Chapter 18: Epic Encounter

"Jade and Ethan, are you following us?" Amber asked. Both vehicles had come to a stop and parked in front of a little shed just north of the town of Blarg.

Ethan said sarcastically, "I kind of figured the whole right behind you for the last couple hours of driving would probably have been an indication." Both groups had completely exited the vehicles and were all standing close to an old rusty door. The door also had a keyhole in it near the door knob. "And besides you must have noticed us to take it upon yourself to launch dead weasels at us. By the way, you'll have to tell me where you got that launcher installed, something like that could be very useful."

Amber acted all excited suddenly. "I know! The guy that installed that usually does newspaper launchers for bikes of paperboys. He told me that cars are much better suited for such devices. He was able to add a little more firing power because of the more stable base my car provided. I'll have to have some choice words with him about the ammo not staying alive though."

Nikki interrupted. "We're all here for a reason, lets get on with it already." Nikki drew her katanas from their sheaths and stood at the ready.

Amber walked calmly over to Nikki. "Will you be patient, we're talking here." With that, she bonked Nikki on the head with a cardboard tube. Amber started to step back but Nikki was too fast, reducing the cardboard tube to ribbons with a couple of fluid movements of her katanas.

"Someone is a little antsy isn't she?" Amber said hurtfully as she tossed the stump of cardboard in her hand to the ground. "Luckily I have two" she added pulling another cardboard tube out from behind her and bonking Nikki on the head again.

Nikki groaned and re-sheathed her swords. "Fine, carry on with your 'little' conversation, I'll wait." She then proceeded to give as menacing a glare as she could at Amber.

"So can we borrow Suki and Tigerlily when we go inside?" Amber asked. She glanced over at Tigerlily who was somehow making a more menacing glare then Nikki was doing.

"I don't really think they're going want to help you any after Anna tried to send them to Zane's for a couple days" Ethan commented.

Anna looked dejected. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, but seeing as you managed to find them, it didn't work out as well as was planned. I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for your meddling cats." Anna's reflexes took over as she instinctively dodged a flying rubber duck hurled at her from off to the side. "Who threw that?!" she asked looking over in that direction where the three cats were all sitting innocently on the hood of the HUMV. Cleopatra pointed at Nikki with a paw.

Nikki seeing that Cleopatra was pointing at her spoke up again. "Cleo! That's not funny, I'm just over here minding my business and trying to stare down Amber, the last thing I need is to be blamed for something I didn't do. Anna don't listen to her, see that pile of rubber ducks on the hood with them, it obviously came from them." Suki picked up a rubber duck and nailed Nikki in the head with it without even breaking the slightest hint of an expression on her face. It was at this point that Tigerlily made a loud angry meow and backhanded Suki with her paw. "Thanks Tigerlily!"

While Cleo and Nikki were making faces at each other, Millie's curiosity got the better of her about Anna and Jade. Millie calmly grabbed Anna's hand and dragged Anna over next to Jade. The similarity was astounding. "I'm going to close my eyes and when I reopen them, I want you two to have mixed yourself up and I'll try to guess which is which." Millie then closed her eyes excitedly.

The sisters looked at each other. One grappled Millie while the other started to punch her in the stomach over and over again. Anna then said "Which one of us is beating the crap out of you?"

"Both?"

"So we going to go inside or what?" Amber asked. She walked over to the door and placed the key she had received from Ethan into the lock on the door and turned it. The door creaked open revealing a set of stairs leading down into darkness. "You know I'm pretty sure if I had leaned on this door, it would have broke, this seems so anti-climatic."

Ethan sighed. "Nobody believes in doing things by the book anymore. You get some epic key that opens an epic door that is reached by traveling great ...epic distances on a journey that is itself epic and paramount and profound and....." He pauses for a second. "Though I have to admit that the speeding here in vehicles probably cut a little bit of senseless random encounters out of the equation. What would have been like a 3 week journey took a couple hours. But still this is epic in and of itself, look its a door, and it had a lock that needed a key, and we uh had the key and we used it and it was epic and ......." Amber was tapping her foot impatiently. Finally Ethan added "Fine lets just go in."