Branch and Poppy used their hair to climb the cliff. They climbed higher and higher until the ground below them became too hard to see.

"Can you see the top?" Poppy called up to Branch who was ahead of her. Branch stopped climbing and looked up trying to spot the top of the cliff.

"Not yet, but we can't be far," Branch called back to her, "being a troll sure seems to have its disadvantages, if a bergen was climbing this, they would be there by now." The two trolls continued to climb but felt themselves getting tired and weak, their arms and legs were starting to ache. Suddenly Branch let out a gasp. "I can see the summit!" He called down to Poppy, "we're almost there!" Branch swung his hair towards the top of the cliff to grab hold of the edge, he then used his hair to reel himself towards the top.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Poppy shouted as she wrapped her long pink hair around Branch's waist and grabbed his tail in her hands. Branch grabbed the edge of the cliff with his hands and climbed up onto the surface, with Poppy still hanging from his tail. He pulled his tail in and hauled Poppy up. The two of them lay down on the grass, panting, exhausted from the climbing. They looked at the view of the moon's reflection on the ocean, they saw Spirit, still by the rock blockage at the end of the lagoon. She seemed like a tiny grey speck from the cliff.

"We still have to find out where that shriek came from." Branch stated as he stumbled to his feet.

"Branch, relax. We'll find it," Poppy stopped him.

"Don't tell me to relax!" Branch snapped, "it reminds me of Creek. That no good, backstabbing son of a-" Poppy placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Calm down," Poppy said gently. Branch took a deep breath in and out. The two of them walked over to the other side of the cliff's summit. The cliff wasn't too wide so it didn't take that long. They were on the edge and they looked down below them, it looked similar to the side that they just came from. The forest continued, but there was no lagoon, just the open ocean and the shore, but on the shore something caught Poppy's eye. A large building.

"Maybe the shriek came from that building," said Poppy. Branch nodded and agreed to go investigate.

"We just need to get down there, we need to be careful," he stated, "let's climb down, just to be safe."

"Come on you safety nerd! I know a better way down," but Branch wasn't sure.

"You do your way and I'll do mine," Branch was about to climb down but before he could Poppy grabbed him by the hand and ran with him towards the end of the cliff. "Poppy, what are you doing?" but Poppy kept on running, dragging Branch along behind. "Seriously! Let go of me!" They jumped off of the cliff with Branch screaming as he fell. "We're going to die!" Poppy grabbed the blue troll's waist and shaped her hair into a parachute, they started to fall slower. Branch had his eyes shut tight, his tail was between his legs and he was shaking.

"You're safe now," Poppy chuckled, bringing Branch in closer. Branch opened one eye and saw that he was in Poppy's arms.

"For the love of everything good don't EVER do that again!" Branch shouted, his voice was still shaky from the shock. Poppy laughed.

***

"Great," Branch groaned, "the door handle is too heavy to move. Let's just head back." Suddenly there was another shriek, like the one they heard before. It was coming from the building. Poppy spotted something. A vent opening.

"Branch, we can get in through the vents," Poppy exclaimed. There was only one problem. The vent door was screwed on.

"Hold on, I got it!" Branch said as he walked over near the cliff side and picked up a large rock with his hair. The rock was nearly twice the size of him! "Stand back!" He whipped his hair and threw the rock at the vent door causing it to break open. They walked inside and tried to find their way through the maze of shafts. Some of the vents were too steep to climb so they had to use their hair to pull themselves up them. Suddenly a loud voice struck their ears.

"What was that?" Poppy asked loudly. Branch covered her mouth with his hand and shushed her. The voice became two voices. It sounded like a conversation. They followed the voices to find the source. It lead them to another vent cover, they looked through the bars of the cover and saw two people talking.

"Bergens?" Poppy whispered.

"No, snatchers," Branch corrected her. He put his big, pointy ear against the vent cover and listened to their conversation.

"Finally, closing time," one of them said.

"You checked the sea lykars, right?" The other asked him.

"It doesn't matter," he replied, "all they ever do is just float on the surface. That golden eyed one has not been very active since that blue eyed lykar escaped. Only at the shows."

"Blue eyed lykar?" Branch whispered to himself.

"Anyway he's probably fine. C'mon let's just get out of here!" When the two snatchers left the room Branch opened the vent door and jumped down onto the ground with Poppy following behind.

"He said something about a blue eyed lykar," Branch said to Poppy.

"Do you think that could be Spirit?" Poppy asked him.

"I don't know," he shrugged, "we should look around, see if we can find anything." Branch and Poppy split up and investigated their surroundings. Branch found a large door and was curious about what was inside. He used his hair to climb up to the door handle and pushed down on it with all his strength, but it was locked.

"Branch!" He heard Poppy call out, he ran towards her voice. She was standing by a large glass window, he joined her and peered through the window. Outside there were large pools of water. The two trolls used the handle to open the window and ran to the pools. They looked like they were made of concrete, the water was very deep but had some shallow ends. Something caught Branch's eye, a large dark shape in the water. It was a sea lykar, it swam slowly in the water, completely unaware of Branch and Poppy.

"Look at the size of it!" Branch was in awe. He got closer to the side of the pool to get a closer look, but couldn't see it that well as it was too far deep in the water. "This tank. It's so small for it." Branch was right, the tank was only three or four times the size of the lykar which is way too small for its size. He looked to the side of the tank of water, their were two shut gates on either side which lead to two pools. Two very small pools, and inside each of them was a sea lykar, so cramped in the tank. It was hard for Branch to watch.

"Uh Branch, you might want to have a look at this," Poppy called as she pointed to what she was looking at. There was a small wall on the end of the pool and on the other side of that was another tank of water, this time slightly bigger and had glass panels at the front of it, a lot like the lagoon. The two trolls watched the lykar from before swim to it. They walked around the poolside to the glass panels and looked through them. They saw the lykar gracefully dance through the water.

"It's a male, and judging by his size I think he's still quite young, maybe a teenager," Branch said. Poppy looked at him, "what?" He asked her.

"How do you know all that?" She asked.

"I have my ways," Branch replied smugly. The sea lykar had big golden eyes with an orange color surrounding his pupil, he had much darker fur and his flippers were a teal color.

Behind them was a huge seating arena in the shape of a semi-circle. The whole thing was like a stadium, but what was going on in this stadium? A show? The lykar breached out of the water and shrieked, the exact same shriek that Branch, Poppy and Spirit heard from the lagoon.

"This is so wrong," Branch sighed, "these amazing creatures, spending their entire lives in a concrete tank. It's not right."

***

Branch and Poppy left the pools and they went back inside the building and searched for anything else they could find out about these lykars. They stood in front of the large door that Branch tried to get in earlier, but the door was locked and they couldn't find a vent that could get them inside. Suddenly Branch had an idea.

"Poppy, you don't happen to have your scrapbooking stuff with you, do you?" Branch asked Poppy.

"What kind of troll would I be if I didn't carry my scrapbooking things in my hair wherever I go?" She replied as she pulled out glue sticks, scissors, different colors of felt and of course...glitter. Branch grabbed the scissors and used them to try and unlock the door. "Try not to ruin them like you did last time!" Branch put his ear against the lock and heard a click sound, the door was unlocked. But Poppy's scissors on the other hand were bent and broken. Branch hesitated then handed them to her.

"I'll get you another pair for your next birthday," Branch laughed awkwardly, Poppy didn't seem impressed. They pulled on the handle and the door opened; they peered inside. It was a big, dark room, so dark that they couldn't see their own hands in front of their faces.
Branch cautiously walked in first, Poppy watched him as he disappeared into the dark, then she followed him inside.

"Branch? Where are you? I can't see anything," Poppy said quietly. She stuck out her arms in front of her to try find her way around. She heard a scream of pain come from right in front of her. It was Branch, Poppy had accidentally stepped on his tail. "Oh my gosh! Sorry Branch, I didn't know your tail was there." The color of Poppy's hair changed as she made it glow to try let some light into the room. She looked at Branch who was clenching his tail in his hands. Poppy wrapped her tail around her leg and her ears dropped in guilt. "Sorry Branch," she apologized. Branch glared at her as he made his hair glow too, but even with both their hair glowing they still couldn't see very well, however it was good enough to see a large box shape in front of them. It looked like a desk, they climbed up it with their glowing hair; there was a lamp on top of the desk, Branch walked to it and turned it on. The room became brighter and clearer to see what was around it. It was an office, there were small stacks of paper sitting on the desk and the walls were covered with posters and pictures of lykars.

"There must be some kind of information about the lykars outside. Maybe even Spirit," Branch said as he started looking through all the drawers in the desk, there was a lot of sheets of paper, clip boards and files inside. There was one file that Branch was curious about, it was labelled 'captives'. Could that mean the lykars? "Poppy, I found something!" He called to Poppy who was still on the desk. Branch climbed back on to the desk bringing the file with him.

They slowly opened the file and looked at the first page, it had a year marked on the corner of the page.

"This was from nearly thirty years ago!" Poppy exclaimed. There was a photo of a lykar stuck onto each page, lykars that were performing jumps in the big tank outside. Written underneath each one was the name of the lykar, the date of arrival, age, size and other information. But on most of the pages there was the word 'deceased' written in red meaning that most of these lykars died here. Branch flicked through the pages and saw a repeated sequence of letters followed by a dash and a number. The letters were 'SC-' 'T-' and 'BC-'. Looking through the pages, Branch figured out what each of the letters stood for-

'SC' for 'sea capture'.

'T' for 'Transferred'

'BC' for 'born in captivity'

"Every lykar that has been here has either been captured, born here or sent from another place," Branch sighed.

"But what does the number stand for?" Poppy asked.

"The number of that lykar to come here," Branch pointed at a random page, "see? This lykar was captured from the sea and was the 14th lykar to live here. And this one was born here and was the 21st to live here," he explained as he pointed to another page. They found the pages of the three lykars outside and all three of them were transferred to this place. But there were two lykars that Branch knew well on the pages. SC-31 and SC-32. It was Spirit and her mom Kayla. He read through Kayla's page and found something that made his stomach twist and his ears drop.

"Branch, what's wrong?" Poppy asked in a concerned voice, Branch didn't say a word, he just pointed at the bottom of the page, written in red was the word 'deceased'. Poppy wrapped her arms around Branch who was sulking, staring at the page. Kayla was the first lykar he ever knew, and she was gone. "I'm so sorry Branch." He stayed silent as he turned the page over to see Spirit's page. The photo was of her lying on her front, on the edge of the pool with her head and tail in the air in front of the huge crowd, she looked so enthusiastic. Just like she always was. But on the bottom of the page the two trolls saw not a deceased sign but a question mark.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Branch muttered to himself.

"Those snatchers said something about a blue-eyed lykar escaping," Poppy stated, Branch's eyes widened, "you don't suppose-"

"It's Spirit," Branch interrupted, "blue-eyed lykars are so rare these days, she's the only one they could've been talking about. This question mark probably means that they have no idea where she is, but I think they're looking for her, they still want her back."
Poppy tapped Branch's shoulder and pointed to a large map on the wall behind them. It was a map of this island. All over the map there were red circles marked onto it, the snatchers seemed to be searching for something. Lykars. They capture them from their homes and force them to perform in front of huge crowds. The circles were marked everywhere, the other side of the island, in between each of the cliffs, but no circles were marked in the far open ocean; They won't go that far. Branch noticed something, there were no circles marked on the lagoon. If the snatchers searched there and found Spirit, they would put her back into captivity. But when will they search there?
They needed to get Clay to let them find Spirit's pod and set her free as soon as they could, without her pod, Spirit would be defenceless if anything came to attack her.

A week and a half. That's all the time they have left...

It's a race for Spirit...

Game on.