“We're going after her, right?” Nicole asked. Miss Renee and Director Debbie had disappeared through the door towards the auditorium barely a minute ago. Sir Emma had been gone for less than ten.

“Duh,” Chloe said, “She needs us.”

“She shouldn't be out there alone,” Nicole agreed, “Even if she did it before, it doesn't mean it's safe.”

“We just gotta get out.”

“Well... nobody ever said we couldn't go out.”

“We're not allowed to just leave, Nic...”

“Why not? World ended. It's not school anymore.”

“But the door's guarded.”

“Door's guarded to keep people out. Nobody's forcing us to stay in.”

Chloe thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. Nicole wasn't wrong exactly, but she still had a bad feeling they were missing something.

“Woof.”

Right. There was no way anybody was going to not notice that Archie was missing.

Nicole shushed the giant tiger-dog, and he whined as he laid on his belly. How fast he was wagging his tail made a liar out of him, though; there was no way that tail was sorry!

Chloe headed for the door anyway, while Nicole coaxed her oversized war-mount to belly-crawl along behind them. Both girls had their shields and weapons and walked with purpose.

“Hey. Where're you two going?” One of the boys challenged them as soon as she touched the door lock.

“Out,” Chloe said.

“Who said you could?” the other guard boy stepped out.

“Who said we couldn't?” Nicole said, joining her sister and fully unlocking the door.

“All the teachers, duh!”

“We work for Sir Emma,” Nicole continued, “Not them.”

“She left you here,” the first boy said.

Chloe's eye widened. On her shoulder, Percy covered his face with both front paws.

Nicole's lips turned up in a growl that Archie echoed.

“Oh crud,” the first boy managed, starting to backpedal. He didn't get another word out before one of Archie's enormous front paws had him pinned to the floor. His growl was much bigger than Nicole's.

The second boy looked like he might run, and Chloe just said, “Don't. He'll chase you.”

That was enough. The second guard boy retreated behind his chair and waved at the door in what was almost a shoo'ing motion.

The twins held the doors for Archie, then exited right behind him. As soon as they were out, Ridley appeared and helped boost them into the saddle. He vanished with a double-right-handed salute, and they were off.

As they made their way back up the parking lot, Chloe gave her baseball bat a few experimental swings. There was no way she was going to reach any of the leaf-hounds on the ground from up there, but they did like to jump. Maybe they would jump into reach? It was better than Nicole's little axes, anyway... not that Nicole really needed them since she could just drop an angry puppy on anything that tried to attack her. Assuming she remembered to.

Archie stepped in a ground-mimic practically the instant they got onto the highway, making both girls shriek out loud, but he was too big for it to get its jaws around just like the last one.

Chloe still whacked it with her baseball bat a couple of times, even though she knew it wasn't going to hurt it enough to matter.

“Squeakers! Rip and tear!” Nicole shouted, pointing one finger dramatically. Two of her Seekers appeared and dove under the squirming petals of the ground-mimic to savage its main body.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Yeah! Get 'em!” Chloe echoed. As the ground-mimic dissolved into smoke, she thumped her bat against her shield to applaud. The Seekers vanished in their own little smoke-swirls a moment later, and Archie shook himself as if to get rid of the dust.

Both of the girls let out another high-pitched shriek as they, too, were vigorously shaken.

Archie whined plaintively as Nicole told him off for it.

Then they were walking again, Archie trotting easily between the abandoned cars. He kept his nose down, sniffing at the ground and occasionally hopping over a car when the scent-trail he was following changed lanes. Neither of the girls could tell what prompted those switches, but it seemed like Archie had a lock on Sir Emma's scent, so neither of them questioned it.

All of a sudden Nicole let out a shriek.

“What?” Chloe's eyes snapped forward.

“Sir Emma! A ground-mimic got her! Archie, go!”

By the time Archie took three bounding steps, the ground-mimic exploded and Sir Emma stumbled out of the smoke. They pulled up short, but she didn't look behind her. Just clanked a bolt against her helmet a couple of times and kept going.

“She's so strong!” Nicole whispered.

“Seriously!” Chloe whispered back, “Like getting grabbed didn't even slow her down. Just, chomp and then BOOM, splat.”

“Unstoppable.”

They kept going, and for a while there was nothing to see. Sir Emma had mopped up all the leaf-hounds in the area and left them nothing to fight. Not that either of the girls were really itching for it, but the points would've been nice.

Then Nicole whispered frantically, “Down, Archie, down!” and the dog hit the dirt, laying on his belly and looking up at her.

“What?” Chloe whispered back.

“Sir Emma's right up ahead, taking a break by the gas station! I didn't want her to spot us,” Nicole answered, both girls keeping their voices down.

“Why? We're not sneaking up on her.”

“Cuz we kinda are! If she spots us she'll make us go back.”

“She's not gonna make us go back. We're her squires!”

“Maybe, but... let's just be careful for now. We'll let her know we're here when we find her house. Then she'll have to come back with us if she wants us to go.”

“That makes sense,” Chloe nodded. Sometimes her sister did say smart things after all.

“Archie, yip yip,” Nicole said and the giant dog hopped back to his feet.

Sir Emma had moved on, but Archie went right back to work and soon they were on her trail again. It became even easier to follow a few minutes later when, after leaving the gas station, she had apparently torn the hood off a car and used it to plow for ground-mimics.

“Wow, was that her?” Chloe boggled at the scratches along the road.

“Gotta be; Archie's nose says so,” Nicole shrugged.

“Hey, look over there...”

Chloe was pointing at a leaf-hound skulking around in somebody's front yard. Two older folks – somebody's grandparents, maybe – were staring out the window at it. They had a look in their eyes like they were super scared of it but still couldn't stop looking.

Nicole swished a hand and one of her colorful puppies rushed over to engage it. In their usual fashion, the leaf-hound rushed into the fray in a suicidal charge. Just like the last time they'd done this, Nicole's lone Seeker ultimately lost, but this time it was even closer, and the leaf-hound bled out before the second Seeker could even get to it. As soon as it collapsed in a pile of leaves and guts, it popped into smoke, leaving the poor second Seeker with nothing to seek! It let out a sad howl before it disappeared too.

“Aww. Poor squeaker,” Nicole said.

“Seeker.”

“But they make squeaky sounds.”

“It's silly!”

“Pfft.”

Nicole stuck her tongue out at her sister over her shoulder.

So did Archie.

Chloe rolled her eyes at the both of them.

But then they were moving again. After waving to the old folks, she went right back to looking around for anything that might be a problem.

In his spot, curled around her shoulders like a scarf, Percy kept his eyes open, but he had that far-away look on his face like he was busy thinking about other stuff, probably the recordings of the previous games. He kept going back to that whenever she hadn't asked him to do something lately. The one time Chloe had ever asked him about it he'd said it was 'to give you your best chance of surviving, as is my duty.' He was a snooty dragon but he was still cute.

They heard the loud clattering noise when Sir Emma put her car hood down. As she started sneaking forward, so did they. Archie sank down and belly-crawled again, keeping to the road so the cars were between them and the front yards Sir Emma was sneaking through. They didn't really understand why she wanted to sneak up on her own house, but it was her business. They would follow her lead, and maybe Chloe would ask about it later.

Chloe was poking her head up over the parked cars to see what was going on when some guy got shoved out of the door Sir Emma was sneaking up on. A lady with a big stick and a knife followed him out and just kept pounding on him. Four, five times she whacked him or slapped at the iron hook he was wielding. Then she hauled off and kicked him! One foot up to her chest and BAM the guy went FLYING! Well, not really flying, but he did fall off the porch.

And a ground-mimic ate him!

Sir Emma and the knife-wielding lady didn't move to save him. They just watched!

“Archie, sic 'em!”

Archie lunged forward, barreling the now-full ground-mimic over and savaging the bulbous body of the thing until it popped.

The smoke cleared, leaving the pipe-wielding maniac lying on the ground, panting heavily... and looking up at Archie's snarling jaws.

“I don't know who these kids are,” knife-lady said, coming up along-side Archie, “But I think their message is the same as mine, and just as clear: fuck off or find out.”

Both girls let out a loud 'eew' as the guy actually wet himself. He crawled backwards on his hands and heels, leaving his metal pipe thing behind, until he was out from under Archie. Then he got up and ran, and nobody chased him.

“Uh... hi, mom...” Sir Emma said, coming up on Archie's other shoulder.

“THIS is your mom?”

“Emma, sweetie... who are your friends?” Knife-lady put on a big smile that, at least to Chloe, looked just as threatening as Archie's snarl.