I'm finally back in the writing spirit, and it feels awesome. :D

On to the disclaimer, then: I don't own The 39 Clues!

"Well then, we've reached the end of the tour," said Apol cheerfully. "Since we finished earlier than the estimated time, I can spare you about fifteen minutes to explore by yourselves, but make sure you come back!"

Everyone started murmuring in excitement and breaking off into groups. The tour started in the East Entrance, then they had headed to the North, and now they were about to exit through the West Entrance. Reagan, Sinead, Hamilton, Jonah, Ian, Amy, Lois, and Ysa stood in front of one of the blocked tunnels, discussing their observations in hushed tones.

"I was too scared to focus," Ysa admitted.

"Says the fourth-timer," Lois said, rolling her eyes.

"Shut up. As if you aren't."

"Stop it," Sinead said, and checked her watch. "We have about eight minutes left before we go to board the tramvia back."

"Maybe we can do a last-minute scouting," Reagan suggested. "Who knows, we might find something."

"I don't really like the sound of that, but since we have only one night here, let's go," said Jonah.

Each of them went in different directions, pausing in front of different tunnels and peering inside but not going in them. "Five more minutes," Apol the tour guide called out.

Ysa swore and was about to give up till she saw a weak light in the last tunnel she had looked into. "Wait!" she called out in Fukien.

Lois' head snapped around. "Did you find something?" she asked in the same language.

The Lucian-Madrigal gripped her cousin's shoulder and pointed in the direction of the faintly glowing object. "See that?"

"See what?"

"That!"

"What?"

"The light!"

"What light?"

"Argh!" Ysa hated conversations like this. "That reddish glowing thing! Can't you see it?"

"Oh, that? I can see it," said Lois.

Her poor cousin face-palmed. Finally, she thought. "Okay, I'm gonna go in and check it out." She started towards a gap in the wide wooden beams that blocked the entrance, but Lois grabbed her before she could move. "Oh no you aren't," said the Janus-Madrigal.

"Eh? Don't you want to see if that is Luke's ruby?" Ysa asked.

"I do, but it's too dangerous! We have to call—"

"Time's up! Everyone, please gather here for a head count before we return to the hotel!" Apol called.

Ysa tightened her grip on Lois' shoulder, but nothing that actually hurt her. "I'm going in there," she said adamantly.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! No way!" Lois tried to catch her, but failed and cursed when she saw the other girl standing just past the wooden beams that formed an X over the tunnel's entrance while grinning mischievously. "God, Ysa, are you this stubborn?" the Janus-Madrigal hissed.

Ysa was about to retort a witty comeback, but a hand clamped over her mouth and suddenly pulled her back, and with that, the Lucian-Madrigal was out of sight. Lois' eyes widened in horror as she saw the bane of their existence: her cousin, Aaron Valdez, and a girl who she was rather unfamiliar with.

Lois opened her mouth to scream, but the girl with Aaron dashed forward, grabbed her, and threw her into the dark cave. The last thing she saw was Aaron's pitiful smirk, and all went black.

"Kulang," (Lacking) Apol the tour guide muttered.

"What's wrong? Why aren't we boarding yet?" Reagan demanded.

"We lack people," he said.

"Come to think of it, yo," said Jonah, "did you guys see where Ysa and Lois went?"

The Cahills exchanged glances. "Oh no," Hamilton muttered.

"We'll look for them," Sinead told Apol. "Can you leave us here, then come back for us later?"

"No, it's too dangerous," said the elderly tour guide, shaking his head. "You have to go back to the hotel with everyone else."

"But—"

"This is the first time an incident like this has ever happened during the night tour. I will call for a search and rescue team," he said. "Now, you kids go back to the tramvia."

Amy looked like she was about to protest, but Ian placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke in his most persuasive voice: "Sir, our cousins' lives are on the line. Would you really let us just sit and watch? They could be dying."

Apol seemed to lose his composure there. "But it's still too dangerous. The caves are no longer lighted by electricity and the debris from the war—"

"That's why we brought flashlights," said Ian, and everyone showed him the flashlights that they had been holding the whole tour. "We already had a bad feeling about this tour, and now our cousins are missing. What more proof do you need?"

Apol opened his mouth and closed it, then opened it again and said, "One hour."

Ian smiled his most sincere smile. "Thank you."

Once the rest of the tour group was out of the tunnel, the lights went out. Amy unexpectedly let out a squeak of fear and clamped a hand over her mouth in embarrassment.

"It's okay, Amy," said Sinead somewhere off to her left. "We're all here." Said girl held the flashlight under her chin, like those people on TV who told ghost stories.

"C-cut that out!" Amy said, and the Ekaterina laughed.

"Now, let's go look for Ysa and Lois," said Hamilton.

Pain was the first thing Lois felt and blood was the first thing she saw. She tried to stand and immediately grit her teeth in pain when she did, feeling some sort of dislocated joint (her ankle, she guessed). Swearing in Fukien, she managed to grasp a crack in the wall and pull herself up. "Ysa?" she called. "Ysa—?"

No answer. Her hand on the wall clenched into a fist as she tried to bear the pain and she willed herself to move forward. She may have lost her powers, but that didn't mean she lost her willpower. Her cousin was one of the people she trusted with her life (well, her family too, of course) and she would never forgive herself if anything happened to Ysa.

She remembered the faint red glow Ysa had pointed out and saw its warm aura pulsing steadily, like a heartbeat. Pushing herself to go nearer, she was now convinced that Ysa wasn't as airheaded and happy-go-lucky as she (and everyone else) had thought. Resting among the rocks and fallen debris was a beautiful red ruby, perfect in every way except for the two miniscule depressions in its surface, as if someone had carved them out. She also noticed that they were shaped like a pair of two very small…

"Snake eyes," she whispered (in English). "It's… this one… This is the ruby…" Her head snapped up as she remembered her cousin. "Ysa!"

Thunk! Something that sounded suspiciously like metal hit a rock not too far away. Knowing that her pockets wouldn't be able to hold the ruby, she tightened her grip on the jewel and tried to make her way over to the source of the sound as quietly and carefully as possible.

"I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell… I know, right now, you can't tell…"

Lois let out a sigh of relief and quickened her pace. She looked for her flashlight and swore again, figuring she'd dropped it when she was thrown into the cave. Instead she held the ruby up and searched for her cousin. "Ysa, where are you?"

"Take about three steps… west."

She did as told, raised the ruby up again to look around, and nearly dropped it when she saw the figure sprawled out in front of her. "Holy crap!" she exclaimed.

Her cousin's clothes were all dirty and stained with blood. Lois immediately bent down to her and twitched slightly when she saw the gaping cut above Ysa's right eye. "You freak out at the sight of blood," said Ysa, pulling herself up into a sitting position and gasping.

"Broken ribs, eh?" Lois threw a glance over her shoulder and saw that they weren't too far away from the entrance they'd taken. Resisting the urge to look at her cousin's wound again, she cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled at her loudest voice: "Heeeeelp!"

Jonah and Reagan were pretty much exhausted. Their throats ached from repetitively calling out the missing Representatives' names and no one had brought water, plus their entire bodies ached. While Hamilton, Amy, Sinead, and Ian continued the search, Jonah started tap-dancing. Well, that was what Reagan thought, at least.

"Hey, could you cut that out? It's annoying," said the Tomas.

The Janus held up his hand in the universal "wait" gesture, his eyes closed and head bobbing to a beat that only he could hear.

"Stop your ridiculous tap dancing."

His eyes opened. "I wasn't tap dancing. There's a great difference between scratching your sneakers on rough ground and tap dancing, ya know?"

"Ugh, just stop whatever you're doing." She stood up and walked over to one of the entrances they'd inspected earlier, then knocked on one of the wooden beams blocking the tunnel's mouth. Tok, tok, tok. Tok, tok, tok. Tok-tok-tok-tok, tok-tok.

"Not bad," said Jonah, and he went over to do the same on another beam. He started knocking on them, but later added pats so it was as if he was playing the drums. Then he gave Reagan a look, as if to say, Can you do better than that?

She rolled her eyes in a duh way and started furiously striking the wood in any way she could, then threw the look back to him. Beat that!

Just as he raised his hand to start on a new pattern, they heard different sounds—a scream and—

"Bloody hell, Lois, let me go! Ouch!"

"No way! You can't even breathe!"

"Shut up!"

Reagan and Jonah exchanged shocked glances. "Ysa? Lois?!" they called.

"Help!" They couldn't tell who was speaking, but that didn't matter; as long as the Reps were alive, everything would be fine.

"Ham! Ian! Sinead! Amy!" Reagan shouted. "They're here!"

The four immediately ran over, just as the two missing girls emerged from the dark. Lois was carrying Ysa piggyback style, while the other had her arms around Lois' neck and seemed to be holding something. Ysa had a big wound above her right eye. "Explain later," the Janus-Madrigal wheezed. "Help now." Before anyone could say a word, her knees gave way, and both girls fell.

Ian lunged forward and caught Ysa, while Hamilton managed to prevent Lois from hitting the ground. "What's that in your hands?" the Snake Prince asked, adjusting so he could hold the injured girl better.

Ysa smiled weakly and opened her hands. "Zhăo dào le," (Found it) she said.

"It's the ruby," said Sinead, eyes wide with shock.

Everyone's eyes were on the glowing jewel in the Rep's hands. "It's so beautiful," Amy murmured.

"Oy, you kids! Are you alright?"

They turned, and Ysa immediately hid the ruby again. "It's the tour guide," she whispered. "Rescue team…" Her head lolled.

"Ysa!" Lois said. "Ysa, you can't fall asleep!"

Ian shook the girl in his arms. "Ysa, wake up," he said.

She twitched with surprise. "Oh… uh, I'm sorry," she mumbled. "But—the ruby—"

"Give it to me," said the prince in a kind, calming voice. "I can keep it for you, then we'll have a look at it tomorrow morning. How does that sound?"

Her eyelids closed halfway and she nodded. "I'll get it later," he told her in the same voice. "Don't worry, alright? Focus on getting better."

She nodded again. "Hey," said Apol the tour guide. "You—Diyos ko! What happened?"

"I told you something bad happened," said Ian, smiling as if to say, Oh well.

"We need to get you to the infirmary," said Apol. He called over the paramedics who brought stretchers, and Ian and Hamilton gently laid Ysa and Lois on them. "Konting tiis na lang, ha," (Bear it for a little longer okay?) said the old tour guide.

The cousins nodded as they were carried away. "Wait, Ian, the ruby—?" Sinead gave the Lucian a questioning look.

Ian flashed his signature smirk and opened his hand, revealing his ancestor's glowing red jewel. "Once a Lucian, always a Lucian," he said.

"All right," said Jonah with a grin. "Let's all go make sure they're alright, yo!"

They followed Apol out of the tunnel and into a bus. Amy looked over her shoulder at Malinta Tunnel looming behind her, and decided it would be bad if she got left behind.

Gah. I'm so sorry for the late update. (I blame Uta no Prince-sama! Insanely good-looking guys who can sing and dance and—gah, I'll shut up now.)

So, yeah, the twentieth (well, nineteenth, if you don't count the prologue :P) chapter is up! Thank you for sticking with me from the start till now, everyone, and I hope you'll still be with me till the end!

-TCDW