“What happened?” were the first words that left my mouth when I woke up.

Looking around, I could see that I was trapped in some kind of cage.

“So this is it, huh?” I said, “We really… can’t do anything, can we?”

I just… sat there. I had no idea what to do. Was trying to save everyone- trying to save all worlds, impossible from the start? Was this really going to be the end of it all? 

“Should I… look for a way out?” I said.

But I didn’t move.

“Why bother?” I asked, “Why bother doing anything?”

“Ron…?” I heard a familiar voice say.

“...Jean?” I responded.

After more looking around, I saw Jean was in another cage.

“Hi.” I said.

“Shouldn’t you be worrying about getting out?” she asked.

“What’s the point?” I said.

“Ron, what are you talking about?” said Jean.

“We’ve done all we can.” I said, “There’s nothing else we can do.”

“Come on,” she said, “we were able to get through this stuff before. Why is it any different now?

“We’re talking about all worlds here.” I said, “They’re all in the hands of two maniacs.”

“Did you forget, Ron?” asked Jean.

“Forget what?” I asked.

“You fought all against all worlds merging into one, you stopped me and my father when he made his own world and erased the rest of them, one of your last adventures in high school involved everything too.” answered Jean, pulling on the bars of her own cage, “So how is THIS any freaking different?”

She was able to pull them wide enough to go through and she angrily walked over to me, pulled the bars on mine, and slapped me in the face.

“So you just want to give up and die?” she said, “Don’t you dare tell me you want me alive and then give up on your own life!”

“But what are we supposed to do?” I said.

“We keep fighting until we find something that works.” she said, “We have to.”

I paused for a second, realizing she was right.

“You know, this isn’t even the first time I’ve felt like giving up.” I said, “There have been so many times our enemies were so tough, I didn’t know what to do.”

“As long as we’re together, we’ll figure something out.” said Jean, “Why don’t we get going?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, “if you could just get out of the cage this whole time, why didn’t you get out earlier?”

“Seeing you like that really pissed me off.” answered Jean, “I guess… my anger helped?”

“Whatever.” I said, “Let’s just get out of here and find everyone else.”

-Donovan’s POV-

It felt good to be running down the hallway. Previously, I hadn’t been going on many adventures, but after all the recent events, I had to get involved. My name is Donovan Fortune, just a decent-looking guy with brown eyes and black hair that was a little long. In the past, I had assisted Ron on some of his older adventures. Oh, and my power involves using pennies in various ways.

I wasn’t expecting to get caught up in something again, years later. But that’s just the way things go, I guess. It’s a good thing I wasn’t alone. The next guy is Tom Fortune, who had black hair a bit longer than mine and green eyes. He’s a spirit medium, so he can communicate with the dead and make weapons with his spiritual power. The guy next to him with short blonde hair and green eyes is Timothy Gates, who also happens to be a medium. Behind him was a blonde guy with blue eyes wearing glasses and holding a bow, because he’s an archer. Another archer in the group, Levi Duck, who had light brown hair.

Next was a guy with dark hair, holding a shovel, Daniel Arbeit. Then there was Hunter Beam, a guy with light brown hair and green eyes, using a knife as his weapon. Then there was a brown-haired guy with some electric sparks in his hands, David Ross. Cameron Harlow had dark hair and was holding on to a few rocks. The brown-haired guy with freckles and glasses in the group was Dexter Brasher, Jason’s cousin, and he was carrying a wrench.

The Asian guy with dark hair and glasses behind him was named Elijah Bonheur and he had a very limited time control ability. After him was Simon Sharp, a guy a bit younger than most of us with long-ish black hair and his weapon was a scythe. There were a few people with us that I had only met just recently: Isaac Evans, Stuart Drake, and James Scriven. Isaac was a brown-haired guy obsessed with buckets, Stuart had his hair dyed green and his power involved dragons, and then James, the last dark-haired guy in the group, could do a lot of interesting stuff with paper.

“I can’t believe all that running around led us to a place like this.” commented Eric.

“With all worlds messed up right now.” I said, “Whoever else is fighting this is gonna need all the help they can get.”

“You think Ron is in here?” asked Timothy.

“There’s a high chance.” I responded.

“Well, he did want as many of us as he could get on his adventures.'' said Hunter.

“Been a while since I’ve been on one.” said David, “It feels good.”

“Hell yeah,” said Cameron, “I’m ready to throw rocks again!”

“Who would have thought we would have to save all worlds again?” said Elijah.

“It seems like this will be our toughest battle.” commented Dexter.

“I’m definitely not letting Ron take all the credit for this.” added Simon.

“Can’t wait to make our enemies' faces turn ‘PAIL’ when they realize we’re gonna win.” said Isaac.

“You really gotta stop doing that.” complained Stuart.

“All the way back in kindergarten,” said James, “I never would have guessed we’d get to this point.”

We just kept running down the hallway. Soon, the floor stopped and we had to hop on several platforms. After a little while, it seemed as if we entered some kind of mess. There were all kinds of twists and turns, but eventually we made it through, soon reaching the friends we were hoping to see again.

-Ron’s POV-

I ran through the area with Jean. It didn’t take long for us to find Jason, Iris, Mikaela, Catherine, and Christina. The rest of them took a bit longer. We had to navigate some kind of maze and avoid all kinds of traps. But eventually, we got everyone: Justin, Jon, Lilith, Lucas, Jeff, Charles, Matthias, Cerise, Clara, Kia, Kurt, Harold, and Sonia were back with us. 

“That everyone?” I said.

“Looks like it.” said Kurt.

“Good.” I responded.

“Ron?” a somewhat familiar voice said.

“Y-You!” I responded.

“Yep, it’s me.” he said.

It was Donovan.

“What the heck are you doing here, man?” I asked.

“You’re not the only one that wants to save all worlds.” he said, “All of them are currently fucked and we gotta fix them.”

“Thank you.” I said. 

“I think we’re gonna be able to do this.” said Harold.

“Yeah, things are starting to look good.” said Jason.

“You guys probably don’t know who I am,” said Christina, “but it’s good to see you all.”

“You look familiar…” commented Tom.

“We’ll explain later.” said Jean.

“You better not think about dying on us, Ron!” said Simon.

“Yeah, if anyone’s gonna kill you,” said Mikaela, “it’ll be me.”

“Oh, gee, thanks.” I said.

“I’ll help you bury his body when you’re done.” said Cerise.

“Not now.” said Jon.

“So maybe later?” said Cerise.

“Now’s not the time to play around.” said Lilith.

“Right.” said Sonia, “We’ve gotta defeat our enemies.”

“Definitely ready to kick some ass again!” said Timothy.

“Same here.” responded Eric.

“So am I.” added Daniel.

“Same.” said Hunter.

“They’re in for a shock.” said David.

“Not you too,” said Stuart, “we get enough puns from the bucket nerd.”

“Going on another adventure with you was on my bucket list.” said Isaac.

“Dammit, he did it again!” complained Stuart.

“It feels like we haven’t changed much since our high school days.” commented Cameron.

“I don’t think that’s a bad thing.” commented Harold.

“Who cares as long as we win in the end?” asked Catherine.

“We’re going to.” responded Elijah.

“Definitely.” added James.

“Well, let’s do it.” said Jeff, “Enough standing around.”

“Y-Yeah, let’s get going.” said Charles.

“I think we’ve spent enough time messing around.” said Matthias.

“Y-Yeah.” replied Justin.

“Guess it’s time to get serious.” said Clara.

“W-Which way are we going?” asked Kia.

“Well, we came from the opposite direction.” said Donovan.

“Up.” I said.

“Huh?” responded Christina.

“There’s a ladder over there.” I said, “It’ll probably take us somewhere new.”

“Okay.” she replied.

We went up the ladder and reached a short hallway. At the end was an elevator. We went in and it went up. We all just stood in the elevator and did a bit of catching up for about fifteen minutes. Then it opened, and it looked like we were in the sky. 

“Oh, shit.” said Daniel.

“Interesting.” I commented.

“This is gonna be fun.” added Donovan.

“I’m not liking this.” said Christina.

“We’re almost there.” said Jason.

“Alright, guys.” I said, “I can feel it. Coming up is our final battle.”