6: Getting Ready

Jess went back to his house and gathered enough supplies for the group, such as flashlights. Sunny worked like mad at the restaurant making edible provisions for the team. Edible provisions is a phrase which here means "food for them to survive on in the tunnel." Klaus was reading the notes Jess and Leslie took on the goblins and demons they saw in the tunnel, so he would know what things were when he saw them. Violet, Quigley, and Duncan were making weapons for the team to use, just in case. Isadora was getting paper, in case they had to write notes.

"Okay, everyone ready?" Jess called out to the team.

"Yes," came the reply. Everyone went and split up into groups of 3 like they had planned. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny on the left; Quigley, Duncan, and Isadora on the right; and Jess leading in the center. Then, about quarter way to the tunnel, 5 squirrel-like creatures jumped out in front of the group.

"Squogers!" yelled Jess. They didn't need anything else said to them to get in attack formation. Two came to the left toward Violet and Klaus with Sunny behind them, two came to the right toward Quigley and Duncan with Isadora behind them, and one that was triple the size of any of them went toward the center at Jess. Violet, Klaus, Duncan, and Quigley all managed to pin each one individually. Sunny bit the temples of the ones on the left, knocking them out, and Isadora clubbed the two on the right, also knocking them out. Jess's squoger didn't go down easily. He had to tell everyone to back off and threw a pinecone grenade at it to knock it out. They won, at least that time.

The journey was a difficult one, even just toward the ditch that led into the tunnel. They came across a few more packs of squogers, resulting in small cut on Violet's upper arm, a bleeding lip for Duncan, and other minor injuries. Klaus used what he had read in first aid books back a long time ago to treat them, and they went on.

They went a little farther than they had been going without being attacked. Then, a pack of what looked like ten hawks started swooping up toward them.

"Hairy vultures!" Jess called out to the team. If they had been under ordinary conditions, a phrase which here means "they weren't under attack," everyone else would have laughed. However, since that wasn't the case and they were under attack, nobody even sniggered. They went into attack formation as usual, with Sunny and Isadora behind their partners. This time, everyone had to pull out the pistols Violet had made. They managed to shoot all but 3 very quick ones down. The team got two of them down with a another grenade, but the third had picked up Sunny as a hostage.

"Sunny!" yelled Jess. He climbed a tree and clotheslined the hairy vulture, catching Sunny when the vulture let go. He climbed down and put her back on the ground. As he did so, Klaus questioned him about the name.

"Hairy vultures?" Klaus said.

"Yeah," Jess replied. "Based off of Gary Fulture in my class, and the squogers are from Scott Hoager."

"Real bullies, huh?" Violet added.

"Yup."

They were attacked by a few more hairy vultures, but not as many as the first attack was. Then, they saw the boards and ran toward the ditch.

Note: from now on each character will have their own moment to shine, a phrase which here means "they will each get an individual situation where their unique ability is highly useful."