Humming in agreement, they headed off into the jungle closest too them, wanting to get away from the confusion and other groups less they get forced into something they'd rather not. Deciding their best bet was to head north, they kept a steady pace. As they walked further into the Jungle, the canopy above became increasingly heavier, blocking out most of the natural light. Zoisite couldn't help but wonder how dark the jungle would be at night. 

Prince's Shitennou or not, Zoisite wasn't exactly made for this type of environment. His lands were full of fields, and hills and the occasional woods, nothing like this. The floor was littered with roots growing over each other, plants everywhere and the vines! He had to constantly watch his footing, having nearly slipped, fallen, or gotten his foot stuck in tiny holes. 

Nephrite on the other hand seemed to be having no problems with this, walking about like he was back home in the Americas.  Zoisite couldn't help but glare at him, jealous of how at ease he was.

... Interesting. I wouldn't have expected Tellu and Viluy to be defeated by their own innovations, Eudial thought to herself as she kept an attentive eye on her blue-haired colleague.

“[...]Therefore, I think we should proceed with caution around them, but be open to alliances with those of similar goals to ours...” After Cyprine concluded her thoughts on their current predicament, Eudial took a second glance at the other people standing around on the beach.

An alliance...with one of the other former adversaries of the Sailor Senshi? Eudial pondered this thought for a moment. Although she stared at the coastline in deep thought, Cyprine's glance toward Mimete did not go unnoticed by her. ...Trading out Mimete for a different teammate could be a useful survival tactic...On the other hand, nobody will be gaining my trust so easily...

When Cyprine proceeded to ask if they could access their witch abilities, Eudial snapped out of her slight daze and raised an intrigued brow.

“Witch abilities?...”

Oh, right...Those abilities. Eudial had become so accustomed to her job as a scientist she had nearly forgotten about her wooden staff. In a matter of fact, it had been set aside to collect dust in a corner soon after the development of the capture gun and Fire Buster.

...But if her witch abilities were still accessible from this unknown location, then the staff should appear before her if she chose to summon it.

“I could try to su—”

Luckily, Mimete spared Eudial from impending failure when she eagerly sprung forward to be helpful for a change. Eudial watched in slight amusement as Mimete tugged on the white lab coat in attempt to reveal her yellow and black outfit, but ultimately ended up sighing as the girl quickly gave up and began to cry. How embarrassing.

“It's okay, Mimete...” Eudial murmured softly with a forced weak smile, though her tone lacked any form of sympathy. Sighing, she then turned back to Cyprine to address her newest concern: their abilities.

“Since it appears that our witch abilities are unavailable, I believe tha—” The red-haired woman didn't need to offer a solution to the witches' problem, for a being calling herself Sailor Ixalia appeared from the sky before the groups of people on the beach to explain their current predicament, and even announced the return of their powers and weapons! Eudial however, seemed too busy organizing all of this new information and discrediting some of the older hypotheses in her head to take note that the Fire Buster II had fallen into the sand at her feet.

“...Excuse me?” Experiment? Test subjects? Was there a control group? And what was all of this really about? Turning her head toward Sailor Ixalia with an inquisitive stare, Eudial took a step forward and raised her left index finger. “Which of us are in the control...” The woman disappeared before Eudial could finish her sentence. “...group?” Eudial brought the palm of her left hand against her forehead and sighed in exasperation. So they were on an island and they were confirmed dead, but were now living thanks to this so-called "Sailor Ixalia." And apparently it was their turn to be an experiment. How inconvenient.

Nephrite moved through the thickening jungle with a sort of confidence he hadn't had in himself in years. This was the closest to his old territory he had gotten in years. He hadn't realized how stifling the concrete city of Tokyo and the dim, cold, Dark Kingdom had been until now. If he had a hatchet or blade, he could cut a bigger path through some of this thick plant life, but his only weapons at the moment were his powers.

Having realized that Zoisite was not having nearly as easy of a time, Nephrite started cutting apart the more obtrusive vines and tree branches with short blasts of energy, widening their trail. 

"Don't lag behind too much, I'm not coming back for you if you get lost, Zoisite," he said without turning around. He controlled the grin that wanted to spread across his face. It had been a long while since he'd had the upper hand in their relationship.

Mimete whimpered at the other Witches. Around her, the other groups were leaving the beach. She didn't want to be stuck out here, particularly if they were supposed to be following some kind of deadline. She didn't like the other women she was currently trailing, but they were familiar and that provided a kind of safety in Mimete's eyes. Plus, she knew they were both useful--Eudial probably most so. Mimete hadn't spent her career piggy-backing off the older woman for nothing.

Her orange eyes darted from the moving groups towards the spooky and not-at-all-inviting jungle and back again. She shuffled her feet, nearly tripping in the high heels with her anxious movements.

"Everyone else is leaving," she whined. "But it looks creepy in there!"

“Mimete! Calm down! You heard what the woman said, right? We have a maximum of three weeks to make it to the other side of this island before the other groups, and crying about it won't change anything,” Eudial pointed out. Couldn't Mimete do anything besides whine and cry all of the time? As she stood there trying to tolerate Mimete's incessant whining, Eudial noticed that some of the other groups were already running off into the jungle. She shook her head. Clearly they were all insane taking off without first formulating a survival plan.

“...But if we are lucky, it seems that we can find maps to take shortcuts--And perhaps we could even observe some of the other groups from a distance to learn from their mistakes on the way,” the red-haired woman suggested to her colleagues. “That being said, we absolutely must proceed with caution. The strange woman from earlier is likely in control of the entire environment; what we perceive on this island may not be reality.”

She pouted at the rebuff from Eudial, sulking quietly as her heels sunk into the sand. She really wasn't generally capable of much more than complaining, but it was one of her adorable character traits. That older snail woman just didn't understand how hard life was when one was this cute. All of the stuff on this island was turning into hard work, which she just wasn't suitable for. She rubbed her fingers against one of her large earrings, staring off into the distant horizon. Mimete wasn't ignoring the others, but she didn't want Eudial to yell at her again.

She missed the Professor. He would have taken pity on her; he always did. He was so understanding, even if he gave her lousy Daimon that weren't good enough to take the Pure Heart Crystals from her targets. Without the Daimon, or the structure of the Death Busters laboratory, she wasn't sure what to do with herself. Hopefully Eudial and Cyprine would decide on... something... and she could just follow them.

Mimete kicked the sand, turning back to watch the other teams forge on. What a bummer that this wasn't a tropical beach vacation.

Cyprine maintained her exterior composure as Sailor Ixalia appeared in the sky and made clear their situation; it seemed quite logical though very twisted at the same time. She wondered how much of Ixalia's power had been expended in returning them all to life. 

She suppressed a small laugh as Eudial tried to make inquires of this mysterious being. Mercifully, Eudial, seeming slightly on edge, responded to all of Mimete's whining, allowing Cyprine time to observe the ways off of the beach into the jungle.

"Caution is paramount," Cyprine said slowly. "There are several paths leading away into the jungle, but those seem too...obvious to be safe or easy ways off of the beach. There is a stretch of jungle toward which none of the others took off running, but if you (Eudial) have any deeper insights as to the best course of action, I would love to hear them."

Rubeus waited and then saw others start to go off into the wood and he followed suit. He wished that he could teleport but of course that was taken away from him..He continued in carefully looking around for traps, vines and maybe that map that lady was talking about.. He was following some people up in the trees but then decided to go his own way towards the middle or what he thought was the middle...

Why did it have to be a jungle? He held his tongue, not wanting to appear to be weak in front of other people. It was one thing to complain in front of his comrades, good nature snipping at each other but it was another thing entir-

Lost in thought he hadn't seen the protruding root of a tree, his foot having caught in it, sending him crashing to the ground hard as a flair of pain came from his ankle.

Kicking her heels in the sand, Mimete lost her balance and tumbled down, nearly flashing the rest of the group thanks to her short lab coat. The blonde dramatically righted herself and whimpered pitifully, although she was thankfully not injured. If only anyone actually cared enough to give her any notice, but she didn't expect that from teammates as heartless as Cyprine and Eudial. As she dragged herself to her feet, still moping, she noticed a hint of white among the green foliage of the jungle.

Mimete trotted closer to her blue- and red-haired companions. She didn't want to give away too much information to the other teams.

"Cyprine! Eudial!" she said in a stage whisper, although she wouldn't be loud enough to be overheard by anyone else. "Do you see that? Over there? I think it's important?"

She wasn't going to climb the tree in these high heels, of course. Thankfully, it was just sliiightly higher than her reach. The others were taller than her, so they should be able to grab it easily. She at least shuffled over to the tree in question, positioning herself at the bottom as if to guard it.

Nephrite heard a loud thud behind him, and he turned to see Zoisite face down on the forest floor. Why was he not surprised? He grudgingly stopped and went to see if he was alright, thinking about how this was wasting their precious time. 

"You have to watch where you're going if you don't want to trip on every shrub between here and the exit," he said, standing over him. "Come on, we need to keep going."

Cyprine decided to humor Mimete while waiting for Eudial to finish formulating her response. She took a subtle glance upward and scanned the beach with Ptilol's help. The small discolored wedge was definitely not part of the tree, but would not be easy to reach.

Ptilol, can you...?


Oh yes, came the reply in an instant, just distract Mimete for a second. Eudial is looking the other way. 
She didn't like showing her other half, preferring to keep Ptilol a secret unless absolutely necessary, but the others had all left the beach and she was reasonably certain Salior Ixalia was already aware of Ptilol.

"Mimete, I'll watch this. Can you gather some shells we could use to get whatever that is down?"

"Okay!" she chirped in reply, glad to have been acknowledged. Besides, gathering shells wasn't an awful task. She would do it without too much complaining. Mimete could brag later about how helpful she was, after all!

Cyprine took in a small breath and released Ptilol upward. Ptilol had used her staff to smack at the object, knocking it free from the tree, and fell back down being re-absorbed into Cyprine.

She then picked it up and gently dusted off the sand. Her eyes lit up and a smirk went across her face as she realized it was a map!

Mimete hopped back over to the other Witches, hands filled with a sad variety of mostly broken shells. Regardless, she seemed extremely pleased with herself. Her personality had completely flipped from the previous sulking childishness to a bright and cheerful temper. She was all smiles now, even towards Eudial.

"I found some!" she called out, tromping back through the sand. She presented the terrible collection as though it could have actually had some value.

"So, how do we use these to get the...!" Mimete had been turning to look up at the tree where the piece of paper had been stuck, and there was a moment of panic when she realized it was no longer present. Turning towards Cyprine with tear-filled eyes, she didn't have an opportunity to cry--she saw the map in the other woman's hands.

"Oooh, what is it? Yay, a map! How should we use it?" she asked, crowding close.

“Yes, they do seem quite obvious don't they?” Eudial mused while turning away from Cyprine to take a better look at the foliage. As the witch with the braided hair had previously observed, the lush vegetation appeared to grow in patches producing several wide gaps that led away from the sandy beach, like miniature pathways. In comparison to the true jungle –which Eudial immediately classified as the area possessing thick tangles of vines (and the dense undergrowth likely housing thorns and poisonous creatures)—these natural pathways almost begged to be tread upon. “...Too obvious.”

"Do you see that? Over there? I think it's important?"

As usual, the redhead brushed off Mimete's observation as unimportant and replied with a simple “Not now, Mimete. In a moment,” without even turning her head to acknowledge whatever was being pointed out to her and Cyprine. She still needed another moment to gather her thoughts.

Cyprine has made a good point about the foliage. We shouldn't opt for the easiest way off the beach, or the island for that matter.

Eudial spent a good amount of time looking between the jungle and the pathways, scrutinizing their options and considering the consequences; she hadn't even noticed Ptilol being summoned to knock a piece of paper from the palm tree. Only when Cyprine began to sift the sand away from the paper did Eudial turn around to see what had happened.

“Oh?” To Eudial's surprise, Mimete stood there with an armful of shells next to Cyprine who now held what appeared to be a map of some sort.  

...Apparently I haven't been too observant today, for it seems that Cyprine has already found a map.

Eudial curiously crept closer to her teammates, nearly tripping over the Fire Buster II sticking out of the sand in the process. She stopped for a moment and sighed a little at her own inattentiveness before continuing over to the other two witches. After confirming for herself that Cyprine had indeed found a map, Eudial immediately praised her blue-haired colleague, unaware that it was Mimete who had originally spotted it.

“Excellent work, Cyprine. This should come in handy. As for any deeper insights...” Eudial paused and brought a hand to her cheekbone, the thoughtful gaze returning to her ruby eyes.

"Hey! It wasn't just for a whip thing!" VesVes snapped, stopping in her tracks and pointing at the snow dancer. "I was helping that poor creature! The golden lady was being mean to her, and I can't just stop by and let people hurt an innocent being, even if she is kinda weird! She was in need of help, and I helped!" Honestly, the nerve of Hawk's Eye. A whip thing? A WHIP THING? Was he...?

VesVes huffed, looking back down at the snow dancer. "You can keep up, right?" she asked hesitantly. "I mean, with the gliding thing and all. Come on!" And with that, she took off yet again. This time, she noticed that some of the other teams had obviously left, which only strengthened her resolve. She had to get there before the deadline.

"May I suggest we avoid both the Lake of Sins and Deadly Swamp? Both sound like they would impede our progress."

Cyprine was not one for relying on intuition, but the names alone of these locations left her feeling uneasy.

Rubeus continued on carefully, looking for things out of place and most importantly a map. "GRR" he said aloud. "I wish one of the others was here...someone I knew and could work with...but these other simpletons are difficult..to say the least." He stopped at a tree and thought to try something new, if he couldn't teleport then he might climb a tree to see where he was. He begin to start trying to climb the tree.

Though Hawk's Eye had his own comments about how it was only for a whip thing, he actually stayed quite, staring at VesVes as if she was some kind of crazy creature. Since when did she care about anything else than her sisters and herself? Since when was she offering help to someone who probably couldn't even repay the gesture? Something was going on here, something he couldn't exactly pinpoint. Something that actually made him feel uncomfortable. This was a side of this girl he had never known and he had no idea what to do with that information.

It took him a second or two to react to the fact she had taken off again. He looked behind him again, hoping that nobody would follow them to teach the girl a lesson - he wasn't sure he could or wanted to help her if that happened - then hopped on another branch, sprinting through the trees so he could catch up with her.

"I doubt running will be enough."

He muttered for himself. Ixalia had spoken of a map, of obstacles. Hawk's Eye didn't know to what point Helios' reform was anchored in him. He didn't know whether he would bolt at the first sight of danger, leaving the small girl behind. And that didn't sit right with him...

Mimete nodded at Cyprine's comments.

"I definitely don't like the sound of those! But look, the escape point is so far away--shouldn't we start heading there? I hate that she won't let us teleport."

The orange-haired woman pouted, wishing vaguely that their captor would have something awful happen to herself, although not interested (as usual) in doing the hard work needed for any kind of attack.

“Yes, about that...” Eudial began hesitantly as she attempted to provide her opinion on Cyprine's proposition, a proposition which left her a bit puzzled. Avoiding the swamp and the lake was logical if not too logical—just like how traveling along the natural pathways seemed too obvious. And Cyprine was the one who had initially pointed out that the less obvious route might be safer and more efficient, so why did she suddenly think that bypassing these landmarks—landmarks with names clearly intended to deter travelers with the map from investigating—would be the better decision?

Eudial would have questioned her colleague's reasoning for the sudden contradiction, but Mimete eagerly chimed in approval to the suggestion, leaving Eudial with the quick decision to either agree or disagree with her fellow witches, and she disagreed. But the haunting images of snails and cut brakes reminded her not to become too divided with them on the issue. After all she did not wish to be the one to reawaken any past animosity within the group so early on. No, not after experiencing Mimete's nastiness. And well, maybe avoiding those places wouldn't be a bad idea if it meant sparing them from any unneeded drama and conflict.  

“...I-I guess that avoiding the swamp and lake wouldn't be such a bad idea,” Eudial finally agreed, though she had her own doubts, “...However, I am not very convinced by the vast amount of green space depicted on this map. We should consider the possibility that what we see here may only be a vague representation of the island's geography. Our captor did mention that there were several maps hidden throughout the region, so perhaps we only possess a fragment of the details.”

Mimete's whining about walking the entire distance brought up another point that Eudial couldn't ignore. “...Is there even a scale on this map?” Eudial asked out loud, while peering over Cyprine's shoulder in search of any type of systemic increments labeled on the piece of paper. She sighed when there appeared to be nothing. Great.

...The ending point could be thousands of kilometers away for all we know!

“...I guess not.” she sighed in a calm and collected manner, despite the growing frustration within. Eudial then brought her attention back to Mimete's whining and soon found herself nodding surprisingly in agreement with the anxious girl's words. They did need to get moving, but they still had a few more questions to answer before Eudial would even begin to consider running off into the jungle.

“Cyprine...” Eudial began, hoping that her inquiry wouldn't seem too off topic from the original discussion. “If I'm not mistaken, you know a thing or two about pocket dimensions?”

"I know that," he hissed, pulling himself to his feet. The moment his full weight went onto his left foot, he collapsed down onto one knee, unable to hold his own weight. Dammit. Dammit! Dammit! He could feel pain radiating up his leg every time he shifted. 

Obviously he had injured himself more than he had previously thought.

Rubeus got to the top of the tree and looked around. He then got down after a minute or two and kept pushing forward. He was still mumbling to himself about being alone and sort of regretting the encounters earlier..but mostly not. He was having trouble in the forest with the different branches that might be in the ground. Then as he walked he tripped but landed on a knee and cursed out loud.. He got up slow to be safe and leaned against a tree stretching his leg.