Overall, I would put this story at "PG" level, or maybe "PG-13" if you really care about language. The "F-word" is used once, as well as taking the Lord's name in vain and, occasionally, coupling it with the "D-Word".

In specific categories, here's what I have to say (1=least offensive; 10=most. 0=none.)

Violence: 2

Not really anything of note in this department.

Profanity: 7

For the most part, I left in the "$@#%" stuff, but I changed it in places where it was obvious what word the author really intended to use (eg "#=!!" or "s**t").

Sex: 2

There's a bit of sexual innuendo in here, but nothing that could really qualify as being "sick".

Other: 5

Ah, those were the days. Sonic '94 flourished, mainly due to the traffic Prodigy itself had back in those days. Now the place is deserted, abandoned, at last, by the last remaining loyal fools like Brenton and myself...point of fact, more or less just Brenton and myself were around for the last six months. Buuuut, the goal here is to remember the Good Ol' Days™®, so I'll gladly retell the story.

It doesn't start with a dark and stormy night. It doesn't even start with a house. It starts with an enthusiastic co-president by the name of Stefanie "Kate" [...], who, on October 22, 1994, made history.

KateStory, as I eventually termed it, has gone through many different incarnations, posted by many different authors. But, bottom line: it was completely off-the-wall! You'll find some of the chapters herein contradict each-other, but that actually became a plot device -- termed the "Median Effect", when two authors simultaneously wrote contradicting chapters, making even more bizarre stuff ensue. I've kept the bulk of the contradictory chapters, but as for "contributions" that completely contradicted the story and were thereby ignored, I've tossed those.

And on the point of my reckoning (parts I, II, III, IV, etc.), note that nobody has ever agreed on which part was what. That's why (in one of my contributions) I refer to what are herein referred to as Parts II-IV as "Book 2", whereas Brent refers to them as both two and 3. Here, I just started a new "part" every time the story was restarted.

If you don't understand it, you're not alone. If you do understand it, contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation and ask for either Agent Mulder or Scully. No, wait, Mulder's dead and the X-Files have been dissolved. Or at least we've been led to believe he is and they have. Hey, come to think of it, that episode began with the text Believe the Lie rather than The Truth Is Out There...hmmmm...I think it's a subliminal message. But enough musing over TV shows; since (for the time being, at least) Mulder and Scully are unable to assist you, I'll leave it at, if you do understand it, seek professional help.

Anyway, here we have our opening -- a young girl named Kelly finds that adventures are, in the immortal words of Bilbo Baggins, "nasty disturbing uncomfortable things" that "make you late for dinner!"

Guys, I'm gonna start a story, but someone writes Act 2, then someone else Act 3, and so on.

PS: This isn't a Sonic story.

Kelly was a girl who lived in a faraway land. She was bored a lot, so she decided to go on an adventure, when she saw...

...a white rabbit! "Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be late!" it said. For some reason, Alice...er, Kelly...didn't think this unusual at all, but then it pulled a watch from its waistcoat pocket. Now, Kelly had never seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat pocket nor a watch to pull out of it.

Then...

...she was beamed up to an alien spaceship. The aliens warped her to another dimension where...

...a big red cat flew out of the sky.

"Reegal!" It said.

Then a Chihuahua followed.

"Who are you?" Kelly asked.

"I'm Ren. Meet my friend Stimpy. He's an eediot!"

Just then...

..."I'm not Stimpy," replied the cat, grinning ear-to-ear.

"Oh, dear," said Kelly. "I want to leave here! Which way should I go?"

"Where do you want to go?" asked the cat.

"It doesn't matter where," Kelly replied.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," the cat said simply.

"What's that way?" asked Kelly, pointing in a random direction.

"That way is the home of the March Hare," the cat replied. "The other way leads to the Mad Hatter."

"Who should I see?" Kelly asked.

"It doesn't really matter," the cat replied, "they're both mad. Everyone here is. I'm mad. You're mad."

"Why do you think you're mad?" Kelly asked.

"Well, a dog is not mad, is it?" the cat asked. Quickly it added, "I mean, other than Ren over there."

"Well...no," was the reply.

"Well, dogs growl when they're angry and wag their tails when they're happy; whereas I growl when I'm happy and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore, I'm mad."

"I call it purring, not growling," Kelly said.

"Call it what you want," the cat said.

"Isn't it a bit presumptuous assuming I'm mad, though?" Kelly asked.

"You must be mad," the cat said, "otherwise you wouldn't be here!" Then it began disappearing, starting with the tail and vanishing more and more until only the grin remained, and at last that was gone, too.

"I've often seen a cat without a grin," Kelly said, "but a grin without a cat?" Then, she realized Ren had wandered off, being bored of the conversation. Suddenly...

...Kelly fell through a door to Christmas town and met Jack Skellington...

...who threw her back out, and into a dimension where Sega rules everything.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"Video Games Bulletin Board," came a computer-like reply.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere...

Yakko, Wakko, and Dot appear, then...

...8 figures on rollerblades crash into each other. Kelly makes them out to be a hedgehog, a robot, a superhero, a cowboy, a weird secret-service-type-or-maybe-not guy, a monkey-creature, a guy in a green cloak, and a plain 11-year-old kid.

"Almost got the hang of it!" the kid said.

The monkey-creature groaned, "Remind me to shoot your aunt!"

- Brent

- Rojor

- Tetrax

- The Lone Anti-Basher

- The Mad One

- B-man

- Zero

and...

And then, a raptor gobbled her up, and then she had to wait a while to get out, but then...

...all six of the Power Rangers called all their Zords together and squashed her flat, but...

...then she saw she was in Narnia...

...then an elf appeared out of thin air in a burst of multi-colored smoke.

"Quagmire thinks that Kelly's in trouble, the danger comes from a pile of rubble!"

"I've gone deaf!" the hedgehog shouted.

Kelly looks around as a big, gold lion appears with Jill and Eustace.

"Hullo, what's this?" asks Eustace in his annoying English accent.

"Why, it's a miracle!" Jill says in hers. "I think it's the end of Thad writing about Alice in Wonderland!"

"You are guilty of the sin of jealousy, my children," Aslan said, "you really wanted to come in instead of giving Alice her turn. No big deal though."

Kelly just scratches her head.

Then, with a loud "You eediot!", Ren returns.

"Hold it!" the boy said. Everything freezes. "Reality check!"

The rollerblades sparkle and come off the boy. Then the 7 other bladers merge into one, and the hedgehog is left stranded. In a bright flash of light, he changes into the boy, who walks up to Kelly.

"This is not real. The events happening are reflections of your friends, interests, and traits."

"What does it all mean?" Kelly asks.

"It means," the boy slaps her in the face, and she hears faintly, "Wake up!"

Kelly pops up on a beautiful Sunday morning. But something's not right...

...she is in the castle of the evil witch Jadis!

Not just The Magician's Nephew! Jadis was the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as well as the Serpent in The Silver Chair! She indignantly points this out.

"Uhhhh...sorry," Kelly says.

Jadis hurls Kelly into a land called Middle-Earth.

On Middle-Earth, there are loser scumbags called Bashers who are assisting Sauron. Kelly excludes them.

A hedgehog came running by. "Are you out of place, too?" he asked.

Kelly recognized him. He was the hedgehog from her dream. "Yes!" she said.

"My name is Hedgehog X. My sister is weirding out, using her powers of Chaos to throw us all into unknown dimensions."

"How do we stop her?" Kelly asked.

"This is not like her," Hedgehog X said. "Me and my friends came to the conclusion that she is under some kind of spell."

"Your friends?" she asked.

The others that merged with the hedgehog in her dream stepped out.

"Meet the Ego-Trip Patrol," HX said.

Then the world ended!...

Kelly woke up on yet another planet with her newfound friends. It was all pastel colors, and as she explored it, she heard a strange music playing. Not far off in the distance, she heard a crack and someone yelling...

"You eeediot!"

...and Ren came by, banging Stimpy on the head with a copy of Robin Hoëk.

"But Ren..." Stimpy said.

"Shut up you fool!" Ren said. "You haveen't been able to say a seengle funny line seence John Kreecfalusi was fired because he couldn't produce our cartoons fast eenough!"

"Yeah, heheheh," says a voice, "and I haven't been able to scream about fire ever since that kid burned his house down! This sux! Heheheheh!"

"I see a pattern!" Kelly exclaimed.

The Ego-trip team looked at her.

"On Earth, all these characters we're seeing now are fictional. I've been on Middle-Earth, Wonderland, and Narnia, which are lands from popular fantasy books!"

"So we're being jumped in dream worlds!" a guy in a white jumpsuit yelled. Kelly could see he was the Secret Service-type guy from her dream, 'cause he had the same eagle insignia.

"Then get ready for our chance to stop your sister, Hedgehog X," the normal boy said, "'cause Sonic the Hedgehog is on in 5 minutes..."

Between parts, Kelly is inexplicably confined to doing infomercials at the Crystal Castle, and it's up to a plucky lad and a singing candy machine to return her.

This part spotlights the talents of Justin "Raptor" Barber, who we miss dearly. He really got the ball rolling for the story.

Billy wanted to save a girl, and he heard of this girl, Kelly, who had an adventure and is now being help captive in the Crystal Castle, so he...

...rode his hovercycle to the Rent-a-Hero shop. There he chose someone to accompany him on his journey. The Hero's name was Anticlimax.

After the laggard Rent-a-Hero was done, they began along the road on a double hover bike powered by really bad Nintendo games. Fortunately they never ran out of fuel.

After a while, they came to a singing candy machine and they...

...covered their ears. The theme from Mario Bros. (any of 'em) droned on from the candy machine.

"Shut up!" Anticlimax shouted. The machine shut up.

"Do you know where we can find a girl named Kelly?" Billy asked.

"Oh, Kelly. Poor Kelly. Had an adventure, she did. Shouldn't have tried to tick off my sister."

"Oh...so she's not trapped in a crystal ball, she's trapped in a candy machine!" Anticlimax reasoned.

"I used to be a hedgehog!" the machine snapped.

"Um...where can we find your sister?" Billy (was that his name? I forget) asked.

The candy machine started singing again:

"Informaaation.
Become vegetaaaaation.
Find it written down.
It's a vortex.
A real life portal.
You must go through it nowwww.

Don't be a fool.
Don't be too cool.
Just remember
The magic jewel."

"Uhhhhhhh.....?" Billy was stupefied by the stupidity of the very stupid machine.

"Anticlimax?" he began to ask him what to do but then noticed he was asleep. He whacked him and he fell off the Hoverbike.

"That smarted me!" He snapped as he rubbed his head.

"I doubt it!" Billy replied. "Now, we need to go and find that vortex thingamajig," Billy said. "Right, Anticlimax?"

"I'd like three Zippo bars please." Billy whipped his head around to see Anticlimax asking the candy machine for a very delightful bar of Zippo. Billy started back to the Rent-a-Hero shop, leaving Anticlimax to the singing machine's mercy. He went into the shop and rented a hero named Mykingdomforanose (Read all of it. Don't cheat!).

As they roamed the land searching for the vortex, they came to a hut.

"Do you smell something?" Billy said, as he sniffed the air.

"No." said the Rent-a-hero as he rubbed his very tiny nose.

Meanwhile, Anticlimax was having a nice chat with the singing machine, who was named Maleophonix. They had finished a verse from "Hakuna Matata" when a huge net captured them...

In a flash, what's his name...the singing candy machine and Anticlimax were dragged along the palace floor. The candy machine recognized it and started shouting.

"You turned me into a singing candy machine that can't sing!"

"Silence!" A voice whispered from the shadows. A female figure appeared, about 13 years old, with gleaming green eyes. She looked like a princess. She sounded like a witch.

Mykingdomforanose and Billy walked along. Soon they stopped.

"If you were a vortex," Mykingdomforanose wondered, "where would you be?"

"Written down..." Billy was mumbling to himself, remembering the machine's song.

"How can you write down a vortex?" Mykingdomforanose scratched his head.

"Information..."

"Um...so the vortex would be described...like in a book?"

Billy's eyes grew wide, and sparkled like the Arkenstone (yes, that's an exaggeration!)

"To the library!" Billy yelled, "And the magic jewel!?"

Mykingdomforanose followed along in a daze.

"All right, we're here!" Billy screamed with delight as they entered the library. He walked up to the librarian and asked, "Which way to the Vortex Thingamajig section?"

"Basement," she murmured as she buried her nose more deeply into the book she read.

"C'mon!" Billy commanded as he pulled Mykingdomforanose away from a stack of books.

"I'm going," Mykingdomforanose said in a congested and squeaky voice. Billy turned his head to see the Rent-a-Hero with his finger stuck up his nose. "What? My finger's stuck!"

"Ugh!" Billy sighed as he ripped the finger from the tiny nose.

Soon they arrived at the Vortex section.

"Start readin'!" Billy leapt up onto a stool and whipped a book from its shelf.

As they sat and read, Billy had a growing feeling of disgust down in his gut.

"Ummmmm...Billy?"

"What!?!?" He was restless. Even more when he saw Mykingdomforanose with paper stuck all over him and mucus dripping from each nostril.

"Heehee..."

Billy whacked a book across his face.

Mykingdomforanose flew back and disappeared.

Whoa, Billy thought to himself.

Billy looked at the cover of the book.

The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul.

He turned to the back cover.

When a passenger check-in desk at London's Heathrow Airport disappears in a ball of orange flame, the explosion is deemed as an act of God. But which god, wonders holistic detective Dirk Gently? What god would be hanging around Heathrow trying to catch the 3:37 to Oslo? And what has this to do with Dirk's latest -- and late -- client, found only this morning with his head revolving atop the hit record 'Hot Potato'?

Billy looked up to see a head impaled upon a record player. There was a record on the player.

Hot Potato.

Billy didn't know what to do, so he bashed his head on the record player. Luckily, it was a magic record player, and teleported him to the library he really needed...unfortunately, for some stupid reason he never learned how to breathe underwater...

Then came the really strange thing: a crystal started talking to him, asking if his name was Ecco...

Maleophonix stared at the sleeping Anticlimax, wanting to bash his skull in. He glanced over to see the witch cackling over a boiling cauldron, the smoke enthralling the enchantress in its wispy web.

He noticed a pouch filled with sand just outside the net. He tried to reach for it. But then he remembered he didn't have any arms. At that he wallowed in despair. And then he started to sing. He always did when he was wrapped in sorrow.

As the first awkward note struck the witch, she screamed and collapsed to her knees.

"Help!" Her voice had changed! But then it once again assumed its high cackle...

Maleophonix thought for a moment and then recreated Rufiki's shouting at the beginning of "Circle of Life". Anticlimax shot up.

"Get the Emeralds!" Maleophonix shouted.

"What? Oh, yeah, the magic jewel." Anticlimax got the jewels and gave them to Maleophonix, hoping he would know what to do.

Maleophonix didn't have to do anything. Instantly, he morphed in a purple creature with spikes on his back.

"Maleophonix?" Anti stuttered.

"That's Hedgehog X to you," Maleophonix, er...Hedgehog X replied.

"Ugh!" the girl yelled, "You'll ruin everything!"

"That's the plan!" Hedgehog X smiled.

Billy didn't know what to do. He was in a strange world without a partner (which was just as well, Billy thought) and had no clue about the whereabouts of Kelly.

"Kelllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!" he shouted...

...and banged his head against a wall. Luckily, it was a magic wall, and he was instantly teleported to where Kelly was. Unfortunately, he was exactly where she was, and he was trapped too...

"Who the hell are you, you past-expiration-date dairy product that came from a diabetic cow in Michigan!?" Kelly shrieked as she thumped Billy on the head with toaster oven.

"I've come to save you!" Billy screamed as he waved off the blows.

As Kelly stopped, he took the chance to grab the nearest item: A breadmaker. He waved it at her slowly. He glanced around the room, always paying close attention to the girl trembling in the shadows of the stone chamber.

He saw stone walls interrupted by shelves with kitchen appliances. Tons of kitchen appliances! "What is this stuff?!"

"The mean witch lady trapped me here to forever test appliances for her shopping network," She said. "Why is the sky green, Dada?"

"Oh boy." Billy assumed she had tested many nuclear microwaves...

"I have a new guest!" the witch cackled. The witch (which is a weird thing to say, considering she was a very beautiful teenage girl) came in with a strange purple spiked creature, who was screaming something about cruel and unusual punishment and sisterly love.

"How can they be brother and sister if one's a hedgehog and the other's a human?" Billy asked Kelly, only half expecting an answer.

"Do you believe in God?" was all Kelly replied.

The witch (let's say sorceress) turned to the glass crystal cage, and was so surprised to see Billy she dropped the hedgehog.

"How did..." Before she could finish the lights went out. The sorceress turned to find the hedgehog gone. An emerald flew out of her pocket, and she repeatedly banged her head on it.

Then she went downstairs, screaming, "Don't worry Obelix! I have a replacement!"

Moments later the hedgehog returned, grabbed the emerald, still floating in place, and said, "Need this!"

"I'm so confused!" Billy screamed. He and Kelly banged their heads on a radioactive microwave together. Luckily, it was (you guessed it) a magic radioactive microwave, and...

...they instantly teleported to the TV studio where the sorceress (I'll just say witch, it's easier and quicker) was filming her shopping network.

"And now we have a beautiful item from our magic collection. It's a blender that cuts anything but your flesh. It's safe, watch! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!"

The shrieks of the girl modeling the blender were quickly followed by a Wrotch! Wrotch! Thwipppp! Crackle! Pop!

Billy rushed out the stage door, pulling the reluctant (Kelly her name was?) Kelly out with him. The sky was dark and tormenting.

He rushed out into the street, but he failed to see the open manhole and fell through it. But...It was a magic manhole! And...

...they found a robot with an emerald resembling the one the hedgehog took, only this one was white.

"Hi, my name is X. My function is to make magic teleporters that take you places when you bang your head on them."

"Cool!" Billy exclaimed. "Can you take us home?"

"Wait!" Kelly shouted. "At least, take me back."

Just then the same hedgehog they saw before walked up. "Need this!" he said, then he looked at Kelly and said, "Hey! So you didn't surgically implant TNT in your head!"

"Nope," Kelly replied, "Where are the others?"

"I haven't the foggiest." The hedgehog shook his head. "We need the Yellow Emerald. I lost 'em all when Kate screamed."

X made a sandwich. "Here's a teleporter. Go ahead, bang!" Instead, the hedgehog ate it.

"Sorry, I haven't eaten since I was the Singing Candy Machine."

"Maleophonix?!" Billy yelled.

"Hedgehog X to you, sir!" Just then, HX's stomach disappeared, "Though Head Detective will fit nicely!

"Where's Anticlimax then?" Billy said.

"Well, um, you see, we were trapped in this dungeon with no way out and no food and um I..." There was a long pause. "Um, did you see the movie Alive?"

"You didn't!" Billy screamed as HX's stomach growled in reply.

"Well now what do we do?" HX said, to change the subject.

"We've saved the girl, sort of." Billy looked at Kelly, who was chewing her hair. "She a little on the, um...?" Billy made a circling motion with his finger by his head.

"I know a way to fix that" HX replied...

Suddenly an old 50's patrol car swerves by out of nowhere and perfectly out of context of the story. A shamus dog in a gray trench coat and a hyperkinetic rabbit leap from either door.

"This doesn't look like the Lincoln Tunnel, Sam."

"Looks to me like a highly volatile hostage situation, Max."

"Wait-a-minute, Sam. There's no hostages here..."

"True, true, but the old 'Hit The Road' script is all we have to go by for this rather out-of-context crossover of ours."

"Not to mention that girl eating her hairs makes my lagomorphic legs tremble."

"You said it, little buddy. I suggest we take our freeloading, parasitic, story-taking selves on to another easy site."

"Oooooh! Does this mean we get to maliciously alter the well-being of society in another forsaken hell hole of typing computer addicts?"

"You got it little buddy, let's leave this..." The dog shuffles through his script book. "...criminal cesspool pronto."

Max grabs the book and continues: "Okay, maybe we can ditch the head somewhere while the credits are running. Mind if I drive?"

"Not if you mind me clawing at the dash and shrieking like a teenager." Sam closes the script. "Lord I hate that drivel."

"Yea, let's go skewer the heads of the guys that did it."

"Maybe later chum."

The two depart quickly, as mysteriously as they came.

"How?"

"Simple, we recalibrate the trajectory of the thought tunnels that are carved into her mindscape that are causing her unfortunate lack of mental equilibrium by allotting small nuclear bursts to each awry thought passageway."

"...?"

"We fix big heap mess in head by frying with big heap magic stick, you savvy?"

"Ummmmmmmm..."
- Raptor

HX waddled over to an unseen place, grabbed a club, handed it to Billy (HX was too short at the moment...he was too short at any moment, to be exact, 'cause he was only 3'3"), and said "Whammo!"

Kelly blinked her eyes a couple of times to see Billy and HX playing cards at the table.

"Hey! She's alive!" Billy yelled, then he whispered to HX, "Do you think the dent is noticeable?"

"That's always been there," he whispered back, gaining a profound sense of déjà vu.

HX turned to X, "Now about that teleporter..."

X swerved around holding some kind of carton. "It's school food!" he said.

HX rolled his eyes into the back of his head. Kelly took the carton labeled "French Bread Pizza". She then took HX and shoved him head-first into the carton, and then banged her head on it. They both disappeared.

"Hey! Where'd they go?" Billy shouted.

"You really don't get this, do you?" X asked. "Let's follow 'em!"

With that, he grabbed Billy and banged their heads against the carton. Luckily, as we know, it was a magic carton, and they were teleported to an empty field! However, Kelly and HX were nowhere to be seen...

"Nice job," Billy grumbled.

"It's worse than you think," X said, tiny windshield wipers beginning to go back and forth across his eyes. "It's about to rain."

"So?" Billy asked.

"Well...uh...this is..."

"Lemme guess," Billy interrupted. "Magic rain."

"Uh-huh," X replied.

Luckily, X had a teleportation beam built in. Unfortunately, he forgot Billy when he beamed out, and Billy's atoms were soon scattered across the universe, never to be seen again.

Meanwhile, at the sorceress's castle...

"Oh, great," Kate muttered after X explained what had happened. "Now the whole story is ruined! What's the point?!"

"Hey, don't worry," X replied. "Mission accomplished."

"What are you talking about?" Kate asked.

"Oh, c'mon!" X said, showing a containment capsule. "I got his DNA! We can easily recreate him!"

"I'll take that," said a voice. There was a flash of light and the capsule was gone...

Meanwhile, at the witch's castle:

The witch (actually a very young and beautiful sorceress, remember?) got back to her castle after a long talk with the magic robot X. Ironically, so had Kelly and HX.

"We need Anticlimax!" HX said.

"But...you..."

"I was only kidding!" HX snapped. "My stomach was roaring and it was a spur-of-the moment gag!"

"Oh," Kelly said, "So...where is he?"

"I think he's in the main power room on the bicycle."

"Bicycle?"

"It'll all be clear when we get there. Let's move!"

When HX and Kelly arrived in the power room, they found the sorceress doing some weird experiment. She had a dinosaur standing by her.

"Ugh!" she screamed. "This won't do. I know..." With that, she took out...

"The Yellow Emerald!" Kelly gasped.

HX knocked Kelly in the head. The witch said to the Yellow Emerald, "How may I clone Billy?"

"Billy?" HX asked. Kelly knocked HX in the head.

"The easiest way is the Red Emerald," the Yellow Emerald replied.

Anticlimax opened his eyes to see a purple hedgehog and a young girl.

"Anticlimax," the hedgehog said, "give me the capsule."

"Why should I?" he asked.

The hedgehog began to sing.

"Maleophonix!" he shouted happily, handing him the containment capsule he had taken from the robot.

Kate ran in with the Emerald of Power and blasted the container. Billy suddenly stood up and finished a scream he had apparently started when he exploded. "Wh...where am I?" he asked. "Hedgehog X! Kelly! Kate! What the...Anticlimax?! Oh, no, I must be in..."

"You're not in heaven," said a voice.

"That's not what I was gonna say," Billy replied.

"Well, you're not in hell, either," he said, "you're just fine."

Suddenly, Billy saw the robot speaking (X, of course!) and screamed, "You! You left me to die!"

"No I didn't," was the reply, "I had your DNA just so we could bring you back here."

Part III

This is the beginning of the end. True, there wasn't a plot in Part I either, but it's certainly a more catastrophic event when something that was there before is lost than when it's not there in the first place. Here, the plot threads that were woven in Part II are dashed to pieces.

Some might disagree that this should be its own Part, since I merely added to the preceding one after six days without anyone else doing so, but I think the change is visible enough to do so.

..."And I got it," Anticlimax put in.

"But, AC," Billy said, "how can you be here?"

"Well," was the reply, "you see, I was with Maleophonix..."

"Hedgehog X," the hedgehog corrected.

"Well, anyway," Anticlimax continued, "I was with him, and we suddenly got trapped in a huge room."

Anticlimax went on to explain that a deep voice had boomed the words, "There's a brand new game being programmed by Thad 'X' Boyd and Jesse 'W' Morris! It's called Find the Keys, and it stars two characters: SEKR, whom some of you know, and Ostrah, a guard at the secret government agency known only as 'SEKRity'! For more information as to the plot, just ask!"

Anticlimax told them that he had passed out after the voice gave the message, and his head had hit against the floor.

"...and it was a magic floor," X finished for him. "It teleported him here. HX soon followed...and you know the rest."

"Speak for yourself," said Anticlimax, Billy, and Kelly in unison.

"The man said you know the rest. Your combined knowledge knows it all, but each of you has a part the other two don't know!"

"Huh?" Billy scratched his head. HX grunted and sat down.

"OK...this whole entire thing started before Billy and Anticlimax were in the story! Kelly knows what happened."

"That's impossible!" Billy snapped. "The story started with me!"

"Did it?" HX raised an eyebrow, "The book, yes. But not the story." HX went on, stating what happened: "You see, my sister, Kate, went wacko one day. That normally wouldn't be such a big thing, except she controls the Chaos Emeralds."

"The magic jewels?" Anticlimax asked.

"Yup. Anyway, she enchanted the universe with a spell that turned books, TV, and other media into vortexes that warped you to the land this particular story took place. Everybody was warping into lands unknown, and the journey became more and more dangerous. Finally, I banded together some travelers to fight Kate and stop the madness. There were nine, including Kelly and me..."

Kelly raised an eyebrow.

"...before our showdown with Kate. She won, however, and turned me into Maleophonix and imprisoned Kate in the Crystal Ball Cafe kitchen."

"Crystal Ball Cafe kitchen?" Billy turned to Kelly, whose eyebrow had drooped on the spot.

"Here's where Billy comes in..." HX went on, "Billy was a young adventurer...oh, I forgot the most important part of the story!"

"What?!" Everybody cried out.

"The time disruption! The wounds Kate obtained during our battle drove her to a very, very insane state. Her powers soon devoured the power of the Time Stones, and time jumbled up. When it stretched out again, it was as garbled as Animaniac stew...which explains a futuristic robot's fascination with magic and a Gaul who saw The Lion King."

This made both X and Anticlimax mad (and also a tad confused).

"But..." Billy asked, "...how did the witch ever get the Emeralds?"

"The sorceress?" HX corrected, "She always had them."

Soon he regretted that foreshadow, for everybody jumped up and yelled, "The witch is your sister?!" (Except for Kelly, who always knew that.)

"Achem...I believe X and Kate were present, and they would certainly know!" growled a voice.

"Oh, NO..." Hedgehog X said, genuinely scared.

"It can't be!" Kate screamed.

"Who is it?!" Kelly asked.

"I am LOGIC," boomed the voice. "Theoretically, a four-foot-tall purple hedgehog, sentient robot, and girl created by gems cannot exist!"

There were screams, and the "normal" people were left alone.

"Billy," LOGIC said, "how is it you're here?"

"Ummm, well, see, ummm..." Billy started, not expecting that question asked until he had children.

"That's not what I'm talking about!" LOGIC yelled. "I mean, your DNA was cloned! With 1995 science, that is impossible!"

Billy screamed and disappeared, too.

"As for you," LOGIC said to the two remaining, "Mobius cannot exist!"

The world around them began disappearing, until Kelly said at the last minute, "But, wait! How can LOGIC come and talk to people and make illogical things disappear without a body to be saying that?!"

"Well," LOGIC replied, "ya got me licked there..." And it began to vanish, too...

"Besides," Nothingness bellowed, though it seemed to come from everywhere, "This is an ilLOGICal story!"

Somehow, LOGIC was seen before he disappeared with 5 giant holes in his chest, as if the context of the story itself shot a rifle at him...um, her...it.

The abnormal people appeared, as did Billy. Kate stepped into the room, and said softly...

"Brother?"

HX stood, astonished. "You're...back," he muttered.

"Yes." She explained, "It was LOGIC who did this to me. He wanted to gather everything in one place so that he could easily destroy all magic."

Billy started to disintegrate. Anticlimax did, too.

"What's happening?!" Billy screamed.

"The time rift," Kate said. "I'm fixing it."

The next thing he knew, Billy was standing on a hill looking over England. It was a new place, yet familiar. Billy sighed and looked back...

HX, Kate, and X stood in the castle.

"Why aren't I in my own time?" X asked.

"You are, old friend," HX smiled, then knocked him in the back of the head.

"You're it!" he piped. X was just about to tag him back when a human boy stepped in.

"Would anybody tell me why my leg was just attached to my head?" he screamed. All three erupted at the dilemma of Time.

But after the laughter stopped, Kate asked a semi-serious question...

"Where's the story heading now?"

To answer that question, we go back in time to find Billy dodging the fiery breath of a dragon...

"I am Smaug," said the big dragon, and then a slimy little creature came out.

"Where's the Precious?!" it said. "I want my Precious!"

It came to HX and...

"Smeagol?" HX cried. "How'd you get here?!"

"An acquaintance of yours?" X asked.

"Umm... I only heard it from Gandalf."

"Huh?" Kate and X cried in unison.

"My Precious!" Smeagol shook HX violently. "You stole my Precious!"

"You're confused, Gollum...as always. That was Dildo...er, Bilbo."

Then HX turned to Kate. "Did you fix the Median Spell yet?"

"No," Kate sulked. "He's no problem, is he?"

"Oh, nooooooooo," HX replied sarcastically. "It's just a very strong lizard that has a taste for hogburgers!"

"You're not giving us enough credit!" Kate shouted. "I should never have let you take control of my story!"

"She's Tolkien's biggest fan and you know it," X growled. "As for you, Gollum, a warning: Your Precious shall be the death of you...it's already almost destroyed you now. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Just then, Billy ran to the group. "How do we kill this guy?" he asked. "He's sitting on his only weak spot!"

"Leave that to me," X replied. He grabbed a rock and took a few seconds to concentrate on the exact location, then beamed the rock right into Smaug's brain (which was in his tail, which was why X had to calculate). The dragon screeched, then the world around them disappeared.

"Where are we?" HX asked.

"We are in the middle of nowhere, where it is just insanity!"

Yakko Wakko and Dot ran by, and Smeagol followed.

"Oh great," muttered Kate, "My loony brother, Animaniacs, and a skits-a-frantic thing!"

X groaned. "How 'bout we bang our heads on something and hope it's something magic?" he asked.

HX knocked his head, leaving an impression.

"The reason he knows me and not you is because I was the only one traveling during the Median Crisis! Think! Maybe I should bring LOGIC back!"

HX stood a minute in deep thought for a minute, and then grinned. "Well, maybe just an arm and a leg!"

[Editor's Note: Posting twice in a row?! That's cheating!]

"Okay..." HX took out a marker and banged his head on it. Hmmm...Magic Marker didn't work. He then took out a map and popped a mint in his mouth.

"Where did you get that?" X asked.

"The...hic!...mint?"

"No, the map!"

"Don't ask where I obstained...hic!...reblieved...hic!...got this Magic Map..." HX fell and picked himself up.

"Gee... now that you mention it, where did you get the mint?"

"Hakim, the pawnshop owner...hic!"

"Well, Alexander..." X remembered two ancient stories from Earth that contained an object titled a "Magic Map", both of which starred a prince named Alexander of Daventry. Right now he was musing. "Let's see it."

Fighting through the relentless attack of hiccups, HX pulled out the treasure. X was both relieved...and surprised to see that it was the Magic Map that retraced one's steps, not the Magic Map of the Land of the Green Isles.

Since HX hopped from story to story (which was just as well, because the prince's adventures concerned a large number of fairy tales), the map was acting strangely, and was divided into sections. X saw the squares were so small they needed precision.

HX reached for Castle Chaos when something happened that ruined everything.

HX hiccuped.

Kate moaned as they appeared at the Isle of the Sacred Mountain from KQVI. Then they were thrown in the Catacombs.

"Now look what you've done!" X screamed at HX. "Once again, you didn't give me enough credit! Just because I don't know what to do with the mint or how to get very far after using the map doesn't mean I don't know about them!"

"Enough," Kate grumbled. "Arguing isn't gonna do any good."

"I see your point," X replied. "I've only got another few hours before being sucked into the Playing Vortex...not too long from now, my grandma's dropping by with the payoff for that rock she gave me for Christmas."

Kate looked at him quizzically.

"You must not have read his Christmas special," Hedgehog X explained, glad that X was kind enough to give him credit. "He got a rock from his incredibly strange grandmother..." He got a very angry look from X, then grinned and continued, "...which had 'Good for One Copy of Mega Man X2 When Available' on it!"

"That's right," X said. "Now let's get out of here!"

He banged his head on the map again, and they were suddenly in a small boat. X had a knife in his hand, cutting a rope connected to a ship's anchor.

In the background, they heard drunks singing, "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest! Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!/Drink and the devil had done for the rest! Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!"

"D'oh!" HX shouted, hitting himself in the head. "Someone's been reading again!"

"You're just lucky I didn't accidentally teleport you to the world in The Giver, which I just finished!" X replied.

Kate looked at them, clearly annoyed. "You guys are just lucky I don't put you in with the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers!" Just then, she took the map and hit Castle Chaos.

"Yeah," X said, "thank Thomas Light you don't do that!"

When they got to Castle Chaos, though, something was terribly wrong...

A really, really weird-looking guy stepped out of a room.

"Um...hello, visitors. My name's Cyan. And you are...?"

X screamed in anger, "HX! You've been playing FF III again!"

"I can't (hic) help it. I'm (hic) under the (hic) influence!"

"Shuddap!" X said.

"Stop torturing me!" X screamed. "I haven't played it yet!!! By the way, though, Square's working on a cool-looking new RPG with SGI-rendered graphics..."

"I get GamePro, X," Hedgehog X replied. "I know about Secret of Evermore."

"Oh," X muttered. "Well, then, I'm fresh out of plot ideas...unless, that is, we bring Kelly and Billy back, and you can decide how we're doing that!"

"Who be Kelly and Billy?" Cyan asked.

HX wasn't very happy about his being there, and blurted out another famous line from the game: "Aarrgghh! Thou art such a pain in the...confound it all! Now I'm starting to talk like you!"

X hit him in the head.

"Simmer down, sirs!" Cyan yelled. "Anyway, we can't have ye two prancing around all day..."

"Are you going to say every word in the game?!" HX yelled.

"Shut up everybody!" Kate screamed.

Suddenly, out of the blue, came 6 foxes. All except one had two tails; the other had three.

"Daddy, why don't they laugh?" said Tails and Vails.

"That's because I didn't blast them," said Daddy Fox.

"I could just freeze them," said Wails (Wales).

"Now let's not go around freezing everybody," said Mommy Fox.

"I could just crush them," said CyberTails.

"No!!!!!!!!!" everyone else said.

"What the heck is going on?!" X asked. "Who's who? What's what? Why am I Kumba?!"

[Editor's Note: Replying to that Vails fella, not me.]

"Hmm... a bloodthirsty partial insanity, with a hostility towards my liege, I have reason to believe," Cyan said. "Stand back, I'll deal with this." Cyan drew his sword.

"No!!!" HX yelled, and the rest was too bright too tell what happened. To Kate and X's best guess, HX drew a wooden shield (where he got it was obvious) and jumped in front of Cyan. Cyan executed a maneuver in which he leapt forward and struck on the opponent's head, also making the world wavy (HX later described it as the "Slash" technique), but instead of hitting the foxes, hit HX's shield, which shattered with the touch. In the confusion, Wails the fox accidentally froze Daddy Fox, and, with their leader frozen, they withdrew.

[Editor's Note: Ummmmm...Slash can't destroy anything! It just halves the target's HP!]

X didn't know who to help, while Kate got so confused she shot a wild energy blast and the wall shattered. When all was clear, Cyan went to inspect the damage.

"Hmm, the water looks...odd," Cyan commented, forgetting what had just occurred.

"Uh-oh," HX mumbled, then yelled "Cyan! Protect your family!"

"But..."

"Do it! We'll find a way out!"

While Cyan ran to his quarters, HX dashed to his friends.

"HX," Kate started, "what's happening?!"

"I'd ruin the surprise if I told you. Don't worry, robots don't breathe, and Chaos Children (and Cyan) are immune to poison...oops!"

"Ugh! Okay, I tire of this, where's the Magic Map?" X asked.

"I thought you had it!" HX told him.

"Well, I...it's been stolen!"

"Argh, foxes! Okay, let's follow their trail...move out!"

"You should have let Cyan kill them, or are you still feeling the effects of the mint?"

"Don't you know Tails when you see him?" HX mumbled nastily.

[Editor's Note: Now he responds to me.]

"To sum it up... X was shortly borrowing Kumba's body while he wasn't using it for reasons I now forget, and is now in a holographic box residing in the TGRL," HX answered. "By the by, who am I answering?"

HX turned around to see a large dinosaur. HX jumped back, holding his chest.

"Oh, Raptor, it's you...but, you can't speak English!"

"He did to me!" Kate piped.

"I, too, heard him speak," said a second voice. All three spun around.

"Oh, Cyan, it's you," HX said, relieved. He still didn't breathe. He didn't have to, anyway.

"How did Raptor get here, and where's X?" Kate asked.

"And whose trails are these?" HX added.

"And why do I stand here looking calm when the Empire has killed my family and I'm setting out to pay them back?! Goodbye!" Cyan said, then ran north. Kate and HX took no notice.

"They're...fox trails. Hmmm...why do fox trails suddenly sound significant?" HX said, still too shocked by the quick-happening strange events to use his nerves.

"Um...because Tails and a bunch of other foxes made off with our magic map?" Kate suggested.

"Um...yeah, well, um...let's follow them, then."

"Um...okay, that sounds reasonable," Kate agreed, shrugging her shoulders.

"White Emerald," X explained, "the Emerald of Communication. That's why we can understand Raptor."

Suddenly, they came upon a faerie spring with little sprites who were bathing. X apologized and asked for a blessing, and the little creature conjured up a horse.

X smiled and said to his comrades, "Just watch out for Death Crystals." Then, he turned and started running.

"Where are you going?" Kate asked.

X got a wicked grin on his face. "The Red Dragon Inn," he explained, "I'm gonna go find Violet!"

"Wait!" screamed HX. "Come back!! X, you're a robot!!!" It was too late, though...X had disappeared into the vast world of LORD.

Kate grabbed HX and followed X, when they appeared in a town with a huge tower.

"Kate, I told you it was left at The Hobbit and right at King's Quest!"

"Well excuuuuse me!" said Kate. "I think we're at the Tower of the Sun..." - Kate

"Uh-oh..." HX mumbled. "The fact that we fell into the wrong RPG, and X suddenly appeared... and on a weekday!...and the fact that we don't really have the White Emerald..."

"Didn't!" Kate corrected, pulling the Emerald from her pack.

"...can only mean one thing!"

"We're prime LOGIC bait?" Kate asked.

"LOGIC's dead!"

"No kidding!"

"Anyway, I believe while we were following the fox trails, we fell through a...a..."

"Oh no! Not a..."

"Hole in the plot! H O L E I N T H E P L O T ! H

H

H

H

H

H

H

H

H

H

H

Hole in the plot!"

"Well, look on the bright side," Raptor, um, er... "If the fox trails led straight to it, they must be here, too!"

"Right!" Kate exclaimed.

"Oh, look, there they are!" HX pointed.

"Those are X's horse trai..."

"X! I forgot about him! Let's go figure out where he went!"

"Looking for Violet!"

"Who?"

"You mean you..."

"No."

"That means you..."

"Good Lord!" Kate yelled, pun not intended, "You never...hoo, boy!"

"Sorry," HX sulked, "And you never played FFIII!"

"Well...sorry. Let's follow those horse trails."

"Okay."

[Editor's Note: Drumroll, please, we have our first major example of the Median Effect!]

"Oh no! On top of a hole in the plot, I think we had a superimposed conversation, a creativity split, a..."

"English?" Kate said.

"Two storyline were happening at once, and now we're going off in different directions in the plot! Oh, I should never write unless I see if someone else has written."

HX whistled and suddenly, in a shaft of light, the two storylines came together.

"X! You're back!"

X's horse rode into the Tower of The Sun.

"Good news: We found X. Bad news: We lost the fox trail."

"Oh, zark the fox trails!" a voice came from behind them.

"Zark? OK, who here's been reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?!" HX called out.

"Not me!" Kate called.

"Not me!" X called.

"Not me!" Zaphod called (it was, of course, Zaphod).

Raptor just stood there and drooled.

"OK, let's just figure out what story/game/TV show/etc. we're in and get outta it!"

"Um, X, I'm afraid we're in a story jumble!" HX said.

Though it wasn't precisely true, it was true enough for everyone. They had traveled so rapidly they forgot it all.

"Um... let's just wander around a bit." X said.

"Indeed!" Raptor replied.

"Yes! We must quest on!" HX replied.

"Oh, adventures are so bothersome and they make you late for dinner!" Kate mumbled.

"Zark off!" Zaphod repeated.

X stared at them blankly.

"This," he mumbled, "Is going to be a looooong new adventure."

[Editor's Note: Yikes...and it doesn't appear to just stop there. Looks like I fanned the fire...]

"Uhhh," Raptor said, "X, like, ummmm...left without the horse."

"Oh, no!" HX smacked himself in the face. "I can't believe this!"

Meanwhile, X burst into the Red Dragon Inn. Smiling broadly, he carried Violet upstairs to a scene of the game which I'd rather not describe as I'm on "probation" on the BB's for "foul language" (don't worry, the game's not graphic and it has a "Clean Mode", so your parents still might let you play it).

"I can't believe this," HX muttered angrily. "X has gone to...well, you know...with this Violet person, and he's a robot!"

"Let's just follow the horse tracks," Kate muttered.

"This is a family board!"

Grumbling, the three followed the horse tracks.

Suddenly, through the gloom of the forest, they saw smoke coming from a chimney.

"Where are we?" asked Kate.

"That sign says 'Dark Cloak Tavern'," HX replied. Then, seeing the mare, he said, "Why'd the horse come here?"

"It seems to be a faerie horse," replied a voice. The team whirled to see a young man behind them. "Faerie horses always come here. Name's Chance," he said, extending his hand. "I'm the bartender here. May I be of service?"

[Editor's Note: The Median Effect is discovered still at large!]

HX said,

***EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES***

We're sorry, the story you have been reading has been severely screwed-up for the time being. As soon as the authors figure out what the h-e-double-hockey-stick is going on, we will continue with this part of the story, but until then...

"Where are we?" asked Billy.

"Complete and total null and void," Kelly replied. At Billy's blank stare, she explained, "The middle of nowhere."

"We're in Nowhere, Arizona?" asked Billy, surprised. "Cool! I wanna see the Grand Canyon!"

Kelly gave him a good slap. "After Mobius was destroyed by LOGIC, we were left stranded in some strange fix..."

"Uhhh...so, whudduhwedonow?" Billy asked.

"That's a really good question!" Kelly replied.

Kelly looked at Billy. "Well, you know, Kate reads a lot of sci-fi, so maybe she put us in one of her novels..."

Billy began to complain, "Yeah, but X plays video games so he could have put us in a game!"

Then the theme to The Twilight Zone began to play. "Welcome," a voice said, "to the All Social Studies Teacher Show, where they make you draw pictures of David Lettermen and make you watch Channel One and kill you with quizzes and projects!"

HX walked by the middle of nowhere (actually, it was about 2/17 into nowhere) and explained exactly why Kelly and Billy were in the middle of nowhere.

"Your part in the story is done. Since no magic spell doesn't have its side effects, the side effect of the Median Spell is this: Once you are out of the story, you are out of everything until it blows over."

"Great," Kelly mumbled, "What do we do until then?"

"Talk, play, do something *P* won't allow...as we've forgotten you, we don't care!"

"Oh," Billy said with a grin. "This'll be fun!"

Kelly slapped him. She slapped him again for sport.

"As for me," HX continued, knowing Kelly and Billy wouldn't give a Whelk's shell what he was going to say, "I have to figure out how I got here, where our magic map is, what the hell we're doing if Mobius and, therefore, Castle Chaos was destroyed, and why there are so many holes in the plot!"

"Actually, there's only one," a voice said from thin air. LOGIC materialized. "I did some field research on this. It seems a giant Moogle danced and created a universal plot hole. You're still falling. This is highly illogical, don't you think? Too bad I wasn't there to stop it!"

LOGIC stared at Kelly. She choked.

"Wh-what are you doing here?"

"What do you think?!" LOGIC spat, then turned to HX. "Your sister really messed up on this one."

"She can't help it, something made her go mad!" HX retaliated.

"Look," Billy said, "I know I really shouldn't care, but can you patch this hole?"

"Well, it will make the wounds deep, but not unhealable. At least the insanity will stop."

"Agreed," HX said.

"Well, then...mistakes, mistakes, from us begone! Little mess-ups, please begone! Let for once sanity live on!"

The next thing HX and Kate saw (X was...um...wrapped up in what he was doing) was the universe fold into itself infinitely, then explode, jumbling it crazily.

HX was standing in front of Castle Daventry, guards breathing down his neck.

Kate was in front of 9 black horseriders.

X was still thanking Thomas Light for the gift of feeling.

Kate laughed at the horseriders, who looked at her wildly in return. Two of them grabbed her by the arms and dragged her to Sauron for insanity.

Meanwhile, in the castle of a kingdom called Daventry...

Hedgehog X looked at the amazing architecture of Castle Daventry. Then he turned around, and jumped back when he saw the guards.

He fell into the moat.

A minute later HX emerged from the moat, holding a ravenous serpent. He threw it back into the water.

"!@#$ Moat Monsters," he moaned, and turned around to see the guards again.

"What... what are you?" The guards asked in considerable awe.

This question sent HX's mind swimming. He hadn't thought of an excuse for his appearance. He couldn't say that he was from another planet which might or might not have blown up. The fact that he appeared from thin air didn't help at all. HX decided to play on the fact that the guards are very skeptical and open-minded to magic.

"I'm...enchanted," he replied, and hastily escaped.

X walked downstairs. A drunk asked what all the noise was about. X just smiled knowingly. The drunks were mystified. X's little, um, adventure was posted in the

Daily News (X loved to brag), and then X went to another part of the bar, where a bard was singing.

"There once was a warrior, with a beard,/He had a power, yes X was feared,/Nothing he did, could ever be wrong./He was quick, and he was strong!"

X grinned at the song, completely full of himself. However, remembering the task at hand, he left the bar and went into the forest to find his friends. To his surprise, his horse was there.

X ran off to find his friends, the horse following.

Suddenly, a monster jumped out of the undergrowth and screamed, "Prepare to die, fool!!!" It pulled a Death Crystal from its cloak and aimed it at X. Suddenly, the horse jumped in front of X and got blasted.

The world before X vanished in a red haze. All he could think was that his valiant steed must be avenged.

When the haze cleared, X was standing...and the monster wasn't.

Crying, X buried his horse in a clearing. Then, he thought to himself, he just wanted to leave. X beamed out of the land of LORD, not even bothering to set a specific destination.

When X beamed back in, he gasped, "Oh, no! I'm in the land of..."

I'm interested (I really despised RPGs until I rented FF3, and now I hate all but the best RPGs)!

"Oh no! I'm in the land of..." What X said after that isn't important, because he didn't know himself. He did what came naturally and walked around and talked. He heard a lot about the jerks in Zozo (wherever that was) and heard that Hedgehog X had been here during his travels, and X wished HX could be around to tell him where the h-e-double hockey stick (in X's own words) he was.

HX was thinking much the same thing. He blundered south of the castle and saw a gnome in a shack.

"Er... hello," the gnome said, "er...what...oh, how are you?"

"Er...fine."

"Good!" The gnome nodded. "Good," He repeated, and continued staring far away.

"Um... what's so interesting yonder, Nik?" HX said (presuming this was the gnome Nikstlitselpmur, otherwise known as Ifnovkmproghprm).

"Eh?"

"Ifnov? Or should I express you fully?"

"What?" Said the gnome in considerable surprise, "Oh, Nik's fine. Now, what were you saying?"

"I said, 'What's so interesting yonder?'"

"Oh," said the gnome, "activity in the Dark Tower."

Hedgehog X noticed the Dark Tower for the first time. Indeed, it was not there in the King's Quest games.

"Since when was that there?" HX asked.

"When the universe folded. It was something to see, all right!"

"Oh," HX contemplated this, "I saw it."

"Good for you."

Red shafts of light erupted from the Dark Tower.

Rewind to when HX left the castle.

Move to the Dark tower.

Two shadows on horseback were carrying Kate (who had apparently gone mad) to Sauron.

When Kate was presented to Sauron, he stood up.

"So, this is the great magic user everybody's been talking about. Now she's mine!"

Kate laughed so hard it hurt.

"Vweee, hee hee. Oh, that's a laugh!"

"Kneel before me, or I shall have to make you!"

"So this is the mighty Sauron! Ha ha ha. Looks more like a pimple!"

Sauron growled, "Take her away, Ringwraiths. Make her obey!"

Of course that never happened. Kate decided Sauron would like to see her full powers...maybe even feel them.

Red shafts of light erupted from the Dark Tower.

A few minutes later, Kate walked out and saw HX.

"Kate!" he shouted. "How did you get out????!!!!????"

"Oh," she said with a smile, "it was easy."

From inside a wailing could be heard: "Noooooo! Nooooo! Nooooo, no more Barney pleeeeeease! He's tooo niiiiiiice!"

"Kate, one thing -- when did you get that power?!"

Kate shrugged.

Then, they heard a fight. Kate and HX ran up to a clearing, where they saw a tall half-elf and an elven-maid.

"Tanis," she cried, "I thought you loved me!"

"Laurana, I do, it's just that..."

"And whom," HX asked Kate, "are they?"

"Tanis and Laurana, of course!" she replied. "Dragonlance: Kindred Spirits. The Meetings sextet, Volume One."

HX's mind swirled for a moment. He thought he should say something. "I don't think I've been in this one. So, do they have any significance?"

Kate shrugged her shoulders, "To us? Maybe."

HX was still thinking about the long name of the book. One syllable shot out, ran through his head, bounced around a bit, and got into his memory center and opened up the folder marked "X". In other words, he remembered him.

"So, are we going to mope around a bit, or what?"

"I'll talk to them," Kate said, "Perhaps they have something useful to say."

HX shrugged his shoulders, "Hey, you read it! I'll just go to that place X went to and see if I can find him."

"But...where..."

"I'll meet you there," HX reassured her.

"But..."

"If you can pulverize Sauron himself, you can find a measly tavern!" HX said, and left abruptly.

HX was on his way to the Dark Cloak Tavern, when suddenly, he heard a strange word. "Sho-Ryu-Ken!"

"What the--" HX started (he almost said "H-E-Double-Hockey-Stick", but saved himself).

"No use," muttered the speaker. "I'm on Capcom's junk mail list, they send me some code on how to get the Dragon Punch in MMX2, and I find the chamber, but there's no capsule!!!"

HX suddenly realized this was X...although he'd gone insane. "Oh well...makes sense, it's almost April Fools' Day..."

HX then reeled in shock...

"Capcom Junk Mail list?" He remembered the totally useless ad he got in the mail for MMX2, and use some kind of device to check his mailbox..."GamePro? They cut my subscription...didn't they?" He then chose that time to become paranoid...

"I found it at Wal-Mart and now it's in my m-mailbox and it's April Fools' Day and this is the April issue and..."

The rest is just logical thinking that all boils down to an illogical answer of forty-two.

Meanwhile, Kate...

...walked over to Tanis and Laurana.

"Hi," she said, "I'm Kate. Could you help us a bit? We have this problem..." "Problem?! I have problems!" Laurana screamed, and ran off.

"You'll have to excuse her, Kate...we have this..." (Tanis speaking)

While Kate was talking with Tanis, X asked HX, "42?!"

"That's the number of the note that came after mine," HX explained.

"Wonderful," X muttered. "But, how are we going to find Kate...and how am I going to get the Dragon Punch?!"

"Oh, wait...forty-two is the answer to the ultimate question, though nobody's quite sure what that question is...didn't you read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?"

"Er...no," X said, then came a click, and the music for MMX2.

"X," HX asked, "what are you doing?!"

"I'm trying," said X in an explosion of joy, "to get 42 lives!"

HX shrugged and used the time to find X by interrogating a number of drunks (and eventually becoming one). He finally made it. Mega Man X, on the TV screen (how the TV got there is obvious if you think long enough) was dragon punching.

"You did it?" HX asked.

"No. You must be seeing things."

"Yeah. Spots," HX said.

He opened a chest and put the ThiefKnife in his backpack with the shards. Nobody noticed the backpack because it had an SEP (Somebody Else's Problem) field around it.

...and Kate let A.N.T. 100 back into Sonic '95 and they all lived happily ever after!

The End!

Suddenly, X smiled. "The latest issue of GamePlayers!" he burst out.

"What about it?" asked HX quizzically. "I'm not a subscriber!"

"In the latest issue, not only did they print a message of mine," X explained, "but they gave me the missing piece to the Dragon Punch code: You need 9 lives!"

Suddenly, ANT 100 showed up. "Will you let me back in your club?" he asked. The answer was...

Okay, so I lied, that sorta had a plot. But now things really start getting muddled, though (in case you couldn't figure it out from the title) there is somewhat of a focus on Final Fantasy 6 (3 US) and Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising Sequence.

Anywayz, this picks up a month after the last left off...and ANT 100 decided against sticking around even though I said he could.

..."Sure!" X said. "You've learned your lesson, and I've tortured you in my stories, and in short a lot of stuff has happened since that fateful day last December. Welcome back!" With that, he did a Dragon Punch to close the deal.

"Uhhh, what next?" HX asked seriously. "I can't possibly think of another idea!"

"Of course you can't!" Kate snapped. "You wrote out Billy and Kelly, the main characters!"

"They're not the main characters anymore!" HX replied.

"This wasn't supposed to be a Sonic story!" Kate yelled.

"Look," Raptor said, "all this brother/sisterly love is really touching, but I'm hungry!!! I don't even care that I'm not supposed to talk!"

"We can communicate through the Emerald of Communication," X explained. Then, he gasped, and said, "Uh...where are the Emeralds?!"

"Isn't that what we've been searching for in the past several parts?" ANT 100 asked. "I'm confused!"

"We all are," HX said. "So, what do we do now?"

Before anyone could put in a word edgewise, Raptor licked his chops and started chasing ANT 100 through the countryside.

"Help!" ANT 100 screamed. "Stop! I'm not made of meat!"

"The Chaos Children are invincible," Raptor explained, "and you were two feet closer to me than X! So, prepare to become lunch!"

"Should we follow them?" X asked.

"No, we are not following them," said Kate, stamping her foot.

"Pushy," said HX.

Kate whacked him on the head. "Shut-up."

Suddenly, something happened:

"Okay, one of those 'go to another world' sequences," X said, when the worst possible thing happened (even worse than when HX hiccuped):

"Oh, Barney, look at those weird people!"

"That's not nice, Kathy. Say you're sorry."

"Okay, Barney. Sorry."

Kate let out a terrified scream: they were caught in the world of...

"Read!" HX screamed as he got out a piece of paper with handwriting just like his. In an instant, they were in an open field.

"What was that?" said X, starting to read the manuscript. "Um, Hedgie, why were you writing a script for Final Fantasy IV?"

"Because I wanted to!" HX yelled. X read some more, with Kate starting in.

"Why, it's the KateStory!" Kate exclaimed, "Nothing's changed!"

"Except us," HX said lowly. It was true. Kate was a fairy. X was a Magitek robot, and HX was a human in clerical robes.

"So I wouldn't get sued," HX explained, "and to fit the story better. Oh, Kate's name is Fairy Tail Magi, I'm Faria Magi, and X's new name is obvious."

"Magitek Armor," X guessed.

"Uh-huh."

"So where are we?" Fairy asked.

"Judging from the airship, it's sometime after the opera scene."

An airship landed right beside them.

"Aha! There you are!" Kelly exclaimed. Faria simply winked.

In their spare time, Fairy and Magitek read the script to find out their predicament. This is what they got:

After the dream, Kelly woke up in the witch's dungeon, who threw her to Mt. Morian, where she met Faria (the other seven Ego-Trip members didn't exist), who took her in after helping him defeat Caradhras the Cruel. Faria trained her to use her "highly potent" chi energy into attacks she could use once per fight. The rest remains the same: Faria's sister Fairy, who resides in the hidden land of Faerie (a country of mystical creatures) went crazy and used her magical powers to create a median spell. Faria was turned into a human by a wise old elf to help fight off a monster in Faerie. Kelly and Faria met up with two researchers of magic, Sabin and Edgar, who helped them defeat Fairy.

Unfortunately, Fairy instead disrupted time, turned Faria into a singing candy machine, jailed Sabin and Edgar, and held Kelly to do a cooking show.

[Editor's Note: You changed things to avoid getting sued, but added Caradhras the Cruel?! Ooooooooooooooooookay...]

The story of Billy, Anticlimax, and Magitek remains the same up until the end...Kelly and Billy were not written out, but instead went off to find adventure. They were visiting Faria and Fairy after a week of this when Faerie was attacked by a human with a flamethrower. He was defeated, and they all realized that the Median Spell was endangering Faerie, and that it must be stopped.

Things proceed normally after that, until LOGIC brought about "The Gathering of Worlds". Faria woke up alone and was aided by the knight, Cyan, who was taking care of the injured people in Garamonde Hall. Fairy woke up in the dungeon of the Dark Lord, whom she defeated. This time, she became the Dark Queen, and attacked Garamonde Hall, but was defeated and brought back to her senses by a white magic spell. Fairy and Faria traveled around, and found that they were stranded on an island. They found Kelly's parents, Locke and Celes, but they were of little help. They also found a friend, Wonko the Insane, who helped them out and into another land. Kelly was found working at Albertson's.

Also, they rented an airship and pilot named Setzer. Setzer heard of their problem and decided to help them, giving his help and airship. The script ends there, for now they were at the present.

"We can get some friends this way," said Faria as they emerged.

"Shall we play the game through?" Fairy asked.

X, err, Magitek, said, "You fool!!! I'm the only person in the world who hasn't played FFIII!!! You're sounding like my algebra book!!!!! " With that, Magitek brought out his algebra book and banged his head on it.

Surprisingly enough, it was a magic algebra book! Then...

...X disappeared into some land or another.

"Shall we follow him?" Fairy asked.

"Nah. Magitek's a minor character. We'll keep the book handy just in case we need to leave."

The book was then stored in the cargo hold of the airship.

"Now, where shall we go next?"

"Um..." Faria thought, "Hmm...how about that cube place over there?"

X muttered something about how his friends wouldn't say anything in English. Suddenly, he looked ahead of him, and saw he was on Jeopardy!

Fairy looked confused...which she was.

X, who was able to answer all the questions...errr, question all the answers...walked out of the Jeopardy studio with about a million bucks, as well as an invitation to be there on the next show.

"It was a good thing you didn't follow X...Magitek...whatever," Fairy said.

"Why?" Faria asked.

"Because he's in Jeopardy," she answered.

"Then why," Faria asked, "shouldn't we follow?"

"Because Alex is annoying."

Faria pondered this for a minute, then realized what she was talking about.

"How did you know that? Magic?"

"Nope," Fairy answered. "I read the last reply."

Wonko stared at the cubic building the party had just landed by.

Suddenly, X appeared. "Alex is not annoying!" he screamed at Fairy. "He rocks!"

"Sorry, guys," X said, "but I just can't let this keep up. You've gotta follow my example and become normal again."

Then, before they could protest (and make cracks about his line about being "normal"), he hit them both with Magic Algebra Books.

"X!" Faria...errr, Hedgehog X screamed. "Why'd you ruin my fun?!"

"And, weren't you supposed to turn in your algebra book anyway?" Kate asked.

X smiled. It was time for a new adventure.

"Well, okay," HX said. "But it would be interesting, as we were all going to find out Wonko was really Kefka but Kefka wasn't sane and..."

"Shut up," X scolded HX.

"All right, but for a minute there I knew Ultima..."

"I said shut up!"

Kate kept quiet through all this.

HX looked around. "Where are we?" he asked.

"I dunno, you're writing this part!" Kate answered.

Actually there was a pretty good chance of the middle of nowhere, because it was a total void. All black, silent, tasteless, nonexistent void.

"I can't taste anything, smell anything, hear anything (besides you), see anything, or feel anything," HX said.

"I can't smell anything, taste anything, see anything, feel anything, or hear anything," Kate said.

"I can't taste anything, smell anything, see anything or hear anything," X said.

There was a long pause.

"I still can't taste anything, smell anything, hear anything, see anything, or feel anything," HX said.

"And I still can't smell, taste, see, feel, or hear anything," Kate said.

"I can't taste, smell, see, or hear," X said.

"When are you going to come to your senses and solve this puzzle?" A voice rang out.

"X..." Kate said. "What do you feel?"

"I feel insane!" X screamed. Suddenly, he fired the Speed Burner, revealing light for a few seconds.

"I think the Fire Wave will be more effective," Hedgehog X observed. "Allow me." He used the Fire Wave he'd gotten at the end of Book 5 of Sonic Meets X, revealing that they were in a labyrinth of some sort.

"Great," X muttered. "I know where we are. Here, you'll need these."

With that, he tossed Kate a crossbow and Hedgehog X a pair of gauntlets.

"You've been playing Heretic," Hedgehog X muttered, and they were off.

"What's Heretic?" asked Kate.

"Heretic is a Doom look-alike by the people who made Doom and has the same premise and story as Doom and the only thing that separates it from Doom is the era, so that's why I call it Doom 1111."

"Whoa."

"Shoot," X growled.

"What's wrong?" HX asked.

"I said, shoot!!!!" X screamed. He spun and fired plasma at a Red Demon who had been inches away from Kate's head.

"We need to be more careful," HX said.

"Yeah," X agreed. "Especially since Heretic isn't really written by the same guys who did Doom. It's published by Id, but it's made by Raven."

"Shut up," Kate muttered as another demon appeared. She blasted it with her Ethereal Arrows, while HX turned around and burned one of those big tan dudes with his gauntlets.

"Stay close," X said, "I have a plan."

Kate and HX rolled their eyes, but followed X anyway.

X burned a hole in the wall, revealing a teleporter. They entered, and when they came out, they were elsewhere.

X, wearing six circles (each quartered by a cross) around his neck, muttered to Hedgehog X with an English accent, "Bran, keep Eirias drawn. There could be trouble."

"Right, Will," came the reply in a Welsh accent. Hedgehog X...errr, Bran Davies...drew a crystal sword from an invisible sheath. Blue flames flickered on its edge.

Kate...actually, Jane Drew, said, "So, the Dark is near. Let's be careful."

"Watch your backs," Will muttered.

...and they all died! The End.

No, wait...everybody except Will and any other immortals died. Then two sprites popped up from nowhere and revived whoever HX and Kate were supposed to be. Then they flew away.

"Hey, who killed me?" HX said, thrashing wildly.

"And how did we revive?" Kate asked.

"And where did you get the sprites?" X asked HX.

"Oh, sprites," Kate muttered, and collapsed of boredom from being in a two man, one woman world (except for immortals but since I never read the book it's safe to say Will's the only one).

"First tell me who killed me!"

"Dunno," X/Will shrugged, "Raptor."

"Oh," HX said, "The sprites were from my wanderings. I got them in the world of, wonder of wonders, Zelda III."

"Where were they? In your pocket?"

"Yes, you could say that," HX laughed, pulling a small black object from his pocket.

"Hey...didn't you have a pack in the pub?"

"Yes, but that was only an anomaly of the Hole-in-Plot problem," HX answered. "This thing, though, can carry everything...like sprites."

"Oh," said X, as Kate recovered. She looked around and collapsed again. The other two collapsed also.

Unfortunately, HX collapsed on the thing (it's called The-Thing-Arthur's-Aunt-Gave-Him-But-No-One-Knows-What-It-Is), which contained various magic items, and he found himself in clouds. A man was talking to the man whose name I won't use. Lord, that's good.

"I refuse to prove my existence, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing," says Lord.

"But," says the man, "the universe could not have been created by itself, which proves your existence. But, by your last argument, it proves you don't exist!"

"Gee, I never thought of that," thinks Lord as he disappears in a puff of logic.

"That sure was easy," says the man, and goes on to prove that black is white and gets killed in the next Zebra crossing.*

The clouds went with Lord, and HX fell to the Earth, or whatever you wanted to call it, because by now the Earth had been so garbled it wasn't quite Earth anymore. HX swore to stop the Median effect right before he landed in the middle of nowhere.

X growled. "I'll kill that dino," he muttered. "Where is he?!"

"Better question," Kate replied. "Where are we?"

"I dunno," X said. "But, while we're trying to figure it out, HX can read the Dark is Rising sequence!"

"Sounds good to me," Kate said.

Unfortunately, HX could do nothing of the sort, because he was stranded in the middle of nowhere. HX knew he was in the middle of nowhere because he had been here before, and he knew that if he didn't make his escape from it interesting, he would be out of the story. He also knew that Kelly, Billy, and Anticlimax were here.

He wandered north (at least, he thought it was north) until he saw a castle. The castle was the whole point of their quest but was forgotten now. It was Castle Chaos. He also saw four figures that were also important but forgotten.

They were foxes. HX picked up a convenient bat, whacked Vails and his family, and retrieved the map.

He found one tiny mark in the middle of nowhere. This, he figured, was HX's last appearance here, and where he would most likely find Kelly, Billy, and Anticlimax. He pushed it.

X smiled. "We finally made it," he sighed. "You did it, bud."

"That's it?!" Kate asked. "The story's finished?!"

"Yup," HX replied, "after almost a year, it's finally done."

Kate sighed, part relief and part sadness. "So," she said, "what's next?"

"We're not getting any rest," X replied. "Dreams Distorted is coming up. So, grab a bowl of popcorn, and read, cuz this could take the whole summer."

[Editor's Note: It was terrible when DD crashed and burned...it was Brent's fault.]

"What'll we do if we get bored?" asked Raptor, who had magically reappeared.

"We can always continue your story," X said.

"Well, what about us?" Kelly and Billy asked in unison.

"Don't worry," X replied, "there's bound to be a Book 3...someday."

Kelly and Billy, both of them surprised at what they were doing, shared a quick kiss, and then faded out.

X smiled. "This dream is over," he said, "but a new one...or, actually, about a couple dozen new ones...are beginning...probably tomorrow."

The team smiled, and all sat back in some comfy chairs. Finally, they thought as the began to fade out, some rest.

Before the fall of Lindsay Cibos' ill-fated Sonic club, Stef brought the KateStory to them...and it was Good^TM.

...he fell down. "Hmmf. A cardboard cutout," Kelly muttered. So, she went home.

[Editor's Note: I was really keen on getting the thing over with...DD was coming and all, and I had hope for it back then.]

...and when she got there, a huge eyeball monster stood at her door and it lunged for Kelly, when the...

...ice cream truck drove by. Kelly and the eyeball both ran to catch up with it.

"Hey, Kel," the eyeball said, "my treat!" It pulled out a few bucks.

"Billy!" Kelly gasped, and threw her arms around her boyfriend. "What, is it Halloween already?"

Billy shrugged, and was about to explain, when...

...the ice cream man turned into a huge, slimy, disgusting ficklewad, and...

[Editor's Note: ...Ficklewad...?]

"Abusing ice-cream privileges, are we?" asked a familiar voice. There was a zap, and then nothing was left of the evil ice-cream man except a smoldering heap.

HX blew on his finger, like cowboys blow on their guns in western movies. "How ya doin'?" he asked.

"Hedgehog X!" Billy shouted.

"Sorry I didn't give you time for relaxation," HX said, "but we're in trouble. We just realized that, although Kate has regained her sanity, the Median Effect is still working."

"And you drafted us to help you stop it," Kelly muttered, rolling her eyes. "Great. Last time, we were supposed to help, but you forgot all about us."

"Never mind that," HX said. "We've got a ride to catch..."

Billy gasped, as the huge vehicle rolled up. "What is that thing?!" he asked.

Hedgehog X replied, "It's..."

"...Dr. Robotnik's Carnival of Fun! Fully portable and even comes with a free lesson in roboticization!"

"What will we do, HX?"

"Robotnik?!" HX growled angrily. "What's he doing in our story?!"

"He's messin' with our heads," said a voice. HX, Kelly, and Billy whirled to find Kate standing with X. X was the one who had spoken.

"We gotta stop this roboticization," HX said.

"'Scuse me?" Billy asked.

"Turning living beings into robots," X explained. "Luckily, I've got a way to counter it."

Before he could be stopped, X ran forward and jumped into the roboticizer. There was a huge explosion.

Kelly's eyes widened. "Is he...is he...?"

"Nah," HX replied. "He'll come back when we need him most in a future part of the story. But, for now, we'll have to go on without him."

Billy scratched his head. "So, you can't roboticize something that's already a robot. I gotta remember this..."

"What?!" HX screams. "I've been tricked!"

HX turned bright red, which is something his enemies rarely see him do and not get seriously hurt. The carnival went up in a billion zillion flames.

"Okay, we'll just use the magic map!"

"No!" Kelly and Billy screamed, "Not the map!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Billy sliced the map in half.

"Okay, not the map. We'll walk. Um, Billy, how did you get so many eyes?"

"I played Duke Nukem II too long," he replied, and shrugged.

"Oh."

[Editor's Note: Whoops. Looks like he didn't see my post until this point...]

"Right!" HX confirms as they're walking. "And for that reason we have Marvin!"

"Marvin?"

"Marvin the Paranoid Android!" he said brightly, as a large metallic man lumbered onto the scene.

"How are you doing, Marvin?" HX asked.

"I hope you know that suicide missions make me very depressed."

"Shut up!"

"Uh, let's please get away from this area before X catches up with us," Hedgehog X suggested. "If he sees what kind of scrap we dug up for his replacement, he's gonna beat the..." HX stopped, because the next word was not approved by Prodigy bulletin boards.

"They're all around us," Marvin said, clinging to HX's shoulder.

HX smacked himself in the head. "What have I done?!" he asked.

"Er..." HX mumbled to himself, "Hi, HX, we brought Marvin in case Robotnik makes about ten zillion roboticizers, yeah?"

Kelly looked at him in a very confused manner. "Talking to yourself is a sign of impending mental collapse."

"The problem with being in someone else's control," HX explained, "is that half the time you say something totally contradictory to what you wanted to say, and there's also the problem of personality clashes."

"Huh?"

"You don't do what you were planning to!"

"Oh...Billy, what happened to all your eyes? You're normal again!"

"I tried talking to Marvin and he hit me over the head with a rancid block of cheese."

A vampire ran past them.

"It is Halloween!"

Suddenly a flash of black came by, and Batman and Robin stood there, when the...

...Riddler came by! Everyone was trapped for the next two hours, unable to stop laughing. For once in their lives, everybody thought it was a setback that Jim Carrey is so funny.

"I knew this was gonna happen," Marvin whined.

Later...

"Must we leave, HX?"

"Yes! If Jim catches us, he will keep showing old reruns of 'Three's Company' to us!"

"You mean...??!!"

"Yeah, that's why he's so weird."

"But I thought you could beat him like Robotnik?"

"He's unstoppable!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!"

"In other words," HX said, "let's run." The team ran far, far away. Finally, they got to somewhere else. It was a funny somewhere else.

[Editor's Note: Dah! Median Effect again!]

"Now move, unless you want to see Once Bitten!"

Everyone ran, but Batman was stopped and made into a tire from a Big-O store manager. The Riddler's suit was made into a new cap for Link (who isn't in the story but he gets a new cap anyway). Robin whined that he was out of a movie career, but it didn't matter because he didn't have one anyway.

Weird things floated by, like pieces of chicken and pizza, and the Animaniacs ran everywhere.

Amy Rose pops in out of nowhere...

...and Stimpy fell out of the sky right by Kelly.

"Aagghh! Not the dream sequence!"

"Last time," HX muttered, "I got seriously hurt. But not this time. I'm going to stay right here..."

But then HX was trampled by the other 7 characters who appeared in Kelly's original dream. They scrambled all over the place and eventually collapsed on top of each other.

"HX!" Tetrax screamed. "We found you!"

"I might," HX hissed, "have to kill you."

"Murders are so depressing," droned Marvin, and counted 999,999,999 sheep before going to sleep in a millisecond.

"...Twelve...thirteen...fourteen of us," Kelly counted. "Me, Billy, Kate, Stimpy, Amy Rose, Marvin, and the 8 members of the Ego Trip Squad. That's almost three times as many as we had before!"

Marvin, who was clearly a light sleeper, got up. "Nearly three times as many people to kill," he muttered.

Then, he saw Stimpy walking off. "Wait!" he wailed. He grabbed Stimpy's leg, and started sobbing. "Don't leave us! Please!!! If you leave, there'll be thirteen of us...and thirteen's an unlucky number!"

"Our lives are in Stimpy's hands?" Tetrax asked. "Something tells me we're in for it."

"Hey," the Lone Anti-Basher said, "I've got a solution! How 'bout several of us leave with Stimpy, so we'll be left with less than thirteen?"

"Sounds good to me," Kate said. "Who's volunteering?"

All hands, except Marvin's, went up.

So, everyone left. "Finally, we ditched that creep," Billy muttered. "Roboticization or no roboticization, he's a pain in the..."

"Yaaaaaaah!" came a scream, and a body came running through the brush and jumped on Kelly's shoulders. "Hide me!" he screamed.

"Hoo boy," Billy said. "I spoke too soon."

"Marvin," HX said, "why are you following us?"

"Don't leave me back there," Marvin begged. "I'm afraid of the dark!"

Soon, a portal to a parallel universe opened up and sucked everyone into it. Then everyone fell into the other world headfirst.

[Editor's Note: Yikes! This is the worst example of a Median Effect in the whole thing!]

...sat by him.

She asked, "What are you doing?"

He didn't answer.

She looked at him. He was breathing, but his heart wasn't beating. She...

...Then the guy turned into a monster in a robe with long protruding fangs and sharp claws!! "I've got you now," he growled, and disappeared.

"X?" HX asked.

"Yes?"

"Who turned into a monster and grabbed who?"

"I don't know, I didn't get up."

"Neither did I."

"By the way, X?"

"Yes?"

"Since when did you catch up with us?"

"Um...uh oh!"

"What?"

"I think we have another hole in the plot."

"Why don't we get up and find where we are?"

"Okay."

They got up and found themselves alone in a very familiar world.

"Great, we just left here before Book 3 ended!" HX whined.

They were back in wherever DIRS took place.

"We have to fix the hole," X said. "Again."

"Maybe if we ignore it it'll go away."

[Editor's Note: Dah! Again!]

"Hey X! I figured it out! The monster was the man on the bench, and we went right back to the beginning of the story!"

"How did the beginning of the story catch up with us?"

"How the !@#$%^&* am I supposed to know, we just fell into a parallel...paralell...alternate dimension and bam! The story started over!"

X thought about this for a minute, "Hey, I got it! We flew back in time through the portal and to an alternate reality! Things are starting over and happening differently!"

"Where are the others?"

"Hoo boy...holes in the plot sure are fun!" X muttered.

"Yeah, well, the Grail almost fell through one!" said a voice. X whirled.

"Ah...good to see you, Will and Bran," said a man with wild gray hair and a beak-like nose.

"Merriman!" X/Will shouted in delight, and hugged his friend and mentor.

HX/Bran took his shades off, revealing his gold eyes, reminiscent of a cat's. "What's this about a grail?" he asked.

"We must find the Greenwitch," Merriman said, without further explanation.

X/Will whirled at the voice. "No prob," he said, "it was an honest mistake. As for taking a new background for your character...if you would please post some general info, that'd be nice. I'll include you in Dreams Distorted (a big event on the Video Games BB) soon. Thanks."

"Will, c'mon," HX/Bran said, tugging at his sleeve. "On with the quest!"

The team waved goodbye to Jaguarundi and continued their journey.

"Let me get this straight," Bran said, "we're back at the beginning of the story, caught up at the beginning of a totally different book, the Median Effect is still on, we're looking for a green witch..."

"A grail called the Greenwitch!" Will corrected him.

"Yes, anyway, and I have eyes of a cat, the body of a human, and the spirit of a hedgehog (or whatever). X, we have to figure out what we're doing!"

"We're looking for the Greenwitch!" X said.

"We're stopping the Median Effect!" HX said.

"We're trying to find the others!" they said together.

"Except," HX said, with a sly look in his gold eyes, "Marvin."

"Yes," agreed X. "Marvin can go and melt himself."

Meanwhile, Kelly got up and found Kelly.

"Hello?" Kelly said, "Who are you?"

"I'm Kelly," Kelly said.

"This has been a strange day. I just fell through a portal."

"And I was kidnapped by a monster."

"And HX fell through a hole in the plot."

"How do you know that?" Kelly asked.

"I read the last few chapters!" Kelly answered, and disappeared. Kelly looked at where Kelly was and got eaten by the monster.

Bran tripped.

"Hey, it's Kelly! How did you get here?"

"I read the last few chapters!" Kelly answered, disappeared, and reappeared again.

"Median Effect," X said, and shrugged. All three got up.

"Will, come down here!"

"Sorry!"

They went in search of the Greenwitch (and at the same time HX searched the Thing for a Sandwitch).

"Uhhh...we started all over?! I didn't know that?!" said Amy, not paying any attention. "Anyway...what type of parallel universe did we go into?!"

"No telling," said Will. Then, to Bran, he said, "The Greenwitch is not the Grail! The Grail is of the Light -- it's one of the four Objects of Power. The Greenwitch is of the Wild Magic -- something that is neither Dark nor Light. As I said before, read the bloody books!"

"Oh, no," Bran muttered, "Will talks with a British accent?!"

"That's not the worst of it," Will replied. "You're supposed to be using a Welsh accent!"

"Welsh?" Bran asked. "How am I supposed to manage that?! What do the Welsh sound like?"

Will shrugged. "Who really cares?" he asked. "Just hold Eirias close..."

"Who?"

"Read the..."

"Shut up! I know."

"You know who Eirias is?"

"No, I know what you're going to say."

"Look, I don't know either, because this is your chapter of the story."

"Hey, cool!" HX said, and X ran into a tree. HX went mad and flopped around like a fish, and Kelly turned into Eirias.

"Oh, there she is!" HX said.

"Fool! Eirias may or may not be a living creature."

"That's it!" HX screamed, and snapped his fin. They were in a totally random place.

"Where are we?" X asked.

"A totally random place."

"Which is...?"

"Two to the power of three thousand, five hundred sixty-four and falling," said a voice on the intercom.

"The starship Heart of Gold!" groaned HX, and turned off a Douglas Adams reference generator. This caused a power surge through LOGIC and split him into six different pieces.

"Aarrgghh!" screamed Kelly. "I have psychic blood all over me!"

"Eirias, oh ye who refuses to heed my millions of obnoxious naggings," X said to HX, "is the crystal sword that will be used to vanquish the Dark. As for Douglas Adams, well, we can't have this -- I'm the only one who's allowed to make references to something the other writer(s) can't understand!"

"Fine," HX muttered. "FF3, then."

The team appeared on Setzer's airship. X was Sabin (natch), and the others were...

"I thought that was the Master Sword!" Locke said. "Hey, I actually found a character without a personality clash!"

"Unk," was all Terra said.

"Terra was..."

"Kelly."

"Fitting," abin aid, I really have to fix my S key.

"Unk," was all Cyan said.

"Billy?"

"Yes."

"I'm so depressed," said a Magitek armored carrier. Sabin and Locke threw him off, partly because he was Magitek, partly because he was Marvin.

"I wonder who Kate is," Sabin aid.

"Hmmmf," Sabin said. "The way Kumba...errr, Cyan and I have it set up in our FF3 game is as follows:"

Terra = Kate (Both have powers)

Locke = Knukls (Both are treasure hunters )

Edgar = Sonic (The kings!)

Shadow= HX (Mysterious)

Celes = Sally (Had to do with the planet's empire)

Gau = Tails (Both young; slight resemblance)

Setzer= Rotor (Gamblers; techies)

Mog = Spike (Couldn't think of anyone else)

Strago= Chuck (Old!)

Relm = Bunnie (Both love to draw!)

[Editor's Note: Reference to Lindsay "Bunnie" Cibos, not the character.]

"I think that covers everybody, in the order that they come," Sabin said.

"Well then," Locke said, "why are things changed?"

"Good question," Sabin replied. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it! For now, we need to find Kumba and Kate...wherever they may be!"

"Who's Kumba?" Cyan asked. "And when did he come into the picture?"

"No time to explain," Sabin replied. "Let's go!" He grabbed the airship's controls, and they were off.

"What? No Robotnik?" grumbled Robotnik. "Then I'll unleash all of my SWAT-Bots on them!!!!!! Snively, activate my Personal Shuttle, I want to see this in person!!!"

"Oh boy," Sabin muttered. "We're being tailed."

"Who?" Locke asked.

"It appears to be Robotn -- I mean, Kefka with some Magitek troopers."

"Joy," Locke said.

"Let's make a run for Figaro!"

"Roger."

Terra (guess that's me) was confused when that strange thing called the Median Effect began again, and then something familiar began...

"Oh, joy," X muttered. "Where are we now?"

"Please don't make this another part from the Dark is Rising sequence," everyone pleaded.

"Well...all right," X said, "but in return, you have to read the books!"

"Hey," HX said. "Isn't that..."

"Yes," X said, "it's...it's..."

"The all-knowing Dead Horse from GamePlayers magazine!" everyone burst.

"Dead Horse," X said, "how do we get out of here?"

The Dead Horse sort of just sat there.

While not a KateStory per se (this being the only thing in this collection that maintains a sense of purpose, which is why Brent, when I gave him a copy for a preview, told me to cut this part), this epic tale, begun by Jess "Amaroq" Rhodes, was written by numerous people, so I figure it belongs.

Amaroq slung the backpack over his shoulder and stepped out of his cabin and into the sunlight of Pride Lake. Looking at the sky, he set off on his journey. It would be long and hard, but with help, he could get it over with.

His first destination was to get the full story � to travel clean across the Mirage Desert to the Shrine of the Dragon. Surely the dragon there could help him.

On his door the day before, he had found a note, stuck with tree sap. It read:

The problem was that Amaroq had no idea which town this kid was referring to. That was when he decided to see the Dragon's help...or anyone else who had knowledge of this catastrophe.

Amaroq continued walking to the Shrine of the Dragon. But before he managed to leave Pride Lake, an old friend stopped him.

"Hey Amaroq! Where you headed?"

Amaroq glances over his shoulder at his best friend -- the cougar, Mantal.

"You're going somewhere?" Mantal asks.

"Yes," Amaroq replies. "Everyone on this continent got a letter from some crackpot who says his village is destroyed. I have a feeling I'm not the only one searching for this thing. I'm headed to the Dragon's shrine. Care to come?"

"Sure!" Mantal agrees happily. The cougar and the wolf begin walking to the Shrine, unaware of the danger they and many others would face.

As Mantal and Amaroq head across the empty plains towards the great Dragon, they soon come across a small shack.

"What do you think is in there?" Amaroq turns to Mantal, who was busy fiddling around with a Rubik's Cube.

"Maybe treasure or a rat or something. Yes! One more color to go and..."

Amaroq steals the cube from Mantal and throws it on the ground. "Stop goofing off and get to work."

Mantal thought questioningly, Maybe that kid who wrote the note or something...?

They both walked inside the shack, both their expectations crushed.

"Who's that with you, you little !@#^*((^Y%##%* wolf?" Havoc got out of his chair, teeth clenched and fist in front of him.

"Calm down. I didn't know you lived here." Amaroq started to slowly back out of the doorway. "To show there's no hard feelings, I'll slowly...

"...kick your butt, steal your cards, and then leave!" Amaroq leaped towards Havoc, teeth first. A fight ensued, leaving dust and blood flying everywhere.

"Stop this at once!" Havoc had his arms around Amaroq's neck, while Amaroq had his foot in Havoc's face.

"Amaroq, this isn't a time for rivalry. This person who wrote the note is in trouble. So get with it!!!!" Mantal grabbed Amaroq by the tail.

"Wait!" Havoc, still trying to recuperate, halts the two adventurers. "I got that same stupid letter. Maybe that weirdo has a reward for his rescue. In that case, I'm game!!!! Uh, where we headed anyway?"

Amaroq looked at Havoc and cocked his head. "I dunno..."

"C'mon, wolf-boy," Havoc grinned. "Where we headed?"

"To the Shrine of the Dragon," Mantal finally said. "The dragon there knows...a lot, so...damn, I don't know what I'm talking about. Amaroq?"

"Shut-up and come on," Amaroq sighed. "Havoc, you're coming. Let's just make our way to the desert."

The three walked out of the shack, Havoc playing with his cards. Obviously he was the Setzer of the group. They traveled miles and miles, until they reached a town..

Hedgehog X got up late that day. He knew there was nothing to do, or at least he thought so.

He went outside and let the air flow through his quills, and finally he could see clearly. He remembered he had some gum in his mouth from the night before. He spit it out in the wastebasket near the tree and noticed a note in it.

"Well, if it's not a love letter it's something truly insane that could be worth a laugh," he thought, and smiled.

HX took out the note and read it.

"Yes...this is insane all right. But not funny at all."

He clenched his fist, and when he let go of the note, it dropped in the wastebasket, burning to cinders.

"I'm going to have to talk to my friend in the mountain..."

Xavier teleported to the inside of the Great Volcano, in which the Hidden Palace was located. "X?!" he shouted. "Bookshire!"

Hedgehog X knew that all but two Freedom Fighters had gone on a training mission for Kain, their new friend.

"What's up, Hedgie?" came a voice from around the corner.

HX moved into the room and found X and the aging raccoon, Bookshire, working on some experiment that I'm not about to describe but that I'll keep in the back of my mind in case it's important later.

"I thought you went off with Amaroq to look for Maxl!" X said.

"Did," HX said, "but he disappeared in the middle of the night for some reason. This note I found when I woke up must have been his reason for going."

Bookshire glared at X. "Shoot," the robot said. "I got a note like that this morning, but I thought it was more hate mail from Robotnik."

"Hoo boy," HX said. "Well, we'd better get moving. Bookshire, hack ol' Robuttnik's records to see if he has anything to do with this."

"Will do," Bookshire said.

A small hedgehog looked around a sand dune, dart gun in her bag, and bow and arrow in her hand. "Robotnik," she said through clenched teeth.

She slowly raised her bow, aiming at Amaroq. Tears flooded her eyes.

"Nooooooooo!!!" she screamed as she let go of the arrow. She gasped as the arrow headed straight towards Amaroq's head.

"Ho, look, a sand dime!" Amaroq said, bending over to pick it up. The arrow sped right over him.

She sighed, relieved. Not good, Speed, a voice said in her head.

"Why can't you leave me alone?! Get out of my head!" Speed whispered.

Now Speed, get your dart gun! The voice commanded.

She reached in to her bag, and pulled out a dart gun. It was painted in bright colors. She pulled a small feathered dart out of the leather bag. She slid the dart in a small hole in the dart gun. She brushed a strand of hair out of her face. Pushing her bracelet up, she lifted the blow gun to her lips.

She blew hard. It sped towards Amaroq, and landed in his arm...

Speed gasped in horror as the sleeping poison made him fall to the ground.

Well, that will keep Bookshire busy for a while, thought HX in a stream of other things, But what about X? He can tell when I'm keeping a secret in a heartbeat.

Maybe he's got a built-in lie detector, he thought, and giggled.

"HX?"

"Oh, I was just thinking about a toaster oven," replied HX.

X looked at him sternly and said, "Hope you like it crispy."

HX chuckled and shook his head, trying to clear up his thinking. Can I take him with me? He's a robot, isn't he? He'll be reasonable...

HX then thought of the Lord of the Mountain, the tiny mite, laughing his head off. He laughed quite a lot. HX knew X wouldn't like him; no one would. And then he thought of other times X was provoked, and he thought he smelled the aftermath of X's tantrums.

Then he looked around and saw very burnt toast.

"Um, HX, is something wrong?" X asked. HX was for some reason not laughing maniacally. In fact, he was looking at the toast with some kind of horror.

"I...I think I'd better find Amaroq."

"Good idea. I'll check out the village the note was..."

"No!" HX yelled, and then drew back. "I...I mean, we'd better have some more people before we do anything rash."

"Okay," answered X, a bit confused. HX left.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuzz! went something in X's head.

Oh, shut up! thought X. I'd better remove this lie detector enhancement before it drives me batty!

"Amaroq!" Mantal screams, running toward the fallen wolf. "AQ, ol' buddy, you okay?!"

[Editor's Note: I thought you said only you were nicknamed "AQ", not the character...]

"Who shot that?!" the wolf growled angrily, holding his arm.

Mantal spun around. "I don't know. But...this is odd. It's a poison dart. Looks like it came out of a blow gun of some sort. Who still uses those things?"

"Only one," Havoc said, "a hedgehog named Speed."

"Speed..." Amaroq spun his memory. "Haven't the foggiest.

"Tal, get that healing junk outta my backpack."

Mantal obeyed. The cougar pulled out a small stone from the pack and put it on Amaroq's arm. The wolf stood up, then flipped on his walkman. The Moon Gems flew to his hands, then he drew his dagger. He looked in the direction in which the dart had come. He saw a young girl hedgehog.

"Shut up!" she growled. "Don't you ever stop?!"

"Talking to herself," Amaroq muttered. He whipped out the Gem of Power and fried the bush the girl was behind. A shrill scream mixed harmoniously with the crackling fire.

"I want mine medium-well," Mantal said, laughing.

"I'll show you medium-well!" The girl hedgehog leapt on Amaroq's back.

Amaroq growled deep in his throat, grabbed the girl by the shoulders, and flung her over his head and into Mantal, who delivered a high kick.

The girl lay sprawled on the ground, that is, until Amaroq grabbed her by the neck and picked her up.

"Now," he hissed, "what was that?"

"The skirt is just jealous." Havoc, in a cool attitude, continued, "She's jealous because she is not around me. Every dame can't resist a debonair hedgehog like me.

"Want to go out for pizza?" Havoc started combing his spines. Speed looked at him...and kicked him in the shin.

Havoc, in a rage, lunged towards Speed. Mantal blocked Havoc by jumping in front of him. The two collided, and lay unconscious on the ground.

Amaroq kicked the unconscious form of Havoc, causing him to hit a tree.

Mantal, regaining consciousness, kicked Havoc again.

"Now," Amaroq still had Speed in his grip, "back to the matter at hand..."

HX slit his eyes. He was running as fast as he could...pretty fast, it had to be noted, because of the Emeralds' gift of sonic speed. He looked down from the hill and saw a flaming bush in the distance.

"'Ello?" said HX to himself. "A flaming bush, eh? Those are rare these days."

He went down to investigate, and saw Amaroq holding a female hedgehog by the neck. By him was Mantal and an unconscious, scruffy-looking hedgehog.

"Havoc," he mumbled. "Probably ticked off the dame. And who is she? If there's one thing more rare than burning bushes, it's females."

HX listened...

"Why did ya shoot the arrow?" Amaroq growled to Speed.

"Accident, I swear," Speed replied. "Didn't you hear my scream, fool? Didn't you?"

"I don't listen for that kind o' stuff, kid. Someone shoots, accident or not, they pay th' price. And raise your voice...huh. I'm an FF, I won't kill ya', but I'm going to make sure you never do that sort o' thing again."

Mantal grabbed the ticked-off wolf by the arm. "Don't."

"I don't put up with this," Amaroq replied.

"Ya will now!" a voice screamed. Amaroq dropped Speed and whirled around to see a purple hedgehog coming at him.

"Hedgehog X!" Amaroq shouted.

"That's m' name, don't wear it out," HX grunted, and he pulled out the Emeralds. "Amaroq, you've really got it bad. Hurting another FF ain't gonna get you anywhere."

"'Nother...FF...?" Amaroq's hand dropped beside his waist. "This kid's an FF?"

HX hit the side of his head. "Well duh!"

Amaroq looked over his shoulder at Speed, who was rubbing her head. He then looked at Mantal, who shrugged, and finally at the fallen Havoc. An FF? Mantal wasn't one, that's for sure, and this kid had an attitude similar to the cougar's. Impossible, he thought.

But, since HX had a ranking higher than his, he didn't argue. "Ah, jeeeeez..." he muttered. "Sure thing, Hedgie X...well, can I at least scratch her?"

"You don't have poison claws anymore, remember?" HX caught on quickly to the wolf's idea.

"Fine, fine, fine," Amaroq muttered, "I'll leave the girl alone."

"First things first," Mantal interrupted, "we have a hedgehog here that needs some help."

Havoc awoke from his deep sleep. "What in all of the flaming bushes is an FF? It isn't like I never lived here, oh no! I came here from a universe that had me as Mr. Evil!!!! I accidentally slip through a portal and end up in FF village!!!! No one ever gave me a book about dimensional travel!

"And who's this purple goon?! Some reject from a horror flick?! Why, I feel like kicking someone's sorry little *%#^&%^ into @#%(&#^& oblivion! I'll start with the FF!!!!"

Everyone turned, especially Hedgehog X. They all spit on him, and got back to their business.

"Well soooorrrrryyyyy! I didn't think you losers were so wimpy! I think I have an idea: I leave you guys here to rot, while I go and grab a soda."

Havoc walked off. Mantal called to him. "Havoc! I know you have good in you! Let's talk over some tea and crumpets and tell me your feelings! You'll feel a lot better!"

Havoc turned, ignoring Mantal's sick little joke, and saw a horrible sight. His group of bandits from his universe somehow followed him! There was the defective Sonic clone, Nerd, who, instead of speed, had the genius of 1,000,000 people. Static, the electric demon, spawned from the cloning machine that made Nerd, was pure electricity. And finally, Mecha Sonic, prototype a of a new line of metal hedgehogs.

Havoc, shocked, ran. He would normally have beat them over the head with a baseball bat, but this time they had plasma rifles and were shooting at him. He ran towards the group of heroes.

"Amaroq! You, the cougar guy and the purple thing! Anyone got an extra plasma rifle I could use?"

[Editor's Note: The Median Effect begins anew.]

"You will all tell me what's going on," came a voice. "Now." To emphasize that the speaker meant business, several deadly rays zinged over the Freedom Fighters' heads.

"X?!" gasped Havoc, who had realized it's very hard to remain unconscious when your life is threatened. "How'd you know where we were?!"

"I've got all o' your genetic imprints in my databanks," the robot replied. "I could've followed HX easily enough, but I figured he must have a reason for keeping things from me. So I went down to where he told me he found the note. What I saw there was not pretty."

"Do tell," said Speed.

"Sure," X said. "Just remember that while Kate and Sonic are gone, I'm your leader, and to disobey me is extremely stupid."

[Editor's Note: The Median Effect shifts into full swing.]

Hedgehog X nodded. "Sure thing, Havoc. I believe we have a few back at the HQ -- Knothole, that is. But before we do that, let's get one thing straight..."

"Make up your freakin' mind!" Amaroq snapped to the hedgehog. "Havoc, ya stayin' or not?"

"Anything! Anything! Just get me the rifles!" Havoc pointed over the horizon to where HX had spotted the burning bush. There stood the hedgehog's enemies: Nerd, Static, and the Metal Sonic.

"A defective Sonic clone?" Mantal asked, looking at Nerd.

"Oh please," HX held his stomach. "Don't talk about defective Sonic clones around me."

"Huh?"

"It's a loooooong story," was all Amaroq said to the confused Mantal. "Let's just get that rifle!"

HX used the Emeralds' powers to zip back to Knothole, get the rifle, and zip back in less than two seconds.

Havoc grinned evilly and cocked the rifle, then screamed at the top of his lungs, "Charge!"

The FF (Freedom Fighters) each drew their weapons and ran at the not-so-hot villains. Amaroq, using the Moon Gems, cast a Crimson Wave (water version of the Sorcerer's Crimson Bolt) at the bad guys, stunning them.

Mantal fought with Thai-Style Kick-Boxing, and easily disposed of Nerd, who wasn't much of a fighter and spent most of his time trying to calculate the radius of Mantal's approaching foot, which was 3.0 centimeters away from his ugly mug.

[Editor's Note: Ummmm...the radius of his foot...?]

Havoc did the Hula to distract Static, then fired at him with his plasma rifle. Simple, he thought. That is, until Static caught his shot and flung it back at him.

Fortunately, the wily hedgehog's dancing caused the plasma shot to miss.

HX took the Red Emerald and created a huge fireball, then practiced his bowling techniques. It bowled over the Metal Sonic in the blink of an eye.

"Not too shabby, if I say so myself," Mantal said, staring down at the fallen villains.

"Not too shabby..." a voice growled. A red laser shot the Fantastic Four and caused them to fall to the ground.

"Metal Sonic!" Amaroq screamed. "But we saw you..."

"Holograms, my boy, holograms."

"Holograms..." Amaroq held his head as he remembered the ever-aggravating holograms from the brawl in TGRL a few months back.

"I'd advise that you'd stay back," another voice said, "or pay the price."

The five turned around to see...

"Hoo boy! Here we go again..."

...X, who had suddenly appeared out of seemingly nowhere.

"Median Effect," he explained, referring to what happens when two people post a different continuation at the same time.

"These fools have ignored one thing," he added. "Holograms can't draw homing weapons!" With that he began firing Homing Torpedoes, which he'd gotten earlier from

Launch Octopus. The enemies disappeared; whether they beamed-out or got killed wasn't clear.

"So what do we do now?" X asked. "Go see some dragon who doesn't even like The Simpsons or FF3?"

"How did you..."

"Median Effect."

"Hee, hee..." HX giggled, "Sis sure made a mess of things when she did that!" Saying this, he pulled out the Emeralds. "Now these babies are in crazier hands!"

"HX," X said, "do you know something we don't?"

"Yeah," said HX, "I ain't telling ya, but at least I like pizza and The Simpsons."

"Hmm," X said, "right now we need information more than good taste."

"Too bad," HX said, "Bye now."

"Where are you going?" Amaroq asked.

"To the mountain."

"Which one?!"

"That's just it. I'm not going to tell you."

"HX, please tell us..."

"Do Coman Pirus, Sindarin Galan, or Eldar Photus mean anything to you?"

Amaroq stared at HX, "Gibberish?"

"Then I must leave!" HX held up the Emeralds and disappeared.

"I'd best go my way too," Speed said. "Amaroq, I'm sorry I shot at you. I wasn't myself," she added, rolling her eyes.

"Where you going?" Mantle asked.

"Lets just say I have some unfinished business on the mountain." And with that she held up a small pendant that was attached to a gold necklace. There was a bright flash of light, the FF blocked their eyes.

When the light was gone, so was Speed, all that was left was one of her darts...

X reached down to where the darts were, and absorbed their imprint. "This new weapon should help," he said. "I can just use the clone of how they work that I have in my weapon systems; you guys split up the originals however you want. Me, I'm goin' after Hedgie." Before the two could protest, X beamed out.

"What the..." Hedgehog X said as he suddenly found his path blocked by a friend of his who, at the moment, didn't look too friendly.

"Stop playing games with me, Xavier," Mega Man X said in a threatening whisper. "You know I have the medal of leadership when your sister's gone...don't make me force control of the Emeralds away from you."

"Fine," HX said. "I'll tell you, just don't go using my powers against me."

"I won't if I don't have to," X replied. "Besides, I'll wager that if what you tell me isn't the whole truth, HZ will give me the low-down, and on the up-and-up, too."

"What in my uncle's shoe was that?!? First, I get mauled by my former allies (not friends), then this Mega Man-lookin' dude appears, and that chick disappears? What does this stupid note mean anyway?!?" Havoc frantically jumped up and down, and cursed a lot.

Amaroq punched him in the face. "If you want to come with us, stop acting like a loser and get your butt in gear! It seems you brought those goons upon us, so how do we know you're not a double agent?"

Mantal nodded. "Prove to us that we can trust you. If you can, you can accompany us."

Havoc looked around for something to prove he was trustworthy. While looking 25 of those notes fell out of his backpack.

"You! You made those notes! I oughta kill you!" Amaroq lunged towards Havoc.

Being taken by surprise, he fell quickly to defeat. The FF's (I fill sew stoopid) took Havoc back to Knothole to put him a prison room thingy.

X sort-of sat there bored, because his other personality had opted not to include him in this part, and muttered something about, "It was bad enough he's not going to include me in The Hunt Begins, and I won't be in Ignition Factor until the third or fourth book!"

Havoc was being interrogated by Knuckles, who had a knack for getting people to talk. However, it seemed that in this case the Freedom Fighters had made a wrong choice in their interrogator.

"So, do you admit to having played a joke on that sorry excuse for a loser rookie Freedom Fighter and his pal here?"

Havoc giggled. "Yup," he said. "You should've seen the look on his face!"

"Wait a minute!" Bookshire spoke up. "He played the trick on Hedgehog X, as well!"

"Do you admit to messing with Hedgie?" Knuckles asked.

"See previous answer," Havoc said, giggling some more.

Knuckles punched him into a wall. "Messing with Am-a-rock is one thing," he said, purposely mispronouncing the wolf's name, "but no-one messes with Hedgie without getting the Knuckles treatment!"

"Where is he now?" Kain spoke up.

"Ow! I was kidding! Sheez, ya don't have to throw me against the wall."

Havoc, rubbing his head, got up and jumped Knuckles. Being the wuss that Knuckles is, Havoc beat him three swift punches to the kidney and an uppercut.

Havoc started to escape from his cell, when...

...there was a flash of light. Too late, Havoc realized Knuckles had called upon the power of the Super Emeralds...too late, as in a week later when he got out of his coma.

By then, of course, Amaroq had long since left with Mantal, Kabuki, and Sir Kain (who really seemed to want to go, in part because he could use some field testing, and in part because he seemed to be beginning to like Kabuki's company, but mostly because I want to develop his character some) to look for Xavier Chaos and Mega Man X.

"Messing with Hedgie is worth getting shaken," Knuckles told him later, "but hitting me when I'm not expecting it means you have a death wish."

Amaroq, Mantal, Kabuki, and Sir Kain continued their walking. It was evening now, and shadows had swallowed half of the desert.

"We should stop here for the night," Amaroq said, turning to the others.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Amaroq, and the 'cool' FF's," a voice floated out of the shadows near them.

Amaroq knew the voice at once. "You!" he said.

"Yes...me," The voice answered. Suddenly a dart came at top speed and landed in a tree right over Mantal's head. "You remember me?"

"How could I forget?" Amaroq growled.

A hedgehog leapt out of a tall tree, spinning in the air, and landed on its feet in front of Amaroq, barely making a sound. "I know where you're headed," she whispered, "and I know who's responsible for it. All I have to say is...it wasn't Havoc. "

Amaroq threw himself down on the ground.

"I don't blame you," Mantal said. "It's been days since I've gotten any rest. Your bunch -- the Freedom Fighters -- how d'ya put up with them?"

"I don't," Amaroq replied. "Cockiness helps ignorance."

"Shut up and help with the tent," Kabuki growled. "Just because you're tired doesn't mean you're going to get out of this!"

Sir Kain's face lit up. "I'll help!"

"I thought I was a flirt..." Amaroq groaned.

"Oh shut up! I didn't mean..."

"Cockiness helps ignorance. Get over it...Cat."

A scream interrupted Kain and Amaroq's argument. The two spun around to see something grab Mantal, who was clawing.

"Pity me," Amaroq begged Sir Kain. "Mantal's a cat too."

Sir Kain rolled his eyes and drew his sword (or whatever weapon he has...I forget) while Amaroq and Kabuki drew their own -- poison claws (they're ba-ack!) and staff.

Amaroq lunged at the huge thing that now had made his cougar friend vanish, and stuck his claws down into it.

"What the..?!" the wolf said in surprise as he looked down at his hands. "I'm being...absorbed into this thing! What the h -- augh!"

The wolf disappeared.

Sir Kain, however, wasn't scared a bit. In a chance to impress another of his kind -- except the fact that she was female -- he charged at the wolf/cougar eater.

"You're a fool!" Kabuki screamed, watching Sir Kain. "That thing's gonna...Kain!"

Sir Kain, also, was sucked into the "thing".

"Oh, this is sooooo nice," Kabuki muttered. "I'm the only one left. Amaroq, Mantal, Kain...you're all idiots."

"Correction," a voice said. "There's two to fight the creature."

Kabuki looked over her shoulder. An echidna lit his cigarette.

"You again..."

Meanwhile...

Knuckles tipped his chair back.

"You're likely to fall, you know." Havoc, chained to the wall, continued, "I shouldn't have done what I did, huh? I feel really bad, considering I hurt a lot of your feelings, being beaten by me and all." Havoc struggled from his chains, schmoozing all the way.

Knuckles ignored the ignorant hedgie, but continued to watch over him.

"Hey Havoc ol' buddy o' mine!" A mysterious figure appeared in front of Havoc. Havoc's chains broke, and the two disappeared.

Knuckles fell back in his chair.

The stranger, who was an ape, teleported Havoc into a room with dim lights and lots of space. "I rescued you. Now you must do me a favor: I want you to destroy my nemesis. I will take you to him if you will help me kill him."

The ape turned his back on Havoc waiting for a reply.

"Who the..."

Before Havoc could finish, he was teleported to where the smoking echidna stood...

"Havoc!" Kabuki said in delight. "At least there's a...more familiar face here!"

Havoc ignored the cat's welcome and gazed up at the echidna, who blew smoke in his face. The young hedgehog coughed and growled.

"Who're you?" he asked.

"The name," the echidna said, "is Krash. Krash Echiza."

Havoc pondered what his ape friend had said. Krash was who he had to kill? He decided it was time for a little Q&A.

"I know you," Krash said before the hedgehog could say anything. "You're that ape's little stooge. Yup...I figured you'd show your mug 'round here..."

Havoc cocked his head. "I could make an exception...say, Amaroq, Mantal, Buki, what's this guy like?"

"Amaroq and Mantal...uhh..." Kabuki tried to find the words as to what happened to the wolf and the cougar.

"Vanished?"

Havoc whirled around and stared Krash straight in the eye. "My fr -- er, allies! You did it! I know it!!"

"Kid!" Krash yelled. "I ain't do jack!"

Havoc aimed his plasma rifle at Krash's head.

The echidna did the same. "I got those too. Now, do ya believe me or not?"

"Havoc, knock it off!" Kabuki said. "Krash is on our side...I think."

Havoc...

[Editor's Note: Continuing his own?! No fair!]

Meanwhile...

"Unnhh..." Amaroq came to in a prison cell. "That was a helluva roller-coaster...where the hell am I?"

He looked around. It sure wasn't the Shrine of the Dragon, that's for sure. He noticed Mantal locked in a cell at the other end of the room.

"Hey, AQ," Mantal said, "you're finally awake. You'll like all the familiar faces here."

Amaroq didn't respond. Listening to his friend's remark, he gazed around the room. His mouth dropped open in shock. There was everything...a slashed picture of his father, Kapugen, a dartboard with Amaroq's face on it, and what mainly caught his eye -- the rose that the Sorcerer had made which represented Amaroq's life. It had only a few petals missing...the wolf was only sixteen.

"Probably Knuckles' house," Amaroq groaned at the thought of the echidna he so despised.

"Not quite, young sir," a familiar voice said. "I loathe you, but I am not the Guardian of the Floating Island..."

Amaroq growled deep in his throat and gnashed his teeth. "Mandor!!" (No, not Modnar as in Elijah Modnar, Mandor, as in Amaroq's enemy.)

"Very good, young Kapugen. Ah yes, and Mantal..."

"How...how..." Amaroq stuttered. "When I became Protector...I flung you into the Lake so I could regain the Gems...you can't swim...Mandor, you lousy..."

Mandor grabbed Amaroq by the shirt, causing the young wolf's face to smash into the bars of his cell. "Yes, but that doesn't matter! I have you where I want you! Now, hand over the Moon Gems, or die."

Both Amaroq and Mantal gasped at the sight of zombies which formed from the floor.

Amaroq...

Havoc said, "I am a free agent."

Havoc stared at the large rifle that Krash had. "I don't know who or what sent me to kill you. But if it was fate a-callin', you ain't getting out of this one alive."

Krash shifted a little, a part of his mind reminded him that it was either him or the red guy.

"I can strike a deal with you." Krash dropped his rifle. "You help me put all this together, and I'll help you drop kick monkey man to Mars. Deal?"

Havoc stared at Krash, and dropped his gun. "Who is this monkey/ape/whatever that sent me here?!"

Krash didn't answer.

"Listen, uh, Havoc, you can help us get your frien...uh, allies back. Do you trust me?"

Havoc stirred. "About as far as I can throw you, but I must prove that I can be an FF."

Krash laughed. "You?! FF?! Ha! Why would you want to do something like that?"

Havoc grinned. "At Blaster's Arcade there's an FF discount: half off of any game."

Havoc joins the party.

"Sorry 'bout that, Krash. It's not everyday you get asked to kill someone that a big ape told you to kill. This is only the second time!!!"

Amaroq was in total pain. His head had been slammed up against heavy bars by Mandor, who was powerful for an old geezer. Mantal couldn't do anything but watch, since he had no weapon and was locked in a cell. Mandor laughed.

"I shall dispose of you, young Kapugen," he chuckled.

"Aren't you forgetting someone?" Sir Kain jumped through the air and landed on Mandor's back.

The timberwolf began trying to fling the cat over his back. Amaroq, who was pulled up six feet because of Mandor's height (uh, six feet) went crashing to the floor. He pushed his hair out of his face and shut his eyes.

Sir Kain, however, was having the time of his life. Riding on Mandor's back, he grabbed hold of the lever which opened Mantal's cell. The cougar burst into a smile and ran out of the cell. He looked around wildly and noticed a spear lying in the corner. He picked it up and joined Kain.

"Get off my back!!" Mandor screamed. Finally, once Kain was in a position suited to his advantage, Mandor flung the cat over his shoulder and into the wall. "Black cats bring bad luck."

"I don't recall cougars being that way," Mantal grunted, and charged at the evil mastermind. Unfortunately, Mantal wasn't much of a fighter, he was just the Protector of Pride Lake's advisor, and Mandor threw him back into a cell.

Amaroq opened one eye and tried to get up. But the force of the fall he had taken made it too hard. He finally shut his eyes again. With Mantal locked up, Sir Kain unconscious against the wall, and himself locked up and injured made it hopeless. He had given up -- Mandor had won.

Or had he?

"Stay away from Amaroq's cage!!!!" someone screamed.

"Who is it?" Modnar asked.

A red fox and a black panther, both armed with katanas, were standing in the doorway. It was Kapu Shai-Tai and Hilo, his best friend.

"Don't go near our friends," Hilo ordered.

"Kapu!" Amaroq said "You're back!"

"You bet your momma's shiny pearl necklace I am," Kapu said. "I been thinkin' after what happen' after I made X so mad."

"Stop this!" Modnar said. "No-one is supposed to rescue the wolf and the cougar! You're not even a Freedom Fighter!"

"I am so, I just got suspended," Kapu growled, and pulled out his katana.

Then Hilo made a lasso with the rope he carries. Kapu locked swords with Mandor. Then Hilo tripped Modnar with his rope.

"Let Amaroq and Mantal out!" Hilo said. "I'll get Sir Kain!"

Kapu opened Amaroq's cage and looked down. Amaroq smiled. "Been awhile, little buddy."

Mantal threw Sir Kain over his shoulder, and they ran out. Amaroq then remembered something. "My rose..."

"Your rose...?" Mantal asked Amaroq, who was gazing at the mystical (and artificial) rose The Sorcerer had made. It represented Amaroq's life. It lasted anywhere from 80-100 years, unless the Protector died before then.

"Wait, no..." Amaroq suddenly realized something. "Mine can't have five petals missing. I'm only sixteen! It can't be Mandor's, he's God knows how old."

"Then whose is it?" Kapu asked, scratching his head. "I don't believe Pride Lake has any more Kings besides you."

Amaroq's mouth dropped down, as did his gaze. Once he picked them both back up, he said almost in a whisper, "I...I think...it's Kapugen's..."

"But you're Kapugen," Hilo remarked.

"Wrong," Mantal corrected, "King Kapugen was Amaroq's predecessor."

"But if Amaroq's last name is Kapugen, then..."

"My father," Amaroq said, head hanging. He remembered how Mandor had killed his father, then...(well, I won't spoil that, if you want to know, I won't tell you how many chances you've had to read The Full Moon)

"Why does he have King Kapugen's rose?" Kapu asked.

Amaroq growled. "Whatever it was, it couldn't be for good. This is going to be the hardest thing I ever did.."

Before he hit the rose and its glass cage clean off the table, he realized something.

The Sorcerer had destroyed Kapugen's rose when he died.

"No...it's not my father's," Amaroq said, "Twilight -- The Sorcerer, and the village wise man -- destroyed it long ago."

"The Sorcerer?" Kapu asked. "That guy is the Pride Lake wise man?"

Mantal spoke up. "Get the rose. We'll bring it to the Shrine, if we ever get there. Surely the Dragon will know who it's for."

"Or if we meet up with the Sorcerer," Hilo said.

"You need yer head examined. He ain't worth the effort."

They set off...

...with some guy/girl(?) in robes following after them.

As to who it is, well, think about how insane I've gone tying a certain game in with Sonic, and think of a character who shows up when the companions are "sucked in" by an enemy.

"Xavier!" X shouted. "I don't think I can do this much longer!"

"Agreed," Hedgehog X replied, beginning to slump over while fighting the enemies.

"We shouldn't have listened to that friend of yours," X growled.

"Maybe so," Hedgehog X affirmed. "I didn't anticipate this cave he was sending us to would be full of these nasty critters."

X had long since exhausted all of his weapon systems with the exception of his plasma, and he was weakened greatly. As one of the indescribable little demon things leapt on his back, he lost all his power and fell to the floor in the robot equivalent of a coma.

"Joy of joys," Hedgehog X muttered, sawing through his enemies without much enthusiasm, knowing that he, too, would soon lay there with his friend.

Suddenly, there was a blinding white light. Xavier hung his head, realizing that X had exploded and caused the light. But no! When his vision cleared, all the little nasties were gone, and X was raising his head, dazedly, looking at the young girl in the center of the light...

"Kate...?"

All the critters lay on the floor, and HX simply stared at his sister.

"Finally!!! Where've you been?"

Kate cocked her head and smiled, "Oh, around and about! Here, I'll take those."

"Uh, okay," said HX, handing her the Emeralds.

"Are you sure that's not just some illusion that wants the Emeralds?"

"Trust me. I can sense she's a real Chaos Child, right Kate? Kate? !@#$%^&*"

"Eh heh, sure."

"I swear it. What the..."

"Aaaaaarrgghh! There's only one person who can do something like that..."

"Time?"

HX paused. "Only one person who would do something like that."

"And that is...?"

"Why, the rather insane Lord of the Mountain of course!"

"Um...HX?"

"Yeah?"

"I've been meaning to tell you...that note was a fake. Havoc played a trick on us."

"Then why'd the K...ahem, why'd my little friend take the Emeralds?"

"Like I know..."

HX thought for a moment. "X, do you have enough energy to teleport back to Knothole?"

"Yes, but on one condition..."

"Hoo boy..."

"You tell me what the !@#$%^&* you're hiding!"

HX paused. "Agreed. Now do it!"

"Good," X muttered, "I got it all on tape."

"Say what?!" HX asked.

"Nice ploy, eh, bro?" said a feminine voice.

"D'oh!!!" HX shouted. "That really was you!"

"Yup. Trying to get you to tell us what you've been hiding."

"Where have you been, Kate?" HX inquired.

"Mission of self-discovery and what-not," she said nonchalantly. "'Wanderlust', the kender call it."

"Kender?"

"You should know what they are," X replied in irritation. "You were one for a while."

HX looked at him questioningly.

"Something having to do with mess-ups in this reality," Kate explained. "Either that hasn't happened yet in this reality, it never will happen, or something's happened to wipe it from your memory."

Before HX could ask why it hadn't been wiped from their memories, X muttered, "Median effect."

"Natch," HX replied sheepishly. "I should have guessed." Then, taking a look at his sister, he asked, "What the..."

"Heck?" Kate said helpfully, mirroring certain behavior of HX's in the aforementioned story.

HX rolled his eyes. "Yeah. What the heck happened to your right hand?!" He glanced at the aura of green flame now surrounding the limb.

"Long story," Kate muttered. "I'll explain later. For now, we've got to go see the Lord of the Mountain."

HX grinned as he saw X blink. "Now who's the one who doesn't know what's going on?!"

"Well, I'd might as well answer your annoying little question and get on with it, but I need to ask Kate one question."

"Which is...?"

"How the !@#$%^&* [writer's note: it's baaaaack!] do you know the Kiffi?!"

"Xavier, you should know the link between us..."

"Why is everybody calling me Xavier?"

"'Cause it annoys you," X answered, grinning sadistically.

"Fair enough. Go on."

"I know all you know. For example, you have a pet cat named..."

"Krantizemin. Everyone knows that."

"And it's a..."

"You can stop now!!! Leave some for Da Story!"

"Okay."

"Well, maybe you'd like to explain to X the Kiffi."

"Why," butted in X, "are you so intent on not telling me?"

"Ask Kate," HX said harshly, and slumped into the corner.

Kate giggled.

Krash, Kabuki, and Havoc (after their little, uh, game) set out to look for Amaroq and co. After searching where they had disappeared for an hour, they gave up. Or at least Havoc did.

"Where in the dimensional time stream could they be?"

Krash socked Havoc in the stomach. "Don't be saying stupid 'Where in the' phrases. This is serious. If we don't find them, either: A, they all perish at the hands of evil, B, they get lunch without us, or C, I will personally rip your spine out for not looking! Get to work!"

Havoc stared blankly at the echidna.

"Look!" Kabuki pointed towards the horizon. "Something's coming!"

"What is it?" Havoc asked.

Atop the hill, blocking part of the sunset stood a man with a red robe and hood. He carried a staff. On his shoulder was a raven. He wasn't looking at the threesome. He gazed out over the treetops.

"I know him," Kabuki and Krash said in unison.

Amaroq, Kapu, Mantal, Hilo, and Sir Kain (who had awakened, but was as weak as a kitten...heh. Bad joke) were looking at the same thing their comrades were: The mysterious man atop the hill.

[Editor's Note: Awww, no Gogo?]

"Well shuck that corn and call me southern," Amaroq muttered, grinning. "It's him."

Mantal smiled broadly. "Twilight..."

"I told you we'd find him," Hilo smirked.

Amaroq ran up the hill as fast as he could, with Mantal not far behind. Twilight didn't even turn around.

"The King of Pride Lake has returned," he said. "King Amaroq Kapugen, of the Moon Gems. Ah yes, and Mantal. I sense that you have met up with...Sir Mandor again? He will never stop. Amazing how you can kill someone so many times, and yet they still return."

"It's Amaroq!" Havoc said in delight. "He's up there with that goofy-lookin' dude! C'mon! C'mon!"

Havoc, Krash, and Kabuki ran up the hill and startled the three.

"Havoc! Kabuki!...and Krash?" Amaroq looked at the echidna, who reminded him of the one he despised so much. "Krash Echiza! Been awhile."

"AQ," was all Krash said.

Sir Kain came limping up the hill with Hilo and Kapu's aid. Once the cat got to a point where he could sit, he did.

He had to regain his strength. Kapu looked up at Twilight, his teacher.

"Young Kapu Shai-Tai," Twilight remarked. "My old student. Passed the wisdom test like a shot. Amazing student."

"The Sorcerer of the Twilight," Kapu said.

The Sorcerer (Twilight's nickname) gazed out over the treetops. He didn't know Havoc, Kabuki, and Krash too well, so he didn't say much.

"Sorcerer," Amaroq said, "we have something that you made. But...who's it for?" Amaroq pulled out the rose.

"A Mystic Rose," The Sorcerer mused. "Hmm. It appears that this person is rather old. In his forties, or so. It cannot be you, Amaroq, nor Mantal."

"Why would I have a rose anyway?" Mantal asked. "I'm not a Protector!"

The Sorcerer ignored the cougar's remark. "It is not of Mandor. In fact...what? It...it...it..."

"What?" Amaroq asked.

"It's...King Kapugen..."

Amaroq's eyes got wide. "M-my father...? But how?! His died when...that...happened!"

"King Kapugen's rose is alive. Thus, so is he."

"My father...alive? But, when Mandor killed him, the rose wilted and died! This is impossible! Unless..."

Kabuki's eyes narrowed. "I have a feeling a demon may be involved. Nothing except that and the Emeralds...and Sorcerer here can do that."

"Hedgehog X, nor Kate would do that," Amaroq said.

"Neither would Twilight," Mantal added.

"Unless...Knuckles! Knuckles! That has to be it! First stop: Knuckles the Echidna's home! I'm ready for this! No one but ol' Knux would pull a prank like this on me! This can't be real!"

"Knuckles?" Kabuki asked. "I don't think so."

Amaroq growled deep in his throat. "Well I do. Who's with me?"

Kapu, Krash, and Havoc stepped forward. "The others can handle things 'round here," Krash said.

Amaroq nodded. "Contact us ASAP if anything comes up." With that, he and the other two took off running toward the Floating Island, home of Knuckles. It wasn't very far from where the three were now, and once there, they gazed up at the amazing chunk of rock.

"How do we get up?" Havoc asked.

"That's simple," Amaroq replied. He pulled out the Green Gem, grabbed the two by the arm, and jumped upward with a burst of power. They alighted atop a huge mushroom.

"Now we find the echidna with the problem," Krash growled. "Whether I look like him or not."

Amaroq led them to a small cabin in the section called "Angel Island". He kicked open the door to see Knuckles unconscious on the floor, and Mandor fiddling around with what appeared to be the Chaos Emeralds.

"Mandor!!" Amaroq yelled. "I just can't get rid of you! And...Knuckles! You killed him! That was my job!" He drew his dagger, while Krash and Havoc drew their weapons.

"Wait! Amaroq! No!" Mandor waved his hands. "Don't! It's..."

Krash shoved his plasma gun in the timberwolf's face.

"Cut to th' chase. We know about th' rose. Now, spill it."

"But...but...but..." Mandor tried to say something. "I..."

"Time's up!" Krash dropped Mandor and aimed his gun at him. Havoc fired plasma blasts all around the wolf to scare him a little, then Amaroq punched him across the face once he tried to get up.

"Keep him down," Havoc commanded. The hedgehog ran over to the fallen Knuckles, and tried to take a pulse. But within a few feet of the echidna, he was shocked and knocked backwards.

"A force field," Amaroq mused. "I guess if Mandor can't have the Gems, he has to have the Emeralds. Let's save Kate the trouble, and..."

Before the wolf could finish, Krash pulled the trigger on his rifle. It hit Mandor right smack in the lower shoulder. "A slow, suffering death."

Amaroq lifted up the bloody Mandor by the neck.

"AQ...stop..." Mandor gasped.

Amaroq's eyes got wide. "Mandor doesn't call me..."

The fallen Knuckles on the ground began to glow, and out of it came the real Mandor. The Mandor Amaroq was holding reverted to Knuckles, and the "Emeralds" on the table vanished.

"Amaroq..." Knuckles moaned.

"You fools!" Mandor laughed. "You killed Knuckles! Ha ha ha!!"

Amaroq was shocked. (A little happy, but shocked.)

"You %#$*))&^@#$@%! No one gets away with murder when I'm around!" Amaroq charged towards Mandor.

Havoc pulled him back. "Don't kill him! I know Mandor! He's my father!"

After some dramatic music, Havoc finally admits that he's not Mandor's son, but knew him from long ago. After everyone sighed with relief, Havoc pulled out his plasma rifle and aimed it at Amaroq.

"Get down." He whispered the words so Mandor couldn't hear. Amaroq did as he was told, and Havoc shot a blast from the gun.

Mandor didn't flinch.

"I never said I liked him," Havoc proclaimed.

Meanwhile, X was wondering why the description of the Sorcerer sounded so much like Raistlin. On the other hand, he realized, Raistlin had gold skin and eyes with hourglass-shaped pupils, and had changed from the red robes to the black.

Anyway, X was also wondering how he had managed to forget what HX had told him earlier and why his recording was gone.

Little did Amaroq, Havoc, Krash, and Mandor know, but someone was watching all of the action. She wasn't even in the home. Her powers allowed her to see right through the home without trouble.

There was Amaroq, flashing red and black because of the Moon Gems' power, and Havoc, laughing like crazy and obviously trigger happy, mainly because what he shot was everything else but Mandor.

And Krash fought rather slowly, she noticed, until Mandor focused his attention on him for a moment. Then the echidna began shooting rapid fire and acting like the true maniac that he was.

But the spectator saw far more in Mandor. He was fighting far below he level that she sensed. He was merely wearing down his opponents, she noticed, so when he let forth his real strength that they wouldn't stand a chance.

This was something she wouldn't let happen. She knew Amaroq, but Amaroq didn't know her. She had to help.

A bolt of lightning crashed through the roof of Knuckles' house, startling the combat four.

"Franklin, we have a problem," Amaroq said.

A young girl in mauve robes came out of the bolt. She had long hair the same color.

"Schwingg," Amaroq grinned. "Boing, ka-blam, schwingg!"

"Amaroq," the girl said, "you and your friends stand back! Leave this mess to the powers of Mirage!"

"Too good to be a mirage, kiddo."

[Editor's Note: Meaning mine; her name was originally Jade, and, well...it just don't woik to have two Jades.]

Kapu and Hilo, who walked away from the Sorcerer and his group, saw the bolt hit the Floating Island.

"What could that be?" Hilo asked. "A lighting bolt just hit the Floating Island!"

"Let's go check it out Hilo!" Kapu shouted. "Amaroq could be in trouble!"

Kapu and Hilo ran as fast as they could across the open field and to the Floating Island. But there was one problem.

"How do we reach it?" Kapu asked.

"That's easy." Hilo said pulling out his rope. He made a lasso and grabbed one of the big mushrooms with it.

Kapu and Hilo climbed the rope and stood behind the big mushroom. They could see Knuckles' house. It had a huge hole in the roof.

They pulled out their katanas and opened the door.

"Kapu! Hilo!" Amaroq said. "What are you doing here?"

"It is my father's student," Mirage said, "Kapu Shai-Tai."

"Who are you?" Hilo asked.

"You are Hilo?" Mirage asked. "The enemy of Yale?"

"Yes," Hilo said. "But who are you?"

"I am Mirage," Mirage said, "the Sorcerer's daughter."

[Editor's Note: Uh-oh. Median Effect. Again.]

"Shut up," she growled. "I'm here because you are friends, not for you to drool over me."

"Right," Amaroq replied, nonplussed.

Mirage seemed about to do something to Mandor, when suddenly the wall next to her inconveniently exploded.

"I know you!" were the girl's words just before she got trapped under some rubble.

"Everyone on Mobius knows us!" snapped the human female with the green flame surrounding her right hand, as she entered with her two comrades.

"What'd you do with the Lord of the Mountain?!" a purple hedgehog asked Mandor as an artificial man pinned him to the ground.

[Editor's Note: Responding to Ryan, not me.]

"The Sorcerer's daughter?!" Amaroq asked. "That old coot has a kid?!"

"I'm afraid I'm old, too..." Mirage replied. "My father is ten thousand...and I'm seven thousand."

Amaroq's mouth dropped open. "Seven thousand?!? You look like you're about seventeen."

Mirage ignored Amaroq and spun around, looking at Mandor. "Interfering again, are we, outcast?"

"Twilight always did this..." Mandor growled. "And so did that miserable Kapugen!"

Amaroq growled loudly and lunged at Mandor, sinking his claws into his shoulder. Mandor screamed in pain.

"My father was one of the finest to walk on this earth," Amaroq hissed. "When you killed him, Twilight took that spot. You, however, you are several...no, scratch that...hundreds of slots below that. You killed my father...out of jealousy. You killed my mother...because she tried to save Pride Lake."

"Lies," Mandor growled.

"I sat there and watched, both times! Whaddaya mean lies?! You want a lie? Do ya? Here's one: 'Amaroq...I don't believe you failed your father like that.'"

Mandor reversed the pin and knocked Amaroq to the ground, then sent a bolt to freeze the others. He let out his claws and pulled his arm back to send his claws right across Amaroq's face.

Suddenly, something punched Mandor upside the head. The wolf fell to the ground.

"My duties usually would come before you, you miserable excuse for a Protector," Knuckles grinned, "but this was an exception. You owe me."

"Knuckles?!" Amaroq asked in shock. "But how...?"

"This is the first and last time I save your skin, wolf."

Standing in the doorway were the Sorcerer and the others. "Didn't think that we'd let you kill Knuckles, did you?"

Havoc stood up. "Cool. You followed Kapu and Hilo."

"King Amaroq, your...who...? Is it...Mirage?" The Sorcerer broke off at the sight of his long-lost daughter.

"Father," Mirage said with a smile.

[Editor's Note: Wow, he's trying to fix the Effect. And it's working. Pretty well actually.]

"I'm right here," Knuckles replied, "if you're talking about me."

"Who are you?!" Mandor screamed to the purple hedgehog and the girl.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out," the hedgehog replied as he spun around and looked at Amaroq.

"You?? You saved Knuckles?! Oh m'God, the world's gonna end..."

Amaroq snarled and folded his arms. He looked around at the gang. Havoc, Krash, Mirage, the Sorcerer, Kabuki, Kapu, Hilo, Mantal, Knuckles, and the purple hedgehog and the girl...who were undoubtedly -- well, he had no doubt, he knew for a fact -- Hedgehog X and his sister Kate. He wished he wouldn't've gotten into such a mess and tangle of people.

"I've heard a lot about you," Kate said to Mandor.

"Who hasn't..." Knuckles groaned, turning back to the personality -- the normal personality -- where he despised Amaroq. (And vice-versa.)

"I sense an immense power inside of Mandor," Mirage remarked. "It's far beyond the method he was using against King Amaroq."

Amaroq waved his hand. "Please...drop the 'King' stuff, okay?" He flashed a grin at Mirage, who elbowed him right in the stomach. The wolf doubled over.

"I won't kill you," Hedgehog X said to Mandor.

"Won't do any good, anyway," Mantal sighed, "he's been killed God knows how many times. He's an immortal or something. Might be all those zombies he controls."

Kabuki's eyes narrowed. "Zombies? Demons?"

"Uh...what's the difference?"

"I dunno. Just curious."

"Curious, yeah," Amaroq growled. "Cat."

Mirage grabbed Amaroq by the arm. "I suggest you change your attitude. Or we might run into some problems, no?"

Hedgehog X grabbed Mandor by the shirt and lifted him up. "Now that we've wasted this time chatting...I've got a question, Mandor..."

"What did you do with the Lord of the Mountain?!" Hedgehog X repeated as his comrade, the forgotten artificial man who had kindly kept Mandor from escaping this whole time, slapped the wolf upside the head with his metal hand as a warning.

"I don't know who you're talking about!" Mandor exclaimed.

"Wrong answer." The artificial man punched Mandor across the room, where he was caught by Kate. "I've been playing this game with Hedgie, and I don't like it too much. Tell me what your game is."

"This is the home of the Lord of the Mountain," Kate said coolly. "Tell me where he is or I'll show you the uses of my -- ahem -- green thumb, to say nothing of the rest of my hand."

As the strange green fire that surrounded Kate's right hand drew towards Mandor's throat, he realized that this death could easily be much more painful than any he'd endured, so he decided he may as well talk. "If you must know," he spat, "I have used this place to try and rise to full power! Unknown to the foolish Lord, I have sent him on a quest that will allow me to become the most powerful being in the universe...and there's no way you can stop me!"

Kate jerked him. "How?!"

"Oh, please," Mandor sneered, "you obviously know of the Dragonlance Legends."

Kate paled. The artificial human across the room would have paled, too, except that wasn't a function he had. Instead, he just sort of looked surprised.

"In English?!" demanded a chorus of all the voices who didn't know what was going on.

"The Dragonlance Saga," X explained, "was a record of events that happened on an alternate version of Earth, a medieval-type realm known as Krynn. The Saga was divided mostly into trilogies. One of those trilogies was the Legends Trilogy.

"In the Legends Trilogy," X said softly, "a very powerful and very evil mage known as Raistlin attempted to rise to the power of a god. To do so, he traveled back in time."

"This place," Kate put in, "in addition to being the Lord of the Mountain's home, is Knuckles' vacation area -- the place he spends his time when he's just relaxing. As such, he also has a bond with the Emeralds here...but that's not the whole story, is it, Xavier?!"

Hedgehog X glared at her angrily. "Fine!" he said. "I'll tell if I must! But on one condition: stop calling me that!"

"Keep your end of the deal first, Xavier," Amaroq sneered.

"Fine. Knuckles had a Ring set up so that if the need arose, he could teleport right back to the HPZ. However, in my spare time, I messed with the ring and made it do other things, such as...such as have a connection with some of the other Stones of Mobius..."

"So this is what you haven't been telling me!!" the mechanical man burst out. "You had it linked with the Time Stones!"

"I thought we could retrieve the Life Jades, X!" Xavier said defensively.

"You just wanted it to have fun with," X replied angrily. "Oh well...your stupidity is not going to doom the world. We're going after the Lord of the Mountain to stop him at all costs. Kate and I are going for sure, since we know Krynn's lore."

"Who else is with us?" Kate asked.

"La la la la la la..." a pint-sized man sang as he trotted through the ruins of a village, "de de de de, ha ha ha ha ha!"

"But we aren't...demons..." said an aged man, who passed away a moment later.

"You're right, you're not!" the mite said. "But you're magical. Been a while since I drank. Mandor's going to love this."

"Bzzzt! Wrong!" said a hedgehog-like voice. "Mandor's going to use ya."

"Hedgie? What are you doing here, Xavier?"

"Grrrrt!" HX choked, "Listen! Some of my friends are coming to have a talk with you. One's my sister. The other's got a hand that works like a futuristic toaster. Following me?"

"No," the mite said.

"Kiffi! I just wanted to tell you that if you act annoying as usual, you'll end up like...well...toast. Explain what you were doing for Mandor. They'll understand."

"No, they're goody-two-shoes..."

"But you were tricked."

"What?!" The Kiffi screamed, but when he tried to talk again, HX was replaced by Kate and X.

"Say," X said, "are you the Lord of the Mountain?"

"Nope," said Kiffi (the Kiffi really, but since he is the only one of that race, his name is Kiffi!)

"Oh," said X, "Do you know where he is?"

Kiffi pointed in a random direction, in which X and Kate went. When they were gone, HX came out of hiding.

"Handled that pretty well, eh?" said Kiffi.

"Look, I'd tell them who you are but they're not supposed to know I'm here. So make it easy and tell them yourself."

"And if I don't?"

"Sin...dar...in..."

"Aagghh! I forgot about that!"

"Pi..."

"Okay, I'll tell them!"

"Good. I really hate flambés."

The Kiffi mumbled to himself something about magic and smacking off HX's head, but HX obviously had the upper hand. Kiffi chased after X and Kate.

"What the hey?!" X shouted.

"This is definitely not Krynn!" Kate exclaimed.

"Stupid Par-Salian!" X yelled at the top of his lungs. "Or maybe Fistandantilus is behind this!!!! Loser magic-users! I hate magic-users!!!!!!" At a dirty look from Kate, he amended, "Well, not all magic-users. I mean, Schala and Marle are magic-users...mmmmmmmmm, Schala and Marle..."

A whole bunch of drool came out of X's mouth, which is strange because robots typically don't have bodily fluids.

[Editor's Note: Yes, I did have a sick infatuation with Schala and Marle for a time. A rather long time actually. Do I still have such now, you ask? Ummmm...ask me again tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man!]

Kate promptly kicked him in the head, and she did so really hard, because X flew back, and no normal life-form could do that to him.

"Get your mind off Chrono Trigger for two seconds!" Kate exclaimed. "Besides, Schala is the older sister of one of your personalities' worst enemy, in spite of the fact that she's younger!"

"But this is a reply to Brent!" X protested. "I have to mention CT!"

Kate shot X a threatening look.

"All right," X muttered. "I wish we weren't alone, though. I mean, it'd be nice to have some of the other Freedom Fighters, like maybe Sally. Mmmmm...http://rat.org/pub/sonic/pictures/drawn/bikini.jpg!"

Again, X started drooling. Kate rolled her eyes. "Men," she sighed. "Even artificial ones. Oh well, I guess I'll just scout around on my own."

[Editor's Note: I try to avoid getting too enveloped in Princess Sally, I really do...it's just that some people are such good artists...]

* * *

Later that evening, Havoc was found outside of a Toys "R" Us holding a Barbie doll in the air and shouting, "Why can't there be only one of you!? My heart has been torn into 578+ parts!"

[Editor's Note: A bunch of other side conversations developed; I'll not get into them here.]

X hardly noticed Kate was gone. For hours he sat there, just drooling as the perfect image of Schala formed in his extremely powerful mind. Then, finally, something happened.

"X!!!!" shouted a voice. "We've gotta do something!!!"

"'Bout what?!" X asked, suddenly aware of his surroundings.

"We've got some death sentences to deliver," the wolf snarled.

"Gotcha, AQ," X replied. "Let's go!"

The Moon Gems appeared, and the two teleported to where there was a very large group of creatures. At their head was a young fox.

"Frog's theme sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!" he shouted.

"Does it, little one?" X replied, his voice cold, hard, and dangerous as the steel from which really big knives are made. "Let us see what...sucks."

Frog's theme started playing in the background. Suddenly, X morphed into Sabin, his other personality, and whistled. A very large thing came out of the ground, and proceeded to suck the fox into Gogoland.

But it didn't stop at Gogoland. As the fox fell down a hole, a sudden gust of wind blew it off another ledge, and it fell to the center of whatever planet they were on.

"Welcome to hell, Kapu," said a voice.

A whole bunch of Evil the Cats started appearing at the same time and shooting blow darts into Kapu. He found his skin rotting from his bones, his flesh searing from the poison with which he'd been blasted.

Above the surface, a hedgehog was insulting Marle and Schala.

"Big mistake," Sabin said very, very angrily.

Suddenly, he morphed into a green-haired human with a very big sword, which he threw into one of Hedgehog X's eyes. Then, Amaroq used the Moon Gems to open some sort of time portal thingy, through which a young maiden passed.

[Editor's Note: Please please please please please don't read the rest of this chapter. It involves bizarre fantasies (no pun intended) about SquareSoft characters. Oh, my reputation tarnished...]

"Marle," HX said warmly. "I've just been waiting to see you...to tell you how ugly you are!!!"

There was a glint in Marle's alluring, green eyes. "You must be Xavier," she said. "I've been waiting to meet you." She walked up and gave the hedgehog a full kiss on the lips, and then encased him in a block of ice up to his head.

As another, even prettier maiden stepped through the Time Gate, Hedgehog X muttered, "Nice head."

"Wish I could say the same for yours," she replied softly. "Of course, the reason I'm so well-covered is that I come from an Ice Age...you must know the feeling, right?"

As Xavier started to be in visible pain from frostbite, Schala smiled, and said, "You poor dear. Let me warm you up."

Hedgehog X's tongue lolled out of his mouth at this prospect, but he was very surprised to find Schala chanting a fireball spell. He tried to counter it, but he couldn't reach his spell components, and so went from the cold extreme to the heat extreme.

Schala, warming herself by the fire, said, "There, that's much better. I won't be needing this anymore." She tossed her heavy coat aside, revealing beneath it such a skimpy bikini that even Ayla would turn scarlet at the sight of it.

"Mine!" shouted a voice from somewhere deep underground.

"Shutteth up," Glenn said. He lit himself from Xavier's fire and cast Frog Squash down to where Kapu was, then cast Water to put himself out.

[Editor's Note: For those readers who don't know, the damage done by Frog's Frog Squash attack is inversely proportional to the amount of hit points he has.]

"I didn't say anything about Schala! Your mistake buddy!"

"You shouldn't talk so soon, you might cause a..."

"Who cares?" HX screamed. "Full retaliation! Nice knowing you!"

HX turned into Christopher Blackstar (as to be revealed in The White Circle) and threw up the Dark Stones.

"Pitana! Aqutana! Gitana! Oxtana! Eltana! These I place before me to punish those who don't know what they're talking about. Attack!"

Once the 5 Elemental Katanas (also to be explained in The White Circle) became animated, Chris smirked. "Ciao!"

Revived by Brent, the KateStory rode again. This time it became an epic tale of the Utterly Useless Masamune that Wouldn't Light Up, and how a plucky group of adventurers (including Brent's characters from Red Wokko, Frog from Chrono Trigger, and of course Kelly and Billy) searched for the Watch Battery of the Gods so they could turn it back into the Actually Pretty Kewl Masamune that Lit Up Quite a Bit. However, just when the story got a plot, Brent cut it short, paying no heed to the story's real-life parallel, and the "ensuing events" involved Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and psychotic girlfriends and stepsisters, and even an extrastoricular (it's not a word, but it should be!) Clash of the Titans (ie Brent and yours truly).

Anywayz, this is by far the best incarnation the KateStory ever had. You'll note the chapters are longer and more in-depth, and there's enough of a plot to keep it going, but not enough for it to be too, well, un-KateStory-ish.

Upon returning home from a great adventure, Wokko and his new friends, Fenris, Redd, Litina and Katie (all of whom you don't need to know much about and/or will become clear to you soon enough) found Wokko's pet cow Woca in Wokko's microwave.

"That be a microwave?" Redd exclaimed, "Such a magical device!!!"

Fenris looked at him as if he had just asked for fried weasel on a bun.

"Stop looking at me as if I just asked for fried weasel on a bun!!!" Redd snapped. Fenris stopped.

"How do we get it out?" Litina asked. Fenris quickly came up with a clever and eeeeeeeevil idea. He reached for the microwave controls, which weren't there.

"Wokko!!!" he yelled. "Where are the controls to this thing?"

"Moo," said the cow

Wokko reached into his couch and procured a remote control.

"Fool, that's for a TV!!!" Fenris groaned.

"What's a TV?" Wokko retorted.

"Moo," said the cow.

Fenris grew annoyed and snatched the remote control out of Wokko's hand.

"Moo," said the cow.

Fenris pushed a few buttons on the remote control.

"Moo," said the cow.

The microwave turned on.

"Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" screamed the cow.

"Fenris, what hast thou done?" Redd asked, terrified.

In his most placid voice, Fenris said, "Duck."

They all ducked as the cow exploded.

Later, Wokko was enjoying his roast beef sandwich, when suddenly...

"Moo," said the cow.

"Who the hell were they?!" Fenris wondered.

"I think they be demons," Redd said breathlessly.

"Doppelgängers from another reality."

"They didn't look like us."

"Shutteth thine face."

"Nope."

"Mine name is Redd...some guy's hopes and dreams...and now..."

Suddenly, a form crashed through the ceiling. It was, of course, a frog with a sword. "Thou'rt stealing my bit!" he shouted in dismay. "Prepareth to meet thine doom at mine hand!"

"What in the..."

The frog leapt forward. "Mine name is Glenn," he said. "Cyrus's hopes and dreams...and now the Masamune...forwith I shall slayeth Magus and restore honor!"

Glenn held up the Masamune...but nothing happened. No light emanated from it.

"What deviltry be this?!" the frog gasped. "The Battery of the Sacred Watch of Casio must have died! You must help me find a new one!"

And so they all teamed up, completely forgetting that the frog had tried to kill Redd five seconds before.

As Frog, Wokko, and everyone else I left out started for the door to revive the Sacred Watch of Casio, someone appeared behind them.

"Hi," said Fenris. "Where did you come from?"

"KISS MY ASS!" the man shouted, and began beating the crap out of Fenris with a chain.

"Who in Schala's name art thou?" Redd and Frog asked in unison.

"La," was the reply, but it didn't come from the guy that was tearing up Fenris.

Suddenly, from nowhere (actually, he came from the sky, but nowhere just sounds better), a psychotic man in a green bird suit crashed through the wall. He picked himself up, dusted himself off, and announced, "La."

"Bastard!" Wokko shouted. "That's my green bird suit!"

"La," said the man in the green bird suit.

"Who art thou?" Redd asked.

"La," replied the man in the green bird suit. Fenris groaned and moaned and twitched, hoping to regain their attention.

His attacker -- the man with the chain -- looked up.

"La," said the man in the green bird suit. Then suddenly, he burst into a weird love song. "La, la la la la, la la la la, la la, la la..."

The other man turned his attention from the damn-near-dead Fenris and to the singing birdman.

"What is going on?" asked Katie.

The man with the chain began whacking the man in the bird suit with his chain.

The man in the bird suit burst out into another song. "La la la la, la la la la, la la la la, la, la la. La la la la, la la la la, la la la la."

"It's them!" exclaimed Wokko's roast beef sandwich.

"Who be 'them'?" Frog asked, not yet realizing he was talking to a sandwich.

"Crazy Willy and the Flyin' Dork."

"La," said the Flyin' Dork.

"Well, just go to La, La land," came another voice. All of the strange people turned to see a very strange looking person staring at them. "Oh what were you expecting, Ford Prefect??" the voice asked.

The being had three arms and two heads. Other than that he looked very humanoid. "Well, let me say, these people here seem to be very cool froods, but nothing beats me, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the ex-prez of the galaxy!"

At that moment Murphy, the evil Saint of Bad News, decided to test the "History repeats itself" rule, and brought Kelly and Billy back into the story.

"La," said the Flyin' Dork.

"Moo," said the Roast Beef Sandwich.

"EAT SHIT AND DIE!!!" said Crazy Willy.

"Ouch," said Fenris.

"Froody," said Wokko.

"This be boring," said Redd and Frog, who seemed to be good friends now.

"Die!" said Litina.

"Hey, guys!" said Katie.

"I sense two cool froods who really know where their towels are," said Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Kelly and Billy looked around, slack-jawed.

"Why are we back in this story?" Billy asked.

"La," said the Flyin' Dork.

"Moo," said the Roast Beef sandwich.

Kelly groaned. She looked at Zaphod Beeblebrox.

"A crossover from another story!!! Oh no!!!" she suddenly screamed.

"Something bad always happens when there's a crossover!" Billy groaned.

Zaphod suddenly became scared.

"Look," said Cyan, who had suddenly appeared between Redd and Frog for obvious reasons, "We can't have ye..." he counted, "ten prancin' round all day. Kelly, Billy, I think we'll get along fine."

Redd's eyes popped out.

"Thanks," Billy said, "Now, what are we..."

"Son!!!" Redd suddenly cried out, "Billy! I thought thee be dead!"

Billy looked at his "father" as if he had just asked for a weasel.

"But..." Redd stammered.

"I'm sorry," Billy said, "I don't know you, I don't even know..."

"La," said the Flyin' Dork.

"Moo," said the Roast Beef sandwich.

"...who you are."

"No!" Redd cried, and fell to the floor, sobbing.

Crazy Willy starting beating him up while Wokko took another bite out of the screaming sandwich.

When Wokko opened his mouth to take another bite of his sandwich, his teeth suddenly began to glow. They flew out of his mouth and swirled around everyone's head until Crazy Willy exclaimed, "LOSER!" and whacked them with his chain.

Wokko screamed and dropped his roast beef sandwich, which was accidentally stepped on by Fenris. The sandwich squealed, and the teeth shouted and began to take form.

The teeth swirled up to the ceiling and turned into a black cow, who fell through the floor.

"La," said the Flyin' Dork.

Crazy Willy began beating the crap out of the Flyin' Dork.

"Moo," said the black cow.

"La," said the Flyin' Dork (who still had no idea that Crazy Willy was beating him up).

"Moo."

"La."

"Moo."

"La."

"Moo."

"Bastards!" Frog screamed.

"Moo."

"La."

"Bastards."

"Moo."

"La."

"Bastards."

[Editor's Note: Brent, AQ, and I used to go for minutes at a time saying nothing but "Moo", "La", and "Bastard", respectively, in chat rooms. And it was Good^TM.]

Crazy Willy tossed his head back and screamed, then began beating everyone up.

Redd was still sobbing, banging his head on the floor and yelling "Why me? Why me?!" over and over.

Frog took his Utterly Useless Masamune Which Wouldn't Light Up, and with a mighty slash cut himself a piece of the roast beef sandwich.

The Flyin' Dork climbed on top Wokko's refrigerator and leapt off, flapping his "wings" rapidly. He hovered for a second, then fell through the floor.

"Moo," said the cow.

Crazy Willy hit the cow with his chain, then flushed him down the toilet.

The Flyin' Dork climbed onto the refrigerator and made another attempt to fly, but instead he fell on the weeping Redd and smashed through the floor.

And then the world exploded.

Some useless armored person fell onto Crazy Willy before anything could happen.

"There's the frog, now give me back my sword you stupid little buttmunch!" said Whoever-He-Was. He was dressed in white armor and a cape, and had a sword holster and a scythe which looked like Mondo's from Toshinden with another curved blade on it.

"I am Danny!!!" said uh, Danny. "Now you must perish at the hand of my scythe!"

"Moo," said the sandwich.

"La," said Dork. Danny bopped him with his scythe.

"This sword isith mine!" said the frog, Sir Glenn.

"Gimme that, some guy Magus will be defeated with my sword, so give it to me!"

"Noith, thisith is my sword!" said the frog. "Yoursith isith the bigger one over there in the rock!"

"Oh, okay." He goes and pulls it out. "Now, what were you guys doing?" said Danny.

"Moo," said the Sandwich.

"GODDAMN FUCKIN' PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!" Crazy Willy screamed, and started beating the crap out of Danny.

"Moo," said a voice from inside the toilet.

Suddenly, the toilet began to jump around, and it spit out the black cow. The toilet charged forward, but unfortunately it was supposed to be an inanimate object and thus couldn't see and so it fell through a hole in the floor and squashed Redd and the Flyin' Dork, who shouted "La" in pain.

Crazy Willy turned his attention from Danny and jumped down the hole and started to beat up the Flyin' Dork.

Billy jumped up and down, clapping his hands. "Yay! Yay! A fight!"

Crazy Willy jumped out of the hole and picked up Billy, then threw him into the oven and turned it on "Bake".

"The is getting way-y-y out of hand," Fenris groaned, ducking to avoid Crazy Willy's angry lunge (which caused the psycho to crash into a wall). "It all started when Wokko ate a roast beef sandwich."

"I must mendeth my blade," Frog said, holding up the Utterly Useless Masamune Which Wouldn't Light Up. "Where art the local watch repair shop?"

Crazy Willy struggled to pull his head out from the wall.

"La," said the Flyin' Dork.

The toilet leapt out from the hole, and soon after Redd (who was still sobbing, whether it was from FD and the toilet falling on him or from Billy I don't know) and the Flyin' Dork followed.

The toilet jumped up and down. "Where is that fat fool?!"

All fingers pointed to the black cow.

"Moo," said the cow.

And then the world exploded.

On that day...the world was changed forever...

Miles away from this seemingly pointless commotion, a thief sat atop a mountain, trying to remember how he got there. Suddenly a thought popped into his head.

"The world before the stall...

Delighted was the heart of man...

Stinky was the toilet."

The thief interpreted the message as a call for help and sprang to the rescue of his father.

Back in Wokko's house, everyone was trying to kill Crazy Willy and the Evil Toilet.

"La," said the Flyin' Dork, still getting beat up by Crazy Willy.

"Moo," said the black cow.

"Hold it!" boomed a voice. It came from the thief standing in the doorway. "What do you think you're doing?"

A moment's stunned silence...

"Moo!" said the black cow. Suddenly the thief ducked both Crazy Willy's whip and the enraged Evil Toilet. The toilet was smacked by Crazy Willy and exploded along with the Earth. No one seemed to notice, however.

"Crazy Willy, be punished!" the thief yelled. "Eldar Susara! " The thief's hand started to glow, and Crazy Willy suddenly fell asleep.

"It worked!" the thief breathed.

"I thanketh thee, oh great wizard!" the frog said, kneeling to him.

"And now, let us search for the battery of the Utterly Useless Masamune that Won't Light Up! Open the battery compartment!"

The frog looked at the thief strangely, who had to do it himself since the frog was obviously as mechanically inept as his distant relative, Cyan Garamonde.

[Editor's Note: Bastard.]

"Uh-oh... this sword runs only on one brand of battery: the WATCH BATTERY OF THE GODS!!! To get it, we must steal the sacred..."

"No, not the..." Redd stammered.

"Yes, the sacred..."

"It can't be!" Litina exclaimed.

"Indeed, the sacred..."

"You don't mean..." Kelly gasped.

"Will you let me finish?!?!?! The sacred...WATCH OF THE GODS!!!"

"Oh!" Redd, Litina and Kelly said in unison. "I thought you meant something else! That's easy!"

The thief found the nearest wall and banged his head on it. However, it was his misfortune that it was a magic wall, and the thief instantly disappeared.

"Quick! We must find him!" Wokko exclaimed.

Fenris gave Wokko a queer look, "Why do you care?"

"Are you blind? That was my son!"

Redd looked at Wokko, "You mean...that was..."

Wokko nodded, "Yes, that was none other than Kuroi Ushi!"

Katie's eyes popped out. The Flyin' Dork La'd.

Fenris sighed, "We have our work cut out for us. First, we find your son. Then we steal the WATCH OF THE GODS, and finally we complete the task we five originally set out to do. This is ridiculous."

"In a world ruled by Wokkos, all is ridiculous..."

Frog, as he was suddenly called, nodded. "Then let us hurry!"

And the party of too damn many set out on the three tasks. As they left, Crazy Willy woke up and shook his head.

"Moo," said a nearby cow, which Willy immediately leapt upon and started to eat, planning revenge on Kuroi Ushi...

"What the...?!" Glenn gasped. "Mechanically inept?! I shouldst know better than to alloweth mineself to be written about by Brent Roberts! Bastard!"

He waved the Utterly Useless Masamune That Wouldn't Light Up. It wouldn't light up.

"Dammit," he said.

"La!" screamed the Flyin' Dork, desperately trying to save himself from the grip of Crazy Willy.

"Fools," Redd muttered.

"Don't they know who we be?!" Cyan wondered.

"Mine name is Glenn..." Glenn began, then shouted, "D'oh!"

"You know what really sucks...?" asked an unknown voice. "I forgot the really good idea I had earlier today for this!"

Wokko wondered how Crazy Willy could beat up the Flyin' Dork and eat his cow when they were both in entirely different places, and how Glenn knew what the narrator was saying behind his back. The word "hypocrite" rebounded through his mind, and suddenly broke through his skull.

"Duck!" screamed Fenris as he grabbed Katie and dived under the flying word "hypocrite". However, the word had elasticity, as demonstrated by the rebounding effect in Wokko's skull, and rebounded back at Fenris.

Wokko suddenly grabbed the word and, charging it with magic energy, threw it at the owner of the mysterious voice, turning him into a snail.

Wokko smirked, "That's one less name the authors will have to worry about!"

Meanwhile the enraged Glenn was frantically trying to get the Utterly Useless Masamune That Wouldn't Light Up to light up. It didn't.

Wokko patted the frog on the back. "There there. Don't mind what the evil Brent..."

Suddenly, Wokko was struck by lightning, and his parting words were, "...says. We're all as mechanically inept as you...are..."

And so the Wonko died.

Fenris scratched his head. "Excuse me, but I happen to pilot an intergalactic..."

Wokko suddenly shot up from his Rigor Mortis, and barked, "Shut up! Can't you see I'm trying to cheer the miserable creature up?"

"Creature?!?!?!" screamed the enraged toad ("Frog!" screamed Glenn, and tried to slice Brent Roberts with the Utterly Useless Masamune that Wouldn't Light Up. It wouldn't light up, however, so he simply muttered "Bastard" and leapt back into the story). "Blasphemer! I shall throweth thee...no, that's no right!"

He suddenly whipped out a book on Olde English and read a few chapters, then tried again.

"Blasphemer!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, not realizing this would attract attention to him and his faltering accent, "I shalt throweth thee off of Mount Doooooom! Thereth. Dideth Ieth doeth thateth righteth?"

"No," Kelly said simply.

Suddenly Glenn began talking in an equally bad Brooklyn accent. "Well id ain't my fald if da authors gave me such a stupid role!"

Wokko suddenly got up, forgetting that he was supposed to be dead. "Wait a minute! You aren't Glenn!"

The phony frog made a mad dash for some kind of exit, but since he was outside he quickly got lost in the completely empty field. Wokko leapt upon him.

"The Scooby Doo Ending! Now let's see who you really are!"

He pulled off the frog's head, but decided he didn't like the look of his spine and reattached it. Then he pulled off his mask and gasped, "It's...the Man Who Can't Get a Single Damn Accent Right!!!"

"Whatteth?" said Redd, and kneeled to the man. Everyone else, even the Flyin' Dork and Crazy Willy's mysterious twin, followed his lead, except Wokko who hadn't a clue what was going on.

"I don't have a clue what's going on!" Wokko bluntly stated.

"Dost thou know nothing?" Redd said. "The Man Who Can't Get a Single Damn Accent Right is..."

"Brent!!!" cried Fenris.

"Wait a minute! I thought Thad was supposed to be Froggy here!" Wokko's arm exploded in frustration.

Brent, the guy who was in the story anyway, shook his head. "We take turns being God. Oh, and since this part has gone on for six pages, I guess it's someone else's turn.

Toodles!"

And with a wave, a fart, and an Armageddon, someone stood in his place...

"Guys today," mutters an annoyed voice. Forming into view is a teenage girl. "My turn to play God."

The two-headed alien, Zaphod, turned and said, "Ain't you that froody cat who rules the universe with an ego bigger than me???"

The girl winks. "Yep, that's me. The name's Stef."

Kelly gets a horrified look, "Wait! You created this, didn't you?!!!! You got me in this damn thing!!!"

Stef shrugs, "Er...sorry, I was bored. Well, Zaphod, you got any PGGBs???????"

They all give her a funny look...

Then Mika jumped in and started beating the crap out of Brent, and another guy tossed his head back and laughed hysterically.

"Shut...up...Amaroq..." Brent gagged, and then Crazy Willy started beating the crap out of him too.

Then Amaroq pulled out a Supercharge Hyperblast Megashot Retrocannon and killed them all.

[Editor's Note: This within 10 minutes of AQ's post...uh-oh, I smell another Median Effect.]

"Thank you, O Mother of the Gods, but I think we should kick the story along before Crazy Willy has a chance to become a part of it again. All of him."

Kate looked up to see Brent, who had not been waiting patiently for his turn, hovering over Kate. She slapped him. "Mother?"

"Um...girlfriend of the Gods?" Brent said meekly, receiving a backhand. "Well, I have to chase someone now that Mika's become a brat!" Suddenly a bullet from Mount

Olympus whizzed past Brent's ear.

[Editor's Note: Hee hee. Can't blame Brent for that logic...]

"Okay, just do with the mortals what you will and leave!" she barked.

"Hmm...interesting. I affect female behavior to make them simulate PMS!" He threw Kate out of the story before she could whack him again, and floated toward the too- damn-many mortals in the once-sensible party.

"And now, it's time to find Kuroi Ushi! But first..." and with that he destroyed the Crazy Willy doppelgänger, and as an afterthought threw the Flyin' Dork out of the story.

"La!" the Flyin' Dork screamed as he fell out of the story.

And thus their long and undocumented search began.

Autumn changed to Winter. Winter changed to Spring. Spring changed to Summer. Summer changed back into Winter. And Winter gave Spring and Summer a miss and went straight into Autumn. Until one day, they found Kuroi Ushi's bones in the Sacred Tomb of Nameless Person. Glenn (the replacement for Brent) clenched his dentures.

"I'll never use this sword now!" he said. "Of course, with arthritis and all it would be useless whether it lit up or not."

Fenris rubbed his bald head. "Brent, can't you just make it so we knew where Kuroi is when we began the search?"

"Yeah, Papa Brent! Change the past! Pretty please!" said Billy Jr.

"Oh, hell, as long as it gets KateStory IV on the bestseller list!" And with a flash and a bang, Brent was back where he started.

Brent was standing a few yards away, destroying the clone of Crazy Willy. Then Redd said, "Where do we go now?"

At which Brent pointed in a random direction.

"You fool!" yelled Brent, and shoved Brent to the ground. "I'll handle this, you continuity-impaired God-wannabe! Go find a replacement for Glenn! No, I have a better idea!" And Brent turned Brent into a frog. "You are Glenn once more! And now, to the Sacred Tomb of the Nameless Person!"

"Where is it?" Billy inquired.

"It's right there!" Brent said, pointing to a pyramid 2 inches from his foot. "Let's go. We have a long journey ahead of us....we finally made it! The Sacred Tomb of the Nameless Person!"

Wokko groaned. "It's about time!"

"Come on, you may get arthritis!"

And so the search began anew.

Suddenly a large white slash knifed between Brent and Amaroq, and the world peeled away, leaving Brent and Amaroq in darkness.

"What the hell was that?" Amaroq said in disbelief.

"The Median Effect," Brent said dismally, "the wound caused by two authors writing at the same time, whose shapings of reality don't meet eye-to-eye. Usually reality heals itself, but this time we really blew it."

"You sound like you've been here before."

"Millions of times."

"So what happens now?"

"Well, we're suspended of our godly powers until another author steps in and fixes things."

"So, Thad gets the whole bloody universe to himself?"

"As much as he can fit in six pages, yes. Unless Ashura or Kate beat him to the punch."

"Come on Ash!!! Get on!!!"

"To telleth thee the truth," said Glenn after appearing out of nowhere, "nobody ever pays any attention to preceding chapters. The whole point is to have a string of completely unrelated events.

"But," the frog continued, "back to the quest at hand. I haveth a vehicle that will taketh us to the REALM OF THE GODS!"

With that, the so-called mechanically-inept amphibian withdrew a tiny electronic device from his belt, tried to key in his space-time coordinates, realized he didn't know them, and then, within ten seconds, managed to obtain them. A reasonably-sized, silver ship appeared.

"I be afraid that only three can sit in the cockpit," he murmured to whoever the hell was in his party. "I must pilot; Cyan--really being mechanically inept, unlike mineself--shalst stick to navigation; and Redd will be mine copilot."

"Where do the rest of us travel?" someone asked.

"Baggage," Glenn responded. "Not to worry; 'tis a magical inventory...it can hold a quantity of up to ninety-nine of any object in the universe, but no more; for example, it can holdeth ninety-nine Elixirs, ninety-nine Megalixirs, ninety-nine Hyper Ethers, ninety-nine Rainbows, and ninety-nine Mops, but it wouldst be impossible for it to hold one hundred Mops and nothing else."

Some guy came up singing the following:

I was driving on the freeway in the fast lane
with a rabid wolverine in my underwear
when suddenly a guy behind me in the back seat
popped right up and cupped his hands across my eyes
I guessed, "Is it Uncle Frank or Cousin Louie?
Is it Bob or Joe or Walter?
Could it be Bill or Jim or Ed or Bernie or Steve?"
I probably would have kept on guessing but about that time we crashed into the truck
And as I'm laying bleeding there on the asphalt
finally I recognize the face of my Hibachi dealer
who takes off his prosthetic lips and tells me
>
Everything you know is wrong
Black is white, up is down and short is long
And everything you thought was just so important doesn't matter
Everything you know is wrong
Just forget the words and sing along
All you need to understand is
Everything you know is wrong

I was walkin' to the kitchen for some Golden Grahams
when I accidentally stepped into an alternate dimension
and soon I was abducted by some aliens from space
who kinda looked like Jamie Farr
They sucked out my internal organs
and they took some Polaroids and said I was a darn good sport
and as a way of saying thank you
they offered to transport me back to any point in history that I would care to go
And so I had them send me back to last Thursday night
so I could pay my phone bill on time
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders [KFC guy] started yelling
Everything you know is wrong
Black is white, up is down and short is long
And everything you thought was just so important doesn't matter
Everything you know is wrong
Just forget the words and sing along
All you need to understand is
Everything you know is wrong

[Insert accordion interlude here]

I was just about to mail a letter to my evil twin
when I got a nasty papercut
and, well, to make a long story short
it got infected and I died
so now I'm up in heaven with
St. Peter by the pearly gates
and it's obvious he doesn't like the Nehru jacket that I'm wearing
He tells me that they've got a dress code
Well, he lets me into heaven anyway
but I get the room next to the noisy ice machine
for all eternity
and every day he runs by screaming

Everything you know is wrong
Black is white, up is down and short is long
And everything you used to think was so important
Doesn't really matter anymore because the simple fact remains that
Everything you know is wrong
Just forget the words and sing along
All you need to understand is
Everything you know is wrong
Everything you know is wrong!

Then the Guyver came by and chopped off this guy's head and then we find everybody back where they were, all fine.

"Moo," said the moldy roast beef sandwich.

Thad, Amaroq, and Brent, who were all in the Median Void waiting for someone to do something intelligent, quickly consulted with each other and came to the conclusion Ashura should be thrown into an asylum. After wrapping him in a gay jacket (for added torment), Brent spoke up:

"Since the only author left is Kate, who almost never gets on, one of us has to set things right," and so he was immediately thrown into the story. "You lazy bastards!" he raved, then got to work.

With in evil grin he reasoned: "Since Amaroq's input resulted in the end of the story, we can throw that out. And since Thad's input was somewhere in Reply 10, we can throw that out as well. In other words: I rule the universe!!!"

Suddenly Dogbert popped out of nowhere and said, "No!!! That's my job!" and disappeared in a puff of continuity.

And so the adventure continued...

"Ah, it's good to be back in the story!" Brent said, landing on the surrealistic ground. He dusted himself off and said: "Ready to go?"

"Thou betteth!" Glenn said, botching up the mode of speech for the obvious reason he was Brent's double. Brent ignored the blunder and struck a match, entering the tomb.

A few steps inside, Kelly was suddenly hit by a thief who had popped out of the wall.

"Kuroi!!!" Kelly said.

"Now we can getteth mine battery!" Glenn said impatiently.

"Right! We must go and steal the WATCH BATTERY OF THE GODS!" said Brent.

"Thad!!!" Brent snapped.

"Get his watch, Kuroi!!!" beckoned the voice. Kuroi, a master thief, easily got the omnipotent one's watch.

"Why? How?" Brent stammered, "I'm writing this story!!!"

[Editor's Note: Hee hee...anybody ever see the play Sparks in the Park?]

"How? Simple!!! You did it yourself...because, Brent, you...are an idiot!"

Meanwhile, Kuroi installed the watch battery into the Utterly Useless Masamune that Wouldn't Light Up, which then became the Actually Pretty Kewl Masamune that Lit Up Quite a Bit. Glenn waved the Actually Pretty Kewl Masamune that Lit Up Quite a Bit. It lit up. Quite a bit.

"And now," Glenn said, "I shall kill Brent Roberts for calling me a toad a little while back!"

And with that he ki...

Then, since the Median Effect was reversed, the world exploded...and in a hazy effect of light and mist they rematerialized in a room filled with music and talking.

They all gasped at the person sitting calmly at a table drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It was the other God, named Stef. She smiled and called them over.

"Welcome to Milliways, the Restaurant at the end of the Universe. And Brent...take the Masamune out of your neck!"

And from nowhere, Amaroq appeared again since he was seemingly gone from the story.

"Damn it," he said, "this is starting to confuse me! What the hell is a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?"

"Who're you?" Fenris asked.

"I...am...your...god!!!!!!!" Amaroq screamed, and began to beat Fenris over the head with a shovel.

"That's not Ashura, AQ," Stef said.

"I don't give a crap! I'm totally pissed-off!!!!!!"

"Why?"

"You...you...you..." AQ stared at Brent's dead body. "You threw out the Flyin' Dork and Crazy Willy!"

With this, AQ took the shovel and chopped off Brent's head.

"Ewwwwww," Stef said, wincing.

"Speaking of 'ewww', where's Mika?"

"Who?"

"The bimbo brunette."

"She vanished a few minutes ago, about the same time you did."

"When I vanished, the world exploded."

Stef stared at him questioningly.

"Damn it!!!!!" AQ shouted. "Either someone get this story back in workin' order, or I'll blow y'all up again!"

And suddenly, nothing happened.

Stef took a deep breath and looked at Amaroq.

"Okay, a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is the best drink ever, kind of like having your head smashed into a brick wall with barb wire around it."

She holds out a glass of colorful liquid to Amaroq. "Want one?"

Amaroq stared at the glass for a minute, then looked up at Stef.

"This wouldn't happen to be the same Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster that nearly killed me in a Brawl last year, would it?"

Stef shook her head and grinned evilly, but AQ didn't notice. He gulped down the drink, blinked a few times, then exploded.

"Good God," said a familiar voice from the other side of the room. "I've gotta get a stunt double."

Yes, the voice belonged to Amaroq. The exact same Amaroq that exploded two seconds ago.

"What the...?" Stef stared at AQ a minute. "You just exploded!"

"Yeah, but take into consideration that this is called the KateStory, and so you created it, and so it's gotta be totally demented and make no sense. Or something."

"Ooookay, whatever."

"Watch!" AQ said, snapping his fingers.

Suddenly the Eiffel Tower fell on top of Stef.

AQ threw back his head and laughed like a maniac, and then suddenly, for no reason, the place just exploded.

Stef pushed the Eiffel Tower off of her and stood up and looked at the damage from the world exploding. She then looked at Amaroq. "Idea! Let's travel to the world of Krynn!"

"Sliders?" Amaroq asked.

"Not Quinn, you idiot!" Stef snapped. "Krynn!!!!"

AQ dropped to the floor, screaming as if someone had put a bullet through his skull. But it wasn't a bullet that was killing him. It was the word Krynn.

"What's wrong with you?" Stef asked.

"Krynn?"

Amaroq exploded again, then rematerialized at the other side of the room. He stared angrily at Stef, and began to fish around in his pocket for his Supercharge Hyperblast Megashot Retrocannon. Suddenly, he realized it wasn't there.

"Where's my gun?"

"Oh, that's yours?" came a voice. "You must've dropped it."

AQ screamed as he saw a kender pull the trigger of the Retrocannon.

And suddenly, someone else wrote the next part.

[Editor's Note: My relationship with Brent was rather strained at this point, due to his repeatedly and remorselessly screwing up my works.]

[Editor's Note: On the other hand, I guess I decided I would write some more.]

"Ha!" came a voice. "That's nothin'!"

Suddenly, Thad appeared, holding a large, mean-looking gun.

"What the hell is the point of that?!" Amaroq asked. "Why not just bring X in? He's got that arm cannon!"

"But this," X said, cocking the weapon, "is a Kill-O-Zap."

Then, laughing maniacally, he slaughtered everybody except Glenn.

"Idiot! Did you honestly think you could kill me?!" AQ shouted. "This is the KateStory!"

AQ kicked the kender (who, to his surprise, was dead, and had somehow or another come back from the dead to steal the Supercharge Hyperblast Megashot Retrocannon) and retrieved his gun.

[Editor's Note: I think he'd just finished Dragons of Summer Flame at this point...God what a depressing ending. But what's even more depressing is the new Fifth Age series...]

Thad grinned fiendishly. "Now...we see which one of us has the most powerful gun..."

"Gun, schmun," came a very high-pitched voice. From the shadows appeared a teenage girl, a shining diamond ring on her right hand.

"That...ring...!" AQ gasped. "You're..."

The girl grinned evilly. "Doesn't matter what I am. You, my friends, are toast."

"...Mika!"

With this, Thad and AQ threw down their weapons and ran out of the building.

"I swear if I die one more time I'll have to file a complaint," Stef exclaims, jumping up. She turned and saw Mika. "Oh hi Mika!! Ya know we should form an alliance thing and cause total war on the guys...and we'll show 'em who's boss."

Stef, with a grin, pulls out a very large wand-shaped item with a moon on the top of it...

Mika picked up the Kill-O-Zap and stared at it for a second. Then, with a dark, chilling, evil grin, she replied, "Sounds like a plan."

With this, the insane 15-year-old blew up the remains of Brent's body. "I've been waiting to do that. Now where's Kunie?"

[Editor's Note: Some psychopath we met in a Chatroom once. Bastard promised to join Sonic '96, but never did.]

Stef stared at the blood/intestine/brain/and a whole bunch of other crap you don't wanna know about on the floor.

Wincing, she said, "I dunno about this..."

"You get to blow them all u-up!" Mika chimed, waving around the Supercharge Hyperblast Megashot Retrocannon. Stef obviously saw the light, and graciously snatched the weapon from her.

"Hey!" came a voice. "I forgot my gun!"

Thad ran in, took one look at Mika and Stef, and froze. AQ did the same.

"Whoa! Wait a sec!" AQ shouted. "Drop it, you dumb broad!"

"You're not going to...use it, are you? Well, at least, not on us...are you?" Thad stared at Mika.

Mika grinned evilly and drummed her fingers on the gun.

"Uhh...girls?"

"Of course not!"

"Huh?"

Mika giggled. "I'm just a girl! What do I know? Tee-hee!"

"You're not going to...use it, are you? Well, at least, not on us...are you?" Thad stared at Mika.

Mika ginned evilly and drummed her fingers on the gun.

"Uhh...girls?"

"Of course not!"

"Huh?"

Mika threw down the Kill-O Zap. "Take it."

Thad picked up the Kill-O Zap and cocked it.

"What're you doing?" Stef and AQ asked in unison.

"All right," Mika said, with a broad, evil grin. "It's your Kill-O Zap..." she held up her right hand, "against my ring and fingernails."

Thad screamed.

Suddenly, a huge figure loomed above. The figure was human...male...but something more. Wearing a suit and tie (the tie, upon further inspection, was adorned with pictures of Mickey Mouse), levitating in the air, with a carnation in one hand, he was quite an imposing figure.

That is, until one looked at his nose. The nose quite offset the imposing qualities, and rather made him quite a laughable sight...you see, a constant stream of Mountain

Dew was spewing out of it.

[Editor's Note: Inside joke.]

Still, his power was quite apparent, even as he removed a Kleenex^{TM® from his pocket and blew his nose into it.}

The only apparent weakness on his body was on his left wrist: a Sucky Watch.

"He has a Sucky Watch!" Amaroq shouted, laughing.

"Shut up!" the figure whined. "I'm only a god-in-training, and this isn't really my watch, therefore it's not really my watch battery!"

With that, he coughed a whole lot, and Amaroq was blown off-stage, rather like the Sneeze attack in FF3.

"Stage?!" Mika questioned.

"But of course," the figure responded. "I am the Announcer...and the Broadcast Official...for that matter, I'm also the Broadcast Official's Assistant, since those two were combined into one role."

Mika nodded. "I see. So this is a surreal interpretation of the play."

[Editor's Note: The Skin of Our Teeth. I was in it at that point.]

"Yep," the Announcin' Broadcast Official responded.

"Why are you sick?" Mika asked.

The god-in-training took a deep breath, hacked and coughed, then took another deep breath and spoke: "Andrea got sick, then Brian got sick, and somewhere along the line Bevin got sick too; while they were at it, I got sick too, along with Manny and Tim..." He coughed before continuing, "Even Joy got it, and probably the whole cast, and likely most of the crew."

Stef nodded in understanding.

Then, the Announcin' Broadcast Official felt the amount of Mountain Dew spewing out his nose begin to deplete. He realized the caffeine must be wearing off, so he should probably finish the note and go to bed.

And then the world exploded.

"Criminy," said a voice. "His 'the world exploded' line is getting almost as redundant and annoying as my comment about 'He banged his head into [object]. Luckily, it was a magic [object], and teleported him to [place].' thing last year!"

And there stood Mega Man X, holding, at arm's length, Billy, who was trying to kill him, as he still blamed him for that "magic rain" incident that scattered his molecules across the galaxy, even though Brent wrote that part.

[Editor's Note: Responding to my flame...]

Suddenly a sound that was suspiciously like the intro to the "Alone Z" background music of Alien Soldier (a small explosion, a monster screaming like it was on fire, and a toilet flushing) erupted from the Restaurant, and the author hoped these people were supposed to be outside, 'cuz if they weren't, they were now. Several slabs of steak forming the appearance of a human ran out.

"I go to sleep und ven I vake oop I am a staike!" the slabs of steak said in a bad Freudian accent.

[Editor's Note: When did Freud get his own accent?!]

"Hi Brent," said Mega Man X.

"How did you know it was me?" said the steak.

"Because you messed that stupid accent up horribly!"

Suddenly Billy, who was supposed to be dead but somehow failed to quit moving, started attacking the startled robot.

Mega Man X spat Mountain Dew out of his nose and Billy flew off the stage, losing both his arms and a leg from the strain of moving while he was dead.

[Editor's Note: It's spewed! I don't spit Mountain Dew out my nose, I spew it out my nose! Get it right!]

"All I want to say," Brent the Steak said, "is that it is not nice to kill me like that."

Then Mika ate Brent.

And Brent couldn't figure out whether he should like it or scream in agony, and finally what passed for his head exploded. Bits of Brent got all over Mika and, since it was a magic head, Mika's head teleported.

"..." said Mika.

"I knight thee, sir Brentai!" said some king-guy who showed up when Brentai's head grew back. Brentai farted.

"Stupidhead," the king-guy said.

Brentai's stupidhead exploded. Then it grew back.

The author rolled his eyes.

And then the world exploded.

Brentai's head grew back.

Just then, Frog appeared, with the Utterly Useless Masamune that Wouldn't Light Up...only it wasn't so useless at that point, and it actually lit up better than ever before.

[Editor's Note: Now we've got the RL-parallel thingy going.]

"Mine name is Glenn," he said. "Cyrus's hopes and Dreams...and now the Masamune...forwith I shall slayeth Magus and restore honor!"

He held aloft the Masamune. It lit up.

Brentai liked the blue light. He wanted to get a closer look. He did. He didn't like it.

See, the blast seared the flesh off his face and turned his eyes to Jell-O. Glenn laughed. Then, a person in an apron labeled "School Cafeteria Worker" picked up what remained of Brentai's face and made it into hot dogs.

"So? You think you're bad with that sword, do you?" came a voice. It wasn't high-pitched like Mika's (in fact, Mika was looking at her reflection in a frying pan and fixing her hair), and it wasn't scratchy like Amaroq's, but it struck fear into both of them so much that Mika dropped the frying pan.

A CLANG was heard echoing throughout the silence. Then, a FWOP as AQ was socked across the room by a pillow. Mika ducked the swing at her own head, and countered by pinning the maniac who had attacked her to the ground.

Little did Mika know that her attacker was her best friend.

"Candy!" Mika shouted.

With a swing of her pillow, Candy knocked Mika clear across the room, and back into AQ (who just so happened to be getting up at that exact same moment, causing him to stumble and slip in the remains of Brentai and send both he and his moronic girlfriend to the floor).

"Thou art skilled in thy weaponry," Frog murmured.

The reply wasn't in words, but in a really weird expression that AQ and Mika were very familiar with.

"Yeah. Whatever," Candy swung her pillow and knocked the frog to Kingdom Come. Actually, it was really only about 15 feet back, but let's leave it at Kingdom Come.

AQ rubbed his forehead and gazed wearily up at his sister. "Uh...Candy..."

Candy whirled around and stared at him.

AQ continued, "I didn't...do...anything..."

"So?" Candy shrugged. "Time for a review, dear brother. What three things do I care about?"

"You, your problems, your friends, your own life..."

[Editor's Note: Your highly developed math skills...]

"And what three things don't I care about?"

"Me, my petty problems, my friends, my life..."

Mika sat up and blinked, a common sign that she had no idea what was going on, but she was going to comment anyway.

"Candy, I'm your friend!"

Candy sat in thought for a minute, studying the floor to her left, and eventually replied, "So?" and with another swing of her pillow knocked both AQ and Mika back to the floor.

Suddenly Brent appeared out of nowhere, floating in the air, and looked at the remains of Brentai.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"Brentai," came a voice, since everyone was dead as far as Brent was concerned.

"And who's Brentai?"

"You are!"

Brent thought this over and tried to kick the voice.

"Dumb!@#$%^&*," he mumbled, and reflected that it seemed to be a lot better than "stupidhead". He said it again, and disappeared before something else that was pointless and lacking in humor happened.

And then the world exploded.

Meanwhile, Brent had successfully warped his way back into Milliways and gazed at the world exploding, wondering what significance it could have since everyone in the story was in the middle of space. Sighing, he watched as the Universe came to an end, and then stepped out into the void.

"Good," he grumbled, "Perhaps I can start again with a storyline that's actually funny."

He called together the gods and...

Someone else wrote the next part.

"Well met, Majesty," the newly-revived (uhhh...was he killed? I could give a sheet less...) frog said, bowing to Candy.

"Dammit," she responded. "It's no fun slaughtering someone who considers me royalty."

"So," Glenn said, "what doth we do now? Mine quest is at an end, and, though funny, it be getting rather annoying to have this story going absolutely nowhere. Even back in its third incarnation (subtitled 'Searching for a Plot'), it didst have somewhat of a storyline."

Candy shrugged and said, "Beats the hell outta me."

Frog snapped his fingers. "I hath got it!" he exclaimed. "There be a plot, after all! The world doth keepeth exploding...we must fixeth this problem!"

[Editor's Note: Now responding to Brent...]

The gods entered the story again at that minute.

"Thanks, little Boyd blue," Brent said, grinning. He ducked in case something flew at him, as if it didn't all the time. "And now, on with the story!"

"And what are we doing in it?" Amaroq asked, making them all disappear in a puff of logic.

"Bastarrrrrd..." Brent's voice cried, and faded away.

"Hmm..." HX mumbled, "That was pointless. Well, let's go. Except...before we go, could you answer one question for me?"

"What be it, thou noble purple freak?"

"What, exactly, am I doing here?" And suddenly, just to make things interesting, the nonexistent gods turned Hedgehog X into a candy machine.

"Not again!" screamed Billy.

"Uh... what is it?" Kelly asked.

"He's been turned back into...Maleophonix!!!"

"The horror!" Glenn screamed, not knowing who Maleophonix even was. Billy rounded on the frog.

"Shut up, you stupid amphibian."

Maleophonix looked up to the sky, "If you do not turn me back into a hedgehog, I'll sing your realm down!"

Nothing happened.

"Fine!!! 'YOOOOOOOU LIIIIIIIIIIIVE, YOOOOOOOOOU

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'"

Then the world exploded.

"Aha! That be it!" Glenn cried out. "He's the one!" He drew the Actually Pretty Kewl Masamune that Lights Up Quite a Bit.

Maleophonix shut up. The world exploded anyway.

"Or not," Glenn said, sheathing the Actually Pretty Kewl Masamune that Lit Up Quite a Bit. "Let us be off!"

And everyone walked into the sunset.

"Aagghh!!! Too close!!!" Billy screamed, catching on fire. Everyone returned to the random detail-less area they were at and stopped, dropped and rolled.

"Okay, other way!" Glenn cried. They all went the other way and fell off the face of what was left of the world, except Maleophonix who was just a stupid singing candy machine.

"Hey!" he bawled, "Wait uuuuuuuuup..." Then the world exploded and he was killed by the shrapnel.

Luckily, Thad had accidentally written The Flyin' Dork into the story and forgotten to write him out. Mega Man X had taken advantage of that fact by grabbing hold of TFD, but unfortunately he was having difficulty supporting the robot's weight.

So, X did the only plausible thing he could: Beat the hell out of TFD and then copy his ability.

X swooped down, saved Glenn and Kate, and left Billy, Kelly, and TFD to fall endlessly through space unless the last happened to regain consciousness.

Reaching the planet again, they were just in time to watch a giant foot crush Maleophonix, who had disobeyed one of Thad's laws: never, ever sing an Alanis song, because you won't sing it right.

Unfortunately, The Flyin' Dork couldn't fly, and everybody who had survived those last two replies fell into a plot hole. Then everybody was restored to their original selves since the plot wouldn't go anywhere without some heroes, except for Maleophonix who had been killed twice and couldn't do anything anyways, since he was just a stupid candy machine. The search continued (oh, and the world exploded of course).

Seven years later...

"Okay, we should all commence immediate discussion."

Fifty years later...

"Okay, we have a plan, let's go!" Then they all died of a heart attack.

Then a hole opened up in the plot and Brent fell in, since Mega Man X couldn't die of a heart attack.

Then someone else finally wrote the next part and hopefully kicked the plot along.

X was annoyed. He was very annoyed.

Kate was annoyed. She was very annoyed.

Glenn was annoyed. He was very annoyed. In fact, he was so annoyed (and so unfamiliar with the adventuring in KateStories) that he banged his head against a wall.

Unfortunately for the trio, it was, of course, a magic wall.

The magic wall teleported them to a strange world where basically all that was happening was a whole bunch of "Weird Al" Yankovic's songs were playing.

There, they met Kelly and Billy, whose fall had been broken by a magic nuclear warhead. Needless to say, Billy tried to kill X.

And then that world exploded.

"There it goeth again," Glenn muttered. "I thought we couldst avoid that when we left that other world, but apparently this one hath the same problem."

"I've got it!" X gasped. "Here's the deal: this continual explosion of the world is getting damn near the 'lamer than hell' level, meaning one or two more times and it'll be forced to stop happening."

Everyone nodded, generally saying that was a good point.

And at that the world exploded.

And it sucked.

Earlier this year, Scott Goldberg started a Sonic club based mainly on the cartoon, and nearly begged Brent and me to join. By a bizarre (though not altogether surprising) fluke, the two of us turned out to be the only two who gave a rat's ass about what happened to the club.

The only other person who even routinely posted was Mandi "Midnight" Gordon, and even she only posted to an ongoing story she began which was her character's origin. The two big problems with her writing (one being that she had a predetermined plot, but refused to tell us what it was, the closest she ever came being to yell at us when we weren't managing to psychically follow it; the other being that she just flat-out couldn't write), however, brought us to the point where we took matters into our own hands.

You'll note her chapters are posted in "play-esque" format (or, as Brent dubbed it in honor of AQ's usage of the same format to relate person experiences, AmaroqLine^{TM); she put them like that herself, and I decided that correcting her spelling and syntax was bad enough without having to put it into a traditional narrative.}

(One day, while on his chili dog break, Sonic hears a commotion in the trees above him.)

Sonic: What the...?

(Sonic speeds up the tree, just in time to see a black figure fall past him. Sonic runs back down to see a teenage cheetah with gargoyle wings, laying on the ground, totally out of it.)

Sonic: Uh oh.

(He contacts Sally, who gets there soon with Tails and Rotor.)

Sonic: She just fell out of the tree, Sal, and hasn't moved since.

Sally: Nicole, do you have any idea what she is?

Nicole: Processing...sorry, Sally, she is unknown to me.

(The cheetah moans and gets up. She sees the Freedom Fighters and is on her feet in an instant.)

Sonic: Whoa, chill. We won't hurt you.

Cheetah: Yeah, right.

Sally: Who are you?

Cheetah: Midnight.

Sally: Well, I'm Princess Sally Acorn, and this is Sonic Hedgehog.

Midnight: The fabled fastest thing alive?

Sonic: The one and only.

Midnight: I'm on a mission...and I have found who I was looking for.

[Editor's Note: There were some side conversations where HX leapt out and complained that Caps Lock was hurting his eyes, but I decided that's moot now since I fixed that note.)

Hedgehog X strolled through the Hidden Palace, as he was wont to do. Barging into Sally's room with scarcely a knock, he called the monarch's name.

"You're a tad late, Hedgie, my good rodent," came a voice.

HX raised an eyebrow, but nothing more. Years of experience had taught him better than to jump out of his skin at hearing a voice he hadn't expected.

"Well if it isn't the Blue Bomber," Hedgehog X muttered. "Back from that mission to Earth so soon?"

"But of course," Mega Man X replied. As an afterthought, he snapped, "And don't call me the 'Blue Bomber'. Sounds too damn warlike. Maybe my predecessor didn't mind, but I do."

"My apologies," HX said, bowing. "So where's Her Royal Highness?"

"She left five minutes ago, on call from Sonic," X responded.

"Harumph. Whaddaya think's up...?"

"You are the one who should know," X muttered, "after declining to join me."

"I have two psyches," HX reminded him, "and I wanted to spend a bit of time with Amanda...or have you forgotten that incident you had on the Negaintelligent planet...?!"

"Samus," X whispered, sorrow and regret in his synthesized voice.

[Editor's Note: It was supposed to happen in Dreams Distorted, but said saga never got that far.]

Several minutes of pained silence passed. Finally, Hedgehog X broke it with a swift change in subjects: "Let's go find Sally."

As X started out the door he noticed HX didn't seem to be quite all there. He waved his hand in front of HX's eyes, snapped his fingers by his ears and finally shook him which rewarded X an express trip into the ground. X always forgot how Hedgehog X used gravity to his advantage.

"Stop it," HX growled.

"Ooooooookay, stopping..." X said, having no idea what HX thought he was doing, and went through the door. Hedgehog X turned sharply and followed through the door, but as he got under it he hopped suddenly, banged his head into the top of the door and collapsed into the ground.

"What the..." X murmured, and helped Hedgehog X to his feet. HX babbled for a minute, opened his eyes, and looked curiously at X, as if he were lost and confused.

"Who am I? Who are you?" he asked randomly.

"Oh no, you have amnesia and you need me to explain what I'm talking about in a silly and pointless recap of current events." He said it without feeling, because he knew what HX was up to.

"Oh, that would be nice," HX said, trailing off. X knew it was pointless to play games with Hedgehog X and gave in.

"...so then, you strolled through the Hidden Palace, as you are wont to do. Barging into Sally's room with scarcely a knock, you called the monarch's name.

"'You're a tad late, Hedgie, my good rodent,' I sez.

"You raised an eyebrow, but nothing more. Years of experience have taught you better than to jump out of your skin at hearing a voice you haven't expected.

"'Well if it isn't the Blue Bomber,' you muttered. 'Back from that mission to Earth so soon?'

"'But of course,' I sez. As an afterthought, I added..."

"Shaddap," HX cut him off. "You don't need to recap to that degree."

"Fome," X said.

The author then returned his fingers to the proper position, causing X to say, "Fine," which made a lot more sense. "Damn Mac," he commented. "I'm still putting my fingers on the 'D' and 'K' by mistake, even though it was six hours ago."

[Editor's Note: I think that "he" refers to me, not X.]

The android looked rather hurt at the hedgehog's remark, and somehow managed to make his artificial lips pout.

"Sure," X said, cheering up. "Lemme just contact Nicole..."

"Blackjack" appropriately cranked up full-blast on each radio, X and HX skimmed the treetops of the Great Forest on their jetbikes.

[Editor's Note: "Blackjack" is the name of Setzer's first airship in Final Fantasy 6 (3 US), and thus, appropriately enough, also of the airship theme. Thus the appropriateness. (Yes, that is a word.)]

"Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh-duh-duh..." the two sang in unison.

That is, until they were hit with large objects and crashed.

"It's a wonder you two fools didn't bring an entire army of SWAT and/or Stealth-Bots down on us," Sally muttered, more than a little exasperated.

"Thank God for rocks, eh?" Sonic said with a smirk. Just for good measure, he hit HX with another one.

"Will you knock it off?!" the perturbed squirrel* growled. "Our mission is of grave importance!"

"Such grave importance that you broke communication with a trusted friend over it...?!" X asked mildly.

Sally nodded gravely. "Who knows who might be listening in..."

"I know," X said. "Nobody. Unless you don't trust me..."

Sonic promptly changed the subject. "Yo, guys, this cat's name's Midnight. I think she'd better tell ya what's goin' on..."

"Am I hearing voices in my head?" said HX.

"No!!!" Sonic, Sally and X all screamed, and hit him with rocks. HX was acting very suspicious today.

Midnight: I'm a cheetahmorph, Sonic Hedgehog. And I'm on a mission from someplace not known about by many people, especially Robotnik. I found you guys and I would like to help. Unless you don't like all black seventeen-year-old female cheetahs with wings helping.

"Spill your guts, for cryin' out loud!" Hedgehog X screamed at the top of his lungs -- which is damn loud, considering he's a Child of the White Circle.

"Cheetahmorph...?" X wondered. "So you used to be something else...?" After all, he reasoned, why else would someone say "cheetahmorph"...or even say "I'm a cheetah" when he could clearly see that she was...?

"We're not on a mission at the present time," Sally said. "The best way you can help us is by telling us how we can help you."

"Of course you can help," HX said with a grin (still rubbing his sores), "you're the reason we're playing this game."

Everyone near HX did a double take at him. Sally suddenly said, "Xavier, do you know something we don't?"

HX's grin suddenly disappeared and his demeanor was completely reversed. "Yeah," he snickered, "Two plus two."

"The ol' hog's acting weird!" Sonic said, trying to figure out what HX was babbling about. X suddenly looked worried and pulled Sonic off to the side.

[Editor's Note: Hee hee. Sudden image of Edgar pulling Locke away when he starts bugging Shadow in South Figaro. Or, for that matter, Sabin pulling Gau away after the latter caused Cyan to break down.]

"Sonic, there's something very wrong here," he whispered.

"You're telling me..."

"Before we left the Hidden Palace he pretended to have amnesia and asked me to tell him everything I knew. I went ahead and told him because I knew nothing."

"You still told him too much."

"You're starting to make me depressed."

"Sorry, keed."

"And I'm not a kid. Where was I?"

Sonic looked at X, "You were saying Hedgehog X is a spy."

"I didn't say...that."

"Something like it."

"Ha! He's right you know," butted in Sally, a reminder that X and Sonic weren't being as discreet as they should be. Then she looked intensely at X and said, "Our blood will spill because of you."

"Is the joke finished?" Hedgehog X said. All three suddenly turned around at the supposed "spy", who was smiling sarcastically and even a bit evilly, "So, what secret mission is this?"

Sonic gulped, then suddenly realized something very important, "Of course! We don't know either!"

X peered quizzically at Sonic, and Sally explained, "It's Midnight's mission. We're helping her."

"I thought she was helping us!" HX said.

"Oops, did I say that?" Midnight said sheepishly. "Well..."

(Midnight looks at the group, not wanting to tell her secret, not even to the princess.)

Midnight: I'm sorry, but my mission is private for now. All I can tell you is that I am here to help.

[Editor's Note: Just bouncing the ball back and forth...]

Sonic: What are you hiding sister?

Midnight: Some of the people I told aren't around anymore.

Sally: Midnight, we can't help you if you withhold information.

Midnight: I'm looking for someone. Where I come from, he was a great warrior, but somehow he came to be here. I don't know what he looks like because I was different at my home and so was he. I'm not a cheetah at all, and I never had wings. So I don't know what my mentor would look like.

Sonic: What was his name?

Midnight: His name is Duncan.

Sally: Duncan? Sonic do you remember any Duncan?

Sonic: Sorry, Sal, but Midnight looks like she can be trusted. Let's go back to Knothole!

[Editor's Note: Wasn't he the skeptical one a few lines ago?]

Midnight: Okay.

(Midnight watches as Sonic zooms off, takes off after him, and catches up with him in a split second. She smiles at him and then juices ahead of him.)

[Editor's Note: Urmmm, didn't she acknowledge him as "the fabled fastest thing alive" upon their meeting?]

Hedgehog X suddenly looked up at the sky.

"Uh oh," he said apprehensively.

"Huh? What?" Midnight said. X suddenly stopped what he was doing and looked up at the sky too. Suddenly a searing bolt of light ripped between X and Midnight and Hedgehog X, who seemed to be standing together for some reason. Hedgehog X mumbled and cursed a bit.

Midnight suddenly realized she wasn't anywhere near HX before and had become rather afraid of him, and backed away slowly. "Someone please tell me what's going on!!!" she screamed.

"So," X said, "what's the verdict this time?"

"Two against one," HX said, a grin suddenly breaking across his face. "You lose."

"Oh, shut up."

"Well, um, on with the quest. Where were we?"

X thumped HX, "I bet you wanna know!"

Hedgehog X rubbed his head, "Oh right, you were slipping into paranoia. Forgot."

"This is going nowhere!" X shouted. "We're supposed to let you help us, but we don't know what with. I'm going home." He beamed back to the Hidden Palace.

"Cool," Sonic said, stealing X's jetbike.

(Midnight grabs Sonic's arm.)

Sonic: Hey, hands off the quills!

Midnight: No, someone is here.

(Midnight takes out a dragon-head Masamune katana.)

[Editor's Note: Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!]

Sonic: Hey, what's with the big knife?

Midnight: I am Madelyne Night!

(Midnight yells into thin air and a dark cloaked figure walks from the shadows. He has an English broadsword in his hands.)

Midnight: Who are you?

Figure: There can be only one!

[Editor's Note: Uh-oh...I smell something that begins with "M" and ends with "edian Effect"...]

HX rubbed his hands in that particular way villains rubbed their hands when something unprecedented and very fortunate happened. He suddenly piped up, "Hey! We might need X! I'll go back to the Hidden palace and try to coax him into coming back. Or at least picking up his jetbike."

Sally glanced at him, "Okay, be careful. And if you get caught, don't talk."

"Can I scream for mercy?"

Midnight grinned. "That would depend if you can scream loud enough for us to hear you."

Everyone in the near vicinity chuckled (except for HX, of course) and HX sped off.

Sally whispered in Sonic's ear, "I'm going to follow him on the jetbike. Somehow I don't think he's going back to the Hidden Palace."

"Good idea," Sonic whispered back. "I'll show Midnight 'round the ol' neighborhood."

"You be careful Sonic."

"Double for you," Sonic whispered back, having fought Hedgehog X once before (even though he wasn't quite himself at the time*) and not liking the experience at all.

Soon Sally was gone, and Sonic turned to Midnight and said, "Well, I suppose you'd like to see Knothole, eh?"

[Editor's Note: Hee hee. He saw it now.]

"Damn, not again!" someone screamed from behind a bush. A flash of light shook the place, and Hedgehog X and Sally both suddenly appeared with their jetbikes (or with

X's jetbike, in Sally's case), looking dazed, confused and annoyed. The figure glared at HX.

"You too?!" he said, rather madly, "There can be...only...ONE!" With that he lunged at HX, and was very surprised to be grabbed by him and thrown to the ground.

"What are you talking about?" HX snarled.

"So!" Midnight growled, and pointed her Masamune katana (or something like that) at HX. "You too!"

"You're bloody loonies!" HX screamed, "I'm leaving you fools!"

"Coward!" the figure called, "You have no honor!"

"Nope," HX grumbled, climbed onto his jetbike, and sped off. Sally shrugged and followed him.

The figure turned his head in the direction of the disappearing jetbikes, shrugged and turned to Midnight, "I'll deal with the freak later," it hissed, "Madelyne

Night...let us dance!" Then he raised his broadsword to attack.

Sonic blinked.

(Midnight looks at the figure.)

Midnight: Who are you?!

Figure: Your worst nightmare. And, like that freak, I have no code of honor!

Midnight: Methos?! What are you doing here?!

Methos: Why, my dear Madelyne, I'm here for MacLeod!

Midnight: Why?

Methos: There can be only one, and it might as well be me!

Midnight: Methos, no! Duncan is our friend!

Unable to overcome the temptation, Sonic suddenly broke out singing:

"Fresh goes better

Fresh goes better..."

Methos introduced Sonic to his left hook, spitting as an afterthought, "Shut up, mortal."

"Mortal?" asked the muffled voice of Sonic talking into the ground. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, so our dear friend Madelyne hasn't told you?" he cackled.

"Shut up Methos..." Midnight growled, pointing the katana at the hooded figure.

"Oh! A threat? You're such a violent little brute!" Methos hissed, hate trickling in his voice like syrup, "You need a lesson in manners, girl..."

Far from this unloving scene, Sally was getting fairly annoyed. Hedgehog X had turned "Blackjack" on so loud that even Sally (making it a point to stay out of the range of the jetbike's scanners) could hear it. She got the notion that he actually wanted to bring a swarm of SWAT-Bots down upon their heads. Soon they reached the Hidden Palace Zone, and Hedgehog X zoomed full speed into the watch zone.

Sally was still a little suspicious, and waited out of sight for a few minutes outside the watch area. A few minutes later Hedgehog X zoomed out, wearing a jacket he had rather taken a liking to.

"To make himself look different from Sonic," Sally muttered, hoping Hedgehog X hadn't detected her. She gave him a good start and followed after, heading straight for

Robotropolis, Sally noticed. She also noticed that HX was changing speeds often and following a rather erratic course. He was either making sure he wasn't being followed, or was trying to shake her off, or...was he just playing games with her?

(Methos' British blood shows itself as he takes his hood off to show a distinct looking gray hedgehog. Midnight steps back and helps Sonic up.)

[Editor's Note: Okay, I know that first clause makes no frickin' sense, but it's a little better than "British accent", which is what she originally wrote.]

Midnight: Sonic, get Sally.

Sonic: What does he mean by "mortal"?

Midnight: I'll tell you later, if there is a later. Just get the princess!

"Why am I getting Sally?" Sonic asked.

"Would you shut up and go?!?!?!" Midnight screamed, pointing her katana at Sonic. Thinking she might be serious, he zoomed off in a hurry.

Midnight stared coldly at Methos and said, "You're taking Duncan over my dead body!"

"Yes," he said with a smirk, "I am."

Sonic raced as fast as he could, not realizing that Sally was a good ways away from Knothole by now...in Robotropolis.

Hedgehog X strolled nonchalantly up to an ominous black tower and waited for the door to open, the strolled into the tower without a trace of apprehension.

"Damn damn damn!" Sally muttered, hoping the SWAT-bots wouldn't hear her constant muttering and cursing. "He has full access to the tower! How did he get that? I need to follow him, but how...?"

Then Sally sighed with relief and found the perfect way in. Or so she thought.

"Ah, my good and trusted friend Robotnik," Hedgehog X said with a smirk. Snively didn't like the tone of HX's voice.

"Are you being sarcastic, hedgehog?" he tried to snicker, but his pathetic nasal voice only produced some irritating kind of sigh. Which was also what Snively wanted to do. Hedgehog X was trying to get Snively's job and it was obvious to everyone.

"Hmm...maybe." He grinned at Robotnik. "Remember that one we caught a few days ago?"

"The Highlander? The one from Earth?" Robotnik said.

"That's the one...Duncan," he said, and moved in to whisper even though there was no point to secrecy. "The Freedom Fighters have met a new friend who's looking for him. It sounds important."

"How so?"

"Because someone else wants to find him even more. A potential ally, I might add. His name is..." he grinned evilly, "Methos."

Up in the maintenance chamber, Sally couldn't believe what she was hearing. Not only was Hedgehog X telling everything, he was even considering enlisting the aid of another of their enemies.

"Where are they now?" Robotnik said.

"Well..." HX grinned. "I assume one will be dropping in any minute now..."

Suddenly a great shock of electricity coursed through the maintenance chamber, sending Sally flying through the wall and conveniently into the throne room/whatever. She was a little singed and bruised, but otherwise okay.

That'll change, thought HX deliciously.

Sally struggled to get up, but when she got in kneeling position she was suddenly sent sprawling to the ground by a swift kick to the head. Sonic was right, she thought, it isn't pleasant.

"Well well..." HX snickered. "Looks like the quarry was flushed out. Too bad," he stepped on Sally's neck, got closer and said, with evil trickling in his voice like syrup, "Will you tell this nice man where Knothole is?"

"Why?" she spat. "You probably already have!"

"Oh, no, it's a lot more fun to get it from a helpless Freedom Fighter." He said the last two words sarcastically as he could, which is pretty damn sarcastic.

Suddenly the door burst open and a voice said, "Sal! We gotta get out of..."

"You meddling bastard!" screamed Hedgehog X, and leapt for Sonic's throat...!

(Sally looks at Robotnik and then hears a groan from a cell. She looks towards the cell to see a black-furred fox, with hair pulled back. He looks at Sally with piercing brown eyes, and then at Robotnik.)

Sally: Duncan?

Sonic: Sal, we got to get out of here!

Sally: We have to save Duncan!

Robotnik: I don't think so, Princess. This Highlander, as he calls himself, will make a wonderful bot, don't you think?

Duncan: Go to Hell!

(Sally never heard a Scottish accent so dull. Sonic gets mad and jumps at

Hedgehog X. They start duking it out, when Midnight falls through a window. She lands on her butt in front of Robotnik.)

Duncan: Madelyne!

(Methos lands next to her.)

Methos: You were always a bad fighter.

"Methos!" Duncan growled. "Yoo hart won hair on thot gerl's head and I'll..."

"Nice cell you have there, 'MacClaud'!" he said, sarcastically mocking Duncan's accent. Suddenly Sonic flew by Methos and slammed into a nearby wall. Hedgehog X rubbed his sore back.

"It's just a tad crowded in here, don't you think?" HX growled. Robotnik nodded, and ordered a few SWAT-Bot squadrons to clear out the area. Sally frowned.

"Midnight, come on, we have to go," Sally called.

"Not without Duncan!"

"Midnight, we have to go now!"

Finally Sonic grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the exit to find that Methos was blocking it. "Oh," he said, "you're not going anywhere." He took a random swing with his broadsword, forcing them all to jump back.

"Ha!" HX said, "Told you he'd be useful."

"Oh, this is good," Robotnik said, rubbing his hands, "It seems they can't escape, for once." It was true. The Freedom Fighters were already surrounded. "Well, this could get a bit messy...hmm hmm. Why don't the three of us go celebrate?"

"I'm going to stay here," HX said, "in case any complications arrive."

Shrugging, Robotnik and Snively boarded a hoverpad and went off to do whatever villains do in their spare time. HX crossed his arms and leaned back.

"You are now prisoners of Robotnik," the SWAT-Bots announced in their standard monotone.

Methos glanced at Hedgehog X. "Do what you want with the mortals," he said, "but leave Midnight and Duncan to me."

HX shrugged and ordered the SWAT-Bots not to capture Midnight. However, the command wasn't finished before a few very well aimed bolts of liquid plasma rained down and annihilated the SWAT-bot squadrons.

[Editor's Note: Urmmm, Brent, "liquid plasma" is an oxymoron. It's the same as saying "liquid solid" or "liquid gas".]

"Okay, what are you doing here?" HX hissed at the robot who had suddenly appeared from wherever he was hiding.

"You, Sally, Sonic, Midnight, and that other guy all came here, so I thought I'd join the party," X said, smiling, then he added darkly, "Any last words, traitor?"

"Make you a deal," HX said as if he were still their friend. "Let me go and I'll let Duncan go."

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" screamed Methos. HX smiled and thrust his hand into the scanner, thereby opening the cell containing the Highlander. Everyone turned toward Methos, the thought of blood on their minds.

"Another day, friends!" Methos said, and dropped a smoke bomb, then ran as fast as he could. He tried not to lose his head. Hee hee.

"Hmph," HX said asininely, and sauntered off to find Robotnik and Snively.

Midnight: Duncan!

(Midnight runs over to the Highlander and helps him out of his bonds. He takes his katana out and twirls it in his hand.)

Duncan: Let's take out the trash!

Sonic: You got it!

(Midnight slices a bot in half as the others attack the other bots.)

"Are you aware that, once hit by plasma, SWAT-Bots really don't need to be killed any further?" X asked the Immortals, whose grasp on high-tech weapons was apparently limited.

As the Freedom Fighters responded with sarcastic remarks, X whispered, in an aside to HX, "What the hell are you trying to pull?!"

HX's eyes widened, but again, he knew better than to be too surprised. After all, this was his best friend here...

"Just keep playin' along," he whispered in response.

[Editor's Note: Woohoo, Median Effect!]

Far away from this scene, yet another decisive defeat for Robotnik, Hedgehog X finally found Robotnik and Snively sipping champagne and playing with a beach ball that looked like the world.

"And I thought you two didn't know how to have fun," HX said, grinning at this rather childish spectacle.

Robotnik regained his seriousness and stood up regally. "Status report, Xavier!"

"They scared away Methos and they got Duncan," HX said dismally, and looked up, grinning. "All's going according to plan."

"But what if they find the tracking device?" Snively asked, a little apprehensive.

HX smiled, "I believe you are mistaking me for a rank amateur."

"So where did you put it?"

All three instinctively leaned forward in that kind of "you aren't going to believe this and don't tell anyone else" huddle and HX said quietly, "In the back of his throat."

"Excellent!" Robotnik said sharply. "And I put it there, am I right?"

"You'll get the credit and I won't be blamed for the destruction of Knothole..." HX said. "I love it. Now, you understand our bargain, right? Remember, if you back out on me, everything you worked for will be gone before you can blink."

Robotnik nodded, trying to overcome his ego and remember how crafty and dangerous this hedgehog was. He prayed that making such a pact wouldn't be a huge blunder.

"Well, that settled, let's enjoy ourselves before we prepare the attack." HX took a conveniently-placed glass of champagne, looked at it, announced Robotnik had no taste, and started to make a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

[Editor's Note: He sees the error of his ways. Or something.]

(Duncan looks at Sal.)

Duncan: So, you're a princess, huh?

Sally: Yes I am.

Duncan: I have met a lot of royalty in my life. From what Madelyne has told me, Methos is here, and you need help in this war. Count me in...and we need to find Richie to.

[Editor's Note: I don't get the "from what Madelyne has told me" bit either. I, for one, distinctly saw...ummm, read...the two meet a couple chapters ago.]

X was very angry at this point. He was still wondering what the hell Hedgie was trying to pull...the bug he'd sent with HX had obviously been deliberately crushed.

"I hope you know what you're doing," he muttered. "I mean, what the hell is with all this 'where's Knothole' crap I heard a minute ago, anyway?! You and I...and Robotnik...know full-well that Knothole is located in the Hidden Palace now, and has been for some time."

And then a thought came to X. "Light, I hope not," he muttered. "But if they do break into the Palace, I'm sure there's a reason for it..."

HX suddenly wondered who X was talking to and sat down for a moment to figure out what he was doing.

[Editor's Note: Uhhhh, that's chaos theory, Brent.]

Hedgehog X was, meanwhile, admiring himself. He reflected light off his new suit in every direction. It was black titanium alloy, and consisted of some black boots with spikes in it, black gloves with spikes in it, and the standard ornamental whatever-the-hell-it-is V thingamabob he wears when he's a prince. There was also some body and torso covering, of course. He took a close look at himself and a small voice in the back of his head cracked that he looked very much like Darth Vader, but with less breathing problems.

Very funny, he thought back at his other self. He checked the time display on his arm. An hour until the raid, he thought, enough time to get in beforehand and do what he had to. He stepped into the spa room, and averted his gaze so as not to hurl directly at Robotnik and Snively, two people who really should not use a spa. At least not in public.

"I'd like to go ahead," he said, "and pay my, um, final respects to the Freedom Fighters."

"What guarantee will I have that you won't warn them of our assault?"

"You think I'm taking our deal lightly, don't you?" HX said softly. "You know I want what you have, Robotnik."

Then his tone got a little happier, "I'll take my third of the army with me, and they'll report to you if we got sold out."

"That sounds fair," Robotnik said, shrugging, and waving Hedgehog X out in dismissal.

HX sat back in his transport bot set on autopilot, and tapped the intercom.

"All SWAT-Bot squadron leaders of the third unit, give your communicators to me."

He opened his door, and one by one they mindlessly obliged. HX stepped into a back room and started bugging all the communicators. Then he tapped the intercom again.

This time he spouted some new coordinates, and the transport-bots obliged. They were very surprised to crash into the ground.

"Good," HX said to himself, "Robotnik will still get a signal from them, and I can face the Freedom Fighters without those stupid robots. Plus..." he suddenly grinned,

"there goes a third of Robuttnik's army." He reclined.

"Somebody just dropped a helluvalotta bugs in Robotown, mon capitan," X reported.

"HX?" Sally guessed.

X nodded. "Something tells me he intended for us to be able to use them...though I don't doubt his primary concern right now is he, himself, and him."

Sally nodded. "I wonder what his game is..."

X shrugged. "Even I can't read him at this point...perhaps the only one who can is his sister."

"True enough," Sally responded. "Perhaps we should ask her what's up?"

"You do that," X said, "and meanwhile, I'll prepare our defenses...Hedgie's plan can't possibly involve allowing Robotnik to breach the Hidden Palace, but it could certainly involve the EggMan trying..."

(Midnight looks at Sonic, who is stuffing his face with chilidogs.)

Midnight: Ugh, how can you eat that?

Duncan: Same way Richie eats.

(Midnight laughs at Duncan's joke.)

Meanwhile, Kate was trying very hard to get through to her brother at Sally's request. Suddenly she screamed and fell backwards from the desk she had her head rested on in concentration.

"What's wrong?" Sally asked.

"That little bastard," cursed Kate, "he's blocking me! He's wearing something, and it's very, very evil."

Sally blinked, "He's wearing what?"

"Something," Kate said, and shut her mouth.

X then stepped into the room, and said in a low voice, "He's here."

"Wow," Kate said when the Freedom Fighters had all gathered to talk to the betrayer, "you look like Shredder."

"Hey!" HX snapped, "I look like Darth Vader!"

Shut up, Zero's thoughts coursed through HX's brain. You're stealing my lines.

"What's your game this time, spy?" X said, part smug and part angry.

Hedgehog X paused for a moment, then said slowly, "I planted those bugs to make sure you'd still trust me enough to listen to me. You should evacuate Knothole, now."

"What are you going to do?" Sally asked.

HX looked at the village. Beautiful, he thought, kind of a waste. HX shrugged. "I'm going to destroy the village. Then I'll move it out of here. You should leave." HX paused, then scowled and said very seriously, "Now."

X raised his arm at Hedgehog X. "And if we don't?"

HX regarded X rather vacantly for a moment, then in a quick, startling movement he drew a beam sabre from his back, and growled, "You will leave, by your choice...or by mine."

Midnight: You lost me.

Duncan: We stay, we die. We leave, we die. Not much of a choice.

Midnight: What?

Duncan: an Immortal is waiting for us to leave.

X blasted at HX. The shot was off -- as he had intended -- but it looked like this was because of HX's clever dodging.

"Nice shootin', Tex," the hedgehog said with a laugh.

"X," the android responded. "The name is X."

"Whatever," Xavier said with a shrug, then promptly leapt behind X and held the beam sabre to his throat.

"Go!" X shouted. "Get the hell outta here! I'll be right behind you!"

Sonic and Sally looked at Kate for confirmation. She nodded. "I'll be right here with X...and my brother," she said, emphasizing the last word.

"'Wearing something evil' is right," she muttered once the others had filed out.

"New kind of beam sabre?" X joked as he passed his neck back and forth through it several times. "Not terribly effective."

"It's on its lowest setting," HX explained. "I could choose to do some real harm at any point."

Kate laughed. "You, doing any real harm?! You don't even use your powers to the faintest inkling of their full potential!"

"They suit my purpose without being used to the faintest inkling of their full potential," HX said defensively. "Why use a crutch if your legs are in the very best shape possible?"

"Well, for one thing," X responded, "your ankle could be hurt." That earned him a slap upside the head from Xavier.

"Well," Kate said, "back to the task at hand: let's do what we must. Still, I don't feel right keeping things from my friends..."

"It had to be done," HX responded. "You had to pretend I had a method of blocking you out...increases my perceived threat and what-not."

"Point duly noted," Kate muttered.

(HX is grabbed from behind, and finds himself staring into the burning green eyes of a very angry cheetahmorph.)

Midnight: Talk now! What are you up to, why is Methos here, and where is Richie?! I will die, yes, but I will come back.

"I'll talk," HX hissed, "when I have a windpipe!"

Thrusting his legs into the air, he kicked off the newbie, who landed soundly on her feet. "Well, if you people won't go away, at least hide," he said with a shrug.

"Just what are you doing?" X said.

"Fine, if you won't go away," HX continued, leaving X's question unacknowledged, "this'll only hurt a bit." He thrust his hand into the air, clutched something unseen, then pulled his arm down. Suddenly a burst of energy formed at the center of Knothole, and started growing alarmingly fast.

"Ack!" X said, and dropped to the ground, hands over his head.

"Relax," Kate said, "He's just..." Then the energy swallowed her up.

"Just wha..." And X was gone too.

"Whaaa!" Midnight cried out, and took off running, which suited Hedgehog X fine as the energy engulfed him as well. Then it flew into the air.

And then it came crashing down on the outskirts of the Floating Island, and formed back into the matter it was.

X looked up, and blinked. "You teleported a whole village?!?!?!"

"Got any aspirin?" he said casually.

"I'm a robot," X responded. "Why on Mobius would I carry any aspirin?!"

Moodily, he tossed HX a Sub Tank, which the hedgehog promptly chugged, leaving a glowing "mustache" on his upper lip.

"I thought you were planning on turning into Zero before taking that," X muttered.

HX smirked. "Nice try. Sorry, but I ain't about to give my consciousness to someone who would spill the whole story."

"So you've been struck with a bit of nostalgia for the old days when you were an enigma, eh?" X muttered. He hadn't seen much of said old days, but he'd been there for part of them, and had his fill.

"They don't call me 'Hedgehog X' for nothin'," the hedgehog responded.

"Yes we do," said a voice, and Kate Chaos stepped out of the shadows. "Amy Rose was the only one who had any sort of reason for it."

HX shrugged. "Goin' to Robotown," he said. "Be back later." With that, he tossed X his Sub Tank, and beamed out.

Kate filled the Sub Tank up with a bit of Emerald power, muttering that one of the Freedom Fighters was bound to need it...not least likely her brother.

HX beamed back in where neither the Freedom Fighters nor Robotnik would expect, and promptly beat himself up. He then smashed the comm units that were telling Robotnik his SWAT-Bots were still functional (methodically, of course) and staggered to where Robotnik's army was scheduled to be, and looked pitifully at Robotnik.

"It was the same ol' mistake...same...ol'..." Then he slumped to the ground.

Snively frowned. "I don't believe," he growled, "that a bunch of little cowards could destroy a third of our army and nearly destroy a born fighter equipped with our robotic armor."

"He knows it won't deter us," Robotnik said. "Put him in the truck, he will rejuvenate by the time the attack starts."

Damn, HX thought, they're going to take me along anyway. Well, at least my cover isn't blown. Yet.

"Well, we convinced Hedgehog X not to destroy Knothole," Sally said, "but..."

"He got the whole cavalry!" Sonic exclaimed, "Man, this is serious."

"He really wants us out, doesn't he?" X growled, "Kate, just what is he doing?"

"It's..." Kate paused, wondering whether or not she should respect her brother's wishes. "He's still on our side, that's all I will say."

"Fine," X growled, and listened to Sally's war strategies.

(Midnight is looking around; she is confused.)

Midnight: Where am I?

Knuckles: You are trespassing on the Floating Island!

Midnight: Who are you?

Knuckles: I'm Knuckles, the Guardian of the Floating Island.

Midnight: I'm Midnight. Where is Sonic?

Knuckles: I don't know or care!

Midnight: Oh God! Duncan! I gotta find him.

Knuckles: Who?

Midnight: Duncan MacLeod, my teacher.

Sonic peered quizzically at the two. "Chill out, Knuckles!" he called. "It's just Midnight, the newbie..." He said newbie as if it were something blatantly obvious, which it would have been if Knuckles had been paying attention to recent events instead of perfecting his brownie recipe.

"Sorry, mon, I just be rememberin' da times I was de Guardian of de Island, mon." Knuckles couldn't speak in plain English for very long, it seemed.

"Hey, you still are!" Sonic said, trying to boost morale as much as he could. "Just remember who's your best buds and your worst enemies."

"So I can punch de hedgehog's lights out, mon?"

Sonic stared at Knuckles. "He has a good reason and you know it."

"Dang, I was hoping for an excuse, mon."

Sonic shook his head and looked at Midnight. "Duncan's hiding, remember?"

Midnight got defensive. "Duncan hides from no man!"

"You don't get it, mon. Duncan's hiding for Xavia'."

Sonic glanced at Midnight and started to notice something odd. Whenever Knuckles spoke in that stupid accent of his Midnight would tense up as if fighting the urge to attack. Sonic smiled.

"Hey Knuc," he whispered, "have you noticed Midnight can't stand your accent?"

"Yeah mon," Knuckles whispered back. "What do ya make of it?"

Sonic smiled. "You know what this means, don't you?"

"Yeah mon, we're gonna take er to see Antoine."

Midnight: I cannae believe ye. Duncan be hiding for Xavier? For all we know he may be like St. Cloud! Duncan would nae be doing this unless they forced him. Has he gone daft, Lad?

(Midnight speaks with a Scottish brogue. Knuckles backs up a bit.)

Knuckles: Chill, mon.

Midnight: I be no mon! I be a warrior! Now, where be Richie at?

Sonic: I don't know.

Midnight: Well, we better find him, or Richie will lose his head to Methos!

(Midnight growls and looks at Knuckles.)

Midnight: And if ye ever want to fight I'll wipe the floor with ye just like I can outrun Sonic over there.

"...And then you woke up," Sonic commented.

"Irish accents don't scare me," Knuckles muttered, suddenly losing the Jamaican accent. "I met a version of myself from another reality who had one."

"Scoatish," Midnight said peevishly.

"Whatever," Sonic and Knuckles said in unison, rolling their eyes.

"This gives me the greatest sense of disquiet," X muttered.

"I'm not too crazy about it myself," Sally muttered. "Deal with it."

The two were on a hill overlooking Robotropolis. As they watched the city, they felt eyes gazing back at them, from somewhere.

"The Eye of Sauron," X muttered.

"Cow-Ron?" Sally questioned.

"Sauron," X corrected. "A character in a book by an author on Earth."

Sally rolled her eyes.

"I don't think it's Xavier," Kate said quietly.

A dark look appeared in X's eyes, and he spoke one harsh word: "Packbell."

[Editor's Note: Damn, a good plot device ruined by the Median Effect. It coulda been great, too, if we'd expanded on the Packbell idea...]

"I'd hate to break up this moment of love," said a voice with infinite sarcasm, "but...they're he-ere..."

Sonic spun around to see X and Sally looking fretful. "Who's here?" he said.

Sally set Nicole on the ground and activated a projector. A diagram showing Knothole appeared, as well as thousands of little blips speeding towards it.

"Do you know what this means?" Sally said in the "look, we're screwed!" voice.

"Yeah," Sonic snickered, "We're gonna run out of punch."

X kicked Sonic in the shin. "Hedgehog X has brought Robotnik's full army down on us! He's out of control!"

Midnight spat, "Just wait till I get my hands on that little freak of nature..."

"You won't have long to wait," Sally said. "Look!"

Already transports carrying SWAT-Bots, Buzz-Bombers, and even more ghastly abominations to the Floating Island were visible.

[Editor's Note: Why would Buzz-Bombers need to be carried in transports?]

"I've gotta ring the ol' alarm bell!" Sonic sped back into Knothole, exasperated.

"What now?" Midnight said.

"We decide on a plan. They can either surround the Floating Island and close in, or they can focus their resources on one point. And we can either guard the perimeter, or we can guard the front gate." X scratched his head.

"Hedgehog X seems to be only interested in the destruction of the village, not us." Sally looked apprehensively at the transports. "There must be something important he wants here, in which case they'll probably surround the island."

"Right," X nodded, "and if they do try a full frontal assault, we can always pull our people to the center of Knothole."

"Right, all that's left is to get ready."

[Editor's Note: Brent sees the Median Effect. That's always fun.]

"Sir, perhaps you should take a look at this," Snively said, pointing at a monitor. Robotnik pointed quizzically at it. So did Hedgehog X.

"That's funny," Robotnik said. "The robot, the squirrel, and the child are both conversing on the Floating Island and trespassing in our domain."

"You know what this means, don't you?" Hedgehog X growled.

"What?" Snively and Robotnik spoke up in unison.

"Hit the deck!" Hedgehog X screamed as a searing bolt of light suddenly flashed down from above. Ironically, it hit Hedgehog X directly; all that was left of him was a black spot where he used to be.

Robotnik and Snively would have stared in horror if they, and the rest of Mobius, could do anything.

Hedgehog X mumbled, mostly at the ground he was facing. "Damn," he said appropriately. "Damn damn damn. Thrice. Three times. This is starting to suck."

He picked himself off the ground to discover there was no ground. That is to say, he was definitely standing on something solid, but he could not see it. Everything was utterly black, black like HX could never had imagined. It was more than a little unnerving. Especially the sudden waves of déjà vu that continually washed over him despite the fact that he had definitely never been here before.

He turned his head. More blackness. His frame of reference was gone: Hedgehog X was completely lost. He spun around for a while, seeing nothing, and eventually decided he'd better go somewhere.

He walked in one direction for a while.

Oddly enough this produced a positive effect. Soon he came across an odd castle, beautiful in a way he could never describe. Suddenly he heard a voice, and it was more than reassuring...until he interpreted it.

"Your castle, Prince Chaos," it said. HX spun around and saw a man he instinctively wanted to kick. Growling, he shouted, "Who are you?!?!?!"

"I would have guessed you'd have forgotten already," he sighed. "I am...LOGIC. Come. We have much to figure out."

HX walked blindly behind the eccentric little man to the castle. This, he decided, now officially sucked.

Midnight: Okay, now we need Duncan. Where is he?!

Sonic: Why?

Midnight: He's great in fights.

Knuckles: We don't need him, mon.

Midnight: Yes we do, lad.

Knuckles: Don't call me lad.

Midnight: I'm three hundred seventeen years old. I think that makes you a child.

"Shut up," said a sudden voice from nowhere, "you're supposed to be frozen. Now come along, Midnight."

And suddenly Midnight found herself also yanked into the Middle of Nowhere with a very perturbed Hedgehog X and Mega Man X.

"What, exactly, are we doing here?" Midnight asked.

Hedgehog X said, "Mr. Perfect 'ere says we have to fix the timestream because we keep splitting it."

"How did we do that?" X said.

HX shrugged. "Damned if I know," he muttered.

"Come on," LOGIC growled. "I have all eternity, but you don't!"

Midnight: Excuse me, but I don't get pushed around by no one I don't know. And if I stay here with no Immortals I do have eternity! And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to find Duncan because Freak of Nature has him hidden.

"You don't get it, do you?" LOGIC growled.

"We're not on Mobius anymore, Toto!" HX quipped. Then he spun around and faced LOGIC. "Fine, good, repair the continuum of spacetime and whatnot, very lovely. And how shall we go about this?"

"We need to find the magic pencil in the castle," LOGIC explained, pointing arbitrarily at Castle Chaos, "but it is guarded by the ferocious Maleophonix, the Singing Candy Machine."

X fell to his knees, "Not that damn candy machine!!!" he cried.

Midnight: I'm not going to fight a machine!

"Of course we're not gonna fight it," X responded. "The thing is, Maleophonix was a form Kate once transformed HX into, in a previous KateStory...which is what this has developed into. See, I wouldn't be as omniscient as I am now except in a KateStory.

"Anywayz," he continued, "for Maleophonix and HX to exist simultaneously, something's gotta be wrong with HX...Maleophonix must be appearing as a projection of his consciousness, like Haplo's --"

HX slapped X. "If I ever plan to read Death Gate, I'll do it for myself," he muttered. "Besides, don't spoil it for Steve, who's leaning over the author's shoulder."

"Okay, okay," X muttered. "Here, we're gonna need to bang our heads on these..."

X withdrew three foam rubber cutouts in the shape of Bill Clinton's head.

"Not more magic transportation devices," HX moaned.

"I'm not gonna use a magic transportation device!" Midnight said vehemently.

"Stop being so contrary to everything we do!!!!!" X screamed, helping her bash her head on it.

"Let's roll," X and HX said in unison, and then bashed their heads on the remaining two foam rubber cutouts in the shape of Bill Clinton's head.

(Midnight kicks HX in the groin.)

Midnight: This is my story! Follow my lead!

"Not anymore!" HX screamed in between howls.

X smiled. "That's a pretty good impression, Hedgehog X. I didn't know you did Amaroq."

"Shut up," HX growled. "Let's just turn this story back into one that makes some sort of sense."

"More than happy to oblige!" Midnight said.

LOGIC waved the group towards a door. "This way!" he called.

"You seem like you're in some sort of hurry!" X said.

"Um, well, your dimension's normal flow of time has been stopped," LOGIC explained, "but I can't keep it that way for long. And as for you, Hedgehog X, you can't afford to lose a second in your reality."

"That's for sure," HX muttered, picking up speed. "There are too many random elements to compensate for already."

X managed to run beside HX. "Xavier, what's so important that you're bringing a whole army down on us, anyway?"

"Robotnik...has...something...we...will...need...very...soon..." he said in between short breaths. "Robotnik promised to give it to me if I destroy you...or at least make it appear so."

"Is that why Duncan is hiding?" Midnight asked.

"One who has seen so much life will understand life so much better..." he answered cryptically.

"Huh?" X asked.

"Shh!" LOGIC sounded sharply. "Don't...disturb...the candy machine."

"It doesn't look so tough," Midnight said, peering at the candy machine.

"Yeah? Well, that thing is me!" HX whispered.

"You don't look so tough either."

X shook his head. "He is. Just trust me."

Hedgehog X smiled slightly and turned his attention to, er, himself.

"I've got an idea," X whispered, pulling a Chaos Emerald and a gumball out of Hedgehog X's jacket.

"How did you know I had those in there?" HX whispered sharply.

"Shh..." X admonished, charging power into the gumball. Then he stood up and raised it over his head. "Magic Gumball away!"

[Editor's Note: "LOLTASB" is Brent's own acronym. It stands for "laughing out louder than a sonic boom".]

"Oh, shi --" X started to shout, but was censored.

HX smacked himself in the head. "You were supposed to throw the gumball, not the Emerald!!!!!!!!!"

"I know," X said sheepishly.

Maleophonix slowly turned toward the trio. If candy machines can look sinister, it did.

"So you've come," it said. "X, I gave you the ability to choose your own path in life, and I had hoped the world would --"

"Shut up!" HX shouted, promptly blasting the projection of his consciousness. The Chaos Emerald, however, protected the candy machine.

"Dammit!" X shouted, and prepared to chuck the gumball at the sinister-looking item. Midnight tensed, also ready to attack. But then, the two of them were frozen by a piercing, evil cry:

"Hey, Macarena!"

"You fiend," HX said, glowering at the singing candy machine that couldn't sing, as his two companions began to dance.

"What a worthless gesture!" Maleophonix laughed. "Well, HX, it's just you and me now."

Suddenly, HX turned red. If candy machines can look surprised, Maleophonix did.

"What the --?! Where did that energy come from?! No matter. It really doesn't matter how much energy you absorb, you are still far too weak!"

HX grinned evilly. "Cure 4!" he shouted, casting a healing spell on Maleophonix.

"Nooooo!!!!! I'm meeeeelting! Meeeeeeelting! Oh, what a world...my beautiful lack of singing talent..."

HX grinned as the projection of his consciousness disappeared in much the same way as Cecil's battle with his dark side (only Cecil didn't have Cure 4). "C'mon, you guys," he said as Midnight and X woke from their trance. "We've got a mission to accomplish!"

(Midnight grabs X.)

Midnight: Personally, when I do the Macarena, it turns Duncan on.

(She gives him a seductive smile which is worse than anything Amanda can give.)

If a robot could look surprised, X sure as hell did.

"I never really thought of you as a healer," X said.

"I, uh...damn, how did I do that!?" HX looked at his hand. "'Where did that power come from?', indeed!"

LOGIC nodded. "It came from me."

"How?"

"To make a long story short, I extrapolated the power from your future self and transferred it to you."

Midnight scratched her head.

"LOGIC gave Hedgehog X the power he is going to have," X explained to her. "But how?"

Hedgehog X smacked LOGIC, "Good one, brother!"

X suddenly saw a vague hint of a smile break out across LOGIC's face. HX looked a little perturbed. "Now the bloody charade is obvious!"

"If you're done," LOGIC said calmly, "time is of the essence."

"Okay, what now?" Midnight said, eager to get back to reality.

Logic entered a room briefly, and returned with a crystal ball. "All three of you must touch this, and concentrate on the world you wish to return to."

X, Midnight, and HX touched the crystal ball, with the same thought on their mind: Why remake Mobius as the ruined world it is? Why not create a perfect paradise, free of

Robotnik and everything bad?

And then three very different thoughts came to each of their minds. X and Midnight smiled evilly, but Hedgehog X's face was twisted with anguish.

Someone is testing us!!! he thought with horror.

"X! Midnight! N..." And the new world was created.

"Palace fountain, 3224...palace fountain, 3224...palace fountain, 32...X! Midnight! N..."

"In the words of Bob Hoskins," X said when the smoke cleared, "'Where da hell ah we?!'"

"What movie did he say that in?!" HX said menacingly.

"Uhhhh...it must've been Who Framed Roger Rabbit! Yeah!"

"It better've been," HX growled.

"Anyway, this is your fault," X growled. "Why the hell can't you trust us for thirty seconds?!"

"I always trust you!" HX shouted.

"'Denial and paranoia,'" X quoth, "'classic symptoms.'"

"Hey...what happened to the kitty?"

"Sir Kain? He lost Prodigy."

"No, the other one."

"Kabuki? She did too."

HX smacked X.

"Damn you Joey!" X shouted.

"What the hell are you babbling about now?!" HX screamed.

"Ummmm...people named Joey who punch you in the arm because you got pissed off at their girlfriend, and then immediately afterwards say that you were completely in the right and they respect you greatly and would've done exactly the same thing in your position, and that you didn't deserve to be punched, which is all well and good, but doesn't heal the bruise on your arm."

"Remind me not to ask," HX said, rather annoyed that X was apparently channeling the spirit of Kate and speaking in really long run-on sentences.

"HX," X said, "don't ask."

HX frowned. "But, back on-topic...whatever happened to Midnight?"

X shrugged. "Lost Prodigy?" he suggested.

HX smacked him. Repeatedly.

"Okay," HX growled, "Where are we?!?!?!"

"Palace fountain, 3224."

"Really?"

X looked around. "That's what my scanners indicate. By the way, HX, don't look down."

"Why?" HX said, furrowing a brow.

"Because you're disintegrating."

HX looked down, against his better judgement. "Hmm..." he said sagely, trying to think of something appropriate to say. "D'oh!"

"So are you," the rodent muttered.

"Well, so I am!" X exclaimed.

"So," HX said, "What exactly in the hell is going on here?!?!?!?!"

"So far as I can guess," X said, "we're in that post-Mobius Apocalypse reality where Robotnik never existed. Resultingly, you were never created...and the version of me that came to Mobius never existed."

"But that's impossible!" HX burst. "Quantum mechanics, remember?!"

"Yeah, well," X said, "quantum mechanics implies that every imaginable reality exists...even realities where quantum mechanics itself doesn't apply!"

"Great," HX muttered. "And who exactly selected us to be the versions of ourselves to wind up here?!"

X would have shrugged, but by then his shoulders were gone.

"You know what I think?" the head of Hedgehog X said.

"What do you think?" X's head said back.

"I think it's time we do something."

"I think you're right."

"I think you're right!"

Then they disappeared from that dimension.

A loud CLANG! rang through the hedgehog's ears as he suddenly remembered that he was, in fact, still wearing armor. HX, X, and Midnight picked themselves off the ground and gazed at Castle Chaos.

"Damn, what the hell happened?" HX growled.

"You failed," said a voice.

Midnight turned and growled, "What the hell are you talking about?"

LOGIC strode purposefully up to the three. "You failed, you dumbasses. Now we have to find the crystal ball again in thirty seconds or the time restraint will stop!"

[Editor's Note: Crystal ball? Wasn't it a magic pencil before?]

HX grabbed X and Midnight and took off, shouting, "X, get the gumball and get ready, we're going to rush!!!"

[Editor's Note: Uh-oh, I smell trouble.]

(Midnight looks around.)

Midnight: Duncan said he was here before HX told him to hide! He also told me that Sonic and Sally were wee bairns...er, young kids. Come on, I got an idea!

(Midnight grabs X and HX and takes to the air. She lands on a tree and looks at a group of kids along with Sonic and Sally watching a black fox teach some fighting skills to some soldiers.)

Midnight: There's Duncan, Sonic, and Sally. Come on. We got to warn them about Robobutt!

[Editor's Note: Argh! Fool! Even if she didn't see Brent's latest post (which she obviously didn't), she still should've been able to figure out from the threads given that there was no Robotnik in that reality...]

And then, suddenly, the world exploded.

"Damn Median Effect," HX muttered, rubbing his bruised head.

"Median Effect...?" Midnight asked timidly. "Should I ask...?"

"No," HX responded.

"It's what happens when two authors post conflicting chapters," X informed her.

"D'oh," was all Midnight could think to appropriately say.

"Well, on the plus side," HX said, "we did finish LOGIC's mission..."

"Who the hell cares?!" X shouted. "All LOGIC disappears when the Median Effect takes place!"

"Yeah, well," HX said, "we can always use this thing to get back..."

"Or somewhere else entirely!" X said with a huge grin.

Midnight glared at him.

"Use what to get back where?" HX screamed.

"Bye," said Midnight, and cut off her own head.

Suddenly, Duncan, Methos and Richie died as well, and they all disappeared.

"Fome," X said.

HX picked up the crystal ball which was lying around. "I think that's, um...six Median Effects today."

"Fome," X said.

"Come on, we have to get back to our time, the time stop has probably worn off already."

"Fome," X said.

HX beat X over the head with a crystal ball.

"Say something that makes sense, dammit!"

X shrugged and screamed in HX's ear, "Something that makes sense, dammit!"

X nodded. "Something that makes sense, dammit."

HX growled and they placed their hand upon the ball. Suddenly they materialized up Macarena's skirt.

"X!" HX screamed, and disintegrated.

"Whoo-hoo-hoo!" X danced until he was discovered and smacked across the room, where he disintegrated.

That's right, boys and girls, we've come to our conclusion...for now. But stick around for the Third Anniversary KateStory Revival, beginning October 22, 1997, for subscribers of my off-topic mailing list! E-Mail me for more information!