Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

Distantly, Yakety Sax Plays

Kipo was too stunned and confused to move, but luckily, Fei Fei seemed used to this kind of stuff from Anne. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, Fei Fei had jumped forward, grabbing the back of Anne's vest and Kipo's sleeve.

"We aren't!" Fei Fei shouted, very quickly. She started pulling Kipo and Anne away, much to Anne's chagrin. "We're looking for Kris!"

"U-Uh, yeah, you're right!" Kipo suddenly snapped back to reality, and Fei Fei dropped her sleeve. "We can't afford to get sidetracked!"

Anne looked disappointed, but she didn't argue, and when Fei Fei let go of her, she followed along. Kipo patted her on the back.

"Don't worry, we can come back later if you want!" Kipo offered, and Anne brightened.

"Yeah!" she cheered. "Are you going to bet on me, too?"

'With what?' Kipo thought, but she just shrugged. "I'll... try?"

"Great." Kipo felt an urge to back away when Anne's face shifted into an evil grin.

Fei Fei led them down the length of the arena, and though Kipo kind of hoped they went through unnoticed, the confused yells of the audience and the pause of the sounds of steel clashing together didn't bode well for them.

"Down here!" Fei Fei called to them, drawing Kipo's attention to a gate she hadn't noticed before, one that seemed to slope down underground. Kipo stared at it. It was block with a chain linked metal gate, one that even Kipo was unsure she could break. But she transformed and raised her fist anyway, drawing it behind her. What exactly was Fei Fei's plan...?

"Kipo!" Fei Feu suddenly yelled out. "Get ready!"

"Huh, what-?!" Kipo stumbled, nearly falling on her face. She had to pull herself together! "I mean, yes! I'm ready!"

Kipo braced herself to punch down the door, but to her surprise, that wasn't exactly what her friend had been thinking. Fei Fei raised her arm and fired a previously unseen contraption, a sort of wristbow, but the thing fired from it wasn't the sort of arrow Kipo was used to seeing. It was an arrow with a cone on the end, and a flattened tip.

But it did its job. It sailed through the air, hitting some sort of lever. The gate before them started raising, and Kipo, Anne and Fei Fei ducked underneath.

"Kipo, close it!" Fei Fei ordered, and this time, Kipo didn't stumble. She jumped up, grabbing the gate, and slammed it shut. It clicked at the bottom, and didn't raise again, thankfully. But it wouldn't stay closed for long. When Kipo looked through the gaps of the gate, she saw guards like the one outside moving through audience, and the two combatants moving forward curiously.

Kipo winced. So much for going through unnoticed....

Fei Fei seemed to notice as well. "We should move on," she suggested. "And quickly. Do we remember which way Kris was...?"

Kipo drew her gaze away from the gate, shaking out her head. "It's... I think I do. Follow me."

Anne and Fei Fei nodded, and Kipo started forward. When the tunnel started to slope down, the sand shifted under her feet, and Kipo nearly slipped sometimes, but after a minute, the ground leveled out, and the three of them were able to walk much easier.

Kipo consulted the map in her mind. She was mostly decent with directions, and she'd learned a lot from Wolf when they were traveling, so she was pretty confident she knew where they needed to go. However, in the corner of her eye, Kipo say tunnels going off to her right, which according to the map of the prison in her head, didn't make any sense. But Kipo ignored them for now, she need to focus on finding Kris.