Matt strolled by the fire. Talus, Chione and Siris were there, along with an eaves-dropping little Moogle. Rolling his eyes, he assumed the obvious.

"Geez, those guys are obsessed. Don't they realize there are more important things to worry about?"

Ignoring the scene (and some important plot info) he continued down the path. After navigating through the maze of caverns, ledges and ladders he made it to the top of the town. A solitary building stood there; the Mr. Saturn's workshop.

Matt entered the strange, metallic hut. Harshemin was inside already, as well as several Mr. Saturn. The bizarre creatures were hopping all over a large, spherical devise. Harshemin looked on, intrigued, but obviously having little clue what was happening.

"How's it going?" questioned Matt. The Mr. Saturn were engrossed by their work and took no notice of him, but Harshemin offered his interpretation.

"Well, from what I can gather this machine is called the Phase Shifter. The Mr. Saturn used extra pieces from the original Phase Distorter to build it. When it is finished, it can travel anywhere in a matter of seconds."

Matt circled around the room, looking the contraption over. "And when will it be finished?"

"Ah...." sighed Harshemin wearily. "That may be a while. This was just a side project for them, and although they've tripled their work force since we've arrived, it's still very complex and will require a lot time."

Matt cursed to himself. Time was one thing they did not have. Raltise's power was growing, and every second counted.

"Well, if they need any help all they have to do is ask." he offered, though realizing he lacked any technical skill whatsoever. "For now, though, I'm going to catch some shut-eye."

"I'll be joining you soon." concurred Harshemin. "I just wish to learn as much as I can about this device first. It's pivotal in our journey."

The two exchanged quick 'good-nights' and Matt headed off back towards the inn.

-----

Ness quivered in fear as he stared up at the giant, raging mole. Mondo Mole, who was now several times his size, was flailing his claws around angrily, knocking out large chunks of anything which got in his path.

"How are we supposed to beat it?" Ness panted, dodging a blow from one of the giant claws. "He's not affected by our PSI, and we're too small to do any real physical damage on him!"

"We'd need to find a spot that is higher off the ground than the top of Mondo's head. Then we can attack him with full force without risk of being stepped on," Jeff said, stroking one his horns thoughtfully, as though Mondo Mole were simply an equation on a chalk board.

"Yeah, that's great and all," Paula snapped as she dove away from a falling piece of rubble, "But where are we going to find a place like that in Northern Twoson?"

"The roof of the hospital!" Chartreuse said suddenly, pointing his hand out behind the group. Jeff turned around quickly to see the hospital, completely unharmed, surrounded by a glow of sunlight. He rubbed his eyes.

"Perfect!" He shouted, and before anyone could protest, he grabbed Paula and Ness' wrists and dragged them forward. "The hospital is perfect!"

Within moments, they had reached the hospital and began their rapid ascent to the roof. Dan tripped over several steps as he tried to keep up with the group, but a sight he saw through the window caused him to lose his footing completely.

"Look out! Mondo Mole is right on us!" Indeed, the groups' plans had not gone unnoticed, and Mondo Mole was quickly charging toward the hospital. Although usually hindered by his stubby legs, the giant mole was able to narrow the distance between himself and the hospital very rapidly because of his long strides.

"Come on, just a few more steps!" Jeff hollered behind him as he slammed open the door in front of him with his tail. A burst of sunlight emerged into the dark stairwell, and the group emerged out onto the roof. They quickly ran to the edge and leaned over to see Mondo Mole standing next to the building, thrashing his paws out wildly. The building was sustaining itself well, but it became more and more apparent that it was not going to hold forever.

"We need something to distract him with, something that'll stun him...or something!" Dan stammered, staring at the giant glowing mole. Just as he finished speaking, he felt a gust of air zip across the top of his head, flicking his hair forward. He looked down to see a barrel hit Mondo Mole square between the eyes, exploding on contact.

Mondo Mole let out a long, pained cry as he began to claw at his eyes, trying in vain to remove the splintering wood from his line of sight. He groped around blindly, knocking over several cars in the process.

Dan turned around to see Christina with her arms raised in the air, standing in front of a stack of barrels.

"Christina, great idea! How did you know the barrel would stun him?" Dan asked, a grin crawling onto his face. Christina shrugged shyly.

"I just got lucky...again..." She said, tossing several barrels toward the group. "Now keep throwing these! If we stun him for long enough, we'll be able to think of a decent attack!"

Chartreuse shrugged as he caught one of the flying barrels and hefted it toward the staggering mole.

"Hey, whatever works. After all, I always was a fan of Donkey Kong."

-----

Bruiser stared up at Kageru, wondering how he could suddenly sprout wings and fly away. "Hey? Kid?"

Kageru sighed. "What do you want?"

"Where are you going?" called Bruiser. "Everyone else is heading for Twoson!"

"Well I'm not."

"Then where are you going, kid?"

"I'd planned on going that way," Kageru pointed East. "Unless you have a better idea."

Bruiser shook his head. "So you're going there on your own?"

"I take it you're coming, too."

"I've gone this far with you already. Might as well stick it out."

"Uh huh." Kageru reached back into his cards. "Card Slash! Supiido Sevenzu!" The usual flash of light seemed to be absorbed by the screen of the small device. Kageru aimed it at Bruiser, and a beam extended from it. Before Bruiser could react, the beam hit him, and he shortly found himself floating.

"Hey! What'd you do to me?!" exclaimed a very disoriented Bruiser.

"'Speed Sevens' card," Kageru said matter-of-factly. "It gives me, another target, or both the 'Power of Flying'."

Bruiser blinked. "What?"

"It lets you fly."

"Oh," said Bruiser. "Oh yeah," he continued, realizing he was in the air. "Get me down from here!"

Despite being able to fly, Bruiser was still a ground-hugger. He didn't know how Kageru could adjust to everything so quickly.

"Just concentrate on where you want to fly and you'll get there," suggested Kageru.

Bruiser looked to Kageru, and moved towards him slowly. When he saw Bruiser had the right idea, Kageru turned and started flying towards Fourside.

Kageru wasn't going as fast as he could, and Bruiser had trouble keeping up at first, but he caught up quickly.

"Hey, Kageru?" asked Bruiser, Kageru looked back slightly. "How do you do all this weird stuff? How can you just grow wings or gimme this power to fly?"

"It's all in the cards. They're from a game. They're power ups, and my D-Ark let's me scan them and make the effect real," explained Kageru calmly.

"What's a D-Ark?"

Kageru took it off his belt and held it out for Bruiser to see. "Not quite sure how it works, but I have some guesses. Don't bother asking," he instructed.

"OK ..." Bruiser was silent for a moment. "Why are you going to Fourside?"

"I'm going to Fourside?"

"Or Fourmoon, whatever they call it. Isn't that where that Raltise guy is?"

"Who said I was going to Fourside?"

"Then where are you going?"

"That would be my business."

"Sorry I asked..." muttered Bruiser.

"With my luck, I'll prolly be walking into darkness. Better drop him off somewhere first," said Kageru to himself. Bruiser blinked, and said nothing.

The pair continued gliding slowly over the terrain towards the center of the world's evil.

-----

Harsemhin looked over the Phase Shifter.

"To transfer matter from one point to another in a matter of seconds. It is as if it were an application of the old magic of teleportation," he mused.

A solitary Mr. Saturn wandered by.

"What you do?" the Mr. Saturn honked. "This off limits now!"

"I was just admiring the work," Harsemhin replied. "It is quite an awful machine."

"Awful? That is insult!" honked the Mr. Saturn.

"Oh, no, I do not mean 'awful', a-w-f-u-l. I mean awful, a-w-e-f-u-l. It is awe-inspiring."

"No believe you, zoom. Leave now!"

"Whatever," Harsemhin muttered, leaving the area.

Later, laying on the grass so he could see the stars, Harsemhin mentally sketched the night sky. He could recognize many of the constellations, especially since the Milky Way ran through a number of them.

"Teleportation," he whispered, letting the word drift off like pollen from a flower. "It is amazing how versatile a single concept is. PSI uses it, magic uses it, and now even science seeks to harness it."

The night sky stood silently, as if listening to Harsemhin.

"Strife breeds peace, yet peace breeds strife," he murmured, changing topics again. "Peace is brought about to bring an end to strife, but peace can instigate new strife. The endless cycle. Paper, rock, scissors: paper beats rock beats scissors beats paper. No aspect has an advantage over the other."

The trees were ruffled by the wind. Stray leaves danced about in a macabre waltz, directed not by a musical accompaniment but by nature itself.

-----

The mole was reeling from barrel attacks. However, the attacks did little to actually hurt the monstrosity of a mole." Arrr!" Surprising the group, the mole was yelling. "Stop attacking me! I'm going to step on you and then EAT you! Hahaha, chao- ow!"

"This doesn't seem to be working. We could be here all day if this keeps up." Christina was yelling to her companions. "We need to do something else..." She hefted another barrel and lobbed it at the mole. It hit the mole in the forehead, causing it to become further disoriented.

Dan, realizing the futility of the situation, stopped throwing barrels. Instead, he started digging around in his pockets, looking for something that could help out with this humongous problem. "Hang on, I think I have something here in my pocket that could help out!" He continued digging. The other people in the group kept throwing their barrels. However, they couldn't keep up the pace that they set originally; barrels weren't flying as often as they were just minutes ago.

"Hurry Dan, don't you have some Mole killer or something?" Chartreuse's usually regular breathing was interrupted by a deep breath every now and then; even he was beginning to feel the strain of throwing the wooden projectiles.

"No... all I could find is some salt and pepper." Dan sighed. "Man, it looks like we're toast." He looked over to the mole and saw that it was beginning to recover from the assault.

"Great!" Chartreuse beamed at Dan. "Climb up on the mole and sprinkle the stuff on his nose. Maybe we can give it a headache or something."

"What!" Dan knew that arguing would be useless. "Fine. Just keep giving me some support." He placed his gun on the ground and started climbing down the side of the hospital.

"Good luck!" Christina hurled another barrel at the mole. Vincent did the same, as well as everybody else.

Dan got to ground level in no time. He ran his hardest, doing his best to avoid the mole's gigantic feet. When a foot crashed down near him, he leapt onto the foot and began his climb. He was holding on as best as he could. He nearly lost his grip a few times but eventually he made it to the mole's shoulder.

"Hey guys! I'm almost there!" Dan looked down. "Wow, this thing is HUGE." He kept climbing. The mole shook its head as hard as it could to keep him from getting to its nose. A barrel to the forehead stunned the creature, giving Dan enough time to get to the nose.

With a triumphant grin on his face, he yelled. "Hahaha! Monstrous mole, I'll see you in NOT HEAVEN!" Dan opened the packets of seasoning. At the same time, Ness swung his bat, hitting a barrel. The barrel flew through the air, nearly missing its desired target. Instead, it hit Dan. The shock of the hit made him drop the packets of seasoning. Miraculously, Dan was only stunned.

"No!" Ness fell to his knees. "I shouldn't have done that." He got up again. "Oh well. C'mon Dan! You can get it! The packets of seasoning are stuck to its lips! Get to the tip of its nose and reach down!"

Dan, recovered from the blow, shouted out to his companions. "Alright! I don't think I can do it, but I'll try!" The mole recovered from the last barrel attack and stopped moving suddenly. Dan, relieved that the mole stopped moving, climbed down the tip of its nose and reached down to get the packets of salt and pepper. A grin flashed across the mole's face. It licked its lips in anticipation of the easy meal.

Reacting quickly, Christina took Ness' baseball bat and hit the last barrel at the mole. It missed Dan by an inch, ultimately hitting the mole in between the eyes. Dan had the packets of salt and pepper in his hand and he tore them open. He dumped the contents on to the mole's nose and waited for whatever was going to happen next.

"Ah, what is this? Salt? Pepper?! I'm allergic to seasoning!" The mole cried out in fear. It then started sneezing.

With the first sneeze, Dan flew off of the mole and landed on top of the hospital unscathed. The mole kept sneezing. With each sneeze, it shrunk a bit. Eventually, it got to its normal size but it kept sneezing. It also kept shrinking. At last, it reached the size of a mole playing rough.

"How... anti-climactic." Dan got up and brushed himself off. "Let's go, guys."

"Good job, Dan." Chartreuse was nearly laughing.

They left the hospital and went to see if the now tiny mole was alright. Ness ran forward and spoke to it.

"What did you want here, mole?" Ness was rather harsh in his interrogation.

"I just wanted to have a vacation... I got the idea from a blue haired girl. She said she was going somewhere and I got the idea to go somewhere too." This response elicited a reply from Chartreuse.

"Do you know where she went?"

"No... all I know is that she had some snow shoes."

"Snow shoes... She must have gone to Winters! Guys, that's where we go next! Thank you, little mole."

"No problem... please don't hurt me." It nearly started crying, but when it saw that nobody would do anything to it, it ran away laughing. It yelled out one final word before disappearing into the forest. "Suckers!!"

"Looks like they defeated the mole. Time for me to leave as well." Jack Flash got up and leapt down from his hiding spot. "I'm sure that they'll be slightly sore at me for doing that to them."

------

On the fishing boat, Risosha was still pacing. He knew that Ness had just defeated the humongous Mondo Mole. The crow circling Twoson gave him the ability to track how they were doing. "Hmm... how interesting. Those people know what their strengths are." Risosha paced some more, thinking out loud. "Mmm, perhaps if they were somebody else, they'd have some more problems, mm, yes, quite. I can't have my puppets running around doing as they please."

Risosha stopped pacing and started to concentrate.

"Haha, my puppets. The Puppetmaster is going to perform a little show. I want to see how smart my puppets really are." Risosha continued to concentrate. Time passed once again, causing the nightmare rock to crack a more. Risosha's stature increased proportionately, making him much taller and leaner. "Mm, yes, just what I needed. How convenient." A pulse of energy was sent into the heavens.

------

A bright light surrounded Twoson. The group winced a bit.

"What's going on?" Christina nearly fell to her knees.

"I... don't know. I don't see what's happening." Vincent fell to his knees, as if in agony. The light got brighter and brighter until nothing but white could be seen by any person in the general area. After a bit, the light began to subside and the people within the group began to recover their vision. Chartreuse recovered his first.

"Heh, guys, I know you're not going to believe me when I say this, but I think I'm dead again."

"No, we're not dead. Why would we be dead?" Christina was talking. "What's happened to my voice?!"

"No, seriously, I think I'm dead. I can see myself from where I'm... at." Chartreuse looked down and noticed that he wasn't himself. "Hm, I guess we switched bodies?" Chartreuse was now in Ness's body. "Wait, if I'm Ness, then who's me?"

"I am." The person who was Chartreuse answered. "Er... Lucky."

"I'm in Skulryk's body! I'm Christina."

"I'm Vincent." Lucky's person answered slowly.

"Dan, are you in my body?" Christina (from Skulryk's person) called out.

"Yeah, I am. How'd you know?"

"Just a hunch..."

"I'm you right now, Dan. It's me, Skulryk."

"That would mean that Ness is in Vincent's body." Paula took a deep breath. "Jeff, this is going to be VERY confusing."

"Yes, that's true. I wonder how we can... hold on." Jeff turned around. "Yes, we can get to Happy Happy Village in no time!"

"Why would we want to go there?" Paula was puzzled. "Oh... are we going to Lilliput Steps?"

"Yes, exactly. Perhaps the power of the sanctuary can undo this crazy situation." Jeff looked up and stroked one of his horns thoughtfully. "We should go tomorrow. It's getting dark."

"Yes, exactly." Paula turned to the group. They were arguing over who was who and what each person should and should not do with their body. "Hey guys, let's get to the hotel. We'll get this situation fixed tomorrow."

"Fine, good idea Paula." Vincent (in Lucky's body) walked off towards the hotel. The rest followed.