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.
Who's writing the next part?
- X
"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 Kelly 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.)
- Hedgehog X, leaving it up to you!
"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...
- X
"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...
- Hedgehog X
"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...
- Kate (I just had to add Tolkien.)
"Sméagol?" 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!" Sméagol 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!"
- HX
"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.
- X
"We are in the middle of nowhere, where it is just insanity!"
Yakko Wakko and Dot ran by, and Sméagol followed.
"Oh great," muttered Kate, "My loony brother, Animaniacs, and a skits-a-frantic thing!"
- Kate
X groaned. "How 'bout we bang our heads on something and hope it's something magic?" he asked.
- X
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!"
- Hedgehog X
[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.
- Hedgehog X
Kate moaned as they appeared at the Isle of the Sacred Mountain from KQVI. Then they were thrown in the Catacombs.
- Kate
"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.
- X
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.
- Kate
"Yeah," X said, "thank Thomas Light you don't do that!"
When they got to Castle Chaos, though, something was terribly wrong...
- X
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.
- Hedgehog X
"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!"
- X
"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.
- Hedgehog X
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.
- Vails
"What the heck is going on?!" X asked. "Who's who? What's what? Why am I Kumba?!"
- X
[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.
- Hedgehog X
[Editor's Note: Now he responds to me.]
Good question! Hi, Thad...um...er, Chris. How's it on Earth...um, er...still on Mobius?
- Zero...um...er, Hedgehog X
Ummmmmm, I'm confused...
- Raptor
"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.
- Hedgehog X
"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.
- X
Lord of the Rings again...I think.
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
PS -- Read Dragonlance: Kindred Spirits (The Meetings Sextet, Vol. One)
"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."
- Hedgehog X
[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.
Bang!
"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."
- Hedgehog X
[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?"
- X
[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.
- X
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!"
And all of the above are true; my teacher makes us do that.
- Kate
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.
- Hedgehog X
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.
- Kate
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.
- Hedgehog X
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..."
- X
PS: If anyone wants to know more about Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD), I have a shareware version I can give to you...it can run without a BBS if you want it to.
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.
- Hedgehog X
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..."
- Kate
PS -- To find out who Tanis and Laurana are, read Dragonlance: Kindred Spirits (The Meetings Sextet, Vol. 1)
"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.
- Hedgehog X
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..."
- X
HX then reeled in shock...
"Capcom Junk Mail list?" He remembered the totally useless ad he got in the mail for MMX2, and used 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...
- Hedgehog X
...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)
- Kate
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.
- Hedgehog X
...and Kate let A.N.T. 100 back into Sonic '95 and they all lived happily ever after!
The End!
- A.N.T. 100
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...
- X
Created 04.03.26