Chapter Index

Love in plastic (Berdly)
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https://pastebin.com/TKjKcqVe
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https://pastebin.com/dDw2ti92
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https://pastebin.com/2FRWC9jj
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https://pastebin.com/vJ67iw7N
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https://pastebin.com/88fCetw0
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https://pastebin.com/Dj46NYUK
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https://pastebin.com/DmandfKg
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https://pastebin.com/2qAE3pbm
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https://pastebin.com/YFvjUjeu
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https://pastebin.com/s3Q8nruN
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https://pastebin.com/MQeRHGWJ
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https://pastebin.com/pgcGWuRZ

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Love in Plastic

Chapter 09

Don't Jam with the Jevil

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Susie told this mysterious black goat in white everything about her journey through the Card Kingdom. Not far into it, he began asking her to add to each point she remembered, what they all made her think and feel. And she had to admit, it felt relieving sharing all of it. How she really enjoyed unloading on those darkners in the beginning, how she had fun joining Lancer's side and coming up with all kinds of little plays and gimmicks to try and stop or at least startle Kris and Ralsei.

And the ways they reacted each time. Ralsei with so much played-up surprise, she felt a bit insulted and Kris with barely anything at all. Each time she tried surprising him only caused a barely noticeable stir. She missed out on no opportunity to rail against Kris for not dignifying her and Lancer's little plans and ideas.

They put so much effort in the little play to put up Lancer as an unwitting stranger. And he barely reacted to that either. He played along, but she had been looking forward to seeing a terrified look on his face, and there was none.

Then again, when did he ever really make a face? He was the freak that just stayed away from everyone most of the time. Except that one time just before they went to the supply closet. At least then, for once, he dignified her with an actual reaction. Not that he didn't interact with her after that.

He and Ralsei were both freaks, but they had their own ways of doing so. Always asking her to join them on their stupid little adventure. Telling her to stop swinging her axe at people. Outright asking her to flirt with strangers. At least he wasn't asking her to flirt with him.

It was different. All of it was different from being back home. Even before, at school, at home, even when doing some more fun things that others didn't like her doing, there was a reason why she lost her cool a little bit and was almost jumpy around the others earlier today. Back when she was convinced she could just open up the door to that closet and land in the same magical land as before.

Everything out there was so...dull. So uninteresting. Even if she struck and carved the paint off of a wall, went to places and made the staff's belongings disappear or even that one time she grabbed the opportunity when a kid was left alone with their toy to throw their toy into the nearest pond and run away, when she woke up the next day, she would in the same bed in the same apartment building in the same town.

There was no point to listening to anything anyone said, because everything was the same no matter what she did. It didn't matter. Being in a whimsical place where fighting was normal, you took people head-on and every new area had new strange things to discover, it was the first time in years that she was actually really excited about something.

"Hm..." As time went on, Luxon had stopped announcing everything he noted down, but now, after she was just telling him everything for a long time, he spoke up. "I think I have a good picture of everything that happened. But now, let's emphasize the inner workings. If you had to summarize what exactly about the dark world you like so much that makes you want to go there, what would that be?"

All those little moments. Kris and Ralsei being surprised when she just switched sides, Kris and Ralsei running into her in the maze, Kris and Ralsei trying so hard to inspire her to join their stupid little group of 'heroes', Kris warning the enemy when she was about to chop them to bits, Kris trying to order her around and her ignoring it, Kris actually giving her commands towards the end.

Kris leading her and Ralsei by the hand to drag them out of many of that noisy Jevil's attacks. That moment when Ralsei surprised her by revealing his weirdly familiar face. Kris jumping in the way when King had her in a bad spot and was about to finish her off. Overall, if she had to narrow down what she wanted out of the dark world, was this feeling. Feeling invincible.

Having someone she could really trust with her life. In the end, safety. In a single world, in the dark world, she felt safe. In a way she never did in the light world. And her conclusion raised some eyebrows from her imaginary psychiatrist. He just shook his head in disbelief. "What a tremendously silly notion."

She was caught a little by surprise there. "What? Why?"

"You just described travelling through a country where everyone save for a handful of people, most of which you describe as 'freaks' or 'weirdos', is out to kill you. Is anyone out to kill you in the light world?"

This question by itself made her feel weird. She felt like she was constricted. Like she was pressed together from all sides. She looked down on the floor. "No- no. I mean sometimes I think everyone is hoping something like that happens. But no. No-one's out to kill me in the light world."

"Then why is it that you feel safe when you're in the dark world, and not when you're back home?"

She just wound up staring at the floor. Not knowing what to say. While she continued to stare, her host gave his phone a quick look. "Hm, interesting." The clipboard and pen dispersed into the same black clouds they appeared from and he pushed himself up from his seat to get up. "I'd say we're at the end of our time for today. We've already gotten one clear step closer to why you're here."

Almost dancing along his way, the black boss monster tapped back to the entrance door. Susie had to close her eyes and sigh, before she had it in her to get back up. She followed him through the corridor, but throughout the entire time of following the beaming, fancy-dressed man to a golden elevator at the side of a stairwell, the question he posed was stuck in her mind. Every time the guy shot her a grin, she glared back at him.

All walls inside the elevator that weren't the exit or the wall with the control panel attached to it, were mirrors. Once the doors were closed and the elevator moved upwards, the goat was surprised to still see her be upset. "Oh come on, cheer up." He took a step back and summoned a cane to lean onto with one hand.

"I have good news for you. A few interesting things are happening out there. And I might have an interesting deal for you. You get to have everything you want. A magical dark world adventure in an all-new dark realm, with Kris and Ralsei at your side. What do you say? Do we have a deal?" He grinned, leaned forward, pulled the white glove off his hand to reveal his black paw with pink pawpads and extended it her way. "Just shake my hand, and the deal is sealed."

She stood in place, looking up and down between this man's smiling face and his hand. "Wait, you serious?"

"Of course. But even if I weren't, even if I was lying, would it matter? Is this a dream, is this the dark world? No matter what I say, I could be lying. This could be the dark world and I merely told you it was a dream. It could be a dream and I'm a figment of your imagination, telling you I'm a real person in the dark world. Then again, we are all clay to be shaped by you lightners through your hands and your minds. Is there much of a difference between the dark world and a dream?"

She took another step back and readied her axe. "Aha! So this is the dark world!"

Not the faintest bit of his grin vanished. "And yet you woke up here upon falling asleep. It should be a dream, shouldn't it? I should be a figment of your imagination. Then again, what are we to you, if not figments of your imagination, given form within a world of your dreams? In the end, all you can do, is stop asking yourself these questions, as it all blurs together when you think about it." She kept her battle stance, but she also kept staring at this hand.

She really felt like accepting this deal. Could he give her what he promised? If it was just a dream, what was there to worry about? But then, what if it wasn't? Then it occurred to her, why she had a bad feeling about this. "Wait a minute, where's the catch? What are you getting out of this? A deal's got two sides, right?"

A wide, glowing grin formed on his face. "Clever girl." He took his hand back and stood upright again. "Yes. It always comes at a price. And save for exceptions at my leisure, I never tell anyone what the price is, until I come to collect. It depends. Are you willing to take that risk? Are you willing to risk any price as long as you get your little adventure with your two friends?"

The way he said this only emboldened her distrust in him. After a few moments, he raised his hand and waved her way with all of his hand, down to his wrist. "Oh come on, I was just tempting you. Feeling out how easy you are to goad into making a mistake. Little piece of advice: Never accept a deal if you don't know what price you're going to pay. Especially not with me. Because it will never be something you like."

With a rumble, the elevator stopped and the golden doors slid open. It led into something akin to a reception. With a counter, a comfortable tiled floor with carpets that extended all the way into he corridors to the sides and the staircase. The yellow lights doused the beige walls in a comfortable glow. But this reception wasn't where they were headed. Dr. Luxon led her further, through a golden door, out into a much more noisy indoor balcony that hung over a larger area below.

"What is this place?" Susie went to the edge of it and leaned over the railing. They were in a huge hall. To the left was an uneven arrangement of trumpeters, saxophonists, bassists, an entire orchestra of musicians. On the stage, a man in his thirties surrounded by female dancers was singing a song similar to the ones playing on the radio in the hotel. In the middle, the bright, well-lit hall was full of white, round tables.

Monsters of all kinds from dogs, to birds, to cats to hoofed mammals, sat at the tables, and more Monsters walked back and forth between the tables and an area below that Susie couldn't see.

She barely noticed when Mr. Luxon had followed her and gazed down with her. "Look at their faces. So many of us, you lightners create in your own image. They look absolutely beautiful, do they not? Downright magnificent." He turned her way, and every time she made a slight move back, he followed her.

"I was once beautiful too, you know. Now, I must tell you, I have enough of an understanding on how the light world works, to know you in particular, are not to blame. I don't hold this against you. Nonetheless. Not long after my creation." His gaze grew more and more sinister. The inner corners of those glowing eyes shifted further and further down.

Then, still pursuing her, he spun around himself in one swing and pulled his top hat off. Within the same motion, he surged right towards her face with something that replaced his face that was outright disturbing and impossible to describe in an apt and expedient way.

It was as though bits and pieces of his white face were torn and stretched far out, turned around in corners, only to tear right through his face again. "This is what you did to me! Why did you do this to me, Susan? Why did you ruin my face!" The shock clamped down on all of her so much, she physically shrugged together and found herself out of breath, in complete darkness. In panic, she reached around left and right, but as she did, gradually, she began to realize what she felt was the fabric of her bed.

In time, she settled down and sighed her last lingering worries away. It was just a bad dream.

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They wandered past all the stands on the carnival in search for something, and here and there, they even found what he was looking for. Equipment. Kris wasn't willing to agree to visit Jevil under any circumstances, unless they were at least as well-equipped as they could be. And for that, they needed special equipment for adventurers. Whether or not it was enchanted in some way, although, it probably was, here and there, what Kris was looking for caught his eye.

One such piece of equipment, was a stetson hat to replace Berdly's bowler, that Kris and Ralsei insisted improved his defenses, as did the two slabs in matching colours that they brought and stuck to his jacket. It also added coolness, which apparently improved his ability to taunt his enemies.

After the stetson though, their funds were mostly drained. This kind of particular equipment was expensive. After that they actually made their entire group of six march back up to other levels of the inner city and purposefully track down, pursue and attack brawlers to pacify them, loot them, bring them to police stations and collect their bounties. Grinding, as Ralsei called it.

And after a lot of grinding, they had more ammunition than Ralsei could ever need, and more than enough money on hand to buy whatever Kris insisted they got first. The equipment they wound up buying were a black leather shoulderpiece for Kris to put on his unprotected shoulder, over his cape, a pair of white silk gloves for Ralsei that made his touches more delicate, and lastly, a new sword for Kris.

A bright yellow one with a round tip to the lower end of its grip, that had a red, five-point star engraved to it. A Baphyblade as the merchant called it.

With all this, it was finally time. They were ready. Ready as they could be. Kris still had a small fortune left, but they didn't find anything really good anymore. The closer they got to the big circus tent, the more hesitant Kris and Ralsei were to get any closer. Eventually, Berdly just grabbed Kris by the arm. "Don't be so scared. Maybe he won't attack us and we can just talk to him." Kris wasn't so optimistic.

When passing inside, with the crowd already eagerly waiting and musicians rushing in and out, he walked off to the side and touched the light. The organ didn't stop playing and the continuous, and slowly intensifying beat of the drums spoke tales of the audience's impatient bloodthirst. "Hey! What's keeping you?" When he ventured ahead, Berdly noticed that Jandsome was staying behind with Janice and Pluma, with quite some distance. "You not coming?"

"We already tried. And my tricks won't work on him if he wants a fight." Even so, easy enough, Berdly thought to himself. They had some vague semblance of a plan. All he had to do now, was to ask Jevil where pilot was, Jevil would either refuse to say or spill the beans in front of Kris and Ralsei, and then they would back off and this whole mess would finally start to unwind itself so they could focus on sealing the fountain and going home. No battle necessary.

Slowly, they stepped into the brightly lit interior the light brown dirt that covered the ground was littered with spatters of blood. And on the ground, the little man stood with his bright red hair cut in a bulbous shape. Dressed in his primarily red rainbow suit.

Smiling with that painted on face and raising an arm either to greet old friends, or to present his latest victims to his audience. "NOW WHAT IS THIS? CURIOUS, CURIOUS. DO I SEE A FEW FAMILIAR FACES? HAVE YOU COME FOR ANOTHER GAME?"

Kris pushed himself past Berdly. "What are you doing here?"

He snickered. "I RESTED, HIDDEN IN THE SHADOW OF ONE OLD FRIEND, WHEN ANOTHER WOKE ME, AND TOLD ME OF MORE ENJOYMENT TO BE FOUND HERE."

"Yes but, how did you get here?"

The corners of the clown's bright-red mouth rose, as did the painted-on green eyebrows. "HOW DID YOU?" What was that even supposed to mean?

Kris' questions weren't going anywhere, Berdly pushed him aside. "Wait, you!" Jevil slightly tilted his head at this new face. Everything was in place for Berdly. He had all the witnesses he needed. "You talked to Pilot! I know for a fact that you did! Where do we find him?"

"NOW THIS IS ONE QUESTION THAT IS NOT IN NEED OF ANSWERING. NOT FOR YOU. NOT FOR ANYONE HERE. LIKE I SAID TO YOUR FRIENDS. THE ANSWER LIES WITHIN. BUT SHEESH, ALL THESE QUESTIONS ARE SUCH A STRAIN ON THE MIND. WHAT WE NEED IS SOME EXERCISE FOR THE BODY."

When Kris and Ralsei began slowly backing off, Berdly followed them, while still talking back. "No. Please not. We don't need any exercise."

"OH." Jevil made a backwards salto to gain a little distance. "YOU DON'T, ARE YOU SURE?" When they turned around, the three of them shrugged together out of surprise, more so than him Ralsei and Kris. The entrance to the arena was walled off when they weren't looking. With solid concrete. "LET ME SEE FOR MYSELF."

In the air above all of them, an oversized, floating pistol appeared out of nowhere. It was a revolver, that came with a royal blue barrel, a black grip, and overall shared the colours of Jandsome's costume and Jevil's tail. Complete with little golden bells hanging off the barrel.

As though by invisible hands just like how it held itself in the air, the hammer on the back of the weapon, with another bell hanging off its tip pulled itself down to ready a shot, and then the trigger pulled itself. Instead of an actual shot being fired though, a pole shot out and hung out of the front end, with a lengthy white flag hanging off of it that had the word 'Bang!' written on it in the colours of the pistol.

At once, Kris screamed in Berdly's ear. "Move!", jumped to the side and dragged Berdly with him. When he pushed the human's arm away and turned around, he began to understand why. The ground where they had just stood was rising and bloating up as if it was a balloon being filled with air, and then blew up with a loud explosion, the force of which he could even feel after dodging it.

He got up as fast as he could. This guy was every bit as crazy as Kris and Ralsei had said. "Hey!" He shouted at him. "Do you want me to just shoot you?" He pulled out his guns to show he was serious.

The clown, bouncing up and down by leveraging the front ends of his oversized shoes, only laughed as always. "OH, THIS PIDGEON THINKS HE CAN SWIM WITH THE SHARKS? INTERESTING. BE MY GUEST. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!" After Jevil almost killed all of them, Berdly was happy to oblige and just began firing away, only to realize after a mere second, that Jevil was already gone. "OH. LOOKS LIKE I'M HERE. NOW."

The clown pulled his mouth open with both hands to shoot them a grimace with his unnaturally long tongue stretched out and those spiky, yellow teeth peeking out as well. But while the bird turned around to look at him, he was pulled aside by his two peers, because two bright, successive white 'diamond' symbols shot his way. The had Kris and Ralsei to thank for not getting hit by them.

He shot him again. "OH, AND NOW I'M OVER HERE." again Jevil was gone, he was pulled aside, and realized the clown was somewhere else and had fired two more diamonds their way. He tried to shoot Jevil and was pulled aside a few more times before he began to get the idea and dodge the incoming counter-attacks on his own. "OH, MISSED AGAIN!"

After a whole wave of these attacks, they could catch their breaths, as Jevil had calmed down and was just standing there, spreading one arm and bowing to the cheering public above. There had been so many of these projectiles, Berdly was surprised that they managed to not get hit a single time. "Phew, so much for this."

Kris was a lot more collected than he remembered him when they entered the tent. "Good. We dodged all of them. We'd be in trouble if not. He dodged all your shots before, maybe he'll let us hit him now that it's our turn."

Ralsei pulled him back when he was about to take a step forward and give commands. "I don't think it works that way any more. We have to come up with something else."

"Berdly. You said your Smugshot shoots homing bullets, right?"

This earned the two a very annoyed look from Kris' classmate. "We're not calling it the Smugshot."

"Right, just take aim then. So If they're really homing, they'd hit him no matter what, right?"

He wasn't sure why Kris was expecting the kind of certainty he appeared to be asking for, so Berdly just shrugged. "Yes. I assume as much."

"Here's what we do. First, Berdly, you fire a smugshot right at him, make sure it does work. Ralsei, you wait at first. The bullets will chase him, and when they hit, he'll be startled for a moment. That's when you hit him with everything you have. So, Berdly, ready?" He confirmed. "Ralsei, you ready?"

The sound of releasing the now slightly raised rifle, was loud enough for the two of them to hear. "Locked and loaded."

"Okay. And..." He stopped for a moment. "Berdly. If he attacks us with weird stuff after all this, just follow my lead, okay?" Berdly stared at him with a very annoyed expression. Those narrowed eyes had to have been obvious enough to get his disapproval across, even for Kris. "Come on. We got this far, just trust me, okay?" He took a deep breath, and then just nodded.

Kris was right. They did get this far. All those shots he helped Berdly dodge before, not to mention all the fights with brawlers, he blamed Kris for their early hiccups, but at this point, had earned another chance. Once he was sure that his classmate was going to follow his lead, Kris turned around and faced the clown. "So. Let's go." Now he stepped forward swung his arm forward to point straight at the clown and shout: "Berdly! Take aim!"

As commanded, he raised both his pistols, aimed calmly at the disguised jester and watched the glowing symbols form at him. When the larger, shrinking circle passed the smaller one, he pulled the triggers and was again forced back slightly by the stronger recoil. And just as Kris had figured, and just as it had happened before, Jevil vanished and the bullets changed course mid-flight, straight past them and onto a different corner, where they pierced right through his clothes and onto him.

When they struck, they tickled a sound of surprise out of the startled clown. "Ralsei, now!" The prince grabbed the opportunity, aimed right at his now stumbling target, pressed the back of his weapon against his shoulder and pulled and held the trigger.

An ear-shattering barrage shot right at Jevil and pierced entire patterns of holes into him. The clown's head popped out of his body like a jack-in-the-box. He bled from the other side, at least for a moment. "WHAT IS THIS! AT LAST SOMEONE WHO CAN FOLLOW UP ON MY PLAYS." He was as unimpressed as he sounded.

Within seconds, his head lodged itself back in place and he recovered right before their eyes. His torn, rainbow-coloured suit restored itself until it was flawless again as well. "AT LAST, WHAT FUN. LET'S CELEBRATE!" With another swing of the clown's arm, a several metre wide bowl just appeared to grow out of the ground in the very middle of the arena. Inside, a bright pink mass began to stir. "A SWIRLING SWEETNESS, A SIN TO YOUR TEETH FOR SINNERS IN ALL SIZES!"

Again, the crowd cheered and clapped in anticipation of something they probably already knew from past battles. The stirring liquid mass began to harden, and then two rows of strands of bright pink cotton candy, eight on each of them grew out of the bowl. They almost reached the width of one of the three heroes, and extended themselves to the outer ends of the arena.

"Arms!" Kris rushed between Ralsei and Berdly and presented to them his stretched out elbows, and they both quickly understood that he meant to hook their arms into his. Jevil was all about entertainment, so of course the best way to dodge his attacks, would resemble a dance. Once the strands of cotton candy were at their full length, and for some reason didn't seem to fall down in spite of nothing holding them up.

A second later, it turned out that something was doing so after all. From within each strand, a widening metal bar made itself apparent that ran through the middle of each one and held it together. And not only was it itself growing wider, very painful-looking metal spikes shot out of all ends of it, which peered visibly out of the cotton and these floating constructions, still coming out of the bowl but arranging themselves to take turns in being high and low at each radius from the centre, began to spin. Too fast to just roll along. If those things touched any of them, it would be extremely painful.

Kris guided the three of them to face one of the bent rods spinning around their inner axis. At least they weren't moving around too erratically, they were obviously divided in small segments, each one of which was spinning individually.

Then, they began to move, the bowl, and with it, all the cylindrical segments that had grown out of it, began to turn around the bowl and within mere moments, one of said curved rods closed right in on them, with the segments that closed in on them at a little less than their knee's height. "Jump!" Kris shouted, before leading them closer to it.

He kneeled ever so slightly to give them a clearly recognizable motion that they could move roughly in sync with, and then all three of them stepped or jumped over the deadly cotton trap unscathed. "Duck!" After this, they lowered themselves and began to crouch, passing right under the next rod that had chosen its path at their standing height at the distance to the centre they were at.

Then shortly after passing them, Kris stood upright and by doing so, got them to do the same. "Jump!" He approached the next one, which was again at below-knee's length and they all managed to step or jump over it. "Duck!, jump! Duck, jump!" It was a slightly rough start, but Berdly and Ralsei soon got the hang of following the strict back-and-forth between jumping over the low segments and ducking under the high ones, over and over until they made a full circle.

After that, to their relief, it stopped. The spikes retracted themselves, the cotton-wrapped cylinders that made up the rods shrank back down to actual curved rods and with it, the pink delicacy seemed a lot less dangerous.

"TAKE IT! TAKE IT ALL!" Now that it wasn't dangerous any more, a whole swarm of handy white plastic sticks appeared and floated in the air, arranged along the fluffy mass. With nothing visible causing it, the stuffy goodness wrapped itself off of the floating metal bars and onto all of the plastic sticks, until each one had a sizable amount of it wrapped around it.

After that, they all floated further and further up, and shot in all directions, spreading themselves across all of the audience's seats. Of course the audience loved the questionably clean, but free sweets.

At last, they could let go for a moment. And once they gathered themselves, Kris reminded them. "All right. We hit him. We're doing the exact same thing again. Let's go. Berdly! Take aim!" They repeated what they did before, watched the bullets turn course when Jevil vanished, and once he was startled from getting hit, the prince emptied his magazine on him.

It worked, again. But again, he recovered within seconds, before shaking his head. "AMAZING! NOW, LET'S TAKE A LITTLE TOUR!"

For a moment, Berdly lost balance, felt something pull at various places, then he noticed he was back right next to Kris and Ralsei, with the human in the middle. The three of them were sitting on unicycles and thin white ropes thoroughly tied their legs to them. All three of which were attached to one another side by side.

And they were mid motion and had to quickly switch to pedaling to not fall over. "Don't look back." the human said, as they slowly made their way to the other side of the arena. "I said don't look back!" Berdly didn't listen. He snuck a glance to the back and shrugged together when he saw why he was told not to look. Right behind them, a hysterically laughing clown with his tongue all out was sitting in a tiny car.

He was chasing them very, very slowly, but the car itself wasn't the problem, rather the cranes with axes attached to their ends that were reaching out and swiping their blades through the front of the clown car. All three of them did their best not to lose balance and to pedal in sync and move away from the self-swinging weaponry.

Eventually though, trouble was on the way, when they got closer to a corner. "Only Ralsei, stop!" Kris and Berdly kept pedaling, so that the unusual vehicle they were given was mostly staying in place while taking a turn right. "Both forward."

Once the prince resumed pedaling with the others though, the three of them moved again, now in a direction that wasn't met with a soon dead end, and of course, their pursuer took that curve eventually as well. "Ralsei stop. Both Forward. Ralsei Stop. Both Forward."

They did this a few more times, until with a similar momentary loss of balance, the unicycles disappeared, as did the rope that tied them to them and the vehicle that pursued them. Ralsei fell on the ground as a result of it and was happy to see Kris help him up.

"What now?"

"Same thing again. We have to pull through this."

"But we're not dealing any damage!"

"We are, kind of. It worked that way last time."

The bird sighed. "If you say so."

Once Ralsei was done loading a new magazine, they redid their routine. Berdly taking aim, Jevil dodging, only to get hit anyway, and Ralsei unloading on him. And again, it accomplished nothing. It only made him laugh and dangle that sprung-out head of his. And the moment that wore off, he jumped up and announced to the suddenly quiet audience: "CAN OUR VISITORS DODGE A FEW WARNING SHOTS? METAMORPHOSIS!"

He shrank and vanished, and in his place, three revolvers similar to the one from before appeared, each one targeting one of the three.

Kris had only one command to shout in response: "Run!" Each one began running for their life. Occasionally stumbling over a patch of earth that was bloating up a little closer or further than they liked. Explosion after explosion, and towards the end, they only just got away each time. Then, in the end, one explosion was a little too far ahead, and Berdly ran right into it. It cut his jacket open and the pain, while the strongest in his chest where it hit, arched its way everywhere.

Good thing this was it, and the other two could quickly run his way and patch him up. The crowd groaned with disappointment over the three taking their first hit. Jevil had appeared again, about as far away as he had started. "We can't let up. Berdly! Take aim!"

And again with the same routine. Except that instead of just occasionally bowing to the viewing public, upon recovering from Ralsei's latest barrage, he began bouncing and bouncing and not just in place, but in a wide circle, high up to talk to the people watching a little more closely. "RESOURCEFUL! SHALL WE TRY OUR FRIENDS A LITTLE MORE?" The crowd cheered. "MAYBE SEND THEM ON A LITTLE SAFARI."

The crowd went wild with excitement. With three sideways jumps, he swung his arm and even though he was nowhere near close enough to touch them, Kris, Berdly and Ralsei were all launched into one corner of the arena. A twenty-foot-tall circular metal fence shot out of the ground and separated them from the inner part of the area. Then the ground beneath them trembled. It shook under a continuous force none of them could see.

With a frantic stare in what Berdly could catch in his eyes, his classmate grabbed him and Ralsei by the wrist and began running and pulling them along in one direction at a speed that spoke of fear. Soon later, the source of the trampling manifested out of thin air, not too far behind them in the fenced ring they were stuck in.

A huge stampede of all sorts of gazelles, buffaloes, lions, elephants, even with a few crocodiles waddling behind them as fast as they could. Feral creatures from parts of the world so savage, even the humans from there killed and ate each other. The roars coming from behind only spurred them on all the more.

Seeing as they weren't particularly tall, the animals closed in on them at an alarming rate, but the head start Kris gave them by pulling the along to run long before the animals actually appeared carried them far enough to complete a little less than a circle around the arena, after which the stampede phased back into the ground.

This time, after their routine, something changed. Berdly and Ralsei were almost knocked off their feet when the earth of the arena itself, what they thought was just part of the even ground the tent was built on, began moving. Spinning around. Jevil began jumping in place, turning in all directions, spreading one arm each time to wave at the audience. "AND NOW, AN OLD CLASSIC!"

Kris gestured for the two of them to hook into his arms again and positioned himself in a specific place of which Berdly didn't really understand why this position in particular. Then, in rings that spanned the entire area and moving inward and outward serpentines, the horses and giant ducks of a carousel appeared and floated in circles opposite to how the ground was spinning.

Each carriage had sharp blades lining its sides and was coming at them with terrifying momentum. With little room to stray away from him, the human led the other two in a continuous and very strange half-circle that was interrupted along the way to start a new one. Over and over, with the occasional touch-up here and there, they just cycled through the same smaller route more or less in place, while trying not to lose balance in sight of the constantly moving ground.

And strangely enough, it worked. The painful-looking carriages almost hit them a lot of times. But only ever almost, this disturbing, confusing route they were moving in kept them completely out of harm's way from start to finish. Before Berdly knew what to make of it, the carriages stopped. Jevil kept waving at the people above, and the people sounded like they loved his signature attack, but the carriages were gone. Except that the ground was now continuously in motion.

And to his horror, this wasn't the end of it. In fact, it was only the beginning. What followed for him and Ralsei was to brave through several cycles of repeating those same maneuvers, but with more troubles added. They had to dodge their way through the cotton candy trap, only that it was faster than before and more difficult with the ground they walked on moving in the opposite direction.

And in a later cycle, the cotton candy trap wasn't arranged in a way that let them follow a strict duck-jump pattern, they had to adapt to variations. The ground spinning the way it did also removed some of their head start when they were thrown to the edge and chased by wild animals the next time. They had to account for it when running from the explosions because running counter to the spin slowed them down and put them at risk of getting hit.

Each time he cycled through his attacks, he became harder to hit. At first he was only hopping around in place, but as time went on, the clown began to jump in random directions and towards the end of it, he bounced around at such insane speed waving at his audience, he was leaving after-images. It looked like there were four of him and Berdly had to keep aiming for the 'newest' one. He even missed here and there because of this.

Then, after a torturous gauntlet of miraculously evaded attack patterns, one more time, Kris had the two of them wind their arms around his and together, he positioned himself in a particular place pretty close to the very centre, with very little necessity to move to counteract the ground's movements. Jevil summoned a cannon, slid inside, and it shot him downwards. With an insane and impossible to follow speed, he was torpedoed down to them and bounced off the poles and the walls, almost crashing into them about a dozen times within three seconds. "This is it! Finish him!"

Then, when they repeated their routine one last time, it happened, at last it happened. When he was still recovering from one of Ralsei's last magazines, the clown sighed, pulled his head back into his shoulders and clapped. "BRAVO! BRAVO! YOUR STRENGTH AND SPEED NEVER DISAPPOINTS, LIGHTNERS. A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR THE LIGHTNERS!", he shouted upwards.

And louder than ever before, the people cheered and the blurred rush of clapping hands drowned out the already loud music. With a few jumps, the clown came closer until he was within a few metres from the completely exhausted teenagers.

Still heaving heavily from running for his life from all the double-sized explosions, Kris looked up while still on his knees. "Jevil. Will you now please tell us where Pilot is?"

Jevil raised one finger, now that he was able to with yellow, five-digit gloves. "WHY FRET ABOUT A PILOT WHEN THERE ARE GREATER THREATS AHEAD?"

Between breaths, he interrupted him. "Is this - is this about the Queen?"

"THE KNIGHT WON'T REST FOR YOUR COMFORT. MUCH LESS NOW THAT THE RULES CHANGED."

"Rules?"

"WITH DIFFERENT MEDIUMS COME DIFFERENT RULES. A USURPER HAS TAKEN THE SPOTLIGHT, AND NOW THAT SHE KNOWS, SHE PLANS TO USE THIS FOR HER GAIN. THE 'QUEEN' IS NOT ALONE IN HER LITTLE GAME, AND ONCE SHE DISCOVERS THIS, SHE WILL FEAR UPHEAVAL. WITH EACH JOURNEY, THE KNIGHT'S EFFORTS TO THWART YOU WILL GROW EVER GREATER. LIGHTNERS, WILL YOU FACE - ANY - ENEMY THAT MAKES THEIR MOVE?"

He laughed. "NONETHELESS, A MISCHIEF-MISCHIEF - A CHAOS-CHAOS! LIGHTNERS, FROM WITHIN THE THREADS OF YOUR TALE! TAKE ME AND GIVE IT YOUR BEST SHOT!" He shrank and vanished. "METAMORPHOSIS!" And right where he did, a box appeared.

They came closer and opened it. Within it were two pistols. Revolvers in Jandsome's blue-black colours with bells in the same places as the giant ones Jevil used on them throughout their battle. Berdly took one in his hand. They were a perfect fit. "Hm..." He took both and aimed them at a random place on the ground.

A slightly different-looking reticle appeared where he was aiming them, along with the circles he expected. When he pulled the triggers though, it didn't fire homing bullets like his usual pistols did. Instead, like with Jevil's, each revolver had a flag peek out that read 'Bang!' on it, and after that, the earth where Berdly was aiming, began to bloat and then explode. It appeared that the clown had given Berdly a pair of clown pistols, like his own.

"Well...that was something." Berdly was still recovering, but still, he called after Kris and Ralsei, who were already on their way back outside. "Wait, Kris!"

They stopped and turned around to wait for him to catch up. "Look. Whenever we talked about Jevil up until just now...I didn't expect...whatever this was." Ralsei smiled patiently. Kris just stared at him. "I didn't know that...look. You know what? I'm sorry? I should have listened. I just didn't know this was what I was getting us into, okay?"

Kris continued to stare at him for a few seconds, then smiled. "Okay." 'Okay'. That was all he had to say. Then he turned around and walked outside with the prince.

Berdly walked along with them. Jandsome and Janice weren't here, at least not right behind the suddenly nonexistent concrete wall that blocked off their only way out before. "But uh, Kris. How did you even do this?"

"Do what?"

"You know...the dodging thing. It feels like a miracle that we got through this, just like you said with Susie. But it also feels like...did you know what attacks were coming somehow?"

He shrugged. "No. Intuition. I'm just good at this." Of course, that was a lie and the only reason Berdly believed it, was that he would have been less willing to believe the truth, had Kris tried to tell him about invisible lights that turned back time. In truth, they did this fight over, and over, and over, and over again. Each time, they died, he landed in the dark void he ended up in so many times on their last run-in with Jevil.

Over and over, he went through all his attacks again and again until he could dodge them all flawlessly. The very last one was particularly bad, as it was impossible to dodge, Jevil as a cannonball was just too fast to adapt. To get past this attack, he had to repeat the entire fight again and again just to try out one place to stand in, until he eventually did find one that wasn't in the clown's path.

All he could think of now though, was that it was over. The moment they were outside and saw that the two oversized humans and Berdly's sister were all right, he rushed back inside to touch the light. "Hey, Kris! You coming?"

He rushed outside, and about at the same time as him catching up, both groups met each other half-way. "Any insights?" With sharp movements in her arms and legs, Janice marched to the three younger ones and grabbed Berdly and Kris by the shoulders, her grip on each one so stiff it was painful. "Did he say anything that brought us closer to him? Please!" All three exchanged looks and eventually shook their heads at the desperate woman. "No...anything! He must have said something!"

Kris was the one that put what they were all thinking into words. "He talked about other things. Things he already talked about before Pilot left."

The prince was bummed out over their lack of results. "I'm sorry, we tried, but..."

In his usual duckwalk, the jester followed the others and stepped between both parties before the torn woman had a chance to vent her frustrations on those teenagers. "Now now, no need for despair. Perhaps he is not in this city after all. Perhaps he went home. Perhaps if you return home, he will be there waiting for you. Let us help the lightn-"

Janice pushed off the hand the jester had placed on her arm and screamed. "No!" She shot him a deadly glare. He could tell from the expression on her face that she was near tears.

"Janice..."

With a shaky voice, she stormed off for just enough distance that she could turn her back on the others. "I am not abandoning him. If there is no other way..." They followed her to better hear her, but she ignored them and stared at the ground, still leading Pluma by the hand. "If there is no other way to find out where he went, I will go ask the Dealmaker. He will know."

When she spoke that name, Jandsome shook. Whatever this was, it seriously bothered the suddenly stammering jester. "No. No, no you can't."

"I will pay any price if he can lead me back to Pilot. If there is anyone who can, it's him."

"Please, consider anything else! We will find another way."

While lowered down, he snuck closer to grab her and pull her back by the elbow gain. With an unexpected force, she ripped herself off of his grasp. "My mind's made up!" She faced them all, now indeed with tears running down her eyes. "Come with me if you must, but I am going to the Dealmaker with or without you!" With this, she stormed off again. This time without stopping.

They had no choice but to follow her. Even the three that had no idea who or what the Dealmaker was, had a bad feeling considering the jester's worries and Janice not mentioning him until she had nothing else left.