"Grian?" Bdubs chuckled as he looked at the red sweaters hermit, who looked a little more chaotic than normal. Grian turned around with a questioning smile, and Bdubs held back a laugh. His hair was still wet, but no longer dripping like before, and parts were dried in funny directions.

"Hey wait, can I take a picture of you like that?" Bdubs asked, holding up his camera.

"Ooh get Mumbo here too!" Grian grinned and found Mumbo's arm in the crowd, pulling him over with Iskall following him.

"Ack- wait it's just you Gri. What do you want?"

When Bdubs saw Mumbo, he realized why Grian had literally dragged him over. His moustache was all over the place, and so was hair, splayed out in different directions from his usually slicked back look.

"Ohh your moustache, pfft-" Bdubs stated, and Iskall violently waved for him to stop as they stood behind Mumbo.

"What's wrong? I thought I fixed it. These two tricked me and splashed the waterfall onto me." Mumbo said, quickly glaring at the two.

"Yeah yeah-" Bdubs started, holding back a laugh. "-It looks fine now." He lied.

"Ah good."

"Could I get a picture of you three?" Bdubs asked. "I'm trying to get a picture of everyone; And with Iskall-" Bdubs paused and added, "-and Mumbo looking nice next to Grian, it's funny."

Grian grinned and the other two nodded as they were pulled down and into a side hug from Grian. The forest was behind them and Hermits were walking behind Bdubs onto the trail, carefully making sure not to bump him as he focused the camera. They would probably be towards the end of the group, but Bdubs didn't really mind.

"Got it!" He smiled. Bdubs actually got a good few to sorta through later, making sure he got at least one good one. They, being some of the last in the group filing onto the trail, huddled around him to see the picture before he could pull it away.

"Surprise for later!"

With a grumble or an eye roll for the three, they all filed onto the trail, after Gem, with Xisuma going in last after one extra check no one was still there.

"Ok so what's the plan?" Tango whispered loudly as they made distance between the groups in front and behind them. They wanted to be last so they wouldn't have to worry about both the front and the back, but a handful of hermits had taken a few minutes to take extra pictures and smell flowers, so getting impatient, they were now stuck in the middle.

"Shhh Tango!" Zed exclaimed in a real whisper. "We don't need the whole forest to know what we're doing."

Impulse took a breath before he spoke, and the other two went silent so they could hear him. "Ok, so if this is going to work, we have to wait until everyone's asleep before we go out. If X or someone else catches us, there's no way we'll be able to try again."

"Stealth mission; I like it." Tango grinned, actually whispering now.

"I have extra flashlights from Xisuma's basement that I grabbed last second." Tango also mentioned in a whisper. "Everyone was hammering so loudly they didn't notice."

"Ooh, perfect. We can't use them until we're out of sight from the camp though." Zed said, and the two nodded in agreement.

"This is gonna be so cool. Like, an adventure with a better treasure than gold." Impulse grinned and said a little louder.

"A lifetime experience if you will." Zed said formally, forgetting about whispering all together.

A twig snapped behind them and all three of them stopped walking at once. Caught like a deer in headlights, they froze.

"What's a lifetime experience?" A voice asked knowingly, with a smirk on her lips heard clearly in her voice. They whipped around and saw the Zombie Queen herself with her hands on her hips.

The silence was deafening as they all searched their brain for even a half-decent excuse to say to get her off their trail. Instead though, Tango spoke up before the seconds of quiet could get suspicious, and the answer was..... well.

"Uh...We're going to scare you and everyone else at the campfire!" Tango spit out an excuse. Zed and impulse looked at him quizzically, but then went along with it and nodded. Too late to go back now.

"Uh yeah! Even you'll be scared." Impulse added. His voice raised an octave higher and he spoke really fast. Zed bumped him in the arm and he clamped his mouth shut. He was a really bad liar.

Cleo didn't look entirely convinced, but her confidence took over enough to divert the topic.

"Scare me? In your dreams! Actually nightmares, I like those better." She chuckled, and team ZIT let out silent sighs of relief as they nervously chuckled with her.

"Well you'll see, we have a scary story to give the whole camp nightmares!" Impulse added confidently. His voice was still high and fast, barely convincing her enough to stop any questions she might ask.

"Alright, I'll believe it when I see it." She shrugged, dropping her arms from her hips.

"You'll believe what?" Another voice popped up behind them. xB waved at them, indirectly showing off his new flower crown.

"These three are going to try to scare everyone at the campfire." Cleo explained with a smug smile.

"Well I don't think it'll be a challenge for some of us." Stress chuckled, "But Cleo? You really think you can scare 'er?"

"You guys forget she had the scariest story last night." xB added.

"Well we'll try our best." Zed brought their expectations back to a reasonable amount. "But you guys can't hear anymore or it won't be scary." He said, shooing them away with his hand.

The three shrugged, more or less convinced, and continued on the trail. Team ZIT purposely stood in place to let them get ahead. Hmmm, the moss on the ground was super interesting all of a sudden!

Zed brought his voice back to a whisper and looked up at Tango, who was still forcing a grin towards the group in front of them in case they looked back again.

"Tango, what did you just drag us into?"

Tango gulped and nervously chuckled as he offered the two a half-smile.

"I guess we have to think of a scary story now?" He rubbed the back of his neck.

Zed shook his head slowly with a sigh and Impulse huffed out a chuckle. "You are no longer allowed to make excuses for the three of us." Impulse said.

"Hey, you're not much better Mister fast talker who raised his voice like 5 octaves." Zed defended Tango a little.

"Ok, it's agreed that Zed is now in charge of lying for the group." Tango said, and Impulse quickly nodded with him.

"I'll gladly take the title." Zed grinned. "Now let's make a story that'll really scare Cleo. Or at least distract her enough to get all of them off our trail."

"Midnight trail you mean." Impulse added

"Ooh that's a cool stealth mission name!" Tango said.

"Oh! I didn't know there were any birch forests out here!" Gem beamed, running up to a white tree with black streaks.

"Hmm, I wouldn't consider these few a whole forest, but they are quite lovely." Xisuma said with a smile. They were the last handful of hermits walking, because Xisuma wanted to make sure no one was left behind, and the path back was pretty straightforward enough to not get lost at the front.

"Ew, birch around here? It's like the ugliest texture." Iskall scoffed, turning their head away from it in disgust. It didn't work, there were birch trees all around this part of the trail.

"Iskall! How could you? Birch is beautiful!" Gem exclaimed.

"No, I agree with Iskall. No one likes birch." Grian said. "Stripped birch is nice though."

"Birch is alright, but diorite is better." Bdubs said.

"What?" Iskall whispered, turning around slowly.

"Bdubs you might want to take that back..." Mumbo chuckled nervously.

"What? No. Diorite is great in buildings!" Bdubs continued.

"AHHHH!!" A skrill scream was heard a ways away, and the group closer to the front all looked at each other to make sure they all heard that.

"What was that?" Wels asked, looking at False who just shrugged.

"I dunno, sounded a little like Bdubs?"

"Huh."

"Ok, we got the plan all set?" The German voice spoke quietly, avoiding eye contact so their conversation looked normal from far away.

"Yeah, but are you sure about Bdubs? And Keralis?" Beef asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Doc knows what he's talking about. Plus, we'll only really be asking for flashlights." Etho said with a sliver of mischief in his voice.

"This'll be a breeze, and then...." Doc trailed off, not even trying to finish his sentence. Etho raised his eyebrow, but didn't question it outloud.

They did a quick secret group handshake and snickered, then perked up back to normal, resuming a casual pace.

"That was quick!" Ren grinned, jogging a little to get off the trail faster.

"Yeah, X wasn't kidding when he said the loop back was shorter." xB remarked, picking up his pace slightly to catch up with Ren, but too tired to run.

"Hey are we the first?" False asked, Wels trailing behind her a little.

"Yeah! First place goes to us, Falsie!" Ren cheered. He pumped his fist in the air, and then ran around to give the others high fives. How he still had energy after the entirety of the walk, no one knew.

"Well that was a short walk back, so everyone will probably be here in a few minutes." Wels said. He looked towards the sky, noticed the slight sunset starting to glow above them.

"Wanna start making dinner for everyone?" xB asked. "We could get a head start on it, and Xisuma already told me what we're making."

"Yeah sure," False shrugged. "We still have logs and stuff from last night, right?" She looked towards Ren, who, still feeling pretty energized, jogged over and inspected it.

"Well we need some more kindling, but there should be enough wood here to at least warm up some food." He answered, "What did you say we were having, xB?"

"Soup tonight, easy to transport in cans and warm up for everyone."

"Well opening the cans is gonna be a pain, good thing the way back was so quick I guess." Wels said, walking over to the pit and kicking it a little.

"Well get to opening cans boys." False said. "I'll get some extra sticks and stuff."

"What? Why do we have to open the cans!" Ren argued.

"Because Stress painted my nails last night, and I don't want them ruined before the morning at least." She showed them off, a blood red color to match her striped shirt, and everyone agreed Stress did a gorgeous job.

Ren huffed, either upset that he had to open cans or that stress didn't paint his nails, and angrily sat in the grass with his legs loosely folded, while xB handed him a can opener. False waved, smugly, and Ren just scoffed as he reluctantly started to open cans while she wandered the edges of the woods.

"Oh hey Cleo." False waved with one hand as she saw the bright orange hair nearing the end of the trail.

"Hey False, watch'a doing?" Cleo looked at the two sticks in her hand and pointed to them with a raised eyebrow. Stress popped up behind her, waving to False quickly.

"Getting kindling to start a fire again. The others are opening the soup cans by the pit." False explained. "Didn't want to chip the nails you painted stress."

"Yeah you did a great job!" Cleo complimented, showing off her own dark prismarine colored nails.

"Aww thank you luvs. Glad I brought the right colors, but when we get back, I can add glitter and bits to 'em."

"Yes!"

"Woo!"

Stress giggled and and grinned, and then bent down and picked up a stray branch.

"We'll help ya gather some twigs n' stuff."

False nodded and hummed, and Cleo and Stress knew that was her way of saying thank you.

In a few short minutes, most other hermits had made it out as well, only leaving the flanking group Xisuma was in not at the camp yet. They were all pleasantly surprised at dinner already being made, and when it was finally warm enough, xB grabbed the bowls (that they forgot to grab before) and started serving up soup!

"Hey we made it!" Grian exclaimed, running out of the woods with a grin. Mumbo was trailing behind him, with a few leaves and sticks in his hair and a tired look in his eyes.

Gem was running with Grian, with more of a bounce in her step as she wandered over to Pearl who had been near the middle of the group on the walk back. They fell into light conversation and Pearl pointed to the soup heating up, leading her over so they could grab some food before the fire burned out.

"Hey uh, Wels, do you think we could try boiling some water too?" Joe strided up to him, since he was the one watching the fire currently to avoid it getting out of control. Wels almost looked at the flames fondly.

"Huh? Uh why?" Wels perked up, looking up at Joe.

"Xisuma doesn't want to burden you, but he wants to cook some of the ferns we got at the waterfall to try to make tea from it." Joe explained. "I'm not sure it will taste any good, but it sure is a wild experience ain't it?"

"Uh yeah sure. I'm not sure we can actually get it to boil with just the fire, but I should be able to get it warm enough for that probably." wels nodded, and turned to the kindly to add more without another word.

"Thanks a mighty lot! I'll tell X."

Wels chuckled a little at Joe jumping around to speed walk over to Xisuma near the other side of camp. He added some dry leaves and twigs to the fire, blowing on it steadily and carefully. Out of the group, he was probably the best with fires, only because he had to put out so many that his brother, Hels, made.

Wels sort of missed him, even if he caused more trouble than he fixed normally. Sometimes the chaos was a comfortable constant, albeit an annoying one.

He poured some water into a small pit and replaced the soup pot handing over the fire with this one, lowering it a little. He knew the tea would taste horrible with no sweetener, but even just seeing the unlucky brave hermits and their disgusted faces, would make the pain of heating water in the woods worth it.

He chuckled lightly to himself, covering it up when Xisuma walked over, holding the ferns carefully in his hands.

"Ready X?"

"As I'll ever be! I hope they aren't too bitter."

"Hey, ya never know, right?" Wels shrugged, hiding his smirk by looking over the water again. Maybe Hels had rubbed off a bit too much on him.

---------

Oof I have been neglecting this book haven't I? Not as bad as the Manhunt one though I guess. Anyway, this was hard to write because I just kept getting stuck on what to write next or how to phrase stuff, but it's done! And I'm sure the next one will run much smoother and hopefully not take a month to get out, hahaha......

Well, thanks a ton for reading! Have a great day/night and go outside for a bit! Touch some grass or a tree!

Maybe vote or comment if you liked it? And check out StarFox's book! And vote on it! Because the number of votes it has is criminally underrated and they worked super hard on it!