A Job Well Done

The day was nearly over so the group all decided to head back to the meet-up location again. It was time to leave this place as the sun was beginning to set.

Dawn, Terra, Vito, Cyrus, and Edith all arrived just in time, had they not arrived John would have had to go looking for them.

They all came up to him and individually gave him a report on how they did and how they did it though some were more happy about about it than others. When Vito was giving his report, John just smacked his head and waved for the next one to come after him instead.

John was a little uneasy about the situation, out of all of them the only ones with clean clothes were Dawn and Vito. And that was because Vito got a new set of clothing midway through his mission.

"What happened to them?" he asked himself in a whisper.

"Alright, everyone I believe you all worked hard today and that is a good thing so to commemorate your success I have a reward for you all!" John said trying to lighten the mood.

Hearing this everyone raised their heads higher with interest and Edith was the first to ask, "Are we going to another all-you-can-eat restaurant?" while clapping her hands excitedly.

"N-no, not that," John said nervously not trying to be the bearer of disappointments.

"Are we going to an amusement park!?" Vito asked cheerfully.

"No, not that either," John said nicely.

"Don't tell me!!! Are we going to one of the 7 wonders of the world?" Terra asked screeching like a little girl with glee in his voice, his body was visibly shaking as he had always wanted to go to one of those places to connect with nature as he would say.

"No, not even that," John said as he was getting tired of all this.

"Money?" Cyrus asked carefreely.

"Stop it!" John finally said as he closed his eyes, "Can you guys please stop it with the suggestions, you are disappointing yourselves at this point," he begged.

Dawn who was secretly raising his hand slowly put it back down as he lamented to himself, "I never got to give my suggestion."

*Haa* John let out, "The place we are going is located somewhere within Africa not too far off from where we already are," he explained to them.

"Boo!" they all said, "Give us what we want next time," Edith complained, "My suggestion was better, it's not like we can't afford to go somewhere, we literally have teleportation," Terra criticized, "Greedy," Cyrus said.

Unsurprisingly the only ones who did not complain much were Vito and Dawn, Dawn because he didn't give off his suggestion in the first place, and Vito because after hurting the lions, he felt too sour to make any such demands.

"When you are done complaining you can follow me," John said as he opened a portal through a tree, "You will be amazed at what lies beyond this door," he said smiling as he walked forward.

The group followed after him and walked in, a few seconds later once they opened their eyes, they were shocked to see that there was a parade of elephants lying down and waiting for them. These elephants were dressed in fancy gold, white, and red robes designed for royalty to ride on.

"What is this," Terra said with his mouth hanging open.

"This is your reward, " John smiled with appreciation towards Terra's genuinity.

"These five elephants have offered to let you ride on them from here, across the field to the top of that hill where I will be waiting for you."

"As to who gets to pick which elephant they will ride, I have already left some straws for you to draw, and with that, you can decide-"

As of that moment, Edith zoomed past John to pick up the first straw, Terra quickly followed after noticing this and soon they all were running towards it with Dawn being in last place as he did not put in that much effort.

The straws were drawn and the results were in, the one with the longest draw was Edith so she got the first pick.

"No fair, you cheated," Terra whined.

"You just have to be faster next time," Edith smirked as she waved her straw around in the air.

"Second place," Cyrus chuffed, "well it's not terrible."

"I got third, third pick is mine, okay!" Terra said as he held his lot tightly.

"And I got fourth," Vito said with a soft and disappointed sigh, he wasn't expecting to be dead last, well almost. "And that leaves last place to Dawn."

"How thoughtful," Dawn said as he pulled out the last and shortest straw out of all of them.

"Alright, you were more enthusiastic than I expected so you may now pick in which order you wish to ride the elephants, Edith," Johns said as he waved his hand to show her the options.

"Mhm," Edith hummed as she proceeded to look at the elephants from left to right, "That one!!" She pointed to the biggest and tallest one, "I want to ride that one and I want to be at the front," she said.

"Won't that cover our view from the back?" Vito asked concerned.

"Don't care," she said as she got on and hugged the large mammal.

"I'll take one for the team," Cyrus said as he went to the far back, "I'll ride last," he said.

Everyone admired his sense of camaraderie to ride in the far back, including John. That was until he realized his true motive.

'I do not want to be in front and have my back exposed to all these people, for all I know they would get lost as I am leading or throw something at me, I am good here,' Cyrus thought to himself.

"I wanna go," *MHMM* Terra hummed as he continuously smacked his lips with his finger, he was thinking, 'Let's see, if Edith is in front and Cyrus is behind and all the other options are in between the two which makes three and these three have their own sets of front and back then that means,' "I pick the middle," Terra blurted out.

After all his thinking he realized that the middle was simply better because it was the middle.

And that, two options were left, Vito would have to choose to be behind Edith or in front of Cyrus. And to him it wasn't even a hard decision, "I pick to ride in second," Vito said as he sat on the elephant behind Edith. Which left Dawn to sit right in front of Cyrus.

Though unfortunately for Dawn he got the smallest elephant out of the group.

"Well, it looks like you have all settled this matter quite fairly," John said holding in his laughter, "I will be waiting for you all at the end of your journey, have fun." 

And with that, the elephants took off in their given order.

Edith had taken not only the biggest elephant in the group but also the fastest and as the one leading, she didn't hesitate to go full speed ahead.

"Wait up!" Tera yelled as the elephants were stampeding away.

John smiled at them from the distance as the sun was making its way further down the path, he was happy at the result he had today, though there was one mishap it wasn't too bad of a thing. In a way everyone here had fun.

"This was a good break to have, they may be a handful but they are definitely worth the trouble, I hope to see all of them again after a while. This was my last mission with them after all so I tried to make it extra special."

"After me, it looks like Minty will be next, I just hope she won't be so strict that she tears them apart, ha ha ha and it seems that I will be meeting Ariel again sooner than I thought I would. There is no guarantee for tomorrow, after all, so we need to conclude that project of ours."

"Cyrus after this, how about you and I have a nice little conversation to ourselves."

*****

"Slow down Edith!" Vito yelled from behind her but she was having too much fun to listen, "Keep up!" she yelled.

"Oh no you do not," Terra gritted his teeth as he was trying to catch up to her. This had brought him neck to neck with Vito.

"Terra what are you doing, you are supposed to be behind me, why are you here?" he asked concerned at what was happening.

"You are being too slow, she's getting ahead," he said.

"She has the fastest ride out of all of us, who do you think you are to catch up with her?"

"I'm the chosen one Vito, the chosen one!" he mumbled as he was so focused on catching up with her but he couldn't.

Seeing this Vito was even more worried about what was happening, 'I think Terra tends to be a bit competitive because this isn't like him,' he thought.

Following far behind them, Cyrus and Dawn were taking their time, they obviously couldn't keep up, well Cyrus could but Dawn couldn't so he stayed right beside him walking along.

"You don't have to be here you know," Dawn said from underneath him.

"I know, but I want to, why would I leave my business partner behind?" Cyrus smirked reminding Dawn about the deal they made to trick Edith.

"Please don't remind me about that," Dawn said looking away.

The two of them kept walking at a steady pace until they reached a small lake where the other three were. Their elephants were tired and resting up to prevent overheating so most of their bodies were under the water except for the top part.

"This lake doesn't have any hippos, right?" Dawn asked as he turned to Cyrus.

"We should be fine, It looks as though the elephants are having fun.

Upon entering the lake, the elephants started raising their trucks and making noise for them.

"What's going on?" Edith asked.

'Are they signaling to each other something?' Cyrus wondered.

Not soon after he got his answer as the elephants that raised the trucks had now filled their trunks with water from the lake and started spraying it on their backs.

"ARGH! My mouth was open," Terra cried while the others started laughing and protecting themselves. They were all covering their eyes except for Terra as he was the first one to realize something about this, "Hey guys open your eyes!" he said hurriedly.

"No way, you just want us to get attacked too," Edith replied.

"Just open your eyes darn it!! This is so cool, Vito you have to!" he pointed out.

'Why did he have to go and point me out out of everyone, well I guess the worst that could happen is I get some in my eye.' As hesitant as Vito was he did it anyway and when he opened them...

"Guys I think you should check this out," he said.

Opening their eyes one by one, the entire group was able to experience a sight that they would never have fathomed before, the water that was being sprayed on them was actually going above their heads, and when this water met with the sun's rays it had formed for each of them their own personal...

Rainbow.