The cashier leaned against his till at the Twoson Espresso Market. The morning hubbub had finally died down. Occasionally, a latecomer would rush in, demand a coffee, demand their change, and demand their way right back out the door, hurrying to minimize the time that another demanding person like their boss had to wait for them to show up. The cashier served these stragglers with the same bored expression he used on most of his other customers. He eyed the door morosely. There was one person in particular he was waiting for.

Finally, that very person arrived. The cashier curled the side of his lips into what was a smile when compared to the rest of his face. "Hey, Josh. You still workin' on that top-secret mission?"

Josh met the cashier with a real smile, which in turn caused the cashier to curl the other side of his lip up. They both enjoyed playing the 'who's-got-the-better-job' game, although Josh played it better since anyone could tell what the cashier did all day.

"Yeah, I'm still on that crazy mission. It'll probably be over soon." Josh dipped into his pocket to pull out his wallet.

"Yeah, tell me again what it was you were doing? Guarding the Sasquatch?"

"Or the Manticore, or something, I forget. But hey, it doesn't matter anyway! Our secret contact is coming in to take him off our hands soon." Josh winked so broadly that a jet pilot could've seen it.

The cashier winked back. "Then you can stop buying coffee here and start serving it again."

They laughed heartily as Josh paid for the coffee. After wishing the cashier an interesting afternoon, Josh headed back to his car. As he passed through the parking lot, he reflected on how being totally honest kept him shrouded in more secrecy than a mysterious air ever could.

Placing the coffee in various cupholders around the Chevy that he drove, Josh revved the engine and pulled out of the lot. It wasn't really his Chevy; it was sort of a company car. But he had driven it to the coffee place every morning for the last six months, and during that time he always felt like it was his, and his alone.

He was cruising through the tunnel to Threed when he did something completely unexpected. Without any sort of hesitation at all, he spun the wheel, crashing the car straight into the wall, and then disappearing through it. He'd only ever been caught doing this once, and the bus driver who saw him blamed it on the famous "ghosts" that everyone knew inhabited the tunnel. The pitch-black secondary tunnel behind the false wall began to ramp steeply upward. Josh kept his foot on the gas, keeping his speed up as he raced along the invisible hill. Then suddenly, he blinked as he shot back into the sunlight, the car going airborne as he flew out another hidden door on the side of the hill, then crashing to the ground of the valley south of Twoson. Nobody ever came down here except for Josh and his compatriots.

Josh slowed down as he approached the base camp. He could see two men sitting by the charred remains of the fire. Taking the coffee with him, Josh got out of the car and headed for them. "Hey, Jakob!" he called out, recognizing the nearer man as he got closer. "Good to see you! Where'd Simon go?"

"Morning, Raven," said Jakob, addressing Josh by his alias as he preferred to. "We had a little trouble this morning."

"Trouble?" Josh (or Raven, as he really did prefer to be called) glanced from Jakob to Jack, the other man, and then back again. "What kind of trouble?"

"He means the escaping kind of trouble," Jack muttered, staring at the rock cavern that lay in the center of the field. As he handed Jack his coffee, Raven could see a few rips in Jack's shirt. He decided not to press the matter.

"Not just an escape," Jakob continued. "He transformed and everything. It was all very dramatic." He took a testing sip of his coffee, lowering the cup when his lip burned. "Didn't attack us until we tried to round him up," he added before pulling off the cup lid and blowing on the liquid. "He didn't care about us.. It was like he was trying to reach something that enraged him, that was ripping him up inside."

"Like an itch he had to scratch," Jack agreed. "Simon chased him all the way up north, but he just radioed in saying that he lost him at Happy Happy Village. Dimension-slip."

"We'll have to take the car, then." Raven glanced back at Simon's old Chevy. From the outside, it was hard to believe that the ancient car had a dimensional tracking system built into its dashboard. "Are we going to wait for Simon?"

Jakob tried another sip of his coffee, with similar lip-burning results. "Nope. Apparently the cultists and the science-dips are finally duking it out. There's heavy fire up there. Simon won't make it back in time."

Raven nodded and made his way back to the car, not bothering to pretend that he wasn't excited about using the dimension-shift clutch for the first time.

-----

Talus woke up to see that the other bed hadn't been slept in. He pushed open the already ajar bathroom door to find Jimmy slumped against the wall, the glass still in his hand.

"Hey, wake up!" Talus shook Jimmy out of his slumber. "Did you sit there all night?"

"Yeah, man, you really missed a show." Jimmy was slurring his words badly; he was pretty darn tired. "Those six chicks went all night, y'know what I mean.."

"Riiiight." Talus rolled his eyes. "There were only two girls in there, man."

"Huh," Jimmy grunted. "Must've dreamed it."

Rather than risk more of this engaging sort of conversation, Talus decided to go see who else was up. As it turned out, almost everyone was waiting in the main foyer. He greeted everyone with a good morning.

Dan turned as Talus walked up. "Good morning, Talus. Have you seen Amber? Luna says she wasn't there when she got up this morning."

Talus recalled the conversation he'd eavesdropped on the other night. "I might have an idea where she is... is there anything like a statue around here?"

"There's a circle of them in the garden," said Indigo, pointing the way with the arm she wasn't supporting Skulryk with. "Just take a left after the roses and you should find them."

"Alright. I'll be right back." Talus ran out into the garden, following the path down and to the right, where it stopped in front of a paved circle. Four humanoid statues formed a square around the perimeter of the circle. In the center sat a larger statue of a saber-toothed cat sitting back on its haunches. Amber was kneeling before it, whispering quietly.

Realizing that he probably wouldn't be welcome at the moment, Talus turned away, planning to return to the foyer and let the others know that Amber would come back in due time. His gaze lingered on the kneeling figure before he turned his head and suddenly found himself face-to-face with a living, breathing, in-the-flesh version of the sabertooth cat statue, except that it was twice as big and had eyes the color of topaz (whereas the statue had clearly depicted it with sapphires.) With a warning growl, it began to advance on Talus, who backed towards the circle where Amber was, crying out "Amber!" as a warning.

Almost as the name escaped Talus's lips, the sabertooth pounced at him, baring its fangs. Talus had only a second to throw his hands up as a guard; he didn't want to move, lest the beast should attack Amber instead. The giant cat knocked him straight to the ground, blasting the wind out of his lungs, pinning him with a massive paw. Talus could feel the life being crushed out of him. He reached around for something, anything, that could get the cat off him. His hand grasped something. He swung it wildly, connecting with the cat's head several times and knocking it away from him. Leaping up, he grabbed Amber and pulled her off her knees before running back down the path and turning towards the foyer. As they ran, the cat jumped out from the garden onto the path behind them. Talus spun around as they reached the doorway, brandishing the object he'd found in the garden, which turned out to be a steel pipe of some description. The cat slowed down, stalking its way up the path, snarling at Talus as the rest of the group watched from behind him.

Then, a car came crashing down from out of the blue, both physically and figuratively. It landed squarely between Talus and the cat. The driver stepped out, staring down the animal like an old-time rodeo man.

The cat roared furiously at the intruder. In response, the man leapt from the ground to the hood to the roof to the back of the cat, which bucked like a wild bronco, trampling several beds of flowers as the man tried to steer it away from the car. Two other men stepped out, throwing a metal ring to the cat-rider. Attached to the ring were a pair of neon-green ropes that the two men held onto, bracing themselves against the ground as the first man locked the ring around the cat's neck. The cat spat and leapt about furiously, finally succeeding in tossing the top man off its back, but the other two were keeping it at bay.

Amber stepped forward to where the man had landed. "Who are you? What are Jack and Jakob doing here? Where's Simon?"

"Woah, easy with the questions!" The man stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. "My name's Raven, Jack and Jakob work with me, and Simon couldn't be here right now."

"What are you doing to it?" asked Talus, who had walked over to Amber and Raven and was watching the cat with trepidation.

"We have to restrain him," Raven explained. "He's not himself. All we think he knows is that you were in trouble, Amber."

Amber looked puzzled. "What do you mean? How would he know?"

Raven looked Amber in the eye, his face serious. "Amber... he's your father."

Amber had exactly two seconds to look shocked before she fainted.

-----

"I told you to bring him straight here, but you guys had to be difficult." Chartreuse had helped Jack and Raven get Amber's deranged father into a safe holding place, and was now confronting Jakob about the wisdom of their decision.

Jakob shrugged. "Yeah, but you know Simon - he's stubborn, he does things his way, and he doesn't like to change stuff around."

"Sometimes I think he lives in his own little world," Chartreuse said. "At least he's not here now. Are the three of you going to stay here ad keep an eye on things?"

"That's the plan for now. There wasn't much we could do for either Amber or her father, and we've already done it."

"She understands why she has to learn her power?"

"She doesn't know all the reasons, no. But she does know that it's the only way to save her father."

Chartreuse looked at the group. Amber was visibly shaken, but had bravely offered to continue on with the group and help finish what they'd started. "We'll let her go, then. I think it'll be alright."

"It'll be fine," Jakob agreed. "You got any smokes? Raven dropped his down the cat's throat."

Chartreuse raised an eyebrow at Jakob and made a show of patting his pockets.

"No, Jakob, I'm afraid I don't have any smokes."

Jakob smacked his lips together, grinding his teeth underneath. He was itching for something, anything, to calm his shattered nerves, but before he could look for another means Chartreuse looked at him with a questioning expression.

"Jakob, would you do me a favor?" Jakob shrugged.

"Sure, why not." He replied, the thought of smokes still reeling through his brain.

"Would it be entirely possible for you to round up everyone who arrived yesterday?" Chartreuse inquired, sitting down in a nearby chair. Jakob opened up his palm and pretended to write the order down in a notebook.

"Sure, I'll bring them to the great hall." Chartreuse raised an eyebrow.

"Why the great hall? It's a mess!" Jakob's features split into a grin. He snapped his palm shut, thus closing the notebook.

"It's the only place I can find in this mansion!"

"Oh," Chartreuse cut in, causing Jakob to open the notebook once more, "Could you find Anna too?" Jakob made a note taking motion on the air and nodded.

"Sure thing, highness!"

-----

The group collectively, if secretly, decided not to press Amber on what she'd been doing at the cat statue that morning. Only Luna and Amber herself knew what she'd been doing: asking the god of animals for guidance, for some sort of message to tell her what she needed to do. And the message had come when her father sensed her presence on the interdimensional plane. Amber now knew that she had to learn her powers to save her father's life. Otherwise, he would lose what little mind he had left, attacking and destroying anything and anyone until he was stopped or killed. Amber swore she would never let that happen.

----

The group in Fourside were beginning to despair. They had searched the entire city as a group and as individuals multiple times the day before, slept in the now abandoned hotel, and were again searching the city together. They stopped by the bakery, and found it staffed and running, so they got some breakfast there. Despite the day and half they'd spent, nobody they knew were to be found. They spent the time searching silent, except to point out weird things that could've been clues, but turned out to be nothing. At about 10 A.M., they decided to take a quick break.

"This is useless. We've gotta get outta this city. No one's here." Eric was almost over the injuries from Riley's attack, sitting against a wall that didn't look too damaged.

"Yeah, I know," PikaChan was scowling at herself for missing a chance to find Riley.

"Wait! I can use my ring to take us to anywhere, or maybe even anyone." Seong-un looked up, as cheerfully as he could in the depressed circle of allies. "Wanna try to find someone you know?"

"Sure, try to get us to either Chase or Amber. It'll be more useful than just traipsing around this place." Eric was obviously troubled, as he was rubbing his right hand along his dagger's edge.

Paithan, somehow completely optimistic about their situation, added, "Yeah, they'll be able to help us find Riley."

Seong-un shrugged and held his ring to his face. "Come closer, I don't know completely how to control the powers this ring has." They did, and Seong-un muttered something into the ring. He finished, and the small group saw and felt themselves fall into nothingness.

When it finally seemed that they were coming back into normal reality, they found themselves falling again, only literally so. They fell from the ceiling of what seemed to be a castle chamber, now surrounded by their friends and the others in the room. They looked around before getting up, taking in the new surroundings. Seong-un whispered, "At least I didn't fall into an oncoming attack again."

"Uhh, hi. Where are we?" Eric managed to say as they got up.

----

As he scoured the city, Riley felt a foreign mind probe into his.

What do you want? he asked in annoyance.

I merely have ... a suggestion. That's all. This voice was cool and careful.

Then speak and get out.

I noticed you're looking for your father, yes? Riley nodded mentally. Not having any luck, are you?

Get on with it, ordered Riley. His patience was thin.

As you wish. Since you can't find him, I can tell you about a Summoning Ritual which will bring him to you whether he likes it or not.

Go on.

You can perform it in Scaraba, but there's a catch. It takes a lot of energy to perform.

If I'm not going to have the energy to fight him, what's the use in doing that?

It doesn't have to be your energy, does it?

Hmm... A plan immediately began forming in Riley's mind. So why are you telling me this? What's in it for you?

The voice paused for a moment. Let's just say I want to see him taken down, too.

From the mental picture he was provided, Riley decided it was safe enough to try. Not like it would be his life on the line, anyway.

"So if I'm going to get someone to use for that summoning thing, I'm going to have to find them, first..." It then occurred to Riley to try something he knew his father had never been able to master.

"X-Zone..." he murmured. An inky black portal opened in front of him, and he chuckled to himself as he stepped into it.

Inside he couldn't see a thing in the blackness, but his sense of perception was enough to guide him through the Null-like dimension. As he moved through the sub-ether, he came across a strange pattern of energy - it had been left behind by Seong-un's ring.

Where they are, she can't be far away... he thought to himself, speech being impossible.

The ring's trail ended suddenly in the space between two portals. Because the ring didn't actually send them through the X-Zone, they didn't have to exit through a portal.

Sending his sense of perception forth, Riley could see the group finish talking

and start walking somewhere. PikaChan began to lag behind the group, still lost in thought about what to do about Riley. He then realized everything would work perfectly as the group began to cross a closed portal without realizing it was there.

As PikaChan crossed the portal, Riley opened it suddenly and she fell in. Due to the shock, she didn't even have a chance to make a sound, so the others never

noticed she was gone. In the blackness, PikaChan was at total disadvantage since she couldn't see anything. Riley grabbed her from behind and began to haul her towards a portal that opened to Scaraba.

She escaped his grasp a couple of times, but he always caught her again since she really did have nowhere to go. Unfortunately, the second time she evaded him, she dropped the sword & shield, and was left with only her own katana. All weapons were useless to her in this black dimension.

----

*Heza?*

PikaChan groaned as she began to regain consciousness.

*Heza? Are you okay?*

"Ow..." She opened her eyes to see large sand-colored blocks beneath her. It was then that she noticed that she was inside a room, with the walls made from the same blocks that she first saw. "What the heck?!" She attempted to kick her feet, but to no avail. "What happened? Where am I? Why is everything blurry?!"

She started to squirm and flail her arms (which were bound to the wall, for some reason), but stopped when she realized that she was chained to the wall.

The voice spoke up again. *You're inside a pyramid, Heza.*

"What?! How the heck did I get here?! Where the heck am I, anyway?! Where are Eric and the others?! What the-"

*Heza, calm down. You're in Scaraba. You were brought here by a technique called "X-Zone".*

"Uhh? X-Zone? Okay, but... who used it to get me here?" She felt herself beginning to feel light-headed, due to the blood rushing to her head.

The voice hesitated for a moment. *I don't know how to break it to you...*

"Just tell me," she said, trying to pull her wrists free from the cuffs that bound them. This proved to be a difficult task.

*You're not going to like this, but... it was Riley that brought you here.*

PikaChan's face paled. She stopped struggling. "R... Riley? But... why?"

*Now isn't the time to get upset, Heza. You've got to get yourself down and find out why you're here.*

She scowled. "Erg..." As hard as she struggled, she could not pull her wrists free from the cuffs. She looked to the floor, to see her glasses. The right lens was broken. "Aw, nuts..."

All of a sudden, PikaChan heard a voice from her left. "I see you've waken up."

She turned her head to look in the direction of the voice, feeling a bit dizzy due to her hanging upside-down. "Who's there...?" She wasn't sure of who it was, since her vision was so blurred. "I can't see anything."

"Poor you," the person said apathetically. PikaChan watched as the person walked up to her, picked up her glasses, and placed them on her.

PikaChan's breath caught in her throat. "Riley?!"

"Nothing gets past you, does it?" he asked, crossing his arms.

"Why did you bring me here...?" She then noticed that her backpack, along with her katana and Pokéballs, were on the other side of the room, thus out of reach.

"You will find that out tomorrow, when the... ritual begins," Riley said. He reached over and took PikaChan's glasses from her face, and placed them back on the floor. "For now, sleep. You'll need energy... and lots of it." He turned around and walked out of the room.

"Riley? Riley!!" PikaChan shouted as he walked out.

Although he found it somewhat difficult to ignore her shouts coming from the distressed girl, he continued walking away.

PikaChan watched his retreating back, then squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't figure out why it hurt so much when he was like that. Before long, she fell into a dreamless sleep.