Stanley Pines, Our Hero (TEOC series #1)

The Revolution

Ford stared out over the never-ceasing waters, looking like he used to on exam day and he was worried he hadn't studied enough. 

"I had brought an inflatable raft with us, but that certainly won't work here," he said after a moment, sounding choked. "We would be drowned in seconds." 

He wasn't wrong there. I doubted even that sea serpent, Chrysalis in disguise or not, could've fared well in this lake.

"There's gotta be another way across," I insisted, scanning the shore laid out before us. "We didn't come this far to be stopped by some stupid lake."

"That's for damn sure," Bella agreed, shivering slightly. 

The three of us paced along the shore right before us, trying to find a way through the raging waves. There were no nearby trees or tree trunks, and the shore was littered with sharp, wet rocks, which discouraged us from getting too close to the lake. 

"This is ridiculous," Bella burst out suddenly. "We've come all this way, almost died countless times at the hands of monsters, and now we're gonna be defeated because we can't cross a damn lake?!" She sighed. "We could really use Perce right about now. He'd have no trouble crossing these waves."

"Yeah," I agreed wistfully, remembering the way the older teen had fought against that giant, and how he had gotten our tiny boat across half the ocean in a mere couple of days.
I glanced at Sixer, who was staring into the depths of the roaring waves intently.

"Whatcha thinkin'?" I asked him, recognizing his look of intense concentration that showed another overly complicated plan was being formed.

Poindexter was silent for a moment, before saying slowly, "If I am correct in my knowledge of the composition of the land in the Arctic Circle, then there might be a way to cross. An extremely risky way, but still a way."

"What are the chances of us dying during this brilliant plan?" I asked sardonically.

"About 92.736%," he replied, in full seriousness, without looking up. 

I glanced wide-eyed at Bella, whose face mirrored my concern. 

"Alright then," I said. "Tell us your plan to get us across this lake."

Almost absentmindedly, my brother pulled two devices that I recognized to be his magnet guns from his inner pockets. Seriously, how much stuff did that guy have in his jacket?

"What I have in mind," he began, "was using these magnet guns to pull up chunks of the crust that we can use as stepping stones to cross the lake. There are a lot of magnetic metals in the Arctic Circle, and I think it might just be enough to be attracted by the magnet gun's pull from so far away. Plus, I've been working on these magnet guns, and I've managed to increased each of their magnetic pulls to about 500 times its previous strength, which will be able to reach well into the earth's surface."

We stood silent while Ford continued to stare intently at the raging water before us.

"Sixer," I said slowly, "are you tryin' to commit suicide? 'Cause if you are, then I'm stayin' safely on this side of the lake."

Poindexter finally looked away from the lake to stare at me in a bewildered way. "Of course I'm not, Stanley. Why would I ever want to do that?" He looked between Bella and me. "So, are we doing it? Unless either of you two has a better idea?"

I glanced hopelessly over at Bella, whose expression said plainly that she didn't have any other plan to get across the stupid lake either. 

I sighed, rubbing my aching forehead. It felt like I was trying to keep a hurricane at bay within my own head. I knew Bill was pushing at my mind from within, trying to find a weak spot, waiting for my guard to go down, even a little bit.