Tracy and Picky collapsed onto the couch, their prayers complete. Hundreds of kilometres away, an island formerly a peninsula once more became isolated.
"Woof?" (Tracy?) King licked Tracy's face.
Her body twitched slightly.
"Arf?" (Picky?) King did the same to Picky; Picky's response was similar to that of Tracy.
King yawned as best a yawn as a dog could emit. He jumped onto the couch, curled up and began to sleep beside the two children.
Aphrodite came in, exhausted from fighting off more mysterious enemies. Noticing the sound sleep Picky and Tracy had fallen into, she pulled the blankets on the couch over them.
"Sleep tight," she wished them.

(Where are we?) Picky asked.
(I don't know,) Tracy replied.
(You're in Null...) a new voice echoed. (And I need your help.)
(Our help?) Picky and Tracy both asked.
And then they were consumed in light.

They now found themselves floating above an island.
"This is the island of Fourmoon," the Apple of Enlightenment explained, "and it was formed from the merger of Fourside and its counterpart, Moonside. It is where your brother is, Tracy."
"My brother's there?" Tracy exclaimed. She tried to go further.
The Apple moved a hand in front of her.
"You can't physically see him," he said, seemingly dejected. "Right now, I'm using what would be called an out-of-body experience to show you what's hapepning."
"Then let me go home!" Tracy demanded.
"Not yet," the Apple chided. "There is something else you must hear. Your brother and his friends are trying to save the world."
"Didn't he do that a few years ago?" Picky countered.
"That is true," the Apple conceded, "but this is a different battle. A different villain he must fight; different friends must he battle with; a different world must he fight for."
"Then why tell us this?" Tracy inquired.
"They can not do it alone. As powerful together as they may be, Ness Lee and his friends are not necessarily powerful enough to defeat their foe.
"The prayers of the world helped Ness last time. This time, the prayers of the world are all the more important. This time, not even one world's prayers are enough.
"We will watch, non-interfering, and once the final battle begins in earnest, you shall awake.
"Upon that time, it is up to you. Rally those around you to pray for your brother and his friends, Tracy Lee. Rally the people of the world to pray for them. Rally all you can to pray for them..."

"Sleep...?" Siris said, quickly scanning his memory for the proper spell. "Yes, I can put him to sleep. You need to be careful, though, Harsemhin. As soon as I cast the spell, you need to hold your breath."
Harsemhin didn't argue; he trusted Siris enough to know what he was doing.
"Send my foes into dreamless sleep..." Siris chanted as he hand his palms toward the werewolf that was Matt. "Slumber Mist!"
A spray of bluish vapour sprayed from Siris hands, and Harsemhin held his breath. Matt breathed in the mist, and promptly fell asleep. The mist disappeared, and Harsemhin drew a breath. He sighed in relief as he was able to let go of the sedated beast.
"I'm not sure how long this will last," Siris admitted. "But it should give us some time to maybe change him back to human form."
"Yes, thank you, Siris," Harsemhin said.

"Okay people, we're appraoching the shore!" cried Beta team leader, waving for the soldiers to prepare themselves. "Remember, contain anyone or anything that looks suspicious!"
The neon glow of the buildings reflected off the soldier's body armour. They held their guns tightly as they gazed upon upon the spectacle. They saw things so bizarre, that they could have never devised even in their wildest nightmares.
The transport ships hit the shore almost simultaneously, and hit the sand with a resounding "thump." The ends unlatched and opened the way for the soldiers.
"Follow my lead" ordered the Omega squad leader, signaling for his battalion to follow. The men grouped up into there squadrons and blined up behind their leaders.
"Omega team take the north side, Beta take the south!" yelled the alpha team leader, positioning his men and double-checking stature and equipment. "Our first priority to find whatever is causing..." Stopping for a moment, he turned to the city and raised his arms. "Whatever the HECK this is!"
The two forces began making there way through the streets. The were scanning every inch of pavement and every building for their unknown enemy. It wouldn't be long before they came across the group...

"Finally!" Harsemhin exclaimed. "He's reverting..."
As Matt slowly returned to his human form, Harsemhin prepared to remove the ropes binding him to the stick.
Matt awoke from the effects of Slumber Mist.
"Did I... wolf out again?"
Cirra nodded. "We had some help restraining you from a man in the moon."
Dan smiled meekly, looking anxiously at the moon. "Even though that help also made us a new enemy..."
"I hear someone coming," Siris announced. "We should get going, in case they're Raltise's flunkies."
"Scorpius Blade!" Harsemhin ripped the final shreds of the rope from the stick. "Let's go, then."
The group dodged down a rather dark alley as the army walked by.
"Remember," one sergeant warned, "if anything appears odd, kill it before it can call for help. This situation is dangerous now; we do not want anything to make it worse."
Mike slumped down. "This isn't good."
"I'd have to agree," Skulryk admitted. "We have a person from the past, people who die and come back, a lycanthrope -- that's a werewolf for those who don't know, Princesses who want to be metre maids, and what have you. It's almost a given that this army would go after us..."

Raltise smiled.
"My first worthy adversaries appear to be in fear of my newest worthy adversaries," he mused.
"Knowing them, they would attempt to remain away from the army as long as possible. But should I prepare the army that the army is urged to hunt them, rather than me, my life would be much easier, for then I could thereby quash the larger army.
"As the army is not as diverse in their capabalities as these first warriors are, if I were to remove the latter, the former would be weakened and thus easier to defeat.
"But if I were to remove the latter, I myself could not do that, for the army would then turn on me.
"And removing the latter would entail having to remove them all at once, for I sense a strong bond holds the group together..."
Raltise groaned.
"I have to destroy a great amount of Fourmoon to defeat my current nemeses... But do I have that much power?"

"Picky!" Lardna cried. "Wake up!"
She angrily shook her son's unmoving body.
"Calm down, Lardna!" Ness' mom urged. "We don't want to traumatise him!"
"SHUT UP, PATRICIA! I'm going to wake my son up whether you want me to. Or not."
King yawned awake.
"Woof..." (Wha...)
Lardna stomped off and produced one feather.
"What are you trying to do?" Patricia Lee demanded.
Lardna pulled off one of Picky's socks.
"I'm going to tickle him awake."

Picky started convulsing uncontrollably.
"Ahahaaahaaahahaaaa... ahahahaaaaaaaahahahahaha..."
"Picky... what's wrong?" Tracy was concerned.
"My toes... being tickled!" Picky spat out before he fell again into a stupor of laughter.
"Why is he laughing?" Tracy demanded of the Apple of Enlightment.
"Someone where his body is... is tickling him," the Apple explained.
"It must be Lard... Lardna then. Heehee... Larnda..."
And Tracy, too, began laughing uncontrollably.
"Stop, Lardna!" Patricia cried. "Don't tickle both of them!"
"I'll do what I like as long as I wake them up!"

Raltise extended his powers of control to the heads of the army forces.
"Now," he urged silkily, "there is a group of twelve or thirteen persons in an alley. They are who have caused this grave monstrosity to occur. Destroy them!"

"Skulryk," Siris said worriedly as he looked carefully around. "You're definitely right."
"What?" Skulryk demanded. "Have they found us already?"
Siris shook his head. "No, but they're very close. I normally wouldn't be able to sense them, since they're ordinary humans. But there are many of them..." He trailed off.
"We can take 'em, right?" RG said. "Most of us aren't ordinary humans."
"I have no doubt that we could hold our own, if we combined our powers and if we all gave it everything we have," Siris said, glancing briefly at Luna. "But... these are the good guys. It would be wrong to take their lives."
Harsemhin thought out loud: "There must be a way we can contain them without harming them very badly."
Siris shrugged. "Not much I can do. My disabling spells are meant for one target at a time."
Cyan looked up. "Maybe we can scare them away?"
Siris concentrated. "There are two teams. The leaders of those teams are likely to be solid, but the soldiers might not be."
"It's worth a try, at least," Cirra added. "I mean, some of us look rather odd or out of place." She grinned at Siris, or rather, at his hair.
Siris almost said something to this, but decided against it. He thought to himself: Here in Fourmoon... nothing seems out of place.
"Well, whatever we're going to do, we ought to do it rather quickly!" Siris warned. "The groups are closing in on us."
"Ok." Skulryk said. "I'm not any famous general, but we need a plan, and I'm coming in our time of need to put one together." He pulled out his notepad and pen, and opened to a blank page, laying it against the alley wall for the whole group to see. "Feel free to add suggestions." He looked over some of the group memebers. "Alright... hmm... RG, stand guard, and keep them away from this alley. No unnecessary shots!" RG looked down at this, but went to the end of the alley anyways.
"Are you sure that's a good idea, Skul?" Siris said. "RG is a little trigger-happy, you know."
Skulryk turned back to his notepad. "Don't worry, Siris. I know RG is like that, but he won't let his friends down in times of need. Now, on with it. Our best stratagy would be to disable this army, not kill them. Their policy is 'shoot first, ask questions later', which leaves us in a pickle, but they're still the good guys, no matter what the misconception could be."
"Alright," Cirra said. "We want to disable them. How do we do that?"
Skulryk spoke again. "First of all, as Siris already said, their leaders are solid, but their soldiers aren't. Siris, you say your attacks are for disabling one target. Can you attempt disabling the leaders?"
"I'll try." said Siris.
"Ok." Skulryk said. "Once their leaders are disabled, we'll have an easier time getting through. Now, I have a plan in which we can use this army towards our advantage. It's dangerous, however."
"Stop talking about it and just tell us what it is!" Mike said.
"Ok. There will be several groups." Skulryk said. He drew some crude figures on his notepad, and pointed to several as he spoke. "These are the two armies. One is near us, the other is on the opposite side of fourside. One group will act as the disabling team, to try and disable as many soldiers as possible in both groups. They'll need to travel between groups. Basically try to cause as much confusion as possible using whatever methods possible. Stuff like tear gas or smoke would be helpful, but I don't know where you'd be able to get it..."
Mike cut him off. "I have an idea on where you can get some."
"Alright, Mike. That's another group, I suppose. Anyways, besides the disabling group and the supply group, which Mike just brought up, we'll need one more group which we can use to manipulate these armies."
"Just what do you mean?" Dan said.
"Well," Skulryk said. "These armies aren't too keen on the situation now. They'll shoot at anything that moves. If we can get them to head towards where we believe Raltise is, we can use them towards our advantage. Once they find him, they'll know who the real problem is. Right now we have no way of communicating to them, as they'll shoot us before we get a word out of our mouths. It's just a matter of sending them on the right course." Skulryk said.
"So," TsuramiSea said. "How do we base where we're going to lure them to on?"
Skulryk sighed. "I don't know. A guess, I suppose. They'll raid up buildings they see along the way, so it's simply a matter of finding the building with Raltise, I suppose."
"A guess?" Kyle said. "You're basing this on a guess?"
"I'm sorry." Skulryk said. "However, this looks like it's the best solution we have. I don't want to kill them, and this way we can lure them to where we want."
"But," Cyan said. "This is really dangerous! We could all get shot!"
"Do you have any better plans? We don't have much time, and we need to prevent as many casualties as possible."
Cyan sighed and turned away. The group was silent for a moment, until Harsemhim spoke up. "Alright, what is the group dispersal?"
Skulryk flipped open to another clean page, and drew four columns. "We'll need one group to disable their leaders, one group to get supplies, and two groups to lure them towards raltise; one group for each army. You can decide group dispersal on your own, but make it quick; the army is closing in on us."
As if on cue, several shots rang across the air. RG came running towards the group. "They're coming! What are we gonna do?"

Skulryk showed RG what they were doing. RG had a sort of crooked frown on his face.
"What the heck is wrong? Why do we keep splitting into groups? Listen, if we aren't going to just face these problems together, head on, then I'm out of your strange plans."
"RG, listen. If we don't split into groups, we'll all be killed and Raltise will win!"
"I don't care. I guess all see you guys later."
And with that, RG promptly left the group, shooting, and killing, as many soldiers as he could as he went past.
"Those idiots!" RG thought "How could they keep doing this? I'll just handle things on my own!"

Taking on an unusual authority, Cirra strode forward.
"Mike and Joe! You two work together on Supply, and bring Ness, Luna and Tsurami with you!"
"Cyan, Kyle, Skulryk, and Matt, go lead the army leaders to Raltise. Dan, Harse and Siris, come with me, to help distract the main army. Got it?"
Cirra grabbed the Niveous Rod, and indicated to a ladder leading to the top of a building; the Hospital.
"Let's go guys. We can gett'em from the rooftop."

Disabling Group
Cirra stood on the top of the Hospital, with the wind going through her hair.
"They haven't spotted us yet. Ready to make a move?"
Harse nodded, but Siris looked troubled. He stepped forward, and looked down to the sidewalk, several dozen stories below. He gulped slightly.
"What's the plan?"
"We hit them with everything we've got, but not head on. We have to find a way to trap them. Siris, that's where you come in. Do you think you could use Crag Press to make a rock cage?"
Siris tapped his nose thoughtfully. "Yes, probably."
"Harse, what do you think you can do to keep them in?"
"Fire. I could make a ring of fire in or around the cage, most likely."
"Sounds good. I have a few tricks up my sleeve too. You guys ready?" Cirra said as she looked over the ledge. The army leaders were gathering in a closely knit group, patrolling the streets.
"Got it!"
"Then it's go time!" Cirra yelled. She jumped up into the air, and held the Niveous Rod above her head.
"Columba Blizzard!"
A swirling blast of ice shards and snowflakes blasted from the rod, and went hurtling toward the unsuspecting army below. With an icy smash, it collided with the ground near them, forming a large pile of snow.
That was Siris' Cue. He leaned over the edge of the building, and shouted down below.
"CRAG PRESS!"
In a split second, 8 boulders shot up from the ground beneath the men, and raised them up 25 feet into the air. Immediatly, they grabbed their guns, and began firing.
Cirra felt a bullet whizz through her hair, but thought nothing of it.
"Harse! Dan! You're up!"
Dan fired his Zapper; tasty orange vegetables came forth.
Harse raised up his hands, and shouted loudly: "Centaurus Flare!"
Over the platform of rock, a huge dome of fire formed. Harse nodded, and Cirra moved forward. She tipped herself over the edge of the building, and just as she was about to fall, she let loose a powerful ice blast from her wand. It rammed into the fire at full force, freezing it on contact.
The enemy was now completely trapped.

Elsewhere, Cyan and his group were trying to lead the other army towards Raltise. They were having mixed success. Keeping the soldiers at bay while dodging their bullets and not killing any of them did not make life simple. Matt barely saved himself a couple of times and Cyan actually did get shot, cursing under his breath and hoping the wount would heal quickly.
On the other side of the bridge they had just led the soldiers over, Skulryk saw RG running towards them and shooting.killing as many soldiers as he could manage. "On the bridge!" he cried, pointing. "RG's Trying to kill the soldiers!"
"We'd better stop him!" shouted Kyle in response.
"Mine!" yelled Cyan as he spotted an armoured transport approaching them with RG close behind. The vehicle was taking up the rear of the remainder of the army while RG shot at it even though his bullets did nothing.
As the transport reached the last section of the bridge Cyan made his move. "Yuuki no Kyuukazan!"
Cyan loosed a fireball and it streaked towards the transport. Again, the fireball did minimal damage, but that didn't matter. The last section of bridge was smashed by the stream of lava and the transport was flipped over its front and landed upside down off of the bridge. RG, however, wasn't harmed and was on the wrong side of the bridge.
Realising he'd been cut off from the soldiers, RG swore lously at Cyan who simply replied, "Now now! We don't go around killing innocent fools now do we?" while dodging bullets.
Deciding that he didn't feel like trying to jump thirty or fourty metres, RG turned and ran back to the other side of the bridge, but found it was in sad shape, too. The surface was cracked and some parts were missing, but it seemed almost passable. RG swore at Cyan again in his mind for making him lose so much time and so many kills. "Why won't they let me do this on my own? They'll never accomplish anything the way they're going!"

"Well, you heard her, let's go." Mike looked around a few times and squinted at the sky.
"Where are we going to get the stuff and.. what are you looking for," Luna asked.
"I'm looking for my man Chaz. He has many, many connections. He could probably hook us up with the stuff that we need." Mike blinked because of the blank stares he was getting. "... Oh right. He usually flashes lights and whatnot into the sky to blind any passing obsservation satellites as they pass over. He's kind of... paranoid." As Mike finished his explanation, he heard footsteps behind him.
"Hey, who're you calling paranoid? At least I take care of my identity." The footsteps belonged to Chaz, the arms dealer. "Anyways, what do ya want? We have armies roving about and people shooting at anything that moves."
"Yeah, I know. That's kind of why I wanted to find you. Ya see, we need some stuff."
"Stuff, huh? You mean, assault weapons?"
Joe spoke up. "Naw, we don't wanna mess with those fools. They'd blast us to bits. We need some smoke bombs and flash grenades and anything else that's loud and causes confusion." Mike nodded in agreement.
"So, can you hook us up?"
Chaz answered Mike almost right away. "Of COURSE I could hook you up. But you see, my stash is on the other side of town, and we gotta get over there." He eyed Mike closely. "If you help me get over there, I can give you some stuff. All the stuff you guys can carry. ... Maybe, just maybe, I could call for some support from my guys in the army. Maybe a gunship or two..."
"You will, huh? Fine, we'll get you over there. Won't we, guys?" Joe and Luna agreed readily. Tsurami nodded.
"Cool. Let's go do this, but let's stay off the streets, huh?"
"Right." Mike took the lead, with Chaz following behind him. Luna walked to the left of Chaz, Joe to the right, and Tsurami followed from behind, making sure that nobody could see them. Ness walked alongside of Tsurami doing the same thing.
The group snuck into the nearest alley and started to make their way to Chaz's arms storage area.
The six alley-runners snaked their way through various alleys, moving cautiously and taking care not to go anywhere that packs of soldiers were checking in detail. They moved reasonably quick, despite the fact that Tsurami had to hold one side of Ness up from time to time to ease the pain in Ness's ankle.
Chaz examined the surroundings carefully after nearly a half hour of silent moving. "Mmm... eh.... ah, yeah! My warehouse should be nearby. Unfortunately, there's a large clearing where we might be spotted."
Ness straightened, easing out of Tsurami's hold. "Ah..... wait! I sense something in that direction!"
The group walked several yards, to see a warehouse building. With a handful of soldiers mulling around.
"Greeeeaaaaat..... that helps a lot," muttered Luna.
"It's not THAT many," replied Mike.
Ness was squinting. A bright flash of light went off over by the warehouse, directly in the view of the soldiers. Some of them started to rant and rave, others grew still. "Will that help?" he asked the others.
Mike chuckled nervously. "Er..... yeah, that should do it. We can probably sneak by now."
Before this action could be carried out, all were standing behind a stack of barrels outside the warehouse doors. Luna, Tsurami, and Chaz were very shocked, Mike and Ness less so. Joe, staring at his rod, looked up in surprise. "OH..... uh... hey, wait a minute...."
"Never mind, let's get in! I don't think I saw any of 'em back by the other entrance." Chaz lead the others to the location he spoke of.

Muffled clinks were heard against the dome of frozen fire.
Dan shook his head. "How long can it hold?"
"Long enough, let's hope, for the others to make headway," answered Siris. "If they get the other units of the army under control, then they can help us take care of this half."
"I should be able to temporarily strengthen parts of the dome if neccessary," added Cirra.
Harsemhin stared out over the rooftops, straining to see how the other army was advancing.

"These buildings are all a miss!" complained Kyle. "And it doesn't help that my skin is nearly getting opened by those bullets."
The four others were leading the other half of the army through the streets of Fourside, sometimes faking them into certain buildings. They had no idea which contained Raltise, however. So far, they had barely covered a fifth of this half of the city.
Skulryk ran past a tall office building, and turned into the alley. He climbed up the fire escape nearly four stories, then jumped as neatly as he could off of the fire escape and over the fence in the alley. Looking over the fence for a second, he saw some soldiers already beginning to climb the fire escape into the building.
Kyle deflected those bullets that came too close with the Excalabur. He couldn't pull a risk like Skulryk had, he just tried to dodge as much fire as he could.
Agh! thought Matt. Where could Raltise be... these soldiers aren't doing a very good job of finding him for us. This plan isn't working so well, I wonder if they'll leave us alone if presented with another problem? Dodging behind a tree, he lost his train of thought as more bullets hit the ground feet away from him.

RG had already severely wounded numerous soldiers. They traveled in such large groups that he couldn't be sure of killing them, and his aim wasn't perfect. There's too many of these idiots. What are they doing here anyway?
RG went back to considering his plan of action. I have to find that Raltise guy, then maybe this will end. Where can I go, though? He looked at the various buildings of Fourmoon. The tallest building is the Flavor building.... He scowled to himself. But that's where we just came from before.... he wouldn't be there.
RG charged forward, to cross the street and view his choices. Never mind, gotta keep moving. Move, move, move-

The leading group scrambled through fourside, making the armies comb their locations. Thanks to the disabling group, the armies were scattered, and only under the command of incompetent soldiers, so it was easy to manipulate the army to their ideas. However, they had still not found Raltise.
Matt shouted to Skulryk over the din of bullets and explosions "Just where is Raltise? How are we gonna get this army over to him where he is?"
Skulryk ducked under the fire of bullets, feeling them whiz above his head. "I'm sorry, I know it's taking a long time, but we'll find him soon! We need to get this army into every building if we care to find him!"
The sky was suddenly shifting from white to black. Fourside and Moonside had merged, but they were not stable. One side was trying to overtake the other, and in the end it was some sort of balance, but where the presence of one world was at one point quickly left, and objects drifted to and from the dimensions.
Kyle turned and saw several soldiers fall down, injured or dead. A machine gun was heard clearly, as well as many shouts. "It's RG!" he said.
Cyan cursed himself for a second, and said "I thought I disabled him... Oh well." He prepared to use another skill to disable him, but Skulryk stopped him.
"Hold it, Cyan! Let me talk to him first."
Cyan turned away. "It's your decision. However, I don't like wasted time. I don't see why you want to get him back on our side. Just forget him."
Skulryk shot a glare at Cyan, then turned away, and ran towards RG. He shouted, "Hey! RG! Please stop and think clearly about what you're doing for a second!"
RG turned to Skulryk, lifting his gun and pointing it at him in his right hand. "Stay away. Just leave me alone and you can walk away fine." He used his other hand to hold another gun, which he shot several other members of the army with.
Skulryk gritted his teeth. "RG, you need to see clearly! Just for one second think sensibly!" Skulryk stepped closer, RG holding his gun fixed on him. "You say if we don't face problems together, we'll lose, and that's what we'll plan to do! However, this army is only a small problem compared to Raltise! We need to split into groups to take care of them, then we can take care of Raltise! Just see clearly and stop fighting potential allies!" Skulryk was now no less than 10 feet from RG, still with a gun fixed at his head.
At this point, an infantryman had gotten close to them, and let out a few shots. RG turned at this new distraction, and fired a shot at his head, killing him, but the soldier's shots had hit Skulryk squarely in the head, chest, and arm. Skulryk was knocked down to the ground.
"SKUL!" RG yelled. Cyan, Kyle, and Matt watched from a distance in shock. RG ran over to Skulryk, shooting randomly. He crouched beside him to see what had happened.
To the suprise of everyone around him Skulryk sat up. He clutched his shoulder, but was uninjured at his face and chest, where he had been shot. He did, however, have the wind knocked out of him, and a stream of blood was flowing from his shoulder to the ground.