"Grab the pipe bomb!"

The bridge holding us started to crack. I could smell the boiling lead under us. If we wouldn't die because of the bridge being exhausted by our weight, we would die because of the gas fumes in this room.

"It won't go off!" Tom screeched back to me. His voice getting raspy and weak. "I think it's a dud!" He coughed again. Wheezing and trying to get clean air into his burning lungs.

My throat stung, and I could barely shout over the clamber of the machines anymore.

Mianite's steps got louder and louder as he paced towards us. Tucker stood behind him, arms crossed. He held his weapon in his hand.

Mianite smirked to Tucker, which was barely a smile due to his metal plated face. "So gracious that I was able to talk you into helping out."

My skin started to burn and blister. The air was getting intolerable, and I couldn't grab the strength to get my sword. It shone right there in the corner, and it was so close. My hands were cramping up and my joints felt like they were swelling together.

Tom found the energy to lean against the bridge's metal bars, and with wobbly legs he slowly slide his cuffed hand up. Trying desperately to stand.

Tucker slid beside Mianite, and paced over to Tom. Tucker's face to stern to be argued with. He had plainly had enough. No turning back, the conversation was over. He though of nothing but vengeance.

Tucker held his sword tightly as Mianite's smirk grew.

With one one swift swipe, I was sure the adventure was over.

"I can't believe you teleported us under the building!"

The noice moved around in my ears like crashing waves. That's usually what happens when I get teleported. My ears pop, and my head goes numb for at least the first three minutes.

My prediction was actually wrong. When my ears finally popped back I realized it was Martha screaming at Wag, not Tucker. Point for team Mianite.

"I don't understand what happened," Wag exclaimed, surprisingly standing up for himself. "I planned for warding!"

"Well obviously not!" Martha yelled back. "Do you understand where we are," she gestured to the stone and dirt around us. We were in a cave. It was just a cave. "Do you know how dangerous these crypts are!"

"No I don't!" Wag waved his arms around. Ignoring every smell or sight of the cave we were in. "Someone didn't tell me!"

By someone I believe he meant Martha, and there must have been something that none of us knew except them because with another glare from Wag Martha was rendered speechless.

"Andor do you remember this?" I turned to try to find him with my eyes. If anybody could be calm in this situation, it would most likely be him.

I could barely see the cave was so dim. I think that counted for most of us because instead of just getting up and running into trouble we decided to take a moment. The only light given off was from these gems creviced in the stone, shimmering from the leftover bits of sunlight. Other then that you had to get your eyes used to the dark and hope for the best.

I could hear a stream, but I didn't hear Andor's voice.

Oh, oops.

"Andor, god, answer the women!" Martha barked.

So I moved my eyes to where she was looking, and I saw Andor. Although it didn't seem like he was ignoring me. It seemed like he was interested in something else.

His eyes were affixed on a man who was sitting on a old ruble of a wooden bench. Something that was worn by time and the ground water dripping off of the cave ceiling.

The man didn't look much older then me. He seemed around my age, except he was spindly and had dark circles under his eyes. His clothes looked to big on his small frame, and his glasses were falling off of his face. More interestingly, which I think is what Andor saw, was the blood splattered on his shirt.

You wouldn't be able to tell by a quick glance. If Andor hasn't taken the time to stop and stare, our team would have tried to sneak by him. Though, if you took enough time you could see the tiny dots of red blood that latched onto his white shirt sleeve.

"Oh my god," Martha gasped. "-is that-"

Jordan acted like he already knew the words that were going to come out of Martha's mouth. Jordan marched over to the man, confident that the guy wouldn't try to move even if he saw him.

The guy didn't notice Jordan, then darted his eyes to Andor then Martha then the rest of us. The mans hands became fidgety as Jordan got closer and closer. The man tried to grab something out of his pockets with shaking hands.

Jordan's eyes arched as he also noticed the man being out something. What you would imagine to be a weapon was actually a remote. The man got out a remote, only the size of a house key, to defend himself.

The man tried to quickly press down a button on the remote, but before he could the remote flew out of his hand. Jordan threw the remote to the cave wall.

Jordan grabbed the man by his shirt collar. None of us moved from our spot because we were very aware that Jordan could take care of this.

"Look I don't like being a bully!" Jordan hissed, pinning the man against the old wooden bench. "But I don't have a choice right now!"

The man didn't say anything back. He couldn't think of an excuse or a lie to give.

"How do we get up to the main floor!" Jordan yelled, throwing the man against the chair again. "You might as well tell me now before I get more angry!"

The man suddenly became very angry, and some sort of confidence her in him. "Just because I'm not out in the field doesn't mean I haven't been trained to sustain against torture!" He said, not even trying to squirm anymore. He just glared at Jordan square in the eye.

"I'm also extremely stubborn." Jordan's voice got looser, and he didn't try to sound scary anymore. "So I'll wait here until you have to starve for that information."

The man scoffed at Jordan, and we all realized at that moment that he would be a lot more difficult to brake. "Can't be worse than what he'd do to me." He raised his voice. "Mianite isn't jut a god! He's stubborn, he has feelings." The man took a big sigh and glanced back up at Jordan. "He started from humble beginnings, which is unlike any other universe I've ever seen."

Jordan raised his eyebrows, now more interested in different answers. This man knew about different worlds, so he must have known about our world. He must have known about Mianite. Maybe that's why he was watching us.

"So you know about different worlds. You know about where we came from?" Jordan asked. His grip was loosening on the guy.

"I know that you came from a different world, but I'm not sure which." The man lengthened on. I'm not sure if he was staling or thinking it through. "You're world is practically ancient."

The Tom let out a big groan, purely for the fact that Tom's impatience. Everyone else either wanted more answers about home or more answers about Hope.

"Can't you see what he's doing Jordan!?" Tom whined. "He's wasting time! We need to go!-"

"I'm still not telling you how to get up," The man held on to his stubbornness.

"-please Gaines," Martha spoke out, taking us all be surprise. "You have to remember. What would she think?"

And we all stood in shock as Martha tried to persuade this man. This man that had to be D.M.G. The guy who made the drone, and flew us through a goddamn T.V show. Of course through all of the work that Jordan had done to track this man down, we found him because Hope got kidnapped.

I'm a hundred percent sure now that fate hates us!

That broke down Gaines wall. He took a deep solid breath, darting his eyes around. He tried to find some empty space to place his eyes as he thought.

"Why don't we make a deal?" Gaines asked in a melancholy voice. All mood drained from his face.

Jordan grew angry again, and his grip got stronger. "I don't have time for deals right now!"

Gaines and Jordan had a long stare off for a while. We all knew this was hopeless, and if Mianite hired anyone to be his right hand man he would be stubborn. Gaines would be unbreakable, just like Hope.

Then my ears peaked at the sound of rocks crumbling down.

Andor backed up from the spot he had been staring at for quiet awhile. Instead of him just staring at a care wall, he was staring at a hollow hole. A doorway and a tunnel.

Gaines eyes grew wide. The rest of us were impressed as he looked startled. Maybe a little more startled then Andor.

"How did you do that!?" Gaines asked in a raspy voice, desperate for an answer.

Andor, though, simply just shrugged, glaring at Gaines.

"I found the entrance," Andor informed us, calmly.

Andor peered around the corner and didn't take much more time to start going down the tunnel. Martha followed him, also bewildered.

"Well ladies and gents," Jordan sighed deeply. He then let go of Gaines to stand up and see how far the tunnel went like the rest of us. "Looks like I won't have to throw Mr. Initials in the caves river now."

I tipped my head, staring down the tunnel. It seemed to go pretty far, but there was a glimmer of light shining at the end.

"Thatst's disappointing," Wag muttered.

"I can't believe you let him go," Tucker whined.

Damn boy does a lot of whining.

No shit he let him go. What was Jordan supposed to do? Just wait around and have that guy waist more time. Meanwhile Hope sat in some room, probably being cut at bit by bit. No, D.M.G was so important!

Scratch that, answers about Mianite were important. Anything that had to do with the old world was important.

Honestly I believed that he couldn't deal with the fact that Mianite was an every dictator here.

Jordan didn't answer. He simply glared at the ground in front of him, taking one step at a time.

Tucker didn't appreciate the disrespect, like normal.

"I think there's a way to the room where they used to keep the mainframe," Andor spoke. He had decided he didn't have time for most of our arguing, and he ignored us half of the time.

"It has the most warding," Martha elaborated more. We were going on a completely wild limb. Gaines hasn't told us anything, so we weren't even sure if Hope was here. If she was even with Mianite. "I do remember when we visited with Andy and Alyssa. When this was still Dianite's."

"Why couldn't they just change the warding?" Sonja asked.

She held a lantern up awkwardly. The light didn't go far because Sonja didn't know what she was doing. Sonja never had to deal with light in the dark. She could see fine in pitch black.

"Warding doesn't change that easily. People can just reuse other people's warding," Martha explained with a little edge of laughter in her voice.

Sonja simply ignored that comment and continued on the path.

Everything stayed the same for awhile. The tunnel continued to be damp and cave water dripped onto us. Then the ground got a little warmer, and the air got a little less stuffy. The ground became dry.

We stopped at an alleyway. There were two metal doors. The one to the right could be easily opened, we just needed to push the heavy door hard enough. The other had a padlock holding it closed, but I could tell by the way Andor paled as her saw the locked door that we needed the left.

AND LIKE FUCKING NORMAL WE NEEDED A KEY.

Jordan sighed in disbelief. His heart sinking to his feet. "Shit," he breathed out. He threw his hand through his hair, which meant he was getting stressed.

"Calm down," Wag said quickly, peering down at the padlock. He then kneeled down at the left door, holding the padlock carefully in his hand. Everyone else moved out of his way and watched intently.

"It's just aluminum," Wag glanced back at us. He seemed genuinely grateful about what this lock was made out of, so maybe we could win.

"Yay?" I shrugged.

Wag groaned, and he then moved his eyes back to the padlock where he mumbled some words.

"What's that mean?" Jordan asked.

"It's means," Wag answered hastily. "-that with some time I could brake this lock without anyone knowing were here," Wag shrugged, then moved his eyes to Tucker, Jordan, Sonja, and me. He didn't seem to excited to say the next words that were coming out of his mouth.

"Well at least some of us."

"What-?" Sonja gasped. She folded her arms trying to keep her calm.

"You seem to be the best at distraction when it comes to gods." Wag raised his eyebrows, then hastily looked back at the lock like he was offended by his comment.

I motioned to the rest of my teammates. "He's not wrong."

"Okay," Sonja quickly nodded her head. "So we go through the right door and distract whatever workers are out there, and you can go save Hope and teleport."

"I'll try to teleport you all too. Some of the oil is still on your foreheads, so I might get away with it," Wag explained, fidgeting his hands. The same way Jordan does when he wants to build something new, or the way Hope gets when she wants to shoot her bow.

I glanced back at my team, and I tried to give the signal that said "let's go before her brakes the lock when guards are still behind that right door".

We all stepped in front of the metal door orderly fashion.

Tucker was the first to try to push it open, but of course we needed more man power then that. I then when to help Tucker, putting all my body weight onto the door. It ended up being a lot more difficult then you would think. Most of the time I just felt like I was skidding down the door and it wouldn't budge.

Jordan and Sonja saw how much difficulty we were having, and they tried there hardest too.

The door started to screech open. A bright white light shone into the cave from the single slit coming from the door. That slit got bigger and bigger and the tunnel got brighter and brighter. Soon we had wedged the whole metal door open, and it sat on the side of the wall.

The room was bland. White walls and a metal floor. From farther I could hear something boiling, and I could smell something bitter and toxic. The room was mainly empty except for one wood chair. A chair in which the unnatural white light fixtures decided to burn out.

On that chair sat the one person I didn't want to see. Mianite.

He didn't where a rob, or anything that signified he was a god, like back in Mianite. He wore light tan pants and a long sleeve shirt. Together they looked a little like a really odd jumpsuit. His legs had sharp edges that almost seemed to cut through the fabric, and his arms shook harder than my aunt Hilda's nightmare chihuahua.

His white beard was oddly cut, shaped into halfway around his face. When he stood up and faced us, I realized why. The other half of his face had been covered by a metal face. The same type of metal that was covering these very floors.

"My trap worked." He gave a lengthy smile that stopped halfway to his face, leaving his emotions at a perpetual smirk. "Like a moth to a flame. You're all very predictable."

Tucker opened his mouth to say something heroic and obnoxious, but then a loud clanging noise stopped him in his tracks.

"-Tucker!" Sonja screamed out before the metal door behind us closed. She was trapped out, and we were trapped in.

Tucker, Jordan, and me.

"I'm a little to excited," Mianite's smirk somehow got bigger.

I know Tucker thinks we need a leader, which is good, I fell in love with a leader. But I have that we are all capable of being our own leaders, or somehow finding a way to take charge. The rest of us, unlike Tucker, found a way to not have the desire to run everything.

This was one of those moments when I had to take charge.

My heart wasn't pounding. My brain wasn't aching. My breath wasn't racing or my thoughts weren't buzzing. I was prepared.

I turned from the metal door that had been slammed in my face. The boys could only distract Mianite for awhile. Only for awhile until they needed saved.

I counted how I still had with me. Andor, Martha, and Wag. Wag who knew how to open the door. It was just like the plan, except I wasn't with Tucker, Tom, and Jordan.

A little bit of panic.

I realized that Wag was blankly staring at the door, like everyone that was still in shock.

I snapped my fingers. "They can't distract a god for long!" I yelled, grabbing everyone's attention including Wags.

He zipped back into his thoughts and nodded his head quickly. I think I scared him a bit, but not enough for him not to be able to brake the lock. He bit his lip, and I thought he was going to jump up and down like an excited child if he didn't get that door open soon.

At least I knew the lock was taken care of.

In a minute or two the lock clicked open. I didn't have my attention to the other metal door whatsoever because I was trying to hear into the room Mianite had the boys. It stayed quiet in their, too quiet. I couldn't hear anything.

"C'mon Sonja," Wag spoke up. He grabbed me by the shoulder before I could get more worked up. I had to deal with the fact that I was trapped from them and that's it. I had to save another team member.

The room that the door opened to a room that had so much natural light coming into it that it didn't need the artificial lights at all. Windows stayed on each wall of the circular room, making such a change in the light level that I couldn't see right for awhile. It was a lot different then the dark tunnel we were just in.

I'm the middle of the room sat a glass cylinder that had gears and machines trapped in it. All the desks were empty except for the papers, mugs, and pencils that had been left. The light reflected off of the metal floor making the light even more blinding.

My eyes started to adjust better, and I could see more of the room. On the glass cylinder monitors covered about every inch of it. I could barely see the gears inside of it. But on said monitors, the location of the kingdom was marked with a red dot. On another monitor was the three red dots that Jordan said were crypts. On the last screen was the biggest dot of them all, and it looked like that dot was sitting right under us.

"Hope!"

Andor found her sitting on a chair. Her hands tied behind her back so tightly that her fingers were becoming purple. Her skin was more pale then normal, which was saying something, and when she opened her eyes they were bloodshot.

They had drugged her.

And of course they had tortured her. The most obvious and well waited detail.

She had deep cuts up and down her arms and legs and stomach, still dripping blood. The dress they forced her in had dried blood painted on it. Still she smiled a smirk even though I could tell she was ready to cry.

"Took you long enough." Her voice was horse and weak. She strained every word her doped up brain could comprehend.