Turning to Stone 3: Acceptance (Rewritten)

Chapter 4: Setting Sail

Four days left.

"Here, follow me. I've got something to show you, but you can't say a word." Basilio explained, leading Ephex behind the castle. The wubbox nodded silently, gasping when they noticed the ship. "How- You built a skyship?"

"I didn't. Mooper did. Mooper? Chomp? Where are you?" Basilio looked around, but there was no sight of the young monsters.

"Roar! Get back, evil wubbox!" A tiny t-rox charged out of seemingly nowhere, butting his head against Ephex's leg. "Aww, how adorable!" They cooed, unfazed. "I'm not adorable! I'm big and brave and strong and fierce! Just like Basilio!" Chomp let out another small roar.

"That... is my younger brother." Basilio said with the sigh of an older sibling that has had to put up with many of their younger sibling's antics. "You never told me you had a brother!" Ephex exclaimed. "You never asked." Basilio replied with a shrug.

Mooper appeared soon after. "Chomp, that is a terrible battle strategy. Charging directly in with no plan will get you nowhere." She chided him. "Well, the wubbox is here! Basilio! Why is the wubbox here? They're gonna find out about our secret plans!" Chomp turned to his brother with a hurt look.

"Relax. Ephex is on our side." Basilio explained. "They're helping us zap eggs, and they don't like the Council Leader either."

"To be honest, a lot of Wubboxes don't like her. She's just... scary." Ephex looked away, tapping their fingers together with small, metallic clangs. "I don't like her either. I wanna bite her!" Chomp said, doing exactly what he was named for and chomping down on the air. Beats rang out with every bite.

"I'm sure we'll get our revenge on her soon, but right now, we're just trying to complete Jolthead's mission. Ephex, follow me. Don't touch anything." Basilio walked back the children and the ship, heading towards the shed with the Wubbox on his tail.

"It's kind of cluttered in here." Ephex observed. "I'm aware. Jolthead calls it 'organized chaos'." Basilio chuckled. "The statue's in the back room."

Mooper and Chomp made their way into the shed behind the first two, and the former of them had already made her way over to the large piles of notes scattered around. "Impressive. There's so much knowledge here!" She gasped.

Chomp and Ephex were equally fascinated by the statue, with Ephex reaching out to lightly pet the statue's bird-like mask. They pulled back their hand before Basilio could notice. "Alright, you've seen the statue, let's get out of here before someone accidentally breaks something." Basilio said to the group, looking right at Chomp. The young dinosaur whined, but obeyed his brother. Ephex and Mooper looked equally disappointed, but Basilio managed to get everybody out of the small shed without damaging anything there.

"How exactly are we going to wake that thing up?" Ephex asked. "I'm not sure, Jolthead's notes didn't say anything about that. I'm going to go on the ship and bring the statue to Electric Island as soon as we've got all the eggs here, zapping more eggs along the way. You're welcome to come with me if you want, we could escape from the Council Leader."

Ephex looked at the ship, anxiety showing clearly on their face. "N-No thanks, heights are..." They didn't finish, they didn't need to. Basilio gave a nod of sympathy.

"I wanna come! I wanna come!" Chomp jumped up and down, although he didn't jump very high. "No Chomp, you can't. Same goes for you Mooper." He looked at the Fwog, who only responded with a muttered "I didn't want to go anyway."

"Why not?" His brother whined. "Because it's too risky. Zoe and Ephex will take good care of you while I'm gone, I promise." His words did nothing to ease Chomp's sadness.