The Forgotten Past Part 4: Preparations
	It was a rainy morning in the city of Ellay. On one of the many 
busy streets was a small cafe. The atmosphere inside hinted toward the 
fact that it had once been a bar. The only person working there was a guy 
named Teddy. He was tall and spent a lot of time at the gym. The latter 
was apparent just by looking at him.The only real sign that he was 
actually approaching sixty was his graying hair. 
	Teddy whistled the chorous of "Hotel California" as he scrubbed 
down the counter. When he heard the sound of the door opening, he stopped 
humming and looked up. When he saw who was there, his expression hardened. 
Another man entered. He wore a trench coat that covered any noticeable 
physical features.
	"What have you decided?" Teddy asked.
	"I'm not going to tell his family."
	"But if we're right, then they will be next."
	"We are right. There is no other reason that makes sense."
	"Then we should at least protect them! We're doing nothing to stop 
it from happening again."
	"It already happened again."
	"You mean Tammy Marlow?"
	"Yeah. Thank God I got there before the police. This time, they 
made no attempt to be secretive."
	"So you covered their tracks." Teddy got out a glass. "What'll it 
be?" 
	"The usual."
	"Sorry, but there isn't a place in Ellay that sells your usual 
anymore." 
	The man looked shocked, but it was hard to be sure. "What do 
people do?"
	"They go on caffine binges. I've seen people on their 30th 
expresso, tottering down the steet, so hyper,they mutter nonsense words." 
The other man shuddered at the image.
	"I'll just have some ice water."
	"Whatever you say." Teddy poured him a glass and the man took a 
sip. Then, Teddy's expression grew more serious. "I don't like this. 
We're helping them by covering it up."
	"We're preventing the matter from escalating. If people realized 
what was going on, there'd be widespread painic." 
	"I still don't like it, Jack. If this goes on much longer, you are 
going to have to find someone else to do your dirty work."
	"Are you sure you want to do that?"
	"I once met someone who told me that the discovery of truth was 
the most important objective in life."
	"That hurts, Ted."
	"Do you have any idea where they might strike next?"
	"No."
	"Do you want some more ice water?" Jack looked down at his 
ice-filled glass. 
	"No thanks. I'd better get going. Something mysterious has 
happened in Dalaam." He got up from his place at the counter and exited 
the cafe. The rain was falling harder now. It came down in sheets due to 
the strong wind. Jack shook his head as he wondered how his life had ended 
up this way.
					***
	Poo woke up to find nothing but chaos. He had discovered upon his 
return that Shalo, the youngest daughter
had been missing for two days. As the ambassador had put it, she was loose 
in the world. Although the entire castle was in an uproar, only Naloni 
seemed truely sorry that Shalo was gone. He knew that she wasn't very 
talkative, but he'd thought it was because she hadn't really wanted to be
there.  
	"First we must search Dalaam. She couldn't have gotten very far." 
Poo's father, King Tigarn ordered. Poo noticedhow uncomfortable Naloni 
seemed as he said this. "Explore everywhere, including Pink Cloud." 
Poo was just about to leave when Naloni pulled him aside.
	"Poo, Shalo could be anywhere. She has powers like you have."
	"Psi?"
	"Yeah. She hides them because she doesn't like a lot of attention. 
The point is, she can teleport."
	"Do you have any idea where she might be?"
	"No, she didn't tell me anything, except that she wanted to see a 
big city."
	"Fourside?" 
	"She didn't say which one." Poo remebered the dream from the night 
before. He wondered if Ellay was a big city.Instead of heading out with 
the search party, Poo decided to go to Onett. When he realized that Ness 
was in school for another two weeks, he headed to Twoson and Polestar 
Preschool. Paula answered the door.
	"Hi, Poo. What a surprise." He explained the situation. "You had 
that dream, too?" He nodded. 
"Well, we'd better rule out Fourside, at least. Could you head there? I'll 
get a hold of Jeff and try to findout more about Ellay."
	"I'll come back later with my findings. What about Ness?" 
	"He won't be out of school until 6:00. It seems like his makeup 
work never ends."
	"Paula! Come watch the movie with us!" one of the little kids 
called.
	"I've gotta go. See you later, Poo." He teleported away and she 
closed the door.
					***
	"And remember class that the tangent of the angle is equal to the 
slope. Now on to cosins. Bla, bla bla bla..."Ness's teacher's words seemed 
to blur together. It wasn't that he was tired, it was his lack of interest 
and the teacher's lack of expression that made math class 45 minutes too 
long. [Just two more weeks and I'm outta here.] he thought.
	When he got home from school, he found Jeff's Sky Runner in the 
front yard. [I wonder what he wants.] 
	"Hi, Ness."
	"How long have you been waiting?" Ness dropped his backpack on the 
floor. Jeff could tell by the loud sound and the thickness of the backpack 
that Ness had a lot of homework.
	"Not long. Looks like they're really loading it on, aren't they?"
	"They always do at the end of the year. Hey, did you have a really 
weird dream last night?"
	"Yeah." Jeff pushed his glasses up on his nose, but the tape that 
held them together broke apart and the two halves fell to the floor. 
Luckily, Jeff wasn't completely blind without glasses and was able to find 
the two halves without damaging them further. Ness found the duct tape and 
handed it to Jeff. 
"I didn't have any duct tape availabe when I taped them last.I should look 
into getting new glasses."
	"So, uh why are you here?"
	"Well, Paula called me earlier. She said that a daughter of the 
ambassador at Poo's ran away. 
Apparently, she can use Psi. We were hoping you would help us look for her, 
but it looks like you have 
your hands full."
	"Are you kidding! I just spent the last ten hours in school. 
The last thing I want to do is moreschool. Do we have any idea where she 
might be?"
	"A big city."
	"I suppose you've already checked Fourside."
	"Poo checked every inch three times, even Magnet Hill." 
	Ness considered for a moment. "I wonder if Ellay is a big city."
	"You had that dream too? Paula, Poo and I had the same dream."
	"Two guys talking and then..."
	"Yeah."
	"It looks like another adventure is beginning, but it can't start 
for another two weeks. I did not work this hard just to go to summer 
school."
	"It'll probably take Apple Kid and I that long to find the city 
and to figure out a little more about what's going on."
	"We'd better get going." They rode in the Sky Runner 2.0 to Dalaam, 
where Paula and Poo were waiting. The search party had reassembled and l
ooked puzzled. 
	Paula waved to Jeff and Ness. "Hi, guys." After the greetings, 
everyone was brought up to speed. Paula had checked Summers earlier that 
afternoon and Jeff investigated Scaraba. 
	"The only question I have besides 'Where is Ellay?' is has she 
ever been to Ellay before? We know you can only teleport to places you've 
been," Ness said.
	"I'll ask him," Poo answered. 
	"I'm going to contact Apple Kid and see if we can find out more 
about Ellay, like where it's located." Jeff informed them.
	"Why would she ever think to go to Ellay in the first place? Did 
she have a dream about it like we did or is there some other reason she 
wants to go there?" Paula wondered. 
	"I guess we'll find out. If she's there, of course," Ness replied. 
"You guys should just go ahead as soon as you can."
	"No way. Two weeks isn't that long. It's like I said, we don't 
know how long the research will take, in any case." Jeff told him. The 
others were nodding in agreement. "We should probably tellthe ambassador 
and your dad about this, though," he addedto Poo, who nodded. From there, 
they decided to rule out any other cities that might seem large. Ness and 
Paula investigated Onett and Jeff and Poo checked out Threed. Both parties 
were unsuccessful. 
	Afterwards, Poo explained the situation to Naloni. "I will not 
mention her Psi, but they should know that she was planning to go to a big 
city and could be anywhere."
	"That's as good as mentioning her Psi! Besides, they'll want to 
know how you know. It's pretty obvious she practically ignored you."
	"Then maybe you should tell them."
	"You don't understand anything!"
	"I understand she left because she wanted to, but I have seen the 
world and I know she could be in trouble." The conversation ended there. 
The next day, the ambassador announced thatShalo could be anywhere and he 
had contacted the authorities in a city called Ellay, where it was 
suspected she might be. Naloni did not speak to Poo too much afterwards. 
					***
	Apple Kid and Jeff were hard at work looking up information on 
Ellay. Although they did discover where it was located and that it was a 
large city, they did not discover much modern news. Most of what they 
found on the internet and from travel agencies concerned the fact that 
there wasn't a bar in the city. 
	"We only have a week left and we still haven't found a decent map 
of the place!" Jeff exclaimed. 
	"It must be a boring city. There are hardly any points of 
interest," Apple Kid added.
	Jeff glanced at a clock on the wall. It read 7:34. "I have to head 
back to school pretty soon, or else I'll be up until midnight."
	"Jeez, my school gives hardly any homework at the end of the year. 
How long do you have left?" 
	"Three days. Most of it is studying for finals."
	"My school doesn't have finals."
	"You are really lucky." Jeff and Apple Kid fell silent as their 
less-than-state-of-the-art computers loaded up Ellay sites.After a few 
moments of clicking, waiting, then reading, then clicking again, Jeff 
exclaimed, "Look at this! A map!"
	"A good map, too," Apple Kid began hooking the printer up to 
Jeff's computer. "Now we're on our way!"
						***
	Ness was in charge of getting supplies, mainly because he had the 
most money. Although his mother had stored most of it in a trust fund for 
college, he still had about ten thousand dollars. His dad no longer put 
royal ammounts of cash in his account,since he no longer had to save the 
world. 
	[Let's see here... horns of life, check. Brain food lunches, 
double check. Everyone's got their own weapons and armor. 
Looks like the only thing that's left is... tomato soup? Who put that on 
there? Oh, yeah. That's fuel for the Sky Runner. Tomato soup's cheapest 
in Twoson.] He shoved the list in his pocket and teleported from Dalaam to 
Twoson. As he hurried to the departmentstore, he heard the voice of one
of the Polestar kids. "That's him, Mom! He's Paula's friend. They saved 
the world." he tugged on a very tired-looking woman's skirt. "Can I get 
his autograph, Mommy? Please?" The woman looked at him wearily. 
	"Would you mind?"
	"YAY!" 
	"Of course not." Ness replied quickly. The little boy took off his 
baseball hat and handed it to Ness. 
	"Sighn it right there," the boy pointed to the rim of the hat. 
Ness took out his pen and hastily autographed it. The boy studied his s
ignature intently.
	"Thank you." his mother sounded relieved. "What brings you to 
Twoson?"
	"Cheap tomato soup." They both laughed. "I'd better get going."
	"Thanks again!" After that, he walked into the store and was 
unnoticed until he purchased 36 cans of tomato soup. Everyonein the store 
marveled at his mysterious ability to fitall of them into his backpack and 
then actually lift it. The amazing thing was the backpack did not seem any 
more full than it had when he had walked into the store.