"Now, I want you to take a look outside," she whispered.

Moonfrost, Sydney, and Joss were at the front of the gathering of CBers--they didn't want to be, but the AEs had shoved them forwards. The assistant beckoned them to the porch. 

All was silent outside. The trees had stopped swaying; the birds were all hiding; the clouds even traveled sluggishly across the cerulean sky. The tall grass on either side of the driveway stood still, no workers were around the Breedery, and the part of the barn that the CBers could see from that porch on the castle on the hill seemed...drawn; as if painted in a picture. 

The only sound the CBers heard was the sound of their horses pawing the grass frantically with their hooves--and then, from behind the Breedery, they saw the tiniest bit of movement: Shiny, beady, sticky eyes rising from the stiff golden grass. The three horrified CBers proceeded to see two, four, six, ten, twenty, forty individual eyes stretch up as the rest of the snails slid out of the grass. At the head of them all...was a snail with an evil glint in its eyes. A snail that had--unfortunately for the CBers, they forgot what it looked like, so I, sadly, cannot finish that sentence.  And who owned this it. They forgot what its name was. Later that day, they forgot what it looked like. In fact, they really only focused on where their own snails were and took no notice of the other snails in the army line. That was a very big mistake.

The assistant pulled the CBers back into the house and slammed the door, her face tight with worry. It gave the CBers the feeling that maybe their former pet snails actually stood a chance against them...That maybe they were more than just your average garden snail that glowed. The assistant huddled up the CBers and started issuing commands. 

"Okay, here's what our plan is. The maids are currently gathering hard objects from the kitchen, such as stale bread and frozen oranges. They will use these for the artillery, which we have up in the attic. I want Poetic Panda, Booksy, Joss, Mortifero, Rufus, and Turgon to follow the maids up into the attic to help with the artillery. I want Over the Rainbow, Shadow Dragon, and Moonfrost to stay down here and help monitoring the snails. You will be responsible for announcing their every move. If they get hit, announce it. If we get hit, announce it. If they swerve--well, you get the picture. See me after this and I'll tell you how to announce a move in just one or two words. Now, I need Dragonrider, Spyro, Icy, and especially Puck to stay down here and work on special attack weapons. Puck, since you have experience with these kinds of things, you will be in charge of this group. The coffee table in the living room will serve as your workdesk and one of the workers will bring you your supplies. Some of the projectiles you should work on are grenades that form nets on impact or stun the snails. Rosemary will treat wounds and Critic A and Gwen will help bring things to the farmer and I as we increase the defense in front of the house. And don't worry--this house is still pretty strong. Remember, it's a castle on the outside. Sydney, you will work as a messenger from each station to the other, carrying important information to each station." 

The farmer's assistant paused for a breath. Then she realized that she'd left out the CATPTCHAs.

"Abou?" Cappy inquired.

"Help!" Elsa mewled.

"Um, you CAPTCHAs can...help the projectile group make nets," the assistant decided. She had picked the safest spot in the house for the CAPTCHAs to work at.

Suddenly the farmer rushed through them, holding a small box. "The snails are moving faster than we anticipated. They are almost halfway to the house. And they brought catapults!" With that, he swung the door open and rushed out onto the lawn. His assistant told the CBers to go to their assigned locations and she too walked out of the house with Critic A and Gwen.

-----------------------

Chip says, "Dumy!" You want a test dummy to practice on? Um...Sorry, you're dead, Chip. And I don't know about the ghost-ness of CAPTCHAs in this story yet. So you are either not even a ghost yet, or you are standing around being bored in a cave while poor unfortunate souls train animals under the murderer's command. 

  The Attic Group~~~

Poetic Panda, Booksy, Joss, Mortifero, Rufus, and Turgon wove their way to the kitchen, wondering where the attic could be located. They found the entrance into the kitchen blocked, however, by three large...rear ends. The narrow doorway into the long, home-style kitchen was filled by the camo-clad maids noisily scrounging through the cabinets under the sinks. 

By unspoken agreement and the obvious need for speed in the current circumstances, Mortif silently ran to the dinner table and grabbed a red pen. She chucked it at the doorway and then ducked behind Rufus.

"Hm!" Agatha grunted after the pen hit her. She rose from the floor and faced the CBers. They still couldn't see all the way into the kitchen due to Agatha's girth (and the dim lighting). "I don't have time for this," she snapped, and spanked her comrades as hard as she could. Yelping, they bounced up, hit their heads, scooted out from under the sink, and then stood up, breathing heavily.

"Think we have enough projectiles?" they panted. The CBers noticed baskets of hard bread and frozen goods on the floor. Suddenly Moonfrost shouted, "Defense wall is up! Snails beginning catapult launches!"

"Uh, duh! Don't you remember that we already have some cannonballs up there?" Agatha sounded somewhat far away.

The group looked up to see her already halfway across the dining room, baskets of bread in hand. The other two maids followed heavily, leaving the CBers to trail behind on their way to the attic.

The Monitors~~~ 

Moonfrost, Shadow Dragon, and Over the Rainbow crowded at the window where the farmer and his assistant had stood not ten minutes ago. The box that the farmer had carried outside ended up expanding into a clear glass wall: The residents of the house could see the snails, but the snails couldn't get in...

Moonfost had just announced the building of the wall and the forming of the catapults of the snails. Shadow Dragon wanted to have a higher viewpoint so that they could see better, but apparently that was out of the question. 'There aren't any windows upstairs that overlook the front yard!' The assistant had said after reminding the three to speak in short sentences whenever they were announcing something.

They pressed their faces against the window in silence and continued to watch the farmer, the farmer's assistant, and the two AEs get ready to battle the snails.

Suddenly, Shadow Dragon jolted back. She had just realized something...We never told the farmer about the murderer's hidedout! She, OtR, and Joss had forgotten all about that! Many of the CBers wishfully joked about their dead friends being ghosts somewhere, causing their three other friends to subconsiously assme they'd told everyone, but they hadn't! Shadow Dragon shifted uncomfortably and peered back through the window to monitor the snails again. After the battle, there would be no forgetting.

At the crafting table~~~

 

"The farmer needs those projectiles, fast!" Sydney shouted through the front door. She was currently sending messages from the front of the house to the rest of the house, and had developed a classic, loud way of doing so.

"Geez, we're working as fast as we can!" Puck mumbled. "Dragonrider, you're making those sticky grenades all wrong!"

Dragonrider helplessly watched as Puck snatched the sticky grenade from her hands and added some more flour to its inside. It seemed like nobody knew how to do anything--Puck was even shouting at the CAPTCHAs for making the net holes too large. 

But boy, did Puck have a talent for making specialized weapons. She had a pile of sticky grenades ready to go in just five minutes. She assigned the others jobs handing her supplies and tying stuff together. The CAPTCHAs sat on the couch making the nets while the CBers surrounded the table. 

Puck looked straight down at the table while working; no one could see her expression. But if they could have looked at her eyes, they would have seen them glistening with tears. Puck's grief drove her onward, fueling her mind and hands to work as fast as she could. Joan, as far as Puck knew, was gone forever, and Puck didn't want her CBer to have died for nothing in a hopeless tale in which frenzied CBers fought and failed for freedom from impending doom.

It seemed that the nagging thought in each and every one of the CBers' jumbled and confused minds was worming its way up, up, up; closer and closer to being uncovered. Many CBers, as they realized the danger and reality of the situation, awakened a purpose much deeper than their original intent...for the farm--their  farm--was in danger, and that single truth meant much more to the CBers than they had formerly thought.

Sydney~~~

"The farmer needs those projectiles, fast!"

Sydney pulled her head back out of the house. She watched as Gwen and Critic A helped the farmer and his assistant set up catapults behind the glass wall. 

Gwen pulled back the cup of the catapult while Critic A tied it down. They then did the same to three more, working as fast as they could. They finished in less than a minute.

The snails stopped advancing at about ten feet away from the wall. Their pastel colors merged together, making it seem like there were more than there really was. Their catapults were plastic and easy to manage, which was proved to the CBers when the snails breezily began launching rocks and some of those exploding Poppits at the glass. The farmer's assistant could've sworn she saw a stripy red snail grin at her and yawn as it handed a rock to its partner. 

Up in the attic, the artillery group began shooting oranges down at the enemy. One, two, three hits to a plastic catapult and it was bashed beyond repair. Then they started shooting down stale loaves of water-soaked bread. The soggy dough encased its target, immobilizing it. (Of course, with all those snails, it didn't take too long for them to eat  the bread and free each other. It didn't matter. The two AEs were having tons of fun watching the destruction while waiting for their ammo to arrive.)

"HAHAHAHAHA," Gwen laughed, despite herself. "Do that again!" Of course, it was rather odd to see Gwen smiling.

Anyway, those were just a few of the defensive maneuvers that the CBers carried out during the battle. They had to admit, the murderer trained their formerly docile snails flawlessly. They showed no signs of the cute, CAPTCHA-quality creatures anywhere within those devious shells.

After a short while, the battle began to turn towards the defenders because Puck had finally begun delivering net grenades, and not to mention the battle group had begun actually catching snails. (Don't ask me how they got them through the wall--they just did.) Speaking of which, the glass wall appeared to be holding up quite nicely. The slimy army also seemed to thin out...And all seemed well. At least, until a sudden shout came from the back door.

  - - - One short run later - - - 

When Sydney reached the back of the house, she saw a terrible sight indeed. Yes, a worker stood stock still in the middle of the library, staring at the door. The door that was slowly swinging inward...

At first, the two horrified people saw nothing. Only, it was the same kind of nothing that three CBers had seen when the battle began. The kind of nothing that means there's something out there...

Maybe if Sydney and that worker had taken a little less time to think philisophical thoughts about nothing, they would've been able to cry a little louder for help. But that didn't happen, and the 'nothings' on the door leaped off and wrapped themselves around their prisoners.