Walking down the rather wide dirt path towards the Eastern Blue forest, Janey thrill fully hopped, skipped, and flipped around to walk backwards down the path with the occasional moon walk, kicking up quite a lot of dirt as she went along.
"Hey," she said, slowing down, " Why do you think everyone thinks we're in love with each other?" She asked, thinking back to all the teasing everyone had done back in town.
"I don't know," Yoshinoia said with a shrug, " Maybe it's because we're always with one another, who knows?"
"Yeah but when does that turn into a warm and fuzzy relationship?" She asked with a disgusted look on her face as she put a new sugar stick in her mouth.
"Wh, I don't know. Why are you asking me any how?"
Janey shrugged, changing gears from a slow stride to skipping. "Well I thought you might know or something, seeing as how you're older and all."
"Ha!" Yoshinoia Shouted enthusiastically, pointing an accusing finger at his younger cousin. "You finally admitted that I'm older than you!"
"Hey, I never said you weren't older than me, you just don't act older." Janey said pointedly, hands leisurely clasped behind her neck.
"Hey!" He shouted, his face burning up like a bonfire, "That's not true at all! Take it back!"
"She doesn't have to, besides, you know she's right." Said a snarky little female voice from the tops of the green and blue trees.
"Nobody asked you, She-sho!" Yoshinoia shouted back.
"Po-po-she-sho~." Janey called melodically with a taunting smile.
"Hey! Stop mocking us!" She-sho yelled angrily, spiking up her pale pink spines which stood out against her dirt brown scales.
"No!" Janey said gleefully, a wide grin spreading from ear to ear. "But all jokes aside, do you plan on coming with us, She-sho?" She asked the dragon girl as she fluttered down from the trees with her twin brother.
"Nah, I just came to make sure my idiot brother didn't get lost." She-sho said as she and her brother, Po-po, morphed into their human forms.
"Hey! I'm not an idiot!" Protested the blue haired boy to his sister.
"But you are directionally challenged." Janey said pointedly, pointing an accusing finger at her young friend.
Po-po made a weird face that somewhat resembled a frown but made him look more like a pale orange frog with green eyes and sapphire hair. He shook his head and his expression switched back to a smile. "So when do we get to go to the temple?" he asked enthusiastically.
"In a thousand year." Janey smirked.
Po-po looked defeated.
"I'm joking," Janey said, patting her little friend's head with a laugh. "We're going right now.
"Yay!" He exclaimed with excitement. "And then we get to see Gaia and Aunty Danny on the way right, Sparky?"
"DON'T CALL ME SPARKY!" Janey shouting menacingly.
"Yes, sir!!!" The other three fearfully shouted in unison.
"EXCUSE ME? But last I checked I'm a girl!"
"Y-yes ma'am!"
...
"It's pretty loud today." Janey said, clenching her jaw to hold on the the sugar stick in her mouth as she chopped low hanging limbs down and shoed away snakes with her black and read sword as giant cicadas chirped loud enough to be mistaken as revving motorcycles.
"Well it is nearly summer here." Yoshi reasoned. "The seasons here in Inashia don't exactly line up with Earth's seasons."
"I also heard something about extermination usits going through some parts of the forest." Po-po added as he brushed some leaves away from his face. "That might have something to do with all the bugs over here."
"Yeah, that might be it." Janey said, reasoning that the bugs were probably migrating early to escape death as she hacked at another branch, starting towards her next woody victim.
"Hey, Po-po, where'd you hear that?" Yoshinoia asked, looking behind him to see their blue haired friend inspecting a rather large beetle on a leaf, trying to decide whether to eat it or not.
"I hear it some adults talking about it back at the roost, they said it would be harder to get stuff now. Why?" Replied the six-year-old boy before dropping the bug into his mouth and biting into it with a satisfying crunch, a few orange strings of bug juices bursting out the end.
"Just curious." He said, cringing as Po-po swallowed the small critter, licking the juices off of his lips with a satisfied smack.
"Hey, guys, I think I found it." Shouted Janey from about twenty feet ahead through her hand cut path in the foliage. The boys came running after her through the path she had cleared.
"Wow! It's just like Gaia said, Sparky!" Po-po exclaimed.
Janey shot a glare at him
"Sorry!" He apologised quickly, putting his hands up defensively.
"Dang, sis! How did you manage to make this path so fast!?" Asked Yoshinoia as he looked down his cousin's path through the overgrown bushes, branches, and vines that choke the forest floor.
"What can I say?" She said with her hands on her hips. "I love cuttin' stuff." She pulled her sword out of the ground, throwing it into the air, catching it, and shoving it back into its sheath on her back right across her other sword.
"Well," Janey said, walking up to one of the moss covered, corroding stone walls of the Aztec-looking pyramid, looking it up and down. "This is a lot different from last time." She scowled, looking up the wall and running her hand across the lumpy moss covered rock.
"Woah, woah, wait. You've been here before?" Yoshi asked, looking at his cousin with a dumbstruck look on his face.
"Well yeah, I was here when it was built." Janey said scanning the stone wall.
"How!?" Po-po asked enthusiastically, looking at the crumbling structure and then back to Janey. "That's like a bajillion years old!"
"Well, you could say I'm a time traveler of sorts." She said, brushing some spanish moss away from the wall she had been glaring at for the past few minutes. "Ah, here it is." She pushed in a block with an ouroboros, a dragon eating its own tail, imprinted on it, opening a secret passage into the wall.
"Wow!" Po-po exclaimed, running in like an airplane ahead of his two older friends.
"How did you know that was there!?"
"Like I said, Yoshi," Janey said, strolling in, hands shoved deep in the pockets of her dark grey pants. "I'm a time traveler."
"But how!?" He exclaimed. "You can't use magic!" He had a feeling deep in the back of his mind that he understood exactly how she was a time traveler but it was just out of reach.
Janey looked back at her cousin with a smirk. "Well that's non of your business, now is it, brother?" She held up a small ball of blue fire to illuminate the hallway which was getting precedingly darker as the continued further in.
"No matter how many times I see that I still think it's awesome!" Po-po exclaimed, hugging up close to janeu so hee could see the little blue ball of light she held in her hand as they walked past creepily empty chambers and abandoned rooms.
"Hey! Not so close!" Janey exclaimed, waving her hand around to keep it away from him. "If you keep breathing on it it'll go-" Yoshinoia sighed. "Oooout." The fire was gone and Janeu wasn't willing to make another one. So instead, she relied on her night vision too see while the other two were left with only her voice to follow.
"La la la la la la la la la la la la la la." She droned through clenched teeth as she held a sugar stick between her teeth.
"Why are you using your red eye? Can you just make another fire?"
"Yeah, sis. Besides, it's getting annoying hearing you go 'la la la la la la' the whole time."
"Well fret no longer, friends. We're already here." She relied bitterly.
There was a little click as Janey flicked a switch and dusty old light bulbs filled the musty room with dim, flickering light.
"Whoa, where are we?" Po-po asked in astonishment, walking around the room thinking, This place is kind of creepy while looking at some yellowing research papers.
"Well that's to be expected, after all, this place is pretty old," She replied while rummaging through a crate of old scientific instruments sending dust flying through the air as the little clinks of glass meeting glass filled the mostly silent room. "And old places seem to have a tendency of being creepy."
Well, that still didn't answer the question of where we are. Yoshinoia though, picking up a murky cracked jar and looking at the bottom of it, quickly putting it down once he realized it was the preserved remains of something he didn't care identifying.
"I was getting to that, Yoshi," She replied to his thoughts, letting out a sigh, giving up on the box and moving to one of the many desks lining the wall. "At the moment, we are in an old research lab that I ran while I was working here." She explained. "It also used to be a torture/interrogation room during war time since it was right along the border, the likes of which I also ran.
The calm and casual manner she relayed that information unsettled Po-po to the point that he jumped and let out a little squeal when one of the lightbulbs fizzled and popped, going out with a small hiss (but then again, he probably would have done that anyway).
"Oh, sorry." Janey apologized spinning around and resting her hand on the edge of the table. "Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that last part. But seriously, I swear I would never- HOLY!" Her hand slipped and she fell flat on her face. "Ow." She grumbled, making Po-po giggle a little. "But seriously. I would never hurt you guys, at least not on purpose. You got me?"
"Yeah, yeah, we got'cha Janey. But you really shouldn't be throwing that kind of information around so carelessly. It's kind of creepy." Yoshinoia said, laughing a bit.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." She said, pulling herself up and rubbing her forehead. Though I thought you'd be used to that by now. "Maybe I could-"
Click clack click clack.
The faint sound echoed loudly through the empty corridors of the temple, loud voices in tow.
"Hush. Get down, someone's coming."
They quickly dashed behind the desk as Janey hastily turned off the lights.
"Sparky, I thought you said there was no one here." Po-po said in a whining whisper.
"Well, there shouldn't be anyone here." She hissed. "Not anyone alive anyway."
Looking down the hallway she saw two figures casually walking down the corridor, occasionally pushing each other and laughing. One was holding a candle so they could see.
"So, I've heard this place is haunted," One said to the other in a taunting tone.
"Naw, I bet that's just a lie to keep people away. In fact, they probably have some secret hidden in here that they don't want anyone to find."
"Like maybe they have a secret weapon or, oh oh, maybe it's some kind of treasure.
"If we find any treasure here, whoever finds it keeps it."
"What?! No way! If either one of us finds a treasure we split it fifty-fifty."
Janey dragged herself away from their conversation, whispering back to Po-po and Yoshinoia, "From the looks of it they're teenage boys, and considering how far into the forest they are, they probably aren't human."
"But what are they doing all the way out here? No one goes this close to the borders!" Po-po exclaimed.
"Heck if I know, but I'ma go take care of 'm." Janey whispered getting up.
"Hey! Wait!" Yoshi called out.
But she was already gone.
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