THE SECOND FLOOR

26 FEBRUARY, FRIDAY, CONTINUED

We all froze just for the duration while the Warlock's Tower righted itself. Now where the hole used to be, was a mosaic of grey and white rocks. I guess the grey rock was from the dungeon downstairs. They must have gotten mixed up when we broke through.

"S***." Ben gritted, "He knows we're here."

"Up." I decided, "The Warlock is upstairs."

Which should've been the point where we all head up the stone staircase, and we would have too except that the room we were did turn out to be a trap afterall.

{Trap} Boo was kind enough to inform me a split second before the crystals above us started to chime.

"What the..." Barry muttered to himself.

It sounded like the crystals were playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

EJ chose to wake up at this moment, "Ehhhhh? Is this the after party venue?"

The what now?

Fluffy smiled, "This place is weird even for that kind of thing."

"Please wake up properly EJ." Ki smiled gently.

"Eihhhh!!!! K...k... Keys?" EJ jumped up to his feet, and then he caught sight of Ben, "Eeeeehhhhh!!!! Scary Beta is here too!?!? HOW?"

"Don't be mistaken, I'm the client." Ben decided smugly.

The what now?

"Pretty Alpha too?" EJ sounded like he was about to melt down again, "Ehhhh... Pretty Alpha! You shouldn't be here. Don't worry, I'll get you out of here!"

Next thing I knew, EJ had grabbed my by the wrist and was looking frantically about for an escape.

Ben grabbed my other wrist, "Stop it, dog."

I braced myself for a tug of war, but Ki stepped in and firmly removed EJ's hand from my wrist, "EJ, wake up."

"Yeah, before I really wake you up." Ben growled.

"I'm dreaming?" EJ gasped, "No way! Not again!"

What did he mean again?

"You're 99.5% not dreaming, EJ." Ink informed him.

Wait, then wth was the 0.5%?

"Ssssshhhh..." Cobra said.

Which didn't explain anything.

"Chill, EJ." Torque thumped EJ on the back a tad too hard, "We're safe now."

Urm... "Safe" would be debatable.

It seemed like Barry was the only one who could explain things properly, "EJ, listen to me carefully. We got caught by the warlock. Alpha Princess got us out. We're back on mission again, got it?"

"Oh whew." EJ breathed a sigh of relief, "Okay! You can count on me!"

Thanks, but you hadn't exactly been the most reliable member in our group, EJ. Even the humans were of more help. Okay, Wilhelm was helpful. Keanu and River... not so much - but at least they could walk on their own two feet.

"Eh? Keanu! Wake up!"

Ah, I would like to retract my last thought about the humans.

The voice was River's. He was currently in a pile of pillows shaking his friend, "Why are you sleeping at a time like this?"

"Torque! What the hell's wrong with you?" There was alarm in Barry's voice as he tried to stop Torque from falling over.

EJ bounded over to help, but Torque came crashing down onto the stone floor.

"Eiieeeaaahhhh!" EJ shrieked.

Fluffy pulled him out from under Torque.

"He's out like a light." Barry said, and then he yawned and sat down next to Torque's fallen torso, "Looks like we won't be going anywhere for a while..."

And then he yawned again before his head dropped down.

"The crystals!" River shouted.

"We must destroy the crystals, Alpha." Wilhelm managed to say with some difficulty, before stumbling forward.

Oh...right. The crystals which had been chiming quietly in the background.

Yawn... so sleepy.

"Goddess!" Ki's voice was fading away... should I be worried? But now I could smell Ki close to me. I'm okay. Ki's here. Wait, but who turned off the lights? Oh, my eyes are closed. Okay, that makes sense... I'll just take a nap.

The stars are singing again, but this time wordlessly, like very tiny chimes. I know the words for this song, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star..."

CRASH!

There was a growling, and a smashing, and then more growling.

Ben's in a bad mood. I wonder what happened. Did Tim do something? That's weird... why were Tim and Ben in my room? I wanted to sleep some more, but the wolves around me were making such a racket. I turned my face into my pillow... just five more minutes. That's weird. My pillow smelled like Ki...

Something crashed. Something loud.

Maybe Ben was just throwing a tantrum in the Lorent's Alpha House again. Why was I in Alpha James' house again?

"Bunch of lazy b****es!" Ben growled, "Wake up you lazy mo..."

"Mind your language, beta." My pillow said.

"Shut up dog. It's not like she can f***ing hear me." Ben snarled at my pillow, "F***ing old geezer, f***ing with us. I'm gonna f***ing kill him. Kick the f*** out of him. That old f***er..."

It was Ben's voice, but for a genius brainchild, shouldn't he know more cuss words than that? Hahahaha...

"Wake the f*** up!" Ben snarled.

I heard the heavy thud sound, and then someone groaning from the impact, "Scary beta... you hurt me."

That was Fluffy. What was Fluffy doing at the Lorent's? Wait, why was I at the Lorent's? I thought we were at the warlock's tower?

My pillow started to float. It was even more comfortable now, like sleeping on a floating cloud that smelled like lemon oil and Ki.

"What happened? Is pretty Alpha alright?" Fluffy asked.

"Why is she still sleeping?" Ben asked.

My pillow shrugged, "Perhaps she is tired, beta."

"Did we all fall asleep?" Barry sounded bleary.

Torque grunted, "I think I slept at a bad angle."

I heard a cracking sound.

"Whoa big guy." Barry laughed, "Don't break yourself."

"Alright. We're all up." Ben seemed to have calmed somewhat, "Let's go knock some sense into that old geezer."

"Eh? But...but...its not right to fight..." This was River, "We are just here to return the stone..."

"We WERE just here to return the stone, but now he has officially p***ed me off." Ben growled lowly.

My pillow began ascending the stairs with many footsteps.

"Cobra and EJ, scout ahead." Ben ordered.

"Yes, beta." And then like the mist they disappeared. The only sounds were of the footsteps continuing up the stairs, my pillow floated among them, and I felt myself drift back into a peaceful nothingness.

"Scary Beta!" EJ's voice called from above, "You've gotta see this. It's crazy up here."

"Like crazier than just now?" Barry asked.

"If its another f***ing enchantment, I'm going to shred that old geezer." Ben growled under his breath. Funny, why was Ben next to my bed?

Poor Warlock.

Oh wait! The Warlock! WTH! Why was I sleeping? Weren't we on a mission in the Warlock Lands?

I sat up in my bed and flared, except it wasn't my bed.

"Whoa... alpha!" Barry flattened himself on the wall to avoid being stabbed by my hair. He was over-reacting really. My hair wasn't even in its metallic form!

Ki nearly dropped me in surprise.

"Watch it, dog. Don't drop her!" Ben turned around to scold.

"A thousand apologies, beta." Ki smiled gently.

I let my hair fall back and Ki put me gently back on my feet. Our whole team (sans EJ and Cobra) had stopped on the stairs, we were pretty high up. It was weird, when I looked down, it was pitch black. I could not see the pillows or white stone any longer.

"These stairs... it feels like they go on forever." River complained. The humans were lagging behind us, but it seemed like they had just caught up.

"I believe we're nearly there, Prince River." Wilhelm said soothingly, "The scouts have reached the next floor."

OMG... if this next floor was another stoopid enchantment, I think I'm going to chi-ka-boom.

"It's just one thing after another...and now these stairs" Keanu complained aloud, "It's like the warlock is purposely trying to wear us out!"

Now that Keanu said it, I started to wonder if he were right. Except for delaying us, these traps weren't really lethal or anything. They just made us walk and run and climb from one trap to another. Why would an all powerful warlock put in so much effort to tire us out? He was like Flynn with magic. Now that was a scary combination.

But with that said and done, I couldn't help but feel rather confused about the Warlock's intentions towards us. If he wanted us dead, he was really doing a bad job at it. And didn't he want his stone back? Why was he making it so hard for us to return it?

"Crazy old geezer." Ben grumbled.

Yeah, maybe he was exactly as Ben called him, just a crazy old geezer.

"You're finally awake, Sam." Ben said gruffly and stood back to allow me to pass him on the stairs, "Lead the way, Alpha."

I can't believed I slept, but the nap did me good. Okay, I might have morning breath now. Eating raw gyaara and sleeping without brushing my teeth wasn't good for my oral hygiene. I took the last few steps up to where EJ was waiting for us. He was standing on a narrow platform. There was a door behind him.

"Hoi, hoi, pretty alpha!" EJ bounced up and down, "You're up!"

Did he mean I was finally awake, or that I was finally up the stairs. I nodded wordlessly, trying to keep my morning breath a secret from the wolves around me.

EJ bounded to the door, "Cobra's scouting around inside... you won't believe it."

And he was right. When EJ pushed opened the door, I was so surprised, I gasped - morning breath and all.

We were back in the forest.

"S***! I'm going to kill that old geezer!" Ben was boiling mad all over again.

"Now, now, beta." Ki smiled, "If you're going to be like that, its no wonder the warlock is avoiding us."

Was this how the warlock avoided people? Couldn't he just avoid us like a normal person and pretend he wasn't home or something?

"That's not possible!" River was completely dismayed, "How did this happen?"

"Calm down." Wilhelm reasoned, "There must be a logical explanation for this."

Usually, I'd agree with Mr Sensible, but we were in the Warlock Lands and I'm not sure if you noticed, but NOTHING MADE SENSE HERE! (#ihatewarlordland)

"Sssshhhhh..." Cobra dropped down suddenly from above us. It was his usual move, but I had forgotten his stealth ability so I nearly kicked out his teeth.

Luckily Boo recognize her own wolf and retracted the flying kick and pulled back instead. Ben growled, "Cobra report."

"Sssshhhh... " Cobra reported, "We're on the second floor of the tower."

No way! How could it be possible to keep an entire forest inside a floor of a tower?

Cobra wordlessly pointed upwards, "Sssshhh..."

So we all looked up. The trees were laced tightly together so we couldn't even see through the canopy, but there was a small clearing at the door and if we looked up, we could still see the white stone ceiling high above us.

"Well at least we weren't transported to some tropical island or something." Barry looked relieved, "That would be bad."

Yeah, but could warlock magic do that? Like transport us across the sea?

Ink inspected the nearest tree, "Samanea saman"

What now?

"Also known as Monkey pod tree or Rain tree." Ink explained, "It is native to tropical forests."

Ah. Okay. I took my time to figure out how to apply this information.

The trees were weird though. The roots were huge and stuck out of the ground, and like the roots, the branches spread out widely. Such huge trees, I had never seen a tree so large that it took up the whole sky, but their leaves were so tiny in contrast, about the size of a fingernail.

The sounds in the forest was weird too - I could not recognize the call of the birds, were they even birds? What kind of creatures would make those sounds?

Oh, and it was humid and hot... Felt like one of those rainy summer days where the air felt sticky on my skin. Grrrr... wth was this place?

"So the second floor of the tower is a tropical forest?" River was probably the first to accept this ridiculous circumstance as reality, "I guess we just need to find the stairs up from here."

Yeah. I guess. I mean, what else could we do?