Chapter 80:

Sleeping Allies

"You coming? They're down the hall." Kenzo said, looking over his shoulder, waiting for me to follow him.

"Oh, yeah," I said, coming back from my mind wandering.

I followed after Kenzo, realizing for the first time that I didn't with 100% certainty know where we were.

"Hey, teach... where are we exactly?" I asked.

He stopped in front of a door and knocked. "You don't recognize it?" He threw the door open and stepped aside for me to pass.

I walked inside to see that, sure enough, it was Kenzo's office. The familiar amazing couch was there only this time it was occupied with two different occupants. Dowser and Netta were curled up beside each other and had obviously been asleep but, upon hearing Kenzo's knock had begun to stir.

Then they saw me.

"Darcy!" Netta broke into a huge relieved smile and leapt off the couch and hugged me tight.

I patted her on the back, having to fight to keep my footing. I laughed, "I'm okay, I'm okay."

Dowser's reaction was a bit more chill. He was still sleepy, wiping sleep out of his eyes with one hand and with the other he reached over and pat my head. Glad you're okay, Darce," he said, followed by a huge yawn.

"I'm glad we all are," I said. "That was almost as traumatic as the first ghost."

"I did not expect to find out that ghosts were a real thing when I woke up yesterday," Kenzo said from the doorway.

"Even you didn't know about it?" I asked, assuming that he could have been privy to some deeper Interverse secrets.

"I assumed there was... Something out there. The more... you learn what I teach," he was choosing his words carefully in front of the other two. Despite all we'd went through together, I definitely understood. "...the more you get a sense of some energy out there that doesn't seem to be coming from anything or anyone directly."

"Wow," Dowser said. "You really seem like you're a wise old powerful dude—are you a Jedi or something?"

"Or something," Kenzo said, his eyes sparkling with bemusement but to Dowser and Netta could have come across as a show of magic.

"Coooool!" Dowser said. "You gotta teach me!"

He bounded to his feet, doing a little anime fist bump kind of pose, almost hitting the ceiling with his long arms.

Netta blushed and pulled at his shirt. "Sit down! Sorry about him. But... Uh..." She twiddled her fingers together. "Could you teach me too?" She was trying so hard to hide her interest and excitement but there was no containing it.

Kenzo scratched his chin. "Perhaps."

"Really!?" We all said at once.

Kenzo laughed. "Yes. I can already tell you both have potential. The only issue I have... Is that the last time I let on two students at once my whole life was sort of turned upside down."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Everyone stared at me. I laughed nervously. "Uh, sorry? At least it's not boring, right?"

Kenzo just smiled. Dowser started to reenact all the cool Jedi moves he was going to learn while Netta pretended not to care but her stoic expression would break everytime he ran by her, making lightsaber noises and force choking... himself?

I was about to comment on that when I was beaten to the punch.

"You're not supposed to use that move on yourself, dude."

We all turned around. Kenzo had stepped away from the door, allowing a new visiter to fill his spot. A very sleepy but very much alive Stephen. He stretched and yawned.

"What's everybody looking at me for?"

I hugged him. Didn't care about embarrassment or awkwardness—it had to be done. He was taken aback for a second, but eventually hugged me back.

"I'm okay, Darce. Really."

I pulled back to look at him and he smiled at me, totally normal, except that his hair was a bit messier than usual.

He could tell I wasn't fully satisfied. "No brain damage, really."

"Oh, so the ghost fixed you then?" I said, grinning.

The whole room laughed—even Stephen. And, for a moment, we were safe from ghosts and masked men who had a hunger for salmon people. We were just a group of friends, happy to be alive.

#

The peace didn't last. After we had goofed off for a while and welcomed Stephen back to the waking world—a question hit me.

"How the hell did we all end up here?"

Dowser and Netta looked at Stephen so I did, too.

"I changed my respawn to Kenzo's office."

I raised an eyebrow. "Why would you do that?"

"I figured that it would be a slim shot for me to escape from that world with Sam unscathed so as a precaution I warned Kenzo about what I was doing—" Kenzo grumbled. "Okay, I gave him a really shitty half lie, and he said to make his office the spawn point in case they tracked me or something. The problem was, I didn't know it was a no respawn zone before I'd already gone too far."

"Damn, they didn't tell you?" I asked.

"No one told me," Netta said.

Dowser nodded. "Ditto."

"That's super fucked up," I said. "I met someone who has done a lot of obsessive research on the masked group and he'd gathered enough info to know a little of what awaited."

"And you went anyway!?" Stephen asked, shaking his head.

"Yes, yes I did. Sam needed me. And, yes, as we all know, I'm a dumbass. But enough about me, that still doesn't explain how everyone else got here."

Kenzo stepped forward to fill in the blanks. "Stephen arrived, unconscious and in quite a bad way. After stabilizing him and ensuring nothing was wrong, I checked the entrance logs to see where he came from. I teleported into the writing nook, not sure what I would find."

"And that's when you met our lovable mugs, right??" Dowser smiled real big.

"He asked us a lot of questions," Netta said. "We weren't sure he was legit and I was almost ready to fight him when he kept trying to get near you, Darcy."

"But then he did some mind tricks, healing our wounds like it was nothing!" Dowser said, sounding like an excitable puppy. "I convinced Netta that it was okay."

"More like manhandled me." She crossed her arms and glared at him.

"It was the right thing to do, right?" He gestured to the room.

"What do you know about what happened, teach?" I asked, hoping I wouldn't have to be the one to tell him the whole story.

"I know everything. Netta and Dowser filled me in pretty well I think. You've not been staying out of danger very well, have you?"

I laughed. "I did that for the first 25 years of my life. I think peaceful days are behind me."

Kenzo nodded, the beginnings of a smile starting. "I think they are behind us all."

The gang all agreed, no one sounding particularly upset about it. More like... excited.

"I also hear that things are not settled yet. You have one more battle before Sam is safe."

The excitement stopped growing, decaying to dread. At least, that's what it felt like to me. The thought of what still remained to do to save Sam, me fighting on my own... It was hard to be excited about that.

But I was not giving up.

"Before I got teleported into the first ghost attack, I was formulating a way of covering my weaknesses."

Kenzo snapped his fingers and three chairs slid out of the floor, facing the couch. He took one of them and gestured for us all to sit.

"Let's hear it, then. I understand that we don't know when you will be summoned. Best tackle this quickly," he said.

I sat down in the middle of the circle, Stephen to my left. And Netta and Dowser took up the couch, of course. Which didn't make me jealous at all, nope.

Everyone sat quietly, just staring at me, waiting for me to tell them my plan. I didn't really have anyone to bounce ideas off of, I was just kind of going with whatever sounded right, I'd never actually voiced what I had in mind. If this didn't work... What then?