Place: PlayStation Borough
    "So," Paula asked, "where do we go next?"
"I don't know," Ana replied, "but maybe Ecoli does."
Everyone slowly turned their eyes towards Ana.  Ecoli and Ana having to share a body, they spoke through Ana's mouth, yet retained their own voices.
Ana's eyes became slightly brighter, suggesting Ecoli was about to speak.  They used such verbal cues to indicate who was about to speak.
"Pika pika, pikachu." (I'm bored, I need adventure.) Pika complained.
"We're all bored," Ecoli said.
"Yes, we have determined that," Alis said, contrary to her normal behaviour, "but we need to do something before Siruv destroys Cartame."
"Yet another thing we've proven," Ana said, her eyes having returned to their normal colour.
"You see how this idleness is affecting us?" Paula said.  "If we don't do something, we're going to go crazy!"
 

Place: Siruv's Palace
    "Even more Viruses have fallen?" Siruv boomed.  "If I do not step in soon, Cartame will be returned to its normal peaceful state!"
"But we haven't any knowledge of Cartamians worthy enough to infest who we haven't already," a small, weak virus said quietly.
"Then, we trick a visitor to Cartame and infest him."
"But the only visitor we know of is TsuramiSea, and who knows if it's possible to infest non-Cartamians?"
"Then," Siruv said, "we just send those banes of my existence to Gaira, and use that which has been hidden there to destroy them."
 

Place: Playstation Borough
    "What's that?" Ana said, pointing to something floating in the sky over by Sega Town.  No one had noticed it previous to Ana spotting it.
"The Air Castle?" Alis pondered.  "No, it's too small."
Some weird beam exited the mysterious structure and slowly made its way over to our heroes.
"Run!" Ecoli warned.  He was too rushed to change eye colour.
They somehow thought it was the correct thing to do to run away from the beam.  But no matter what tricks they used, the beams, which by now had split into Plasma Rings, always found them.
"It's useless," Alis announced.  "We'll never be able to lose them!  It's like they know what we're going to do before we know."
"Brilliant, Alis," Paula said.  "You think I didn't know that already?"
"Yes."
"You're right..."
"Pika!  Pika!  Chu pikachu!" (No!  Don't stop!  Keep running!) Pika warned.  But it was too late.  By now, Alis and Paula were caught in the Plasma Rings and being dragged off, kicking and screaming, or slashing and bashing, to the aforementioned structure.
"Pika, don't slow down!" Ana yelled.  But the side effects of such strenuous running were already taking their toll on poor Pika.  As he ran, he slowed down.  First he slowed down in small increments, so that no one would notice anything was wrong.  But after minutes of this slight slow-down, the decrease in speed eventually became extremely noticeable, and five minutes after Ana had spoken, Pika had slowed to a crawl, and was captured by a third Plasma Ring.
Oh no, Ana thought, still running.  It's all up to me now, but what do I do?  The best thing to do would be to try and slow down the ring, but if I do, another could catch me.  How many are there?
Sadly, while she was thinking, Ana subconsciously stopped running and was caught by the ring.  Now all the friends have been captured by the evil rings.  What's going to happen next?
 

Place: Space Prison Gaira
    Gaira.  Where those who commit treason against the ruler of the land, in Cartame, it is believed Siruv, are sentenced.  Alis, Pika, Ana, Ecoli, and Paula have bean accused of treason against Siruv.  They are to stand trial for attempt to destroy Cartame.
    "Where.... where are we?" Paula asked, shocked.
"You are on Space Prison Gaira," a voice, both evil and feminine said silkily.
"Who are you?" Ana demanded of the voice.
"My name is not of importance to you," the voice began, "but yours are to me."
"Pika pika pikachu!?" (Why would we tell our names to you?) Pika yelled angrily.
"Because," the voice said, her voice becoming more profound, "I have someone one of you misses."
"Who?" Ecoli wondered.
"What do you mean?  The missed one, or the one who misses the missed one?"
"The missed one, of course," Ecoli stated flatly.
"Very well then."
The screen in front of their cell flickered on and off for a few minutes, finally stabilizing on a picture of a boy, no older than fourteen, in a shirt and shorts, and wearing a backpack.  He was chained to a wall, and some odd glow surrounded him
"Ness..." Paula said softly.
"Don't give in, cousin," Ana said.  "Don't tell them your name."
"Your choice.  Either tell me your names, or you and your precious Ness will never be reunited."
 

Place: Siruv's Palace
    Siruv enjoys torturing his victims.  His dungeon is outfitted with many torture devices.
"You won't get away with this, Siruv!" Ness exclaimed.  "I know Paula, Jeff and Poo are going to come and save me!"
The guard who watched over Ness's cell turned to face him and said, "Your precious Paula is being taken care of on Gaira.  Plans are already underway to eliminate Jeff and Poo."
"You may destroy us, but good will win." Ness continued to use his PSI to try and break the chains.
"No more of that." The guard fired a Counter-PSI Unit, disabling Ness' PSI.  Ness, "sans PSI", continued to attempt to break the chains, but over-exerted himself.
(Ness got hurt and collapsed....)

    "You mean that Lee child tried to break free?" Siruv screeched angrily.
"Yes, my liege," said the head guard, "but..."
"But what?  I'm getting fed up with being in the dark!  Tell me!"
"He ended up following unconscious."
"Good."
 

Place: Nintendo Town
    "I haven't heard from either Ness or Paula recently," Jeff said.
"I have not encountered the two either," Poo said in that very formal, articulate voice he tends to use.
"Do you think something could have happened to them?" Jeff inquired.
"No, but given the recent events unfolding, anything is possible."
Suddenly Snow Woods Boarding School, of which they were in front, exploded in a brilliant flash of light!
"No..." Jeff said, unbelieving, shaking his head, "not Snow Woods... not Snow Woods."
"PSI FREEZE OMEGA!" Poo said, extinguishing the flames using the melted water caused by the flames on the PSI attack before they had the chance to spread to the Drugstore outside the remains of the boarding school.
 

Place: Siruv's Palace, Cartamian Desert
    "We destroyed Snow Woods," a suck-up Virus reported.
"Good." Siruv was tapping his fingers together.  "Did you get both the brainiac and the prince?"
"Well, actually..." the suck-up started stuttering.
"Did you get one of them?  One less nuisance is just as good."
"Actually, they were both outside... and they extinguished the flames."
"Those kids are getting on my nerves!" Siruv yelled.  "I can't defeat weak little children!"
 

Place: Gaira, Sega Town
"If you want Ness back, tell me your name, little girl!"
Paula suddenly started sobbing.
Ana/Ecoli came over and began comforting her.  "Don't say a word," she whispered.
What should I do? Paula thought. If I don't tell, I lose Ness.  But if I do tell, who knows what that voice will do to us.  I'm so confused.... what would Ness do in this situation?  But she couldn't think of what Ness would do, and began to panic.  I have to tell.  Ness is more important than saving Cartame.
"I'll tell, I'll tell!" Paula yelled.
"No!" Ecoli exclaimed.
Ana/Ecoli tried to cover Paula's mouth, but the Plasma Rings binding them made it near impossible for them to do much more than squirm or move with hands bound to their body.
"My name is Paula Polestar," Paula began, "this is my cousin Ana Boriars, and those two are Alis Landale and Pika the Pikachu."

    Now, in the control room of Gaira, our heroes and heroines have a slightly anger filled discussion
"Paula!" Alis said.  "How could you betray us like that?"
"You don't know what it's like to lose someone you love, Alis."
"I have, Paula."
"Who?" Paula was obviously unimpressed.
"You lost a friend," Alis stated.  "I lost a brother."
Paula gasped.
"But that still doesn't explain why you didn't betray us, Alis."
"It's very simple: he died.  End of story."
 

Place: Winters, Nintendo City
    The wreckage of one of the Starman from the Stonehenge Base which Jeff had salvaged many of following his journey with Ness, Paula and Poo, and had brought it here, repaired it, renaming it Schra, suddenly came to life with an evil glow surrounding him and fired a beam at Poo,.
"Virus!" Jeff warned.
Poo leaped out of the way and brandished his Sword of Kings.
Jeff produced his Gaia Beam and aimed it at the Schra-Controller.
"*bzzzt* You think you can defeat the will of Siruv, *whirr* but you will fall.  You will die as Ness will," the Schra said.
Poo leapt into the air, feinting a sword strike in the hope the Schra would let his guard down.
The feint worked.  The Schra looked up towards Poo, but had totally forgotten about Jeff, who lit a Multi-Bottle Rocket and fired it at the Schra, scrapping the speech capable humanoid robotic apparatus once again, and destroying the Virus within.
Jeff adjusted his glasses.  "Viruses are popping up aplenty now," he remarked.
"How true," Poo concurred, "but I wonder if it has something to do with this 'Siruv' and the disappearances of Ness and Paula."
"I'm sure it does," Jeff agreed, "but we won't find out just stumbling around here."
"True."
Suddenly Poo learned HEAL, THUN, WAT, TSU, SHU, DEBAN, RYUKA, TANDLE, BUBBLE and THUNDERSHOCK.
"PSI TELEPORT!" he called out, thinking of Dalaam.
 

Place: Siruv's Palace, Cartamian Desert
    "Let me guess," Siruv said, tapping his 'foot' impatiently.  "Another Virus fell."
"Y-y-y-y-e-e-e-s-s," the suck-up said apprehensively.  "Shall I go to the dungeon now, or do you want to yell at me for a while?"
"No, I won't yell at you.  Go help Neifirst destroy the four we have on Gaira."
"Ga-ga-ga-gaira?  But aren't... you planning on crashing it into Dalaam?"
"Go.  Now."
"Yes sir."

    After the Virus had left, Siruv remarked, "I have to be more careful about my plans.  That suck-up was getting on my nerves." Unfortunately, that sound carried to the unconscious Ness, who subconciously used his now-even-weaker telepathic ability to send psychic messages to send a psychic telegraph to Paula.
 

Place: Gaira, Between Sega Town and Nintendo City

Paula... Gaira... crash... Dalaam.  Ness's psychic message found its mark.

        Now much more of the plot has unraveled.  Pika, Alis, Paula, Ecoli and Ana are now trapped on Gaira, destined for yet another crash.  First into Palma, now into Dalaam.  And Jeff and Poo are on their way into Dalaam.  And Ness has been found... in Siruv's dungeons.  How will they esccape these predicaments?
        Check out in the next chapter of Troublesome Force.