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Rue made a face at the juice (which is what had been the "pee") reference, but followed him. She actually made her way past him, leading the way rather than following. It was just her personality. She was a leader, like her mother, Max.

Lark's grin immediately faltered as Rue made her way past him. All his thoughts and feelings that he'd tried to keep hidden for so long had returned. The entire time Lark and Rue had lived together, Lark loved her and hated her at the same time. He loved her because of her strength, her ability to keep the Flock alive, and so much more. However, he hated her because she was too independent, she needed to be the line leader all the time, and if she didn't have someone to hold her hand and tell her how wonderful she is, she'd fall apart. All the same, Lark plastered a grin back on his face and followed Rue, his conflicting emotions juggling in his head like a beehive. To keep it seeming like there's nothing wrong, he said, "So where do we want to check first?"

"There's only one direction to go," Rue replied, gesturing to the rocky tunnel in front of them. She shot him a puzzled glance, and continued walking through the cave. Her sneakers thudded against the gritty ground, accompanied by the sounds of pebbles skittering form the impact.

"I meant outside or inside, Miss Matter-of-Fact." joked Lark, following deeper into the damp cave. The dank smell hit him like a wall, making him squint in disgust for a second. His cheap Converse-like shoes pushed around small pebbles when he walked, and he admired the faint sound they made. "Do you think our parents left something here?" he suddenly asked as the Indiana Jones thoughts hit him. "Like a carving of their names or a date or something?" When he realized he was beginning to sound like Kara, he paused, allowing Rue time to answer. He wondered how those two were doing, anyway.

"So what's your plan?" Pascal asked, his hands balled in excited fists. "Rat in a sleeping bag? Surprise fireworks?"

Rue shrugged. "Maybe. I mean, they never hinted about it or anything. But they might've guessed we would come here." The rubber tip of her sneaker bumped against something, and a cloud of dust rose into the musty air. Unable to keep from inhaling it, Rue began coughing violently, inhaling more dust as she did so.

When the cough attack had subsided somewhat, she looked down to see a...cardboard box. She opened the lid, curiousity growing inside her. She pulled out a simple envelope. Below it was a stack of leather-bound journals. "I guess they did leave something after all," Rue murmured, holding the yellowed envelope. She looked at Lark. "Should I open it now?"

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Kara's brown eyes lit up. "Got any explosives? Small ones. Just enough to set off a big bang, not blow us off the cliff."

Lark's dark eyes widened in surprise when Rue found the cardboard box, but also in curiousity. "Open it..." he answered, his voice trailing off somewhat. He kneeled down next to the box and began inspecting the journals that were stacked underneath the envelope. They looked old, the corners of the pages frayed and the leather cracked. What could this mean? he thought.

Pascal grinned deviously, then fell to his knees and began digging through his bag. "You didn't think I'd leave home without some kind of party-poppers, did you?" he laughed as he pulled out 3 small boxes and 3 narrow tubes from the bottom of his bag. He dropped them on the ground before him, pointing to each one and explaining it. He pointed to the first box. "This one lets out a series of small explosions, imitating gunfire but not nearly as dangerous." He moved the box aside and pointed to the next two. "These explode themselves, sending small bits of itself into the air, but don't worry, they burn out before they reach the ground, so no one will get burned. They're just for scare tactics." Then, Pascal rolled over the three tubes. "These are bottle-rocket flares, in case we got lost or something, but I figured if I was going to bring more than one, we could set one off for fun."

"These are just the smallest ones I brought, but there are more in my pockets that are the size of a dime but set off huge explosions, just in case of Erasers, but I figured we wouldn't want to be blown off the side of this cliff." he announced, chuckling into his fist.

"You are an evil genius," Kara grinned, eyeing the explosives with an impressed gaze. "Okay, I have a few different options of what we can do. So I need to ask; would you prefer the gun-fire thingamajigs, or the ones that explode themselves?"

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Rue opened the envelope, the aged paper opening easily. Inside was a short message, scrawled in her mother's familiar handwriting.

You've probably met the Erasers by now. I'm sory we didn't tell you...and I'm not sory about a lot of things.

Rue smiled at the small joke, and at the spelling errors. Max had never been great at spelling.

Every story we told you about the School was true. It's now your responsibilty to do the job I never completed; save the world.

-Max and Fang (and the rest)

Curiousity burning, she could now only wonder at what was in the journals. She glanced at Lark, passing him the letter. "You were right," she said simply.

Lark's eyes scanned the letter, squinting them intensely at the end part. "So was Pascal." he added to Rue's comment, referring to when Pascal thought of the idea that Rue had inherited Max's destiny. He dropped the letter back in the box and opened the aged cover of one of the top journals and began reading out loud. "Congratulations." it began, "The fact that you're reading this means you've taken one giant step to surviving 'till your next birthday..." he continued, glancing at Rue from time to time. "These must be our parents' accounts of what happened before we were born." he proposed. He held up the journal and handed it to Rue. "This one must be Max's." Lark wondered if his father's was here, and Pascal's mom and Kara's mom, too.

"I think the gunfire one would be funnier." said Pascal. "Just in my opinion, anyway." He gave a half-chuckle-half-snort and continued, "Rue and Lark might think the whitecoats found us already or something!"

Rue inhaled sharply. This would be the answer to her questions. She eyed the journal with a mixture of excitement and apprehension - it was pretty thick, after all. And when Max's sloppy handwriting and her lack of reading experience....it would take a while to have her questions answered.

"This is gonna take a while to read through," she murmured outloud, placing the dusty journal gently inside and picking up the carboard box. It was surprisingly heavy, considering only journals were in there. "We should show the others."

-----

A mischevious look entered Kara's eyes, one that would make most shiver in unease. Though a daughter of Nudge, who hadn't been related to the Gasman by blood, she seemed to have taken a few traits from him. Though luckily, the more...subtle ones.

Ooc://

Wait, wasn't Kara Nudge's daughter and Pascal was Angel's son...?

Bic://
Lark ignored Rue's final word and mindlessly began shuffling through the journals in the box, looking for his father's name. "Wait a ec, Rue." Lark insisted. "I need to find my father's first. I need to know he has one." Obviously someone would have had to have written Iggy's for him, because of his blindness, but still, even just to read the words of the father he admired so greatly would mean the world to him. "Come on..." he whispered to himself as he shoved some others aside. "Come on, come on..." Finally, Lark's eyes skimmed over the letter "I" carved into the back leather of a journal buried at the bottom. He dug for the book again and grasped it tightly, feeling the letters etched into the material. He pulled it out and anxiously unsnapped the magnet holding the book closed. This was it. The word "Iggy" was scrawled across the top, probably in Gasman's writing, and the whole book was filled with dates of important events and accounts of their noble fight to protect their family. Lark's face broke into a smile, unable to hold it back.

Pascal rubbed his hands together, his powder-blue eyes gazing at the bomb like a starving man looks upon a banquet. He clasped the small handles on either side of the bomb, then picked it up and flipped it upside-down, revealed a small hole with a tissue-paper covering over it. He told Kara, "All we need to do is burn through this paper hole, and all the microbes inside will excite, expand, then blast through the sides and create the coolest gunfire noise ever!" He smiled deviously and placed it back down, searching for the lighter he brought with him in his back pocket. "Boy," Pascal chimed, "Wait 'till Rue and Lark get an earful of this!"

Ooc:// ^Edited

Ooc:// Oops. I edited.

Kara couldn't suppress a small laugh. "So, do you want to have the honors of setting it off? Or do you want to run in there and act like Erasrers are attacking?" She figured it would be the former, but she might as well ask. With Pascal, you never really knew. He was unique, but in a good, spontaneous way.

----

Rue rummaged through the box, hoping for her father, Fang's, journal. She found a stack of papers bound by a paperclip instead. Curious, she rifled through the messy stack. It was...printouts, from what looked like...a blog? Fang had had a blog?

Pascal liked the way Kara was beginning to act as mischievious as he was. "I have an idea," he began in a hushed tone, knowing Lark and Rue would be on their way back soon. "How about you run down the hall screaming something like 'The Erasers found us!' or 'They followed us here!' or whatever, and I'll set off the bomb, then act like I'm getting shot. I'll be all, 'Agh! They got me! Help!'" he ended his plan with a good laugh, imagining how Rue and Lark would react to their clever plot. "So, whattaya think?"

Lark looked up for a minute at what Rue was holding; what looked like computer-typed papers. "Hey," he called, "What are those?"

"We are genuises," Kara grinned, holding up a hand for a high-five.


"Printouts of a blog. I think its....Dad's blog." Rue looked up, surprise shining in her brown eyes. "Weird. I never would've guessed he was the blogging type."

Lark laughed. "Fang? Blogging?" he laughed some more. "I would think he'd be too busy for that, if you know what I'm sayin'." he added, suggestively raising an eyebrow. He was referring to Fang's romance with Max, and they both know it certainly caused problems within the Flock.

Pascal returned the high-five, then took out his lighter as quick as possible. "Okay," he whispered. "They must be getting back by now, and I think I can hear them talking. We should start now." He flicked the lighter open, the small flame licking in midair. "Ready?"