A Daring Mission

Chapter XII

LUKE

When I awoke, Shanna was hugging me, and all of my friends were around me. Naturally, I questioned Shanna's decision to hug me. When I did so, everybody stared at me weirdly for a second.

"Why are you all looking at me like that?" I asked, a little creeped out.

That's when the excitement began. Cheering, whooping, cries of, "You're back!" and all that jazz. "Yes... I'm back," I said, still unsure of what was going on. "Where have I been?"

"We'll make sure to explain it to you on the way home. It's kinda complicated," Sam laughed.

"Wait, how far are we from home?" I asked, looking around.

Ariana closed her eyes for a brief moment, then reopened them and said, "Approximately 45 minutes by walking. So we should probably get going soon."

"Today was quite the adventure," Heath laughed. I just shook my head in confusion. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

"But, we accomplished yet another task, and for that, we should be proud of ourselves," Elle smiled.

"There's so many things I would like to know..." I muttered to myself.

"Oh, don't worry, Luke. We'll tell you all about it," Shanna said.

"Well, then let's get going. The sooner we get home, the better," I suggested.

"Follow Ariana, everyone!" Sam instructed. As we began walking, he nudged me in the shoulder and told me, "It's good to have you back, buddy."

"Okay then."

ISABELLE

Music: Staff Roll from Gradius ReBirth

"So, let me get this straight: I was kidnapped by some French dude named Golgaku, hypnotized to be his slave, and then you guys came for me and we took you all captive?" Luke asked, after we had explained everything to him.

"Yep. That's pretty much it," I said.

"He was sure a crazy man," Sean muttered.

"Well, that still doesn't explain one thing," Luke said. He then turned to Shanna and asked, "Why were you hugging me earlier? You've never done that before."

She began to blush, but only a little bit. "Um... your hypnotized self was kinda in love with me."

"Jesus Christ," Luke sighed.

"It was pretty funny," Quavando laughed. Luke shook a fist at him, and Quavando immediately stopped laughing.

"So, how'd you get me back?" Luke asked after that.

"Well, we tried to dehypnotize you, but we didn't have the proper resources to do so," Sam explained.

"Huh. So what happened after that?"

It was now Shanna's turn to speak. "Well, we escaped the mansion and you followed us, because of me. Then we were taken to the volcano and you saved us. I hugged you as thanks, which somehow magically transformed you back to normal."

"That's weird," Luke said to himself. Then he shrugged it off and we walked in silence for about ten minutes or so. Then Sean decided to bring up, "Elle got stuck in a door."

"Sean. Shut up," Elle said sternly.

"Oh, how'd that happen?" Ariana asked.

"I do not want to talk about it." No one said anything about it after that. Finally, after what felt like hours of walking (but was only 45 minutes), we came across the familiar streets of our hometown.

QUAVANDO

Music: Ending from Gradius Gaiden

Once our location seemed to become more familiar to us, we let out yet another big whoop. Some screamed, "Finally!" while others fist pumped.

"Y'know, that really didn't feel like a day. It's only 5 in the afternoon," Heath smirked.

"I know! Now, should we go back to our own homes?" Abbey asked.

"I thought about that," Sam began, "and I say not yet. We should probably go back to Heath's house and clean up, since our get-together was supposed to end three hours ago."

"Fair enough," I said, and everyone else nodded.

"Sam, Why do you call it a get-together and not a party? Just curious," Shanna asked.

"I don't know. Party sounds so... informal. Now let's get a move on, my friends."

And with that, we took about a 10 minute walk from our current location over to Heath's house. When we finally arrived, Ariana used her mind power to open the door from afar (not sure why), and we all ran inside and flopped on either a couch, a chair, or the floor.

"What a day," Elle sighed, her head lying next to Sam's, her hand in his. Several other people nodded in agreement.

"Y'know what I think?" I suggested. "We've had a fun day as it is. Why stop now? We can have fun while cleaning!"

"Aw, hell yeah!" Sam said.

The next half hour was us having fun while we picked up our trash, food crumbs, and even vacuumed. Some of us used our powers to aid us. For example, while dancing around, Shanna picked up couches while Abbey drew food crumbs towards us, and then she threw them in the air and I used my dragon abilities to burn them.

Right after we finished cleaning, Luke ran in from outside and yelled, "Guys! Come out, quick!"

We did so, and the first thing that came to our attention was planes flying overhead. The sun was setting in the sky. The planes began spitting out smoke, and using said smoke to spell out letters. The final result was:

"GREAT JOB YET AGAIN! MR. BUTTON"