet in no time."

Luz and Hilda looked at Patrick with a smirk, as a way of saying they told him.

"Now, forgive me for being nosey, but I thought I heard about you activities in the D&D club are interfering with play rehearsals?" Sturges then asked.

"Yeah…" Patrick replied, "It just felt like it was a mistake to take part, if I hadn't, then it would make things… sort of easier… maybe."

Sturges just chuckled a little on that, "That remains to be seen."

The kids looked at each other, before looking back at Sturges, as Chris asked, "What exactly do you mean?"

Mr. Sturges sighed a little, before looking at his students with a solemn smile, "You see… I've made more mistakes than any man, woman, and child on this planet. But at this moment, as someone who's made said mistakes, I would not consider your choice on being part of the school play while simultaneously working on your D&D club with your friends to be a mistake." he then leaned in so he could look more directly at Patrick "Do you?"

Patrick thought about what he said, maybe it wasn't a mistake…

"And to help you out on your decision making, being a team leader, especially in D&D, isn't just a title you carry into battle, but a badge you wear constantly." Sturges then added, "If you're not always performing at your absolute best, then what reason do you give others to follow you?"

As Patrick thought on that advice, he and the others watched as Sturges made his leave, but not before adding, "You've been burdened with a daunting responsibility, Young Atlas. I advise you to take some time to think about how you will uphold it."

As soon as Sturges left, the kids looked to each other, "What do you suppose that was all about?" Hazel asked.

Before Patrick could answer, Chuckie felt his phone vibrate from his pocket, taking it out, his face lit up on what he saw on his face.

"Whoa! Check it out, guys, I earned a windbreaker!" he grinned, as he showed his phone to Patrick.

Patrick's eyes widened at this, "Chuckie, don't you know what this means?"

"Yeah." Chuckie nodded, "If it's not too warm and not too cold, I have the perfect cover-up!"

"No. A gremlin must have the Chubby-Tracker on him!" Patrick stated, before taking Chuckie's phone and showing it to the others, the phone showed the map of Brady Oaks with Chuckie's animated picture on it, showing where it was in the small town. "We know where they're going. This could lead us straight to their den."

"Patrick, that's brilliant!" Callum exclaimed.

"Excelente!*" Luz cheered.

"And I'm getting a lot of points." Chuckie added.

"Alfur would probably be still out with Twig looking for the den with the others," Hilda said, "once we get back to the house, we'll inform him so he can tell the others so we can get rid of the gremlins!"

"Sounds like a plan!" Taylor smiled, her brother nodding in agreement.

"Alright, guys," Patrick said, "let's head off and get ready. We'll message you once we've got Alfur."

The kids soon headed off, except for Chuckie and the twins, for as the kids headed in one direction, the twins went the opposite way, Chuckie noticing as he then followed.

"Hey, uh, where exactly are you going?" he asked.

"We're gonna go get that tracker thing for ya." Raph explained, as Hazel nodded in agreement.

"You coming or what?" Hazel asked.

"Shouldn't we be telling Blinky and the others?"

"Think of it, Chuckie," Hazel said, "by the time we get to Delta Rune, the Chubby-Tracker battery could be dead, and then we'll never find the gremlin den."

"Besides, we're just gonna scope it out and then report back. Easy." Raph added.

"I don't know," Chuckie felt uneasy, "maybe we should wait until everyone's all here and-"

"C'mon, Chuckie," Raph said, before grinning, "don't you want those points so badly?"

"And the prizes too?" Hazel added, as she and Raph looked as Chuckie began to understand about the points and prizes from the Chubby-Tracker, knowing that he couldn't resist getting back from the gremlins.

Finally caving in, Chuckie looked at the twins, "Alright, let's do it! We find the gremlins and get back my points!"

"Do that, and we keep half of the prizes." Raph started a bargain.

"No, you get 5% of the prizes."

"Okay, then 40%." Hazel said as she joined in.

"10%"

"30%."

"Alright, we split the prizes, 85/15, and I'll help you out with your homework for the rest of the school year." Chuckie said, making the final bargain.

"Deal!" the twins exclaimed, as they both shook hands with Chuckie.

"Okay," Chuckie said, "Let's go find some gremlins."

---

Later that evening…

Rayla had found the gremlins.

Earlier, most of the group had been searching everywhere around town, such as the trolls searching the sewers, and the others looking around the forests (Asriel couldn't come as he had lessons, while Eda was away doing some business somewhere).

So Rayla decided to search around the town where the Paladin and his friends lived, being a stelvy Moonshadow elf, she had to remain hidden while searching, having searched through the forests, the neighbourhoods and now across the busy streets.

Though as she did search through the latter two, she couldn't help but notice some of the people that resided there, the happy families that lived together, the parents spending time with their children, it made her miss the days she spent with…

'Focus, Rayla! There's no time for this!' Rayla shook the thoughts out of her head when she snapped out of it, 'You have to find that blasted gremlin den!'

Rayla reached the top of a nearby building and looked around the streets that were slowly becoming empty.

'It has to be around here somewhere,' she thought, 'but you've checked everywhere already…'

It was then that she spotted a few gremlins, scurrying across the streets, avoiding being noticed by any humans that would pop up.

Rayla followed them, and then she found out where they were, before turning around to get the others.

She was just heading over to the Paladin's house to let him and his sisters know, when she suddenly spotted Chuckie and the twins, riding their bicycles as they passed over her, unnoticed. Wondering where they were going, she then noticed the direction they were going, and realized that they could end up in danger, knowing that she can't do this alone, she hurried off to find the Paladin.

Back with the trio, upon finishing school, Chuckie and the twins had grabbed their bikes and raced through the town, using Chuckie's phone to track where the Chubby-Tracker, until finally they came to a stop, as they reached the destination, where the Chubby-Tracker had taken them to: the museum.

"The museum?" Chuckie said in surprise, as he and the twins got off their bikes.

"Aw, I was hoping for an abandoned mansion," Hazel pouted, before smirking at Chuckie, "would have loved to have some scared with ya."

"Hey, focus, Hazel," Chuckie said, annoyed, before spotting something, "Look, up there!"

The three looked upwards, and spotted several gremlins climbing into the small entryway of the domed part of the roof.

"The den is inside the museum!" Chuckie said with amazement, "We better go and get the others."

"Wait!" cried Raph, as he tackled his twin sister and Chuckie down to the ground and into some bushes.

"Raph, what the heck, man!" Chuckie quietly yelled, before being hushed by Raph, as he pointed to something.

There, getting out of the car that just drove in, was the curator, Zelda Hanami, as she headed up the stairs, greeted by the same two young security guards from before, as the three of them headed inside.

"The museum lady?" Chuckie said, before realizing that she and the guards could be in danger, "Oh no, they have no idea it's infested. At any moment, they could strike!"

"Or worse, lay eggs in their ears!" Hazel suggested.

Chuckie gasped at that, "That's a worse case scenario there!"

"Nasty!" Raph nodded.

"Okay, we need to get her out of there immediately." Chuckie said, before adding, as he placed his hands on his ears, "But just in case, cover your ears."

Chuckie instantly ran ahead, hands on his ears, unaware that Hazel and Raph were smirking for making him think that, before following him to the front door of the museum.

Reaching the doors, the twins tried to get them to budge open, but to no avail.

"There's gotta be another way in," Raph said, after struggling with the door, before calling out, "Hello?! Anyone inside?"

"I don't think they can hear us." Hazel said.

"Cause they're already dead." Chuckie added, "Or none of them can't hear because they already have eggs in their ears!"

"I think I know how to get in," Hazel said, getting an idea, "follow me."

"What? You have to speak louder." Chuckie said, his hands still on his ears.

The trio rushed to a nearby window, and Hazel opened it with, while her twin brother grinned at this, Chuckie, who finally took his hands off his ears, was appalled by this.

"This is breaking and entering."

"No, this is breaking and rescuing." Hazel corrected him, in her own words.

Chuckie still felt uneasy at this, "We can't do this! This is the zoo incident all over again!"

The twins looked at each other on that, remembering the day they went to the zoo when they were five years old. They wanted to get a closer look at the polar bears, so they decided to sneak into the polar bear habitat, and because of that, they were made the frontpage of the headlines.

Raph and Hazel looked at each other, then the former looked at Chuckie and said, "Relax, Chuck, we're just gonna get her out of there, and then let Patrick, Blinky and the others handle the rest."

"And this is one headline we won't be part of this time." Hazel added.

Still uneasy, Chuckie decided to go with it for now, as the twins entered first, followed by Chuckie, who got stuck a little, causing the twins to pull him through, and tumbled inside.

"Jeez, this place gives me the creeps with the lights out." Hazel admitted, as she and the boys got up and looked around the darkened museum.

Chuckie nodded in agreement before adding with a pinch of sarcasm, "It was better when you could see the Neanderthals."

"Alright, let's split up and find that lady and the guards." Hazel stated.

"And try not to panic or anything," Chuckie reminded them of what Blinky said, "it might attract the gremlins, and even the goblins too."

The twins nodded, until Hazel spoke, "And maybe find a thermostat, it seems to be quite chilly in here."

Soon, the three headed off in separate directions… unaware of the corridor lights, slowly started to flicker… and a mysterious, inhuman figure appeared… watching them leave…

---

"Okay, you know the plan, get in, find the museum staff, get out, get Patrick and the others, gain my points, earn the goodies at the end. Simple. Classic Dungeons and Dragons goal." Chuckie muttered to himself as he walked down his corridor.

He checked around a corner, wondering if there was anything bad there, but luckily there wasn't, earning a sigh of relief from him… until someone grabbed him from behind. Chuckie was about to startle with a yell, only to have his mouth covered by a hand… which belonged to Patrick. Who looked really mad.

"Chuckie, what the heck are you doing?!" Patrick asked, through hushed grinned teeth.

"Uh… breaking and rescuing?" Chuckie nervously replied.

Patrick looked around, and then groaned as he asked, "Where are the twins?"

"Again, breaking and rescuing." Chuckie explained, "We're finding the museum who're still here and saving them from the goblins, get my points back and then we get out. Easy."

"You should have waited for me and the others," Patrick snapped, quietly of course, "who, by the way, I was about to tell until Rayla showed up, saying she found the den, which is here, of course, and that you three were heading into trouble… again, so I had her wait with my sisters until I message them that I got you all out of here!"

"I know, but if we waited, the battery for the Chubby-Tracker would have died," Chuckie stated, "and I'd lose all my points, and I have to start over again. And I should know that dieting too much is one of the worst things to do!"

Patrick could do nothing but place his hand into his face, before finally saying, "I can't believe you've allowed the twins to talk you into this!"

"Well, we're here, aren't we?" Chuckie shrugged a little, "And besides, the Paladin must answer every call, remember?"

"Nevermind…" Patrick groaned a sigh in defeat, "let's just find the twins, then the staff and then we're going back to Blinky and the others. Got it?"

Chuckie nodded and he and Patrick split up again.

Patrick felt very uncomfortable doing this, wandering around the museum after hours, but if there were people in danger, he'd had to do what a Paladin would have to do: go to the rescue.

But now, he had to find the twins, before they got into trouble… again…

Speaking of, Hazel was currently searching around the museum, deep in her mind, she and her twin brother would love to see any upcoming new exhibits, much like the one a while back, so they can get to see what it is before it's released, much like they tried to do when seeing what they'd get for christmas.

She was having no luck at the moment, as all there were the same exhibits that she had seen every other day. She was about to give up when she suddenly felt a chill again. Where was that thermostat?

It was then, she spotted something that could perk her interest.

It looked like a statue of some inhuman creature, sort of chameleon-like, with thick arms, spiked backs and a small horn at the front. It also had cyan-hued black-colored skin with glowing purple markings on its body.

"Huh, never seen this before." Hazel, an interested smirk on her face, before taking out her phone and taking a picture of it, "If this is new, I've got first dibs to see."

She was about to take another, when she heard a coughing sound that got her attention, causing her to turn to see Patrick, standing there, arms folded and tapping his foot.

"And just what, may I ask, are you doing?" he asked.

"Um… late sightseeing?" Hazel nervously grinned.

"Hazel, I know that you and Raph are trying to find the gremlin den," Patrick stated, "Rayla also found it being here too, and told me that you two and Chuckie were coming here as well."

"I was hoping for a thank you?"

"Thank you?!"

"You're welcome." Hazel smirked.

Patrick brought his fingers on the bridge of his nose, before saying, "Hazel, let's just meet back with your brother and Chuckie, find those staff (which by the way, I've been told that need rescuing) and get back to the others before we get in more trouble like with the magic school!"

"Alright, alright," Hazel huffed, before bringing up her phone again, "just let me take one more snap of this awesome… statue?"

Just as she said that, she suddenly noticed that the statue… was no longer here.

"Wh-where's the statue?" Hazel asked.

"What statue?" Patrick said, confused, "And why is it so chilly all of the sudden?"

Hazel was about to reply, when the corridor lights began to slowly flicker on and off a little, much to their confusion and worry.

And then, as it got colder, and as they breathed… they both started to see their breath, formed like a mist.

The two looked back at the empty corridor where what could have been a statue as Hazel described used to be down the hall, as the lights flickered a little.

And as the light lit up one more time, it finally stopped… and the creature suddenly appeared in front of them.

Patrick and Hazel were startled by this unexpected encounter (and their hearts skipped a beat from that jumpscare), as they saw the chameleon-like creature.

Hazel was more surprised that what she thought was a statue turned out to be real, especially as it seemed like it was about to strike at them. As she was so startled, Hazel pressed the button that allowed the phone's camera to take a picture.

"Quick, Hazel! Run!" Patrick cried, as he grabbed her by the arm and they ran for it, though the creature started to follow them, the lights flicker a little as it went.

Patrick and Hazel rushed inside a janitor's closet, and stayed behind the door, Patrick placing his finger on his lips as a way to tell Hazel not to make a sound. Listening carefully, they heard a strange moan (no doubt from the creature) as it walked past the closet, before moving away elsewhere, allowing the two breath relief.

"What the heck was that?" Hazel asked, looking at Patrick.

"I'm not sure," Patrick replied, "but I think that we're safe for now."

If only it were true.

The two suddenly heard a small growling moan next to them, and turned to the creature standing there, tilting its head, but letting out another growl.

"Or not." Patrick gulped, before he and Hazel barged the door open and ran off, as Patrick said to Hazel, "We have to find your brother and Chuckie and get the heck out of here!"

---

Meanwhile, at the same time…

Raph was looking around, trying to figure out if there was anything new to see, much like his sister, but as he did, Chuckie appeared and called to him, quietly.

"Hey, Raph!" he said, as Raph turned to face him.

"Hey, Chuckie," Raph greeted him, "did you find anything?"

"Nope," Chuckie replied, until he said, "but Patrick found me! Told me to find you and your sister so we can get out of here."

"Aw, Patrick's here? Bummer." Raph groaned a little, but then, both boys suddenly heard something.

"Do you hear that?" Raph asked.

"Yeah…" Chuckie nodded, "is someone playing classical music?"

The two approached a doorway, as the music grew a little louder, Chuckie and Raph recognizing this as music from the tales of Peer Gynt, though at the moment, with the dark atmosphere of the museum, it made things quite frightening.

After crossing a large hallway, they stopped at another double door, half opened, where the music was now playing a little bit louder and the light was on in where the music was.

Seeing the shadows of the people they needed to save, Chuckie and Raph hid behind one of the pillars to come up with a plan.

"Okay, what do we say?" Raph asked, "If we scare her, those gremlins might find us."

"How about we're art lovers and we just couldn't wait to see the new exhibits?" suggested Chuckie.

"That could work." Raph nodded, before thinking aloud quietly, "Or, we're from the gas company. The door was open and we smelled a leak. No, no, that won't work. We don't have the uniforms for that."

As Raph was suggesting this and a few other ideas, Chuckie suddenly heard some voices from the other room, and peaked to see the curator talking with the guards (who were now seemingly out of uniform and in casual clothes of sorts).

"So, what's in that box?" he heard Miss Hanami ask, as she was looking in one of the boxes.

"Oh, just something that the boss asked us to get," the female security guard replied, "this is definitely gonna put a smile on his face."

"And I see that this has been delivered as well." the male security guard stated, as he took something out of one of the boxes, a circular dark object, spikes of green on every outer inch of it.

"Indeed," Miss Hanami replied, as she then disappeared from view, yet, her shadow still revealing everything, "it was delivered from the coasts of Russia that one of our agents had located."

And Chuckie saw it.

As he watched, Chuckie gasped as her shadow deformed into a creature as she finally stepped out from behind the wall, revealing to be one of a mixture of human and something else, with her skin was the same human Caucasion, but had a mixture of shades of purplish-fuchsia, her hair now long, all the down to her hips, horns on her head and a tail.

"We'll be sure to alert our master when he returns, and then, as they say, it'll be smooth sailing from here." the creature-that-was-the-curator said, her voice now a little bit raspy.

"Must you revert to your true form, Hanami?" the male guard replied with a grumpy sigh, handing the item to her.

"But of course," Hanami replied, "shouldn't you both?"

The two guards looked at each other, before closing both their eyes as the bodies shimmered, as their skins and hair started to change colour. Both their skin became light grey, and their hair colour shifted to light shade of silver followed by platinum (for the female) and blonde (for the male). While their hair colour changed, their hair styles remained the same. Their eyes also changed colour too, as the white of the eyes surprisingly changed to black, and the irises became colourless.

"As much as we have to be in our true forms, we prefer to be in the forms we've been given," the female explained, before giggling, "I mean, I look like a sweet walking, talking chocolate girl."

"Yeah, you are pretty sweet." the male grinned.

Hanami just groaned with sarcasm, "Why not get a room?"

Chuckie, meanwhile, let out a soft wail upon what he saw, and quickly ducked away, yet still panicked at what happened, while Raph continued thinking up ideas.

"Maybe we could wear a moustache?" he suggested, until Chuckie started to stutter, getting his attention.

"Hey, Chuck, what's up?" he asked, but before Chuckie could respond (though he was stuttering to much uter a word), Patrick and Hazel appeared, joining them, as they too looked scared.

"'Sup, Patrick. Sis." Raph greeted, before noticing their nervous faces, "Something wrong?"

"Very wrong, bro!" Hazel responded.

"We've gotta get out of here! Now!" Patrick added, then noticed Chuckie stuttering, "What's the matter with him?"

"P-p-p-patr-r-rick…" Chuckie mustered up, "S-something there…"

"You saw the creature too?" Patrick asked, before placing his hands on his shoulders, "Listen to me, I need you to calm down. We can't let that thing or the gremlins know we're here."

---

The shadowy creature wandered down the halls nearby, purple smoke emitting from it's back as it slowly moved it's head left to right, before sensing something nearby, and wandered towards its location…

---

"T-t-the-the face…" Chuckie stuttered.

"Face?" Hazel asked, "Who's face?"

"H-h-her fa- the face, it's so ugly!" Chuckie stuttered, managing to get the words out.

"Okay, okay. So, she's not your type." Raph said, guessing that Chuckie was talking about the curator, "You don't have to be rude about… it? Whoa… why can I see my breath a bit?"

As Raph talked, he then noticed seeing his breath, as did Chuckie, Patrick and Hazel, as the latter two realized this, as Patrick uttered quietly, "Oh no…"

Patrick and Hazel looked back fast, and spotted the creature they encountered, slowly walking into the hallway from one of the doorways, and slowly turned its head left, the opposite direction where the kids were.

Making things worse, two gremlins, one of them was the leader with the stripe on its head, and a feral bog goblin wandered in too, not minding the creature that was there, but still seeing it there, until the goblin started to smell something. Seeing the goblin smelling something that could be close, the two gremlins let out a mischievous giggle, knowing that someone was here, and ready to be given a hard time.

Patrick realized the situation he and the others were in, before rolling to a safer cover from the creatures as Chuckie and the twins crawled with him. To make matters worse, the three of them were all afraid of what was happening.

"Okay, what the heck was that thing?" Raph hushly asked, scared, along with Chuckie.

"I'm not sure, but you three are gonna draw those guys to us!" Patrick said, "We'll ask Blinky and the others about that thing as soon as we get the curator and those guards out of-"

"She's a monster, Patrick!" Chuckie cut Patrick off, as he grabbed him by his sweater, frantically explaining, "The museum lady and those guards! They're not actually human! I saw Miss Hanami's face! It wasn't natural! She's, like, some sort of creature/human hybrid, with horns and a tail and-"

"What?" Patrick asked.

"Waitaminute," Hazel then looked at Chuckie, "you mean like… a Tiefling?!"

"Yes! A tiefling!" Chuckie exclaimed, "And those guards, they were even more terrifying! They had pale skin, and black eyes! They were different but like one of us!"

"Maybe it was just the lighting?" Patrick nervously tried to reason.

"The lighting?!"

Meanwhile, the two gremlins got the creature's attention, then pointed to where the kids were hiding, speaking in their gremlin gibberish, the creature then walked towards the post, passing the goblin still sniffing in the same direction, but stopped to let it pass.

The creature was getting closer to the humans…

And closer… and closer…

Pressed behind the post, the kids were against the wall, Chuckie once more covering his ears, while Raph covered his mouth as Patrick brought his finger to his lips, telling the others to be quiet.

The creature's hand grabbed hold of the post, as it nearly neared where they were hiding, only to let go of the post and turn in the other direction, allowing the kids to sigh in relief.

Until Chuckie's phone vibrated.

He pulled his phone out to find that he had won another award but the trophy (as well as the sound effects from the phone) had been given at a bad hour as the noise had caught the creature, gremlins and the lone goblin's attention.

The creature turned it's head in the direction of the sound, while goblins snarled and the gremlins let out a snicker.

"Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!" Patrick panicked.

"I'm trying, I'm trying! - But I won the cooler." Chuckie stated.

"Really? Cool, I call dibs on that!" Hazel grinned, having dropped her fear over excitement for the new prize that was won.

"No fair, I wanted it!" Raph pouted.

"Alright, Hazel gets the cooler, you can get the water bottle." Chuckie said to the twins.

Patrick couldn't believe what he was hearing, and in disbelief, snapped at the three, "Guys! Would you for one minute not focus on those Chubby-Tracking points and prizes and focus on the dangerous situation with all these monsters around here!"

He then suddenly noticed all three of them had lost their excitement and had looks of fear back on their faces, before the Paladin slumply and calmly (and a little bit nervously) said, "There's something really bad behind me, isn't there?"

"Yes," a new voice answered, as Hanami, in her Tiefling form, hung her head over Patrick's shoulder, "and I knew I detected the stink of teenage flesh."

The four teens let out a scream, before making a run for it, as Hanami yelled to the other creatures, "After them!"

Patrick and the others ran as fast as they could, but as they reached another hallway, they were soon cornered by Grace and Simon, in their true forms, with smirks on their faces.

"Hey, kids," Simon grinned, holding a bat "isn't it past your bedtime?"

"This way!" cried Patrick, and the kids ran into the forbidden area they came by before during their trip.

As they entered, they looked around and were a little stunned by the construction of the new exhibit; most of the stuff was covered up, but Raph and Hazel were intrigued by it.

"What do you guys think this is?" Hazel asked.

"Something that you shouldn't be seeing at all." Grace said, as she, Simon, Hanami and the creature walked in.

Chuckie looked scared seeing the creature, until Hanami snickered, "Oh, don't rile it up. It likes the smell of fear, feeds off it too. But a human Paladin, that it hasn't tasted for quite a while."

"Then let's see how it likes the taste of Vorpal!" Patrick grinned back, holding out the amulet without warning.

The others chuckled, as Chuckie smiled, "That's a good one, Patrick."

Soon, Patrick stood there with courage, as the armor was once more summoned, sword and shield at hand, as the creature charged and took several swipes at him, only for the shield to protect him from every blow. Following one strick, Patrick used the Vorpal sword and slashed the creature's clawed left hand, slicing it off, black ooze and smoke spilled from it as it then dissolved.

The kids were just shocked by what happened, but when they looked back at the creature, it raised its left arm, as a bulb began to swell up to where the hand was, before bursting up and manifesting a new one.

"What… What is that?!" Patrick asked, stunned with shock and a bit of worry.

"Something that kills you." Hanami said, as she stealthily jumped in and landed behind the Paladin, who swung his sword to strike her, only for her to catch his sword between her palms as she let out an evil cackle, "Just as I will."

With an easy flick of her wrist, she managed to throw the Paladin. Raph and Hazel charged at the new enemy who was hurting their friend, yet Grace managed to stop Hazel by a simple kick of her leg, while Simon tried to attack Raph with his bat.

Chuckie, seeing this, decided to help, letting out a battle cry as he charged, only to be stopped by a snickering gremlin, just as a beeping sound came from it's neck, revealing that it was the gremlin that snagged his Chubby-Tracker.

"You... Give it back!" he yelled, as he then tackled the gremlin, focusing on getting the tracker back instead of aiding his friends, the two of them rolling around on the floor as they fought for dominance, "Give it! These points are mine!"

Hazel was having a hard time trying to fight Grace, as this imposter posing as a guard seemed to be using her legs and feet, using ballet moves as combat ones, while sneaking a few small punches into the mix.

"Wow, you're good." Hazel complemented.

"Aww, thanks." Grace replied, before doing a sidekick in the chest, knocking her down, "Years of ballet."

Raph, meanwhile, had to deal with Simon, who attacked him with his bat, though he made a few hits, Simon got several misses, which annoyed him, so he was able to throw a punch and a kick at Raph.

Needing a weapon badly, Raph spotted a nearby loose pipe, and used it to counter the strikes of Simon's bat, at one point when locking weapons, both of them gave each other a head butt, which was quite a bit painful.

Back with Patrick, he was having a struggle to attack Hanami after getting back up, as he had to dodge getting attacked by the shadowy creature as well, with a slice of its hand to his cheek, Patrick's body twisted at its force as he lifted his hand to his burning cheek. Luckily, as it charged for another attack, Patrick saw this and quickly dodged it as it missed and crashed into several boxes.

He then turned back to Hanami, and used his sword every which way as Hanami easily avoided each blow, and kicked him in the stomach, the paladin clenching it from the pain that she gave him. The Paladin gasped and tried to at least hit Hanami with his sword, but she was able to dodge each swing, just like how Patrick dodged Biff's attacks at dodgeball.

Easily, Hanami then knocked Patrick off his feet, but that didn't stop him as he stood once again and took a slash of his sword. Hanami let out a laugh, thinking that he had missed and that he had been receiving more blows than giving, but then, she suddenly noticed a cut that had now been formed on her finger, burned deep.

"You'll die for that!" she threatened with a snarl, pulling out two orange curved blades, doing a few swift moves as she did so. With anger of having a small wound from the boy, her and his sword mixed, the colors blending as sparks and rainbow smoke filled their eyesights.

Just then, Hanami stopped, as she felt like someone was pulling on her hair, looking down, she saw Chuckie yanking at her hair as the gremlin leader, a few gremlins and goblins (that had joined in Chuckie's fray earlier) tried to pull him off. Using her hair like a whip, Hanami swung Chuckie into a pillar, putting her main attention back on Patrick.

Chuckie, meanwhile, had to deal with the gremlin leader and the few gremlins and goblins that had joined in the fight, and soon found the closest object to him, a Viking helmet and without thinking, nor correct aim, threw it at them, the little monsters barely sliding from the path. Finding more objects, Chuckie took no break as he quickly threw other displayed items, knocking some of the gremlins and goblins down and they began rolling once again.

Simon was having enough of Raph knocking him with his pipe, and then charged him, ready to strike him down, only to not realize that Raph had reached behind Grace, who was dealing with his twin sister, and as Simon swung his bat, Raph ducked, causing Simon to realize too late that he struck down his partner.

This allowed Hazel to then trip over Simon, allowing the twins to give each other a high-five.

Back with Chuckie, he and the little monsters he was fighting rolled into the next room, as he shook off and kicked away the gremlins and goblins, including the gremlin who snatched his Chubby-Tracker, as he managed to get it back and placed it back on his wrist.

"Hey, look at that." he grinned to himself, until the sound of fighting caught his attention, seeing Patrick's fight was still on.

Patrick was once more locking weapons with Hanami, but then he was in trouble as she kicked his sword out of his hands, causing it to get stuck in the roof. If that wasn't bad enough, the shadowy creature came from behind and grabbed Patrick, throwing him as landed at a nearby wall with a tumble.

The young paladin was able to pull himself together just to see the creature jump at him with a pounce.

"Patrick!" the twins cried, as the creature was nearing its prey.

Patrick braced for the impact…

And then… his sword appeared back in his hand, right on time as it stabbed the creature, straight through the chest!

Everyone looked in shock, as the shadowy creature froze in place, still stabbed by the Vorpal sword, before Patrick, in shock and panic, shoved it off with his foot, before standing up to watch the collapsed creature disintegrate and melt into black ooze, before evaporating into nothing.

"Dude!" Raph cried, "Did you know it could do that?!"

"No," Patrick replied, looking back at the sword and his amulet, "this is definitely new."

Just then, Simon jumped in with a kick, slamming Patrick back into a wall, falling limply with the large banner, while the armor then disappeared as the amulet fell off.

Simon found a displayed bludgeon, and smirked as he approached Patrick, who crawled out of the banner cloth, only to see Simon standing before him.

"Well, that was fun. But it seems you're history, kid." Simon darkly grinned, as he raised up the bludgeon, ready to strike him down, much to the horror of the Paladin's friends, "Any last words?"

Patrick looked behind Simon, and noticed a gremlin nearby, and that Simon was standing on the banner cloth, and soon, Blinky's words from training while back came back into his mind.

'Always remember, fear heightens your senses, fear keeps you alive…'

Patrick then smirked, as he grabbed the edge of the blanket, finishing the advice, "Arrogance gets you killed!"

As he said that, he pulled the large banner from underneath Simon's feet, tripping him. As Simon had no control over himself, he fell backwards through the air, everything seemed to be seen in slow motion. From the corner of his eyes, Simon caught sight of the gremlin standing beneath him, frozen in curious shock. Knowing in fear of what the Paladin had set him up to do and what he meant by 'Arrogance gets you killed.'

"NO!" he cried, but it was late, as he fell on the gremlin with a splat.

Sitting back up with the pain of landing on the hard floor… and something else, Simon felt his back, and looked in shock to see his hand covered with green ooze, and looked down on the flattened, dead gremlin.

"Oh no…" he gulped.

The gremlin leader and the other gremlins looked at their fallen comrade, and then up to Simon… until the leader let out a dark chuckle, as did his fellow gremlins.

"No, wait, I can explain!" Simon crawled backwards, as the gremlins gained up on him, "It wasn't me I didn't do it!"

"Simon!" Grace cried out, only for her and Hanami to hear something above them, as the twins had secretly climbed up some crates and pushed some boxes over, causing them to fall onto the two female enemies that they were fighting.

With the girls trapped and Simon cornered, Patrick grabbed his amulet and kicked several goblins that tried to attack him, and grabbed Chuckie, who was taking a photo in shock, pulling him away from the mess.

"Let's get out of here!" he cried.

"On it!" The twins cried as they followed them, Hazel knocking a suite of armor down on a few gremlins and goblins that tried to chase them.

---

Chuckie was screaming all the way from the fight and out the front door of the museum, as he, Patrick and the twins escaped, grabbed their bikes and helmets and peddled away from the area as quickly as they could.

After a while, still peddling, Chuckie, who was panting, looked to the others, "Holy-! What the?! Her face! Did you see?"

"Never mind the Tiefling!" Hazel then said, "What about those guys?!"

"And that bridge!" Patrick then added, "There were weird markings on it."

The four of them grinded to a halt in the middle of the street, Chuckie falling off his bike upon stopping.

"Bridge? Who cares?" Chuckie stated in panic, getting back up.

"Yeah, we've got bigger problems!" Raph added, shocked, "There're shape-shifting imposters!"

"They're walking among us, Guys!" Hazel panicked, "They can be anyone!"

"This is… this is a huge game changer!" Chuckie said, as he, like the others, were trying to reel in what had happened, "What are we gonna do?!"

"We have to find the others," Patrick stated, "then we find Blinky and the others and tell them-"

However, while they were talking, the sound of police sirens were coming closer and closer, and before Patrick could finish his sentences, someone called out to them.

"Freeze! Don't move!"

Hearing that, the four of them realised they caught by the police, as Chuckie and the twins instantly brought their hands up. Patrick saw this, and reluctantly did so too.

"Keep your hands in the air and get on the ground! Now!" The policeman ordered.

"What's going on?" Patrick asked nervously to the others as they knelt to the ground.

"What did we do?!" Chuckie asked in panic to the two police that approached them.

"Dispatch, this is Deputy Brooks," one of the policemen, Deputy Brooks, spoke through the com, "we have the purps that match the description of the museum break-in."

The kids realized that they forgot about the security systems upon entering the museum, as they looked at each other, then back to Deputy Brooks, who let out a chuckle.

"Ho-hoo boy," he said with a smirk, "are you kids in big trouble."

---

Author's Notes:

If you thought this was quite a chapter, this was actually part one of this (as Chuckie had kindly described) huge game changer!

Whatever that creature was, it will soon be revealed in the next chapter… along with something else, something far worse…

Also, the introduction to another new character, Luna, who you'll be learning and seeing more about her in future (as with other future characters who'll pop up in future chapters and stories)

Now, a head's up that there may be several changes to the story, a few edits here and there, but all in all, I hope that you'll still enjoy what's to come.

Now for the references:

The names of the delivery men are named after Joe Dante and Jerry Goldsmith, who respectively directed and did music for the Gremlins movies

The names of bullies Burnie Church and Matt Tucker are referenced to Rooster Teeth members Burnie Burns and Matt Hullen, as well as RVB characters Church and Tucker of the Blue Team (the former being voiced by Burnie), Matt's T-shirt also references the logo for Rooster Teeth, which is an euphemism for, forgive my language here, 'cockbite'

Next time, more game changing reveals… and even a greater threat…

Until next time, True Believers

Excelsior!