Chapter 21: Orchestra Hit

"Oh, man! I never knew boulders could hit that hard!" Stan said, stretching and walking into the main room.

"You're late!" Sobie yelled. "We were about to go without you."

"Oh, you wouldn't do that," Stan said. "I'm the strongest one on the team."

"Really?" Matt, Hamilton, and Erica asked in unison.

"Alright, listen up!" Andrew said. "Next we head for Xora. Then we will go to Zora, Kora to talk to Hunter, Yora, and finally Cora. We only have a few more places to go. Try not to kill each other before the end. You will have plenty of time to do that afterward." The four of them nodded. "Now then, Xora's only a short ways away. There's no need to warp. Let's go!"

The town of Xora only took about fifteen minutes to reach. As soon as we walked into town, though, any villagers who saw us shut themselves in their houses. We knocked on Xora's door, but there was no answer.

"Open up, Xora!" Matt yelled as he knocked on the door.

"Go away!" Xora yelled out.

"Xora, it's us! The ones Fora sent to get your Gem!" Andrew yelled back.

"It's been taken! Go away!"

"Again? Really?" Jennifer asked.

"Come on, let's go see what we can do," Andrew lead us north of town where a closed cave lay. Surrounding the cave were what looked like... xylophone boards? Then we heard a voice come from the cave.

"Greetings new travelers! Have you come to hear me play?"

"Play what?" Madi asked.

"Why, music, of course!" the voice said.

"Are you the one that took the Xora Gem?" Hamilton asked.

"I never took anything in my life! The Gem was handed to me by some old man."

"Exitilus," I grumbled.

"If you want to hear me play, first you must prove yourself worthy of such a privilege. As you can see, there are many boards surrounding this cave. Each of you pick one!" Andrew told us to follow his instructions. We each took a board. "Stand on them." We followed and stood on them. "Now look at your board and memorize your key note! When I yell that letter out, jump! Okay! Let us begin! Now, A!" Kyra jumped. "Good, now try C, D, G, B!" Stan, Andrew, Jennifer, and Helen jumped. "Okay, then! A, G, B, F, C, E, D!" Kyra followed by, Jennifer, Helen, me, Stan, Octavis, and Andrew jumped. "Excellent, now let's try two at a time! A and G, both B's, C and E, F and B, both A's!" Kyra and Jennifer jumped. Then Helen and Marina. Stan and Octavis. Me and Helen jumped next, and then Kyra and Matt.

"This is a terrible-sounding song," Daniel said. "Regardless, you've proven you can all play the xylophone, or at least follow instructions. Come on in!" The cave opened up.

"I didn't get to jump," Madi muttered as we walked in.

The floor of the cave was filled with giant instruments: A guitar, a trumpet, and drums.

"Welcome to my musical cave!" the voice said. "Follow my instructions one more time and you will have an audience with me!"

"Do we have to?" Stan asked.

"Yep!" the voice answered. "Now, everyone chose a place to stand. Four on drums, three on trumpet, and six on guitar!" Madi ran to the drums and stood on the middle platform, with Kyra on the left, Matt on the right, and Daniel on the cymbal. Me, Jennifer, and Andrew took the trumpet with Stan, Octavis, Marina, Helen, Hamilton, and Alice on the guitar. Chris, Lacey, Sobie, and Erica stayed on the sides. "Green girl! You can transform, right?"

"Er, yes?" Lacey answered.

"How would you like to be the piano for the other three to play?" Lacey looked at the others and they nodded telling her to do it. With reluctance, Lacey turned into a giant green keyboard for Chris, Sobie, and Erica to play.

"You know, I never really played an instrument before," Kyra said.

"I haven't either," Sobie said. "I've heard flutes be played, but I never played one myself."

"Then this should be interesting!" the voice exclaimed. "Using what you know, or don't know I guess, I want you to all play this song!" A loud song echoed through the cave.

"Ha! I knew that song in kindergarten!" Daniel yelled.

"What is this song from?" Hamilton asked.

"Don't tell me many of you have never played this video game before!" the voice yelled. Most of us shook our heads. "...Fine, maybe this will help." A screen appeared on the wall in front of us with the song labeled as "Mario". "Just follow the beat and play your notes! Begin!" The screen started scrolling as the notes appeared on screen. For the first number of tries, many of us had hit the wrong note. Each time we did, the voice would yell at us and we would start over. It took us several tries and we had played and jumped for a number of hours.

"My feet are hurting," Madi whined as she was jumping on the drum.

"I can't keep playing anymore..." Chris said keeping his hands below the Lacey-piano.

"That's it!" Stan yelled. "It takes someone several days to learn these songs! Music man, I'm coming for you!" Stan ran at the closed door on the other side of the room and rammed it down. Inside was a boy who jumped out of his seat as Stan ran in. He had red hair spiked upward, glasses, and a black cape on. "Song's over, Maestro! You're being booed off the stage." Stan grabbed the man and threw him into the other room.

"Please, I'm sorry!" the man screamed. "I just wanted someone to play music with me!"

"Who are you, kid?" Stan asked.

"Frank!" he screamed. "I'm sorry!"

"Where's the Gem?" Andrew asked helping Frank up.

"It's in that room," he answered. I went in and grabbed the Gem.

"Why didn't you just get a group of friends together and make a band or something?" Jennifer asked.

"I... don't have any," Frank answered.

"Well, I'm sure if you start playing something, people will come to you," Alice said. "That's how friends are made, by sharing interests."

"Um, okay..." Frank said. "I'm not in trouble am I?"

"No, we have the Gem," Andrew said. "Just get out of here before we bring you to Xora." Frank nodded and ran out of the cave.

"This was probably the strangest place we've been to so far," Kyra said.

"I don't think it can get any weirder than this," Lacey said. She was back to her normal-ish green self again.

"Let's get out of here," I said holding the Gem up. "Next stop is Zora!"

"Let's hope that chapter is better than this one," Jennifer said as we warped out.

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