Thank you everyone for your patience! The next chapter will be ready very soon! Probably tomorrow! So I hope you enjoy this one in the meanwhile! Love y'all!

**********************************

Bubble's POV:

"U-uh-uh" I mumbled, opening my eyes slowly, "wha-what happened? Where am I?"

Everything was blurry. I was laying on the floor. My body hurt a lot. I felt like I had fallen through an endless hole. I heard someone else's moans of pain. I turned my head a little and saw Brick lying there a couple of meters from me.

"B-Brick?" I tried to call him.

Brick turned to look at me. He had a trail of blood on his forehead.

"Brick! You-your forehead! Is-!" I gasped.

"I'm fine" he responded and stood up with difficulty, "are you alright?"

"Yes" I replied and sat on the cold ground.

Brick rubbed his neck and looked up.

"What is this place?" I wondered.

"We fell through a hole. We must be underground, under HIM's house" he explained and and took out his communicator, "I have no signal down here."

"What are we gonna do? Where are the others?" I asked him, completely worried.

"We have to find a way out. We'll communicate with the others as soon as we can" he answered me.

"Okay" I accepted and stood up.

"Let's go. This way" he led the way and I followed him.

"I just hope the others are fine..." I thought.

Boomer's POV:

The last thing I remembered was that I was in front of HIM's cabin and that a hole was cut in the ground. I was still unconscious from the fall.

"Boomer! Boomer, wake up!" I heard a voice calling me.

I began to open my eyes slowly until I realized that I was lying on the floor and that Buttercup was next to me. She had some bruises on her arms and on her face, surely she had a dramatic fall. I gasped and sat down suddenly.

"What happened?! Where are we?! Where are the others?!" I panicked.

"Calm down, blue pants! We must stay calm or we could lose our minds! Get up!" she ordered me.

I got up off the ground, a little sore from the fall.

"Are you okay?" she asked me with a serious expression.

"Yeah" I replied and took a look at our surroundings, "what is this place?"

"It looks like we're in a cave or something like that. This must be a trap" she responded.

"I'm not surprised. He wouldn't draw us here without devising a plan before" I said.

"Let's go. Better keep moving" she told me.

Before following Buttercup, I picked up my communicator, but it had no signal.

"There is no way to communicate from here. My communicator is broken, but due to our location it's obvious that they don't pick up any signal. We must move before we fall into another trap" she explained to me.

I decided to follow Buttercup as she asked, after all, I had no idea what to do, I was scared and I'm not a good leader. I could only hope that the others were safe that we all get together soon.

Blossom's POV:

Butch and I were going down the stairs. Everything was really quiet, suspiciously quiet. We had no idea what was waiting for us in the basement. Maybe HIM was there waiting for us, or perhaps he had some other surprise in store for us.

"Blossom, may I ask you something?" Butch suddenly asked me.

"What is it?" I replied.

"Are you in love with my brother?" he asked me.

"W-What?! Which one?!" I stuttered.

"Yûsuke, of course" he rolled his eyes and stopped to face me, "listen, if you feel confused or don't like him, don't play with his feelings, speak truthfully. I will not tolerate you hurting my brother. Is it clear?"

Butch was serious. He looked a little upset. I fully understood him. I wouldn't want him to hurt Kaoru or Yoshito to play with Miyako's feelings. I wouldn't tolerate it either.

"I apologize" my answer took him by surprise, "I'm sorry if my actions make you doubt about my true feelings. What happened with Homare was a mere whim, but this time I'm sure about what my heart feels. I really love Yûsuke. Although I was angry with him for commenting on my relationship with Homare, now I realize that he did it because he cares about me. I was mad at him because deep down I knew he was right, but I didn't want to accept it. Now I appreciate that Yûsuke is so honest with me, although sometimes I don't like it. I would rather have someone sincere by my side than a jerk who tells me what I want to hear but doesn't love me."

Butch was silent for a moment. I guess he was thinking about what I said.

"Fine" he snorted, "I'm sick of you two. Just admit how you feel about him and stop messing with his mind. We men don't catch hints like that photo on the necklace you gave him. Or at least they don't."

Butch kept walking while I blushed. Butch was very smart. At least he did understand the clue on the necklace. On the other hand, he was right. I had to express my true feelings to Yûsuke. Maybe he feels the same way about me and all this time he kept it a secret. I guess I don't lose anything by trying.

"We're here" Butch announced.

I glanced over his shoulder. We had reached the basement, but this time it looked different. The cage was gone and there were several tunnels leading to different directions.

"Is this another illusion?" I asked him.

Butch's eyes turned purple.

"No. This is real" he answered me.

"HIM knew we were coming here because you recognized this place. The cage must be somewhere else" I realized.

"But there are too many caves. Which one should we go for?" he asked me.

"I have no idea" I started thinking, "but maybe you do."

Butch looked at me questioningly.

"Use the sound waves of your flute in each cave. That way we'll know how extensive it is" I suggested.

"Good idea" he agreed and took out his flute, "the sound waves will bounce off the walls so we can estimate their length."

"And once we have an idea of ​​how long the path is we can decide which path to take" I added.

Butch nodded and started playing his flute. With his incredible ability, he estimated the structure of each cave.

"Okay, here's the thing" he spoke to me, "there are two caves with no way out. Those are discarded. We should not waste time in a dead end."

"Right. What about the others?" I asked him.

"One of the caves has several other paths. Basically it's a maze" he explained, "but the others are continuous paths, I couldn't estimate how extensive they are. So, what do you think?"

"Well, like you said, I don't think we should choose dead-end caves. HIM will not make it so easy for us to find the boys, therefore, I would choose a longer path. However, I don't think we should go down infinite roads either. There are too many and trying them all would be a waste of time" I explained to him.

"So should we go through the maze?" he supposed.

"Yes. Although we may get lost, strategically speaking it's the best way to set traps and attack us by surprise. That is the most dangerous path. If I was the enemy, I would choose that path" I argued.

"Fine. I think the same. In that case, we must be aware of our surroundings" he responded.

We both agreed and took the most dangerous path.

"Hang in there guys. We are on our way" I thought.

Brick's POV:

Bubbles and I were still walking underground. Along the way, I analyzed the situation and noticed several details, such as that there were torches lit on all the roads. I figured HIM would be in a warm place. I also remembered that the forest was cold. If I wanted to leave that place, I had to follow the coldest path. My plan was simple: get out of there, try to communicate with the professor and the others and tell them everything I knew, and then go defeat HIM.

"Brick! Watch out!" I heard Bubble's scream.

I looked around to see what she meant by that. Suddenly, I saw a large creature in front of me, about to hit me with a large stick with thorns on the end. I managed to react in time and evade his attack.

"What's that?!" Bubbles asked with fear.

The creature was truly horrendous. He had five eyes on his face, a small nose, and a mouth full of sharp teeth and saliva. He had no hair on his head, his skin was purple and his clothes consisted of just a cloth covering his crotch and his bottom. The most terrifying thing was that he had four arms and three legs. I have never seen anything like this.

"Bubbles, step back!" I ordered her.

She looked too scared, so I decided to protect her. After all, I am the strongest of the six.

"Alright, ugly beast! Show me what you got!" I shouted.

The creature's growl echoed through all the walls. After that, he threw me a punch that I could barely avoid. Before I could react, another of his arms hit me in the stomach and sent me flying against the wall.

"Brick!" Bubbles screamed.

The blow had been very strong and I was already a bit hit by the fall. However, I couldn't give up that easily.

"Yeah, that's what I'm talking about" I told the creature and my eyes lit up on fire, "my turn."

Buttercup's POV:

I was furious. HIM had not only made us fall through a hole several meters deep that made us unconscious, but had also separated us. He knew well what he was doing. We usually separate into teams of the same color because that way we work better as a team, but now I was with Boomer, with whom I least get along with of the entire team. Unlike him, I had no intention of communicating with the others. My goal was just to find HIM and beat him up. The rest would come later.

"I'm sick of this place! I'm sick of HIM! I'm going to break his face when I see him!" I groaned during our journey through the cave.

"Weren't you the one who told me to calm down?" Boomer asked me.

"That was because you panicked! I'm just furious because that bastard separated us from our friends and threw us through a deep hole!" I replied.

"Shouldn't we look for the others and attack all together?" he asked me.

"No! We cannot waste time looking for the others! Don't you see that this place is a damn labyrinth?!" I responded him.

"But we are only two and HIM is very powerful" he stated.

"Then get out of my way and I'll do it myself!" I answered.

"Why are you acting like this?! We're supposed to be a team!" he insisted.

"Listen to me, bubble head! Our priority is to finish HIM in order to save the boys! If I must defeat HIM by myself then so be it!" I warned him, facing him, "now shut up and keep going!"

I turned around and kept walking, already quite irritated.

"B-Bu-Bu-Buttercup!" Boomer screamed.

"Now what?!" I groaned.

"Help!" he replied.

I turned around to see what the heck was going on and noticed that a strange creature was standing right in front of him. Apparently he had been following us. The creature had two long winged arms and sharp claws. He had no mouth and both eyes were small. His ears were long and pointed and his legs were long and thin. His toenails were also sharp and his skin was gray. I saw the creature move its arm to attack Boomer, who was paralyzed. I don't blame him, we've never seen a creature like that.

"Watch out!" I warned him and jumped to save him.

We both fell to the ground, being at the mercy of the creature.

"What the hell is this?!" I wondered.

Butch's POV:

Blossom and I had taken the path she chose. As I assumed, there were plenty of ways to go. Blossom came up with leaving marks along the way to make sure we weren't walking in circles. Our plan seemed to be working.

"Doesn't it seem suspicious that we haven't yet fallen into a trap or that someone has attacked us?" she asked me.

"I was thinking just the same thing" I answered.

"I guess that's good, don't you think?" she smiled.

Suddenly Blossom tripped over something and nearly fell.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

"Yeah, I'm fine" she smiled again.

Just then we heard something approach. However, it didn't sound like footsteps, but rather like something crawling. Blossom and I were on the lookout for anything. I heard the sound of a rattlesnake behind me, so I turned around. There was a huge snake in front of me, with a big mouth that had two sharp fangs and a thin tongue. However, it wasn't a normal snake. It had hundreds of harpoon-like legs, mesmerizing yellow eyes, and red scales.

"Butch! Be careful!" Blossom realized what was happening, but tried to stay calm.

We were both scared. We were in a fairly narrow passageway, so we didn't have much room to maneuver. In addition, we had to be careful not to damage the structure or the roof could fall on us. We were in a very dangerous situation.

"I think we shouldn't have said anything. That usually attracts trouble" I told Blossom.

***********************************

The puffs are having so much trouble! What is HIM's plan? Will they make it to him? Will they all get together again? What will happen next? You'll find out in the next chapter, so keep reading!