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Mopping Up

Chapter Two: Hot Off the Presses

	As I said in the original chapter, I don't own this game.  I merely really 
enjoy playing it.  I still can't wait for Blue Sphere to come out in America (if 
it ever does)!  I don't know exactly how long this fic'll end up being.  All I 
know is that it'll be much longer.  Oh, well.  If there's nothing else...

	Quick recap: Rena, Claude and Noel have to gather their companions 
together again to quell one final resistance against them that the Wise Men 
initiated before being killed.  Now, they search for Celine, Chisato, and Dias.  
Dias is making his was through the Cave of Trials.  Chisato is going about 
trying to start a printing company on Expel.  Celine has joined Chris at the 
Court of Cross.  Opera and Ernest are repairing their ship.  Now, let's get on 
with it...

	Chisato stood at the gates of Linga, looking around.  Linga was a pretty 
crowded city, though most of the citizens were students at the university.  She 
wondered where she could start looking for the Neumans, about which she had been 
told by Claude.  From one of the buildings down the way, she heard an explosion.
	Chisato rushed down the street, taking the quickest route to the source of 
the disturbance.  It was fairly simple to find.  It was the building with smoke 
billowing out of the door and a crowd gathered around the front.  She was about 
to rush into the building to save the people as a stream of water shot out of 
the door, being quickly directed towards any flames in the building.  Soon after 
the water stopped, the occupants stepped out of the building.
	"Don't worry, everyone!" said the first, a young girl with brown hair.  
She was holding the hose in her hands.
	"Nothing else to see here!" said the other, an older man, hopefully too 
old to be her husband.  He was holding the piece of equipment that had caused 
the problem.  It looked like a small, silver ball with letters painted on it.
	As the crowd began to disperse, Chisato approached the two scientists, 
almost nervous to be around them after their little "endeavor" in inventions.
	"Ummm, excuse me, are you Precis Neuman?" she began.
	"That's my name!" the young girl said.  "Whatcha want?"
	"Do you remember a few weeks ago when you met that guy named Claude?" 
Chisato began.  Kids don't have that bad of a memory, right? She asked herself.  
Besides, this one's super-smart.  She'll have to remember him.
	"Of course, I remember the jerk!" Precis said with a perturbed voice.  "He 
left me behind when he and the others went on their adventure to the Sorcery 
Globe!  I wanted to go with, but they said, 'No, Precis!  You can't come, 
Precis!  You're too little, Precis!' and what did I say?  I said, 'Awww, shit!'  
Granted, they didn't hear me, but I said it!"
	"Ummm, Precis," Chisato says, trying to get her attention.
	"And now, they've succeeded at their mission and King Cross is trying to 
find them to give them their reward, but they're nowhere to be found!" Precis 
continues with her rant.  "I swear, if that guy comes anywhere NEAR me, I'll 
take my Bobot and slap him upside his leader-type head!  They could have used 
me, and they left me here with *him* to tinker away, when I could have been 
doing serious research in the field on new types of weaponry, or some sort of 
power source from the Sorcery Globe!  But, NO!  I had to be here to take care of 
him, not having fun in a once-in-a-lifetime adventure!"
	Did she even know about Nede? Chisato asked herself as she let Precis wind 
down a bit.
	After a few more minutes of ranting, Precis was able to calm herself a 
bit.  "Why do you ask?"
	Chisato decided to change her story.   "He turned me down, too," she said.  
"My name's Chisato.  I wanted to go with him for the same reasons as you.  They 
mentioned you to me, so I decided that I'd come and visit you.  I was wondering 
if you'd listen to some of the ideas that I have.  They'll probably turn out to 
be more lucrative (and a bit safer) than what you've been doing."
	"Here, let's go inside and talk some more," Precis said, obviously 
interested when it came to money.  She led Chisato into the house, to a room 
upstairs.  It was a brightly-lit room fairly large in size, about as big as 
Chisato's office back on Nede.  The thought brought a tear to her eyes.  She 
wiped it away and regained her composure.  The room was cluttered with gadgets 
of assorted sizes, shapes and colors.  Precis produced some small benches for 
them to sit on so that they could sit at least semi-comfortably.
	"Now, ideas such as what?" Precis asked, interested.
	"Well, we have to hear about news by word of mouth, right?" Chisato began.  
"This can lead to inconsistencies and false information being spread like it was 
the truth, right?"
	Precis nodded thoughtfully.  "I think that I see what you're getting at," 
Precis said.  "We could build a machine to transmit this information to other 
people."
	"No, that would take too long," Chisato said.  "We would have to get one 
of those to everyone and then construct something for us to transmit it to them 
in the first place.  It would be too much work and too much cost-wise.  What I 
think we could do is make a machine that can send these people a copy of the 
day's news on a piece of paper."
	"Of course!" Precis exclaimed.  "It would be a hit!  People like staying 
current, and they like being correct!  If we could find a way to quickly 
reproduce the news on many sheets and widely distribute them, we'd be better 
than those novel publishing companies that do it by hand!"
	"Yes!" Chisato encouraged her.
	"We'd make a machine with thousands of pens rigged so that they wrote the 
exact same thing that one person wrote!" Precis said.
	"No!" Chisato exclaimed, only slightly discouraged.  "We would rig up a 
machine with a template of letter-tiles arranged to print a story on a sheet in 
ink."
	"Oh, that makes more sense," Precis reasoned.  "Well, let's see what we 
can do.  We can get the lumber-worker that lives on the outskirts of town to 
work with us on the tiles, while pop and I work on the heavy machinery.  You can 
work on our first stories, I assume?"
	"As a matter of fact, I was thinking that exact thing!" Chisato said, 
trying to contain her happiness.  She would get her wishes after all!  Now, 
where to start for stories?  "How long will it take you to get the machine 
built?"
	"I'd say around a week," Precis replied.  She'd be able to get some really 
juicy stories from Lacour, Hilton, and Linga with that amount of time!  Wait, 
she was forgetting something.
	"What about the letter tiles?" she asked Precis.
	"Well, how many you want?" Precis countered.
	"A hundred of each letter, just for a start," Chisato answered.  Precis's 
jaw dropped.
	"That'll take him a month at least, even with an assistant!" Precis 
exclaimed in reply.  "And what's this 'just for a start' crap?!  We don't have 
that sort of money!"
	Chisato pulled out her money pouch and opened it, pouring the money across 
a clear spot on the floor.  Her cut of the profits from the adventure had been 
almost a hundred-thousand fol.  "I do," she replied coolly.  "I expect to get my 
money back within a relatively short amount of time after investing it.
	"Okay, we'll get him right on it," Precis said.  "Meanwhile, I guess that 
you can find something to do.  You could go to Lacour for a while, or you could 
go to Hilton.  Heck, with that much time, you could make your way all the way to 
Cross Castle!"  Chisato stood to leave.  "Well, you just come back later and 
check on our progress.  I have no clue about how long this'll take.  It depends 
on the final design."  As Precis finished her statement, a loud crash sounded 
outside.  Screams were heard clearly through the small window that provided some 
of the light in the room.
	Precis and Chisato rushed outside to see what was going on.  As they 
rounded a corner, they saw a large blob-creature swallow a frightened scholar.  
There were blobs all around the town square, as if Chisato hadn't had enough 
blobs in Fienal.  The blobs were being led by a sorceress, who cast Northern 
Cross on anyone whom she saw moving.
	"Ready to go?" Chisato asked.
	"I'm ready!" Precis exclaimed.
	The two jumped into the fray, Precis throwing Bobot at the nearest blob 
and doing it minor damage.  Chisato rushed into the fray with a Poison Gas 
attack.  The blob closest to her fell immediately.  As she looked over her 
shoulder to check on Precis, she was rewarded with a view of Precis being 
swallowed.  Chisato ran quickly to the blob and punched a hole in its side, 
pulling Precis out.  She was glad that she was wearing her gale earrings.
	By that time, the sorceress had noticed her forces being depleted one by 
one by the two fighters that had appeared from out of nowhere.  She quickly 
uttered a Northern Cross spell, hitting them with her hardest.
	Chisato saw the lights twinkling around her, and felt little tinglings on 
her arms.  As she looked around at Precis, she saw her writhing in agony on the 
ground.  Chisato quickly pulled a blueberry out of her bag and put it in 
Precis's mouth.  She knew that to keep Precis in the fight, she'd have to put 
the sorceress out of commission.
	Chisato quickly ran to a nearby alley and mad her way around the building 
to sneak up on the sorceress.  She quietly crept down the alley nearest to where 
the sorceress was.  She could hear the sounds of destruction from the square.  
She hoped that Precis was all right.  Maybe it had been a bit rash to just leave 
her laying in the street...  As she reached the end of the alley, she rushed 
from the safe concealment and jump-kicked the sorceress from behind.  The 
sorceress screamed as she fell to the ground dead.
	Instantly, the blobs turned their attention to Chisato, who had just 
deprived them of their leader.  They closed in on her, cornering her between a 
semi-circle of themselves and the wall of the nearest building.  Chisato jumped 
and landed on top of one, sinking her foot into its soft flesh and "splatting" 
it on the others.  "Well, that's three down, ten left to go," she said to 
herself as she ran to where Precis was regaining her composure.  "You okay?" she 
asked.
	"Yeah, I'm fine," Precis replied.  "Are you sure that we can handle this 
on our own?"
	"Oh, come on!  I've taken stuff like this by myself hundreds of times!" 
Chisato replied.  Well, not really hundreds of times.  And actually, it had been 
in Fun City, where she had lost miserably in the first round of a Bully Battle.  
But the premise was the same, right?
	"Well, I should hope so," Precis said nervously.
	"Don't worry!  I've got it completely under control!" Chisato said, 
throwing her razor-sharp pass cards at the nearest lob, cutting it into pieces.  
"You just try your best and remember that I've got your back!"  Precis moved 
forward and aimed her mechanical fist at a blob across the field.  It shot off, 
traveling across the field.  Is plunged into the creature, exploding as it 
reached the center.  The blob splattered across the nearest wall and the ground.
	Chisato noticed a blob sneaking up behind Precis and stuck it with a 
tazer, shocking it to a crisp.
	"Thanks!" Precis exclaimed.
	"Anytime!" Chisato exclaimed while slicing another blob with her cards.
	The two remaining blobs looked around at their fallen comrades and decided 
that their best course would be to run.  They slithered as quickly as they could 
out of the city square.
	"These happen really frequently around here," Precis explained.  "They 
just aren't usually that strong..."
	"It's all right," Chisato said.  "Do you have any idea where these guys 
come from?"
	"Have you heard of the Linga Sanctuary?" Precis asked.  Chisato shook her 
head.  "It's a cave off to the east from here.  We get many of our herbs for 
healing from there.  Claude and his bunch went there to be able to get some help 
from Keith, the linguist here.  In the very bottom of the cave, there is a 
portal called, the Portal to the Underworld.  That's where all these monsters 
are coming from."
	"Well, I've got some time to blow, why don't I see if I can do anything 
about it," Chisato said non-chalantly.
	"But, you can't!  It's extremely dangerous, and there are strong monsters 
all over the place!" Precis exclaimed.  Chisato was barely able to restrain a 
laugh at the irony.
	"Okay then, how about I get some help from somebody?" Chisato asked.
	"If you insist on going," Precis sighed, "There's a guy on the other side 
of town.  His name is Bowman.  You can see if he'll help you out.  Don't blame 
me if you get killed, though."
	"Hey, I'm putting my money on the line, why not my life?" Chisato said, 
musing to herself at how much she sounded like Dias.
	"Well, it's been nice knowing you, then," Precis remarked as Chisato 
walked off towards Bowman's General Store.

	Dias stared down the stairs that he had reached.  Those Dreamshades were 
pretty tough.  He was glad that he had thought to bring as many healing 
medicines as he had.  He found himself wishing that he could stop time like they 
could.  He walked down the stairs, watching his back the whole way.
	The first things that he saw upon reaching the floor were a bunch of 
bunny-looking creatures.  A spectacle told him that they were called Punkponks 
and were extremely strong.  Must be a scratched lens, he told himself.  How 
could a bunch of pink bunnies hurt you?  He approached cautiously, nonetheless.
	When he was within a few feet of them, he used a Gale Stab.  Just before 
he hit the closest one, all of the Punkponks jumped up to the high roof, 
avoiding any damage that he could have done, and sending him to the floor.  
Frickin' inertia, he told himself.  He stood up to make a recovery, jumping out 
of the way of a falling Punkponk.  As the creature hit the floor, it made an 
impression.
	"Damn!" Dias exclaimed as he took a defensive stance.  One of the 
Punkponks shot a fist at him, which he barely dodged.  He was glad that he had 
put on those bunny shoes that he had gotten on the first floor.  He jumped into 
the air to meet one that was landing from its jump, driving his sword upwards 
and hoping to hit something vital.  He caught it in the foot.
	The disabled creature screamed in pain and landed on top of another of its 
kind.  Dias took the opportunity to slash his sword through what he thought was 
its heart.  When he pulled his sword away from the gash, he only saw fat.  "Oh, 
this'll be *real* fun," he told himself.  He quickly plunged his sword into the 
gash, hitting the vital organs this time.  The creature laid dead on top of its 
companion, who was much smaller than the first had been.  Dias took a second to 
kill that one, as well.  There were only two left, which he quickly worked 
towards dealing lethal damage.  He hoped that he wouldn't have to deal with 
these things again.

	Chisato entered Bowman's General Store to find a woman behind the counter.  
"Excuse me, but may I speak to Bowman?" she asked.
	"Of course," the woman said.  A few moments later, a tall, muscular man 
with brown hair and wearing a lab coat emerged, carrying a glass container 
containing a murky green liquid.
	"Are you Bowman?" Chisato asked.
	"Yes, ma'am," Bowman replied.  "Who are you?"
	"My name is Chisato Madison.  I was recommended here by Precis Neuman," 
Chisato said.
	"Of course; the child," Bowman said with a slight tone of disgust.  "Now, 
what's wrong with you?"
	"Well, I'm not sick," Chisato said.
	"Then why are you here?" Bowman asked.
	"I was thinking of making an expedition into the Linga Sanctuary to close 
the Portal to the Underworld," Chisato said.  "Precis is doing some work for me, 
and she needs some peace around here."
	"You won't be able to do it," Bowman explains.  "I've tried it already.  
Many times.  The monsters that are guarding it are just too strong."
	"Well, I don't know about that," Chisato says.  "I think that if we work 
together, we could do it."  She knew very well that she could do it on her own, 
but if these people insisted on perceiving her as weak, she would work with 
them, if only long enough to prove them wrong.
	"All right, then, we'll go," Bowman said.  "Just let me grab some stuff 
before we go."  He walked into the back of the store and removed his lab coat.  
He put on a backpack and grabbed a metallic, jewel-encrusted glove.  "Gotta have 
a weapon," he said to Chisato.
	"Trust me, I've got enough of that to last a life-time," Chisato replied.
	"I'm leaving now!" Bowman called back to his wife.  "If I'm not back in a 
few days, send in reinforcements!"
	"All right!" she called back.
	"You can talk to your wife like that?" Chisato wondered.
	"Yeah, she accepts that I might not come back.  Mostly because I always 
do.  I don't intend to make it any different," Bowman replied.
	"Neither do I," Chisato said.  They walked to the town's gate and to the 
west, in the direction of the Sanctuary.  The sky was overcast, and Chisato 
could smell the humidity, suggesting that it might rain.  As they reached the 
entrance to the Sanctuary, a wolf-man jumped out at them from nowhere.  Bowman 
threw a punch at the creature, sending it flying to the ground, dead.  Chisato 
face-faulted.
	"How did you..." she trailed off.
	"I have to come through here frequently to get herbs for my medicines," 
Bowman replied.  "Lots of practice strengthens one."  Chisato wouldn't know.  
She got all her experience going through Fienal.  Granted, she was probably 
still stronger than Bowman, but he was an interesting specimen.  "Let's keep 
moving," Bowman said.
	As soon as they stepped into the cave, Chisato was hit by a humid air.  It 
was fairly light in there, mostly because of luminescent rocks, or luminescent 
fungus on the rocks, or something.  She couldn't tell.  There were skeletons 
strewn around the floor, from past battles, according to Bowman.  Chisato found 
it a bit difficult to accept that this man could be very strong, after only 
fighting these weak things.  Let's see how long he'd stand against Ruprecht, 
Chisato said to herself.
	Near the entrance, Bowman knelt down to pick some herbs.  "Might as well 
get something to show for it in case we can't go through with this," Bowman 
explained.
	"Trust me, we'll go through with it," Chisato countered.  She didn't 
intend to fail when her life and her printing company was on the line.  "Just 
think, this'll be some nice headlines when we get our printing press started," 
she told Bowman.
	"What?" he asked.
	"Precis and I are starting a printing press to circulate news around Expel 
quickly and efficiently," she explained.  "It'll make us rich!"  Bowman didn't 
really care.  He just wanted to make it through alive.  They headed quickly 
deeper into the cave.
	Eventually, they reached an area where the path branched off in three 
directions.  The right path stopped, and the left path seemed to cirle around 
towards a lower path, where more herbs were located.  Bowman didn't intend to 
leave without them.  "Don't worry, I'll just be gone for a moment," Bowman said, 
acting as though he was consoling Chisato.
	"I'm fine," she replied.
	"You don't care?  You're not worried?" Bowman asked.
	"Not really.  I trust your skills," she replied.  He gave a little "hmph" 
and jumped to the lower area from the overpass.  As he was bending to pick some 
juicy-looking wolfsbane, a group of Moonwolves jumped out of a nearby pathway 
and pinned him to the ground.  He was able to throw a few of them off, but more 
came to aid the remaining wolves.  Chisato saw that she couldn't beat them by 
numbers, so she would have to rely on strategy.  Strategic bombing, that is.
	She pulled out her radio and called in a Preparation attack.  She hoped 
that it would work, even though they weren't on Nede.  After a few seconds of 
waiting and softly reporting the necessary information, a loud sound ran through 
the cavern, followed by a large portal opening in the middle of thin air.  As 
the wolves looked around in wonder, a flock of bombs dropped through the hole, 
landing on them.  After the explosion cleared, Bowman laid on the floor, 
covering his face and midriff.
	"What the hell was *that*?!" he exclaimed from the floor.  "That was like 
something that that brat, Precis would do!"
	"Just a little trick I picked up along the way," Chisato explained coolly.  
She jumped down to him to help him up, and he flinched.  "Oh, come on!  If I had 
wanted to hurt you, that blast would have done it for me!"
	Bowman pondered for a few moments before taking her hand.  He stood up and 
regained his cool composure.  "I seem to be a bit dirty.  I'm wondering if you 
could dust me off," he said, true to form.
	"That's okay, how about we just get on with it," Chisato replied.  "Just 
pick your herbs, and I'll watch your back."
	After a few minutes of picking, Bowman spoke up in answer to Chisato's 
unasked question.  "I do this because I'm trying to find any rare herbs that are 
hiding in here.  You know how the university can be about tenure.  I remember 
that some guy named Claude found a rare herb in here for me once."
	"You knew Claude?" Chisato asked.
	"Yeah.  He needed my help to talk to Keith, the linguist in Linga," Bowman 
explained.  Chisato nodded and they returned to the upper level to take their 
desired path.  They entered the next section of the cave, where they saw a giant 
dragon skeleton.
	"Another of your conquests?" Chisato asked Bowman playfully.
	"I wish," Bowman replied.  "Actually, that's about the sort of thing that 
we'll have to fight when we get to the Portal."
	"Oh, fun," Chisato replied.  "She hoped that it wasn't as difficult as the 
Guardian robot in the Field of Power.  Or, for that matter, the one in the Field 
of Courage.  Granted, since they were the same thing, she hated both of them 
equally.
	Bowman led her down another path to a narrow crevice in the rocks.  The 
light around them was dim purple.  The air was heavy and humid.  It smelled like 
mushrooms.  She hoped not, though.  She hated mushrooms, and she was sure that 
she'd hate fighting mutated mushrooms.  The only thing that she really enjoyed 
fighting were blobs, of which she had seen nothing since they had entered the 
cave, despite Bowman's warnings that they would be there and that they would be 
dangerous.
	As they entered the room, Chisato stifled a sneeze at the dusty air 
inside.  The area obviously hadn't been bothered by humans for a long time.  The 
ceiling was high, with shapes carved into it.  Symbols of some sort, Chisato 
surmised.  There were statues lining the walls of monsters eating men and 
tapestries of valuable, jewel-encrusted treasures.
	"Doesn't look like it did last time," Bowman mused, half to himself.
	"That's made by monsters?" Chisato asked quietly.
	"Yup," Bowman replied as the two cautiously entered.  "Be careful, lest 
the statues and tapestries come to life."
	"Oh, that is *so* old," Chisato said, walking towards the portal.  Bowman 
tried to grab her, but he was too late.  She had already gotten to the portal.  
Nothing happened.
	"Well, that's another thing that they changed," Bowman said.
	Chisato took out her radio to call in another Preparation.  Just as the 
bombs fell, the first monsters were leaving the portal.  They were too late, 
though.  The lethal blow fell, shattering the portal and closing it forever.  A 
strong wind blew past them, sending a chill down Chisato's back.
	"Well, that was simple," Chisato said.  As the dust cleared, Bowman 
noticed a patch of green where the portal had stood.  Chisato was watching the 
tapestries change from cloth to gold and jewels.
	"Woo-HOO!" the two cried out at the same time, Chisato running for the 
treasure and Bowman running for the herbs.
	"My, god!  I've never seen this stuff before," Chisato exclaimed, taking 
out a spectacle and holding it up to the armor.
	"I've never seen this type of herb before!" Bowman exclaimed, stroking its 
wispy, yellow leaves.  "This has got to be a new species of plant!  I'll 
definitely get tenure for this baby!  Now, what to call it?"  He took a small 
pinch off of the end of the stalk and put it in his mouth, chewing it and 
running it across his tongue.  "Tastes like a pickle," he commented.  "All 
right, so I'll call it 'dill whip!'"
	"Very appropriate name," Chisato commented, putting another spectacle to 
the herb.  "That's what it's called anyway."
	"Man, the world is just getting so convenient these days," Bowman 
commented.  "What sort of armor you got over there?"
	"It's called Seraphic Garb," Chisato replied.  "This is some strong stuff, 
according to the spectacles.  I'll take this stuff, and you take what I'm 
wearing."
	"Okay, are you going to change here?" he asked hopefully.
	"Of course not, silly!"  Chisato normally would have slapped a man for 
asking that sort of question, but this guy was harmless.  She didn't mind him.  
	Chisato slid on the Seraphic Garb quickly, as though she didn't know that 
he was watching her.  She would bother with the bottom later.  She had a bit of 
modesty, at least.  Bowman turned his back quickly, so as to look like he hadn't 
been watching her.
	"So, you ready to go?" she asked, coming from behind the boulder.  She 
handed him the Reflective Armor and let him put if on.
	"Yup," Bowman countered.  He realized that he missed his wife.  Chisato 
reminded him of her, to a certain extent.  He couldn't wait to get back to her 
to tell her what he and Chisato had done.  He had wished that he had been able 
to go with Claude to help them against the Sorcery Globe, but ending this threat 
was good enough for him.
	They hiked their way out of the cave, few monsters attacked them on the 
way.  They had been made afraid of Bowman and Chisato.  Some of the less-earthly 
ones were already disappearing.  As they reached the entrance, something seemed 
different to them.  As they returned to the village, they relished in the 
weather, which had become very sunny while they had been inside the cave.
	"Interesting change in such a short time," Bowman remarked.
	"Very much so," Chisato said.  The two stopped for a minute.  They looked 
to the west, towards the town.  They saw something fly over the top of the 
mountains behind the town.  As it got closer, it didn't look like anything that 
Chisato had seen before, but it was on top of a Synard!
	"What's that?" Bowman asked.  Chisato wasn't sure how to explain this to 
him.
	"I don't know," she half-lied.  As it got closer, she thought that it 
looked familiar, like something that she had seen in some of the archives on 
Nede.  She remembered that she had found it while researching on the Ten Wise 
Men and their suspicions of Narl.  What was it called?
	"I am Deadman!" the creature called out to the pair.
	"Oh, hell," Chisato said calmly, almost mockingly.  She felt confident 
that she could handle this guy, at least with Bowman's help.  Deadman was just a 
henchman; he couldn't be as strong as anything that they couldn't handle.  It 
would be another story to add to the paper's premier issue.
	"Chisato, is there something that you haven't told me?" Bowman asked.
	"What gives you that idea?" she asked as the creature grabbed her and 
pulled her to eye-level.
	"This is the wretch that Indalecio is having me terminate?" Deadman 
exclaimed.  "Have I fallen so far in his graces to be given such a petty task?"
	"You know, Indalecio's dead, Deadman," Chisato said.
	"You lie!" Deadman yelled, sending his bad breath into Chisato's face.
	"Nope, he's dead!  Really!  My friends and I did it ourselves," Chisato 
told him.  Bowman tugged lightly on her pants leg.
	"Ummm, could you explain what the heck's going on here?" he asked.
	"Excuse me for a minute," Chisato said to Deadman, writhing free from his 
grasp and making a run for it.  Bowman was close behind her.  "Good thing he's 
not that intelligent.  Now, Indalecio is, or rather was, a super-being that had 
been biologically engineered by the people of the planet Nede and went out of 
control.  Indalecio and his followers, called the Ten Wise Men were closed up in 
an area called subspace, presumed to not be able to escape.  This proved 
incorrect when they escaped and returned to wreak havoc and try to take over the 
universe.  At this point, Rena, Claude and theirs came to Nede to destroy the 
menace.  I actually was with them, and aided in the victory for all life-kind."
	"Ummm, could you start back at 'biologically-engineered?'" Bowman asked.  
Chisato buried her face in her hands.  She thought that that sort of thing was 
just a joke.  She pulled Bowman away as Deadman looked around the side of the 
rock.
	"Just work with me and trust me that this guy is really bad," Chisato said 
as they ran to get a plan together.  Chisato took another spectacle from her bag 
and looked at Deadman through it.  Well, he's a tough little bugger, she thought 
to herself.  He'll take a bunch of damage before he's toast.  He is, however, 
weak against ice attacks.  She reached in her bag and pulled out a sapphire.  
"Keep him busy for a minute!" she exclaimed to Bowman.
	"Are you crazy?!" he exclaimed.  "I'll get killed!"
	"Look, I can do this if you'll just buy me a minute or two!" she yelled at 
him.  "Besides, I've got Resurrection Bottles!"
	"What are you doing?" he asked.
	"Something that'll sting this guy pretty darn bad!"  She began to 
dismantle her strongest weapon so that she could install the sapphire and get 
some ice power running through the machine.
	"All right!" he exclaimed as he disappeared.  Chisato wondered where he 
had gone for a few moments before hearing the scream from Deadman.
	"The hell did you come from?!" Deadman screamed.
	"Way over there," Bowman said.  Actually, about four Bowmans said it as he 
did his Death Siege attack.  Deadman was pummeled from four ways and knocked 
senseless for a moment.  Chisato realized that she needed to continue her work.  
As she tinkered at her weapon, Bowman struggled for his life against some 
incredibly strong creature about which he only knew sketchy details and was 
obviously at least ten times as strong as he was.  "I like them odds!" he 
exclaimed, dodging a shot from Deadman's electric trident.
	"I'm fed up with it," Deadman said, mumbling something under his breath.
	"Heraldry?" Bowman asked meekly.  "Oh, sh-" he was able to say before the 
spell hit him.  The earth opened beneath him.  He was able to catch onto one 
side of the chasm.  He had to struggle to pull himself to the flat ground again.  
He was just in time to be hit by a starlight attack.  Luckily, the Reflective 
Armor that Chisato had given him protected him from it.
	He swallowed a pill quickly to recover a bit and drove towards Deadman 
with another Death Siege.  Deadman saw him coming and threw an energy trident at 
all four of him.  The shot hit the real Bowman, sending him flying to the 
ground.  He gasped for air as Deadman looked around for Chisato.  By that time, 
Chisato had finished the remodeling on her weapon and jumped forward, wielding 
it, aiming for Deadman's chest.  He saw her coming and threw a punch at her 
oncoming body.  The punch connected before the ice-powered stun-gun could reach 
anything vital.  Chisato hit the ground, unconscious.
	"Well, that was easier than I thought," Deadman said.  "Now, I just have 
to kill them and I can go back to Omithan for my next mission."
	"Omithan?" Bowman asked from where he lay on the ground, in deep pain.  "I 
thought you said Indalecio."
	"Indalecio is the highest master of us all," Deadman replied.  "Omithan is 
his field general.  He's in charge of myself and my allies on the battlefield.  
Since Indalecio and, I assume, the others are dead, he is in charge of our whole 
operation."
	"Well, thanks for clearing that up," Bowman said while reaching into his 
satchel with one hand and shielding it with the other and his upper body.  He 
was sure that he had some medicine in there somewhere.
	As Deadman reached back to deliver the final blow, something came drilling 
out from under the ground, carrying a passenger.
	"What the heck?!" Deadman exclaimed as the robot threw him from his 
synard.  Precis climbed out of Bobot and looked around, dazed.
	"You know, I could ask the same thing," Precis commented.  Bowman found a 
card and threw it into the air.  A light surrounded Bowman, Precis, and Chisato.  
Bowman didn't feel any better.  He did, however, feel more confident and 
experienced.  Great, he thought to himself, an Extension Card.  Why would we 
need *that* one?  He reached back in and pulled out his whole stack of cards.  
He found a Fairies Card and threw it into the air.  The fairies emerged from the 
card and sprinkled their healing powers on everyone.
	Chisato's eyes opened and she slowly sat up.  "Go help her!" Bowman yelled 
at Precis.  He prepared for the counterattack from Deadman, but it never came.  
Deadman lay on the ground, unmoving.  Bowman cautiously approached Deadman, 
being careful to keep his guard up to all directions that it was possible.  As 
Bowman watched, Deadman slowly decomposed (granted, it was faster than normal, 
but it was still pretty darn slow).
	The synard became agitated as his master slowly shuffled off his mortal 
coil.  "Uh-oh," Chisato said as the beast began to fly aimlessly around.  "Come 
on, everybody!  We need that thing!  Stop it!  Don't kill it, though!  Just make 
it submit!"
	Bowman jumped into the air and performed a pillory attack to stop the 
synard in its rise.  Precis threw Bobot at it, hitting it in the wing and making 
it fall to the ground.  Chisato saw that this was a fairly young synard, so it 
wouldn't be quite as difficult to defeat.  She would help only if she was 
needed.  She needed a rest herself.
	Precis punched the synard on its back, close to its spine.  Chisato had 
said that they needed it, so she didn't want to break its back.  Bowman 
performed one pillory after another at different parts of its body.  Eventually, 
the creature stopped fighting and stayed in its place.  Chisato reached in her 
bag and handed a plate of Baby Rabbit Risotto to Precis to feed the creature to 
show their at-this-point good will.
	"Let's go back to the village," Chisato suggested.  They would need a rest 
before they could go on.  She had a feeling that they would need to find Claude 
and the others to alert them to the danger.
	"Hey, Chis," Bowman called.  "You ever heard of a guy named Omithan?"
	"No, why?" Chisato asked.
	"We may have something bigger on our hands than just one bad guy," Bowman 
explained.  "I hope that we're not the only ones who're fighting."
	"Precis, how would you like another chance to go with Claude and the 
others?" Chisato asked.
	"Not bloody likely!  Unless I was forced to," Precis commented.
	"Well, we're going to be forced to.  These guys are going to be stronger 
than anything you've encountered before.  Now, I'm sorry, but I lied to you 
earlier.  I was actually on the team with Claude.  Also, I'm not from here.  I'm 
from a planet called Nede.  It's not anywhere on this planet, it's a completely 
different planet.  I'll fill you guys in on the details tonight at the inn," 
Chisato explained in her best exposition voice.  They would have to fight with 
Claude, and it was a good thing that they had this synard at their disposal.

End of Part two

	Well, there's another part finished.  It may be a while before I do 
another part, since I've got other things to do, but it will eventually get 
done.  If you want to read the disclaimers again, go back to the top.  Other 
than that, I'm outta here for now!

M.H. Torringjan