Queen's Gambit Chapter 06

Chapter Index

Love in plastic (Berdly)
1
https://pastebin.com/TKjKcqVe
2
https://pastebin.com/dDw2ti92
3
https://pastebin.com/2FRWC9jj
4
https://pastebin.com/vJ67iw7N
5
https://pastebin.com/88fCetw0
6
https://pastebin.com/Dj46NYUK
7
https://pastebin.com/DmandfKg
8
https://pastebin.com/2qAE3pbm
9
https://pastebin.com/YFvjUjeu
10
https://pastebin.com/s3Q8nruN
11
https://pastebin.com/MQeRHGWJ
12
https://pastebin.com/pgcGWuRZ

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Love in Plastic

Chapter 06

Two Handsome Devils

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"So." As soon as they had made it all the way to the walkway and off the premises, Ralsei turned around to Kris. "Now wait. There's something I'd like to be sure of, before we move on. Could you open up your inventory and keep it open?" Not sure what he was on about, Kris pulled out the bag and opened it wide. While he did, Ralsei took a step or two forward and began circling around, looking up at the sky.

While he was still staring upwards, searching for something, the little girl walked up to him and pulled at the sleeve of his robe. "What are you doing?"

"I can't see the party menu anywhere. There should be a menu up there with little pictures of me and Kris and some stats on our health and how much damage we can deal."

"The party what?"

Ralsei wasn't paying much attention to the curious girl. "But it can't be gone unless...this isn't a game any more."

Kris came closer to him. "The player is gone."

Ralsei was surprised enough to find himself stumbling backwards a bit. His glowing eyes widened. "The player is gone...then it's true! The- Kris, do you even know what this means?"

"I can do what I want."

"It means this isn't a game any more. It isn't the same game anymore. Anything could happen from here on in. We could take things anywhere we want. I - I need some time to think of the possibilities. All the things I could do - that we could do!" He noticed himself that he was getting over excited, hopped up and down for a moment and closed his eyes to take a deep breath.

"Sorry. Got a little carried away there. First things first. This city is a dangerous place. If Pluma's brother is here, we should fetch him before we go anywhere."

Kris raised his open hand and stopped Ralsei right there. "Yes, let's not. He'll get along fine, I think." He had his fair share of Berdly for the day.

The prince's eyes narrowed. "Kris. What are you even saying?"

"I said let's not. I want to see how well he does on his own."

"There's dangerous people everywhere and you just want to leave him alone? That's not a way to treat a friend."

"Who said he is a friend?" Kris led the way in walking along the road, and was glad to notice Ralsei and the girls following him.

"I thought he was your classmate."

"That doesn't make him a friend."

"Kris." Ralsei had a very stern expression on his face. "Don't you care about him in the the least?"

He didn't even look back. "No. Let him run into brawlers and get shot."

Now, a stern little girl was even catching up and speaking up. "Hey, that's not very nice, mister!" Even if it was only so slight, that same annoying buzz was in Pluma's voice that was in her brother's.

And Ralsei could only smile at that. "She's right you know." Kris knew immediately was trying to do, giving him this charming smile. Kris could immediately feel the corners of his mouth get tense from fighting the smile when he saw him.

And he looked all the more disappointed, when he realized that it didn't work. "We're not fetching Berdly. He wouldn't want to come along anyway."

"No, why would you think that?" Kris said nothing. He just moved on, until they were far enough around a corner that they couldn't see the information tower any more. Then he asked Ralsei to lead the way to his door. From this point onward, when asked more questions or begged to talk to either of them, he simply refused.

As time went on, the questions became less about why not to meet back up with Berdly, and more about whether he was upset with Berdly or that jester and what was upsetting Kris so much. And even when Ralsei was starting to deduce bits and pieces of what made Kris refuse to talk, that didn't change the fact that he did. He just couldn't be bothered. Right now, he just wanted to see what was behind that door and relax for a bit.

Worst case scenario, they would have to fight their whole way to the city hall without Berdly and only drag him along in the very end to help seal the fountain. That was going to take ages, and ages with only him and Ralsei, but at least it was better than taking him along.

He did give up eventually. At least for a while, they were quiet. Until they were past the crossing of a bigger road and closer to the square. That was when Ralsei broke the silence. "Aren't you curious? Don't you want to know what's behind that door?" Ralsei was trying to get him to talk, and Kris knew that was just so he could try to turn things around to meeting up with Berdly. He could figure what was behind that door anyway. "You won't find out until you ask."

The campy tune of the ringtone on Janice's phone interrupted him. Someone was calling. Again. Everyone stopped and she fumbled the phone out. The last two times, whoever was on the other end just hung up the moment she took the call. This time, she took the call, and judging by how much she wrinkled up and raised one eyebrow, whatever she was hearing was very bizarre, and upon seeing the questioning looks from everyone around, she put the call on speaker.

"Stop it!" It was Berdly, and he sounded like he was physically strained. "It's just one phone ca - hello? He-" That was it. Hung up again.

"That's Berdo!", burst out of Pluma.

Janice kneeled down to hold her by the shoulders of her raincoat. "Is that your brother?"

"Yes!" At least they knew now that Berdly was alive. And he didn't sound like he was in actual danger, if Kris had to guess, it sounded more like someone was trying to wrestle the phone out of his hand.

The only adult of the group absentmindedly looked through something on his phone and eventually found what she was looking for. "He didn't suppress his number."

This drew Ralsei's attention. "Perfect, just call him then, and ask him if he's all right."

She obliged. And this time, she put it on speaker phone from the start. And he did pick up. "Hello?"

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, my friend here's just..." There was more audible struggling going on mid-sentence. "What is wrong with y-" That was all there was, then the call was closed again. It seemed pretty clear cut to Kris. It must have been to anyone paying attention. How they got Janice's number was secondary in Kris' opinion. Berdly and Jandsome were fine, but they appeared to disagree on whether they should call her.

It didn't matter either way. Now Ralsei knew for certain that they were all right, at least for now, and would get off Kris' case about them. "It isn't far any more anyway. Let's hurry." Ralsei led them towards a detour that circled quite a bit around the wider area to avoid too much exposure and once they had made a wide circle around that entire area, he gestured for them to stop. "We had better run that last part. Stay close." They snuck around the corner of the last crossing they passed.

From here, Kris could see where they were heading. They were behind the square with the broken fountain, behind the large building at the end of it. On its back wall was a door. A tall and wide, solid-looking black double door with golden framing in the pattern of vines around it. In the middle of it glowed the symbol of the church. The Delta Rune. He recognized the door and knew where from. And it all but confirmed his original suspicion of where they were going.

They began to spurt, run even. Janice led Pluma by the hand, until they were going so fast, Pluma couldn't keep up on her own, so the human woman just picked her up. They were careful not to stumble upon the multiple steps, first from the street onto the beige bricks, then up the stairs that surrounded the building. A little more than half-way, when they were already hopping up the stairs, he heard something.

"Hey! Wait up!" And a quick glance to where it came from, down the street they had crossed to get here, showed Kris it was exactly as he had feared. It was a raptor with a spiky green hairstyle and spiked armbands just like the ones Susie had in the dark world. Ralsei swung his hand forward and the doors opened by themselves.

It wasn't far, they just made sure to cross that last bit. Kris almost stumbled from the shock when he heard a gunshot, but wound up speeding up all the more. He waited at the door to help pull Janice past the doors, and the moment they were past them, the heavy doors slammed shut with an impact you could feel and hear all around.

Silence. The doors were closed. A very welcome silence that Kris was afraid wasn't going to come.

Once they all calmed down, they had their chance at further verifying where they had gone. And Kris recognized it immediately. The black walls, the bricks of stone, the blue light of the candles and torches being the only source of light outside of the internally lit buildings save for the stars above in the distance behind the castle, and the black mass coursing into the sky from within said castle. They were back in Ralsei's kingdom, where Ralsei himself was the only inhabitant.

And if this was a door like the door they crossed to get to the card kingdom, the brawlers probably couldn't get through it either. And the prince confirmed this as well. "As long as we stay here, we're safe. Not long now, let me open up someplace comfortable for you." He marched right up to one of the many empty houses on the right side. With a quick shake of his hand, he summoned a key and unlocked the front door with it. Inside were the very basics of a place to stay.

There was a staircase up to a more narrow floor, an area to relax with an empty sittee and a comfy chair, an open kitchen, a fireplace that Ralsei lit while entering, an empty bookshelf, everything you expected for someone who moved in and needed basic accommodation, or at least the possibility of it, provided there was food and something to read. "Make yourselves comfortable, you two. They can't get to you here."

Once the two guests that hadn't yet been here entered, he began to make his way outside.

"Where are you going" When he was about to rush back outside, Janice grabbed the prince by the wrist.

He gave her a warm smile. "Fetching some reading material for you." Once she let go of him and sat down on the couch to watch over Pluma, the prince led Kris outside and closer to the main castle. "I hope you understand that I'm not bringing them here. Humans, monsters and dark princes aren't a good mix if you want to keep your fountain intact." He gestured Kris to take a step back, approached the door on his own and pulled one of them open.

"I can finally show you my castle. Come on, it isn't dangerous." Carefully, Kris peeked in past the door. The walls surrounding everything behind it were as black as outside, but in the distance, above, he could see the inner rooms of the castle glowing in light blue like the inside of all the houses. When he passed by Ralsei, the prince grabbed him by the elbow and led him further inside.

"Welcome to my very own castle. Now that this isn't a game any more, I don't have to wait for the final chapter to show you any of this, I can do it any time I want. If we get your friend here, we can do it tonight!" Inside, two rows of corridors branched off to their left and right side. Ralsei paced a little ahead and took a turn to the right. These corridors were separated from the massive courtyard that surrounded the dark fountain, only through railings, arcs and pillars.

You could breathe the fresh air of the courtyard even from there. When Kris followed Ralsei, he was standing at the foot of a staircase that they walked up. "I can do this any time by the way." Kris gave him a questioning look. "Open doors such as the ones we came through, to any dark realm you go to. Wherever you go, I can find a way to get to you. So even in the worst of times, if you think you are not safe anywhere, you can always come here."

After passing the staircase, they got to a floor that matched the outside form of the castle. Kris couldn't help but take a moment to take a look at this. Both walls, save for the windows, were covered in book shelves, filled to the brim with all kinds of literature. Some cleanly bound, some old and used with the corners of pages hanging out. And he only saw the wall being covered so much after walking through one of the rows of bookshelves that filled the entire room.

It wasn't walled off to the left and right through, led straight into the rest of the castle's southern interior. Seamlessly. When he came back to the prince, they climbed further up the stairs, to another floor, this one apparently dedicated to feasts. The part of the floor they arrived at had an insanely long dining table that took up half the width of the southern side. It was covered by a flawlessly smooth table cloth that ran along its entire length.

Chairs lined every possible bit of room for a seat, festoons hung off the ceiling, surrounding the chandeliers that filled the hall with bright blue light. Off in the distance, beyond the end of the table, Kris could spot the counter of what appeared to be a kitchen. He couldn't imagine what all the rooms in the back were for. They walked up to the end of the table that was close to the kitchen.

Once he stood at the right angle, he could see that behind the wall right behind it, there were more rooms dedicated just to the kitchen. And the open part of the kitchen he could see already included everything he could imagine you would need to feed a normal crowd. Ralsei brought him to one of the chairs and Kris understood that he was supposed to sit down. "Give me just a second."

Ralsei vanished into one of the many back rooms that lay beyond the wall and soon thereafter, returned bringing with him a spoon and a plate with a readily baked cake. He placed both on the table and stepped back. "Please, enjoy. I made plenty." After vanishing back to the same room he got this cake from, he came back with two more cakes and spoons. After that, he went down the stairs and left Kris alone here. The prince's visitor stared at the smiling face on his cake.

It had a dark surface, thinly applied icing formed the outline of the glowing parts of Ralsei's face with little arcs making the eyes to make it smile like Ralsei's dummy did, and thick green icing the part of his hat that hung down enough to make it into the circular frame of the cake's surface. Finally, some actual silence. The kind of silence he preferred to the one he already had before. He liked it when not only there was nothing to hear, but there was no-one to hear or see him either.

For once, in what felt like a long time, there was nothing immediate to do. Just some time with himself, to stare at Ralsei's face on the table and think.

Something that occurred to him upon thinking about Janice and Berdly's strange phone calls, was that he still had his own phone as well. He pulled it out of a little bag in his armor. It was unchanged, for the most part. When he first fell into the dark world, back with Susie, the very first thing he did, even if it was under the player's hand, was to call Mom.

He didn't have much of an idea how much time had passed since he and Berdly fell into the dark world, but if enough time did pass, Mom was bound to be worried sick. He could already picture her standing in front of Berdly's house with the car, wondering why Kris and Berdly didn't answer when she rang the bell or tried to call. Or yet worse, pacing up and down their home, wondering what might have happened to him. This was as good an opportunity as any to try calling her again.

But doing so only yielded the same strange, metallic sound it did the day before. He tried it again. Again with that noise. Again, again with the noise. Again, and again the noise. He tried once more, and for once, there was no noise. Instead, it led him to a prerecorded message.

It was the voice of a woman, an islander from overseas judging by the accent. "Hello. You have reached the mailbox of Doubleyou Dee Gee. Please stop calling your mother from the dark world." That last bit hit home well enough for him to stop trying.

Soon enough after that, Ralsei came back up the stairs. "Phew, I had to run twice to get them books. This should keep them entertained for a while. Now then, Kris! You didn't even touch your cake!" That wasn't true. He had stared and poked at it slightly with a spoon. The prince sat down next to him, not facing the table, but his guest. "What is wrong? Don't you like it? You won't know if you do until you try."

Kris looked up from the mostly untouched delicacy to find his prince smiling and heard him faintly chuckle. Only to stare back down at the cake again. "It is not the cake, is it?" Kris shook his head. "Makes sense. If it was that you don't like it, you would have at least tried it. It's whatever you're upset about with Berdly, is it not? Come on, just try it. I know you will feel better if you do." He began rubbing Kris' shoulder.

Even if a bit unwilling, the prince's guest scooped up some of the black mass and the right corner of the face's mouth and tried it. It was sweet. Very sweet. And with a note he could guess was the taste of some fruit he hadn't tried yet. Possibly even a fruit that didn't exist in the light world. He nodded and smiled to confirm that he liked it. "Good, very good. That means I can keep them all. It would have been a shame if I had to throw them away."

Ralsei laughed, even though his laughter sounded more like a sigh of relief than actual laughter.

How many of these did he...why not outright ask? "How many of these cakes did you make?"

"Four or five..." He stopped and stared past Kris towards the back door of his kitchen. "...dozens. I wasn't sure how any I would need."

"I don't think I can eat four dozen cakes."

Ralsei waved this concern right away. "No need to. I can store them for a long time. It hinged upon whether you like them."

Kris wasn't sure whether Ralsei was only lying to make him feel better about all those wasted cakes should they go bad. "I mean the dark world works differently. I could try."

His prince began gently ruffling his hair. "I'm hoping some day when we have time. I could take you here and I could stuff your face with cakes all day." With a spoon with another bite mere inches from his mouth, Kris paused and looked back at Ralsei. He had this strange smile on his face that he had at odd times and his cheeks were glowing in bright red.

It took the prince a moment longer than expected to become aware of his guest looking at him. When he did, he pulled his hand back and tried to make his smile look more collected, but it wound up looking more awkward than before. "But - but only if you wanted that of course." The red glow wasn't going away, Kris got the sense that Ralsei wanted it to, and the prince continued to try to laugh it off ever so slightly.

It was best if Kris changed the subject. "So what are we going to do about Pilot?"

A lot more relaxed, the prince turned around to sit towards the table. "Let's worry about people we actually know are in danger first. What is your problem with Berdly? What did he do?"

"He didn't really do anything."

"You said he's your classmate but also that he's not your friend. Even if he didn't really do anything, there must be something he did not-really do."

The cake was really good. Kris had already eaten quite a chunk off of it by this point. "He - uh - he said he'll be fine on his own. besides, we don't need him to seal the fountain. The city fountain I mean, not this one. We still have Pluma, right?"

Ralsei shuffled his chair a little closer. "Kris, that's an awful thing to say. We can't just abandon him."

"I have Pluma, I have you, the same prophecy applies, right? Human, monster and a prince from the dark."

"Legend, and yes, but...

"If we seal the fountain, Berdly will be back with me, right?"

"Yes, but you don't know what could happen to him in the meantime." The human remained silent and continued to stare at the steadily shrinking goodness in front of him. "Look, how about we make a compromise? We don't look for Berdly, not for now at least. How about if we just look for Pilot then, hm? Then we could get Janice and Pluma to stay here for good, at least for as long as they have to while we make our way to the fountain, however long that will take just the two of us."

Kris made sure to speed up and actually eat up the entire rest of it. Once he swallowed the last bit, he agreed. "Yes, we could do that."

"See? Much better. Maybe we'll even find Berdly and that other fellow somewhere along the way." Something gave Kris the feeling that this was Ralsei's intention behind the compromise from the start.
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A little more annoyed than he should have been at Kris' little outburst, Berdly walked back into the main hall of the infopage's tower, grumbling along. "This guy's got some nerve. 'Replacing Mom with Noelle'. What was that about?"

Once he was back at the tall jester's side, the infopage lowered himself with both hands demonstratively placed on both sides of his waist. "So, are you not following your friend?"

"Classmate."

"Sorry, classmate."

"No."

"All right. And yet you are still here, so I assume you have more questions."

Berdly sighed. "Yes. Is there a way out of here for me without 'sealing the fountain'?"

With his arms folded up, Manuel lowered himself down onto the ground and nodded. "Of course. Whoever is in possession of a dark fountain - that is, can wield its power - can open portals between the light world and the dark world. The 'king' or 'queen' of every realm, even though they don't have to be one in name. There is only no point in doing so except if it is to help lightners along, because darkners have no form in the light world. At least not a sentient one."

"And the one for this realm would be..."

The infopage opened his hand to gesture towards his right, where a flat image appeared in the air next to him. "The mayor of Canyon City. Don Gatore. Also the head of the Brawlers. I've seen you had your run-ins with those."

Berdly's eyes narrowed. "Yes." He stepped a bit to the side to stand at a ninety-degree-angle from the picture, as it was hard to discern otherwise. It depicted a crocodile, or an alligator. Very large, if the doorframe half his size he was standing next to was any indication. Two gatling guns hung off of his arms, one on each arm, attached through metal rings wound around his arms, with a rod extending itself along each arm to lead to one of the weapons' triggers in each hand.

Ammunition boxes hung off the back sides of the weapons. He was so massive and so strong, he just carried the weapons and their ammunition crates along where he went, and had a suit tailored to his size with the sleeves cut right off. "Hm. As long as that fountain's around, this guy can just keep opening new portals any time, right?"

"That is correct."

He sighed. "All right, we're doing it Kris' way. I don't want to walk around in my own home worrying about my sister falling through any closets all the time. Kris said we need a prince from the dark to get out of here. He went right for that black one. So what about the other one?"

The infopage smiled, raised a finger and guided it along his path as he began dancing in a circle around the hall, floating in an upward spiral. All along where his finger pointed, more projected screens appeared and showed what was also displayed on the screens on the walls. Pictures of what Berdly almost immediately recognized to be a more lifelike version of Pluma's Debbie- and Scott dolls.

"This 'prince' isn't a prince in the ordinary sense, but anyone you ask would see him as such. Strong, well-built, handsome, a well-paying occupation with high prestige that has him and his girlfriend Janice around each other at all times. He is well-known in every realm he visits and loved by everyone around. Strong, good-looking, popular, well-earning, he is the prince charming any woman would wish for."

"And yet, in the highest of times between him and Janice, when their life together was soon to reach another stage, practically overnight, something changed. Without telling anyone why, he came right to this city, bought enough beverages to get himself drunk beyond salvation, went through a blind spot in my cameras and then poof." The infopage made an exploding gesture with his hands. "Gone. Never to be seen again. And not long later, complete chaos ensued.

Berdly stopped him right there before he could gloss over that. "What chaos?"

"All sorts of random things." Manuel resumed his spiral but moved downwards ever so slowly, the screens above and every projected one he passed switching over to different locations depicting occurrences that took looking at them more than once to understand what was happening in each one.

"Swarms of doves just appearing out of nowhere and dropping onto high-traffic roads, street lights growing bicycles and beginning to dislodge themselves and dance in place, the animals in the zoo started floating around until they formed a large wheel that sped through the streets, a giant moose is on the loose in the upper part of the inner city near the path to the city hall and in the circus at the bottom level, an omnipotent clown appeared and turned the circus into his personal Colosseum where his contenders fight to the death. That is only to name a few things. Luckily the citizens got most of it under control. The moose is still out there though, as is the clown to name two things that haven't changed."

The footage was replaced with the pictures of the 'prince' again. "Now, as I was saying, his name is Pilot. Since you are looking for him, here is some information I think you might find useful." In front of Berdly appeared a display with three things. One of them was an address, two of them phone numbers.

"The last location he went to, their phone number and the phone number of his girlfriend. A stewardess by the name of Janice. She is at the precinct next door. Your friend should run into her any minute now." Berdly fumbled through all the pockets in this unfamiliar set of clothing he was wearing. He realized he indeed had his mobile phone on him, as well as a little notebook and a pen. The notebook and the pen fit in with his costume just fine.

Now this was just completely out of place. Then again, so was how Kris was dressed, as well as Jandsome, who had been eerily silent up until this point. He knew there was no point in wondering about that considering everything he knew about how the dark world worked, but the anachronisms were driving him up the wall. Nonetheless, all he could do was play along and note everything down.

While he was doing so, the silent jester came closer. "So what now?"

"Well? We're solving this..." Berdly began to smile, grabbed his hat by two ends with the tips of his fingers on both hands, and tipped it slightly. "...like private detectives." He ignored the annoyed reaction this had earned him from the jester and faced the infopage again. "You, I need more information." The bird above floated down until he was back on the ground from the looks of it.

"I need the name and location of every person Sco - uh - 'Pilot' talked to, before he vanished."

"Of course." With one swing of the red bird's hand, another display appeared right in front of Berdly, with all the names and addresses. And Along with that, a few things dropped on the ground. Once he had noted down everything, he picked up what was on the ground. They were maps. One of every floor in this canyon, with street names.

And all the addresses were in one and the same floor within the same canyon, one level above the one they were on right now. "Locations, names, and a map to make sense of it all. And more." Another display popped up a little closer than the others. It depicted a large black square, consisting of smaller, randomly arranged black squares. "Scan it with your phone."

Berdly raised an eyebrow, but he did as he was suggested. Immediately, his phone opened up a new window and began downloading some application that was installed within seconds and opened itself. It was a map application, except it worked for this city. This vintage toy city in another world in his room had cell phones and interactive maps. "I believe this is everything you asked for. Are you in need for anything else?"

"No, no." Berdly had trouble packing everything together, and figured he could just leave the maps other than the one they needed here.

"Excellent. If you need anything else, you always find me here! Don't forget to visit the gift shop!" With his arms folded up, the infopage floated upwards and spun another circle. When he was readying himself to dash away, he stopped and floated down again. "One more thing. A little heads-up if you will."

"What?"

"The stewardess is here for no reason other than to search for her runaway beloved. If she loses faith that she can find him here, she will leave again. If you wish to involve her in your investigation, and I recommend that you do, you had better contact her soon, before that ship sails - or in her case, that plane takes off." After that, he spun through the air one more time and flew off to the hallway that led them here and then vanished.

All the holographic displays vanished, all the screens turned off. The jester smiled and walked up to the maps Berdly had dropped. He gestured for the bird to pay him attention, picked up one of the folded-together maps, and slid it under his sleeve. And then another, and then another. The patches of his costume, even along the sleeves, were separated by thin, black segments, and each time one of the maps was slid past the one closest to his hand, it just vanished.

"How are you doing this?" The jester just shrugged.

They walked back outside. To their right within the hallway, the wall had slid to the side to make way for a windowed door with several shelves and stands filled with a variety of little sweets or mementos. When Berdly was already about to leave, Jandsome stopped him. "Hold on for a minute." The jester pointed at what Berdly presumed to be the gift shop Manuel mentioned. "I'm going to need you to buy something for me. I don't fit through there."

The door was indeed to small for him, and even if it wasn't, there was no way Jandsome could navigate through the narrow spaces that the stands and shelves left to walk through. He handed him a stack of money. Bills similar to the ones Kris had used to bribe those brawlers before. "I want you to buy me infobadges. As many as you can."

The perplexed ovid raised an eyebrow. "Okay...if you say so." He indulged his new friend, took the money and entered the shop. The moment he opened the door, a bell attached to it announced his entry.

Behind the counter within, Manuel was standing - for once on the ground - with a wide smile. "Hello there. What can I get you?"

Berdly kept it straight to the point, placed the money on the counter and asked what he was asked for. "Infobadges. As many as this can buy." After inspecting the money for a brief moment, the infopage ducked under the counter and dumped a few badges onto the open surface. Ten badges. "Thank you..."

They were ordinary red badges to attach to clothing, with a little needle hanging off a spring and latched into a frame to keep it from stinging the person wearing it. On their front, they had a blue lowercase 'i' on them and a picture of the infopage winking.

"Have a nice day! Do come by if you need anything else!"

At least now Berdly knew the catch he was suspecting around every corner. The infopage supplied everyone with information and made money selling overpriced mementos. And back outside, when he handed the badges to the jester who made them disappear the moment Berdly looked away for a second, he couldn't help but ask. "Why are those badges so expensive?"

While they crossed the door, the jester raised a finger to urge Berdly to pay attention. "Because there is much more to them, than to be mere decoration. You would not believe how useful they can be."

They marched along the road in quick pace. For the most part, because Berdly didn't want to run into Kris, but also because he didn't know how much time they had. The stewardess was looking for her pilot, but how long would she stay until she ran out of patience? Once he was sure they were at a safe enough distance from the precinct to not run into Kris should he come back out, he stopped. "We should call her."

Jandsome stopped. "I beg your pardon?"

"We should call the stewardess and tell her we're on the case. You know, to buy us some time to talk to her later."

"That can wait." The jester gave him a dismissive wave of the hand and moved on.

"No it can't. You heard him. She won't stay here, not for long. And it's not like she can count on Kris to get the job done, right?"

Jandsome spun around in place to face him again, put his hands together behind his back and tilted his head. "Is this you making an earnest estimation? Or is this your grudge talking?" Berdly began to feel a growing impatience as well, but for the time being, he humoured him.

They went back to the open area in the centre. There were brawlers in the distance, and the bird was shocked to notice one of them spotting him, but also relieved to notice they didn't pay further attention to him. A welcome change, which they used to move straight into the tall structure that connected all floors of the canyon to ascend it by one floor.

And once they had walked quite a bit through this part of town, Berdly stopped to make a point. "That's it." He pulled out his phone and dialed the number he had saved under Janice's name. "I'm calling her." It only had to ring a few times for someone to pick up, but before he could say anything, Jandsome glided straight past him along the smooth, tiled pavement, reached onto the device and pressed the hang-up button. "Hey!"

The jester shrugged. "She will still be here for a while, no need to rush." Berdly's eyes narrowed while he stared at the sly grin and the red hearts on this grown man's face.

He sighed and moved on. And soon enough, they found a sad sight for a first person to talk to. The address didn't refer to a house he lived in, but an alleyway in which he scavenged the trash bins for food. When Berdly greeted the rugged terrier, he had no idea why he was being paid a visit or who they were. And when asked, he had no real information on why Pilot had come here or where he was planning on going.

After questioning another person, a woman in a dress who was sitting at a porch in front of a dark red apartment building, with the same results, the bird decided it was time to give it another try. "Now, let's not take a bigger risk than we have to." He browsed through the contacts on his phone until he found Janice's name and tapped it twice.

And again, the jester snuck around him and when Berdly expected him to come the other way, glided past him while making a pirouette and yet again pressed the hang-up button right when someone other end had picked up. This time around, the bird was infuriated. "Will you stop? Just touching other people's phones, who does that?"

And again, the jester shrugged, those hearts on his eyes taking on an awkward twist when he raised his eyebrows in the same motion. "Why are you in such a hurry? She is not running away."

"She is! That's the point!"

"I do not think she is this quick to leave. We should give her more time."

"For what?"

"Consider the following. The friendly gentleman in the information tower said your friend was about to run into her any minute. If he is, getting to know someone like him, possibly even his 'prince' must be something that takes getting used to. Would it not overwhelm her if two more strange fellows like ourselves jumped right in to introduce ourselves?"

They didn't know that she had even met Kris at this point. Berdly wasn't sure why they were supposed to bank on that all of a sudden. He just stared at this increasingly nervous man in front of him. He needed a moment to put his thought into words. And with narrowed eyes, he spelled it out right in front of Jandsome. "Seems to me more like you're just trying to stall for it to never happen. Why do I get the feeling you don't really want to talk to that stewardess at all? "

The jester was slightly startled and almost jumped within his constant dancing motions. The angles at which he bent with every step were more exaggerated the further he went on. "Nonsense. I love to talk to everyone! I am merely being a considerate person as I do it."

Berdly's eyes narrowed. "Mhm. Considerate. Let's call it that." He stayed quiet until they were half-way there to talk to the next person. Berdly almost went back to bringing up how how he didn't believe a word Jandsome said, but he figured it was better to be sneaky about this. In slow moves, he slid out his phone and began scrolling through his contacts to get to Janice's number again.

He made sure not to make any sudden moves but keep an eye on Jandsome at the same time. And so far so good, it took a lot longer with him only scrolling a bit, sneaking a quick glance, scrolling a bit more within his pocket, pulling it out for a quick glance, until he found her, but eventually, he did. So he pressed the dial button and slowed down to gain a little distance.

Oh no, that was exactly the mistake he shouldn't have made. Jandsome turned around and saw the bird with his phone at his ear. He defensively raised one hand, a feather or two falling off just from the nervous movements . "Hey!" That didn't stop the jester from at least making one step towards him. "Stop it!" Berdly backed off a little more. "It's just one phone ca -"

While he was still talking, he finally heard the voice of a woman answer upon picking up, but before he knew what was happening, the voice of the confused woman faded out. "Hello?" When he turned around to take another look at his phone, he realized that it wasn't his phone any more, but one of the smaller, thinner plastic slates that covered the pavement and other horizontal surfaces in this whole city. "Hey! Why are you so..."

The jester, now with the corners of his mouth pointing downwards for once, spun around to face him and threw the phone right back at Berdly. He caught it, even though he didn't need it, now that he had already hung up on Janice a third time. "I don't see why you don't just agree and give it some time. Do you not trust me?"

"To be perfectly honest, no I don't."

Still playing innocent, the jester began walking circles around the bird. "I saved your life multiple times, what would give you any reason not to?"

Berdly just stood in the middle of it, motionlessly. "There's a lot about you that's suspect." Before he could go on, he was startled by the loud and obnoxious jingles of his phone ringing. She was calling him back, so as fast as he could, he stepped away from Jandsome, picked up, and nervously answered the call. "Hello?"

"Are you all right?" Multiple people were trying to say hello. He recognized a few of the voices talking. At least two. One of them was asking if he was okay.

"I'm fine, my friend here's just..." But be for he could go on, he stopped hearing anything and soon realized that Jandsome had pulled the exact same slate-swap trick a second time. "What is wrong with you?"

The jester was now catching up with Berdly's real phone and as usual, once it was too late and he had hung up, he gave it back to the angry bird. Jandsome had a more stern expression on his face by now. "Is urging for a little patience all it takes to earn your distrust?"

Even this back and forth didn't stop them from walking along their path. "That's just the tip of the iceberg." Berdly mumbled with most of his beak closed.

Both froze, in the middle of the walkway and out in public at that. For a moment, Jandsome broke from his weird stances and stood normally, then theatrically tilted his entire body to the side, jumped and began walking backwards in front of Berdly while the bird moved forward. "Really now, do tell. If there is so much, please, be my guest. Do not let the quantities intimidate you. Choose any point to start with. I am all ears."

"All right." Berdly demonstratively put his phone away and stood as straight as he could. And still didn't nearly reach up to the tall man towering above him, so he decided it was better to take a step back. "For a start, there's the night classes." Now, the jester took a step back, too.

"Be honest with me, you can convince Kris of nonsense like that, but I'm not that gullible. There is no such thing as night classes for piloting passenger flights, is there?" The jester said nothing.

"We're on this wild goose chase looking for a tall human man who can pilot passenger flights, when I have one with me right here right now. And we're looking for a human. And the only human we've ever met or even just seen this entire time save for Kris and Janice, is you. Now granted, you have blue skin, your face is all different and don't look an awful lot like a pilot." He pointed at him.

"But I'm onto you. Just on the way here, I've seen weirder things than makeup and a costume." The jester was sweating, but he had nothing to say. "So what's your deal, huh?" Now it was Berdly that was walking around Jandsome. He pulled out a magnifying glass that came with his costume and pointed it at the jester.

"Are you a friend of his giving him cover? Is that why all that weird stuff happened when Pilot vanished? Are you a brother of his? A colleague? Do Scotts from different houses know each other or something? Is that how this works?" The jester apparently considered slipping into a silly stance again, but figured otherwise.

"Now you better tell me something good, or I'm going to just leave right now. I'll call up Janice, I'll go back to the info tower, I'll tell them everything I know and see what that stewardess thinks about everything I've seen of you. In fact." He pulled his phone back out and aimed it at him to start recording him.

The moment he had it raised, stopped looking at him and tried looking through the camera, the jester had already pulled it out of his hand. He now stood close enough to scare Berdly into moving back. The bird was scared as to what he would do next. With all the weird stuff he did, he wasn't sure whether he could outrun this guy if he turned out to be some lunatic. But he could see how tense he was all over. He could see him inhale, exhale, and then relax.

He relaxed, and offered the terrified teenager his phone back. With an empty expression, he finally spoke up. "There is no need for this. Follow me." He simply turned around and began walking across the street and then in a different direction from where they were going.

He did, but he was still confused. "What? Where are we going?"

"There's something I really need right now." He left it at that. And while he led the way, Berdly noticed that something had changed drastically. All of the jester's quirky mannerisms were gone completely. The squeak in his voice had vanished, it was just the voice of a grown man who made conscious efforts to keep himself calm and collected. And he stopped sliding along the pavement, making little pirouettes or otherwise dancing along his path or walking in silly ways.

All Berdly saw in front of him now, was just a grown man in a silly costume with silly makeup on.

The silence was also cooling down the air between them. He figured he at least had better not try to call this woman any more. Jandsome would keep ripping his phone out of his hand and hang up whenever he tried to get a word in. But now that he knew that this Janice was willing to contact him back, he had to make use of this as long as it lasted. One of those several voices that tried to talk to him when she called back, sounded like Kris.

Another reminded him of Pluma, but that wasn't possible, he must have gotten the voices confused. He sent her a text message and waited. He tried wording the first message in a formal tone, describing Kris and asking if he was there. She replied in a similarly formal tone that she had indeed joined him to look for someone together, Pilot as Berdly figured. But also that he was not with her at the moment. Then, she sent him a message that sent a chill down his spine.

"Pluma says hello by the way." She was here? With Janice? In a city full of homicidal criminals?

He immediately sent a message back asking where they were. He received a vague answer, saying the boy in the green robe had taken them to some safe house the brawlers couldn't get to. And that he and Kris and seemed familiar witht hat place. Well at least she was hunkering down somewhere and not out in the streets. Hopefully long enough for him to find her and take her someplace safer. The boy in the green robe must have been the 'prince' Kris had gone to look for.

If they were out and about moving to safehouses, then that meant Kris somehow got him out of jail.

Jandsome led Berdly to a destination they had already planned on visiting, but originally intended to do so after questioning a few more of the people on Berdly's list. It was a bar called 'Wright's'. Its name glowed in bright white neon above the entrance and through a window that spanned an entire wall, you could see the dimly lit interior.

Berdly could see a few monsters sitting on the benches, drinking, talking, some having a good time together, others keeping to themselves. When Jandsome opened the noisy door, the stench of burnt tobacco immediately filled Berdly' nostrils. Behind the counter stood an obese triceratops in a black shirt with his sleeves rolled up and a black leather pauldron with steel spikes hanging off his shoulder. He leaned onto the counter and greeted the two with a grin.

"Hey there you two. What can I get ya?"

He was very obviously a brawler, from the appearance Berdly recognized down to his sizee, so he couldn't keep himself from smirking and commenting on that. "A brawler that isn't breaking the law? That's a first!"

And the barista was neither impressed nor overly offended, in fact, it made him laugh. "I'd do bootlegging if I could, but booze ain't illegal to sell."

With an unprecedented volume, the jester cleared his throat to draw the barista's attention and spoke with his normal voice. "I would like one bottle of your strongest whisky. And something not so strong for the little guy."

The bird hooked in. "I'm not even sure if I can drink at all here, what's the drinking age?"

"Five. New mayor's legislation, all drugs are now legal."

"Okay."

The dinosaur turned around and fetched two bottles. One was the whisky Jandsome asked for, one an extra mild wine, even with a sticker attached to denote it as such. "There ya go." Without further ado, he counted the money the older one of the two visitors put down and kept part of it while pushing the rest back to his customer. "No need, but uh, wait up." They were already about to leave, but stopped to listen to the barkeeper. "You sound familiar, you been here before?"

Jandsome just laughed. "I'm sorry, you must be confusing me. Have a nice evening!"

Once done, he led Berdly into more and more wound alleyways, further away from any curious eyes, until he stopped at a crossing between alleyways in the middle of four apartment complexes. Jandsome stretched out his finger and motioned a circle onto the ground in front of himself. "Allez 'hop!"

Then he took some steps back, ran towards the area he circled, jumped at it, and upon hitting the ground, was launched all the way up to top of one of the buildings. Once he had his bottles placed down, he waved at Berdly. "It's safe, just try it!" Try what? Berdly stopped and was confused. How did he jump up like that? "Imagine the floor down there like a trampoline, just jump!"

Jump? But there was nothing there? He walked a little closer to that area the jester had jumped up from to inspect it. Then, from one step to the next, his entire body shook and he screamed in fear, because he was being launched up into the sky! The cold wind rushing against his clothing showed him how fast he was moving up and it was only going to get worse from here. This was it, Berdly was dead! He was going to get crushed.

He fell into a death trap he...he was fine. With little to no impact, he landed on the rough surface of the flat rooftop the jester stood on. Still hyperventilating from the shock, he stayed on the floor for a while. Jandsome laughed and came closer. "You should have jumped. That makes it much easier to not lose orientation."

"You never told me you could...never do that again!"

"I'm sorry, I thought it was faster than the stairs. Come on. Let's sit down." With one bottle in each hand, the jester made his way to the edge of the building. A one-metre tall wall lined the entire outside of the roof, for safety so people didn't fall off. Jandsome leaned against that wall, and once Berdly had gotten up and caught up to him, so did he.

From here, you could see the lights of the 'moons' in the distance against the dark of the comparably flat skyline, with street lights quite a bit below bringing an abrupt end to the calming darkness if you followed it too far down. The jester put down the wine bottle and took a second sip from his own.

The bird sat down next to the jester. "So?"

Jandsome looked back at him. "What?"

"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?"

From how the jester was staring at him, he could only guess that he really, really, really didn't want to have this conversation. He did eventually break the silence. "I will tell you exactly what you want to know. but you have to promise me one thing. No. Two things."

"Go on..."

"One, I will show you something and you will not panic. You won't scream, and you won't run away."

That already raised eyebrow of Berdly's was reaching heights he didn't think were possible. "Okay?

"Two, you won't talk to others about what I show you. I will tell you everything you want to know, but it stays between the two of us."

"Hm..." The bird's eyes narrowed and he kept staring at the now visibly nervous man. He didn't trust this, but he wanted these answers. "Deal." He reached out and shook the jester's hand.

"All right. Are you ready?" He was asking Berdly, but it sounded more like he was asking himself. The jester swallowed down his fears. "There goes." He ducked his head, so his face wasn't visible any more under the broader top of his cap, and grabbed two of the loosely hanging parts of his fool's cap and pulled it right off. When he looked back up, a lot had changed.

His skin wasn't blue, it had the normal tone of a western human. The hearts painted over his eyes were gone. And his facial features were all different. They had lost a little of their obscurity and fit a little better together.

"What? What?" It took Berdly a few seconds to recognize it, but those were the features of Pluma's Scott doll, albeit with a lot more detail because he was real. At least here. For a second he was at a loss for words. " That...you...I knew it!" With a force he had lost control of, he punched the still ridiculously dressed Pilot's arm.

"I knew it! Ever since you said you can fly that plane I smelled something fishy about you!" He grabbed the pilot turned jester by the collar and began to shout at him. "My sister was looking for all over for you! For hours! I was looking all over for you! For god's sake, I made Kris look all over for you! What is this? What has gotten into you? WHERE WERE YOU?"

Pilot didn't even fight back. "Ple-please. First promise!"

"First promise was about panicking! I'm not panicking! I'm just really mad at you!"

"I said no screaming."

Still holding Jandsome, no, Pilot by the collar, he sighed and then let go. "Fair enough. Explain yourself. How did you even do that?"

They both took a moment to relax again. "It's the cap. It changes my appearance. I can even change my voice if I want to." He very briefly put it back on and began speaking with that strange squeak he used to put on again, even if only for one sentence. "Allow me to introduce myself! I am Jandsome! Travelling jester!"

"Okay...but why? Why all this? Why run away? Was it Pluma? Did 'the lightners' 'banish' you into my closet?"

"Your closet?"

He had to think. When Kris first said this was his room, what did he say about the closet? "Uh...the cliffs. I mean the cliffs."

"No. That was all me."

Pilot started chugging away at that bottle, so much so that Berdly got closer and pulled it back. "Stop, you've barely started here. So why did you do all of this?"

Pilot puled his legs back with their knees up and wound his arms around them. He took a deep breath. "Reasons."

"What reasons?"

"Reasons."

"You promised me answers."

Pilot took another deep breath. "This isn't easy you know." The bird just stared at him. They both knew he wouldn't let go of this. Begrudgingly, and very slowly, the human-looking darkner began to fumble in one of the pockets of his costume. He never sped up on this. He was really taking this time. When he was done, he put down his legs again and held up a tiny box.

Its outside was woven over in smooth silk with various shades of pink and red putting together a sown pattern of roses. "The reason I'm here, the reason I look like this." He opened it as slowly as he had taken it out. "Is because I am a coward." Embedded in a socket covered in cloth, on the inside, lay a golden ring, its upper side covered in tiny diamonds and one visibly bigger diamond set into its top.

Berdly sat there for a moment not knowing what to say. He was taken by surprise and blinked a few times, thinking about what he was seeing and what it meant. It was a wedding ring. "Janice. You were going to propose to her."

Pilot closed his eyes and nodded. It was silent enough up here that Berdly could hear the uneasy breaths of his friend. "I was - I was afraid. I was afraid what she would say. I didn't know if I could take this going the wrong way, I was afraid of taking that chance. So I chose to avoid it altogether." He turned the box around and began to stare at the ring.

"And now she's here." He was trembling. He was struggling to suppress his frown and grabbed his headgear. "This cap suits me. I really am a fool. She's putting herself in danger to chase a fool. I don't deserve her."

"So that's why you keep stopping my phone calls."

"If she loses hope in finding me here, she might leave. But if there are lightners helping her, she's only going to stay here for longer."

They both wound up silently staring at the floor for a while. Until Berdly came up with more questions. "So why all this 'jester' business? Why not just go somewhere else, maybe take a boat or something and sail off to where the angel won't see. Hell, that island was the perfect place. While we're at that jester stuff, did you learn all these tricks like the banana thing in that short a time?"

Pilot kept staring down. "I didn't. It's all the cap. As long as I can distract people in any possible way, it can do basically anything."

The student grinned. "That's one powerful cap. Do they sell those in the gift shop, too?"

Pilot shook his head. "No. It was given to me by a stranger who cheered me up when I came here."

____________________________________

I was much more shaken up than I am now. I'm not sure if I can remember any given moment since I came here when I wasn't either sobbing, fighting against the tears with all I had, or outright crying my eyes out. I couldn't bear the fear, and I couldn't bear the shame of myself running away, and yet I kept making it worse, because it was more comfortable than facing her again. I avoided contact with as many as I could, I only greeted a few people back.

I didn't know what to do, or where to go. So I just did what you could expect me to do. This. Drink away my sorrows. Or at least try to. I went to the same place we just visited, and then I climbed the stairs to get to this very roof. I was planning on staying here for a long time. I had food and water ready. I was expecting to just stay in this corner, where the infopage can't see me. But something unexpected happened. I met someone. A little figure jumped along all the rooftops.

I must have been such a pathetic sight to behold. A grown man, reclined in a corner, crying while drinking as if there is no tomorrow. And yet, for some reason, this roof wasn't an exception to the insanely high jumps this little fellow was capable of. In fact, upon seeing me, he stopped, in the middle of the air as if he could fly, folded his arms together and slowly floated down here.

"BOO HOO HOO. WHAT MUST MY EYES BESET THEMSELVES UPON? WHY THE LONG FACE?" He had a ragged voice that you could hear echoing all around whenever he spoke, and it was so loud, for the first few seconds, I felt like my head was going to explode. "THIS PLACE IS NOT NEARLY AS FUN AS I HEARD, BUT YOU SEEM THE FURTHEST FROM ANY AMUSEMENT WORTH MENTIONING!"

I could barely make out what he looked like. My sight was a little blurry, but it got better when I put the bottle away and gave him a closer look. It was a very small person. Smaller than even you or all the citizens here. He was wearing a jester's outfit, just like mine, down to the colours, and his face had the same royal blue colour to it that I have when I put on this cap. Although I must admit, his collar was a little more extravagant than mine.

His teeth were sharp, some hung out and they had the same bright yellow collar as my and his collar do. His eyes were painted over with black stars and a barely visible, yellow glow came out of them. His tail, once swung with its tail upwards, formed a visible 'J'.

And a fool's cap, he was wearing a fool's cap in the middle of a modern city. I asked him to leave me alone, but he just came hopping closer. "IS THAT HOW YOU GREET A NEW VISITOR? I MUST SAY. TOUGH CROWD. AND THIS VIEW!" He jumped onto the ledge I'm leaning against. "COULD DO WITH MORE COLOURS, BUT AT LEAST THERE IS A PLENTITUDE TO SEE FOR SUCH A SMALL PLACE. NOW YOU."

He jumped back to the ground. "WHAT DRIVES ONE SO FAR FROM HOME, ALL ALONE WHERE NO EYES CAN SEE."

I was still crying, even right in front of him. I didn't care at this point. I was a stuttering mess and tried to tell him that I couldn't deal with what I was facing.

"NOW ONE THING AFTER THE OTHER. TELL ME WHERE..." I screamed at him to leave me alone, I begged him. "YOU ARE JUST BECOMING ALL THE MORE INTERESTING. NOW." He sped right towards me, ripped my bottle out of my hand and threw it away. It shattered and all its remaining contents went to waste. "YOUR SORROWS WON'T GO AWAY IF YOU POISON YOUR BODY AND YOUR MIND. LET US DROWN THEM IN ENJOYMENT INSTEAD!"

He bounced from one side of mine to the other, and I followed him with my eyes. When I stopped doing so, I noticed that right in the corner of my eye an entire full-sized carousel in deep blue was built up and ready right here on this roof. In one jump, this tiny fellow got onto one of the horses and it began to move. They all began to move. "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? QUICK QUICK UP YOU GO!"

He was successful in cheering me up in so far that he distracted me, so I got up and followed him. I did as I was told. I got up on the carousel and began riding a creature with a strange head. I knew it was childish, but then again, what did it matter. This wasn't a day to be proud of to begin with. "VERY GOOD. NOW HOW ABOUT THIS?"

Now that I was on the carousel, he jumped right off of it and began jumping up and down. Pieces of the roof itself began to stand up all around him and take on forms with arms and legs, and dance in circles around him. And all manner of playing card symbols appeared out of nowhere to join them in this dance. And once circle upon circle was wound around each other with him at the centre, he jumped right back onto the carousel.

I have to admit, he did so little and yet it worked so well, I had already calmed down by this point. "WHAT? WE HAVE ONLY JUST BEGUN AND YOUR SPIRITS ARE ALREADY LIFTED! I WILL HAVE YOU SNEERING IN YOUR SLEEVES IN NO TIME AT THIS RATE. NOW COME ON, LET US BE OFF." I was still hesitant. I tried to tell him I wasn't sure if I was in any condition to accompany him in whatever endeavour he was out for.

"RUBBISH IF I EVER HEARD ANY. ONE IS ALWAYS IN A CONDITION TO BRING CHAOS AND MISCHIEF, ESPECIALLY TO A PLACE WITH SUCH A HUGE AUDIENCE!" I told him I couldn't be seen like this. But all he did was swing his arm around and as if covered by some blanket, he vanished. Mere moments later so did I in the same way. "AND NOW, YOU WON'T BE SEEN AT ALL."

And soon, we were on our way to the street. I was as terrified as you were when I stepped on a 'bouncy' surface for the first time and was launched in one move down to the walkway."PERHAPS SEEING ONE ANOTHER MAY BE OF HELP." When I got up, I saw my arms again and in front of me, he stood with his gloved hand raised.

There were a few passerbys, they didn't react to our sudden appearance in the slightest. Apparently, we were only visible to each other. The small man jumped all around the street, and tapped each street light once with a hand on each leap. Each one he did, began to quake and stir left and right. Through their surface, first the wheels, then the entire rest of four entire bicycles began to come out, two further up, two further below like arms and legs.

And leveraging themselves on those bicycles, they just pulled themselves out of the ground and began making random movements without straying too far from where they had been. The people that were walking close enough to see the spectacle were first startled, then shocked, and the little devil just curled together, bursting into hysterical laughter.

And that was only the very beginning. He led me all around the city. We caused mayhem wherever we went. All those things the infopage described happening after I vanished, that was us. We saw one person get startled at a passing deer-like citizen, so we thought maybe confronting them with a giant moose wouldn't be out of place. We saw a road with high traffic and decided to summon swaths of birds out of nowhere at odd times.

He created a gravity field that pulled all the animals in the zoo together and had them roll through the streets. We rearranged the layout of an entire block just to confuse everyone who had any business going there. We visited the coast and found a fisherboat and made the fish and the fishers swap places. The things he was capable of, it was ridiculous. Of course, some jokes were outright mean, but still, I couldn't help but laugh at them.

If I were to claim that I tried to hold him back and moralized about not treating other people like that, I would lie. I enjoyed our time together. I laughed at a lot of his pranks. But, as I suspected, it wasn't something that lasted forever.

After a whole slew of bringing chaos to the city, we returned to this roof to look upon some of it. "NOW THEN. IT SEEMS OUR TASK IS FINISHED AND THAT FROWN OF YOURS HAS TURNED UP. NOW TELL ME, I WAS TOLD THERE WAS FUN TO BE HAD HERE. TELL ME, WHERE MIGHT I FIND SOME TRUE ENJOYMENT WITH A CHALLENGE."

I wasn't really familiar with the kind of scene that would include a jester, so I figured he was a clown of sorts and told him about the circus at the bottom of the inner city. "THEN I WILL JOIN THIS CIRCUS. IF THEY HAVEN'T REALIZED IT, I WILL BRING IT TO IT'S FULL POTENTIAL." I asked him if he really just could take over the circus so easily, so he just came closer to me and went on. "I CAN DO ANYTHING AND NOW..."

Then he slowly pulled off his fool's cap and revealed a wide, rounded haircut of bright-red or orange curled hair on his head. "...NOW, SO CAN YOU." He gave me his cap. The moment I held it in my hands with no idea what to say or what this meant, he bounced away, shouting: "MISCHIEF, MISCHIEF, CHAOS, CHAOS!" and burst out in laughter, seconds before he just disappeared. I can only figure that the clown in the circus is him, and he really did follow up on my suggestion.

___________________________

"This entire costume just sort of appeared on me when I put on the cap for the first time. This entire spiel, the costume, the cap, the jokes, it may not have solved my problems, but it helps me cope. So please, don't take this away from me."

Once he was done telling his story, they both stared at the ground in silence. But even when they didn't want it to, the world kept going. The wind kept dragging on Berdly's feathers and slightly pulling on the loose silk patches on Pilot's costume. They both spent some time thinking about what to say, or where to go from here. Then again, while they were at telling each other secrets, he might as well return Pilot's gesture. "I texted her."

"What?"

"I exchanged messages with Janice. Kris and his prince friend are already with her. Just like my sister. You think she's going to stay if there are 'lightners' helping her? There already are. She isn't going anywhere now." While the bird was getting up, the pilot just looked back down. "So what are we going to do about all this?" Pilot still wouldn't move. "She's not leaving now."

He walked up to him to try to give him a little push by he shoulder. "Come on. She's not going away until she finds you, and neither is my sister. They're both dead set on finding you. The least we can do is keep an eye on them ourselves."

His friend retreated back behind his knees. "I can't face Janice. Not like this."

"Then don't. Use this cap! Disguise yourself, make your voice different, doesn't matter, but we can't keep them out of harm's way if we're not there to do it. Besides, there's more solutions than one. Come on, get up!" He tried pulling him up by the hand, but it was no use. He was almost as sad a sight as those homeless monsters, but still bigger and stronger. "You know what, fine. Wallow in your own misery, see if I care! I have to find my sister!"

"Wait..." Storming off halfway to the outside staircase was what it took for Pilot to get back up and follow him. Now, with his cap back on his head, but both bottles still in hand, he caught up to the bird. "...I'm sorry." Now, together, they went down the stairs like normal people. "Do you think she would even accept me after all this?"

"No way to find out until you try. Besides. You ran away and yet she chased you all the way here from my sister's room. If that doesn't say something, then what does?"

"What is it with your sister anyway?"

"You're her doll, Sco- Pilot."

"Her doll?"

The bird sighed. "Ugh, look, it took me a while to get how this dark world stuff works, okay? If I told you something, would you make the same two promises as before?"

"I promise."

"Okay. All this business with the brawlers is my fault. You said 'the lightners' banished the citizens to these canyons? It's like Kris said. The canyons are my toy boxes. I recognize most of the brawlers and a lot of the citizens here. I am 'the lightners'. If I could get back home, you know, to the real wo - the light world, I could make all the brawlers disappear."

"You mean like a mass deportation."

"Yep, imagine them all just gone. No selling dust, no pointing guns at people. Imagine this whole place without the crime." Corner after corner, they retreaded their path back to the bar and sat down on an empty bench, hidden in plain sight to all the monsters and the patient barkeeper.

"But how? How is that even possible?"

"You're all just inanimate objects, Pi...Jandsome."

"Considering the feats I heard that lightners accomplished, we must all indeed seem like mere objects to you."

"No. I'm being literal here. You all exist in the light world, as objects. All those people, all those buildings, those are all my building block toys. They were 'banished' here because I met - because I was getting too old and put them all in a box, okay? I banished them all here."

"And me?"

"Dolls. Both you and Debbie. You're a plastic doll that came with a toy plane that she plays house with. Because where we're from, that's all you are. You're a toy. You're a child's plaything. My sister is looking for you, because she's 'your' lightner the same way I'm that of all the people here. Because of you, she's in as much danger as Janice is now. We all jumped head first into this world to find a plastic toy."

"Sounds like you could do with a drink as well." Pilot handed him the mild wine bottle, and Berdly did open it up to take a tiny sip from it before giving it back.

Now that they had both calmed down, the bird finally took that phone of his back out and gave Pilot a serious look. "Now, I promise, I won't tell her anything. If I call her, will you please let me make that call?" The grown man leaned back with his arms folded up. At last, he was going to make that call. He dialed the number, and after a few times, Janice did pick up the phone to say hello. "Hello? It's me again." He tried to laugh. "We had some trouble to sort out, but now I can talk. My name's Berdly."

The mature woman on the other end of the phone didn't seem the least bit startled or surprised. "I know. Pluma here told me all about you."

He could already hear her come closer. and not long after that, it seemed Janice handed the phone to his sister "Is it Berdo?" What a relief, she was fine. "Berdo? Where are you?"

He was a bit cross with her. "Where am I? Where are you? Why are you here?"

"We're looking for Scott."

"I know you're looking for Scott, but how - " He covered his face with one hand. "It doesn't matter, where are you? Where can I find you?"

"We're in a house in some big dark place with lots of pointy houses. Kris and the goat brought us here."

"Yes, yes, where is he? Is Kris with you?"

"No, him and the goat went to that big castle." Great, now there was a big castle all of a sudden. Where was there supposed to be a big castle?

He was getting frustrated. Getting any information out of her was impossible. "Look, just...are there any scary looking people outside? People with spiky clothes or big teeth?"

"There's no-one else anywhere." What was that supposed to mean?

He sighed. "Give me Debbie, will you?" And apparently she did. He apologized for all the inconvenience and gladly, Janice told him that it was all right. "So where exactly are you guys? Describe the place?"

"It's a town behind a heavy door. But it's quiet and I haven't seen anyone else here. I think we're all alone here."

"So no brawlers nearby?"

"Your friend's friend said they can't get here. They're just coming back from that door by the way." Perfect. So it really was some kind of safehouse. Effectively at least. He took a deep, calming breath. At last, he could relax. At least for a bit.

For a moment, he could hear all of them talking, then the phone was handed to someone else who didn't say a word. For quite some time. So Berdly decided to act on a hunch. "Kris?"

"Yes?" Yes, it was him.

"Where are you?"

"Behind a door."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious. But where is that door?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Oh. Berdly began to see where Kris was coming from. He had to think. If they wanted to tag along with them, they needed a reason. Kris wanted to join up with him as little as he wanted to with Kris. He needed a pitch. He stared at Pilot for a moment, but he just shook his head and shrugged. "You're...you're looking for Pilot, right? I mean why else would Janice be with you?"

"Yes? So?" Kris didn't sound the least bit interested.

"Well me and Jandsome got our hands on a hot tip on where he could be." Pilot wasn't saying anything, but he was making wide and erratic gestures begging for Berdly not to do what he thought he was going to do. "He's still in this city. Our source doesn't want to talk to us if we reveal too much, but this might be it. We might be onto where he's gone."

More chattering was heard in the distance. Apparently, those four people were arguing over this, but eventually, Kris spoke to him again. "Brawlers spotted us, so Ralsei moved the door somewhere else. I don't know where. It's a big black double door with a Delta Rune on it. And a golden frame. Good bye."

"Wait-wait-wait-wait." It was too late. Kris had just hung up on him. "Oh no, how are we going to find them now?" Pilot picked out one of those badges from the infopage and pointed at it. "What about it?" Without further ado, he got up, both of them did, went outside, walked around a corner, waited until they were sure nobody was in range to see or listen, and placed it on the floor.

Pilot kneeled down, 'pressed' it and took a step back. It began to shine and above it, all of a sudden, a smaller version of the infopage appeared right in front of them. "Hello." It greeted them with a certain professional distance the 'real' one in the tower hadn't shown. "I am the infopage. Do you have any questions I can help you with?"

He started to understand. These things really were a lot more useful than he expected. "Yes, we do. Can you tell me where we find a big black double door with a Delta Rune on it and with a golden frame?"

The infopage nodded, and next to him, a display appeared with an address on it. As fast as he could, the bird picked out his pen and notebook and noted down the address. Then he waved at the two of them. "Thank you for using the official infoBadge - trademark - and have a nice day." With that, he just vanished. And slowly dispersing into static, so did the badge.

"Where exactly are you going with this?"

"I have a plan." Berdly put away his notebook. He now knew where to go and what to do. "We string them along. Say we have a lead on where you are. This guy you got that cap from, what's he called, anyway?"

"Jevil. His name is Jevil."

"Jevil. We go to the circus, see if Jevil is there. Circus is at the bottom of the inner city, right? And the city hall is also in the inner city. So it's a lot closer to the city hall where we're now. From there, it's not as far any more. We string them along for as long as we have to, seal that fountain together, you stop hiding, I get home and give you back to Pluma, and then everyone's happy."

"That sounds like something, but..." Pilot slowed down. "...it still means I have to face Janice."

The younger-looking one just looked back at him with growing impatience. "You'll have to face her sooner or later either way. All this is doing is giving you more time."

The jester pulled himself together. "Yes. Time. All I need is a little more time."