THE CAPTURE

They looked down at the paper and caught some glittery patterns and figures on it. Six took it up and saw that the patterns had resurfaced, but they couldn't tell for sure where they were.

Expresso traced his hands on the paper to a woods close to a water fall and he saw the danger skull on the woods. He took off his hand immediately.

"There should be danger lurking around here," Expresso said to them.

They all looked around in fear.

"How did you know that?" Itsuki said.

"Thought you were looking into the map with us," Expresso said.

Itsuki looked well this time and saw what everyone saw. He gasped. "But here doesn't look like it holds danger. I don't hear funny sounds either."

"Then what's with the danger skull?" Marie said.

"I think we've made much noise here. We should thread carefully and silently out of this place," Launa said, wanting to move, but immediately, a figure descended from one of the trees and snatched her back up.

"Hey!" Expresso yelled.

"What just happened? Where did Launa go!" Trevor yelled down the woods, while Glowie kept snarling around.

While everyone was agitated over what had happened, three more figures descended, took Trevor, Expresso, and Fern out.

Itsuki transformed immediately and gnarred at the flying figures, while Kahil and Six cocked their guns and began shooting the beams sporadically, but nothing was brought down.

"Where did they go to?" Six said.

"We need to find them right now, before any other thing," Marie said.

"So how do we do that?" Kahil said.

"This is all messed up shit!" Six said angrily.

Itsuki's growl began to quell gradually till he became human again. "They should be up in the trees," he said, his chest rising and falling.

"That's a dumb thought, no way," Six said.

"Don't know if glowie here could help out," Marie said.

They looked down at Glowie and saw her tensed, her threatening snarls had reduced to sorrowful whimpers.

Marie pitifully knelt before her and gave her a warm hug. "It's alright. We will help you find her." She assured her and got up. "We need to find a way around. Six, take a look at the map to see if there's anything more you could find there."

Six looked into the map, and on the woods close to the falls, he saw broken lines leading to four places out of the woods. Each line was labelled with a cardinal point -- N, E, W, or S.

"There are more than one way leading out of the woods," Itsuki said.

"Definitely we aren't going towards the fall," Marie said.

Glowie began sniffing around.

"I think Glowie has something for us," Itsuki said.

"Maybe she smells her mistress," Marie said.

Glowie sniffed for a moment and dashed towards the North-East direction of the woods.

"Come on! After her," Kahil said, running after Glowie, and the others joined.

Glowie led then through the arrays of trees in the woods that looked just the same, but the finesse with which she cornered into paths told she knew where she was headed.

They finally got to a place in the woods where they could see a long, black tent, and in front of the tent were Fern, Expresso, Trevor, and Launa, all tied hands-behind, sitting on the ground. And before then was a man in black clothes squatting before them with his palm held out to Fern, while three others moved around with guns.

Glowie wanted to run to meet Launa, but Kahil held her back, and she was smart enough to understand why.

They paid attention to what the man squatting was saying to them, but they couldn't hear, until they heard Trevor say in a loud voice.

"How did you guys know we're with the serum, who directed you to us?"

The man snorted and got up, pulled out a gun from his belt and pointed it at Trevor.

Marie began to quiver where she was, but Six calmed her down.

"Now tell me where the serum is or I pump some bullets in him," the man said audibly. "Tell me."

Immediately, Fern took out the gun containing the serum from his pocket and shakily handed it to him.

"But how did these guys know we are with the serum?" Six said.

"We don't even know them," Itsuki said.

"I think someone that knows us is behind this," Six said.

"And who knows the direction we were going?" Marie said.

They paused for a moment and hung pairs of cold eyes on each other.

"Lady Jona!" They all said in unison.

"But how sure are we she's behind this?" Marie said.

"Look, this is the plan," Six said, calling them all together.

"At first, we linger around until it's dark, then we go set our friends free, after that we stealthily monitor their moves and communication to know the root of this," Six suggested.

"What if it's the dwarves?" Itsuki said.

"We shouldn't call names for now, let's just do this and be certain on who's behind this," Six concluded.