the battle has begun

Chapter 8: Close Call

[Your Name]'s  P.O.V

"Shall we start going?" Jaquelynn asked as she flipped out of the tree and landed on her feet without sweat.

"Thank you!" Katelyn praised, "I've been waiting for so long!" She complained, "We could have gone a lot sooner if it weren't for a certain someone." She glared at Travis, who just shrieked a bit and hid behind Dante. I rolled my eyes and sighed.

"Well we're all here now, so let's start going." We all nodded and started to advance forward.

***

It was a long and hard walk, but we made it to our destination. O'khasis. We started our journey at dawn, and now it was about dusk. The ten of us were hiding. We were close together, but too close that we would be seen. I looked at Dante and he looked back at me. He was doing some kind of weird hand gestures, as if he was trying to tell me something. I just gave him a weird face and told him to be quiet.

Jaquelynn and I had talked a bit of our plan beforehand and we had already started to put it to work.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" I asked.

"99% Sure."

"99%? Why not 100?" She shrugged.

"Not all plans work out, now do they?" I shrugged and grinned a bit.

"So what's going to happen now?"

"We need to slip up. There are ten of us, so there is only two possible ways we can do this. Pairs of two or we go in groups of five."

"I suggest we go in pairs, since going in groups of five is way to risky."

 "Good plan." She nodded, "Now who's going with who?"

 "We need people who can work together and have equal amounts of skill."

"Then we know Travis and Katelyn aren't going to work out." I snickered at her comment.

 "That's true, but if they set aside their emotions, I bet they will make a great team." She nodded in agreement.

"So who's with who?"

We decided that I was with Dante, Ash and Jace were together, Garroth and Laurance, Aaron and Travis, and Jaquelynn and Katelyn.

Ash and Jace were going to enter by jumping through the trees, Garroth and Laurance were going to meet up with someone, since Garroth knew someone, Aaron and Travis were going to sneak their way past the guards and through one of the gates, and Jaquelynn and Katelyn were going to distract them by entering with brute force. Dante and I were going to go through a secret passage way, through the walls.

There was a hole at the bottom of the walls, which we manage to fit through. We were quietly making our way through the shadows,when Dante spoke.

"Why do we have to take the dirtiest route..." He softly whined.

"Shh. We don't want to be caught, and this was the only other way to enter." My voice echoed through the hollow passageway. He kept quiet for the rest of the way. You could hear the drips and drops of the water that was flowing ever so slowly out of a few pipes.

After a bit more of walking, I could see a bit of light. Finally... The two of us walked through the small hole and pressed our backs against a  wall that kept us hidden.

"Hey!" I held my breath, as a small kid was coming closer to us, "Give back my toy!" I sighed in relief when he wasn't talking to us. I could hear Dante breathing a bit heavily, beside me. I poked my head out a bit, to check if everything was clear, and when it was, we both quickly dashed to a small alley. This wasn't my first time running around on O'khasis' grounds, but it still makes my heart pound.

We were both panting a bit.

"That was close..." Dante breathed. I nodded, since I didn't want to be too loud and attract people's attention.

"Let's go. We're meeting with the other guys at Zane's house."

"Zane's house?"

"Yes. That's the only place we could think of where no one will find us." (Let's just say that the whole explosion thing with Zane and Aaron didn't happen... They are still both alive.)

"Okay."

I looked out once again and when no one was looking I quickly ran to another hiding spot. Dante and I kept doing that until we made it to Zane's house.

"Are you sure this is his house?"

"Of course. I've been here many times." We were currently hiding in a small shadowed area, where no guards could see us. 

Once I knew there were no guards looking our way, I made a run for it, straight for the stairs of his house. I ran up them, with Dante on my tail, and opened the door and quickly shut it when Dante entered.

I guess a guard saw us, because I heard a guard yell after us.

"Hey! You in there! Open the door right now!" One of the guards yelled. Dante started to panic.

"What do we do?"  I was holding down the door, from all the angered guards from bursting in.

"Well... you could... help me..." I grunted. He jumped and quickly pressed his left shoulder on the left door and pushed against it hard.

"How... Long do you... Think we have... To hold this...?"

"As... long as it takes... For the others... To come back..."

"Oh Irene..." He cursed. Great this is how our plan has come to...