When Guy awoke, he found himself in a strange place; he was lying on a cot.
Where am I? he wondered. It looked like a laboratory of some type. Perhaps... Perhaps it's Jeff's lab, where he and Kyla's father live? Then he blinked. Kyla...? Kyla!
He sat up suddenly, ignoring the sharp pain he suddenly felt in his ribs. "Kyla!" he cried. "Where is Kyla?"
"Calm down, Guy," said Jeff, who was sitting in a chair next to him. "Kyla's fine."
"I'm okay, Guy," seconded Kyla herself, who was also sitting next to him. "It's yourself you need to be worrying about; Kaatz really hurt you."
Guy looked at her and sighed with relief. "As long as you are well," he said. He felt his ribcage; the sudden pain made him jerk his hand away.
"Be careful when you move, Guy," Jeff admonished. "Kaatz's punch broke a few of your ribs, and you also took a beating from that wall you flew into. Kato and Sasha put you back together as well as they could, but their healing PSI could only do so much. You're going to be sore there for a while."
"I... see..." said Guy. He checked his glasses to make sure they were in one piece; amazingly, they were.
He looked over at Kyla. "Kyla... Kaatz did not harm you, did he?"
"I'm okay," Kyla repeated. "He paralyzed me with some kind of pseal, though. It was awful, Guy... I could see and hear what was going on, but I couldn't move at all. But Karen managed to take it off, so I'm okay."
Guy blinked. "Karen?" he said. "Karen came back?"
Jeff nodded. "Just in the nick of time, too," he said. "If she hadn't shown up just then, it would have been over for all of us."
He proceeded to explain to Guy about Giaguo's appearance in Quattro City. When he finished, he said, "So you see, Guy, Giaguo would have had all of us, especially Sasha, if Karen hadn't suddenly appeared and caught him off guard."
Guy nodded. "I understand," he said.
He carefully tried to stand up, and managed to do so, although he didn't feel very confident. Once he was on his feet, he looked around. "Where... Where are the others?" he asked.
Kyla answered him. "Deckard and Kato are standing guard outside," she said. "Karen took Dad back to Quattro City to get the Phase Distorter III back. Sasha is upstairs, with Zain. Zain is..." She trailed off.
"What is it?" asked Guy. "What is the matter with Zain?"

"He won't wake up," said Sasha.
"What has happened to him?" asked Guy. He was leaning on Kyla for support, since he found it hard to walk with his injuries.
"I don't know," replied Sasha sadly. "Kaatz did something to him with a pseal, and he passed out. I haven't been able to wake him up since." She looked at the strange pseal on Zain's forehead. "I tried healing him, I tried shaking him, and I even tried pouring water on him..."
"We even tried putting him in the Instant Revitalizing Device," Jeff added. "Nothing works."
Guy looked at Kyla. "Karen was able to remove the paralyzing pseal from you, correct?"
Kyla nodded. "Yes, she broke it with her empathic PSI."
Guy pointed to the pseal on Zain's forehead. "Then why did she not simply break that one as well?"
"She couldn't do it," Jeff replied. "She tried, but she couldn't do it. She told us that the pseal was too close to his mind; if she were to break it, it could kill him."
"But there has to be some way to wake him up!" said Sasha. "There has to be!" She looked as if she were on the verge of crying. "There just has to be..."
Just then, a bright flash came from downstairs. A moment later, they heard Apple Man's voice from below. "Jeff! Jeff, you need to see this!"
"Just a moment!" Jeff called back. He turned to the others. "We'd better go and see what he wants."
"Agreed," said Guy. "But what about Zain?"
Jeff looked over at Zain's unconscious form. "Well..."
Sasha looked up at them. "All of you can go," she said. "I'll stay here with him."
Jeff nodded. "Okay. Let us know if his condition changes."

Downstairs, they found Apple Man and Karen waiting for them with the Phase Distorter III. Seeing Guy, Karen smiled. "Guy, I'm glad you're awake!" she said.
Still being supported by Kyla, Guy returned the smile. "It... is good to see you again, Karen," he replied. Noting her hat, he added, "That hat suits you."
"Really?" Karen asked. She took it off and looked at it. "It was my father's..."
Apple Man stepped forward. "I don't mean to interrupt, but..."
"What is it, Dad?" asked Kyla. "What's the matter?"
Apple Man looked at Jeff. "Jeff, it's the Phase Distorter III," he explained. "When Karen and I found it, I checked it out to make sure that no one had tampered with it while we were gone. And then I found it."
"Found what, Apple Man?" asked Jeff.
"It's the Zexonyte," Apple Man answered. "It's begun to develop impurities."
"WHAT?" Jeff blurted out. "That can't be!"
"It is!" replied Apple Man. He opened a panel in the side of the machine's hull. "Look at it!"
Everyone looked. Inside the panel, there was a small rock housed in a bracket, with various wires and probes connected to it. It was giving off a pulsing red light... Except in certain places, where dark, black spots had begun to appear on it.
"What is this, Dad?" asked Kyla.
Apple Man looked at her. "This is called Zexonyte, Kyla," he explained. "It's an extremely rare mineral." He pointed to it. "It's this mineral, Zexonyte, that makes the Phase Distorter system possible." Then he looked at Jeff. "See those black spots throughout the stone?" he asked.
Jeff nodded. "Those shouldn't be there," he said.
"Those are the impurities," stated Apple Man. "They're even larger than they were before I brought the Phase Distorter III back here. The impurities are expanding every time we use the machine."
Jeff scrutinized the stone, adjusting his glasses. "So, when these impurities completely cover the stone..."
Apple Man finished for him. "...The Phase Distorter III will become inoperable."
Jeff sighed. "When did this start to happen?" he asked. "I just looked at the Zexonyte last week, and it was completely fine then."
Kyla's father shrugged. "I don't know exactly when," he said. "But I do know that it was recent. And the impurities are growing larger exponentially."
Guy nodded, understanding. "So then," he said, "this means that the Phase Distorter III cannot be used much longer."
"Exactly, Guy," said Apple Man. "We can only use it about three or four more times before we completely lose the Zexonyte."
Kyla leaned in close to the stone, examining it. "Isn't there any way we can use the machine without the Zexonyte?" she asked.
Jeff shook his head. "No, there isn't," he answered. "Believe me; I should know. I tried to use the original Phase Distorter without Zexonyte once, and it wasn't an experience I'd care to repeat."
He sighed again, staring at the rock. "I guess it's only to be expected..." he said. "After all, I've been using this machine for the past 30 years. It was foolish to believe that the Zexonyte would last forever; in fact, I'm surprised that this didn't start to happen sooner."
Kyla looked at Jeff, then at her father. "Dad, Jeff, isn't there anything that we can do about it?" she asked. "There must be something, right?"
"There is," replied Apple Man. "We have to get more Zexonyte."
Karen, who had been listening, joined in the conversation. "Where can we find it?" she asked.
Apple Man turned to her. "Unfortunately, the Zexonyte mineral does not exist naturally on this planet," he explained.
Guy blinked. "Then how did you manage to obtain this one?" he asked, pointing at the rock.
Jeff turned away from the Zexonyte rock and faced everyone. "Zexonyte is sometimes found in certain meteorites," he said. "This particular sample was extracted from a meteorite on top of a hill in Onett."
Karen's eyes lit up. "The meteor that my father saw, 30 years ago!" she exclaimed. "I saw it!"
"You saw it, Karen?" said Guy. "That is wonderful news! We can simply go and extract another sample of Zexonyte from it!"
Jeff shook his head. "Actually, that's not the case," he said sheepishly. "After we defeated Giygas--" He stopped, and then looked away, as Giaguo's words came back. "After we defeated the Giygas machine that was sent to our planet, my father traveled to Onett and extracted the rest of the Zexonyte from the meteor there, to use in various experiments. The remaining samples were consumed in those experiments; there are none left."
"Then what can we do?" asked Kyla.
Once again, Karen came up with the answer. "What about Zain's meteor, the one he saw back in Primera?" she suggested. "If it's the same kind as the one my father saw, then wouldn't it have some Zexonyte too?"
Jeff smacked his forehead. "I must be a moron," he said in self-reproachment. "I'd completely forgotten about that one, and I've seen it!" He turned to Karen. "Zain's meteor looked very similar to Ness' one. It's quite possible that it too could have Zexonyte in it."
"If that is the case," said Guy, "we can travel to Primera and extract Zexonyte from the meteor."
Apple Man shook his head. "It's not that simple," he said. "We're in Winters right now. We're nowhere near Hawkland, and I don't think it's feasible to use the Phase Distorter III right now."
"I can teleport to Primera," Karen offered.
"Have you ever been there?" asked Jeff.
Karen shook her head.
"Then you can't teleport there," Jeff informed her. "That's the main limitation of PSI teleportation, Karen: you can only teleport to a place you've been to before. The only reason you were able to bring us here is because your parents brought you here as a baby."
Karen paused, taking in this information. After thinking for a moment, she proposed another idea. "What if I teleported to Duplora, and went to Primera another way from there?" she asked.
"No," Jeff replied, shaking his head negatively. "You could do that, but it would take quite some time... Time we may not have." He stopped, as if he had not meant to say this much; but since he had, he continued. "This... This laboratory isn't very far from Stonehenge, and I don't believe we're very safe here; that's why Kato and Deckard are keeping watch outside. If something happens, we'll need you to get us out quickly, Karen. You're the only one who can teleport, so we need you to stay here."
Karen nodded slowly. "Okay, I understand."
Guy looked at Jeff and Apple Man. "But what shall we do, then?" he asked. "We cannot merely sit here. There is still much we have to accomplish, such as the acquisition of the other five Sanctuaries."
Kyla nodded in agreement, backing Guy up. "And if it might be dangerous to stay here, then why are we staying here?" she added. "We shouldn't be staying near Stonehenge with Zain and Sasha!"
Jeff sighed and slumped over. As Guy watched, he suddenly noticed how tired and exhausted Jeff looked. He looks as if something troubles him greatly, Guy thought to himself. He realized that Jeff had been hiding this, pretending that everything was fine.
"I know, Guy," Jeff finally responded. "I know. It's just... I didn't want to move Zain again until he wakes up, or at least until we know what's wrong with him." He looked around the lab. "Also, there are a lot of devices here that we could use, and I wanted to try and pack some of them to take with us. Kyla, her father and I worked on fixing them for about a week, and I really don't want all our work to go to waste."
Kyla nodded. "...We did spend a lot of time on them," she admitted. "But we know that Giaguo and Kaatz planned to use Stonehenge again." She herself had discovered that. "They may already be using it again. If they find out that Zain and Sasha are here, then..."
Apple Man, who had not spoken for a while, interrupted. "But likewise, they might not be using it yet, Kyla," he reminded her. He looked at everyone else. "The problem is, we don't know; during the week when the three of us worked on the machines, we never went back to look again."
Guy thought of something. "Perhaps you could use the laboratory's global scanning equipment to see whether or not they are using it again?"
"We could," agreed Apple Man. "But the enemy has more advanced technology; if we scan Stonehenge, someone will probably notice."
Guy sighed in frustration; it seemed that no matter what any one of them suggested, it was either unfeasible or too dangerous. "There must be SOMETHING we can accomplish!" he exclaimed, exasperated. "Perhaps if one of us traveled to Stonehenge to check on it?"
Jeff turned to him, looking increasingly more worn out. "But whoever goes to check will be put into even more danger," he said.
Karen put her hands on her hips. "But Guy's right, Jeff," she said. "We have to do SOMETHING!"
Suddenly a voice spoke out from behind Guy and Kyla. "I can go and check," said Kato.
Caught by surprise, everyone turned to him. The door to the lab stood open, and Kato and Deckard stood in the doorway; outside, it was dark out, and snow was falling. In their discussion, no one had even heard the two of them come in.
Sensing Jeff and Apple Man's unspoken question, Kato spoke again. "It is safe outside the laboratory, for now," he said. "Neither Deckard nor myself perceived anything amiss. I can go to Stonehenge and find out what we want to know."
Jeff shook his head. "It's too dangerous..."
"I will not be caught," stated Kato, as if it were the only possible outcome. "I will return promptly, in under an hour." He turned and went back out the door, disappearing into the night.
Deckard stared in the direction he had gone, and then turned back to the others. "I'll keep watching outside, in case something happens," he said. He went back outside, closing the door behind him.
Kyla looked at the door. "Aren't they even cold out there?" she wondered.
Karen shrugged. "Their training probably lets them endure the elements better than we do," she supposed.
Jeff sighed. "I hope Kato will be okay..." he said.
Reaching into the Phase Distorter III, Apple Man got out his toolbox and opened it up. "I guess the only thing we can do is wait for him to come back. In the meantime, I'll try and find out what's causing the Zexonyte to develop impurities," he said. He opened a panel next to the Zexonyte chamber and started poking around in it with the tools.
Jeff looked at him. "Okay, Apple Man," he said. "I... I think I'm going to sit down for a while." He walked over to the other side of the lab and sat down in an armchair, slumping over in exhaustion.
"Something's wrong with him," said Karen, looking at Jeff.
Guy nodded in agreement. "He seems to be greatly troubled by something. Perhaps we should find out what it is."

They walked over to where Jeff was sitting. "Jeff, what is the matter?" asked Guy. "You have not been yourself lately."
Looking up at them, Jeff shook his head. "It's... It's nothing that you need to bother yourselves with," he told them.
"Hiding your problems only makes them worse," said Kyla. "Please, tell us what's wrong."
Jeff slumped down further in the chair. After a long pause, he said, "...It's Giygas."
"Giygas?" Karen repeated.
Jeff took off his glasses and closed his eyes. "Thirty years ago, Ness, Paula, Poo, and myself went up against Giygas," he said. "After everything that the four of us had been through together, we were finally at the final showdown. Everything that happened before had been leading up to that battle."
He paused to look at them. The three youths stared back at him, listening intently.
Putting his glasses back on and pushing them into place with the tip of his finger, he continued. "Everything we had, we brought to bear against Giygas, to free our world from his evil influence. Each of the four of us gave our all, fighting for ourselves, for each other, for everyone else in the world, and for everything we believed in."
As Jeff spoke, Guy wondered what it must have been like, to face such a terrible enemy. Surely, it must have been a horrific battle, he thought to himself.
Guessing Guy's unspoken questions, Jeff looked him right in the eye. "Facing Giygas... Is a truly terrible ordeal," he described. "It's like facing the worst nightmare of... everything. As if all of the evil in the world, in the universe itself, had gathered right in front of you." To Guy, Kyla, and Karen's surprise, he actually shuddered at the memory.
Kyla shuddered as well, from the thought of what Jeff had gone through. "How did you defeat such a thing?" she asked. "How could anyone stand up to that?"
"It wasn't easy," admitted Jeff. "In fact, we came perilously close to NOT winning. Despite all of our power, Giygas was far stronger than anything we could ever hope to attain. Even Ness, with the power of his eight Sanctuaries, was nothing compared to Giygas."
"Then how did you win?" asked Karen.
"In the end, it was your mother," Jeff answered. "Giygas simply kept attacking us in a strange method that I've still never been able to understand. Both Poo and I had exhausted all of our energy, and we could barely do anything else but watch. Ness was holding on, but even he wouldn't have lasted much longer; Giygas' attacks were too powerful. His energy nearly spent, he put all of his efforts into guarding Paula."
"But what did my mother do?" Karen asked impatiently.
"She had nothing left to fight Giygas with either," Jeff continued. "The only reason she hadn't been incapacitated like Poo and I was because Ness, out of his love for her, was protecting her from the full force of Giygas' attacks. With our doom upon us and nothing left, your mother prayed."
"Prayed?" Karen repeated, confused.
Jeff nodded in confirmation. "She prayed. It was a last, desperate call for help, from anyone, against the nightmare that was about to destroy us." He smiled suddenly, remembering what happened next. "The strange thing was, people heard her."
Guy blinked. "Heard her? How could that be?"
"I'm still not entirely sure," said Jeff. "My hypothesis is that in her prayer, Paula performed the most powerful act of telepathy ever witnessed. If that is correct, then with her telepathy, she reached across space and time itself and somehow contacted people. From what we learned after returning home, everyone who heard Paula felt an undeniable urge to pray in return... And if my hypothesis is correct, their prayers and desires were sent back to Paula through her telepathy."
Karen suddenly remembered what Frank Fly had told her during her brief visit to Onett: "I still remember that like it was yesterday; it was the only time I ever prayed for anything." So that's why... Karen thought, amazed. I wonder if... if I could ever do something like that? After all, I inherited my own telepathy from her...
"In any case," said Jeff, "everyone's prayers came back to us. And then something even stranger happened: the force of their desire actually damaged Giygas. The combined power of everyone's prayers harmed Giygas far worse than anything the four of us had done."
Jeff paused and looked at Karen. "Your mother kept praying, and each time, someone else's prayer came back. And each time it did, Giygas was damaged even worse. But even this strange, unbelievable phenomenon was not enough to defeat Giygas."
"Even with everyone praying for you?" Kyla repeated. "Then how did you finally defeat Giygas?"
"Eventually, Paula ran out of people to pray to," said Jeff. "Everyone had helped us, but it still wasn't enough to defeat Giygas. Paula tried to pray again, but no one answered her. So in a final, desperate call for help, Paula called out for someone, ANYONE, to help us. And in that final prayer... Someone answered."
"Who?" asked Karen. "Who answered her?"
Jeff shrugged. "I honestly don't know. But whoever, or whatever, it was, it was far more powerful than anything any of us had ever felt before... Perhaps even more powerful than Giygas himself. The presence of its prayer was so strong that all four of us, not just Paula, could feel it. And when this prayer came back to us... Giygas was literally torn apart by its force."
Guy folded his arms, thinking. "So that is how Giygas was vanquished," he said.
"Yes," said Jeff. "Alone, we would have never survived, but with the help of others, we somehow prevailed."
He slumped back in the chair again. "I told you this because I wanted you to know how truly horrible Giygas was," he explained. "So that you would understand the way I feel right now."
Karen did indeed understand. "It's because of what we learned from Giaguo," she said.
Jeff nodded. "When I learned that Giygas, the worst nightmare that this world has ever seen, was nothing more than a machine, created by Giaguo's people, and that there are over 700 more of him somewhere out there in the universe... It makes what we did thirty years ago seem insignificant."
"But it wasn't insignificant!" Karen exclaimed. "Because of you, and Poo, and my parents, Giaguo's people don't rule this world!"
Jeff shrugged. "But what difference does that make? What's stopping them from sending another Giygas? Or more than one? I doubt we have the power to stop another Giygas, let alone two or three of him."
Guy shook his head. "That is not a valid reason to give up, Jeff," he stated. "You cannot simply quit because the odds are against you. If you had, then the four of you would never have defeated a Giygas machine in the first place."
"Guy's right," Kyla agreed. "Besides, don't you remember the other thing Giaguo said? He said that the Giygas who came here is the only one who was ever defeated. Out of so many races that Giaguo's people must have conquered, ours is the only one who successfully fought back!" She spread her arms, appealing to Jeff. "Doesn't that count for something?"
Jeff stared at Kyla, and then his gaze moved to Guy, and then to Karen. "...You three... are a lot better than I am," he finally said, shaking his head and smiling. "You're absolutely right. I used to think like you do, a long time ago... I guess I let old age catch up with me."
He stood up, getting out of the chair. "You're right," he repeated. "It's precisely because we never gave up that we beat Giygas thirty years ago." He grinned at them. "When people get older, they start to believe that there are limits to what a person can do... But when you're young, you believe that nothing is impossible. And that's the reason why I devoted my life to science: to make the impossible happen. I can't believe I lost sight of that."
"It's okay," said Kyla. "After all, you can't always believe in the impossible without motivation from people who believe in you."
Jeff nodded. "Again, you're right," he said.
Guy beamed; it looked like they were back in business. "So, what shall we do now?" he asked.
There was no hesitation in Jeff's answer this time. "We have to find the rest of the Sanctuaries," he said emphatically. "But first, we have to do something to help Zain."
"Indeed we do," Guy agreed. "Zain is our friend; we must do everything we can to help him."
"Right," Jeff agreed. He looked at Karen. "Karen, are you sure you can't do anything about that strange pseal on Zain?"
Karen shook her head. "I looked at it for an instant using my telepathy," she said. "It's different than the one that was on Kyla. The pseal that was on Kyla did nothing other than block her mind's connection with the body, paralyzing her." She looked at Zain. "Zain's pseal is much more closely entwined with his mind."
Guy put his hand to his chin, thinking. "Entwined?" he repeated. "What do you mean by that, Karen?"
"Well..." Karen thought, trying to think of how to explain it. "Well, we all know that Zain is an empathic psychic, right?"
They all nodded back at her. "Right," said Kyla. "Just like you, now."
"That's right," said Karen, although she still didn't know how she had acquired that kind of power. "Well, as an empathic psychic, Zain's PSI is fueled by his emotions; the use of it is as natural and instinctive to him as breathing."
She paused a moment, to make sure that they understood all of that. Seeing that they had, she continued. "From what I've learned through my telepathy, Zain's mind is wrapped in a protective, shifting aura, which protects it from outside influence. I don't think Zain even knows about it."
"I see," said Guy thoughtfully. "It must be an instinctive protection that he manifests subconsciously, through his PSI."
Karen nodded. "Anyway, the pseal that Kaatz put on Zain looks like it was specifically created to attack emotion," she explained. "When I looked at Zain's mind through my telepathy... His mind was completely covered with... black. There was nothing there but black. I couldn't see anything, not even Zain's emotional barrier."
"Is that why he won't wake up?" asked Kyla. "Is the pseal keeping him unconscious?"
"It must be," Karen answered. "The only problem is, I don't know if that's all it's doing to him. I couldn't tell, even with my telepathy. The pseal could be doing something even worse to his mind as we speak, but I just don't know..."
Jeff looked at her. "And you're sure you can't remove it?" he asked.
Shaking her head, Karen replied, "No, I can remove it," she said. "It might be a little harder than Kyla's, but I could probably use my empathic PSI to remove it. But the pseal is affecting his mind too closely; if I break the pseal, it could break Zain's mind as well. If that didn't kill him, it would turn him into a permanent vegetable."
Guy sighed. "So then, we do not have very many options at our disposal," he said. "But there must exist a safe way to remove it."
"Well, Kaatz could probably do it, since he's the one who put it on Zain in the first place," said Karen. "But that's probably not going to happen."
"But there must be some other way..." said Kyla.
Jeff thought it over for a while. "...I guess... I guess we're just going to have to ask someone about it," he said. "Someone who probably knows more than we do about things like this. And, I think I have someone in mind..."
Before Jeff could say who, the door to the lab opened, and Kato entered, followed by Deckard. "Jeff!" Kato called. On the other side of the room, Apple Man looked up from his work, startled.
Jeff turned to Kato. "What is it, Kato?" he asked.
Kato came over to them. "It's not good," he said. "There is activity at Stonehenge. The aliens have apparently resumed their operations there, and I believe that they are preparing to launch an assault on this place."
"An assault?" exclaimed Karen. "Did they find us?"
Jeff shook his head. "I doubt they found us," he said. "But they know that I live here, and Giaguo and Kaatz both saw me with you. They're probably going to attack just to tie up a loose end." He sighed. "It's my fault. We should never have stayed here this long."
"It is not your fault, Jeff," Kato replied. "But what are we to do now?"
Jeff folded his arms. "We have to leave."

To be continued...