Peekaboo

With the boost of courage and hope his friends gave to him, Patrick began leading his group once again to Nemo's castle. Since they were past the hard part of getting to their destination, which was the maze, the rest of easy and smooth since there were no Sharks guards since all of them were either with Nemo or still behind in the maze. (Or so they thought...)

A few minutes later, they arrived at the entrance of the castle, which was of course surrounded by a moat, like any other castle. The only difference was this one had a moat full of boiling hot lava! The tops of the towers were dark and pointy and the whole place looked eerie and foreboding of dangers, but they had to go in and explore. It was the only way to find Jonathan and save him. And also get Tyler and Val.

"Uh-oh, now what?" Andrew asked, eyeing the obstacle with trepidation.

“I’m not going swimming in that!” Reilly commented, from the arms of Torey.

"No need to worry." Ariel extended her hand out towards the upright bridge that was against the opening of the castle. Her hand began to glow and the wooden bridge began to creak while slowly falling backwards, closer to the moat. Then it landed on their side of the land, connecting the land to the castle with a thunderous thud.

"Awesome!" Brad started racing over the bridge, but Patrick caught him instantly.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait." Patrick carried Brad back to the group in his arms, while facing his team; the honey badger began fidgeting in his arms. "Before we head in there, we must split up: Jamie, Ariel, and Brad, you guys go look for Tyler and Val. I'll go look for Tazer myself--"

“Yourself?” Sharp and Adam questioned in unison. “But you can’t--”

“I’ve got to do this alone. He’s my best friend and this whole thing is between me and Nemo. Plus, I’m not going to endanger anyone here. I’ve got to do this ALONE.”

"And what about us, eh?" Andrew snapped. “What are we going to do? Be dragon fodder? I’m not really comfortable with that Kaner, I like my life.”

"You guys, Andrew, Brandon, Sharp, Torey, Reilly, and Adam are my guards: You guys make sure that the coast is clear and fight off anyone who tries to get to us, yes, including the dragon. Sound good?"

Andrew grumbled but slowly nodded his head. Everyone else nodded their heads with agreement with "yes" and "okay."

"Courage and hope guys!! Have courage and hope! Okay? Alright, let's go do this thing!!" Patrick raised his fists in the air, finally dropping Brad onto the ground.

There was an uproar of approval that followed.

"Ugh, thank you!" The honey badger brushed himself off and raced across the bridge and into the castle. “I hate being manhandled like this...it is extremely degrading!”

Those who were chosen followed the badger in. Jamie and Ariel met up with Brad and split from Patrick on the other side of the bridge and vanished from sight.

****

Ariel was leading her group, Jamie, and Brad, looking for the ideal place someone would be kept hostage in. They passed through a dimly lit hallway made of stone. At the end of the tunnel, was an entrance that was curved at the top and led into a big room with a bunch of cells lined up in a ‘U’ shape around the interior. They paused in the hallway, as they spotted shadows moving inside the room. They all thought these were possible Shark guards, who weren’t still in the maze or with Nemo.

"Hmmm..." Ariel whispered to herself, as she gazed around the dim hallway. "We can't shout--it'll attract attention..."

"But we can--look!" Brad scurried into the room, throwing caution to the wind and excitedly climbed up a wooden door and peered into the small window. He let out a gasp. "Tyler! That's Tyler! Seggy!" He rattled the bars that were in the window.

“Brad!” Ariel hissed.

Tyler, who was laying on the cold ground, looked up slowly, seeing his friend. His eyes widened at the sight of his friend; he would've said something, but he had the cloth wrapped around his mouth still. Instead, he just let out a low humming noise that sounded pitiful and full of weakness.

"Don't worry, buddy, I'll getcha out!" Brad jumped back down to the ground, looking up at the princess, as she and Jamie walked in. "Can you open this door?"

"Of course I can." She held onto the door knob while the palm of her hand was glowing yellow, and soon the door was able to be opened up with ease.

"My friend!!!" Brad sped over to Tyler and jumped onto his chest; he slashed the cloth off of Tyler's mouth with his claws. He then hugged him as best as he could. Apparently the shadows that had been cast on the wall, hadn’t been the Shark guys, but rather a shadow of a struggling Tyler Seguin in the chains.

Tyler happily accepted his friend and tried to hug him, but the chains held him back. "Ugh..." He looked up at the princess, wearing a flirtatious grin.

Ariel giggled at the sight and ignored his look. "I'll fix that." She spiraled some magical red dust on the chains and they broke free, giving liberty to captive.

"Oh yes!" Tyler gave his honey badger friend a hug. "It's good to be free again! And to see you again!" He ruffled the honey badger's fur on his head. “By the way, who’s your beautiful friend there?” He nodded to Ariel.

“Typical Tyler Seguin,” Brad sighed.

“I’m Princess Ariel of Avondale, but I’m not much into dating thieves, sorry,” Ariel introduced with a stern look.

“Oh, okay.” Tyler looked back down at Brad.

"Hey..." Jamie poked his head in the room suddenly, since he was quite too large to fit in it. "...where's Val?"

"Val? Oh, the Russian?" Tyler stood up with Brad in his arms. "He's at the other room--the one next door."

"Well, let's go!" The reindeer then trots out of sight, heading towards the right side.

The rest followed him, closing the door to the empty cell behind them. Ariel opened the next door over with her magic once again. On the other side of the room sure enough is Val, who was chained up the same way as the other hostage. He was sitting on the ground looking incredibly depressed.

"Val!" Jamie exclaimed, trying to grab his friend's attention.

The Russian looked up at the reindeer with his big, blue eyes. "Jamie?" He asked in his usual thick Russian accent. "You here?"

"Yes, it's me!" The reindeer attempted to enter the room, but even only with one antler, he couldn't enter. "But I can't get in."

Val cocked his head to one side. "What happened to antler?"

"Long, long story there."

"Well, tilt head like this to get in." He tilted his head more, since it was already at an angle.

Jamie took his friend's advice and got in with ease. "Yay!" He trotted over gleefully to the Russian and nudged his furry cheek against Val’s cheek.

The rest entered the room.

Val gazed at them with confusion. "Who them?"

"These are my friends who helped me get to you!" Jamie exclaimed, looking down at the captive.

"Hi, friends," the Russian greeted. "I try to wave, but I can't because I got chain on hand and can't move hand."

Ariel used the same method she used on Tyler on get him free from the chains. "Now you can wave to us."

Val waved at them happily with a huge grin like a little kid.

"But Val," Jamie started with a business-like tone, "why did Nemo capture you?"

"Ohhh..." He slumped down. "...I did something bad...very bad."

"To Nemo?"

"To Nemo's дракон." (dragon.)

"Dragon?" the reindeer guessed.

"Yea, flying red thing."

"That's Nemo's dragon."

"Yea." Val nodded his head. "Yea, I did bad thing to dragon..."

"How?"

"I hunt one day and I hurt it with spear. It was accidental. I no mean it. It no die, but got hurted. It no fly, even though it try to fly when I see it; it lay there hurted on ground. I feel bad and go help out, but I guess Nemo see me hurt it and no liked. Now he get even with me..."

"So you injured his dragon?" Jamie asked.

"Yea. That why. It was accident and I sorry, but Nemo no listen to me."

"Ah..." he nodded his head. "Well, no need to worry about that because we're gonna getcha outta here! Get up, get up!"

Val got on his feet, stumbling a bit since he hadn't been on his feet for a while; he held onto the reindeer for balance. "Whoa!"

"Hop on me."

The Russian got on his friend's back. "Thank you for saving me." He turned to look at the princess and everyone else there.

"It's no problem," Ariel told her, waving her hand in the air. "Now we gotta get you guys out of this castle in case the Shark guards find us! Let's go!"

They then exited the room and headed back into the hallway, beginning to find their way out of the castle. But they halted at the end of the hallway, to Brad’s shrill and shocked gasp. Everyone spun to him.

“Where’s Tyler?” Brad gasped.

“Wasn’t he with you?” Jamie asked.

“He was, but he vanished.”

“That’s not good. Where did he go?” Ariel demanded.

“Why are you looking at me, I’m not his babysitter!” Brad growled, the fur rising on his shoulders from the tension.

“We have to find him!” Ariel exclaimed. “Come on!”

They launched into a search for the missing thief, fearing that Nemo or someone had seen them attempting to escape and had captured the young man again. But then why leave Val alone? Something wasn’t quite right, but in their panic, they didn’t think straight and continued to desperately look for Tyler Seguin.

Notes

Sorry this is up a little later than usual, but both of us writers have been super busy, but here's this one! :)
So, Brad's impulsive, isn't he??
And Val's just such a cutie...gosh...can he get anymore cute??
OMG, Where did Danger-Prone Tyler go...that silly Damsel in Distress!? XP
So, I did some stick handling today, cause it's nice and cold out!! And now my ribs hurt...but that's good right? Haha. But I was wearing Kaner's jersey...and well...it doesn't exactly look right, when you go to do a backhand and you fan on it first and on the second try it only goes a few feet ahead. Yeah...I need to work on backhands...but I think I can hit the puck or ball wide of the goal from the blue line. Whether said shot is 90 mph...I don't know. :P
Anyways...


Next up: Nemo vs Peekaboo (Part 2)