WRITER’S NOTE


Everyone got into a big group and smiled. Plo was so excited that there was a blur where his picture was supposed to be. Nate and tiger had dopey smiles on their faces due to large amounts of painkillers in their systems and bandages on their heads. reidman was ralphing in the background. The sun set on the EB Head Quarters. THE END...?

***

Somewhere, in another realm far beyond the reaches of one’s own reality, a dark mind set itself to action. If he wanted to eliminate his foes, he’d have to do it methodically. He had faced them time and time again as a whole, and lost. So he’d have to eliminate them one by one. Starting with what could be their weakest link. Perhaps the girl. Or the tall, under-built one. Of course, he would need a window of opportunity. Something to tempt them into it, so nobody would immediately suspect him. That window came with some officers from the Nintendo of America reprogramming a game cartridge. The sudden reprogramming would create a small breach in the dimensional fabric, but it would be a noticeable one nonetheless. And he knew that at least one of them would stick their noses into it...

So, to sum it up, it’s not quite the end...

EARTHBOUND: GATEWAY
· The Barrier ·
·
Revelation at the Well ·
·
The Road to Giygas · Journeyman · EB.Net Reseiged ·

Chapter 1: The Barrier
Ness stood in Master Belch’s base, hunched over and breathing heavily. He, Paula, and Jeff were being badly beaten by the ugly, powerful, disgusting, rancid blob that was guarding the way back to Saturn Valley. The trio needed to beat him to free the enslaved Mr. Saturns, but that plan hadn’t worked as well as they had hoped. Paula had taken out their secret weapon, Belch’s all-time favorite food Fly Honey, but he had just ignored it. It was the stuff that blobs go for, but he just passed it up as if it were molten tire rubber.

Jeff pulled out a Big Bottle Rocket, and fired it at Belch. But then he did something rather unexpected, but revolting nonetheless. He absorbed it, utilizing his semi-solid properties, and let out his maniacal laugh.

“Gyork, gah-gah-gah! Puny human! You can’t hurt me with your explosives!” Master Belch then hurled the Rocket right back at Jeff.

***

Tomato sat in front of a TV, playing Earthbound. It was about a week after the staffers bought multiple copies of EB64, but Tomato felt it was only right to play the three games in succession. But, today just didn’t seem to be his day.

“But he never did that before!” With him was Ultimoo, updating EB.Net.

He stopped for a second to glance at Tomato. “Maybe it’s just a glitch.”

“Oh, really?!”

***

The Big Bottle Rocket hit Jeff dead in the chest, smashing him like a ton of bricks. Both Jeff and the Bottle Rocket went careening into Paula, who had been charging up PSI Freeze g. When Paula, Jeff, and the Rocket finally hit a wall, it exploded. It didn’t just explode, it exploded. The fire engulfed both of them, leaving the two badly burnt, and lying near-unconscious on the ground.

“Paula!” cried Ness, able to do really nothing for her or Jeff. He had wasted all of his PSI power on futilely fighting Master Belch, and couldn’t even cast LifeUp. That familiar old fire in his blood surged up again, and he felt like he could break steel. Ness took out his bat, and leapt toward Master Belch, ready to SMAAAAASH him into a thousand tiny gobs. That hope was quickly destroyed when Belch quickly knocked him aside like a rag doll.

***

The TV screen read very clearly, and Tomato was frantic. 365 hit points of damage had been dealt to Jeff, and 287 hit points of damage to Paula. The only thing that saved them from unconsciousness was their Guts, keeping their HP at 1. Along with that, they couldn’t move. Now it was Ness’s turn. Tomato simply chose Bash, knowing that it was over, but another oddity solidified that thought.

“Master Belch counter-attacked? ACK! 563 hit points of damage to Ness! NOOOOO!!!” Tomato raised his arms to the heavens, and screamed bloody murder. Right on cue, no question asked, a room across the hall exploded. The fire roared into the room, creating the appropriate backdrop.

“What’s goin’ on?! Everyone’s down to one HP!” Then the TV said something extremely odd.

***

An explosion roared throughout the base, and one of the walls came crashing down. A fairly large, steel-colored humanoid robot stepped out of the hole, and glared menacingly at Master Belch. He had a cylindrical body with three oval-shaped panels on his chest, the middle one reaching below where his waistline should’ve been. His shoulders, protected by large guards that extended out well past his shoulders, were large orbs fused with his body. All of his limbs were blue, and shaped like rectangular prisms, and his elbows, knees, and wrists were like small accordions. On the middle of both forearms were small laser turrets. On his back was a set of panels identical to those on his front. His neck and head were as wide as his body. A large, smooth helmet covered most of his head, and a white hookbill hung over his eyes. The hookbill gave the illusion of a nasty brow, and made him look very menacing. His face was shaped like a basic trapezoid, with only a pair of large eyes with no pupil or iris, and a small trapezoidal panel, supposedly protecting an intake valve. Near the back of his head wear cylindrical clips, and on the back-center of his helmet was a very small panel. To players, he looked slightly taller than other sprites, but in reality, he had to be at least 7’6”. Estimating his weigh was near impossible without knowing what he was made of, or without him stepping on your foot. On his back was a huge sheath sword, with more length than Ness and Jeff had combined height.

Belch looked at him quizzically. “And just whom might you be, metal man?”

“Ask questions later...” he growled. The robot had a very, very deep voice, which suited his appearance and persona.

“Ooooh, the bucket of bolts wants to fight!” At that remark, the robot rapidly unsheathed his sword, and sliced downward. It cut Belch in half, but he was unimpressed.

“Oh, really? You seem a little bit rusty, lead butt! Nobody possibly has a chance of beating me!” The robot looked very unamused. Then the center panel on his chest opened, revealing a large, built-in chest cannon. It was pointed right in between Master Belch’s eyes.

***

“No way! Ten million points of damage to Master Belch! How’d he do that?!” cried Tomato”

“Either that glitch is feeling sorry for you, or that had GOT to be some other version!” Ultimoo was simply wowed. “I’ve never seen anything like this before!”

“I haven’t either, but Belch’s still alive!” Both of them were confused at these strange turns of events.

EBounding peered inside the room. “Hey, Ultimoo!”

Ultimoo didn’t even look away from the screen. “What?”

“Do you know where the explosion came from?”

“Tomato’s dramatic moment. Come look at this!”

EBounding came over, and glanced at the TV. “Whoa. Ten million HP? Is that possible?” He looked at Tomato. “You been fiddling around with the debug menu?”

“No, something else did it! I don’t know what it is, but it smashed Belch in one hit!”

Now EBounding really looked puzzled. “Did the NOA get its hands on the cartridge?”

Both Tomato and Ultimoo slowly looked at him, and said, in perfect unison, “How would we know? We were at the NOA Headquarters, remember?”

“Oh. Yeah....”

***

Master Belch lied there, nearly unconscious, now with a burn mark right between his eyes. He really needed to kick his trash-talking habit, because it was starting to cost him. Especially when those Slimy Little Piles beat him at Chess, Poker, or Parcheesi. He sluggishly looked up at the robot, who was helping the three kids up.

“You three okay?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah......” Ness answered. He wasn’t sure if he was there to help, or beat the daylights out of them.

“Who are you?” Paula asked, obviously astonished.

The robot turned his head a little, looking at her through the sides of his eyes. “You... don’t know who I am?”

“No,” responded Paula.

The robot turned away, and rubbed what he had of a face with his hand. “Great, just great,” he muttered. “Proto sends me to a dimension we’ve never been to. What is he thinking? ‘Oh, just let Protocol handle this first contact,’? He’s gonna pay for this...” He turned back to Ness, Paula and Jeff. “Listen, I’m Protocol, and I’ve been sent to help. I need to get you kids out of here.” The small panel on his right opened, and he pulled out a small, silver, pen-like device. It had a few buttons, and what looked to be a small, black LCD screen on it. On the top was a small deep blue crystal. He tapped the bottom, and the numbers 0000.00 appeared in basic LCD form, colored in red.

“Who sent you?” asked Paula, she seemed a little desperate for answers. This Protocol robot could be some government project gone wrong, or one of Giygas’s minions, or...

Protocol sighed in exasperation. “I’ll answer your questions later, but right now...”

“Hit the deck!” Jeff hollered. He had noticed that Master Belch was regaining his senses, and that he was winding up for a SMAAAAAASH attack. Protocol’s back was turned. Perfect opportunity. Ness and Paula instinctively ducked, but Protocol merely turned around, thinking that whatever it was, it couldn’t hurt him much. Master Belch hit him full in the chest with a flying ball of gunk. He was right; it didn’t hurt. But it sent him flying. Protocol sailed through the air, and slammed into a wall, where the gunk held him. All that was exposed were his hands and head. The jolt from the slam made him drop his little pen device. It dropped to the ground, landing on its buttons. The device beeped a few times.

“Oh, no....” muttered Protocol. He knew the beeping wasn’t to be considered a good thing in a situation like this. The little LCD screen lit up. It read “0000.01.” It started to hum, like a camera flash bulb charging up. As it hummed, the orb on top began to glow. “No, no, no, no. It didn’t start doing that...”

“Doing what?” asked Ness.

Instead of answering, Protocol said, “Grab on to something that’s bolted down, and hold on tight.” He was very serious. Ness and Paula grabbed onto some pipes sticking out of one of the walls. Jeff grabbed onto the edge of the doorway leading back to Saturn Valley. Master Belch himself had a temporary lapse of intelligence, and was too out of it to grab onto something right now. The glow coming from the org became a light that began to pull energy toward it. Everybody began to feel a light breeze, and it was flowing to the orb. The light continued to become brighter, and the breeze became a strong wind. Everybody and everything in the room seemed to be getting sucked towards the device, and everyone held fact to what they had latched on to, except Master Belch, who had regained his senses again and tried to crawl away from the light. He panted as he tried to get away, but as the light got stronger, he slowly slid backwards. The light became painfully bright. The three Chosen Ones squinted and looked away. Protocol, still trapped in the goo, slightly turned his head, and looked to Master Belch. The blinding light reached the point where all was light and it penetrated your eyelids, and everything was white with light and it.... stopped. Both the light and the gust of wind stopped, and Master Belch crashed into a wall. He’d been crawling so hard that when the vacuum had stopped, he snapped forward and did a perfect imitation of a car crash, minus the car. Ness, Paula, and Jeff became disorientated by the sudden change in lighting, and rubbed their eyes. But there was still something... wrong with this situation.

Protocol knew it. “Hey glasses! Grab on to something other than that doorway!” he bellowed.

“But why?” asked Jeff.

“You wanna know WHY?!” Protocol yelled back. Suddenly, a large, blue, swirling vortex opened up underneath the device. The device fell into it, and the vortex quickly began to drag everything inside. “THAT’S why!!” Protocol shouted. But he could barely be heard over the roar of wind rushing into the vortex. Master Belch was dragged in, and the unconscious blob didn’t offer any resistance this time. Gobs of the lime and lemon colored goo that were decorating the room were sucked right in. Ness, Paula, and Jeff were swept right off their feet, but they still held on. The three of them began to scream.

“I’m losin’ my grip!” yelled Jeff, barely audible over the roar of air rushing to fill the vacuum created by the ever-expanding dimensional corridor.

“I told you grab something else!!!” bellowed Protocol. The goo encasing him was slowly being sucked into the vortex gob by gob. He ripped on of his arms out of the goo, and began to tear at it to get himself free.

***

Tomato, Ultimoo, and EBounding were purely amazed. The fight was still going on, but stuff was happening outside the fight.

“How is this happening?!” Tomato was going nuts. “Who is he? What is he?! WHERE’D HE COME FROM?!!!”

“Ultimoo grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him firmly. “Calm down, man!”

Tomato pushed him away and looked closely at the TV screen. “Calm down! Calm down?!?” Everything was happening way too fast. “I can’t calm down! I’d just like to know...”

Then the vortex opened. Right in front of the TV.

Protocol’s device smacked Tomato right in the forehead, dazing him. He fell back into the chair, and the device landed in his lap. Gobs upon gobs of goo pelted the three of them.

“WHAT’S GOING ON?!” yelped EBounding, just as some slime belted him in the face.

“I DUNNO!!” cried Ultimoo, who took out his Legendary Bat and started whacking any goo that came his way. Then the vortex started to pull. Tomato, who had sitting right in front of the TV screen the entire time (not to mention take the brunt of the flying goo), was immediately drawn in. The device wasn’t; it instead clattered to the ground. Pieces of printer paper were sucked in like cows in a tornado. The roaring wasn’t as loud as it had been inside Belch’s base, because there were no outside sources of air, like an open window. By that time, EBounding had also taken out his Legendary Bat, and was joining Ultimoo in the slime baseball, while holding onto anything that was heavy enough to not get dragged by the vortex. Neither had noticed Tomato disappear, but they did notice the device bouncing up off the floor, and landing again. The slime stopped flying out of the vortex. The rushing of air stopped. The work of yet another dramatic moment. EBounding and Ultimoo continued holding on, but looked at the device in wonderment. It began to hum.

Ultimoo looked at EBounding. “It’s not doing what I think it is, is it?”

EBounding looked back at Ultimoo nervously. “I...... think...... it is...” The device was humming like a flash bulb. The orb began to glow. “Why do you think it is that I have a sudden desire for a pair of cement shoes?” asked EBounding morosely.

***

Protocol continued to rip at his slime prison. Now he had gotten his other arm free, and was ripping at the stuff covering his torso. He had only come to help, not to start a mess like this. The kids were losing their grips, and he had to get out of the slime to stop them from flying into the vortex.

“HEEEEELP!!!” Jeff screamed at the top of his lungs. His fingers slowly slid from the edge of the doorway.

“HOLD ON, KID!” Protocol bellowed. His other arm broke out of the goo, and he tore at the stuff at his shoulders. It gave way with a disgusting snap. To make things a lot easier for himself, he ‘popped’ a long conical blade from one of his wrists, and he began to slash at the slime. Soon, all but his legs were free. It was at this time that Jeff’s hands couldn’t take the stress any longer. His grip released, and he flew toward the vortex.

“JEFF!” cried Ness, desperately trying to think of a way to help his friend. He reached out with one hand in an attempt to use telekinesis, but he remembered that he had used all of his PSI strength in the battle with Master Belch. It was no use. Protocol gave one final slash at the slime, and freed himself. He leapt forward, and reached out, snagging Jeff by the back of his jacket. Protocol had both feet planted firmly on the ground, but still, he was slowly being dragged toward the vortex. He looked toward Ness and Paula, still hanging on for dear life, when he heard a rip then felt a change of weight in his hand. Jeff flailed his arms around wildly. Protocol looked to see why, and saw that Jeff’s jacket was beginning to rip.

‘Not my day...’ He knew what was going to happen next. Jeff was going to be dragged into the vortex. He was using his other arm as a balance as to avoid falling over. There was nothing he could do. “Brace yourself, kid. You’re going in for a wild ride...” he muttered. Jeff’s jacket tore completely now, and he flew across the room, toward the vortex.

“JEFF!!!” screamed Paula. Jeff was dragged into the vortex...

***

“...Hold on a minute,” muttered EBounding. “Where’d Tomato go?” A dramatic pause.

“...I think he might be on the other side of that blue whirlpool-thingy,” said Ultimoo.

“You mean he might be in Earthbound?”

“Either that, or he’s gone to greener pastures...” Then a fairly ugly blob of moving blue crud with eyes, a nose, and a disgusting mouth with nasty, big, pointy teeth spilt out of the vortex. “...Whoa. Is that...”

“Master Belch?” Both of them wiped some slime off their Legendary Bats, and readied for battle. The quivering mass of blue goo opened its eyes, only to see two other kids holding even larger and more menacing bats than the boy in the baseball cap. Ultimoo and EBounding screamed. Master Belch screamed. Ultimoo and EBounding then proceeded to simultaneously whack Master Belch in the face with their bats.

“Master Belch was defeated! YOU WON! Ultimoo and EBounding gained 6843 exp. each.”

“Where’d the voice come from?” was all that Ultimoo could ask.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said EBounding. “What matters is that the blue whirlpool-thingy device is about finished charging,” being the astute observer for the time being.

“Oh. Yeah. Resume panic. CRUD!” They both looked at the device, and it let off a flash, but no other vortex appeared.

“Um.... alright..... That was pointless. It didn’t make another one,” mused EBounding.

“Maybe it did.” Ultimoo scratched his head, then looked slyly at EBounding. “Just somewhere else.”

EBounding glared at Ultimoo. “Thanks for ruining the suspense! Now we know it’s gonna open somewhere else!”

“Geez, don’t be so touchy about it...”

***

The new setting: a lab somewhere in California. The birds were singing and the bees were buzzing... well, never mind that. In the lab was another robot and a girl. The robot stood next to a blackboard with a piece of chalk in his hand, and the girl sat in front of the chalkboard. The chalkboard had and illustration of Protocol’s device on it.

The robot was a bit over 7”. He had eight wheels, all on one axle, four wheels on each side of a small box-like brake unit. His waist, right above the wheels and attached to the brake unit, had a joint to it, so he could bow and bend slightly backward. Right on top of his waist was almost what looked like a rectangular plate, and on top of that was a shoulder unit that looked as wide as the plate and twice as tall from the front, and was half as wide from the side. The shoulder unit had two objects attached to the front. On his right was a small white block with a hole front-and-center. On the left protruded a gray rod. The shoulder unit was one large block, and attached to its sides were a pair of thin, rod-like arms. The elbows were just large bolts, but his hands were much more complicated. Four fingers and a thumb on each, looking almost like a human hand, except that joints and screws were visible. Right behind the shoulder unit was a very long neck, comprising over half his height. The neck had a joint right in the middle, separating the black, bottom portion and the red, top portion. The upper portion had a tall rectangular panel stretching from the top of the joint, to the near-top of the neck. On the top of the neck was a very small head. It looked to be the same width and depth of his neck, and it was curved at the top. No facial features, except for a single large eye with a gray rim that took up most of his face.

The girl was 5”8’, simply from looking, maybe somewhere around the 115-pound mark, with a slightly muscular build, but still very attractive. She wore long blue jeans with a black belt. The buckle had a strange-looking ‘J’ symbol on it. She also wore a yellow short-sleeved shirt. On her left wrist was a complicated-looking watch with a bronze-colored band, silver shell, and an odd clock face. The watch had a tiny red orb where the 12 would be. On her other wrist was a single, golden wristlet. It was small, a little thick, and had a luster which shimmered with some unknown power. Blue eyes, fair skin, brown hair... The kind of girl you didn’t want to take your eyes off of.

Alright, Janie. You know most of the rules of interdimensional travel and dimensional gates, right?” the robot asked.

“Yeah, I know all you taught me. So?” replied the girl.

“Well, I’m going to teach you a few more,” he said.

A tired look crossed her face. “Come on, Gyro. You just spent about five hours quizzing me on what to do and not to do while repairing a gate opener. And it’s just like real school; I’m probably never going to use any of this stuff, ‘cause Proto will never let me come on a mission anyway. Is it really that important?”

“Well, sort of. It involves why you can’t open more than one dimensional gate in a 500-mile radius without the Gate Seals.”

The girl sighed. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“Alright. What’s wrong is that the two gates, when close by, begin to conflict with each other. Let’s say you’re trying to open a gate in one place, but there’s already another gate open which leads to a different dimension some five miles away.” He drew a horizon line on the blackboard, and one dot on each side of it. “The gate you’re trying to open can’t because of the charges produced by both. The charges pull the one you’re opening to the one that’s opened. The two gates essentially become one.: He drew two more dots on random locations, and connected both with the dot to the right of the horizon line. “The melded gate’s a fork in the road. You can go one way or the other. By theory, it actually can provide a pretty wild ride.”

A gate then proceeded to open right behind the blackboard. The gate immediately sucked the blackboard in, then began to drag everything not bolted down in. Most of the stuff in Gyro’s Lab had been put away, save some data sheets and the chair Janie was supposed to sit in. Speaking of whom, without good leverage, Janie was pulled into the gate right after the blackboard. Only Gyro had been standing, and he quickly began to burn rubber. He was right; the theories about melded gates were correct. This would be a wild ride indeed. All the air was getting sucked in because there needed to be something to fill the corridor. It just so happened that it would drag in everything else, too. His eight wheels made dark skid marks in on the floor, but he was still being dragged backward. The only thing that he could hope for was that the gate would close, and he could track the other end to go find Janie. However, that hope was quickly dashed when the chair she was supposed to sit on came flying forward, and hit him in the face. He lost his balance, and was dragged in. Inside, the fluxing corridor was swirling with shades of purple, green, blue, and black. This was really weird, considering the fact that gates instantaneously took you from one place to another. Ahead of himself, Gyro saw a fork in the corridor. He went to the left, and there was a light at the end of it...

***

Jeff tumbled out of the vortex, which had stopped dragging in EBounding and Ultimoo, and landed hard on a wooden floor. He slowly got up, dazed as he was, and opened his eyes. Everything was blurry. ‘My glasses must’ve fallen off,’ Jeff thought to himself. He glided his hands along the floor, hoping to find them, and, after a minute or so, find them he did. He slowly put them on, and looked around. He was in a room with some computers, and there was the lime-colored slime from Master Belch’s complex everywhere. He also saw two other people. One wore what looked like a trenchcoat, a pair of jeans, and a shirt with a picture of a mushroom on it. The other looked like...a New Age Retro Hippie! Jeff screamed, and pulled his gun. EBounding yelped, and hid behind one of the slime-covered desks.

“Hold it, hold it, HOLD IT!!!” Ultimoo yelled, quickly guarding EBounding.. “Don’t shoot him! Go and shoot someone else! He’s not the type of person you shoot!” Ultimoo then realized who in the world he was talking to. His jaw slacked, his eyes widened, and the hairs on the back of his head bristled. “No...way...This is impossible,” he stuttered, obviously at a loss for words..

EBounding poked his head up. “What’s impossible? The fact the a blue something-or-other opened up in here, and some nut toting a gun and a pair of glasses fell right out?! NO, that’s...” EBounding realized who he was yelling at, too. “You’re right. It IS impossible.”

Then reidman looked in for no good reason. “What’s impossi...” reidman realized who Jeff was quicker than the others, and promptly fainted.

Jeff looked around, wondering why all these people were shocked that he was here. “What?”

“You...you’re JEFF!!!” Ultimoo grabbed Jeff’s shoulders, and shook him around like a maraca. “This can’t be happening, but it is You can’t be here, but you are!! This is only supposed to be my biggest dream (Give me a break, I’m guessing here), but not anymore!!! YOU ARE HERE!!!”

Then, reidman, who had quickly recovered from his faint, EBounding, and Ultimoo all got up, and started jumping up and down, and singing, “JEFF’S HERE! JEFF’S HERE!! JEFF’S HERE!!!”

Jeff adjusted his glasses a little. “Yeah, I’m Jeff. What’s the big deal?” EBounding, reidman, and Ultimoo were still dancing. reidman and EBounding locked arms and started doing an Irish jig. Ultimoo started to Riverdance. “JEFF’S HERE!” was all they sang. Ultimoo then stopped dancing and singing. He realized who Jeff had replaced. “Tomato’s GONE!”

reidman and EBounding were still Irish jigging, only their singing changed. “TOMATO’S GONE TOMATO’S GONE!! TOMATO’S...” Ultimoo took his Legendary Bat, and gave them both a mild crack on the head with it, but it was enough to bring them to their senses.

“Don’t you GET IT?!” Ultimoo scorned. “If Jeff’s here, then where’d Tomato go?” The Final Jeopardy music began playing as the two pondered it.

“Going to see Clone Wars?”

“Upgrading his computer?”

“......” Ultimoo looked at them both. “You’re intentionally trying to get under my skin today, right?”

“That is correct!” EBounding sounded like a game show host. “reidman, tell him what he’s won!” Just then, Gyro spilt out of the vortex with a loud crash.

Ultimoo turned around. “That’s what I’ve won?”

“Actually, I had a stale Peanut Cheese Bar in my pocket that I was gonna give you as a nifty paperweight...” reidman spoke. “What is that?” Gyro groaned, and slowly got up.

“Never mind that,” said EBounding. “Which end is up?” Gyro pushed himself up with his arms, and got up on his wheels.

“Is that a robot?” asked Jeff.

Gyro shook his head, and rubbed his eye. “Yes, I’m a robot, and telling by the way you’re speaking, you’re either human, or aliens that do pretty good homo sapiens imitations.” He opened his eye, and looked at the four people in the room. “Great. I’m with a detective in a trenchcoat, a businessman, a flower child, and an armed geek.”

EBounding gave him a nasty look. “Hey! It took a while to perfect this look, so be quiet! You don’t look too good yourself. Is that your neck?” that being the best taunt he could think of at the time.

Ultimoo tugged the mushroom t-shirt under the trenchcoat. “Would any respectable detective wear this?” He then tugged at his trenchcoat. “But, thanks for the compliment.” Jeff rolled his eyes. He was use to being called a geek, but, seeing as how most of his height was neck, the robot looked more like an übergeek than he did.

“I look like a businessman?” was all that reidman could come up with, until he realized something. “Where’d you come from?”

“You tell me first.”

“Fine,” said Ultimoo. “I’m Ultimoo, the flower-child’s EBounding, and the other guy’s reidman. We’re missing one guy, and his name is Tomato. We’re all webmasters of the EB.Net webpage, and this is the EB.Net HQ.” reidman simply nodded and EBounding still looked like he wanted to smash Gyro’s head in with his Legendary Bat.

“I’m Jeff Andonuts, son of world-renowned scientist Dr. Andonuts.”

“Gee, that was wonderfully open and totally unexpected. I didn’t even know you were missing a guy... I’ve got your names and ranks, all I need are you serial numbers... Name’s Gyro; Genius Extraordinaire, and R. Force scientist. I come from my lab at the R. Force HQ in Foxton, California.”

“There’s no Foxton, California,” EBounding corrected.

“Where I come from, there is!”

“Well, that leads to the question I asked,” started reidman. “Where’d you come from?”

“Uh... It’s rather complicated... This is about as blunt as I can get it; For every story made, wrote, or played out, a different dimension which contains that story is created. A couple years earlier, I found a way to break through the barrier between the writer and the written.”

“Uh, where’d this come from?” reidman asked. Everyone was extremely confused. What was the R. Force? Where had Tomato gone? Why did reidman have a Peanut Cheese Bar in his pocket that he knew was stale?

Jeff’s mind started working. “Hold it. You know how to breach the barrier between dimensions?”

“Right.”

“And that blue vortex is the gateway between them?”

“Right again.”

“And Tomato might be where you came from or where I came from?”

“Depends. Did this Tomato fellow disappear before Jeff appeared?” reidman nodded. Gyro was in full answer-any-question-he-can-and-ascertain-lots-of-information mode. “Is there anything that you think may have created this vortex?” Ultimoo pointed behind Gyro. He looked, and saw a sight for sore...well, eye. “A Dimensional Key? How’d that get here?” He picked it up.

“It just came from the vortex when it opened. After it fell on the floor, Tomato was dragged in, balls of slime came shooting out, and it activated.” Ultimoo, as redundant as it is, explained.

“Then there’s nothing to it. Jeff came after Tomato disappeared, right?” The three EB’ers nodded. “Simple. Tomato is where Jeff came from.” The lower jaws of reidman, EBounding, and Ultimoo then simultaneously hit the floor.

“No way.” murmured reidman.

“That means...” muttered EBounding.

reidman finished it off. “...he’s in the game.”

***

Chapter 2: Revelation at the Well
Proto entered the lab. “Yo, Gyro! I’ve-GYAH!” The vortex was still present, and it was dragging him in already. He quickly grabbed the door frame, and furiously tried to yank himself out of the lab. “ACTIVATE JET-PACK!” His yell was drowned out by the rush of air, but it served it’s purpose. The panel along his spine opened, and an narrow jet-pack came out. The bottom end pointed toward the gate, and ignited. Proto was propelled through the still-open doorway, and he swung around to the wall left of it. The drag couldn’t affect him there, and he tapped a small, off-white, flat button. A small panel opened up, revealing a small fiber-optic switchboard. He tapped a few buttons in rapid succession, and the slide-open doors slammed together. “This ain’t good...”

***

The vortex stopped pulling, and Ness and Paula fell to the ground. The look in Protocol’s eyes just spelled ‘grim’.

“Perfect. Juuuust perfect.” He muttered. “I come here to help, and look what happens...”

“JEFF!!!” screamed Paula. She got up and ran for the vortex. Ness quickly stopped her.

“We don’t know what’s on the other side! We CAN”T GO OVER!” Ness tried to explain, but it was no use. Paula was going absolutely nuts. For her, this was absolutely surreal. She had lost too much already. She had watched her parents and all of the children at the preschool literally disappear right in front of her eyes before being kidnapped by the Happy Happyists, and now this? She wasn’t about to lose a friend she had just made after losing so many innocents because of this journey...

“But Jeff’s in there!” Paula smacked Ness in the face with her frying pan, and ran for the vortex. She was quickly stopped by Protocol, who grabbed her arm. She attempted to break free, but his grip held like cast-iron.

“He’s right. As far as your friend Jeff is concerned, he could be lying unconscious in some cannibal’s hut, waiting to be sautéed,” growled he.

“More reason to go over!” she snapped.

“Yes...”he said, “But with how much power that interdimensional gate used, the cannibal’s probably on his way here...”

***

Tomato’s vision blurred. He was dizzy. Whatever that thing was that hit him in the head, it hit him hard. It must’ve hit hard enough to make him feel like he was on a roller coaster. Tomato rubbed his eyes. His vision cleared, but he realized that he was on a roller coaster. Or a reasonable metaphor for one. He was flying through some lighted tunnel. The walls were flowing rivers of purple, blue, green, and black. This was impossible, Tomato thought, this wasn’t happening. But it was. First, the EarthBound game went absolutely nuts, and now he was flying through some odd tunnel that looked like something out of “Sliders”. He had to come up with some reasonable explanation for this. Maybe he ate too much Magic Cake for the celebration of the release of EB 64, and it was affecting his eyes... Not likely. He didn’t have that much Magic Cake. Besides, it was gourmet-style; It had no side effects. Maybe their NOA siege was just a really, really sweet dream. He continued to ponder as he reached the light at the end of the tunnel...”

***

...right now,” Protocol finished. Tomato tumbled out of the gate onto his back. Paula looked at disbelief at the gate, then Tomato. “I hate to say I told you so, so I won’t.” the robot evilly snickered. Tomato slowly sat up, rubbed his head, and moaned. Protocol began to analyze him. “6 foot 4, weighs around 200 pounds, around 20 years old, but I’d say 19... musculature in fingers suggests he either writes or works on a computer, I’d say the latter....” As he rattled these off, Ness and Paula looked at him in pure astonishment.

“Do you even care that someone from another dimension is here?” asked Ness, rubbing his face. He had surmised since that it was an interdimensional gate, whoever came out of it might be from a different dimension.

“No.” Tomato was busy rubbing his head, so he didn’t relatively care. Protocol stopped, and leaned over Tomato, taking his Sword of Kings. “Nice katana. Fairly good structure. Won’t break easily.” It was then Tomato regained his senses, and snatched back his Sword of Kings.

“It’s not a katana!” he shouted. “It’s the Sword of...of...” Tomato began to stutter as he looked at the looming robot before him. “Wow. You’re huge.”

“I’m fairly strong, too,” was Protocol’s reply. He really didn’t care that Tomato was here. “What’s your name, small fry?”

Tomato held a little contempt for Protocol for that remark. “Tomato, and I’m not that short.”

“Really? I’m seven-six, and weigh about six-fifty. I consider anyone under seven feet and three-hundred pounds a small fry.” He wasn’t trying to brag, but he wasn’t trying to be inquisitive, either. He was just really indifferent.

Tomato’s mouth gaped. “That’s really...uhh... heavy.” He was apparently at a loss for words.

“Yes.” He helped Tomato to his feet, but to Tomato, it was more like having his arm yanked out of it’s socket. He rubbed his shoulder a little, and leaned over to see beyond the tree trunk of a robot. That’s when he saw Ness and Paula.

***

“Whoa, whoa, whoawhoawhoa. Tomato can NOT BE in Earthbound!” Ultimoo attempted to explain.

Gyro looked at Moo. “Well, either that, or he’s where I came from. Besides, this form of interdimensional gate is a rare occurrence that I only theorized about (right before I got sucked in, might I add), so he might be stuck in some black hole or gravity well. But it’s still probable that he landed in this ‘Earthbound’ you speak of.”

EBounding raised his finger up, looking as if he was about to say something intelligent, but then put it back down again. “You lost me.”

Jeff was a little perplexed. “Earthbound? Isn’t that a video game?”

“Yes...” reidman muttered. He couldn’t hold himself back any longer. “I WANNA BE IN THE GAME!” reidman rushed for the gate.

“rodman! Don’t you dare!” Gyro yelled after him, not quite remembering his name. But it was too late. He had already leapt toward the vortex...

***

Protocol took several quick scans of Tomato. One was infrared, and it turned up something funny. Tomato’s body heat seemed to be rising. Now he appeared to be redder than the vegetable he was named after. Tomato’s mouth was hanging open as he stared at Ness and Paula. Only they weren’t clay models or actors, they were the real thing.

“What’s with you?” Protocol asked in his usually low, gritty tone.

“Could you quit looking at us like that?” Paula was still a little shaken at what had gone on in the last couple of minutes. “It’s not like we’re famous.”

Tomato looked at Paula with a look that screamed ‘Are you insane?’ A massive smile slowly formed on his face. “Yes, you are...” It was at that time that another person shot out of the vortex, and hit Tomato. Both were knocked to the ground, the new person lying over Tomato.

“Oh, no, not another one...” moaned Ness. First it was the robot, then Jeff disappeared, then the dude with the vegetable-for-a-name arrived. Who was the new one? Protocol looked at the newcomer, as if he’d seen whoever it was before. Paula also looked quizzically at the newcomer. Whoever he or she was, it was wearing jeans and a yellow short-sleeve shirt. It sat up on Tomato’s stomach, it’s long hair hanging over the face, and threw back it’s head, revealing itself to be a girl.

Protocol was slightly confused. “Janie?”

She looked at Protocol, and they exchanged glances. “Protocol? What happened?”

Tomato once again fought to regain his senses. “I’ll tell you what happened, you came out of that thing like a runaway train...” He did what he could to sit up, since the girl was sitting on his stomach, looked at her, saw she was pretty, and smiled. “This just keeps getting better and better.” The girl sighed, and pushed Tomato back to the floor, where he decided it was just better to lie there. She got up, and brushed herself off a little.

“Oh, this is just peachy.” Protocol was obviously a little mad. “First, I lose my dimensional key, then Veggie over here arrives, and...” It was at that convenient time that the gate decided to close. “...now you’re here, and the gate’s closed.” He didn’t miss a beat. Tomato cursed the vortex under his breath. Ness and Paula looked to where the gate had been, still wondering where Jeff was, and praying that he was alright. Janie looked around her new surroundings, wondering where she was. Protocol growled, “What else could possibly go wrong?”

***

reidman had already leapt toward the vortex... but the vortex closed. * W H A M * He came face to screen with the TV Tomato had been playing EB on. “Ow...” After a suitable amount of moaning, he corrected Gyro, “It’s reidman, not rodman. Does my hair looked checkered to you?” However, Gyro couldn’t care less. reid fell to the floor.

“Oh, crud.” Gyro lifted up the dimensional key, and messed with some settings.

“Uh, please don’t use that again,” said Ultimoo, recalling what had happen when it activated earlier. Gyro ignored him, and activated it anyway. The key made a slight charging sound, crackled, and charged-down. Gyro’s eye expression changed from slightly concerned to livid.

“Oh, now this’s just jim dandy!” he cried in dismay. He looked at the key, and saw a crack on the blue orb on top. “Great. Just great! Something finally goes wrong with one of my inventions!! I’m stuck here!!!” Gyro was understandably peeved. Then, as if that dimensional gate wanted to spit in Gyro’s face one last time, it sparked open for about a second, just long enough to spit out the blackboard he had been writing on earlier. It came out with such force, that it flew across to the other side of the room, and shattered itself on his back. Gyro closed his eye, and, with a quivering-yet-obviously-containing-a-lot-of-pent-up-frustration voice, said “How wonderfully uncalled for...” Then, he was suddenly fuming from head to wheel. “ARGH!!! I can’t take this anymore!!!

“You can fix the key, right?” asked EBounding, hoping that Gyro wouldn’t get more angry than he already was, and break something.

Gyro snapped around, facing EBounding. He had an insane look in his eye. He leaned over, looking at him eye to eyes, and, in one of those cuddly tones someone angry uses when someone asks a stupid question, said, “Unless you have a G-15 polymer sealant that can be used to completely repair cracked or broken C.C.T. gemstones, and a suitable drilling micro-syringe designed by Mikhail Van Kreiger, no.”

“That’s all I wanted to know for now.” EBounding backed off. reidman peeled his face off the TV screen.

Jeff looked at Gyro spitefully, then, in a very unwisely-planned, untimely, and just generally untactful opening statement, said “Van Krieger’s a crackpot. Why use his inventions? They end up blowing up in someone’s face.” Thinking he put that to rest, he crossed his arms and smiled.

However, Gyro gave Jeff a frightfully spiteful look (that a robot who has no facial features, save a single eye, can make) that made Jeff lose the smile. “Yo, genius! I come from an alternate dimension, remember? Huh? Do ya, smart guy? Where I come from, Van Krieger’s a genius. A unit of powerful destructive energy was named after him. Just half of him could vaporize you, so I’d be quiet, meat popsicle!” Jeff shut his trap.

Ultimoo secretly leaned over to EBounding. “Is it just me, or does he seem to have somewhat of a superiority complex?” EBounding shrugged.

Gyro glared at Ultimoo. “I heard that!”

“Uh, excuse me,” started reidman. “But what happened to all the ‘Jeff’s here!’ happiness?”

“What do you mean happiness?! He and I are trapped here because of something going WRONG!!!” Gyro roared. He was extremely mad. reidman backed up a little, bumping into the TV. It was then that Gyro snapped. He wheeled to reidman, picked him up, and threw him aside. Ultimoo yelled for him to stop. Gyro ignored him, then pulled back his arm and gave a mighty punch to the TV. One thing was wrong with the picture: The TV didn’t break. There was no sound of shattering glass. Gyro didn’t even hit the TV, for that matter. His hand up to his wrist just disappeared in thin air, in front of the screen. He held his arm there. All of them stood there, looking at Gyro’s missing hand. Gyro himself was in disbelief. “But I hit SOMETHING...” He pulled back his arm, and his hand reappeared. EBounding and Jeff came a little closer, and looked at Gyro’s arm, then at the TV.

“That’s where the blue-thing was...” muttered EBounding. Jeff looked at Gyro.

“You... don’t think...” Jeff talked silently.

“The gate’s still partially open...” Gyro talked in the same manner.

“It’s still THERE?” Ultimoo looked at Gyro. “Why isn’t it dragging us in?”

“Because it’s only residual... Nothing gets dragged in, and only objects around the 85 lb. mark can go through.” Gyro had been taken off-guard. “Did it use so much power that it left a residual gate?”

reidman sat up from his position on the floor, and held his head. “Too...many...facts... Brain...hurting...”

“Actually, I think it was because when I threw you, you landed on your head,” Gyro corrected.

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks for the reminder, pinhead. Anyone got some Aspirin?”

***

Janie walked over to where the gate had been, and looked at the steel wall. “Where am I?”

Tomato quickly answered before the others could. “We’re in Master Belch’s liar, behind Grapefruit Falls.”

“How’d you know that? You just got here.” asked Ness. Tomato didn’t know Ness was going to ask that, but he also didn’t know that a blue vortex was going to open up in his face while playing Earthbound, and bring him into the game, so he attempted to come up with an answer as quick as possible. All that came out was a lot of stutters. Janie continued to look at the wall where the gate had been. And then, a metal fist came through thin air for no apparent reason, and hit Janie right in the gut.

“G’GH!” She doubled over, and held her stomach. The fist hung in the air. Not in the mood for words, Protocol lunged forward, and reached for the hand, but it quickly pulled back and disappeared. He shook his head and looked down.

“You okay?” was all Protocol asked. He had seen quite a bit of her life, and he knew that she had been through a lot worse than a punch to the stomach. Her response was a cough. Ness came over, and used LifeUp a. Protocol shook his head and walked over to Tomato as Paula followed Ness’s lead. He pulled Tomato aside, and whispered, “How did you know where we were?”

“Heh, I’m the Earthbound quiz masta’. That question was child’s play.”

“We’re in Earthbound... It is a video game, correct?”

“Yessir.”

“...Alright, I have a few questions for you.”

Tomato gave him a look that said ‘Really?’ “Okay, shoot.”

“ Just be quiet. I don’t want those two hearing this. What is the next level or area?”

“Milky Well, right near here.”

“Is there a boss there?”

“Yeah, Trillonige Sprout. Big, ugly dirt sprout with eyes.”

“Is there another permanent member to this party of three?”

“Yep. His name’s Poo. He lives in Dalaam.”

“Where is Dalaam, and what is it classified as? Is it a city, a country, an underwater paradise, etc.?”

“It’s to the south, and it’s a floating isle.”

“Does he have any special equipment?” Tomato quickly filled him in on where Poo’s stuff was, the Sword of Kings in Stonehenge and the Starmen Super, the Bracer, the Diadem, and the Cloak. “Isn’t the Sword of Kings the one you have?”

“Yeah. Don’t ask how I got it. I just carry it with me.”

Protocol looked over to Janie, Ness, and Paula, who were now freely talking to each other. “What’s the main objective?”

“Of the game?”

“Yes.”

“To defeat the Universal Cosmic Destroyer known as Giygas who is attempting to plunge the world into eternal darkness.”

Protocol looked at Tomato and asked, “Is that it?”

“Whadda’ya mean ‘That’s it?’”

“I’ve faced bigger. Try going against the Syndicate. See how you do.”

Knowing Protocol probably wasn’t talking about the Syndicate he knew of, Tomato asked, “What’s the Syndicate?”

“The R. Force’s mirror counterparts.”

“Who’re the R. Force?”

“You don’t know, either?” His tone of voice was slightly harsher. “I’ll try to make this as short as possible.” Protocol started up. “About 1985, a mysterious blue vortex opened in Foxton, California, and a robot made out of an unnamed titanium alloy spilled out. Had blue legs, arms, eyes, and eight black wheels on each foot. Didn’t know who he was, where he came from, when he came from, nothing. City Hall kept the press away, and he was taken in by a Dr. Jonathan Clay. The robot was named Proto. He displayed great leadership qualities, but had multiple un-repairable glitches, all of which were minor, but incredibly irritating. Six months later, the vortex opened again, and another robot spilled out. Looked just like Proto, except all the blue parts were red. He had no glitches, and also seemed to exhibit supernatural qualities, like magical abilities and ESP-like powers. He was named Tipe, and was also taken in by Clay. Eventually, another vortex opened, and two more robots came out. One was a massive, boxy robot with huge gorilla-like arms with two fingers, and one large wheel right in his waist instead of legs and feet. He had extreme strength. Was named Roller. The other was an extremely lanky robot with most of it’s height being it’s neck. He showed extreme intelligence and comprehensive abilities. Was named Gyro. Both of them were colored red and black. Like usual, they were taken in by Clay. One day, Proto saw something along the lines of a bank robbery, and the four went to stop it. They succeeded, and were praised highly. They liked it so much, they decided to form a small, unofficial group. The Robo Force. People thought it was a joke, but they started doing incredible things. They eliminated terrorist threats, gave several scientific contributions, and secretly developed time travel and interdimensional travel. Some groups copied them, such as the C. Force, and the @ Force, but they were misfits and screwballs, and didn’t do much that people knew of. We gained members, and a lot of money. We had to form another mercenary group to hold most of the members. We were the best in the business. Never failed. I was originally invented as a hologram designed to stop people from violating holographic protocols on a starship that will remain nameless, but I became more. A body was built for me, and I became who I am today.”

“Then where’d you get her?” Tomato pointed at Janie.

He glanced at Janie, who was still talking to Ness and Paula. “Janie was ‘adopted’ into our ranks in 1996 after Proto decided to get a ‘feminine’ member. After a few weeks, we found Janie in another dimension. She had been kicked out of her home and left on the street for eleven years. Her parents were, well, goaded into letting her go. But living on the streets with trash and psychos led to her gaining extreme resilience and strength, as well as catching Proto’s eye.”

“Then what’s the Syndicate?”

Protocol grimaced. “Pure evil. Sit back, you’ll want to hear about this one. Seven members; Omega, Epir, Rellus, Oritus, Lokoros, Cain, and Elaine. The first four had the same origin as us, but they appeared in a different dimension. They came out of the vortex, were taken in by Clay, and all that. But there was something wrong with this batch. They were just plain nasty. They became highly advanced quickly, developed destructive weapons, torture chambers, even new android bodies for themselves. They nearly destroyed Earth’s surface, leaving only a few humans alive, and conquered the barren rock that remained. Rebellion wasn’t possible, because all the remaining humans were captured, and killed or tortured until they wanted to die. They loved to watch the suffering of others. No remorse, no pity, not an ounce of good emotion in their bodies. They came up with my counterpart, Lokoros, as an ultimate weapon, but he was slightly... insubordinate. He didn’t like fighting, but didn’t have enough confidence to leave the Syndicate. Then, they took a human and genetically reprogrammed him into the massive beast that is now entitled Cain. He didn’t think, he just did what he was told, and that was to serve the Syndicate, and destroy anything else. Then, Omega decided for a change of pace. He singled out one girl named Matilda Branson. She had been locked in an asylum for the mentally insane after some psychopath went on a grisly killing spree. He murdered everyone one the block, except for her. She was ‘lucky’ enough to hide from him. Rumors say that she was actually being saved for last by the murderer, but one incredible sniper-shot gunned him down before he had the chance to even touch her. Rumors also say that she was forced to watch all of her friends and family as well as other innocents get slaughtered. What Omega did was let her loose in the asylum. She had been locked in an isolation ward for a month, so her mind was dying to cut loose. Omega left her a very large knife, and she proceeded to slash everyone who got in her way. I’ve been told that the attendants weren’t the most caring people. Some were... abusive... I’ve also been told the only reason she didn’t kill the entire staff is that she killed someone who looked an awful lot like a friend or family member. That drove her over the edge. Matilda escaped from the asylum, and went to the only sanctuary she could remember. The local church. She cried on the altar until she fell unconscious from the stress. Omega swept her away, and transferred her mind into an android body that looked exactly like her. But he changed her, took away her remorse and regret, made her more alluring and sinister. She became Elaine... What a shame. It was a waste of life. And every dying man she leaves in her wakes is always muttering something about how pretty she is. Tipe thinks she’s Janie’s counterpart, which would explain a bit, because she looks just like Janie.” Protocol paused for a second, as if searching for the right words. “We all hate each other, the R. Force and Syndicate. Proto hates Omega, Tipe hates Epir, Roller hates Rellus, Gyro hates Ogre, I... dislike... Lokoros (but he doesn’t dislike me as much; it’s the insubordination thing), everybody hates Cain, and Janie hates Elaine. With a vengeance, I might add. Whoever said ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ knew what he was talking about. Elaine’s always messing in her affairs, and Janie always wants payback. They’ve tried to destroy us ever since our other evil counterparts and longtime rivals, the D. Force, faced them. The D. Force came limping toward us, and told us about what had happened. We temporarily aligned, and just barely managed to defeat the Syndicate. (The D. Force then decided to attempt to back-stab us on the way home, but we whipped them into next week) The D. Force went into hiding, leaving us to go after them ourselves. At that time, neither Janie nor Elaine had come into the picture, and the matter subsided. But when they did, the fire rekindled. Janie had been mysteriously bonded with a strange energy that gave her incredible magic powers that overcame Tipe’s, and Elaine was fused with some devastating Fire, Lightning, and Matrix... well, magic. Their battles are legendary. We and the Syndicate had our romps, but we always managed to defeat them by a hair, due to some ally we had assisted in the past, or a strange twist of fate. They were even single-handedly defeated by Janie, who was given a enormous temporary boost in her magic power by some unknown deity.”

“You guys have been through the mill...”

“You have no idea. We’re too evenly matched. The only way this’ll end is when either one or the other is destroyed, or we take them down with us.” Protocol laid it out, pure and simple. Tomato closed his eyes for a while, to consider everything he had just been told. It was at that time that he realized that the person who said ‘Ignorance is bliss’ also knew what he/she was talking about. When he looked back at Protocol, he realized that Ness, Paula, and Janie were sitting right behind him. Ness and Paula had regathered their thoughts, and Janie had assured them that Jeff was somewhere fine by quickly telling them of past experiences with ‘this kind of stuff.’ They listened to every word he had said, even when they had been talking amongst themselves. Protocol slowly got up. Almost as if he had forgotten about what had just happened, he said, “Let’s get moving. We’ve got a job to do.”

Tomato looked up. “On to Milky Way? But what about what hit Janie?”

“We shouldn’t concern ourselves with that, now. I’ll handle it later. First, we stop to pick up supplies and take a rest at the nearest village.”

Paula stood up. “In that case, Saturn Valley’s probably right beyond that cave, near the hot springs. But where’s Milky Well?”

Tomato quickly stood up. “The entrance to Milky Well is right beyond the cave exit. The ladder to the hot springs should be repaired by now.”

“Let’s go.” Protocol was down to the point. He had another objective in mind after he went to Milky Well. That objective Tomato might’ve figured out, but maybe not. This had not been a good day.

***

“This is peachy,” grumbled reidman. “Why does Tomato get to be in Earthbound?”

Jeff glared at him. “It’s not as fun as it looks. I just got blown up by my own bottle rocket, and sucked into some gate that led me to who-knows-where. I’m not sure this’s even Eagleland...”

“It’s not. You’re in the USA.” EBounding corrected. “You have heard of the USA, right?”

“No.”

“Alright...”

Ultimoo looked at Gyro. “Tomato’s gone, Jeff’s here, you’re here, and you’re key-thing’s broken. What do you think we should do now?”

Gyro had calmed down, and he pondered for a minute. “Is what’s happening in the normal course of the game, up to the point Protocol intervened?”

“I was watching Tomato play, so I wouldn’t think so. All the enemies were unusually tough, some of the vital items were either stolen or rendered useless, and there were some pretty funky plot twists. EBounding thought it might’ve been an NOA reprogramming. They’re probably doing it to annoy us.”

“NOA; Nintendo of America. Why would they have it in for you guys? You just maintain a website. And why would they secretly reprogram a video game cartridge? It didn’t seem that big of a deal until now.”

“Well, it’s a really long story. A year ago, the NOA came to the HQ for an unknown reason, probably to scout it out. A few days ago, when the sequel to Earthbound was to be released, the NOA delayed it for another eight years, and sent an evil clone of me as well as a bunch of N-cronies over to shut us down. We struck back, and sieged the NOA HQ. We destroyed the place, derailed Shigeru Miyamoto, destroyed a robotic copy of Shigesato Itoi, and they finally released Earthbound 64.”

Gyro gave that ‘Are you insane?’ glance. “Gah. Evil clones and robotic copies. All that over a game? It’s a freakin’ video game company. I thought it was their job to make the consumer happy... But, then again, experience has taught me that things always aren’t what they seem. This game, for example. But you now know it’s no longer a game...”

reidman came from behind Gyro. “It’s a game with a major cult following. If you were one of us, you’d understand.”

“Don’t be so sure ‘bout that.” Gyro waved an index finger in reid’s face. “I probably wouldn’t understand, anyways. Now that I know some of what’s going on, I say we play the game until it’s over to get it out of the way, then I’ll see what I can do about reprogramming it back to normal. Piece o’ cake. And now that your friend Tomato and my *ahem* brethren Protocol’s there, it should play out by itself quickly. Nothin’ defeats the mighty R. Enforcers.”

Ultimoo looked slightly bewildered. “Who’re the R. Enforcers?”

“You don’t know?” Gyro looked somewhat miffed. “Awwww... I don’t want to have to explain this... Are there any printers here?”

“This place maintains a website. Of course printers will be here. There’s one right over there.” Ultimoo pointed behind Gyro. He looked ‘over his shoulder’ (I use the term loosely), turned around, and wheeled to the printer. He then proceeded to remove the wire connecting it to the computer, turn it on, and wheel behind it.

“Interface.” Gyro concentrated. There were a few robotic noises, and the end of the rod protruding from his left shoulder/chest turned into a bunch of Virtuosity-esque wiring. It hooked up to the printer port, and the printer spewed out several numbered printed papers. “Read that, and you will find the history of the R. Force, our main enemies, member histories, technology, rivals, and other such.”

“How’d you do that?” Jeff had taken a look at what Gyro was doing.

“I have a controlling personality,” mused Gyro. “I can hook up to machines, and control them with my thought processes.”

“Does that mean you can hook up to a tank, and control it with your mind?” asked reidman.

“Maybe if it had the correct com port, yeah.”

“Sweet...” reidman pondered to himself about it. EBounding and Jeff picked up the papers, and everyone except Ultimoo and reidman read them, since they and Gyro were now manning the SNES and Earthbound. reid had the controller, and Ultimoo silently looked on.

“Hey, uh, did you know that someone by the name of Janie is now in the party?” reidman observed the new character on the Item and Status screen.

“Did you say Janie?” Gyro looked as if his cycloptic head was about to roll on the floor. “What does the character look like?”

“Long brown hair, blue pants, and a yellow shirt.”

Gyro moaned. “Awwww... Too many coincidences in one day... First Protocol’s there, then a person from here exchanges places with one from there, and now Janie’s there? This is too much...”

EBounding looked up from the paper at Gyro, then back at the paper. “Name: Janie Goodfellow, birth year: 1984, height: 5 foot eight, weight 110-120 lbs.....” He read on to the notes. “She can bench press three-hundred? Wow. Leg-press five-fifty.”

Jeff looked up. “That seems physically impossible for a girl he height and weight.”

Gyro turned his head around in a Exorcist fashion. “She’s 15, and so isn’t leaping from one rooftop to another, balance on the top of my head with ease, having the ability to turn into multiple magic elemental-forms, get hit with a semi-truck head on, and get up 5 minutes later and need only minor medical attention, but she does it. Don’t know how she does half, okay, ALL of it, but she does it.” EBounding shrugged, and looked back a little to the member directory. Jeff read about the technology.

“You’ve got some pretty advanced stuff. How long did it take you to make some of these inventions?”

“From a couple minutes, to around three decades. When it comes to work ethic and patience, don’t even try to compete with me. I’ll usually outlast you by a couple decades.”

“Can we please get on with this?” reid knocked Gyro on his shoulder as if he were a door. “I want to get this over with, that way I can mercilessly interrogate Tomato about his time in Earthbound, and then have him make one of the largest articles of all time. Er, sorry, flashback.”

“Flashback? Uh, I won’t ask. Where to next, rykeman?”

“For the second time, it’s reidman.”

“Righty.”

“Is that so hard to comprehend?” reidman looked a tad annoyed. “I’m not telling you.”

Ultimoo sighed. “Next, we’re heading toward Saturn Valley, then to the Milky Well.”

Gyro looked at him. “That helps. Does this thing have a player’s manual or something? I may be a genius, but I don’t have time to delve into the realm of video games.” Ultimoo took the guide out of nowhere, and tossed it to him. “Thanks.” He quickly opened it, and flipped through twenty pages a second. As you can tell, he was done in a few short moments.

Jeff looked up. “Hey, can I...”

“No you can’t look at the Player’s Guide, Jeff, because it would result in disclosing unwarranted information of the future, and you and I would probably get disintegrated by the Interdimensional Council.” With that final remark, he lobbed it back to Ultimoo, who put it back where it came from; nowhere. “Yes indeedy, next is Saturn Valley, then on to Milky Well. Tally ho, let’s get on with it, and all that other fun stuff...”

***

The party of four and the robot had quickly gathered themselves, and quickly left the complex. They had managed to ignore it earlier, but it was rancid in there. Ness tried to wipe the disgusting goo off himself, but only managed to smear it more.

“This stinks. Figuratively, and literally.” Ness shook his hands a little.. “Saturn Valley doesn’t have any washing machines, or bathrooms.”

“Or showers,” Paula added.

“There’s a hot spring right beyond the cave exit,” Tomato said. “You can wash off in there.” Once again, Ness was a little perplexed on how Tomato knew that, but decided not to ask why this time. The five continued walking until they exited the cave, and entered sunshine and fresh air.

Paula took in a deep breath. “Ahhh... I’ve never realized how much I’ve taken clean air for granted.” The Mr. Saturn manning the tree stump used as a coffee table obviously was taking the fresh air for granted, or at least until the four got closer. The Mr. Saturn moaned in pain, and attempted to shut it’s nose with it’s feet.

“But we still stink!” Ness backpedaled out of the cave, only to trip backwards on the stones surrounding the hot springs, and nearly landing on the Mr. Saturn bathing inside. That got a laugh or chuckle from everyone except the big grimacing guy. Nothing could make him laugh, save the right conditions were fulfilled. Paula helped Ness out of the hot spring. Now he was soaking wet, but at least he didn’t smell as bad.

----

A break time was declared, and both Ness and Paula decided to take a dip in the hot springs. Tomato was a little surprised to find that both had brought bathing suits, as well as several other things that you’d never find on the item menu while actually playing Earthbound. Janie, on the other hand, managed to find some way to clean off her clothes. Tomato asked how she had done it, and she told him that they had a washing machine around. He spent most of his time looking for it. The Mr. Saturn still let them stay at his inn free, thankfully, and they all had a good night’s rest. All, except for Protocol. He was still planning on how to get out of here, and who hit Janie through the rift, and what he’d be leaving behind. There had been a reason he asked Tomato all those questions, but he decided to keep it secret from the others. The next area would be no problem with him around, but he might temporarily leave after that goal had been fulfilled. When morning came, they were woken up by Mr. Saturn and Protocol, and they went for the store to stock up on supplies. Tomato graciously bought a few Peanut Cheese Bars for himself, but returned them when he realized that the P.C. Bars from his world tasted a lot better than cheese and peanut by-product. They also received a Saturn Coin and a Stag Beetle (no Horn of Life) from a thankful Mr. Saturn. After all was said and done, they headed for Milky Well.

----

“...BLUE 22! BLUE 22! HUT, HUT!!!” Protocol looked as if he were preparing for a three-point rush. His target; a small Rainboob being held like a football by Tomato. Protocol charged. The Rainboob just looked at him like a deer would look at oncoming headlights. Tomato quickly fell back. *KRAKOW!* Protocol punted the Rainboob like a pigskin, and it went for a ride.

Paula shaded her eyes from the sun, and looked at the identified flying Rainboob. “It’s definitely good. You sent it into orbit.”

Protocol loosened up a bit. “Punt Air; the only painful way to travel.”

Janie looked at the almost out-of-sight plant monster, and then Protocol. “I...think you used a bit too much power in that one. I don’t think that was the right call, either.” Protocol looked at her with a ‘see if I care’ glance. Tomato surveyed the carnage that lied around them. Several leaves, stems, and mushrooms spotted the ground of the Milky Well ‘dungeon’. They were frozen, burnt, fried, sunburnt, wet, riddled with laser holes, sliced, or just torn apart.

“We made quick work out of this garden...” Tomato looked down at a couple Struttin’ Evil Mushrooms. “Too bad that mushroom lady from Peaceful Rest Valley isn’t around, or we’d be rich...”

Ness put back his T-Rex Bat. “I understand clearing out this place, but committing genocide on the entire species? That’s just cruel.”

Tomato looked back at him. “Trust me, you won’t miss ‘em.”

Janie shrugged. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

“How much further?” turned to Tomato.

“The Trillonige Sprout’s right in the cave around the corner.”

“If he’s as easy as these little sprouts, I’ll think I’ll take a nap,” mused the robotic one.

“Judging by the difficulty of the other Shining Spots, I don’t think you’ll be taking that nap.” Ness spoke grimly.

“The bosses are called Shining Spots?”

“Well, that’s what they look like when you start fighting them, then they take on their own forms. Their only purpose is to prevent me from getting to the ‘Your Sanctuary’ locations. There was the Titanic Ant guarding Giant’s Step, then the Mondo Mole guarding the Lilliput Steps, now there’s the Trillonige Sprout guarding the Milky Well, and about five more Shining Spots, and five more Sanctuary locations.”

“Fine.” Protocol crossed his arms. “Let’s beat that sprout back where it belongs; in the ground. And, the sooner we get this done...” he paused and began to head for the cave. “...the sooner we can leave.”

“I have no argument with that.” Tomato ran toward the cave.

“Hold on!” Ness quickly ran after.

Janie chuckled in one of those overly feminine tones. “Men.” Paula snickered a little.

“Watch it...” Protocol looked back at them. “Let’s get this over with.” They entered the cave. Uneventfully, it was really dark inside. No signs of Ness or Tomato. They walked further into the cavern.

Paula cupped her hands around her mouth. “Ness!”

“Why, I’m right here, honey!” came one of those mock-loving tones right from behind them. That managed to scare Paula out of her wits. She jumped forward a bit out of fright, and screamed. One problem; her scream echoed as if she we falling down a cliff. Protocol’s eyes quickly went from ‘night-light’, to ‘overcharged tanning salon’. The cave lit up, and Ness lunged over the cliff, looking over the edge. “PAU...” He stopped himself. There she was, floating over the drop, slightly glowing green. “You knew how to do that?” Paula floated back over to solid ground.

“Actually, that was me,” replied Janie, looking at Paula and Ness. She then turned around, and raised her hand, which quickly ignited on fire. Before anyone could say anything about the fact that her skin should be burning to a crisp, several small fireballs hovered to the walls, and stayed there. They acted as torches, only making the room brighter. “You can hit your dimmer switch now,” she said to Protocol. He obliged.

“Uh, Paula, you okay?” asked Ness.

“No thanks to you,” Paula said scornfully. Then she smiled sideways. “Honey?” She then disregarded all, and hugged Ness. “Thanks for asking,” she whispered.

Protocol muttered quietly to himself. “All talk and no battle makes Protocol a very unhappy and malevolent robot.” Then he asked out loud, “You done? A dark cave isn’t exactly the place for romantics.” Ness and Paula glared at him a little.

Tomato leaned over to where Protocol’s ear might be. “I think you should leave them alone. I might be important later in the storyline.” Protocol grumbled in response. Janie shook her head. She really wanted to whack Protocol upside the head, but now, she evidently had more important things to do than scold Protocol for his impatience. Besides, she could always do that later. They continued trekking through the cavern, which was considerably larger than Tomato first expected. After about a half-hour of walking, and zero presents, they finally reached their goal: The Shining Spot.

“You finally got here. This is the third ‘Your Sanctuary’ location.”

Tomato waved at him as if he was all too trivial. “Yeah, yeah.. But it’s mine, now. Take it from me, if you dare.”

The Shining Spot stopped shining. “...I was supposed to say that. You will pay dearly for your disrespect!” The Shining Spot then turned into the Trillonige Sprout. Two Tough Mobile Sprouts raised from the dirt behind it. The battle was on.

Ness instinctively went for the first blow, and leapt toward the Sprout with his bat raised. He should’ve learned by now that that tactic wasn’t going to work. He went sprawling to the dirt as the Sprout counter-attacked. Tomato drew his Sword of Kings, and swiped for one of the Mobile Sprouts. The Sprout received damage, and came with an attack of it’s own. Paula unleashed PSI Fire b, and burnt the other Mobile Sprout to a crisp. Protocol hung back, just to see how the fight would go. Janie lunged forward, and latched onto the Trillonige Sprout’s face, repeatedly pummeling him. He countered by spewing out a massive cannonball-like dirt clod. She was knocked aside, and landed at Protocol’s feet. He quickly helped her up, and signaled for her to keep fighting. She went back to work at the other Mobile Sprout. Ness got back up, and gave a swift charging crack with his bat over the Trillonige Sprout’s head. He succeeded in massively dazing it, but then it spread around spores. Several more Tough Mobile Sprouts rose from the ground, and started to swamp over everyone, except Protocol. He stood there, and looked down at the Sprouts kicking his feet. He found that it was fairly irritating. He leaned over, gripped one in each hand, and smashed them together, creating plant mush. This scared every other of the little Mobile Sprouts, and they quickly retreated. It left only the Trillonige Sprout. Paula and Janie double-teamed, and created a massive wall of flame, engulfing the Sprout. It wasn’t as effective as hoped, because it once again used it’s dirt cannon to down Janie and Paula. Tomato stepped forward, and took a horizontal swipe with his Sword, but only succeeded in cutting off the plant growing out of the Sprout’s ‘head.’ It snarled, and bulldozed Tomato over. The Sprout walked right into a swing from Ness’s bat, and then a blast of Flash b right in it’s eyes. The Sprout backed up, and blinked a little, then vengefully smacked Ness with a dirty appendage.

He looked up at Protocol from the ground. “A little help please?”

Protocol stepped forward. “Since you asked politely...” He raised a fist. “Dust to dust...” He leapt forward, and came through with a massive right hook that rearranged the Trillonige Sprout’s facial features into something looking as if it had been painted by Picasso. Protocol followed up with a side-kick, planting the heel of his foot right between the Sprout’s eyes. Dazed and injured, the Sprout made an attempt to run away, but smacked into a wall instead. Ness, Paula, Janie, and Tomato watched in relief as Protocol bench-pressed the Trillonige Sprout, walked over to the chasm that Paula nearly fell down, and threw the Sprout over the edge. Protocol then unexpectedly opened one of the oval panels on his chest, took out a bomb, activated it, and threw it down the cliff for good measure. “Hmph. Won’t be bothering anybody except the rats living down there.”

Tomato looked around, and muttered “Overkill...”

“It’s out of the way.” Protocol grumbled.

“Well, why don’t we just go to Milky Well, and get out of here?” Paula quickly tried to hurry along. Ness shrugged, and went through the way the Trillonige Sprout had left after being dispatched. Paula and Tomato quickly followed.

Janie crossed her arms, and glared at Protocol. “You really have anger management/control problems, you know that?”

“Yes, I do.”

She sighed. “Could you at least try and be a little more patient? They’re trying to save the universe. They don’t need to be checked on.” Janie cocked her head to the side a little, uncrossed her arms, and went through the way to Milky Well. Making sure no one was looking through the way, Protocol looked down the chasm, and scanned the chasm floor to see if the Trillonige Sprout had truly been beaten. All he spotted was a large pile of dirt. “Dead enough.” He exited the cave, and stepped into Milky Well. Protocol looked around, and saw the Milky Well, which looked almost exactly as it had been named. It was a well with a small geo-spring, spurting out a pleasant milk-colored liquid. Perhaps a kind of water? He didn’t care to analyze. He looked toward the other four, and saw that they seemed to be very relaxed. Ness’ head was bowed down, and he almost seemed to be praying. Soothing music came from nowhere, but something wasn’t right. It wasn’t the well, but something just wasn’t right... Tomato broke out from his trance, and edged closer to the well. He looked down at the water, and cupped his hands to pick some up. Tomato looked at it a bit, then drank some.

“This tastes as good as it looks...” He drank some more.

Ness raised his head, and closed his eyes. “I feel it again... That feeling that something’s watching us... The one I got at Giant’s Step and Lilliput Steps...”

Paula gasped in surprise, and Protocol glanced over. “Hey. I feel it too....”

Janie closed her eyes, and raised her head. “This is incredible...” She trailed off. Then Protocol felt something. No, he heard something. He turned around, and stared back into the cave. Could that brainless Sprout have regenerated? *KRA-K O O M ! ! !* Something smashed through the other side, and Protocol whipped around. There, standing over the Milky Well, was some huge, cybernetic spider mech with a eye-like orb right on the front and a dome top with some ugly, fat, smiling kid inside. Tomato had quickly backed up, and now stood at ready with his Sword of Kings out.

He and Ness cried out in unison, “POKEY!!!”

The ugly Pokey kid cackled from inside. “Hah! So even lowlifes know my name!” Tomato and Ness started an approach, but they were stopped by a beam shooting out of the eye-device right in front of their feet. “Not so fast, boys and girls! I’ve got a liiiiittle message from a higher power. One that’s even higher than Giygas himself.”

“Say WHAT?!” Ness roared.

“Impossible! Giygas is the final enemy! There’s no way there’s a higher power than him here!” Tomato snapped.

“Oh, but wait, there is, you unknown weakling you!” Pokey snapped back. His sinister smile returned. “You wanna see who it is? Come to think of it, I don’t care if you bumbling morons want to or not! Here he is: Shigesato ITOI!!! “ The eye-device shimmered a bit, and a hologram leapt out. Indeed, it was Itoi. Or at least an incredibly-rendered simulation.

“WHAT?!!!” Tomato couldn’t believe it.

“Ha-HA! Didn’t expect to see me here, did you? Ha-HA! I’m here to turn this world to ruins! Ha-HA! Giygas will destroy all! Ha-HA!” This hologram had been programmed to respond to Ness, Paula, and Jeff. The only reason it wasn’t having a serious conflict was because it identified Tomato, the only one who had directly spoken to it, as Jeff.

“You did reprogram it! But when?” Tomato was furious.

Ness and Paula dropped their defensive stances. “Reprogrammed what?” Ness asked.

“Not sure if you’ve noticed, but now’s not the time for questions...” Protocol interrupted. Ness looked skyward, shrugged, and stood defensively again.

“Ha-HA! When we captured EB.Net, we reprogrammed it! Ha-HA! We figured that if you succeeded in getting us back, we would get you, and you precious little Earthbound too! Ha-“

“QUIT LAUGHING!!!”

“Sorry, my laugh track’s stuck. Ha-... uh... Ah-AH! You will never be able to change the fact that this galaxy will be annihilated by Giygas and Pokey, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

“Don’t be so sure about that!” Protocol snarled as he stepped forward.

“Oh, looky! Yet another tin can that I can shoot at! How enjoyable!” Pokey mocked.

“Bad, BAD idea...” Protocol growled. He continued to step forward, and the other four stepped forward with him. “Back off. He’s MINE.” The tone in his voice was enough to make all of them stop in their tracks.

Pokey looked at him, amused. “Guess the garbage disposal’s got a temper. Ooooh, this’ll be goooood fun.”

“Ha-HA!” Itoi’s hologram laughed, then flickered. It was beginning to conflict.

Protocol’s eyes became a fiery red. “Would you politely SHADDUP?” He charged forward with a clenched fist, and punched directly at the eye-device. Itoi’s hologram laughed one last time before wavering and disappearing.

Pokey backed off quickly. “You’re a strong one, but you will not win. I still have Giygas to back me up, so don’t push your luck, or-“ He was interrupted as Protocol charged forward again, and blasted the Spider Mech with a short but powerful punch combo. With the final uppercut, the Mech went flying backwards, and Protocol slowly, menacingly advanced. Pokey checked his mech’s status, and inwardly panicked. “You’re stronger than I thought. Hope you like this surprise!” Small turrets appeared around where the eye had been, and the front two legs raised. The turrets and leg tips unleashed a salvo of laser fire, hitting Protocol directly in the arms, body, head, or just whizzing by him. He continued advancing, unfazed. Pokey’s panic was evident now, and he turned up the laser fire. Protocol continued advancing. “Hell with this...” Pokey muttered, and the Spider Mech stopped firing to deliver a crushing downward blow with a front leg. Protocol caught it. “What the f-ffFFFWAHH!” Pokey screamed as he flipped the Mech over his head by it’s leg, and smashed it down. Protocol turned slightly, and smashed it again. He dragged it closer, put his foot on the leg’s base, and ripped the Spider Mech’s leg right off. Pokey continued to scream inside the Mech as Protocol smashed the Mech with it’s own leg and punted the front, flipping it over twice. Pokey attempted to get control back, but found that all the controls were going haywire because it hadn’t been prepared to be injured, never mind have a leg ripped off. Protocol lifted the Spider Mech up slightly, put his fist to the underside, and proceeded to pump laser fire into it with his forearm turret. None of them went through, but it was enough to scare Pokey into trying to escape. “ABANDON SHIP! ABANDON SHIP!!!” he screamed, and frantically pawed at the dome trapping him inside the once-weapon-now-prison. Protocol climbed on the parts surrounding the dome, and punched the dome. There was a hollow clunk, no shatter. “Heh, heh. That’s one thing you won’t break. It’s solid Plexiglas with carbon wireframe. No way you can break it.” Protocol grunted, and punched at it again. A large spider-web crack formed on the dome. Pokey screamed, and Protocol punched it a final time. Glass rained all around Pokey, and he shielded his face.

Protocol grabbed him by the collar, and drew him face-to-face. “I’m going to make this as blunt as possible; You’ve got a very limited number of options. Either you leave, or I’ll turn this hunk of trash into a cast-iron coffin and bury you alive in it. Understand?”

Pokey nodded, then said, in what seemed to be entirely one word with twenty syllables, “I’llgladlytakethefirstoptionnowwillyouletgoofmesoIcanleavenow?” Protocol let go of his collar, and Pokey quickly flipped a switch inside the mass the Spider Mech was now. Amazingly, it still worked, and both he and the hunka-junk disappeared in static.

“Mmm...gone... I was hoping he would fly away so I could take a few pot shots at ‘em...” Protocol grimaced. All the other four looked at him, stricken that he and Pokey had managed to demolish the place within a few minutes.

Tomato looked around. The entire place had been smashed to rubble. Holes from laser fire were on one wall, and most of the others had been just torn apart. “You two really smashed this place up....”

Ness turned his attention away from the robot. “At least the well’s fine.” Only the Well itself was perfectly intact.

“You really trashed ‘em...” Paula stared at Protocol. She glanced at the spider-like leg that Protocol had torn off the Mech. “That thing would’ve creamed us, and you demolished it.”

“That’s the part I like about my job.” Protocol turned around to look at her. “Demolishing ‘unbeatable’ foes.”

‘Great,’ Janie thought to herself. ‘Just when you think he’s done with talking...’

“Sorry about the well; a minor setback.” Protocol knew what he was going to do now. “There’s a lot more going on now than we expected. That Itoi character has given you’re enemies a major boost, and now this Giygas has his minions on the warpath. We’ve got to move quickly, or there won’t be much left of this universe.” He looked at Janie, then Tomato, then to Ness and Paula. “Since we’ll be long gone by that time, we won’t be able to help you with the fight with Giygas. I’m going to find any allies that’ll fight alongside and will be there with you during the final battle.”

“What? We’re leaving?! Now?!?” Tomato wasn’t quite sure what to make of what Protocol had just said. Things were going way too fast...

“But we can’t! Jeff’s still gone, and they can’t fight all of them by ourselves! They’ll be slaughtered!” Janie argued.

“And if Pokey comes around again in that spider-mech, they won’t be able to fight him now! Can’t we stay a little longer?” Tomato pleaded.

Ness and Paula stepped forward. “We’re glad that you care, and that you want to help us,” Ness tried to assure Janie and Tomato, “But if you have to leave, then you should. We should be able to handle this by ourselves.”

“Yeah, we’re the Chosen Ones after all. When Jeff gets back, we’ll be able to keep going. We can beat them. It’s destined.” said Paula.

Janie and Tomato thought something along the same lines, at the same time. ‘They’re looking right at the doomsday! How can they be confident like this?’

Protocol sighed. “Hold on a minute, none of you got it, did you? When I said ‘the fight with Giygas,’ I meant it literally. We won’t be around. But as for the path to Giygas, you two will. As for me, I’m going off to look for another ally to be here when we leave. Jeff will be back in due time, if we’re lucky.”

Both Tomato and Janie else let out a sigh of relief. “That’s perfectly fine with me,” she sighed.

“Same here,” said Tomato.

“Good.” Protocol crossed his arms impatiently. “Any more questions?”

After a small period of thought, Tomato asked, “What if Pokey comes back? And more militant than before?”

“Hate to say this, but deal with it. And if he does, you can count on the fact that I’ll smash him next time I see him.” Protocol said.

***

reidman, EBounding, Ultimoo, and Jeff sat huddled around the TV. Gyro stood behind all of them. “I can’t believe it. This day has to be the greatest day in Earthbound history, and it’s not even 11 AM yet.” Ultimoo laid back, but fell on his back, because there was nothing to lean back on.

“Then don’t believe it,” Gyro said. He changed the subject. “He really lambasted that Pokey kid, didn’t he? Don’t you think that’s a little bit overkill for a twelve-year-old?”

“That ain’t no kid. That’s a pig,” reidman corrected. “Besides, he causes a lot more trouble in the future, so it’s good that he gets out of the way now.”

“I hate this,” Jeff mused. “I’m supposed to be in there fighting, but instead, I’m out here with you guys, playing.”

“Better than getting shot, beaten, or blown up,” added reidman.

“Guess that’s a plus...” Jeff said. Someone knocked on the door. That caused complete chaos.

“Aw, not now! Anytime but now!” Ultimoo groaned.

Gyro looked to the door. “Lemme guess: The best strategy for a time like this is...”

“HIDE!” EBounding dragged Gyro over to a corner, produced a sheet, and threw it over Gyro. “Stay still!” he commanded Gyro. Ultimoo and reidman quickly lifted Jeff to his feet, and moved him around.

“What’re you doing?”

“Just stay in the position we put you in!” reidman scorned. Jeff did as he was told, and, soon enough, Jeff looked as if he were reciting those famous lines: ‘Alas, poor Urich! I knew him well! Horatio!’ Even his hand was raised. Ultimoo put the finishing touch on it by placing a steer’s skull in his raised hand.

“Hey! You in there? I’ve got news!” called the voice from outside.

“Uh, yeah tigeryak! Wait a minute!”

A bewildered Gyro muttered from under the sheet. “tigeryak? Oh, that’s rich...” EBounding gave one of his wheels a swift kick. After making sure that Jeff was going to stand perfectly still, reidman opened the door, and tigeryak stepped in. He simply looked a mess.

“Whoa, You looked like you got mugged!”

“That’s part of my news.” tigeryak was really sounding critical. “I have bad news, worse news, and even worse news.”

“Just what I love: Variety. What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is that I did in fact get mugged.

“Worse news.”

“I was mugged by a bunch of N-Cronies!”

“Worst new-What?! Where?”

“I was picking up spackle and bricks to fix the walls you guys blew up, and they stomped me! But that’s not the worst news!”

“What is?!”

“...They kidnapped Tomato!” The look on their faces went from disbelief to melodramatic horror.

“Uh... yeah...” Ultimoo pondered that for a few seconds. “They kidnapped Tomato...”

Gyro poked EBounding from underneath the sheet. “Play along,” he whispered. “It’s the perfect cover-up. Do you realize how chaotic it would be if we told everyone else about what really happened?”

“Good point,” he whispered back. EBounding dove to the ground, and hugged reidman’s knees. “NNNNOOOO! TOMATO’S GONE!!!” He began to cry. “NO, NO, NOOOO!!! Oh, CRUEL WORLD!!!”

“Uh... EBou-“ reidman attempted to talk some sense into him, but instead his foot was mashed by EBounding’s fist to keep him from spoiling it. “OW!” He jumped out of EBounding’s grasp, and started jumping around.

EBounding sill lied face down on the floor, crying his brain out. He conked his head on the floor a few times. “No, no, no...” Just then, tigeryak noticed Jeff.

“Hey, cool statue. Jeff portraying Hamlet?”

“Um... Yes. We’re going to use it as a lawn ornament,” said Ultimoo.

tigeryak looked at him disapprovingly. “Okay, I understand Earthbound mouse pads, but Earthbound lawn ornaments? I think you might be taking this stuff a liiiiitle too far.”

“Go away.” Ultimoo quickly slammed the door shut in tigeryak’s face. EBounding was still crying on the floor, and Ultimoo gave him a quick stomp. “You know Tomato wasn’t kidnapped by the NOA. Get up...”

EBounding got up, and smacked Ultimoo in the gut. “I was acting!”

“Well then good job.”

“Why, thank you!” EBounding grinned from ear to ear. Literally. Ultimoo backed off in the fear that EBounding would use a Toothbrush. EBounding stopped grinning. “Enough idle chit-chat. The NOA is back, and they obviously want to get us back for blasting the NOA Headquarters.”

“Can I move now?” asked Jeff.

“Yes you can, and put that paperweight somewhere else.” Jeff gently put the steer skull down.

Gyro threw off the sheet. “Alrighty. The NOA’s back, and they want all of your heads on platters, correct?”

“Guess so.”

“Then we need to formulate a plan.”

“Yes. A good plan in a small period of time,” said Jeff. “Do you think we have the time?”

“Sure,” said reidman.

“We can do this,” Gyro reaffirmed it. If nothing else really unexpected happened, this would be a piece of cake.

***

Chapter 3 - Part 1: The Road to Giygas
Protocol turned his backs on the party of four. “I’m going now. Don’t try to follow me, Janie. I know exactly what I’m doing. Activate jet-pack.” The same panel Proto had used opened up on Protocol, and roared to life. He went up a bit, and bellowed, “I’ll be back!” He shot into the air, and disappeared from sight. Janie turned to face the other three.

Tomato sat down on a nearby rock, and sheathed his sword. “How long do you think he might be gone?”

Janie crossed her arms. “If he does know what he’s doing, not long. He’s a quick worker.”

Paula sat down on the ground, and beckoned Ness to do so, also. “Where do you think he went?”

Janie started an answer, but Tomato interrupted her. “Dalaam. He’s going to Dalaam. He said he was going to find another ally, and where to do it than Dalaam?”

Ness asked the timeless and impeccable question, “How’d you know?”

Tomato panicked a bit, honestly hoping that question wouldn’t be asked. “Uh...Just a hunch.” Janie looked at him dryly.

Ness quickly broke in, looking directly at Tomato. “What did you and that Itoi guy mean about ‘reprogramming’? And how do you know about nearly everything that’s going on? You haven’t been here a day, and already you’ve memorized the entirety of Grapefruit Falls!” Tomato was stuck now. Protocol wasn’t here to stop Ness from asking those questions, and he was sure Paula was eager to listen to everything he had to say too.

Then Janie interrupted. “Forget about it.”

“But-“

Forget about it.” Both Ness’s and Paula’s concentration broke for a second. They both shook their heads from the sudden absence, then regained their concentration. Except they didn’t seem to want to know about Tomato’s wealth of knowledge. Actually, they had seemed to have forgotten completely.

“Guess we head for Fourside next,” said Paula.

Ness looked at her. “Yep. Guess we do.” They got up, and began to leave, hand in hand.

Janie and Tomato exchanged glances. Tomato whispered, “Did you do that?” Janie’s gaze shifted. She quickly got up, and followed after Ness and Paula.

----

Ness, Paula, Janie, and Tomato all sat in unusually comfortable bedrolls inside the Mr. Saturn’s hotel. Outside, it was nighttime, and all of them needed a good rest. Janie, the only not in a bedroll, sighed, and ponder for a few seconds. “Do any of us know where that Pokey kid might be hiding?” She looked at the other three from her perch on the phone ladder.

Tomato laid back in his bedroll, rather relaxed. “He and his fat behind are probably sitting on some couch in Fourside. He might not bother us as much as he did here, but I’d watch out for pigboy.”

The innkeeper Mr. Saturn walked in. “Curfew come, bOING! Time to go beddy-bye . You relax now. Rough days, minutes, seconds ahead. Ding ding! Oh, Z’s catch me now. I sleep. Go sleep you too now? Zooo....” The Mr. Saturn went up to his seat on the table, and quickly conked out.

Tomato yawned. “I’m with him.” He stretched, and fell asleep in his bedroll. Janie got down from the ladder, and sat on her bedroll, embracing her knees.

Ness looked at Tomato, already snoring away. “I don’t know how he can take things so easily at times like these.” Between the time at the hot springs and the start-off at Milky Well, the four of them had gotten acquainted. “He’s away from home, so that should put some stress on him.” He looked at Paula.

“Are you kidding?” asked Janie. “You’ve got to deal with some brainless wonder out to destroy the universe, and you’re wondering why he’s relaxed? You’ve got a lot of pressure on you.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be so worried about him. This isn’t his dimension, anyways, so he really shouldn’t be here. Buzz Buzz said ‘Three boys and a girl,’ and I don’t think Tomato’s the third boy,” Ness said. He spoke in a worried tone. He had been confident before, but he didn’t seem sure of his abilities now.

Paula laid back. “Stop being so pessimistic, Ness. We’ve got to take it easy. If we don’t we might lose because we’re worrying too much. Just try to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep,” he said. Ness smiled halfway. “That’s probably why I’m so dull.”

Paula grinned a little. “You know what? I can’t sleep, either. I guess we’re both worried.”

“Yeah.”

Janie was still sitting on her bedroll, but she had stopped hugging her knees, and was now sitting cross-legged. “You two really need to rest, so I’ll help you to go to sleep.” Both Ness and Paula glanced at her inquisitively. “I’m going to use a little trick a friend taught me. He called it Elegy, but I like to think of it as the Lullaby.” Janie put her hands on her knees, closed her eyes, and tilted her head back a little. A faint blue energy appeared around her, and a comforting music-box tune played. As it played, she rocked back and forth a little. Ness’s and Paula’s eyelids felt heavier, they laid down, and fell asleep. Janie opened her eyes, and saw that they were asleep. The Elegy continued playing, and she tucked herself into the bedroll. Still surrounded by that light blue glow, she too fell asleep. Even then, the Elegy continued playing. It wasn’t very loud, but it was loud enough to mask the soft roar of a jet-pack from overhead...

----

Rats skittered around a dark tunnel. It had been tread through recently, but cobwebs were everywhere. There was even a silver casket lying on the floor. The rats paused for a second, hearing something, and hid as Ness, Paula, Tomato, and Janie walked through the dark tunnel.

“Are you absolutely sure there isn’t a better way?” asked Janie. She didn’t hate very many things, but she definitely hated dark tunnels. Especially dark underground tunnels.

“Unless you can fly, no,” answered Tomato. He suddenly found himself face-to-face with Janie, who was upside-down, and about six feet off the floor. “In that case, yes, there was another way. How’d you do that?”

“I learn from others,” she answered plainly. She quickly looked over, er, under her shoulder to see if Ness and Paula had gone ahead, then turned back to Tomato. “Listen, you have to watch what you say to them. They don’t need to know this place is a game somewhere else. They’ll start thinking that they were put in this just for somebody’s enjoyment. That can do a lot to a person’s mind, so please don’t try and mention anything on the future.”

Tomato sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. Was that you that made them forget about yelling at me earlier?” he quickly added.

“Yes, but using magic to change memories is not something I like doing.” She spoke through gritted teeth, so it was obviously something she didn’t like talking about, either.

“I’ll consider that in the future. Please move.” Janie quickly floated out of his way, still suspended upside-down, and let Tomato walk by. She quickly turned right-side-up, and decided just to hover above the ground. They caught up with Ness and Paula, and then continued trekking through the tunnel.

Ness looked ahead. “We should almost be at Threed. All the zombies and ghosts should be gone.”

“Zombies?” asked Janie. “Maybe I shouldn’t ask...” They continued to walk, or float, and they finally found the ladder leading back up to Threed.

“Finally,” sighed Paula. They all went up the ladder, and stepped into... a dark, bleak section of wooded area.

“This shouldn’t be happening. The sun should be shining,” said Tomato.

“...but it’s not,” said Paula. They walked out of the woods, past the cemetery, and into the center of Threed. There were people walking about, and they apparently weren’t afraid of any zombie threats. Paula approached one of them, the bald party man. “Excuse me, but why isn’t anyone hiding in the tent?”

The mustachioed man looked at her strangely, as if she weren’t all there. “Where have you been, young lady? All the zombies are in hiding, but the darkness hasn’t subsided. All the ghosts are out of the tunnels, too. At first we couldn’t get through because some moron put up an indestructible brick wall, but somebody took care of it. We can now contact the outside world!..... Not that I have any relatives out there, anyways.”

“Okay, thank you.” Paula quickly went back to Ness and Janie, who were examining the tent. “All of the ghosts are out of the tunnels. Let’s get on a bus for Fourside.”

“All the ghosts are out of the tunnels?” asked Ness. “Then why are the zombies still here?”

“Paula looked at him strangely. “...Well, we’ll let the Zombie Paper handle them.”

Tomato came out of the tent with a rotten-green-goo-covered hand. A malodorous stench filled the air, and Tomato was holding it as far away from his face he possibly could.

Paula sniffed the air, and held her nose shut. “What is that?!”

“Whatever it is, it reeks!” moaned Janie.

“Zombie Goo. The paper melted. “Tomato held his nose along with everyone else.

“That matters?” asked Ness.

“The melted paper combined with the stuff that made the zombies attracted to it and the remains of some of the zombies themselves. The people inside tell me that it repels zombies now.”

“I wonder why?” asked Janie.

Ness quickly came up with a solution. “Just... put that stuff on the trees outside of town and on the tunnel leading to Saturn Valley! Nobody could bear it!”

Tomato eyed the goo, and wiped his hand off on the side of the tent. “Actually, that isn’t a bad idea...” He walked around a bit. “Anyone got a towel?” Ness looked at the tent, took in a deep breath, and reluctantly entered to tell the Zombie Corps. inside his plan.

Paula shook her head. “That gunk smells worse than Putrid Moldymen.”

Janie stopped for a second to look at the floor inside the tent. “Putrid Moldymen? Creative name...” She continued to hold her nose, and looked back at Paula. “It smells like a sewer out here!”

Ness came out of the tent. “The Zombie Corps. agreed to my plans. Let’s get out of here before this smell begins to kill brain cells.”

Paula looked at Ness. “Like I said, ‘Let’s get on a bus to Fourside.’” Ness shrugged, and they began to walk to the hotel, which was an incredibly short distance from the Circus Tent. As they stood near the bus stop, Tomato stepped out of the hotel, wiping his hands with a towel. A hotel attendant stepped out, and held his hand out for a tip. Tomato looked at him, and handed him the towel. As the attendant realized how bad the slime that Tomato had been wiping off, the bus arrived.

The door opened, and the driver stuck his head out. “This bus goes to the Dusty Dunes Desert, and on to Fourside. It’s $8 for the lot of you. How ‘bout it?”

Ness stepped aboard. “Sure.” He handed the driver $8, and the driver gave him four tickets.

“Seat numbers are marked above the seats. Take the seats marked on the tickets,” said the driver. Ness handed a ticket to each of the other three, and they hopped aboard. The bus was packed.

“Ah, the bus. One of the most reliable forms of public transportation. This should be nice,” Janie quietly mused to herself. She grinned and looked for her seat. Ness, Paula, and Tomato quickly took their seats (B-22 - B-24). Janie looked at the three seat row they were sitting in. “Where do I sit?”

“Where’s your seat?” asked Tomato.

Janie looked at the ticket, then back at Tomato. “A-23.” Tomato pointed behind her, and Janie looked to where her seat would be. In that row were two large women. Janie looked back at Tomato. “You’ve gotta be kidding, right?”

“Look above the window, and you’ll see that I’m not,” Tomato answered. She looked above the window, and sure enough, there were the seat numbers A-22, A-23, and A-24. Janie had to sit between them.

She looked desperately back at Tomato. “Trade seats?”

“No way. I’m staying right here.” Tomato grinned evilly. Janie looked back at the fat women, and slowly began to squirm between one of them to her seat. Once she got there, Janie quickly realized that these two were large Albanian women with excruciatingly sever body odor, and that they were sleeping. As soon as Janie sat down, they leaned inwards, and in doing that, squished Janie in between them.

Janie tried to work her arms free from between herself and the Albanians, and the bus started moving. “Maybe I was wrong when I said this would be nice...” she moaned. It had been a while since she had ridden a bus, and that was a Foxton bus. It was hard to believe for her, but Foxton actually had a better bus service than Eagleland. Usually, Foxton didn’t have much better of anything.

Tomato chortled. “If you’re such the magician, why don’t you just teleport out of here?”

Janie leaned forward, and gave Tomato a hostile look. “Fine. I will.” She promptly disappeared in a bunch of blue static. Then there was a knock on the window on their side. Ness, Paula, and Tomato looked out the window and saw Janie looking in at them, smiling and waving.

All Tomato could say was, “I’m beginning to not like her.”

----

The bus halted, and Ness’s face made contact with the back of the seat in front of him. The driver looked back, and said, “This bus goes on to Fourside, but I can drop you off here if you want.”

Ness raised his hand to respond, but Tomato quickly cut him off. “We’ll stop here, thank you.” The bus driver shrugged, and opened the door.

Ness glared at him. “What’re you thinking? We want to go to Fourside, not here.”

“I know what I’m doing. Relax.” Tomato attempted to reassure Ness, but he just grumbled to himself.

Paula got up drowsily, yawned, and stretched. “There already?”

“We’re at the Dusty Dunes Desert,” answered Tomato. Before Paula could ask why, he said, “We’ve got a few things to take care of here before we can go to Fourside.” Paula shrugged and followed Tomato as he led Ness off the bus. Janie watch as the left the bus, and banged the top of the bus with an open hand to get their attention.

“Hey!” she called. “Why’ve we stopped here?” Janie wiped her forehead, and waited for an answer.

Paula looked up, and called, “I don’t know why. Ask Tomato.” Janie stood up, and jumped to the ground below. By that time, Tomato had dragged Ness to a hole in the ground.

Tomato began to climb down, but Ness stopped him. “Hey, this is a hole in the ground, in the middle of nowhere. Why are we going in?”

“To talk to a wise man,” he responded. “Don’t question me anymore.” Tomato quickly scaled down.

Ness looked to Paula, shrugged, and went down after. Paula paused for a few second, and also went down the rope ladder. At least she tried to.

“Gangway, comin’ through...” called Tomato. He quickly scaled up, followed by Ness.

Janie caught up with the rest of the group. “That was short... What’s goin’ on?”

Tomato smiled, and brushed some dust off his sleeves. “We come back later, after exploring Jackie’s Café in Fourside and a mine somewhere in this desert. Speaking of mines...” He trailed off, then took off.

“Hey! Wait up!” called Ness, and he dashed after.

Janie glanced at Paula. “Seem familiar?”

“Yep,” answered Paula, and the two of them began to dash after Ness and Tomato. When they caught up, they found Ness panting for breath, and Tomato shaking hands with some miner, who was tentatively munching on a burger.

“Thanks for the *chomp* food. Really *chomp* ‘ppreciate it,” said the miner.

“You’re welcome, sir!” Anything else we can do for you?” Janie tapped Tomato’s shoulder. He looked over to her, then turned back to the miner. “And these are my comrades, Paula and Janie. I really must be going now. We’ll meet again later.” Tomato then began to walk briskly toward the other end of the desert, where the Desert/Fourside Tunnel was. He quickly realized that no one was following him, so he turned around, and called, “What are you waiting for? Come on!” Janie sighed, and followed after. Paula motioned for Ness to follow, for he was still recovering from running in the sand with Tomato. When he had recovered, he jogged alongside Paula.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“When we got here, Tomato just started talking to the miner. He gave the guy some food, and then you arrived. He’s just gettin’ weirder and weirder...” Ness pursed his lips and shook his head. Just then, they began to float off the ground. They didn’t notice, so they just kept walking on air. When they did realize, Ness and Paula flailed their limbs, and shouted for help. Janie then casually floated by, with her legs crossed, arms behind her head, and a smile on her face. She looked like she was reclining on a couch.

She sat up a bit, and said, “Aren’t you glad you don’t have to walk?”

Tomato floated by, wildly flailing his arms and legs like a fish out of water. “NO!!!” Seeing him made Ness and Paula relax a little.

“How come you didn’t use this earlier?” asked Paula.

“I hadn’t perfected it yet,” she answered. “Not that I’ve perfected it now, but we’ll be flying over water. Telekinesis can be a very tricky power. You don’t want to use it if you’re flying with others over huge craggy mountains. At times like those, inexperience only makes things a lot more unnerving.” She looked to Fourside, which was now readily visible because of their aerial view. “Where to next, Tomato guy?”

Tomato still fought to regain his balance, and managed to point at the tallest building of the horizon. “The Monotoli Building! That’s next on the list!”

Janie looked to the faraway tower in Fourside, and put her hands on her hips after righting herself. “Piece o’ cake. Watch out for birds.” All four then bolted forward at incredible speeds. So incredible, that they went slightly past the Monotoli Building within a matter of seconds. They stopped past the building, and floated right behind it.

“We overshot!” cried Tomato, still unable to right himself.

“I know. I don’t want anyone to see us flying around like UFOs,” said Janie. They slowly began their descent to the ground. “Not that it seems really unusual around here. I just don’t like people asking for rides.”

----

“So you wish to see Mr. Monotoli?” asked the receptionist.

Ness stood right in front of the receptionist’s desk, surrounded by his three travel companions. “Yes, we would,” he politely answered.

The receptionist looked at them very seriously, but then burst out laughing. All four looked at her strangely. She managed to stop her hysterical laughing, and wiped her eyes. “Oh, that was funny. Why would you want to see Mr. Monotoli? You usually need to be a respected or prestiged individual if you want to see him.”

‘Depends on where you’re respected or prestiged... Janie thought to herself.

Tomato stepped forward a bit. “Um, we’re looking for equal opportunity job offers?” he said, not certain of his request.

The receptionist sat back, and returned to her stone face. “Oh. In that case, you should go see Master Minch, up on the forty-seventh floor.”

Ness was a little alarmed at this. “Minch? Minch... I know that sounds familiar...”

“Thank you ma’am,” Paula said. “C’mon Ness, let’s go.” The four walked to the elevator, and the doors slid open before them. Inside stood a woman who looked exactly like the receptionist.

“This elevator leads to the 47th floor. Get in here before I go without you.” She stood there, and then stomped her foot. “Well, hurry up! I haven’t got all day.” They went in, but she promptly Ness. “Stop staring at my hips. It’s rude.”

Ness looked at her strangely, and Janie patted his shoulder. “Relax. Paranoia’s an ugly thing.” The elevator attendant pushed a button, and the elevator quickly ascended to the 47th floor.

The doors slid open, and the lady swatted Ness again. “Listen, I told you to stop staring at my hips!” Ness sighed, and the four stepped out of the elevator. The doors closed, but not before Janie conjured up a mini-storm, and deluged the attendant with a pillar of water. She and Ness smiled as they heard the water-garbled cries go down to the ground floor. The four stepped through a door, and into another hall. One door was guarded on either side by humungous bouncers. Ness reached for the doorknob, but the bodyguard shoved him back.

“No one sees Master Minch without authorization,” he said. Ness sighed, but refused to give up. He cast Hypnosis on both, and they fell fast asleep.

“No problem,” snickered Ness. He opened the door, and all four stepped into a large yellow room. Another pair of bouncers stood on either side of a couch, and on the couch, lo and behold, sat Pokey. He and the bouncers jumped at Ness’s entrance.

“Ness! What’re you doing here?!” cried Pokey.

POKEY!!!” roared a now enraged Ness. The bodyguards went to take him down, but both Tomato and Paula fended them off with their weapons. Ness went straight for Pokey with his bat raised. Pokey screamed and dove off the couch, barely before Ness came down, and smashed the couch into wooden smithereens and cushion stuffing. Pokey screamed for security, and began to run for his life.

GET BACK HERE YOU FAT LITTLE PIG!!!” Ness bellowed.

Pokey tried to get to the door, but Janie dove feet-first right at his legs. “Not so fast there, chubs!” Pokey flipped forward, and smacked right into the doorframe spine-first. “Whoops. I think that hurt ‘em....”

But it didn’t hurt him as much as Ness would like. Pokey got right back up, and started screaming “SECURITY!!!” He then ran right down the hall to the room where his father was, with Ness in hot pursuit. As Ness tore into the room, he was met by two other bodyguards, who quickly grabbed him by his shirt collar and the seat of his pants. The two ‘escorted’ Ness to the elevator, opened it, and threw him inside. Soon thereafter, another pair of bodyguards came, each holding Paula and Tomato in the air by their throats.

The two bodyguards thrust them into the elevator. “Fools! No one attacks Master Minch without retribution!” One of the bodyguards reached inside, hit the first floor button on the elevator keypad, and waved bye-bye. The doors slid closed, and the elevator went down.

The three were exasperated, but Ness managed to ask, “Where’s Janie?”

Tomato attempted to sit up. “Yeah, where is she?” That question was answered when the elevator arrived at the bottom floor. The doors slid open, and there she stood. “How’d you get here?” Tomato asked.

“Through a 47th floor window. Bodyguard courtesy today...” She looked at them, and rubbed one of her temples. “What say we all go to the nearest hotel, and get some rest?” Everyone exchanged glances, and agreed.

----

It was now 11:52 in the morning, and all four of them had had a very long and very much needed rest. Tomato tried sitting on the sofa to read the day’s newspaper, but instead discovered that Janie was still sleeping on the seat. He gave her a quick swat over the head with the newspaper.

“Go away...” she moaned. He swatted her again. “I said... What time is it?”

“Almost noon. Rise and shine,” said Tomato.

Uhn... Rise, maybe. Shine, never... I’m just going to sleep for a few more days...” Janie moaned, and went back to sleep. Tomato looked at her, looked forward, and shrugged. He went into the kitchen, and opened the mini-freezer that was on top of the drawers near the wall opposite to the door. Inside, there was a glass of not-yet-ice-but-dang-near-close-to-it water. He took it out.

He walked back over to the sofa, and asked Janie, “You sure you don’t wanna wake up?”

“I’m positive...”

“If you say so...” Tomato took the glass, and dumped it over her head. She bolted upright, and gasped from the sudden change from warm to freezing. “Awake now?”

She looked at him very begrudgingly, and asked, “Where’re Ness and Paula?”

“At the Toppola Theater. A band that they know well is playing there.” Janie snatched the glass out of Tomato’s hand, and walked over to the sink. She filled it with water, and took a sip. Then she grabbed a towel that sat on a nearby shelf, and began to dry off her hair. “After they get back from the Theater, we’re going back to the desert. I read that the miner we met dug up a huge maze of underground tunnels.” Of course, he was lying. He already knew that the miner was going to dig up the tunnels. He hadn’t read it from the paper, it’s just that he wanted to stay good to his word. Janie’s glass began to collect condensation, and then the condensation froze on the glass, while the glass was still in her hand. The water in the glass was now colder than ice. Tomato went back to the mini-fridge, and leaned forward to get something out of it. Perfect opportunity. Janie walked up behind him, reached up, pulled back the collar of his shirt, and poured the colder-than-ice water right down his back.

----

“How’d you guys get stuck in Threed, anyways?” Ness asked. He and Paula were backstage with the Runaway Five.

Lucky took a chug from his bottle of water. “Some nut put up a stone wall at th’ tunnel leadin’ ta Fourside, but then some big guy in a trenchcoat shows up, and he got rid of it. Don’t know how he done it, but he done it. We drove ‘im to tha Dusty Dunes Desert. And we hits a big ol’ traffic jam. When we goes ta make a pit stop, the jam’s gone, ad we ride ta Fourside. We made anotha’ pit stop at the, uh, hotel, he pays off tha lady at tha counta’, and heads fer Summers. At least I think that’s where he went... Anyhows, we get a gig here, and the manager hooks us with a million-dollar release! We got swindled again!”

“Geez, I don’t know who’s gonna help you with that one...”

The chunky man in the red tux came up from behind Ness, and patted him on the shoulder. “Relax, kid. We understand that you don’t really have the money to pay us off this time... Guess we’re on our own. The only way we can get that type of money is if we find some kind of buried treasure, and I know there ain’t any mines around here.” Ness’s eyes sparkled just for a second.

Lucky brightened up a little. “Guess we’ll see you kids out in the audience! C’mon, Jake. Let’s get on stage...” The other three bandmates stopped cleaning their instruments, and followed as Lucky and the chunky man went out to the stage.

After a few seconds, Ness grinned, and turned to Paula. “They said the only way to get rid of the debt was to find buried treasure.”

Paula was thinking the exact same thing. “So how about we go to that mine in the desert and find some?”

----

Within a half-hour, the four were back out in the desert, standing at the temporary home of the mining Montague brothers. All of them were equipped with work clothes, pick-axes, and hard hats. “You wanna go look for treasure in there?” asked the hard-hatless brother. He looked at the hole he had dug. It had gotten a lot bigger than yesterday, thanks to the heavy machinery he had been using. “Be my guest! The place is overrun with monsters anyways. There’re five huge moles...! I better watch out, or I’m going to get an ulcer from worrying too much.” He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped his brow. “...Well? Hop to it! We haven’t got all day! Actually, we do. I just want you to get moving so I can get back to work.” With some momentary glances at each other, but without a word or a worry, the four began their descent into the cave. Within five minutes, they came upon a large pile of rocks.

“Can’t go over, can’t go around...” started Janie, “...so we can either go under or through.”

“Through,” said Ness. Immediately, they began to chip away at the pile with their pick-axes. They had to avoid using their psychic power, and conserve it for the enemies. It took a lot of time, and a whole lot of energy, but they finally made it through. However, what they had made it to wasn’t as bright as it was outside. It was dark, and uncomfortably warm inside. Janie used the Fire Lantern spell she had used at the Milky Well dungeon, and the place brightened up. But even with the spell, it was still rather bleak inside. They fought countless battles with subterranean ants, ducks, noose men, and snakes before they came upon their first real challenge. One of the moles.

It looked at the four dirty spelunkers, and said, “I am the second most powerful master of this hole. I’m not the best, but I can still beat the likes of you!”

He rushed in for the kill, but was quickly stopped by Tomato. “Wait-a-minute, there, porky. Aren’t you supposed to be the third strongest master of this hole?”

“Third? Please, I’m not that pathetic. But I must admit, I do look a little porky. Never lost that baby fat...”

As the mole stood there, contemplating his own appearance, Janie powered up her strong (Point) Glacier Hit spell. “Uh, Tomato, you might want to stop psychoanalyzing him, and move out of the way...” He turned to her, saw the several wisps of cold air swirling around her hands, quickly moved out of the way, and before the mole could look up, Janie let loose with the Glacier Hit. The wisps of cold air became frighteningly large wisps of frozen energy. Those wisps gathered at the point where the mole stood, and, with a flash of light, the Mole was struck by several large pieces of ice. So it stood there, KO’ed on its feet with pieces of ice floating around him. Because of the heat, the ice melted, drenching the mole. Paula cast Freeze g, and the water solidified around him. The Mole was frozen under a skin of ice. It had been defeated.

Paula arched back, and stretched a little. “That was easier than I thought.”

Ness grinned. “If he was really the second most powerful, that means the other moles are weaker. Except for the first one.” The four stopped conversing, and continued through the mines. Eventually, they reached another mole. He claimed to be the most powerful master of the hole, but he was easily beaten. As were the fourth and the fifth when they were found. After another half-hour of spelunking, they found the third-most powerful master of the hole. Unlike the other four, he was really powerful. It was a brutal battle, but the team of four still beat it. After another hour of spelunking, and a little help from an Exit Mouse, they escaped from the mine. As they made the small hike from the cave to the miners’ cabin, the hard-hatless Montague continually thanked them. Yet they didn’t say a single word back.

The four went into the cabin, and there stood the other Montague brother. “It’s not a very comfortable place, but you can stay here if you like,” he said. All four just looked to him, then to the threadbare bedrolls on the floor. Without a single word, the four lied down on the rolls, and went to sleep.

After getting over a half-day of sleep, and the Diamond from the thankful miners, the four walked back to Fourside. They rented another hotel room, and cleaned up. Well, they were in a mine for who-knows-how long. Of course the lot of them were filthy. The mall had recently reopened, and Ness, Paula, and Janie wanted to go and stock up on inventory. However, Tomato had another plan in mind...

----

“Tonight’s the night! The FINAL night! This is the Runaway Five’s last performance at the Toppola Theater!” The lights dimmed inside the Theater’s hall. The crowd fell to a hush. Directly front-row-center, left to right, were Tomato, Ness, Paula, and Janie. Ness had his arm around Paula, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

Onstage and behind the curtain, the Runaway Five were putting the finishing preparations on their instruments. “This is it!” cried Jake. “The night we’ve been waitin’ for!” Everyone quickly got in place. The lights dimmed even more, and the curtain opened. Nobody could see a thing, until the spotlights came on. The crowd roared in delight. The lights revealed the three instrument players, but where were Lucky and Jake? Two spotlights lit up opposite ends of the stage, and there they were, slowly backpedaling to their microphones. As the duo finally got to their mics, Ness and Paula began to converse. Telepathically, that is.

“So, what should we do after this?”

“I think we should go to the mall. I really need to get a new frying pan... Isn’t this the same song they played in Twoson?”

“I think so. But it still sounds great.

“Yeah.”

...Thanks for that wake-up call this morning.

“Don’t mention it, Ness.”

“At least Protocol isn’t around anymore.

“Yeah, he was so rude... They thought they should stay quiet about their relationship around the big bot he made his impatience evident back at Milky Well.

“Oh relax, you two. He’s not that irritating, it’s just that he had a bad day.

“Janie?” Both thought in unison, and desperately fought to keep straight faces.

“Uh, yep.

“Have you been listening to us all this time?”

“Uh-huh. You two need to learn to turn down your thoughts. It’s nice to listen to, but sometimes annoying at night.”

“You... heard us at night?”

“Yeah, but not on purpose. I just can’t help it, ‘cuz it came with the entire magic package. Y’know, I can always hear people using telepathy... But it’s fine to let others know you really like each other! Just not Protocol. He might dig into your heels for... well, minutes if he finds out when he gets back.

“Is he always mean?” thought Paula.

“Not always, but you have to catch him under the right circumstances. Janie began to communicate exclusively with Paula. “It’s sorta convenient that you two like each other, you both being saviors of the universe, after all. You’ll be on the road for a while, and you’ll both get to know each other very well.

...Have you ever had a boyfriend?”

“I had a boyfriend once. Then he fooled around. The guys found out, and gave him one collective kick that he’s not gonna forget! I still don’t think he can sit down.Both Paula and Janie tried to muffle their giggling. Tomato gave them a sideways glance, wondering what was so funny.

“Who exactly are ‘the guys’?”

“Well, there’s Proto, Tipe, Roller, Gyro...

“Oh. I get the picture. Isn’t that a little overbearing of them?”

“Nah. I thought he deserved a good kick.

Lucky and Jake stopped singing for a minute and ran offstage, enough time for the announcer to yell “And NOW, we’re proud to present the newest and hottest performer at the Toppola Theater, VENUS!!!” Lucky and Jake ran back onstage, with Venus in tow. Was it Venus?

The drummer took a good look at her, and yelled to the bassist. “Hey, man! That ain’t Venus! The girl’s too short!” But his call was drowned out by the roar of the crowd. She started singing with Lucky and Jake. Well, at least she sounded like Venus.

Janie clutched the arms of her seat, leaned forward a little, and gritted her teeth. She knew exactly who that was.

Elaine.

All the markers were there. She looked exactly like Janie, except she must’ve donned a blond wig or dyed her hair to change her appearance. She was also wearing a black dress with a slit up the side of the leg. And uncomfortably high slit. Elaine looked at her smugly, almost playfully.

A slight lyrical interlude came, and Elaine looked directly at her. “I’m gonna get you, and your little pets, too. And do you know what I’ll do with them? That boy in the cap will become my personal plaything, and I think I’ll let the girl watch me hurt him just so she can suffer. And don’t worry about the tall one. I’ll make it quick for him, so he might not feel a thing when I dispose of him... But that’s for a later date, different place. She and the Runaway Five continued singing until the finish, when the Runaway Five bus came onstage. Jake, Lucky, and Elaine got inside, and it slowly began to ride off. She looked through a side window, grinned nastily at Janie, and gave a little wave. “See you soon... Or hurt you soon. Whichever I prefer. The bus rode offstage, and the show ended.

As soon as the exit door opened, Janie bolted upright, and stormed right out into the lobby. Ness and Paula called after her, then got up to give chase. Tomato did likewise. Oh, she was mad now.

She walked directly to the dressing room door, and a bouncer stepped in front of her to prevent her from getting in. “Excuse me, but you need a backstage...” Janie walked right up to him, put her hand on his chest, and shocked him with a mighty electrical charge. He slammed into the wall, and fell to the floor. Then she tried to open the door, found it was locked, ripped it off its hinges, stepped inside the dressing room, and was met by a ghastly sight. There was the real Venus in normal street clothes, encased inside a perfectly-formed block of ice, with a scream frozen on her face. Ness, Paula, and Tomato stepped in, but stopped when they saw Venus. Janie grimaced, shook her head, and put her hands on the block of ice. It immediately began to melt, and a soaking-wet, shivering Venus collapsed on the floor. Paula and Tomato quickly grabbed towels, and draped them across her back. Venus held them tightly, staring at the floor the entire time.

Ness kneeled down, and asked, “Who did this to you?” Of course, she was still in shock, so she couldn’t answer verbally. But she could answer with actions. All she had to do was look up, and see Janie. That sent her into a fit of screaming hysteria. Venus tried to skid away from her, always pointing directly at who she believed the assailant was. Ness looked back at Janie, and asked, “Why is she pointing at you?”

Janie looked down at the floor, not once looking at the scene that lay before her. “Did you take a good look at the girl who was singing?” Ness shook his head. “Well, you should’ve, because she looked exactly like me.” She finally looked to Ness, a little shaky herself. “Remember that witch Protocol told you about? You know, Elaine? She was the one on the stage. She’s coming after me, and she wants to get you, too.”

Ness looked a little confused. “Huh? Why us?”

“Reason one, you’re the good guys. Reason two, she can.” By now, a small group had gathered behind Janie, and was watching intently while hurriedly whispering amongst themselves. Janie put one hand on her hip, and the other on her forehead. “Let’s just get her to the hospital...”

----

 

The four of them quickly got Venus to the Fourside Hospital, put her on a gurney, checked her in, and sent her on her way. After about an hour of quiet reflection, discussion, and easing of spirits at the front steps of the hospital, the four of them went to the department store. They spent a good amount of time shopping for items they might need on their journey. Just for they sake of it, Ness bought some Big Bottle Rockets from the arms dealer Tomato pointed them to. When lunchtime rolled around, they stopped at the burger shop, and feasted on the greasy delights of Western cooking. After wolfing down lunch, they were about done and were ready to leave, when...

 

(Psst!) Something tugged at Ness’ pants leg. He looked down, and saw a mouse. (Something strange is going to happen here. I just feel like someone’s going to turn off the lights.)

 

“Hey, Ness!” Janie called to him. “We’re leaving. C’mon!” Ness quickly looked up to Janie, then back down to the mouse. But it had disappeared. He thought of how strange that little encounter had been, and went back to Paula, Tomato, and Janie. As they walked towards the door, the lights flickered.

 

Tomato looked up at the lights, and said, “Get ready...” A few seconds passed, and the lights turned completely off. Before the other three knew exactly what was going on, two beings were rushing them. Janie felt whatever they were, and dove straight for the legs of one in a feet-first baseball slide, and sent it flying. Ness quickly took out his new bat, and took a monstrous swing at the creature, sending into a nearby potted tree. Tomato went to finish it off, but the second creature rushed him and knocked him out with a sharp blow to the head. With their weapons out, Ness and Paula went for the second creature. Ness reached it first, but it lobbed him out of the way, and then gave Paula that sharp blow to the head. It scooped up Paula, then Tomato, and bolted as fast as it could out of there. Ness dashed right after it, but it had already disappeared in the shadows of the store.

 

Janie was still thrashing the first creature, and had nearly finished it off, when it began to moan. “Gwaaaa... No use to finish me... The other agent has taken your *Gwagh* your friends to... a secret place... We work for Master Giygwaaaa... Master Giygwaaaa! Master Gwaaaaagh!” It stopped speaking, then melted into dust.

 

Ness plodded back to Janie, and leaned against a potted tree for support. “It kidnapped Tomato! And Paula!... Those things’re fast!” he moaned. He was tired, but very, very angry.

 

“Then let’s go after it!” Janie snapped Ness out of his daze. She could just feel him exude fury, and there was no better cure than demolishing the one who had caused it.

 

“Fly us up there,” Ness commanded. Janie obliged, and the two of them shot past the escalators, and all of the selves, and all of the enemies. They ignored the Musicas shooting bolts of electricity and all the Cups of Coffee throwing scalding-hot java at them. But, as they got higher, the numbers grew and grew, until Ness and Janie had no choice but to fight from their aerial positions. As the two of them fought off all of the freakish department-store-goods brought to life, the intercom crackled up.

 

A wicked voice spoke from over the intercom, sounding much like the gritty speech of the other. “Would customer Ness from Onett please report to the fourth floor office? I’ll be waiting for you...” It stopped, but within half-a-minute started up again. “Oh customer Ness, customer Ness, gwargh! Paula and the other are waiting! GWAGH! Ness! GWAAAAAAGH!!! Hurry up, you weakling!” It was taunting him now. He hated this. Finishing off the rest of the enemies with a final psychokinetic blast, Ness and Janie flew up to the fourth floor. Ness frantically searched for the door to the fourth-floor office, found it, and made a mad dash right for it. Janie quickly followed his lead as he tore the door open. The two of them entered, and stood facing the second of the slimy, reviling, inhuman creatures. He sat behind the desk there, several of the tentacles he had for legs crossed atop the desk in a vile parody of some big office hotshot. There was only a small amount of light in the room, emanating from a few lit candles atop a filing cabinet. The light reflected off the slick, vile-smelling coating of ooze layered on its skin. The smell bothered Janie a little, but it didn’t bother Ness a bit. He looked by that completely, with a singular goal in mind.

 

He wanted to obliterate it.

 

The creature slid its leg tentacles off the desk, and leaned forward. “Ah. I see you kiddies are finally here...” Its tone of voice suddenly changed from unusually calm to exceedingly cocky. “The rest of Giygas’ minions up to this point are nothing compared to me! You’re not gonna survive this one, gwagh! And even if you do, you’ll never find Paula, gwagh! I’m gonna make sure that this department store’s gonna be your grave! Gwa-gwa-gwagh! The both of you will be rotting and burning in-“ The creature was cut off by a smashing baseball-bat blow to the side of the head. With its senses surely knocked out of its tiny head, it fell to the floor.

 

Ness hurdled over the desk, and raised his bat over his head. “Where is she?!” The creature looked up obliviously, and Ness came down with a deathblow. The creature managed to roll out of the way before having its head busted to bits, and Ness ended up smashing the floorboards. It tried to skitter to the door, but Janie stopped it with a drop-kick the only eye on its head. It skittered back again, howling in pain. Ness dropped his bat, leapt over it, and grabbed it by its eye-stalks. It screeched in agony as psychokinetic energy sparked up in Ness’ hands.

 

“Tell me where she is now or I’ll kill you...” Ness spoke through harshly gritted teeth.

 

The creature screeched again, then cried “Fool! That headshot you gave me’s gonna kill me in a few seconds anyways! *Gwagh!* ... Monotoli... has your friends...” Ness released his grip, and the creature sighed in relief, and continued. “You’ll never find them... *Gwah-ah-aaagh!*” At this instant, it melted into dust like the other creature.

 

Ness looked up at Janie with a gaze of stone, and a chill went down her spine. ‘Whoa! I’ve seen that glare somewhere before, and that’s only when he’s about to destroy somebody!’ she thought to herself.

 

“Monotoli’s going to pay...”

 

----

 

A security bot roamed the halls of the Monotoli Building. It heard a door open behind it, so it turned around to see whatever it might be. As it turned out, there was nobody there. It was probably just an ajar door that had been blown open by a draft. It began to close, then another close-by door opened and closed by itself. The bot detected nothing, so it just continued on its rounds. But on the other side of the door...

 

----

 

Ness and Janie appeared out of thin air. “Why didn’t you use this earlier?” whispered Ness.

 

“Because I didn’t think we needed it that badly!” Janie whispered back. There were no more security bots in sight, so the two continued to advance towards what seemed to be the final door. They slowly opened it, stepped inside a large room with several potted plants, and softly pulled the door shut, as to make sure the latch didn’t click too loudly. The click was silent, and they turned around, thinking they were scott-free. But Ness’s receiver phone rang. Janie jumped out of slight shock, and Ness grabbed the phone as quickly as possible. He turned it on, and of all the people, it was Apple Kid.

 

“Hey Ness! I’ve got a new invention for you! It’s a yogurt machine. The problem is that it only makes Trout-flavored yogurt. I’m sending it to you via Escargo Express, Neglected Class. You’ll probably find some use for it. Bye!” *click* Ness put his receiver phone away, and put his ear to the door.

 

“Good. Nothing’s coming,” he sighed.

 

But Janie wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at this strange little robot that had appeared from behind one of the potted plants. “What’s that?” She tapped Ness on the shoulder, and pointed to it. Ness turned around to see what it was, and nearly jumped out of his shoes. It was a little robot, with bolts on its shoulders, a panel on its gut, and a head that most certainly looked larger than the whole of the body. The Clumsy Robot. A few bolts and gears spurted from the thing, and it advanced toward them, emitting a series of whirring sounds and clanks.

 

“It’s actually... kinda cute...” Janie said, intently studying the robot. She reached her hand out to try and touch it, but the Clumsy Robot lashed out with one of its arms, and grabbed Janie’s hand. She moaned in pain as the Robot slowly began to exert its power, trying to break her hand. Ness took out his bat, and gave it a good crack upside the head. The Robot let go of Janie’s hand as a reflex, and began to approach Ness. Janie hopped back, and in two swift movements, drew her left leg up quickly enough to bring her other foot off the ground a few inches, then brought that foot up with an impressive somersault kick right to the Robot’s itty-bitty chin. It went airborne, and crashed down beside one of the potted plants.

 

“Okay, I take back the cute comment,” Janie grumbled. The duo proceeded to the door at the other end of the room, and Ness reached out to grab the knob. Unexpectedly, a large robotic hand enclosed around his wrist, lifted him off the ground, and threw him across the room. Janie whipped around to see what could possibly be that big, yet manage to hide in the room without breaking through a wall. It was the Clumsy Robot, only bigger, meaner, nastier-looking, and way more militant than before. She yelped, and leapt aside as the New and Improved Clumsy Robot tried to grab her by the waist. Ness got to his feet, and glared very angrily at the Robot. He wasn’t going to be denied of this battle. No siree. He dropped his bat to the ground, and raised his hands, palms outward.

 

“Janie, move, now...” he commanded through gritted teeth. She looked to Ness, and sensed a really bad and really angry karma floating around his general vicinity. She knew what was gonna happen next, and she was nothing other than happy to oblige Ness’s command, rolling between the Robot’s legs and getting behind Ness. The Clumsy Robot turned to see where she went, and Ness unloaded a massive surge of Rockin’ b at it. The Robot took one step forward.

 

Ness hit it with another Rockin’ surge, and screamed “Where is she?!” The Robot took another step. “Where is SHE?!!” This time, he just unloaded a beam of pure psychokinetic energy. No organization, no pattern, but a whole lot of rage to fuel it. The beam struck the New and Improved Really Mean Clumsy Robot, and absolutely leveled it. But that wasn’t enough. Ness just kept up the flow of energy, until it only came out in little spurts. But he kept at it anyways.

 

“Ness,” said Janie. He ignored her, and kept trying to obliterate the Formerly New and Improved Really Mean Scrap Heap Clumsy Robot.

 

“Ness...” Same result. She clapped her hands on Ness’s shoulders and whipped him around.

 

“Ness!” He stopped, looking at her in surprise. “It’s dead already.” Janie gave it a little kick. “See? Now let’s keep going.”

Now, one would think that an incredible beam attack would instantly fry and kill any human. But not the Formerly New and Improved Really Mean and Very Angry Scrap Heap Clumsy Robot. It reached up, grabbed her by the leg, and hurled her across the room. She slammed into a wall, and dropped to the floor. The Robot stood up, and looked directly at Ness. He raised his hands to blast it with another psychokinetic attack, but it just sputtered out. He had used everything he had for that one attack. The Robot raised its arms, and swiped at Ness for an attempt at a bearhug. Ness dodged, and slid underneath its legs. It had taken a few seconds, but Janie had staggered to her feet and regained her senses. She looked at the Formerly New and Improved Really Mean Very Angry Soon To Be Trashed Scrap Heap Clumsy Robot with a glare that could bore holes through steel, and concentrated her attack power. Ness quickly scooped up his bat, saw a really nasty-looking light energy flowing around Janie, and moved out of her way. The energy flowing around her began to flow at a meter’s radius from the Robot. The energy began to fizzle, and condense into lots of little shrapnel-like pieces. The energy shrapnel charged at the Robot, about a dozen at a time, ripping though it like a white-hot poker through ice. The Clumsy Robot remained standing, with several sparking holes in it. It once again advanced toward Janie.

 

“Why can’t this thing just die?!?” she cried in utter disbelief. Getting desperate, she began to hurl energy bolts at it. Unknown to anyone, the door that Ness and Janie had come in though, and someone poked his head in. It was Lucky. He stepped into the room, followed by Jake and the rest of the Runaway Five. They looked at the Formerly New and Improved Really Mean and Very Angry Trashed Scrap Heap Clumsy Robot, and saw that it was the Formerly New and Improved Really Mean and Very Angry Trashed Scrap Heap Clumsy Robot With a Painfully Obvious On/Off Switch On Its Back. Sure, it was painfully obvious, but neither Ness nor Janie had noticed it. As an added bonus, the thing had gotten tall enough so that no single person in the room could reach it. But a plan was formulated incredibly quick-like. Jake kneeled down, and let Lucky get on his shoulders. The Robot couldn’t do much other than stagger now, so Jake easily caught up with it. Perched atop Jake’s shoulders, Lucky simply reached out, and flipped the switch. The Robot arched back, as if receiving a spinal shock, then fell flat on its face. Ness and Janie, both incredibly battered, clothes torn, covered with scrapes, bruises, and cuts, looked to the Runaway Five, and let out sighs of relief.

 

“Now dat was an easy robot ta beat!” crooned Lucky. “Eee-zee!” He slid off of Jake’s shoulders.

 

“It was a heckuva lot easier than those zombies in Threed. Remember that?” Jake shifted to reminiscing mode. The other four responded with several yeahs and of-courses.

 

Ness wiped his brow, his anger subsiding, and whistled. “Are we glad to see you guys! We didn’t see that switch there!”

Lucky looked at him, and adjusted his shades. “No problem. Ya didn’t have time ta look, but remeba’, sumtimes, da easiest ansa is da most obvious ‘un.” He tapped his shades, and pointed to Ness.

 

Jake shrugged. “Been the sayin’ we’ve lived by our entire lives.”

 

The drummer looked at the door, then hushed everyone. “Shh! I hear someone talking in the next room. Why don’t you kids go check out who it is? I need to go take a bathroom break, anyways.” With that, he quickly departed from the room.

 

Janie wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, and discovered she was bleeding a bit. “Alright, but you guys be right behind us. There’s probably tons of goodies behind this door...”

 

“Sure!”

 

“No prob.” With that confirmation, Ness and Janie once again approached the double-doors, and stood next to them. Janie raised her hand, with three fingers up, mouthing the words ‘On three.’ She grabbed one doorknob, Ness the other.

 

One...” she whispered. “Two...” Her grip around the knob tightened, and Ness’s jaw muscles tensed up. “Three!” They threw the doors open and jumped defiantly into the room. Standing in the middle of the room, apparently having some sort of conversation were Paula, Tomato, and who would appear to be...

 

MONOTOLI!” The gray-haired Monotoli looked at Ness in fright, and hid behind a desk. He was in no condition to even attempt to jump behind it, never mind fight anyone. Ness advanced toward the desk that the aging man hid behind, but he was stopped by Tomato.

 

“Relax Ness! He didn’t hurt anybody! He’s a friendly bad guy.”

 

Paula stepped up to Ness, embraced him, and kissed him. “Yeah, Monotoli didn’t do anything wrong to us. He’s actually very courteous. Now Ness, Janie, and the Runaway Five were really confused (especially the Runaway Five, since they didn’t necessarily know what was going on, except for the one guy who was still in the bathroom), and all of them looked at Paula strangely.

 

“But he had you kidnapped! Of course he did something wrong!” Janie protested.

Tomato looked at her, and said, “He didn’t do it out of his own free will. Now if you calm down, Monotoli will explain.” The Runaway Five continued standing just outside the doorway as Monotoli peered up from behind his desk, reluctantly got up, and stepped out from behind his desk.

 

Paula looked at him, and smiled. “Come on. They’re not going to hurt you.” Ness looked at Monotoli, a small bit of contempt evident in his glance.

 

Monotoli looked to the floor, then up at Ness. “I’m... I’m sorry for what I did... But I had no choice. This all started when that Pokey kid came along and became my financial advisor. He told me that someone from Twoson had come here to Fourside for an opportunity to sell a priceless statuette. He convinced me to steal the Mani Mani Statue from that thief Everdred.”

“Everdred? The Mani Mani? Here?!” Ness exclaimed.

 

Tomato gazed at Ness, and, with a hint of little faith in his voice, said, “You did find Everdred and destroy the statue... right?”

Ness stared right at Tomato, and cried, “NO!!! We came right here after killing that thing at the mall!”

 

“Oh, key-rud...” muttered Tomato. Somewhere, somehow, he knew that poor Everdred was lying in an alley beside some café with a bunch of people gawking at him, yet not doing a thing about the man’s sad condition.

 

“My story doesn’t end there,” interrupted Monotoli. “When I brought the statue here, it began to conjure up illusions and strange hieroglyphs. I became afraid of the illusions, and his it in the warehouse at Jackie’s Café. I would go there to pray, and strange writing would appear to me. ‘Don’t let the Chosen go to Summers.’ ‘Let him know nothing of the pyramid.’ Among the glyphs was the name of the mastermind, Giygas, I think. This strange Giygas creature definitely doesn’t want you to go to Summers out of fear you might ruin its plan. Oh, but on the contrary! You should go to Summers, and learn about the Pyramid. Just to get you started, the Pyramid is in Scarabra, the desert region south of Summers....” Janie felt a cold wind blowing, and a shiver went down her back. “It would work havoc on Giygas’ plans. He might not manage to defeat you if you reach Summers.”

 

By now, Ness had dropped his anger toward Monotoli. “Do you know how we can get to Summers?” The Runaway Five drummer returned from his bathroom break and tried to ask ‘What did I miss?’ but he was quickly shushed by Jake and the bassist.

 

“I have a helicopter out on the roof of the building. You can try to take that.” He walked to the only door in the room, and up to a stuffed bear, something Ness and Janie hadn’t seen when they had barged in. He tried tugging it away from the door, but to no avail. “Strange, I think it’s stuck...” The cold draft blew again, and this time, everybody felt it.

 

“What was that?” asked Jake.

 

“That was a bad, BAD wind...” warned Janie.

 

“Oh dear... It couldn’t be...” Monotoli muttered. The wind blew stronger, and the lights began to flicker. Suddenly, the wall where Monotoli’s hidden escape route was blew open. The Mani Mani Statue glided in through the hole.

 

“Sweet mother of mercy!” cried Lucky. Then, the double doors slammed shut, right in the faces of the Runaway Five. They banged on the doors mercilessly, and yelled for someone to open the doors, but the locks were latched shut.

 

“Oh, now what?!” Janie cried. The Mani Mani faced Paula and Tomato, and shot two golden bolts at them. They were instantly rendered unconscious, but the Mani Mani concentrated on keeping them standing. They floated to the portion of the wall left of the stuffed bear, and shackles came out of the wall, latching the both of them to the wall by their wrists and ankles. Janie wasted no time in taking action before it did the same to the rest of them. A harpoon-shaped rod of light formed in her right hand, and she hurled it at the Mani Mani. The harpoon speared the statue dead center. The Statue began to break, beams of light coming out from between the cracks in its gold-plated surface. It shot out another golden bolt, this time striking Monotoli. Still conscious, he collapsed to the floor, but within a moment, the Mani Mani Statue shattered to pieces.

 

Janie shook her fists in celebration, but hastily went to Monotoli. He was kneeling down with his face buried in his hands. She kneeled down, trying to look him in the face, and asked, “You okay?” Monotoli responded by looking up, and screamed in pain.

 

It was obvious why.

 

His eyes were nearly bulging out of his head, his nostrils were flared to the point that his nose looked flatly embedded into his face, and several veins in his neck were sticking out to a disgusting degree. He stood up, and screamed, no, roared in anguish. But it wasn’t a sound a normal human would make. Janie quickly dropped back, shuffling away from the frightening Monotoli. Writhing and squirming on his feet in some ungodly kind of pain, he began to undergo a fearful transformation. His stature grew wider, and he jumped to somewhere around eight feet in height. Every muscles in his body from the neck down blew up to insane proportions, His muscles looked as if they were going to tear his skin open, but his clothes slowly gave way first. His eyes and mouth looked frozen open, giving him a very grotesque appearance. Monotoli had gone from a meek old man to this humungous eight-foot-tall man-beast that looked like he could snap someone’s back between his forefinger and thumb.

Ness, for the most part, seemed rather unfazed by Monotoli’s transformation. Janie, on the other hand, was terrified. Monotoli looked, sounded, and moved a lot like Cain now, and she remembered what Cain was capable of. She also remembered that Cain had nearly managed to mangle Protocol once, and that he would have no qualms about doing the same to anybody else. Now Protocol wasn’t here, and the only ones that could try at stopping Monotoli were she and Ness. From the looks of things, fighting physically against Monotoli would be near impossible. Oh yes, she was afraid beyond wit’s end.

Monotoli roared again, and tried to crush Janie with a huge fist. She managed to swiftly roll out of the way. “Hit him with psychic power!” she yelled to Ness. It was the only strategy she could think of, and probably the only one that had a slight chance at working. Getting as far away from Monotoli as possible, Janie clasped her hands together, and began summoning lightning bolts. Ness, following Janie’s example, scampered to the other side of the room, and tried Paralysis a. Neither worked. Monotoli charged at Ness with humungous leaping strides, and tried to crush Ness with a downward double-fist smash. Ness leapt out of the way before the big old man hit. Monotoli’s huge fists broke the floorboards into splinters, giving Ness an idea of exactly how strong this guy was. He ran back to where Janie was standing, still trying to hurt Monotoli with any kind of magic that would pop into her head. Ness was still too weak to use Rockin’, so he had only one more PSI ability up his sleeve. Monotoli actually leapt across the room, landing just short of where Ness and Janie were standing. Ness used Flash b right in Monotoli’s face. Monotoli staggered back, covering his eyes and roaring in pain.

 

Opportunity strikes. Pointing to Paula and Tomato, Ness gave Janie a short but manageable order. “Free them!” Without need of any further instruction, Janie formed a psychic cutter in her hand, and threw it. The cutter whizzed around for a while, and the shackles holding Paula and Tomato broke. Both dropped to the floor. Ness and Janie went to help them, taking their attention off Monotoli. Bad, bad idea. He had shaken off getting flared in the face. So he stepped forward, and hit both of them with a single SMAAAASHing right hook. Both Ness and Janie slammed into the far wall. The wall refused to give way.

The black of unconsciousness swirled in their eyes. Everything felt as if it were moving in slow motion. There was a sickening *thunk*, and Monotoli roared again. Both Ness and Janie were too dazed to tell if it was in victory, or at joy at having an opportunity to tear apart the little flies that had been bothering it for the past few minutes. But there was something to it.

Something not quite right to be a roar of victory.

 

Could it possibly be in pain?! Had Paula and Tomato finally recovered and started to attack Monotoli? ‘Twas not the case. Janie struggled to regain consciousness, and saw something German-Suplex Monotoli through a desk. It was a large being, shorter than Monotoli was now, but nevertheless much bigger than she was. Her vision was too hazy to even try to identify him, or her, or it. Whoever it was got up from under Monotoli, and sauntered to where Paula and Tomato were. He or whatever grabbed Tomato, ignoring the destruction around himself. He propped Tomato on his shoulder, then made a mad dash out of the room, exiting through the hole the Mani Mani Statue had blasted in the wall. Janie gave out a weak cry, then tried to get to her feet. It was a useless effort, and she collapsed face-forward on the floor. The damage had been done, and unconsciousness finally claimed her.

 

----

 

Paula opened her eyes. She didn’t know how long she had been out, or remember exactly who had knocked her out. She couldn’t remember much of anything that had happened for the past few conscious hours. Everything slowly came back to her. The monster at the department store, waking up on a couch in an office, talking to Monotoli and Tomato, then... She sat up, intensely sore from whatever had knocked her out.

 

Paula never expected to see what she saw when she sat up.

 

Monotoli was lying about a yard away, smashed through the desk he had hid behind earlier. The poor man’s clothes were torn to shreds. Farther behind him, lying face-down on the floor was Janie. Behind her, slumped against the wall, was Ness. All three were naturally out cold, and looked as if they’d been caught in the middle of a war. Broken, bruised, even bleeding... She crawled past Monotoli, past Janie, and over to Ness.

 

“Ness... Wake up...” Paula shook him a little bit. Tears began to trickle down her cheek, and one thought kept playing itself through her mind; ‘Oh God please don’t let him be dead!’ Someone pounded on the door. Paula tried to stand up, didn’t succeed, and crawled over to the door. She unlocked it, and in burst the Runaway Five. They got one look at the surrounding ruin. The saxophonist made the sign of the Cross, and whispered the Hail Mary. Jake took off his hat, and put it to his chest. The rest were practically stunned into silence.

 

Lucky helped Paula to her feet, and asked “What happened in here, kid?”

 

Paula tried standing completely erect, but nearly collapsed. Lucky caught her before she fell to the ground. “Easy there...”

“The statue must’ve done this... please help...” This time, she really collapsed. Lucky caught her, and ordered the bassist to get a chair. As soon as he brought it over, Lucky seated Paula in it. The drummer inspected Ness, and yelled for someone to get some water. The saxophonist ran out of the room in search of bottled water. After seating Paula, Lucky went to assist Janie, and the bassist helped Monotoli. Amazingly, Monotoli was only slightly dazed, and remained surprisingly unwavering once the bassist helped him to his feet. Lucky picked Janie up, and propped her against the wall.

 

She moaned softly, and opened her eyes. “...You’re a sight for sore... everything...”

 

Lucky smiled, and said, “You’ll be fine, dat’s fer sure,” He rubbed her shoulder. Janie winced, and he stopped. The saxophonist arrived back with some bottled water, tossing it over to the drummer. He opened the bottle, and poured some oven Ness’s head, neglecting to remove his cap. It still had the desired effect, and Ness began to show signs of consciousness.

Janie was still seated on the floor, with her arms curiously folded and her head bowed. She was concentrating on something. A column of dim blue light shone down on her, and she began to float off the ground. Lucky and the rest didn’t seem too startled by this; they’d seen stranger. Little blue pulses of light came down, encircling her. Then, other columns of blue light opened up, shining on everyone who was in the office, likewise with the pulses of light. Ness moaned, fully waking from unconsciousness, and slowly stood up. Janie opened her eyes, floated down, stretched her legs, and grinned widely.

 

Lucky trembled a little, and said, “Hey, I’m feelin’ all invigorated!” He tried a few dance moves, pulling them off to perfection.

Monotoli looked himself up and down. “Boy, I’m a real mess. I need some new clothes...” Obviously disregarding the ruins of his office, he went over to a wall intercom, and turned it on. “Electra, come to my office, and bring a new set of clothes.”

 

“Yessir,” the intercom crackled back.

 

“Oh, by the way, how’s the search for trout-flavored yogurt coming along?”

 

“Not too well, sir. I find it extremely difficult to make trout-flavored yogurt without actually putting trout in it.”

Monotoli shrugged, then answered, “They do it with cheeses.” The intercom clicked off. Monotoli quickly stepped out of the office, and decided to survey the damage Ness and Janie had inflicted on the rest of the floor.

 

Paula woke fully from being blasted by the Mani Mani, and rushed Ness, nearly tackling him. Her arms wrapped around his neck, she began whispering in his ear between showering him with kisses. The Runaway Five could barely contain their compulsive hooting. Ness, however, looked very much distracted by something else.

 

“Shh...” he whispered, interrupting Paula. “You hear that?” He wasn’t sure, but he could’ve sworn that her had heard the sound of a helicopter starting up... He broke Paula’s grip, then dashed out through the hole in the wall. Paula looked somewhat astonished that Ness so readily threw aside her affections. It better have been important, anyways...

 

They heard something lift off, shouts of obscenities, a slam of a door, and footsteps coming toward them. Then they heard an “OOMPH!” from Ness as he tripped over something in the hallway.

 

“You alright?” Paula and Janie called simultaneously. There were sounds of grumbling, and unzipping, then of re-zipping. Footsteps again. Ness came back through the hole in the wall.

 

“Good news, bad news...” Ness started. Before anyone could ask which one they wanted first, Ness continued, “The bad news is that Pokey took the helicopter. The good news...” He pulled a black duffel bag from the hole, and tossed it to Janie. She instinctively caught it. “...is that I think this’s yours.”

 

She looked at him with a quizzical expression on her face. “How would you know?”

 

“Because your name’s on the inseam of the bag.” Janie, even more confused than before, opened the bag, and checked the inseam.

 

“Oh.”

 

Ness sighed, but then seemed to wince in pain. “Are you okay?” asked Paula, uncertain if Ness still had injuries from whatever had beaten he and Janie to a centimeter of their lives.

 

“Tomato...” he moaned. “Where is he?”

 

Janie stepped forward, and started, “Well, something came in, beat up Monotoli, and took Tomato...” She suddenly remembered that Paula and the Runaway Five had practically no clue what had transpired in the office after the doors locked. “Did I mention that the statue turned Monotoli into some big hulking beast that looked like it could bend steel just by looking at it?”

 

“Ah, sorry to interrupt, but...” Jake tapped his foot out of anxiety. “...we’ve gotta get a move on. Before we leave, do you need anything from us? Private jam sessions, rides to exotic locations, something?”

 

Ness pondered his choices for a few seconds. “No. We don’t need anything. We should be set for now.” Then Paula seemingly fainted, blanking out and losing her balance. Ness reflexively caught her before she fell to the ground. “Careful there! What was that about?” he asked, helping Paula to her feet.

 

Paula shook her head in an attempt to regain her senses, then looked to Lucky. “Actually, we do need a favor. Can you give us a ride to Threed?”

 

----

 

Once again, the Runaway Five tour bus rode through the Threed-Fourside Tunnel, this time away from the city they had aspired to get a gig in. It entered the town of Threed, and pulled into a small off-street in front of the drugstore. Threed had brightened up since the Runaway Five had left, and neither zombie nor ghost could be seen anywhere. When the bus reached a full stop, the sliding side door opened, and Ness, Paula, and Janie with duffel bag in hand stepped out.

 

Jake poked his head out of the passenger-side seat, and said “I don’t know why you guys wanted to come back to this place, but I’m not really concerned. You kids can handle yourselves pretty well. You might’ve left some gizmo here or somethin’, but whenever you’re feelin’ low, or you’re in a time of need, just think of the Runaway Five singin’ in some faraway place... We gotta get goin’, but we’ll cross paths again!” Lucky reached to slide the side door shut, and all the Runaway Fivers waved and yelled their farewells before the door was shut. The trio also yelled their good-byes, and watched as the bus started up again, and rode back toward Fourside. They rode out of sight. After a few minutes, they began to trot to the hotel.

 

Something occurred to Janie. “Why’d we come back here, anyways?”

 

Paula stopped in her tracks. “...I’m not sure.”

 

“You mean you know there’s a reason for us to be here, but now that we’re here... You don’t know why, do you?” Janie eyed Paula appraisingly, not sure whether she should doubt the stability of Paula’s psychic abilities or not.

 

Ness quickly put in his opinion. “It’ll come to her.”

 

“...Guess I’ll take your word for it...” Janie took this as a sign to stop asking questions.

 

----

 

Ness had decided that the lot of them would temporarily take a rest at the Hotel. Hopefully, the rest would give a kickstart to Paula’s memory, and she’d be able to recall exactly what had dragged them there in the first place. Meantime, Janie was giving herself a tour of Threed. It wasn’t really that bad of a place, now, considering the state it had been in when they had been there earlier. She delved deep into thought for a second.

 

‘We... she silently mulled to herself. ‘Wonder where Tomato is... She was walking by the cemetery, and she heard hissing sounds. ‘Bet it’s some stupid kids spray-painting the headstones. Guess I oughta show them to respect their elders.’ A devious plan formed in her mind, involving a really big illusion of a ghost that looked like a corpse. She ran into the northern graveyard, but not to see what she was expecting. There was a really, really big pit where one of the bigger tombstones was supposed to be. She looked down, hands in her pockets, and saw two men, one chubby one with black hair and a moustache, one with glasses, bright-red hair, and an unflattering bowl cut, spray-painting over what looked to be a small UFO.

“What’re you doing?” she called down.

 

The red-haired one looked up, and shouted to her. “Some blonde kid with glasses crashed into here a while ago. The thing’s broken, but the least we could do for him is paint over all the broken parts.

 

‘Some blonde kid with glasses? Sounds awfully familiar... Then it hit her. ‘Jeff! They Sky Runner! That’s probably what Paula wanted us to come for!’ She called back down, giving her thanks, then ran back off to the Threed hotel.

 

----

 

Janie had told Ness and Paula of her findings, and Ness had wanted to go immediately, but Janie wanted to show them something before they left. She stepped out of the bathroom, wearing the gear that had come in that black duffel bag Ness had found inside the Monotoli Building’s secret escape route. Neither Ness not Paula could contain their laughter.

 

She was entirely in black, with a normal black shirt, loose-fitting black pants, a black trenchcoat, black boots with shiny black shinpads, black, black, black. The only things in her entire ensemble that wasn’t black were the three little vertical stripes near the knee area of the shinpads, and those were a strange pink color, and her J-symbol belt buckle.

 

“You look like a pro-wrestler!” Paula exclaimed.

 

Janie shrugged. “Comfort before fashion, I always say. At least most of the time, anyways. And it’s inflammable.”

Ness sniggered under his breath, then added. “If there’s one good thing about this, it’s that we won’t have to worry about those zombies anymore. Telling by the stench we got a whiff of when we passed the Zombie Corps. Tent, that slime’s still potent. Really potent.” He sipped his root beer.

 

Janie went to the mini-fridge, and pulled out a soda for herself. “Man, this place is weird. Zombies, living piles of dirt, talking moles... I’ve seen two out of three before, but the talking moles really got me going.”

 

“Why? Haven’t you seen one before?” asked Ness.

 

Janie popped the soda open, and took a sip. “Nope. And your talking to a girl who’s seen entire armies made up of fungus. I’ve seen some pretty strange stuff ever since Proto took me in. Maybe I should take you to my place sometime. Show you around little Foxton.” She sipped again, and sat down a wooden chair. “I know! I’ll bring you over for the New Year’s Party! Proto’s throwing a huge bash, and he shouldn’t mind a few extra guests.”

 

“Cool. It’ll give us something to do after we save the universe,” Ness grinned with satisfaction.

 

----

 

The trio had to get going with some resting time allowed, and had gotten to the cave where the Sky Runner crashed. The two men that had kindly repaired the hull, but, unthankfully, not the systems had left, leaving them alone to contemplate their course of action. Of course, Ness had a plan.

 

“How are we gonna fly this piece of junk to Winters?” asked Paula. They knew they needed to go to Winters because of the oh-so-kind hint man, who had charged them $750 for his hint. Paula tapped the Sky Runner with her knuckles, only to jar loose even more of the parts inside.

 

“We’ll use Janie’s Levitation power,” said Ness.

 

Janie whistled. “’Cept for the fact that I’m gonna have a major headache when this’s over, that’s not a bad idea.” Janie looked it over, found the entrance, and stepped inside.

 

Ness stepped aside, and said to Paula, “After you.” Paula smiled, and went in, quickly followed by Ness. A few seconds passed, and a dim light began to shine through the Sky Runner’s portholes. It slowly lifted off the ground, and flew through the hole Jeff had left when he came crashing down the last time. As it went higher, it began to fly to the southwest. The Sky Runner went over the Dusty Dunes Desert, then Fourside, then the ocean before coming upon Winters. Ness and Paula had honestly not been there before, but they could tell that their current clothes weren’t going to offer much protection against the icy cold outside. As they two of them looked out through the portholes, several things came into sight. A large school, a grocery store, a deep area of woods, then a campground on the shore of the large lake. After they flew over the lake, there seemed to be nothing but small caverns in the faces of rock that greeted them. Then, they saw a wonderful sight; a lab with an open hangar door inscribed with the singular word ‘LAB’ right on top.

 

Ness tapped on Janie’s shoulder, and the ship shuddered slightly. “Careful, don’t wanna break my concentration...” she muttered through gritted teeth. The stress of levitating a well-sized metal ship was getting to her, and she desperately needed to relax her mind. Her eyes were shut tightly, and her fists were clenched to the same degree.

 

“We can land down there, in that lab,” instructed Ness. Janie nodded, and gave a soft groan. She shook her head, trying to get rid of the large headache she was receiving.

 

“That’s probably Dr. Andonuts’ lab. He’s Jeff’s dad,” said Paula.

 

“How’d you know?” Ness asked.

 

“When I called for help back in the Threed Cemetery, I also called him. I learned quite a lot from him. That seems like it was yesterday...”

 

“Time flies when we’re having fun,” Ness sighed. Janie slowly levitated the Sky Runner through the hangar, and it landed softly.

As soon as she was able to break her concentration, she sighed, and leaned, almost collapsed forward. “...Hey, Ness... Can your Heal power help with migraines?” she moaned.

 

Ness shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.” He held his hand over Janie’s head, and a pale light went from his hand to her head as he used Heal b.

 

She gave a moan, and shook her head. “Thanks. Now I just need a nice, long nap...” Ness turned to the Sky Runner hatch, and pushed it open. Standing right outside, waiting for them, was Dr. Andonuts. Paula stepped out of the oddball ship, followed by Ness, then Janie, who leaned against the Sky Runner for support.

 

“Greetings... You three...” said Andonuts, wondering why the Sky Runner came, but why Jeff hadn’t come with it. Then, he realized who Paula was. “Oh! You must be that girl who called Jeff for help. Paula, is it?” She smiled and nodded. Paula went for a hug, Dr. Andonuts went for a handshake. The kind doctor quickly realized what he was doing, and quickly gave Paula a hug.

 

Paula’s smile became a wide grin. “Yeah. We were locked up in a cell at some graveyard in Threed, and we really needed his help.”

 

“Ah. Pleased to meet you.” Dr. Andonuts turned his attention to Ness and Janie. “You must be Ness... but who’s this other girl?”

 

Janie looked up, and gasped, “Name’s Janie.” She drew in another rapid breath.

 

Dr. Andonuts adjusted his glasses. “Oh my! You look exhausted! Were you doing any sort of heavy lifting while on your travels?”

 

“I was just *gasp* levitating that ship from Threed to here...”

 

“You had to levitate the ship? You could’ve just flown it!” He seemed more interested in the Sky Runner than he was with Janie’s ability to levitate.

 

“Actually, that’s why we’re here,” Paula started. “When Jeff came to Threed, he accidentally crashed the Sky Runner. Some people repaired the exterior, but all of the working parts are broken, so Janie had to levitate it all the way here.”

 

“It crashed?” asked the doctor, somewhat miffed. Janie muttered something under her breath, presumably something about Dr. Andonuts’ head being thicker than cement.

 

“Yes, and we need to get to Summers. We thought that maybe you could repair it, and then put in coordinates for Summers, because we have no idea where it is...” Paula looked right into the doctor’s eyes.

 

“Of course I’ll repair the Sky Runner and set the destination, but...” Dr. Andonuts let the sentence hang on the edge of his tongue before finishing. “...where’s Jeff?”

 

“Uh... Jeff? He’s...” Ness frantically searched for a suitable yet concise way to explain what had happened to Dr. Andonuts’ son.

 

Dr. Andonuts looked at them gravely. “Don’t tell me he’s...”

 

Paula cut him off. “Oh, no! He’s not dead, he’s just...”

 

She searched for the right words, only to be cut off by Janie. “Long story.”

 

----

 

“...So you’re telling me that Jeff’s in another dimension?”

 

“That’s the basic idea,” said Paula.

 

“Interesting...” Dr. Andonuts trailed off. He, Paula, and Ness sat around the table in the Lab, as Dr. Andonuts had so appropriately entitled it. Janie, on the other hand, was napping in the doctor’s Instant Revitalizing Device. It was actually pretty comfy in there.

 

“Do you know how to get him back here?” he asked.

 

“The only ones who can do that are Janie’s friends, and one of them’s here, looking for people who can help us,” answered Paula.

 

“Hm. Curiouser and Curiouser...” said Andonuts. They reflected for a minute. Janie let out a sigh of relief from inside the Device, and slowly opened it. She silently took a seat at the table, making sure not to interrupt the conversation.

Dr. Andonuts spoke up. “These Sanctuaries you speak of. One wouldn’t happened to be named Rainy Circle, would it?” Ness nodded, and the doctor suddenly snapped his fingers. “Rainy Circle’s in a cave right outside Stonehenge! While you go there, I shall repair the Sky Runner.” It suddenly seemed as if someone had lifted the weights off of everyone’s backs. All four got up, and went to the Lab’s exit door in high spirits.

 

“I suggest you stay away from the Mighty Bear Sevens, for they might be the only real obstacles you face other than the Shining Spot himself.”

 

Paula hugged the doctor, and gave her grateful thanks. Ness shook his hand, as did Janie. Dr. Andonuts opened the door for them, and the three of them stepped out. Ness and Paula started quickly, because they weren’t exactly prepared for the cold, and they wanted to keep their pulse rates up. Janie stopped them by grabbing their wrists. This proved to be a good thing, because a warmth began to flow through their bodies. She let go, and the warmth stayed. Ness and Paula looked at Janie quizzically, but she simply nodded. The three had to stay silent, as to avoid any bears and Cave Boys. They walked by Stonehenge, and the silence paid off. Not an enemy in sight. There was also a patch of ice that was ahead of them, and it was out of sight. But they made no attempt to avoid it. All three of them slipped on it, falling flat on their backs. The single sound of their collective impacts and grunts echoed throughout Stonehenge, and the three skittered to their feet and listened. Still nothing. Paula’s hands turned red, and she placed her palms on the ice. It immediately melted.

 

They stood up, and calmly walked to the cave. But something stopped Ness. He looked down at the newly-formed puddle, and stared. “Uh-oh.”

 

Janie looked at him. “Uh-oh? ‘Uh-oh’ can’t be a good thing!” she quietly hissed. Ness simply pointed at the puddle, and both Paula and Janie looked at it. The puddle had little waves in it. There was no wind or breeze blowing, and there certainly wasn’t an earthquake underway.

 

But there was a steady rumbling sound coming from behind them.

 

Ness, Paula, and Janie slowly looked toward the rumble, and saw a cloud of snow several feet tall traveling very close to the ground. It was heading in their direction. As it got closer, they saw it wasn’t just a cloud of kicked-up snow, but it was also a stampede of Cave Boys and Mighty Bear Sevens tearing toward their general direction.

 

The three of them knew this probably couldn’t get much worse, so they all ran into the Rainy Circle cave. They were about to jump off the ledge they had come in on when Ness made a very important observation.

 

“Hey! He called to Paula and Janie. “The cave’s too small for them to get in!” Sure enough, when the bears and cavemen came to the cave’s back door, they couldn’t get in. A Cave Boy stuck his club into the cave and futilely waved it around, trying to hit something. He removed his club from the entranceway, then stuck his head in. Bad, bad idea. An idea promptly formed in Paula’s mind, and she telepathically informed Janie.

 

‘It’s cruel. It’s mean,’ thought Janie. ‘I like it.

 

Paula placed her frying pan on the Cave Boy’s nose. The Cave Boy wasn’t necessarily aware of what Paula was doing, but he didn’t want to find out. He tried to back out of the small entryway, only to find that his shoulders were stuck. Janie raised her arms, as if she were holding a baseball bat. There was a flash of light, and a staff of light appeared in her hands. That staff of light shortly became a sledgehammer of light, and she placed the sledge’s head right in front of the frying pan, as if readying for a golf swing. She raised the sledgehammer, and smashed it right into the pan. The hit reverberated through the pan, and into the Cave Boy’s face. The Cave Boy squawked in extreme pain, and managed to pull himself out of the cave.

 

“Ouch,” said Ness.

 

“Heh, is that all you can come up with, Ness?” Janie chuckled, and began to backpedal. She turned around, and bumped into something. Something tall. Something ugly. Something that distinctly smelt of fungus.

 

Shroom!

 

Janie knew what it was, and opened with a mighty overhead strike with the sledge of light. Shroom! raised it arms, catching it. The two struggled over the sledge, and Shroom! finally threw Janie off, taking the sledge for itself. But Janie could control it; she had made it. The sledge of light went from white to orange, then burst aflame. Shroom! let out a high-pitched squeal, and threw the hammer away .The big ugly mushroom sprinkled around some spores, and two Struttin’ Evil Mushrooms appeared behind it. Paula cast Fire b on the row of fungus, and Shroom! let out that annoying squeal again. Both Struttin’ Evil Mushrooms charged at Ness, and took him down. Janie gave a rapid assist by pulling one of the irritating creatures off. Her eyes glowered red as embers, and the mushroom incinerated in her hands. Shroom! charged forward, and SMAAAAASHed into Paula, then Janie, sending them to the ground. Paula swiftly got to her feet, and bashed it with her pan. Ness finally managed to get the other mushroom off of him, getting up and attacking Shroom! with his bat. It staggered back, and Ness cast Rockin’ b on its sorry fungal mass. Surprisingly, Shroom! shrugged it off. It charged at Ness, sending him into the cave wall.

 

Ness fell to his knees, and cried, “It’s only affected by fire!” Paula rapidly began to unload several forms of PSI Fire on the Shroom!, but it slowly continued to advance. Janie shook her head, and glared up angrily at the overgrown mushroom. She floated to her feet, and her colors slowly began to shift. Her skin turned red, her eyes orange, and her hair into... well, actual fire! She had shifted into one of her elemental forms. This one was obviously fire. She raised both hands, palms outward, and shot a column of fire from each. Shroom! was engulfed in flames, and it screeched horribly. After a few seconds of barbecuing Shroom!, Janie ceased unloading her Fire Beam. Shroom! merely stood there, smoke rising from its seemingly-still-alive carcass. Ness stepped up, and took a small chunk off of Shroom!. The bit crumbled to ash in his hand. Ness tapped the ground with his bat, and took a mighty swing at the roasted mass. It exploded into nothing more than a pile of ashes.

 

Shroom! had been defeated.

 

Ness gave the remaining pile of ashes a soft kick, then looked to Janie. “Why can’t you ever use those early on?”

 

Janie softly landed on the ground, and shrugged. Her skin, hair, and eyes returned to their normal colors, and she gazed at the entryway that Shroom! had been standing in front of before becoming fried mushroom. “Rainy Well’s in there.” Ness wiped some of the ash off of his bat, and entered the cavern, shortly followed by Janie.

 

Paula tapped the ashes with her foot, and whispered to herself, “I almost beat it...” She shook her head in disappointment, and entered the Rainy Well cavern.

 

----

 

Within the next few hours, the party of three had obtained the melody of the Rainy Well, beat the living crud out of a large pack of Cave Boys and Mighty Bear Sevens, said their good-byes to Dr. Andonuts, and flew and crash-landed at Summers. After meeting up with some Surfer Dudes and Overzealous Cops, they decided to crash at the L’Hotel du Summers. That decision was changed when they saw the price per person. Then Paula came up with an idea...

 

“Isn’t this a felony in several countries?” asked Ness.

 

“They want to catch us their tourist trap, so we’ll just avoid it,” answered Paula.

 

“I agree with Paula wholeheartedly,” Janie quipped. The three were in a L’Hotel du Summers room, sipping ice cold juice and/or sodas, while sitting near the balcony window. Paula had Janie levitate the three if them to a balcony, and Paula had forced open the lock telekinetically.

 

“We’re just lucky no one’s staying in this room...” said Ness, concerned with the moral ambiguity of their actions.

 

“Well, you are on a quest to save the universe...” Janie smiled.

 

“...so we should be at least entitled to something...” Paula finished, also smiling.

 

Ness realized this was somewhat true. “...I never thought of it that way... Oh, well.” He sipped at his Mountain Dew.

Janie massaged her forehead with a liquid icepack. “What’s next on the agenda?”

 

“We’re going to the Pyramids down in Scarabra next,” said Ness.

 

Both he an Paula looked at Janie. She shortly realized why, and protested. “Uh-uh, no way! I still have a headache from when I flew the Sky Runner to Winters! If we’re going, we’re going by boat.”

 

----

 

A grizzled old sailor sat on a bench near the Toto shipyards. His boat sat in the water, hitched to a nearby dock. Right now, he could be sailing the seas, enjoying his life, with his wife by his side. But no. And why? Because his wife had been drawn into some ‘metaphysically-based’ intellectuals’ club. They sat staring at a rock, drinking water and philosophizing all the while. Utter B.S. was what he thought it was. And he was right in many ways. As he sat there, wallowing in his own depression (It hadn’t reached a level that could be classified as ‘misery.’ Yet, anyways.), three teenage kids walked up to him. One boy, two girls. The boy looked as if he was into baseball, the blonde girl wore a pink dress and a little red bow, and the brunette girl had a very strange look to her... Maybe one of those people into the ‘alternative’ lifestyles, alternative being a polite way of saying ‘one of those really creepy Gothic’ lifestyles. He had never understood those people, and he wouldn’t bother giving it a shot, either.

 

The boy stepped forward, and started talking. “Excuse me, sir? Would you be willing to take us to Scarabra?”

 

The sailor looked up at the three, and answered, “Sure, but there’s this sea monster that might attack us on the way. Big ugly thing by the name of Kraken.”

 

The brunette shrugged. “We’d still be willing to go.”

 

The sailor tipped his hat over his eyes, and said, “I’d be willing, but I don’t feel like it right now.”

 

“Why? Is it the Kraken?” asked the blonde.

 

The old sailor laughed heartily. “Me? Afraid of some big sea monster? Never! It’s just that...”

 

“What is it?” asked the blonde.

 

“It’s my wife!” cried the sailor. “She’s joined some cult-like intellectuals’ club, and it’s changed her for the worse. Her business for Magic Cake has gone down because she goes to that club everyday. I barely see her, and I’m really beginning to miss her.”

 

The brunette smiled sideways. “What if we told you we could do something about that?”

 

“Pfft, right. To get in this club, you need to be a well-known intellectual, or get reservations by phone, and not even I know that damn number...”

 

“Just tell us the name of the club, and we can get in,” said the brunette.

 

The sailor sighed, and looked up at her. “Alright, I’ll tell you, and, AND, if you can get her out of that club, I’ll give you a discount on passage to Scarabra.” The three of them nodded. “Okay, the place’s called the Stoic Club. Ask for Francine.”

 

----

 

Ness, Paula, and Janie approached a large white building with black lounge doors. Paula stepped up to the doors, and knocked.

 

One of the circular windows on the left door opened, and the doorman peeped out. “I’m sorry, but this is not the Stoic Club. And even if it was, you’d need reservations.” The doorman disappeared, and the window shut. Janie backpedaled, and looked high above the door. Sure enough, the was a plaque that marked the building as ‘The Stoic Club.’

Ness walked up to the door, and knocked. The doorman peered out, and said, “You again? I said this is not the...” The doorman’s eyes fluttered, and he disappeared from eyeshot. Ness stuck his arm through the window, and unlocked the swinging doors.

 

Ness held the door open, and let Paula and Janie in, stating “Ladies first.” As soon as he closed the door, they observed the doorman lying on the floor, in the fetal position, sucking his thumb, and sleeping.

 

“Hypnosis works wonders,” grinned Ness. The three walked into the Club’s parlor, and saw a very oddballed sight. There was a whole bunch of people staring at a rock, and another bunch talking psychobabble to each other.

 

Paula saw one large, mohawked, mustachioed black guy in white standing by himself, just looking at the entire crowd. Was he chuckling to himself? She walked over, and tapped his shoulder. The large man turned to face her. “Can you tell me what these people are talking about?” she asked.

 

The man snickered. “You don’t understand what the hey everyone is talking about, do you?” She shook her head. The man shrugged in response and continued, “I don’t either, but I try to be patient with the customers. They pay high prices just for a glass of water and the chance to have serious, intellectual discussions.” He scratched the back of his head. “Actually, it’s an easy business.” He took out a cooler. “You want a drink? We only serve water, though...”

 

Paula turned it down, and asked, “Do you know where I can find the lady who used to make Magic Cake?”

 

“You mean Francine? She’s right over there.” The man pointed to a tall, elegant-looking blonde wearing a pink dress. “If she offers you some Cake, take it. It’s some of the best stuff I’ve ever tasted.”

 

Paula thanked him, and walked over to Francine. Paula tried to say something, but Francine sighed, and before Paula could get a word in, she started. “I’ve finally awakened the inner me, the true self. The patrons of this club are able to stare into their own soul hard enough to burn a hole in their psyche. I’m now comfortable enough to stare at the real me, the true self, and burn the impression into my super-ego. I want to be in this comfort zone at any time, all the time, or at no time. My id is telling me...”

 

By this time, Ness and Janie had joined Paula, and Ness broke in. “Um, excuse me, but aren’t you the girl who makes Magic Cake.

 

The utterance of the words ‘Magic Cake’ snapped Francine out of her psychological reverie. Looking directly at Ness, her eyes widened. “What? What? Magic Cake? You came all this way just to eat my Magic Cake?” She could tell just by looking at them that they weren’t from Summers.

 

“Uh, yeah,” said Ness. He came up with a quick lie; He had come all this way to get her out of this club so he could go to Scarabra, but if he told her that, she might get angry. Besides, he had nothing to lose with this fib. In fact, he might gain a free snack from it.

 

“Okay... I see,” she stood there, stunned for a few seconds, then immersed in deep thought. “...How about you three come by a little cart on the beach later? I’ll have it ready in a jiff...” At that moment, she speed-walked out of the club, forgetting a temporary good-bye. The three watched as she left, and then they followed after. None of them could help but snigger as the passed the sleeping body of the doorman. Within a few minutes, the three held paper plates with delicious-looking cake in one hand, and a fork in the other.

 

“I don’t know who told you,” started Francine. “You came from far off just to eat my Magic Cake?... I thought making cakes would be the best career for me, so dig in! I used all leftover materials. This is very special Magic Cake!” With that said, the three began to eat their cakes. It took under a second for the three of them to realize exactly how good it was.

 

“Wow,” said Paula. She ate another piece, and muttered, “This is some of the best stuff I’ve ever had...” Janie was too busy munching to comment, and Ness was also caught in the moment. Once they finished, Paula and Janie congratulated the woman for making such incredibly delicious cake. But Ness just stood there, in some trance-like state.

 

Paula looked at him, and waved her hand in front of his face. “Ness? Are you awake?” He continued to stand there, apparently not awake, but definitely not asleep.

 

----

 

All that while, Ness was having a dream. It was very clear, very strange, and very real. He saw flashes of a floating island, and then a being flying toward it. Was it Protocol? Yes, it was him, in a trenchcoat and a wide-brimmed hat, with an enormous sword sheathed on his back.

 

Another flash, and Protocol was conversing with an old man and a semi-bald boy, the only hair on his head in a topknot. Ness knew the boy’s name. His name was Poo.

 

Another flash, and he viewed Protocol battling with Poo, as if training him.

 

Yet another flash, and Poo was meditating on some little peak, wincing in intense pain.

 

A final flash, and he saw Poo and Protocol standing in a dark cave-turned-battlefield, with robot parts lying everywhere. He saw Poo running, then flying off.

 

Then everything faded to white...

 

----

 

“This happens all the time?” Paula asked Francine.

 

“Oh, sure it does. The Cake’s so good, some people get caught in a hypnotic trance,” she answered. Ness suddenly fell to the ground in a spasm of regained muscle control. Paula and Janie quickly went to his side.

 

“Ness!” Paula cried as she repeatedly rattled him.

 

Ness awakened from his trance, and looked up to Francine. “That’s the best cake I’ve ever tasted in my entire life.”

Paula gave him a huge hug that would’ve crushed his ribs of any normal person with osteoporosis. “What happened? Why were you out like that?” she asked, sobbing a little.

 

Ness shook his head, and said, “I’m not sure what it was. It was like this weird dream, and it had Protocol in it...”

“Simple.” Francine broke in. “A lot of people who eat this cake have out-of-body experiences, sometimes ones that even transcend time.”

 

Janie looked at her as if she had a third eye. “Just where did you get the recipe for this cake?!” She stopped herself from adding, ‘I know somebody who might be able to make this Cake as well as you do, so could I please have the recipe?’

Ness didn’t seem to notice the comments, and continued, “...There was this weird-looking mostly-bald kid with a ponytail on the top of his head in the dream too. His name was Poo.”

 

Paula and Janie helped him to his feet. Janie asked, “How would you know his name was Poo?” And at that exact moment, a semi-bald kid in a white kimono-like outfit rushed across their field of vision after touching down on the ground. He had been flying. No wings, no machines, just a PSI Teleport. He quickly brushed himself off, and walked up to Paula, Janie, and a still-shaky Ness. He cleared his throat, and said the words that would ensure a rather noticeable change in their fortunes, and perhaps in the future of the entire universe.

 

“My name is Poo. I am the one who will fight beside you.”

 

----

 

Chapter 3 - Part 2: Journeyman

Not a chance! It’s 6:05 AM! I don’t know about you, but I wanna sleep!

 

----

 

Chapter 3 - Part 3: EB.Net Reseiged

You just wait until I’m done.

----


R. Enforcer here. Betcha thought I was dead, didn’t ya?

 

Well, I’m not. Sorry it took me so dang long to update this, but I ran into a few hitches... Okay, they weren’t hitches, they were landmines, but that’s not the point. I had it done, but Ultimoo (yes, I’ve been working on this for that long) had *sniffle* quit, and his replacement didn’t do very good at his job, so there was no fanfic guy. I waited until there was one, and at that point, my hard drive decided to break. The motor just went *poof*. The data was still on it, and there was one way to salvage it, but it was rather impractical, and way beyond my means. I looked for my floppy back-ups, but all of them, ALL of ‘em, were corrupted. Sucks to be me, no?

 

Then, my first, and perhaps only lucky strike. My next door neighbor, known merely as ‘Fox’ for the while he had been a member of the EB/SM.Net community (by the way, his military tank is up for grabs, if anyone wants it,) had gotten interested in my work, grabbed a floppy with Gateway on it, and printed it. Well, it was lucky that he had printed it, not-so-lucky in that that floppy was bad, too. So, I’ve been retyping these portions of Gateway, adding the HTML by hand for the most of it. I quickly grabbed an early, early version of Gateway from SM.Net, and used that as a way of cutting off a few weeks of work. But still, it’s taken some time. Time I haven’t had. Incidentally, I’ve been attending a school that assigns 5 hours of homework average, A DAY. Needless to say, things have been torture, and I can feel the little demon on my shoulder begin to nibble at my ear and poke its little pitchfork into my mind for not writing in such a long time.

 

But I’m back. I haven’t been an active member of any community as of late, and that would be the fault of my school. But, things will start looking up. Yes, they will. If you’re reading this, then it has gotten better. Speaking of getting better, I revised most of Gateway. Altered a little bit of history, changed a few lines, made Protocol less of an irritating hothead... you get the idea. Anyone who’s read this might just wanna give it another shot. You might find something interesting.

 

Well, enjoy the unfinished product of over four years of trial, tribulation, and that other good stuff. Comments, flames, send ‘em to me. And, no, there isn’t one of those e-mail links here. I hate those things.

Back to the top with you.