Nephew of the Forgotten One: Chapter 8

Nephew of the Forgotten One: Chapter 8 Nephew of the Forgotten One: Chapter 8

Picky
We led Paula back to the table.
She was obviously shaken, so I decided to postpone introducing everyone. Again...
Paula slumped into a chair I brought over from a table not being used.
"What's happened?" I asked, expecting the worst.
"Everything's unfolding like it was four years ago," she said rather airily. "Kidnappings and weird insane cults..."
"What?" BJ demanded, shocked.
"It must be Giogas' doing," I muttered.
"Giogas?" BJ and Ņrutas echoed.
"Don't you mean Giygas?" Paula continued.
"No, he means Giogas," Tracy explained. "Giogas is Giygas' nephew."
"You mean... that monster has siblings?" Paula stammered, entirely flabbergasted. "Please tell me you're joking," she pleaded.
My heart dropped into my stomach, literally.
"No, we're not joking, Paula," I said, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. My emotions were beginning to play havoc with my voice and composure. "But like him, his sister is dead; she died not long after giving birth."
Paula sighed audibly. "That's a relief, but still... I hope Paul's okay."
"Paul?" I recognised the name, as I expected Tracy did, but I'm not quite sure just where I recognised it from.
"My brother." She dabbed at her eyes with a table napkin.
Outside, through the window, I could see the beginnings of a rainstorm.
"What happened to him?" BJ inquired.
"He just disappeared. Only an hour or so ago. I called Ness; he referred me to you two."
"How disappeared?" Ņrutas asked in the pidgin English he uses that involves the loss of most grammatical concepts.
"He just did. Just up and disappeared." Paula dabbed her eyes with the napkin again, and continued. "He delights in riding that bike Ness had four years ago around. I saw him go out to ride about the town. Five minutes later, I looked out. The bike was collapsed on the Preschool's lawn. And the kickbrake was up... like he'd just gotten ready to ride his bike."
I looked at Paula. "I promise you we'll try to find Paul. But our journey to beat Giogas..." I trailed off.
"I understand, Picky," she said. "Your adventure takes precedence." She seemed to brighten a bit, and stood up. "I won't bother you longer."
"Wait, Paula!" Tracy cried. "We'll be in Twoson for a few days. If you want, we'll help you when we get the chance."
Paula turned around.
"Thank you," she said.

The Twoson morning was beautiful. Especially since it had stopped raining just before sunrise. The dew contributed strongly to the beauty of it all.
We were sitting outside, eating breakfast on the patio at the Twoson Hotel. Paula was with us again.
"Tracy, could you give me the Power Crystal?" I asked.
"Sure." She rummaged for the now pale-red crystal in her backpack and handed it to me. "What for?"
"I want you to go with Paula and BJ. To check out the Peaceful Rest Valley and Happy Happy Village," I amended. "Ņrutas and I will look for our next Your Sanctuary."
"Shouldn't Tracy go after them all, though?" Paula inquired. It was a good question, too.
"She should..." I felt my mind become touched by another. "...not. I don't think there's eight for one. Which means that the next Your Sanctuary we find would probably not be one for Tracy."
What had happened to me? Someone was influencing me...
"Oh, OK." Tracy stood up, pushed her chair in, and went off with BJ and Paula. I slipped the Power Crystal into my backpack.
"Are you ready, Ņrutas?" I asked. "'Roots?"
I looked around. He was gone.
"You better not want to play hide-and-seek now..."
"Oh, I tease!" Ņrutas appeared from the rosebushes the hotel had been growing along the side of the building. "Oh, I hurt!"
He showed his feet to me. They were covered in rose thorns.
I laughed. "Ņrutas, what has this taught you?"
"No hide-and-seek in hotels?"
I groaned. "No, it's taught you not to hide in rosebushes."
"That rosebushes?"
"No. One is a rosebush; two are rosebushes."
"Why that?"
Why me? I thought.
"Picky? Why that?" Ņrutas pressed.
"Don't worry about it," I muttered. "Let's just get going."
I paid for our breakfast, and we left.

BJ
If I remembered my geography classes correctly, Twoson is northwest of Threed. And since the Peaceful Rest Valley is east of Twoson, therefore Threed is due south of the Peaceful Rest Valley. Does that mean the Grapefruit Falls region between Threed and Saturn Valley is merely an extension of the river in the Peaceful Rest Valley?
"BJ?" Tracy asked, somewhat concerned. "Are you okay?"
I shook myself out of my stupor. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just thinking about things. What is Happy Happy Village, anyway?"
I did know, mind you, but I'd only read about it. Maybe one of those two had been to Happy Happy Village. Then they would probably know than I would.
"It's a rather rural village," Paula explained. "There's no mayoralty there. I think back in the 1800s it had a reeve, but it's been drastically minimalised since then. Four years ago, as you might have read, it was the site of a cult."
"The Happy Happyists?"
"Right. Anyway, I was kidnapped then. I don't think there was a major play-up in the papers, really. Of course, that's because I was missing for only a few days."
"You were the kidnapped child?" I was truly shocked.
Paula nodded, and continued, "Ness saved me and destroyed the cult. He had some help from me, though; I gave him a Franklin Badge to protect from Carpainter's lightning."
"Carpainter?" I echoed. "He visited P.T. Barnum Junior High two years ago to talk about the importance of the individual. I wasn't really attentive, though. My parents were going through a divorce at the time, and custody was weighing really heavily on my mind."
"Anyway, he trashed Carpainter, rescued me, and Happy Happy Village returned to normal. Well, as normal as it could be," Paula finished.
"That's all?" I inquired, intrigued.
"Occasionally, I visit Carpainter, just to check in on him. Hopefully we won't have to detour excessively today like Ness did when he came to save me."

We walked into Happy Happy Village. I'd heard all of the lame jokes people told about this village, but apparently the jokes were out of date: there was not a single coat of blue paint visible in the entire village.
"Normally, I'd find Carpainter in the old cult centre," Paula mused out loud. "He's been working on converting it into a post office so Happy Happy wouldn't be so reliant on Twoson for its mail," she quickly explained.
"You think we ought to look into finding him there?" Tracy asked. Upon receiving a nod from Paula, she posed another question: "Why?"
"He might be influenced by Giogas, just like he was by Giygas four years ago. And if that's true, he might have kidnapped Paul."
I opened my mouth to ask her to elaborate, but it wasn't necessary. She continued with no prompting.
"He might have kidnapped Paul to make him a Priest in his new religion... like he tried with me." The entire subject seemed too touchy for Paula, so I decided not to bother her more.
We walked into the former cult centre for the Happy Happyists. Well, the inside of this building was blue. But maybe there was a reason for this.
"Carpainter?" Paula called. "Victor Peter Carpainter?"
A balding man with brown hair appeared from behind one of the computer terminals.
"Paula?" he asked. "You came!"
"Of course I came, silly!" Paula teased. "Have there been any cultist tendencies among the villagers recently?"
"Why do you ask?" Carpainter inquired.
"I don't mean to hurt your feelings," Paula qualified, "but there's been another strange kidnapping in Twoson."
Carpainter sat down in a chair quickly.
"The nightmare begins again. One vision I had long after Happy Happyism was destroyed," he explained, "warned of a reborn nightmare that would take one of Paula's blood, but younger than Paula at the time of his taking. Or her taking."
"It's a he. It was my little brother who disappeared," Paula said.
"I'm so sorry," Carpainter apologised. "I didn't know you had a brother or a sister. If I'd known, I would have warned you."
"I don't think you could have helped. He simply disappeared last night. Anyway, thanks for your help."
We left.
I guess Paula was kind of sad nothing turned up. But at least her friend was innocent.
Or looked innocent.
"I guess we ought to look into heading back and helping Picky and 'Roots," I observed. "I suppose we should," Paula concurred, her voice clearly lower.

Picky
"No Sanctuary here!" Ņrutas yelped. "Hide seek now?"
Ņrutas, Ņrutas, I mused, you really have to get your priorities straight. Finding our Your Sanctuaries is the primary objective; hide-and-seek is definitely less than secondary.
"Picky?" He jumped as high as my own head. "Hide seek now?"
"No. No 'hide seek' now," I scolded. "We'll find the next Your Sanctuary."
I pulled out the Power Crystal.
"What you do now?" Ņrutas asked me.
"Energy dousing."
"What that?" The Mr. Saturn's natural verbal simplicity could get annoying if you're forced to take it for some time.
"Trying to sense the element energies the Power Crystal needs by using the Power Crystal." I held the Power Crystal in front of me. In addition to its permanent pale red tint, it now pulsed blue.
Tracy had said that the red tint referred to the fact she absorbed the Fire Energy the Crystal needed. Did this mean my Energy to absorb was Water Energy?
I spun around until I determined the approximate direct we'd have to travel.
"North-northeast?" I mused.
I looked in that direction. There was a rather high cliff in our way. And the energy point -- the second Your Sanctuary -- must have been far away, as the blue pulse was paler than the red tinge. We were near the Two-Three Tunnel, so if we went further north, we would be able to better identify where the second Your Sanctuary is.
"Ņrutas!" I called. "Let's go!"
He didn't respond.
"Ņrutas!" I screamed. "No hide-seek!"
He still didn't respond.
Wonderful, I thought. I'll have to talk to BJ about that Mr. Saturn. After all, he did know him for the longest time...
I quickly ran towards the northern road to Twoson. No, Ņrutas wasn't there. I'd see him.
And it'd be easier to see him in the forest because Mr. Saturn are very conspicuous when you consider the colour of the bark, compared to the colour of the Mr. Saturn's skin.
That left one possible way he could have gone. Threed.
Sighing, I put the Power Crystal back in my backpack and began to walk to Threed. On my way there, I audibly whined about Ņrutas' lack of willingness to remain on task.
"Gahahahahaha..." cried eerie voices around me.
"Huh?" I whirled around.
Ghosts!
They neared me. And then, all went black...

I woke up. And where I was was definitely not where I had been.
I was inside.
I shot up, out of the bed I'd found myself in.
"Wh... where am I?" I mumbled.
A man came in. He had dirty blond hair. Like BJ's, but lighter.
"You're in my house. In Threed," he explained. "I found you on the side of the road near the Two-Three Tunnel."
"I'm fine now. Did you happen to see a head with feet and a big nose?" I asked.
"No... nothing of the sort. Is that a stuffed animal of yours?"
"No," I lied. "It's the stuffed animal of a friend of mine."
"Oh."
"Thanks for your hospitality," I said, "but I'll be going now."
"OK. Bye," he said as I left.

In the Threed Sunset Hotel, I called Ness' receiver phone. Luckily, he picked up on the first ring.
"Hey, Ness?" I asked. "Could you do me a favour?"
"What, Picky?"
"Teleport Lomond and yourself here. And bring that ghettoblaster. In about an hour?"
"Fine."
Click.
I left the Hotel. I had to find Ņrutas.
If he was even in Threed or thereabouts.