Chapter Twelve ~ My religion says my senior write up cannot be a mere 400 characters. It's a longwinded religion.

"So, how about the red sox?"

It was dark, in the darkest part of the dark heavenly forest at midnight. Loretta the Dragon Lady, Paolo the Foreigner-Snow leopard, Mary-Anne the Maneater, and AWC were all sitting around a campfire, discussing their bad lives.

"Good love himself, that team is overdramatic." Loretta said.

"True that." Paolo said.

AWC was quietly poking the fire with a stick. She watched it catch fire, then struck a rock over and over until the fire went out, and then started again. "What would happen," she mused, "if the zombies attacked us right now?"

At that very moment, a figure in a black cloak emerged from a nearby bush and kidnapped AWC and the dragon lady (Narrator's Note: Kidnapping a dragon lady with stealth and speed is a very difficult thing).

"ALACK!" AWC struggled, but was dragged away into the darker than darkest part of the forest. The dragon lady didn't actually struggle very much, because her tea had been poisoned.

"Hush, the others will hear you," said the random ninja. "They just wouldn't understand."

"What about me?" AWC demanded, "I don't understand either!"

"Ah but you will. So do the forest a favor and shut up!"

"The masked mystery person will save me." AWC growled. "Just you wait."

"Oh, I'm very afraid." The ninja rolled their eyes.

****MEANWHILE****

Lemony the bunny and Florence the Owl sat in the zen pagoda, waiting for AWC to return from her camping trip. Lemony was painting Florence's talons pink. Florence had protested at first, but they were both so bored he finally agreed.

"It's not fair," Florence said, folding his wings across his chest in an angry way. "We never get to go on adventures."

"Meh," Lemony said, tilting his head to the side to make sure he liked the shade of nail polish. "Do you honestly want to have to deal with all of those troublesome adventure-type things? I mean, here we are safe."

"Safe, yes, and bored. I mean. WHO! I have a bunny painting my talons."

"You won't anymore if you don't sit still!" Lemony shook his head, disapprovingly.

"I think we should go on an adventure." Florence said, flying up suddenly and upsetting the bottle of polish. Pink poisonous fluid began creeping out and crawling across the floor.

"Ah!" Lemony said. "Look what you've done! We've ruined the Zen floor... we've ruuuined the zeennnn..."

"Well on our adventure we'll locate some nail polish remover. Will that make you happy, mr lame?" Florence seemed quite impatient to get out the door.

"What if AWC gets back and we're not here?" Lemony asked, trying to stay away from the slowly spreading pink splotch, terribly aware of how stupid he would look with his fur covered in pink blotcheties.

"Who. I'll leave a note. Let's go."

"Okay..." Lemony said.

The rabbit and owl scurried and flew out of the entrance and into the heavenly forest.

****MEANWHILE****

"HELP!" AWC was still struggling, hammering her fists against the ninja. "Crazy ninjas! MASKED GUY!"

"Shut up, we're here, it's me!" The ninja removed the black mask and, sure enough, it was Narcissa the Narcissist.

"What?" AWC asked.

"Hmmmm..." Loretta said. The effects of the tea were starting to wear off.

"I've become more self-aware," Narcissa said, "and it's time you two did too."

"I don't need to be more self aware," AWC said. "I have a zen pagoda."

"Ah, but have you met your shadow yet?" Narcissa asked, smiling a mysterious smile of mystery.

"Uhuh." Loretta said sleepily. "I was just walking down a well-lit street yesterday..."

"That's not what I mean. What I mean is this," and just like that, she split into two separate people. One Narcissa was smiling. The other Narcissa was smiling evilly.

"Alack! Great Scott! Oh, good, dear Love Himself that's just NOT RIGHT!!!" AWC hid behind Loretta.

"Well, here's the story behind it." Narcissa sat down in the grass. So did Loretta, and AWC behind her. "One day I woke up in a mafia hideout surrounded by several adoring guys."

Loretta sighed sleepily. "And?"

"And they all knew me for some reason, although I hadn't ever seen any of them. That's when I realized I had a shadow. Not a different personality, per se, but another side of my personality. Every now and then it would take over and act for me. Yay!"

AWC was puzzled. "Yay?"

"The most important thing is, so do you. You both have shadows. If you get more in touch with your inner selves, you'll be able to find them, and then they can do that which you could never dare to do."

"Um, there's a reason why Love Himself said I should be just one person," AWC said. "Isn't there?"

"OMG what's that?" Narcissa's eyes grew wide and she pointed at the bushes on the other side of the tiny clearing.

AWC jumped up to see.

ZZzzzzzING!

"Alack!"

AWC turned back around and saw Dark Narcissa holding a lime green stun gun.

Lorretta yawned. "Now that's just Cold..."

But now there were two AWCs standing in the clearing. One was typical AWC, with rabbit ears and colorful hoodie, blue jeans and no shoes. The other had high heels, black jeans, a black hoodie, rabbit ears, and a hatchet.

"You might like just hanging around," AWC's shadow said, grinning. "But I'm gonna go hunt me a silver dog."

"What???" AWC asked. "It's not doing any harm! It's just running around in the distance like a typical antagonist, until it decides to strike!"

"Oh puh-lease. Seeya, sis. Have fun playing with your pet bunny while I go eliminate stuff."

"Wait!" AWC cried.

But AWC's shadow had already run off cackling into the undergrowth. AWC slapped her wide forehead. "Narccy, you probably should not have done that."

"Nonsense. You're silver dog problem is solved."

"Not until after she steals everyone's lawn gnomes and uses them for ax practice." AWC groaned. "Ugh. I'm worried."

"Don't be. Having your evil self running around is perfectly safe," Narcissa said.

In the distance, they heard a loud evil laugh and shattering clay.

****MEANWHILE****

Lemony and Florence were lost. In a dark forest. "Oh, I knew this was a bad idea..." Lemony was quivering with fright.

"It sure was." Shadow the angry wolf strode out from the shadows. "What are you guys doing here? Don't you belong in AWC's zen pagoda?"

"Ar-r-re... y-y-y-you gonna e-eat us?" Lemony asked, terrified.

"Who?" Florence asked, terrified.

"Actually, I'd love to," Shadow said matter-of-factly. "And yet... I just ate Serj Tankian. I'm stuffed. Do you want me to take you guys home?"

"Yes please mister shadow..." Lemony said.

Suddenly, there was a flurry of pages, and out of the bushes emerged:

"BEHOLD! I AM THE FAMED TOME OF SUPERIORITY!"

to be continued