A/N: Hey all. Been a long time since this updated, hasn't it? Well, my update exchange deal with The Cowardly Christian was for a long time being focused on my end on Rumbles in the Jungle. Now that that story's done, I decided to come back to this one.
Since it's been so long, I feel like I need to remind readers of a couple of things just in case they forgot. First of all, all the main human characters are older in this story than in the main New Adventures universe, being at least 18 (my head canon is that Gaz is exactly 9 months younger than Dib, making her technically younger while still being the same numerical age). Secondly, unlike the main New Adventures, which has a fairly tight continuity, this collection is more like IZ canon in that it's a bit looser in that regards; some situations aren't going to have clear-cut resolutions, because later chapters will just ignore it and move on.
Okay, that's all for now. Read on!
Disclaimer: Even after all this time, I still don't own Invader Zim or any related properties, just the OCs used in this story.
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New Adventures: Mature Edition
Entry 4: Camping Trip of Doom
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
It was a time of brief but intense celebration among the younger people of Doomsville, that rare wonderful experience known as a three-day weekend. No none was quite sure why there was one, as it wasn't a holiday; the rumor mill ran the entire gamut from the Hi Skool being fumigated without announcing it and risking parents going Karen and suing over unclean teaching environments, to Miss Bitters going through some kind of molting and rampaging though the hallway for days, to the teachers just wanting a brief vacation and still getting paid for it. But whatever the reason, there wasn't a single teenager who wasn't happy for the break.
Team Save Earth were especially happy, because they'd actually have a chance to enjoy this time off. For as it just so happened, the Irkens had taken themselves out of the equation for the duration of the break — whatever experiment of the week that Zim had been working on had backfired, leaving his entire base encased in some kind of bubblegum-like pink goo, to the point of pouring out the windows and front door, with Zim and his minions trapped in it. And whatever this stuff was, it didn't look like it would be dissolving anytime soon, meaning that they wouldn't be causing any trouble over the next few days.
Tak and Tenn, meanwhile, had camped out on Zim's lawn to watch him struggle in the goo and laugh at his plight. Well, Tak had, Tenn was just there for lack of anything else to do.
In any case, this meant that for the next several days, Dib and the twins were free from worry about having to save the world from alien conquest, which left them the question of what to do with this free time. Fortunately, it turned out that Steve had an idea about that.
"You want to go camping?" Dib asked, arching an eyebrow at Steve as the three of them stood around the Membranes' kitchen table, where Steve had laid out a map of the woods outside of town.
"Why not? The weather's supposed to be good all weekend, we have nothing else to do, and this part of the forest is supposed to be great," Steve explained, "There's a lake that's supposed to be pretty stunning, but according to what I've read, hardly anyone ever camps there because it's just a little too remote for most people's comfort, so we'd have the place to ourselves."
"Well, that does sound kinda fun," Viera admitted, "And when else are we going to have another chance like this to just relax for once?"
"Yeah, okay, can't argue with any of that," Dib said with a shrug, "It'd be nice to have a couple days without having to worry about Zim trying to blow up the planet. So, you have an itinerary for this, or should we just wing it?"
"I figure if we head out early tomorrow, we can get there by noon, then have the rest of the day and all day Saturday, before coming back on Sunday," Steve summarized, "Though, in that case, me and Viera should probably head home to organize our camping gear."
"And I'll need to find some for myself. Hmm, if we don't have any, knowing Dad he probably has machines that can fabricate it all just in case," Dib mused, scratching his chin in thought as he absentmindedly turned to walk around the table and towards the living room. And in the process, bumped right into Viera, who had been attempting to do the same but going in the opposite direction.
"Ah, uh, sorry!" Dib said quickly, jumping back with a noticeable flush on his cheeks.
"No problem, my mistake!" Viera said just as quickly, looking away with a similar blush.
The two then stood there in awkward silence for a moment, avoiding looking at each other, before Viera quickly muttered a goodbye and turned to leave. Steve, meanwhile, had been in the middle of putting away his map when this had happened, and he watched it all with a small smirk, before rolling his eyes and following after his sister.
"You two should just admit you like each other," Steve said as he and Viera exited the house and started walking down the street.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Viera said defensively, avoiding looking at her brother even as her blush returned in force.
"Right, keep telling yourself that," Steve said dryly, "But hey, who knows? Maybe this trip will help you guys unwind enough to spit it out."
Viera very firmly didn't respond to that, avoiding talking to Steve the rest of the way home.
Meanwhile, back at the Membrane house, Dib descended into his father's basement lab/storage space in search of camping supplies, ignorant of the fact that his conversation with his friends had had an audience. Gaz had been on her way down from her room to grab a snack when she'd heard them in the kitchen, pausing on the stairs with a groan of annoyance, not in any mood to deal with the three of them.
She'd had her own plans for this weekend, attending a gaming convention in the next county over, but her father had banned her from going in a moment of rare active parenting, grounding her (which with his tech was more like house arrest) for an incident at skool. It was total overreactive BS — who cared that she'd beaten up that substitute teacher? The blind old bat had called her "young man" in front of the whole class; they'd be laughing about it behind her back all month!
In any case, Gaz was already in a bad mood and not interested in interacting with her idiot brother or his pain-in-the-ass friends. And then she'd heard them planning for the weekend, and her eye twitched at the mention of camping in the forest.
"Who the hell would want to spend time in the woods voluntarily?" she muttered in disgust, eye twitching at the sudden memory of being chased naked through the forest by delusional cannibals. The traumatic flashback kept her distracted until the front door closing behind the twins snapped her out of it, looking up in time to see Dib heading down to the basement.
"Fine, whatever, let those three morons go out into the woods. They'll probably run across giant mutant monsters or something that'll try to eat them, while I'll have the house to myself… and not be able to go out and do what I want, while they're having fun, sonnuvabitch!" she said, descending into a growl that ended with her punching the wall, "Why the hell do they get to go out and enjoy themselves, while I'm stuck here for no reason? It's not fair! They have all the luck…"
Gaz trailed off as her last words gave her a sudden spark of inspiration. Smirking, she turned and walked back upstairs, but instead of going towards her own room, she walked into Dib's (if the dumbass wanted to keep her out, he should get his own version of her security dolls). Making her way towards his desk, she rummaged through its drawers until she found what she was looking for — one of his spell drives.
"Let's see, I know that bitch used a bad luck spell on me once a long time ago, where is it?" she mused, looking through the listed spells, until she found what she was looking for. Smirk widening at the sight, she read over the instructions, then closed the drive and took it back to her room, to wait for the right moment.
That moment came the next morning, when Gaz woke early to the sounds of Dib moving around in the house as he prepared to leave. Walking to her window, she discretely glanced out it to watch as the twins approached the house, Dib soon joining them outside. As the three started walking down the street, Gaz held up the spell drive and activated the bad luck curse, firing it at the trio, smirking as she watched the nearly invisible distortion shoot through the air and hit the three, none of them seeming to notice it.
"Have a fun trip, losers," Gaz sneered, looking forward to the thought of whatever disaster was about to unfold.
XXXXXXX
The group reached the lake shortly before noon. As Steve's research had suggested, the place was deserted of any other people, leaving the three of them to have the run of the place. Setting up their tents in short order, they quickly agreed to get to the most obvious bit of fun first, and slipped into the tents to change into their swimsuits.
Quickly changing into his blue swim trunks, putting on some sunscreen, and swapping out his glasses for his prescription swimming model waterproof contacts (his father's habit of creating oddly specific things once again coming in handy), Dib stepped back out of his tent. Seeing that the others were still in theirs, he took a moment to look around and take in their surroundings. While not normally one for nature, he had to admit that this was a beautiful spot — a lake of sparkling blue water being fed by a waterfall tumbling down a cliff in the distance, a creek providing egress for the water trailing off into the woods in the opposite direction, and endless trees of bountiful green everywhere else as far as the eye could see. It really was breathtaking.
Then Viera emerged from her own tent, and Dib's breath was taken by a whole other kind of beauty.
Admittedly, the black and red bikini Viera was wearing was relatively modest by most standards. However, it still showed off a lot more of her well-toned body than she normally did, and hugged her impressive curves in a way that only highlighted them further. Combined with how she had let her hair down from her ponytails to drape down to her shoulders for once, she made an extremely striking image.
Dib blushed as he realized he was ogling his friend, which only grew as he noticed how tight the front of his trunks had suddenly gotten. Immensely grateful that Viera was looking at the scenery instead of at him, he quickly stuffed his hands into his trunks' pockets in an attempt to disguise the bulge and looked away… and thus missed it when Viera turned to look at him and started blushing herself, as her eyes ran up and down his bare torso. All those years of running and fighting that came from his conflict with Zim had given him some surprisingly well-chiseled abs and pecks, and she was definitely enjoying the view.
Steve, who had emerged from his own tent unnoticed by the other two, bit back on a snort as he watched them awkwardly check each other out. Smugly happy to see that his instincts had been right, and deciding to take momentary pity on them, he cleared his throat, causing them both to jump in surprise.
"So, are we just going to stand around all day, or are we going to go swimming?" he asked.
"R-right! Let's get going," Dib said quickly. Turning, and with a force of effort not getting stuck staring at Viera again as he did so, he quickly walked over to the lake, the twins following after him. His and Viera's awkwardness, along with Steve's amusement, was quickly forgotten as the three of them reached the water. Then, all any of them was focused on was swimming, playing, and just overall taking a little time to forget their problems and just be some young people enjoying themselves.
For about an hour, the three swam, before finally tiring out and returning to the shore. Drying off, they ate some of the food they'd brought along, before drifting off to each do their own thing.
Tucking away the trash from his lunch, Steve looked around. Viera had laid out on a blanket a few yards away, working on her tan. Dib, meanwhile, was seated nearby on a lawn chair, reading a book… or at least trying to, though every few moments his eyes would dart up to stare intently in Viera's direction before just as quickly looking away as a fresh blush adorned his cheeks.
The fact that the book he was allegedly trying to read was upside down was also a pretty good indicator of where his focus was at.
"Well, I think it's about time I give them some privacy," Steve thought with a quiet snicker. Slipping into his tent, he changed back into his normal clothes, then stepped back outside and walked over to Dib.
"I'm going for a walk," he said casually. Dib flinched slightly at his voice, having been staring at Viera again and not noticed Steve's approach.
"Uh, what?" Dib said quickly, blushing and hoping that Steve hadn't noticed what he had been doing.
"Yeah, I figure I'm gonna go for a little hike around the area," Steve said, waving a hand in the general direction of the woods, "See if there's anything worth looking at around here. I'll probably be back before sunset."
"You sure you want to go by yourself?" Dib asked.
"Eh, it'll be fine," Steve waved off his friend's concerns, "You guys are already comfortable here doing your own thing; you stay and enjoy yourselves."
"Er, right," Dib said, blushing again as he resisted the urge to look over in Viera's direction again while Steve was standing there. Seeing this, Steve turned so that Dib wouldn't notice his smirk, and after giving another wave started walking towards the woods, pausing as he passed by where his sister was sunbathing.
"I'm just gonna go and give you guys some privacy," he said teasingly, "Try not to have too much fun."
"Shut up," she hissed halfheartedly. Steve chuckled in response, before wandering off. Viera watched him go, then went back to what she'd been doing before he'd interrupted — namely, eating the eye candy of a shirtless Dib while her sunglasses hid where she was looking. A blush bloomed on her cheeks as she did so, which only grew each time she noticed him failing to be discrete about checking her out in return.
While their outright sibling rivalry might be behind them, she still hated to admit it when Steve was right and she was wrong. And right now was one of those occasions; she did have a crush on Dib, and from the way he kept looking at her, it seemed he reciprocated.
"Seriously, falling for the only male friend I have? When did my life become a cliche?" she mused in her head, "Should I really make a move on this? I've seen enough of those crappy teen romance movies to know how badly it could go. What if it doesn't work out and we have a bad breakup, or just fail to click as a couple at all? That could ruin our friendship and mess up the team, and then who'd be able to fight Zim and Tak and whatever else shows up to threaten the world?!"
Realizing she'd begun to mentally ramble, Viera took a deep breath to calm down before she started actually shouting.
"Okay, maybe I'm overthinking this," she thought, "Maybe I shouldn't be worrying so much about what might happen and just see how things play out. If things don't work out, I'm sure we can deal with it. Of course, the question is, how to experiment with this?"
Glancing in Dib's direction again, Viera's gaze fell on the bottle of suntan lotion lying nearby where she'd set it down after applying some to herself. She bit her lower lip in thought as an idea came to her, and she pondered whether to go for it.
"Ah, what the hell. If I'm already going to be living one cliche, might as well hit another," she decided. Taking off her sunglasses, she rolled onto her stomach and propped herself on her elbows, grabbing the lotion bottle.
"Hey Dib?" she called, as if not noticing he was already looking in her direction, "Could you do me a favor and rub some lotion on my back? I can't reach."
"Oh, uh, s-sure, no problem," Dib said a little hastily, hoping she didn't notice his voice squeaking slightly. Putting his book aside, he walked towards her, trying to bat aside the nervousness that grew with each step.
"It's okay, nothing to be worried about," he mentally reassured himself, "You're just doing a favor for your friend. Your very attractive female friend. Who's asking you to rub your hands all over her half-naked, smoking hot body… aw man, am I in trouble."
Taking a deep breath to steady himself as he reached Viera, he sat down next to her and took the offered bottle. In response, she lay down fully, reaching back to move her hair out of the way of her neck and shoulders, then resting her head on her arms.
Gulping slightly, Dib squeezed out a good amount of sunscreen into his hands, finding the cool sensation slightly comforting. He then hesitantly reached down to the part of her shoulders he figured she might have had trouble covering; he froze as she winced slightly at the contact, but then sighed in relief when that passed, figuring she was just reacting to the coolness of the lotion. Dib spent the next several minutes rubbing the lotion on, starting at the shoulders and working his way down her back, only stopping when he realized he was getting dangerously close to her waist, and more importantly to what lay below it.
"I, uh, think I got everything," he said nervously, looking away with a blush. Viera, who had dozed off into a blissful daze under Dib's ministrations, snapped back to awareness at his voice, with a blush of her own that was thankfully hidden her being facedown at the moment.
"Thanks," she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. There was a heavy silence for a moment as the two of them shared a look full of awkward tension. However, just as they both opened their mouths, clearly about to start talking at the same time and probably lead to yet more awkwardness-
BOOM
-the ground shook hard enough to briefly lift them both a couple of inches into the air as something loudly impacted somewhere nearby.
"What the hell was that?!" Viera exclaimed, scrambling to her feet as the tremors passed, the moment the pair had been having immediately forgotten.
"I don't know, but it looks like whatever it was is up there," Dib said, pointing towards the top of the nearby cliff, where a column of black smoke was starting to climb into the sky, "We should probably head up there and check it out; if nothing else, we might have to report a forest fire or something."
"Good idea," Viera nodded, before cocking her head in thought and adding, "What about Steve, though?"
"If he heard that, he'll probably be on his way back right now," Dib replied, "If he somehow didn't hear it, well, we'll just tell him about it later. Now come on, let's get up there fast before either the fire spreads or whatever causes it gets away."
That settled, the two quickly ran back to their tents and, having the same thought, didn't waste time getting dressed, instead just throwing on shoes to make the walk over to the source of the disturbance easier. They also grabbed some of the disposable cameras Dib always made a point of carrying around just in case, and made their way towards the source of the smoke, completely unaware of what was in store for them…
XXXXXXX
Some distance away in the woods, Steve paused mid-step on the dirt path he was on, blinking in confusion at the faint echo of a loud sound.
"What was that?" he asked aloud. Looking around, he could just barely glimpse puffs of black smoke through the foliage, back the way he'd come from. Seeing this, he sighed in exasperation and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Of course, we can't even take a weekend off without some kind of shit hitting the fan," he muttered, "Better get back and help out with whatever that is… and make sure it hasn't got those two so offtrack that they go back to just ignoring their feelings. I'm gonna start pulling my hair out if I have to deal with that much longer."
Grumbling in annoyance, Steve turned to start making his way back… and his foot caught on an upraised root he hadn't noticed. Thrown off balance by this, he stumbled and twisted towards the side of the path; despite his best efforts, he wasn't able to stabilize himself and fell, crashing into a bush on the side of the path. Which would have been bad enough, except as he fell through the bush, he found that it had been concealing the fact that this part of the path was next to the top of a rather steep hill.
"Oh, son of a- gah! Ack! Pheh! Dammit!" Steve cursed as he found himself rolling down the hill for nearly a full minute before the ground evened out again, allowing him to grind to a halt. Groaning, he picked himself up and stumbled to his feet, and as he brushed himself off, he looked around to see where he had ended up — and he froze, eyes widening in shock.
He had landed next to what appeared to be a natural hot spring, a pool of bubbling water the width of the Hi Skool's cafeteria, with rocks of various sizes scattered across it. But what really caught Steve's attention was the figure reclining atop one of those rocks, apparently sunbathing to dry off, judging by the thin sheen of water still clinging to their skin and hair. It was a girl who looked to be in her late teens, though clearly not human; her skin was the color and texture of healthy oak bark, her eyes were gold and black, her ears were pointed, and her waist-length hair was bright green and looked more like moss.
Though admittedly, it took a moment for Steve to process these details as he was thoroughly distracted by the fact that the girl was stark naked, her impressive bust and other curves fully on display for him to see.
"You know, it's rude to stare," she commented with just a hint of annoyance in her melodic voice as she moved to sit up on her elbows. Steve blushed brightly as his mind finally caught up with what his eyes were seeing, and he whipped his head to the side to avert his gaze.
"S-Sorry!" he said quickly, blushing further at the embarrassed squeak in his voice, "I swear I didn't mean to peep, I just fell down the hill by accident!"
"Yeah, I noticed," she said with a chuckle, "Still, you're lucky. Usually, when a mortal stumbles on a bathing dryad, they get eviscerated or turned into a tree or something as a knee-jerk reaction. Fortunately for you, I'm more reasonable than most of my sisters."
"Er, good to know," Steve said nervously, "So, sorry again, I'll just be going-"
"Hold it," the dryad said firmly, Steve freezing in place before he could even try to move, "Just because I'm reasonable doesn't mean I can't leave you unpunished for getting an unauthorized eyeful. Oh, speaking of which, you can look now, I'm dressed."
Steve breathed a sigh of relief as he turned back to the dryad, which quickly turned into a strangled gasp as he saw that she was, in fact, still naked. The only discernible difference was that a small amount of leaves were now pasted onto her body, covering her genitals and the front of her breasts. Beyond that, she was still as completely bare as she had been a moment ago.
"I thought you said you were dressed!" he protested, quickly looking away again, half-expecting this to have turned out to be some kind of trick to bait him so she'd have an excuse to lash out at him. Was that something dryads did? He couldn't remember; dammit, he really needed to pay more attention to Dib and Viera's paranormal lectures.
"I am dressed. You can't see my womanhood or my nipples, can you?" the dryad asked, arching a mossy eyebrow, "I swear, you mortals are so sensitive about these things… look, what's your name?"
"Steve," he replied, hesitantly turning back to face her again, making sure to keep his focus squarely on her eyes.
"Okay, Steve, my name is Kleodora. Despite the circumstances, I suppose it's nice to meet you," the dryad introduced herself with a shrug, "But like I said, however accidental your little peepshow was, it still happened, and it needs to be punished. So, how do you suppose I do that?"
"You give me a stern talking to and then I leave after promising not to do it again?" Steve suggested nervously. Kleodora gave him a flat look in response, before a glint appeared in her eyes.
"Actually, I just thought of the perfect thing," she said, before snapping her fingers, causing a brief flash of light. As Steve blinked the spots out of his vision, he started to look around to see what had happened, only for Kleodora to bring her hand up to her mouth and start giggling wildly.
"There, I think we're even now," she said, the hand over her mouth doing nothing to hide her wide grin. Steve blinked in confusion, not understanding what she was talking about. And was he imagining things, or was it suddenly cooler than it had just been…?
"Oh, please no," he thought, paling as he started to connect the dots. His head snapped down to look at himself, and then all the blood suddenly rushed back to his face as he saw that his clothes were gone. He was completely naked!
Understandably, Steve gave a rather high-pitched shriek as he clapped both hands protectively over his crotch, crouching down to try and further conceal himself, which only made Kleodora laugh harder.
"Kind of overkill to use both hands to cover up, don't you think, little boy?" she asked teasingly, Steve's blush deepening at the insinuation.
"S-Shut up! I was just swimming, and the water was cold!"
"How long ago?" Kleodora asked with a smirk. Steve sputtered as he tried to counter that, but before he could, she quickly moved to sidestep around him-
SMACK
-and proceeded to slap him on the ass. As he stumbled forward with a startled yelp, she nodded approvingly.
"On the other hand, you have some very firm buns," she said happily, "You work out?"
"Hey! That's sexual harassment!" Steve snapped, glaring at her as his anger and indignation overrode his embarrassment.
"Oh please," Kleodora snorted and rolled her eyes, "If a guy did this to a girl, you'd say he was just being playful."
"No I wouldn't, I'd still say it was harassment!" Steve protested, offended at the implied sexism. That earned him a bemused and considering look from the dryad, before she shrugged it off.
"Well, whatever. Like I said, we're even. You can go now," she said dismissively, turning to start walking away.
"Wh- wait a minute, aren't you going to give me my clothes back? You know, since you've made your point and all?" Steve asked desperately.
"How could I do that? I vaporized them," Kleodora asked, blinking in what appeared to be genuine confusion. Steve just barely avoided facepalming in response, but only because his instinct to keep covering himself was stronger that his exasperation.
"So what am I supposed to do?" he demanded, "My best friend and my sister are back at our camp, and maybe you don't understand human modesty, but I do not need either of them seeing me like this!"
Kleodora sighed deeply in annoyance. All she'd wanted was a dip in her favorite hot spring, not have to deal with some mortal boy and his weird nudity taboo. And it wasn't like she could just undo her punishment after she'd just inflicted it; there were rules about these kinds of things. Still, she supposed she did feel a little bad for him, considering it was an accident. And, truth be told, he was kinda cute…
"Okay, how about this?" she offered after a few moments of thought, "I'll give you a little challenge. If you win, I'll make sure you get back to your camp without your companions seeing you in this state. You lose, I make sure you stay like this until you're all the way home. Agreed?"
Steve grimaced as he considered the offer. He didn't like the idea of gambling on whatever scheme Kleodora came up with, but at the same time, he definitely didn't want to risk the others seeing him like this; while he doubted Dib would ever bring it up again, the unspoken laws of sibling rivalry pretty much demanded that Viera would never let him live it down.
So, reluctantly, he swallowed his unease and nodded.
"Fine, you've got a deal. What's the challenge?" he asked.
"Oh, it's nothing too complicated," she replied with a smirk, "Just a game of tag."
"…Huh?" Steve asked, not sure he'd heard her correctly.
"You heard me," Kleodora said, smirk still firmly in place, "We play tag, and you're it. You manage to grab me, you win, and I help you out. The game goes on until that happens, or you give up and admit you lose. So, shall we begin?"
"Sure, let me just- Aha!" Steve started to say in response, only to suddenly lunge at the dryad, hoping to catch her off guard and end this nonsense right away, before it went much farther. Unfortunately for him, she vanished in a flash of light before he could touch her, leaving him to fall flat on his face in the dirt, sprawled in a position that would have been undignified even if he'd been clothed.
Another round of giggles as he lifted his head caused Steve to look over his shoulder and see that Kleodora was now sitting on the branch of a nearby tree, grinning down at him.
"Nice try, but I'm hardly going to make it that easy for you," she said cheerfully, before vanishing with another flash, only to reappear a moment later, peeking out from behind another tree further away.
"Catch me if you can!" she called out, before turning and running deeper into the woods. Steve watched her go, before putting a hand to his face and groaning deeply.
"I hate magic," he muttered, before jumping to his feet and chasing after her. As he did, he also quietly made a promise to himself to never willingly come into the woods again, no matter what Dib or Viera said, since they were probably having the time of their lives right now.
Oh, if he only knew how wrong he was about that.
XXXXXXX
After a relatively easy hike up the sloping side of the cliff, Dib and Viera emerged from the woods onto the top. Looking around, they saw the waterfall going over the edge to their left, the small river that fed it snaking out from further forest to their right — and smack in the middle of the open space, just on the other side of the river, was the source of the disturbance. Namely a metal sphere the size of a house, roughly patched together and still glowing with heat, the crushed trees underneath it burning as a result of contact.
"Is that a spaceship?" Viera asked, eyeing the object cautiously.
"Maybe, though it doesn't look like an Irken design," Dib mused, as he snapped a few quick pictures, "We should probably take a closer look just to be sure, but either way, this is definitely a find."
"I agree with that, but I suddenly can't help but feel like we should have brought weapons, just in case," Viera said, "We should probably head back to camp to get properly prepared. And maybe track down wherever Steve went and grab him too."
"Yeah, it occurs to me that that's probably-"
HISSSS
The sudden sound of escaping air grabbed the pair's attention, and they turned back to the apparent ship as a seam appeared along one side, revealing a panel that promptly popped loose and dropped to the ground. Curiosity piqued by this sight, and probably overwhelming their common sense, they immediately forgot the decision they'd just made and instead edged closer to the newly opened ship, starting to wade into the river to do so, when something came tumbling out of the opening, stopping them dead in their tracks.
To their utter shock, Dib and Viera saw that what had emerged from the ship was a half dozen rats the size of grown adult humans, which scrambled over each other to get back on their feet after falling out of the ship. And judging by the high-pitched but still clearly understandable voices they were all chittering at each other in, they were fully sapient despite their animalistic appearance.
"Who taught you how to fly a ship?" the largest of the rats demanded angrily of the one nearest it.
"No one! None of us has ever been in a spaceship before, but you all told me to fly this thing anyway!" the other rat snapped testily.
"Because you're always bragging about being the smartest of us, but apparently you were just talking out of your ass!" a third rat commented.
"At least I got us here alive! Considering we had to fly past Irken patrols in a ship built from spare parts they left lying around, I think I did pretty good for my first time!" the pilot said defensively.
"Yeah, if you ignore how you got lost as soon as we were off Blorch, and we drifted through space for three weeks, and crashed on the first planet we came across, yeah, I think you did just great!" the first rat growled.
"Well, how about you kiss my-!"
"Hey, what are those things?" a rat not involved in the argument asked, pointing towards Dib and Viera, who had been watching the whole exchange in confusion and morbid curiosity, and now tensed as the rats all turned to look at them.
"Uh… welcome to Earth? We're friendly!" Dib said awkwardly.
"Dude, seriously?" Viera asked deadpan, while watching the rats warily.
"I'm trying to be optimistic!" he hissed back to her, while keeping a forced grin on his face as he faced the rats.
For their part, the group of Slaughtering Rat People weren't really registering what the humans were saying. After all, despite their sentience, they were still a very primitive species, dominated by their basic instincts. And given that this particular group had just had to deal with having barely anything to eat during their ill-conceived escape trip off their conquered world on top of years of only having whatever scraps the Irkens tossed in the garbage bins of their new parking lot planet to scavenge from, their predatory natures were focusing on one thing — food.
"Are those monkeys? I love the taste of monkeys," the pilot said, literally licking his lips.
"And these ones don't even have a lot of fur to gunk up the taste," another Rat Person commented, salivating heavily.
"And it looks like there's plenty of meat on them for all of us," the apparent leader said, slowly starting to stalk towards the now quite frightened humans.
"…We should run," Dib said when his brain started working again after a moment of panic, and he started scrambling backwards, trying to retreat while keeping his eyes on the Rat People.
"No shit!" Viera yelled, grabbing Dib's arm and dragging him behind her as she turned to run back the way they had come. However, they didn't get far before half of the Rat People leapt through the air and landed on the shore in front of them, causing them to come up short in the river. Glancing back showed that the other three Rat People were preparing to jump as well, and probably not aiming for the shore this time.
Dib and Viera's eyes darted rapidly back and forth between the two groups of rats, trying desperately to think of what they could do to escape this situation. And as the second set sprang into the air towards them, they hit upon the same idea at the same time — without even stopping to coordinate, they reared back and threw their cameras at the jumping Rat People. Their impromptu aims proved true, as the Rats to the furthest right and left were both hit straight in the face, causing them to tumble in midair and smack into the central Rat, throwing off his leap as well, and causing all three to overshoot Dib and Viera and slam into the other three Rats, who were too surprised by what had happened to jump out of the way in time.
Watching the Rat People descend into a tangled body of flailing limbs, Dib and Viera breathed sighs of relief.
WHACK
Which proved to be a mistake, as that momentary dropping of their guards meant they weren't able to react when one of the Rats' tails swung out from the melee and smacked into them, hard enough to send them flying several yards. They ended up hitting a significantly deeper part of the river than the shallows they'd been standing in, meaning they weren't able to get back on their feet and brace themselves before the river's surprisingly swift current picked them up and carried them straight towards the waterfall. They managed to resurface and take deep gasping breaths, but unfortunately that was all they were able to do before the water carried them right over the edge.
WHACK
SMACK
WHAM
And to make things even worse, it turned out to not be a smooth fall towards the bottom. The waterfall turned out to be concealing a number of rocks and tree branches poking out of the cliff face, and poor Dib and Viera seemed to be hitting each and every one of them all the way down.
WHAM
BAM
WHACK
SNAP
TEAR
SMACK
Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was only about a minute, the two finally hit the bottom of the waterfall and splashed into the lake. Sore all over but somehow without any serious injuries, the two scrambled to breach the lake's surface, before quickly swimming towards the nearest shoreline and stumbling a few feet to collapse on either side of a large bush.
"Ugh, that sucked so much," Viera muttered, coughing the remaining water out of her lungs, before looking to the side, where Dib's head was sticking up over the bush, "You okay?"
"Yeah, I think so. You?" he replied.
"I'm probably going to be feeling this all week, but yeah," she said, trying to rub the soreness out of the spots where she could feel the worst bruises forming. She was also having the odd sensation that she was overlooking something important, but she figured whatever it was could wait for the moment.
"Well, in any case, since those things didn't look that smart, they'll probably end up fighting each other long enough to forget about us," Dib said, glancing up towards the clifftop, "With any luck, that'll give us… enough…"
"…What's wrong?" Viera asked after a moment of silence, glancing at Dib to see why he'd trailed off. To her confusion, he was staring off into the distance, slack-jawed and bug-eyed, with an odd look of mixed emotions on his face. Curious as to what had him so shocked, she followed his gaze — and her own face was soon matching his, because quite visibly dangling from some branches poking through the waterfall were the torn remains of a very familiar pair of blue swim trunks, and the two pieces of an even more familiar red and black bikini.
Their swimsuits, the only clothing either of them had been wearing, had somehow against all probability gotten caught on the branches and torn clean off.
"You have got to be kidding me," Viera muttered, turning bright red as she snapped out of her shock and crouched down to cover herself as best as she could. Judging by how suddenly the only part of Dib visible over the bush was his hair, he was doing the same.
"Okay, okay, this is fine, we can deal with this," Dib said in a rapid stage whisper that meant he was probably talking more to himself than to her, "We just have to get back to camp, and we can get dressed before grabbing our weapons just in case."
"You mean the camp that's all the way over there?" Viera asked tersely, looking to where their camp was visible, but on the other side of the lake, "Sure, no problem. Except whether we swim over there or walk the long way around, there's no way we can get there without seeing each other naked. You really want to deal with something that mortifying?"
"Well, no," Dib muttered, thinking for a moment before saying, "Okay, so how about this? One of us heads over there, gets dressed, and brings the other their clothes over here? Still kinda awkward, but way better than the alternative."
"Right, okay, that works," Viera replied, breathing a slight sigh of relief.
…
…
…
"…Well, are you gonna get going or not?" Viera asked testily after a few moments of nothing happening.
"Wait, me? Why do I have to do it?" Dib demanded.
"I could probably make a comment about chivalry or something, but fact is that as a guy, you've got less to cover up," Viera replied, "That means there's less a chance of me seeing something by accident than if I was the one who went and you stayed."
"I wouldn't look!" Dib protested, offended.
"I wouldn't either, on purpose, but-"
"There they are!"
Dib and Viera's heads snapped up to the clifftop, where the Rat People had all gathered, scuffed up but not looking seriously injured, and all glaring down at them.
"Get 'em! Eat every last morsel!" the leader screeched. The other Rat People shrieked in agreement, and the group charged as one, scrambling down the side of the cliff, approaching the ground at a rapid pace. Seeing this, Dib and Viera had the same thought — right now, survival was more important than modesty. And so, they jumped to their feet and took off sprinting in the opposite direction of the approaching Rat People, inadvertently heading deeper into the woods, though they didn't notice as they were too distracted by trying to stay ahead of their pursuers.
And also by trying to not sneaking glances at each other as they went. Hormones were a hell of a thing to ignore, after all.
XXXXXXX
Meanwhile, while Dib and Viera were being chased by the Rat People, Steve was still in the middle of his own chase. And while he was the one doing the chasing, he wasn't exactly better off than the others were — as it turns out, running naked through a forest was a quick way to collect cuts and bruises from all the foliage he was cashing through. And worse was the fact that Kleodora was staying just in sight the entire time, despite the fact that he was sure she could easily leave him in the dust, instead silently mocking him with his inability to catch her. Like right now, casually leaning against a tree as Steve was crouched over, hands on his knees as he breathed heavily to try and avoid collapsing in exhaustion.
"Ready to give up yet, Firm Buns?" she asked with a smirk.
"Please stop calling me that," Steve wheezed, shooting her a weak glare, "And no, I'm not."
"Well, I've got to give you credit for your stamina," the dryad said with a chuckle, "But honestly, you think-"
"Ah!" Steve suddenly cried out, leaping forward to try and tackle Kleodora. However, just like last time, she easily dodged out of the way-
SMACK
-and slapped Steve's ass again as he went past her, causing him to stumble as he tried to come up short, ultimately losing his balance and falling forward, into and through some bushes, bursting out to fall flat on his back on the ground on the other side.
"Okay, I definitely need a new plan," he grumbled, pushing himself up into a sitting position.
And then he froze, as he saw he was in a large clearing. One that had a large number of people, assembled around various picnic tables, underneath a large banner that read "Annual Girl Scouts Jamboree". And all now staring at him in shock.
"Oh crap," he muttered, face bright red, as the crowd finally snapped out of it and reacted to his presence.
"AHHH! A naked boy!" one of the older girl scouts screamed.
"You sure it's a boy? He doesn't look like he's packing much! Ha!" one of the other scouts laughed cruelly.
"What a freak!" another scout yelled.
As the jeers and cries rained down on him, Steve could only scramble to his feet and cover himself with his hands. Hearing a familiar giggle coming from behind him even amidst the other voices, he didn't even bother to turn around.
"We had a deal," he growled out through grit teeth.
"The deal was that your sister and friend wouldn't see you. Not that nobody else would," Kleodora replied with a smirk he could hear in her voice without looking at her.
"That is just- OW!" Steve started to say, only to be cut off as a rock suddenly flew though the air and his his head.
"Get out of here, pervert!" one of the scouts shouted as the whole group picked up more rocks and started flinging them as well.
"No, don't let him go! Let's kick his bare ass to teach him a lesson!" another scout stated. The rest cheered in agreement, and Steve, blush vanishing as his face paled, quickly turned and ran off, the scouts in hot pursuit. Kleodora watched this all in bemusement, having not quite expected this reaction, and followed after at a more leisurely pace, teleporting occasionally to catch up.
As such, she appeared on top of a tree just in time to see Steve emerge into another clearing, which was also currently occupied. This time, by a large group of elderly nuns assembled under a banner that read "Convent of St. Maria the Ruthless Semi-Annual Nature Retreat".
"Gah! A sinful pervert!" one of the nuns exclaimed in disgust.
"Let us paddle him for his blasphemous lack of shame!" a particularly decrepit and stern-looking nun declared, the entire group pulling out wooden rulers and paddles.
"Oh, come on!" Steve shouted, turning and running in a different direction, the nuns chasing after and the girl scouts close behind. Kleodora arched an eyebrow at this, and continued to teleport after the growing crowd, appearing at the opposite side of the next clearing in Steve's current path, just before he burst into it. And what a surprise, it turned out this one was occupied too.
"Hey, look! A streaker getting chased by an angry mob!"
"What a scoop!"
"Seriously?! This one doesn't even make any sense!" Steve yelled, as the crowd dressed like 1930s reporters snapped pictures with their old-fashioned cameras from underneath a banner that read "Historical Journalists Reenactment Club Outdoor Convention". However, he only had a moment to question this before he had to turn and run in yet another direction, the nuns and girl scouts chasing after him and the fake journalists following after for the sake of the story they'd be able to sell to imaginary newspapers.
"Okay, even I'm starting to think this is getting to be a bit much," Kleodora mused, teleporting to catch up again and doing so just as Steve reached yet another clearing. And seeing this one made both her eyebrows go up this time, while Steve skidded to a stop at the sight.
"For the love of- why is everyone camping in this part of the woods today?!" he screamed in frustration, taking in the sight of numerous muscular men wearing combat fatigues, gathered around a variety of picnic tables and barbecue grills underneath a banner that read "Weekly Anti-Government Survivalist Potluck".
"Hey, it's one of them there naked boys what like running around in front of people," one of the clearly drunk survivalists slurred.
"He must be a government spy trying to scare people into submission with perversion!" another exclaimed, just as drunk.
"And he brought an angry mob to try and repress us!" yet another drunk shouted, pointing to the crowd of Steve's pursuers as they emerged from the forest behind him.
"Shoot first, ask questions later!" a particularly burly survivalist yelled, whipping out an assault rifle and randomly firing in every direction, an act his friends all quickly replicated.
Fortunately, their intoxication made them all terrible shots, so both Steve and everyone chasing him were able to throw themselves to the ground, the hail of wild gunfire only hitting trees. Unfortunately, that same intoxication made them reckless, as best demonstrated by one of the survivalists grabbing a grenade launcher from a weapons stockpile in the middle of the clearing and firing at everything in sight.
BOOM
Including the aforementioned weapons stockpile, which blew up in spectacular fashion, everything being detonated at once except for a few rockets that were simply ignited and flew off into the woods in random directions. When the resulting dust and smoke cloud cleared, the onlooking Kleodora was able to see that a sizable crater was now taking up the center of the clearing, and everyone was lying on the ground — miraculously, none of them were dead, or even seriously injured, just unconscious. That included Steve, who was lying facedown near the center of the whole mess.
"Well, that didn't go as I was expecting," Kleodora mused as she teleported to the ground and walked over to Steve's prone form and started lightly nudging his side, "And you better not be dead, I don't need that on my- Oof!"
"Gotcha!" Steve shouted, ceasing his playing possum to spin around and grab ahold of the dryad's leg. However, he failed to properly arrest his momentum as he did so, slamming into Kleodora hard enough to knock her off balance and land right on top of him. Specifically, face-to-face, with a certain other part of him pressingly close to a part of her that only had some leaves covering it.
There was a moment of awkward silence as the two stared at each other, before Kleodora snapped out of it first and gave Steve a flirtatious smirk.
"Yep, you definitely got me, alright," she purred, reaching down to stroke the side of Steve's head, "Wanna celebrate your victory?"
"Uh, ah, I," Steve stammered, face burning bright red, before he managed to compose himself and shove her off of him, "Knock it off!"
"Spoilsport," Kleodora pouted as she rolled away from Steve and got to her feet. Steve did likewise, and gave her a mild glare.
"Okay, enough messing around. I won your stupid game, now send me back to my camp before any of these nuts wake up and attack me again!" he demanded.
"Fine, a deal's a deal," Kleodora said, rolling her eyes, "Let me just get a last one for the road."
"Huh?" Steve asked, blinking in confusion, before a smirking Kleodora suddenly moved to close the distance between them-
SMACK
-and promptly smacked him on the ass yet again. Though this time, it was accompanied by another flash of light from her magic, and when it cleared from his vision, Steve was pleasantly surprised to find himself back in his tent at the campsite. Which he could tell by the recognizable sight of all his belongings inside it, including the very same clothes he'd been wearing at the start of this mess, stacked and folded neatly on top of his sleeping bag.
"I knew she was lying about destroying them," he muttered, reaching for the clothes, only to stop as he realized there was a piece of paper lying on top of them. Picking it up and unfolding it, he saw immaculate cursive handwriting which read, "Had fun. See you around, Firm Buns. ~Kleodora"
Steve's eye twitched as he read that, before quickly shredding the note into confetti. Grumbling curses at the existence of dryads and magic in general, he put his clothes on, taking a moment to bask in the sensation of being clothed again and swearing to himself that he'd never mention this day's events to anyone… and then promptly collapsed from exhaustion, passing out before he hit the ground.
As Steve slept off everything he'd been through, he remained blissfully ignorant when, a few hours later just after the sun had finished setting, Dib and Viera also returned to the campsite. They were both still naked, albeit now covering themselves with entire bushes that had been completely uprooted from the ground, and like Steve had collected a number of cuts and abrasions from running through the woods nude, but were otherwise lacking any injures of note.
For those wondering how these two had managed to escape the Slaughtering Rat People, there really isn't much to tell. They ran blindly through the woods for what felt like an eternity, the Rat People always right behind them. Near the end, as exhaustion started to take hold, it seemed like they'd finally collapse and be overwhelmed… at which point several of the rockets that had (unknown to either of them) been launched from the explosion at the end of Steve's own misadventures had fallen from the sky and hit the ground behind the fleeing humans and right in front of the pursuing Rat People.
The resulting explosion had knocked Dib and Viera off their feet, but had thankfully also scared off the Rat People, who reverted to their other primal instinct beyond hunger and fled in a blind panic. This had given the human pair some much needed time to breath and compose themselves, upon which they'd collapsed into hysterical laughter at having survived… at least until they got a look at each other and suddenly remembered their other pressing concern. Fortunately for the sake of what little modesty they had left at this point, several bushes had been torn free from the ground by the explosion, which they'd quickly taken as cover before making their way back to camp.
"Oh thank God, it looks like Steve already turned in for the night," Viera sighed in relief as the camp came into sight, "Things have been bad enough without him seeing us like this."
"Right. So if he asks in the morning, we'll just say we also went for a walk and lost track of the time, and then never talk about any of this ever again, okay?" Dib suggested.
"Agreed," Viera said quickly, "But what about those rats?"
"Hopefully they'll just run off and live deep in the woods and just be a problem for lost hitchhikers, like Bigfoot or migrating chupacabras," Dib said, "Though that being said, we should probably keep weapons on hand just in case tonight, and come up with an excuse to get out of here as fast as possible tomorrow."
"Right," Viera nodded, before the two stared at each other in tense silence for a moment, finally having a chance to process everything that had happened today. The awkward flirtation from before the Rat People's arrival now seemed like a long time ago, and the moment was now very much gone, buried underneath the desperate run for survival and humiliating walk back to camp. As such, they both silently agreed with the look they shared to save whatever that was for another time, instead muttering quick good-nights before retreating to their respective tents.
Meanwhile, Kleodora had been hiding among the trees the entire time after teleporting Steve back, waiting out of curiosity for his companions to return. Seeing their state when they had, and overhearing their brief conversation, just left her confused — Steve's luck during most of their chase had been ridiculously bad enough on its own, but apparently his sister and friend had had it just as bad? That seemed highly unlikely.
"Hmm, I wonder," the dryad mused to herself, holding her pointer fingers up to her eyes and muttering a spell. Her eyes glowed in response, her vision shifting as she altered her senses to actually see magical energies, which allowed her to see the fading remnants of foul-colored auras clinging to the three humans.
"Aha, I thought so. A bad luck curse," Kleodora mused, watching the auras fade, "Not even a good one. It's already wearing off, and all it managed to accomplish was minor humiliation. Geez, this kind of spell is a travesty anyway, but whoever cast this one is a rank amateur. It's almost as embarrassing as it is a disgrace. I think I better have a word with whatever moron caused this."
With that, Kleodora vanished in a flash of light, backtracking the dwindling trail of magic to find the curse's caster.
XXXXXXX
Back at the Membrane house, Gaz lay on the couch, idly tapping away her Game Slave, attention split toward the TV as the local news droned on. Honestly, she couldn't care less about whatever they were talking about; she was just hoping that whatever mess Dib and his asshole friends got into because of the bad luck curse would be big enough to get on the news. Maybe she'd even get lucky and they'd be shown being carted off to the hospital or jail or something.
However, so far there was nothing. She didn't know if the curse hadn't hit them with anything big enough to be mentioned on the news, or if it just plain hadn't done anything, but either way the lack of results was pissing her off.
"Stupid goddamn fluke magic bullshit," she muttered, angrily tapping at the buttons, "I should have just broken their legs with a baseball bat. Hell, I think I just will when they get back anyway, but still, I was supposed to stop them from having a good time, not-"
"Hi there!"
Gaz jerked in surprise at the sudden voice, head snapping over to the other side of the room, where she was greeted by the sight of a certain mostly-naked dryad sitting on a chair in the corner, with a too-pleasant smile on her face.
"Who the fuck are you, and why are you in my house?" Gaz demanded, dropping her Game Slave onto the coffee table and jumping to her feet, glaring at the intruder.
"The name's Kleodora, and for why I'm here, it's for a bit of karma," Kleodora replied calmly, utterly unthreatened by Gaz's posturing.
"Excuse me?"
"A trio of young humans with some extraordinarily bad luck recently passed through my forest," Kleodora explained, "And the funny thing was, that luck wasn't natural, but the result of a curse. I was curious who would do something like that, so I followed its residual magic to find its caster, and here we are. So, can I ask why you did it?"
"Not that it's any of your business, but my brother and his idiot friends pissed me off, so I tried to make it so they'd have an awful day," Gaz said dismissively, her eyes daring Kleodora to try and condemn her actions.
"Really? That kind of dangerous magic thrown around haphazardly for the sake of something that petty?" Kleodora asked with a disgusted frown, "You really are the worst kind of mortal, aren't you?"
"Like I care what a freak like you thinks?" Gaz snorted, "Now get the hell out of here before I break you in half."
"No, that's not going to happen," the unintimidated Kleodora responded, "I came here to punish whomever decided to disrupt the natural flow of the world, and your attitude isn't dissuading me from that course. So, how about I give you a taste of what you caused today?"
"Okay, time to eat your own teeth!" Gaz growled, incensed at someone, especially some random stranger, daring to judge her for anything. She reeled back her fist and charged towards Kleodora, only for the dryad to smirk and snap her fingers. There was a flash of light that blinded Gaz, causing her to stumble and trip from her momentum, bracing herself against a tree to stop from falling over.
"Wait, what?" Gaz muttered in confusion as she processed what had just happened. Blinking her vision clear, she looked around and was greeted by the sight of a forest all around her, nearly pitch black now that the sun had set and the foliage mostly blocked out the moon and stars.
Gaz growled in irritation at having apparently been teleported so far from home, only to be distracted from her growing anger as a surprisingly cold wind to blow over her. Shuddering slightly, she instinctively started rubbing her arms to warm up, only to freeze at what she felt. Or rather, what she didn't feel.
Head snapping down to look at herself, Gaz's eyes bugged out and her face turned bright crimson as she was greeted by the sight of her total nudity. She hadn't just been teleported, she'd been stripped!
Giving off an embarrassed shriek, Gaz wrapped her arms around herself, before doing what she did best — give into her anger and start making threats.
"You fucking wooden bitch!" she screamed at the dryad she was sure was watching from somewhere, "When I get out of this, I'm going to find you and turn you into firewood! I'm gonna-!"
Unfortunately for Gaz, her tirade was cut short as some nearby bushes burst apart, and the Slaughtering Rat People emerged into the clearing she was standing in, drawn by the sound of her yells. Shocked out of her anger, she could only stare in disbelief as the giant rats started chittering to each other in excitement.
"Look! I told you I heard one of the monkeys!" one of them declared.
"Is that one of the same ones? It looks different," another commented.
"Does it? They all look the same to me," a third asked.
"Who cares? It's meat! Eat it!" the first one shouted.
For her part, Gaz found her normal stoicism and fearsome dominance suddenly lacking. Maybe it was the lack of clothing, the suddenness of the situation, how outnumbered she was, the very unfortunate similarities to prior experience, or a combination of all these factors. Regardless of what it was, she found herself completely gripped by terror and reacted the only way she could, turning and fleeing into the woods, the Rat People immediately taking chase after her.
"Not again!" Gaz screamed in desperation and rage as she found herself once again being pursued naked through the woods by beings that wanted to eat her. And as she and the Rat People disappeared into the darkness, a laughing Kleodora watched from atop a nearby tree, gleefully enjoying the proceedings.
Oh, she'd step in to make sure Gaz wasn't killed or too seriously harmed. After all, she just wanted to teach her a lesson, and it wasn't like her own actions had claimed any lives, so there was no reason to go overboard punishing her. Besides which, she'd indirectly caused Kleodora to meet Steve, and that had been fun, she had to admit.
In fact, she mused while she watched from afar as Gaz's blind panic led her to fall into the same river Dib and Viera had hours earlier, she might just have to track Steve down and pay him a visit if she ever got bored in the future. And really, could he possibly deny the sparks between that had flared between the two of them?
…Well, probably. But that would be a problem, and a story, for another time.
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
The End
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
A/N: And done. Hope you all enjoyed it.
For those who don't remember, the event Gaz is referring to in the first and last scenes is the ending of the first chapter of this collection. As I said, in accordance with IZ canon's loose rules of continuity, I'm not going to explain how she got out of that situation, I'll just say that it happened, and move on.
Also on the subject of continuity, the bad luck curse Gaz uses on the group is the same one Viera used on her in New Adventures Season 1 Episode 8. Felt like a fun thing to include.
On a separate note, regarding Kleodora. In TCC's original chapter outline, the character was Hekapoo from Star vs the Forces of Evil. However, I've never seen that show (it's on a long list of stuff I need to get around to), so I figured I wouldn't be able to do her justice. So instead, I replaced her with an OC dryad, with a name chosen at random from a name generator, and there you go.
That's all for now. Please review!
