"Tracy, can you light up this cave?" BJ asked me.
I felt my way to a wall and took three steps back. "PSI Fire Alpha!" I cried. The prison walls lit up, and the prison hallway itself became unbearably hot. BJ picked up a stick and dipped it in the fire.
"Let's go," he said.
The stick slowly burned down as we navigated the simple maze, calling out Lomond's name. Soon, I heard a sound that seemed like someone rolling on a dirt floor.
"Did you hear that?" BJ asked me.
"Yeah," I replied in a whisper. "Lomond?" The sound came again.
"The sound came from the direction we just came from," BJ hissed. We walked back. "But where could the cage be?"
I looked at the scanner. "It's pointing above us again." I listened and heard a crackling.
We ran.

As we came back into the open sky, I spun around. And gasped.
"Overworlder stew is so delicious," the Boss observed, laughing. "Especially if those Overworlders are the strange oversized humans that Great Giogas has ordered we dispose of. But I feel that only three will not be sufficient. Get those two!"
"I think he means us," BJ observed morbidly.
"Of course I mean you, you fool."

Tony
"Chained Will!" Dusty exclaimed. The tarot card glowed, and chains flew out from it.
"How awe-inspiring," muttered Robe. "From what I've seen of your abilities, I'm sure that's the best you can do."
He spun his staff about, sending the chains every which way; soon enough, the chains just dissipated. The card was now useless, blackened from the energy flowing through it.
"PSI Delta Breaker Alpha!" Picky cried.
"And I know that that's the best you can do," he mused. He brought his staff forward. The jewel in it glowed. The water was sucked into the jewel. "Now, does anyone want to guess what I'm about to do?"
We stood in silence. I narrowed my eyes as if in anger.
"Oh, come on. You can't be this dumb." He clucked his tongue a few times. "Ah, maybe you are. Perhaps that's for the best." He swept the staff in an arc across a circle centred by his body, and the water PSI shot out; it flew at us, focussed to an extreme.
"Ripfire!" Dusty exclaimed, throwing a card in the air. It glowed, charred, and the fire burst out of it.
The hissing of steam being formed met our ears as the fire broke into the water, forcing it away from us, and evaporating what would have hit us.
Robe shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Perhaps I should have expected that, considering you've used it against me before. Then again, you are the wild card. Master Giogas could not see you... he could only see Ness, ...Paula, Lomond, Tracy, Picky, the Mr. Saturn and Nichols. You were somehow shielded until you involved yourself."
"That's good, but this is better," Dusty retorted, pulling out another tarot card. "Double Sword." The card glowed and charred. Dusty dropped it, and gripped the double-bladed sword that appeared.
Robe laughed again. "Ah, now you have a sword. Be careful you don't cut yourself," he said mockingly.
"I'll keep that in mind." Dusty leapt towards Robe, one of the sword edges outstretched. Robe slunk away, strangely serpentine.
Dusty landed and leapt towards Robe again. Robe tried to move away, but Dusty hit him twice, spun the sword, and slashed him twice more before leaping down.
Robe looked at his left sleeve. Blood was staining it from the elbow to halfway to the wrist. "...you did this!"
"Yes, I did," Dusty admitted. "Would you like me to do the same on your other arm?"
"No. I need to think about this, and how best to repay you." Robe faded away.
"That was strange," Ñrutas exclaimed.
"Very strange," I observed. "Normally he filibusters more than that. But all he did just now was gripe and leave."
"I wounded him more than he was used to being wounded, Tony, Ñrutas," Dusty replied, the sword disappearing as he said this. "I bet he's gone off to complain to Giogas." He shuffled his cards and looked at an uncharred card and mouthed something.
"Did you just say something?" Picky asked him.
"'Yeah, that's it'," he replied, leaving me unsure as to whether he was telling the truth.
Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. We'd probably never learn.
"At any rate," he commented, "it's almost suppertime here. I think I should be getting home." He stuck his cards in his pocket. "I'll see you three later." He ran off.
"Do you think we'll save the world?" Ñrutas asked me.
"We could save the world," I answered.
"We need to find two more kids to help us," Picky replied. "And then we need to get five more elements from their Energy Points. Who knows how long that'll take?"
"Let's talk about it while we eat. To the Bakery?" I offered.
"Yeah. I'm hungry," Ñrutas murmured.
"I guess I'm overruled," Picky observed. "Do you think we should ask Dusty if he wants to drop by after he eats supper?"

BJ
The stewpot was before us; it was big, but tilted so we could see Ness, Paula and Lomond seemingly well-trussed, all tied up, immersed in the vegetable-strewn water. Below the stewpot, a Tenda was holding a burning tinder very near to the dried wood that I guessed was to heat the water.
Other Tenda advanced towards us, pikes at the ready.
The Boss laughed. "Now that I'm looking at them more closely... Don't get the boy in the stew, just get the girl. The boy seems a bit emaciated. We can fry him and make him into toothpicks."
I glared. "That's insulting."
"PSI Fire--"
"Don't use Fire, Tracy!" I warned her.
"PSI Thunder--"
"And Thunder isn't good either. That wood's drier than a dead man's skin."
"Then what do we do?" she demanded angrily. "Sing a little ditty and do a little dance?"
"Uh, no." I punched my Crystal-shard towards the Tenda. It didn't glow.
"That worked well. PSI Fire Alpha!" The fire burst and torched the Tenda. Luckily, it only reached the Tenda closest to us. "BJ, if you're so worried about getting my big brother, Paula, and Lomond out safely, why not try and get them? You are an athlete, after all, considering what I've heard."
I guess she was right. I backed up a bit, ran, and did the best long jump of my life. I made it over three waves of Tenda before I landed. There were five more waves. But I couldn't long jump any more, considering that one of those five waves were now piking me. I swept the area around me with a kick that I'd learned in my martial arts class, sending the Tenda flying.
"Tenda, back down!" the Boss ordered. "I'll handle this clumsy boy myself."
The Tenda made a circle around the Boss and I. The Boss was clearly larger than most Tenda; perhaps that was why he had risen to power. Then again, a study of human history reveals that size doesn't necessarily belie a rise to power. Case in point: Napoleon.
Rather than the simple one-pronged pikes that most of the Tenda used, the Boss wielded what I saw as a javelin. A two-sided, four-pronged javelin. Which was strange, considering that that was nothing like what a javelin is supposed to be. I think.
I had no real weapons. I did have that Slingshot, but what would the point be in using a Slingshot against a javelin? Even though it really didn't look like a javelin.
The Boss ran towards me, one of the pronged ends of the javelin pointing towards me. I hunched myself down, although that put my head in danger from the javelin. I focused all my energy in my legs, and leapt upwards, bringing my feet down on the javelin just below the prongs.
"Get off my javelin!" the Boss exclaimed, and began to shake it. I leapt towards him and brought my knee down towards his good eye.
He collapsed after I hit, dropping his javelin, reaching to cover his eye.
"What was that for?" he demanded, standing up, but keeping one hand over his eye. He reached for his javelin; I picked it up and spiked him in the leg with it. "Tenda, get that boy!"
I pointed the javelin at them. "Stand where you are," I ordered, "unless you want this in your eyes. And drop your pikes."
The Tenda did as they ordered; they understood cause and effect. Cause: they tried to attack me; effect: they all start looking like miniature versions of the Boss. I jumped over them and walked to the pot where Paula, Ness and Lomond were stewing, pardon the pun.
I took the Boss' javelin and cut through their ropes. They got up and joined in the fight, although it was almost over. Tracy had used her PSI wisely, and most of the Tenda had now gotten hurt and collapsed. Very soon after, the Tenda had been cowed into submission.
"If you let us leave, we will not attack you again," Paula told the Boss. We'd selected her for her sympathetic look; Tracy did look sympathetic too, but she had been the one who primarily fended off the Tenda attack, and for that we worried the Tenda wouldn't take what Paula was saying seriously had Tracy spoken it.
"I certainly hope that you will not attack us again. Nor will we attack you, as we have learned the folly of that," the Boss said calmly and confidently. A Tenda held his hand to the Boss' eye; the Boss did not wish to cross his hand over nor could he use his other hand to carry the cane that supported his now-lame leg. "I apologise for our serving Giogas; his emissary, the Robed One, demanded that we do it. He kidnapped some of our own and did not promise their return until we also promised to serve his master."
"Thank you, Boss," Paula answered. "Now, we will take our leave; perhaps once this has been resolved, we can properly restore relations."

We had just walked outside the Tenda's village -- into the "Cage" -- when Ness' Receiver phone rang. He answered it, and I could hear the person on the other side.
"Ness?" the voice asked. "It's Rigel Polestar. Tell Paula to come home as soon as possible. We have a surprise for her."