User blog:DarlynMaePaguio/Chapter Four

Premise
With the furiously reluctant aid of Jimmy at her side, Darlene searches for an escape from a gargantuan creature that has swallowed them whole. Will her interactions with the Hero reveal to the kids the light of the world's true enemy?

Plot
Following a nightmare of fighting the Hive Five, Darlene wakes up in the snow, having survived the fall into the valley. Soon enough, a trail of blood leads her to Jimmy's body, seemingly dead on impact but now turned into a human. Darlene hallucinates that a murder of crows is taunting her for killing real humans, though she quickly defends her actions, claiming the Five already chose their path. Riley, Hiro and Miguel arrived and they greeted her.

Unfortunately, Jimmy also survived the fall, and Darlene is forced to fight to protect the kids and tie Jimmy up once again. As a restrained Jimmy continues to badmouth her while swinging from a tree, Darlene ponders the entire way of thinking, and decides to convince him that she is not an enemy. Before she can do so, however, a giant monster emerges from the ground and swallows them all whole.

Against repeated attacks from Jimmy, Darlene manages to save her and break their fall, landing in the bowels of the beast. When they stop to rest, Jimmy revels in his "victory," gloating that they are both trapped inside the monster while Hiro, Miguel and Riley and Darlene will soon die as a result. Darlene is more positive, however, having experienced exploring the innards of large creatures before, and determines there must be another way out. As Darlene tries to explain that she is the true ally, multiple blue-green creatures arrive and attempt to eat them, with Jimmy kicking Darlene towards the swarm in another attempt to kill her and Miguel. Using one of their severed appendages as a makeshift sword, Darlene kills several of the creatures before rescuing an unhelpful Ashi and Miguel, strapping Jimmy to her back and retreating deeper into the monster.

While stopping to rest again, an unconscious Jimmy’s dreams of his friend being taken by mysterious figure with white bear hat and green bag. Waking up, he spots Darlene nearby. A small puff-ball creature appears before Darlene and tries to convince her to escape without her friends, believing they are only in danger. Darlene refuses to listen, but the puf-ball creature's opinion is shared by Darlene's self-hallucination. While Darlene argues with herself to the boys’s confusion, they are kidnapped by a red, crab-like creature, and Darlene’s hallucination is quick to notice. Ignoring her emotion self and snapping off a makeshift mace from the monster's body, Darlene kills the creature that abducted Jimmy and Miguel and brings them back. Unsurprisingly, they isn't grateful for the rescue. The small puff-ball from before asks if Jimmy was expecting a hug and a kiss another boy who averaged, to their annoyance.

As Darlene presses onward, Jimmy continues to rant about her inevitable demise while Hiro and Riley come to warning them. Finally fed up, Darlene once again tries and fails to reason with Jimmy before being forced to take shelter from a hail of needles. While waiting for the storm to pass, Darlene, in an attempt at small-talk, explains acupuncture to Jimmy while removing their needles. Eventually, after hiding from a centipede-like creature, Darlene takes the pieces of its discarded exoskeleton as makeshift armor, taking the disgust as a compliment. While climbing to a higher area, Darlene determines a way out is close, causing Riley to send them both falling. Fortunately, Darlene manages to grab a makeshift vine and save them both, keeping Jimmy on a longer leash for the rest of the climb.

Finally, after reaching the top, Jimmy gazes in awe at the assorted flying creatures, while Jack spots an exit to the outside over a large pool of acid. As they hitch a ride on one of the flying creatures, a large, transparent fish-like predator spots them and gives chase. Using the flyers to evade and hide, Jack and Ashi manage to jump through the exit before it closes and escape from both monsters, landing in a surrounding ocean and freeing Jimmy in the process. Once outside, Darlene and kids rescues Ashi, then swims to a nearby desert island. Coming to their senses and spotting them sickle in the water, Ashi prepares to finally kill an exhausted Darlene.

Before he can do so, however, a cherry blossom flies past, and Darlene recalls a moment in shen he interacted with a cherry blossom during a sparring session, only for it to be squished to death by the Brother Blood, claiming the flower was distracting him and generally "not part of Order." As Darlene interacts with the flower in a more harmless manner, Jimmy drops her sickle after remembering Brother Blood’s words, faced with the reality that the hero may not be truly evil after all as he was indoctrinated into believing. Distraught, Jimmy then sits on the island with Darlene, Miguel, Hiro and Riley, albeit from a distance, seemingly making peace with his "enemies" and pondering about what the truth really is.