D&C FT- Look What Tarah Can Do

         In a world parallel to the norm, the sky shone as an aurora of purple and black, like a priceless, yet ominous stone. A small formation of bony, avian creatures soared the eternal night, their wings catching the eery colors to create a sparkling, streaking sheen above. The ground was nothing; only a hovering pink haze told where one could safely stand, as footing here was like the most invisible of glass. And the few landmarks that humanized this land were not comforting, and only reminded the observer that they were out of this world.

         This was Dreamscape, a haven for the beings beyond our consciousness...and the dementia of nightmares.

         A distant sparkle could be seen through the aurora, slowly taking its shape as it came into the world's notice. It was another figure, just to the side of the fiendish flock of fowl, larger and moving downwards at a fantastic pace towards the mist-covered non-ground. Though the figure was nowhere close to the other creatures, they cleared out of the way regardless due to the interloper's impressive speed. Its dive was like lightning compared to their own modest skills, and its manner was like the most dangerous of sky hunters.

         The figure, now recognizable as human, turned a flip to right itself from the head-first dive, arranging its legs for the landing. The baggy green jacket and slacks it wore flapped roughly in the gales, and the yellow scarf wrapped around its neck created a dramatic counterpoint with the ethereal skies. This new person landed gracefully in a crouch, its hat miraculously staying in position above spiky red locks that hung over the face. And as the person stood upright, the hair shifted upwards to reveal the features of a young, teenage boy, with emerald green eyes and a fierce aura to belie his gentle frame.

         Park stood for a brief moment to eye the empty world before him, his face carrying both trepidation and purpose. Though his movements were not cold, they were businesslike, comparable to that of a warrior who knew how to handle that dreadful time before actual battle. Already he stood before his destination, a fuchsia pyramid of light not half a mile from where he stood. Not taking time to dawdle, he proceeded in a steady gait towards the structure, preparing to steady himself with a light-footed journey.

         As Park took each step, a soft clanking sounded out as dark fanfare for his arrival. He came into the realm armed, after all, with a sheathed sword on his back as well as another on his hip. The armaments did not burden him, as he carried himself as lithely as the naked panther. Indeed, he was now a scant few yards from the pyramid, and able to make out the dark shape frozen within.

         His eyes narrowed to see beyond the barrier of light, as he felt the dread of ultimate truth fill his heart. The creature contained in the pyramid could not quite be described as a figure, for it was little more than a violet cloak draped as if over an invisible man. A intangible smoke poured from the bottom of the cloak, and the seemingly-empty hood concealed sinister, glowing eyes that appeared to be slightly closed. In response to its visitor, they opened up into a sinister stare, and soon its cold, masculine voice could be heard, though it emanating not from the being, not even from within Park's mind, but from Dreamscape itself.

         "So, the boy hero returns to seek the High Dream Demon," the wraith said, in a manner that could be described as slightly taunting. "Has it been four years, or five?"

         "The legend says that you would awaken to the world this month in the year 893 A.S.." Park responded softly, staring impassively at the creature. "It was a bit of a problem getting to Dreamscape, but it looks like I've managed to arrive just in time."

         The wraith did not regard this reply, instead looking over the boy's apparel. "I see you have found new weapons. They are for the Two Heavens Style, aren't they?" Park let his stoic eyes silently confirm the testimony, and the demon's own eyes narrowed, the pretense in their conversation fleeing fast. "Will you make those two heavens my hell, Park?"

         He answered this by reaching both behind him and to his side for the blades. "I'm not going to let you ruin my life again," he said fiercely, and he swifly pulled the weapons up to bear. The one in his left hand was a pearl-white wakizashi short sword; this he had in front of him. The other, held behind the first, was an ornate long sword with a bejeweled hilt and a blade that flashed with a self-contained cerulean light. The image of glowing blue angel wings formed from his shoulders, and he was now shouting, his eyes becoming as sharp as his weapons. "Prepare yourself!!"

         With the aid of his angel appendages, the youth leapt an impossible ten feet into the air to bear down on his opponent with his dual blades. The wraith was prepared, and phased out of pyramid to prepare for his dive-bombing enemy. In front of the dark being formed a translucent polearm composed of pure magical energy, adorned by a blade as long as its haft. As if held by the wraith's invisible hand, the polearm rapidly spun into position and almost calmly received Park's attack, though the two blades slammed against the one with titanic force.

         Park was not deterred by this missed opportunity and sprung back, propelled by his hologram-like wings. As he fell into a defensive stance on the slanted side of the pyramid, the wings dissipated by the boy's own volition, leaving only a few glowing feathers behind to break apart like dust particles. His time was short, as the wraith was closing in from above with his polearm. Park responded to this assault by quickly moving back into battle, bringing up his short sword to meet his opponent's blade with a metallic-sounding clash.

         Park attempted to take advantage of his two weapons and thrust his long sword towards the cloaked figure, but the wraith simply spun his weapon to deflect the strike. With another deft twirl, the wraith swung the polearm upwards in a half-moon slice that threatened to bisect the boy. Park danced away from the deadly scrape in a stylish maneuver that gave him a shot at the wraith's unprotected side. But when he took another swing with his long sword, he found that the wraith was skilled at regaining lost ground, and the attack was blocked with another smooth motion of the polearm.

         The battle was well underway by now, and the two combatants quickly added more intensity to their attack routines. The wraith was wielding his polearm in a series of expert swings that forced Park into a pattern of parries, keeping both swords moving to intercept the blows. But though he was on the low ground, his two weapons still afforded him an opportunity every now and again, and he made sure to fit in a strike to keep his foe on his non-existent toes. This kept Park from being pushed back too much, and therefore from letting his opponent lead the fight.

         With an impassioned cry, the youth soared above a swipe at his shins to deliver a spinning strike with his flashing long sword. The wraith barely managed to inch away from the attack, and was even at a loss for deflecting Park's subsequent short sword swipe. Nevertheless, the wraith blocked the attack with his polearm, and the next attack from the long sword, bringing the three weapons into a deadlock. "You've become quite skilled in the time since our last meeting, Park," the wraith said in a manner mimicking paternal pride.

         Park ignored him, and broke the lock to attack with a spinning onslaught of his two swords. The wraith likewise twirled his weapon to turn away the strikes, and somehow managed to keep speaking in his wrathful voice. "But you're still a weak child, with a weak body and mind," he crooned, jabbing high and low with his polearm. Even as Park evaded these attacks, the anger was building up within his heart, and he swung with both his swords in a wide double-slash. The wraith avoided this by jolting up into the air, where he stayed hovering for the moment, looking down on his opponent as if he were an ant.

         "I can sense your need to prove yourself," the wraith said from his position in the skies. "But no matter how far you've come, you're always going to be too weak for anyone. You were meant to be weak, and you know it deep inside yourself. Leave the heroics to the greats."

         Park's face contorted into a sour grimace unbecoming for his soft features, and knelt down. "You, shut up!" he roared, his voice echoing across the barren tundra as he bolted skywards in a furious strike at his hated enemy. The wraith's eyes flashed, he raised up an "arm", the sleeve of his robe now revealing a heavier concentration of smoke in the shape of a clenched fist. With a small grunt, the wraith unfurled his "fingers," and a wave of darkness poured from his hand at the boy, shooting in-between his dual swords to strike his chest.

         "AAAAAHHHHH!!!" Park hollered in agony, feeling like his very soul was being sucked away. And if it wasn't his soul, it was something in the ballpark, for globs of red energy were pouring from his chest like blood clots. The darkness the wraith continued to emit siphoned up the red globs like a pipeline, and he groaned in pleasure as each one sunk into his "hand." The laughing demon's form seems to grow more tangible, and he closed his hand to cancel the wave of darkness, letting Park's prone body fall like a ragdoll to the ground below.

         "Your insecurity is as fruitful as ever," the wraith taunted him from on high. "In this Dreamscape, misery is my lifeblood, and now I have enough to break free of this sleep within sleep." He regarded Park with an invisible smirk, who even now was trying to raise himself upright, holding onto his swords as if they were handrails. "I have much work to do in the world of the waking, so I will take my leave. For even as skilled as you are now, a weak spirit like you has no hope of stopping me."

         "You...stop..." Park muttered, coming up into a pained crouch. He then let out a few ragged coughs, and struggled not to fall again on his face.

         The wraith paid no mind to the boy's suffering, and brought his polearm long-wise. With a stellar-sounding twirp, the weapon vanished in a sparkle of light, leaving only the cloak to define the demon's appearance. Slowly, and yet faster and father, the wraith rose into the air like a messiah returning to heaven. And yet, by the pain of the weakened lad, and the wraith's low muttering snickers that still felt like they came from Dreamscape, he would not be delivering people from evil, but unto it.

*****

         In a deserted wilderness far from the reach of civilization, something strange and dark was happening. Though the locale was like Death itself, it was not considered to be fantastical, and yet the magics from the otherworld began to gather here. With a crimson sunset already hanging on the horizon like a portrait, the small grubs and scorpions that lived here became witness to another great show in the form of fushia energy beams gathering into a ball on the apex of a cliff side. The energy ball was building up like a water balloon, pulsating and swelling, ready to burst.

         It did.

         In an explosion of light, the energy spiraled out in red/pink rings like a violent version of the ripple effect created by dropped stones in the river. The insectoid creatures all dove for cover in the shade of boulders and underbrush, In truth, the effect was relatively harmless, just a discharge from the rip between worlds. This time, it was that which the explosion left behind that held malice and evil.

         From where the conflagration began was now a man, crouched down on one knee. His nude muscles were wiry and strong, his frame tall and imposing. A violet mop of hair hung over his eyes, but didn't disguise the menacing set of his jaw. His lips were twisting into a small smile, like the civilized demon prepared for its latest debauchery.

         "So the plan of madness begins," the man said to himself, his breathing calm and measured. "Right...Tarah?"

-----

         In the fall of 893 After Starlight, within the alternate world of Pangaea, a boy named Andrew Champion found something special in the outcast Tarah Reichardt, and in the end accepted her friendship. Now, he'll have a chance to find just how special his new friend really is. A magical world of danger and heroics awaits him as he skydives through the rabbit hole. For the valiant can never rest, even as this journey twists and turns from Hell to Heaven.

         These are the Different and Cool Fantastic Tales.

Different and Cool FT

By Reid M. Haynes

Tale 1: Look What Tarah Can Do

*****

         December winds shook through the quiet Starlight City neighborhood, the skeletal trees taking the brunt of the assault. Fall was officially over, and the nights were as stark and cold as could be expected. A single brown leaf remained on a branch of a ciper tree, testament to the season of beautiful dying. That leaf, too, snapped off from the branch and wafted to the concrete below, soon to be crushed underfoot by the lone boy wandering the streets at this hour.

         Andy walked along the sidewalk at a brisk pace, as if trying to keep one step ahead pf the frigid air. His green jacket was his only guardian against the wind, and it rustled slightly like a flag at a colonial fort. Strangely, his hands were not gloved nor were they in his pockets, but were instead throwing shadow punches that whipped and shredded the air. His manner was much like a boy who had just seen a particularly exciting martial-arts flick; the white bandanna he wore below his green bangs could be an indication of this.

         In actually, the reality was a bit more exciting.

         Andy worked the ball joint in his shoulder with wide, circular movements of his arm, trying to recover from the stretching and yanking he had been doing to it a scant twenty minutes ago. His latest martial-arts workout with Mari had pressed him a bit further than previous session, and the long walk home was again the sour, overly-ripened cherry on top. It was almost as if his instructor was one of those die-hards from the infomercials that trained on five different machines a day.

         In any case, he felt good. Andy smiled and exhaled a soft breath through his nose, which quickly turned to fog in the chilled air. This past month, Mari had shown extraordinary support for someone who previously didn't even enter her social circle, all because he had asked for her help. Her words to him today had shown him where she stood.

         "Hey, it's no problem Andy!" she told him, with the confident, playful smile he had begun to associate with her. "I'm been looking for something worthwhile to do with my time, and I don't care what people think of me hangin' with you guys."

         The other one referred to by "guys" was Tarah. It was still like a blast of ice water to Andy; only a few months ago he had avoided the girl like she was the bubonic plague, and now he was walking over to her house right now to hang. He hadn't even bothered to call, but had just set out knowing he would be received with open arms. It was something he finally learned he could expect from his new friend: being appreciated, for being there and being him.

         Turning the corner, Andy arrived at Mimic Drive, where Tarah's residence was. The houses that aligned either side of the road were mostly one-story jobs, with huge backyards filled with trees and underbrush. His mind wondered on whether the Reichardt's had chosen this neighborhood for their daughter's benefit. Tarah had once told him that her folks had done a lot of moving before coming here two years ago, so he hoped this eco-lover's dream of a subdivision meant that they was ready to give her a permanent home; there was still so much he had to learn about her.

         A slight glare blasted Andy's eyes, and he averted his gaze to safely view its source. One baby ash tree was shining with what looked like holiday lights, and he realized a moment that it was in Tarah's front yard. It must've been one of the family that had decorated it, since Tarah would've said the tree was beautiful as it was. Still, he had to admit: it gave the leafless tree some character.

         But as he proceeded towards Tarah's house, he began to rethink his assessment that the lights were those that came on strings. Not only were there no electrical cords, but each one seemed to be moving by its own power. All of them were spherical in shape, soft green, and seemed to be made of cloud-dust. They hovered around the tree like pixies inhabiting a sacred place, never straying too far from their focus point.

         (Fireflies?) Andy pondered to himself, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

         He slowly started proceeding towards the tree, his eyes slowly following the sprite-like entities' patterns. Tarah never hesitated to tell him of her interest in bugs, and he was wondering if somehow, he could deduce what they were from memory. It was difficult, since the bright glow they emitted completely concealed their bodies, assuming they even had them. A weird, surreal feeling was growing in Andy's gut, and he was starting to wonder if reality had left his port for a land far away.

         His apprehension didn't keep him from noting the beauty of the scene. It was like he was living a scenes from a cartoon movie, where the animators would struggle to capture a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. And the tree, truly, didn't need holiday lights after all; in a way, it had the same gentle pride that Tarah herself possessed, so he had learned. He felt his worries face away with the soothing atmosphere of the scene and put his hand on the tree's trunk as if giving it his approval.

         A ripping sensation clawed at Andy's heart, and his entire being felt like it had been grasped by a titan. "W-whaaat...?!" he stammered out, the word sounding less like it wwas being spoken and more like it was being pitched into an abyss. His lungs were sucked of the air that sustained his being, and he felt his world blacken around him.

*****

         Andy's next sensation was the hard impact from falling face first on cold earth. He felt the rough taste of dirt in his mouth, its unsavory flavor coating his tongue like a second skin. He sputtered a bit, spewing large globs of spit in an effort to expel the from his mouth. Like a blind grub, he wallowed on the ground, trying to bring himself to his feet again.

         Then, he felt his balance shift as he tumbled back over on his side, and tumbled again. He was rolling, rolling, as if a barrel on a steep incline. The somewhat painful experience ended a few seconds later with Andy on a lower altitude and dealing with groaning bones and muscles. He felt like he had just woken up late on a school day, by someone pulling up the mattress and dumping him on the ground.

         He moaned, letting the pain pulse through his being, bringing a second sensation of relief in its wake. His senses were starting to flare up, and he exhaled a small breath, trying to get adjusted. A bright, yellow light was beating down on him, and he felt warm, June warm. He could feel a few insects run though the openings in his clothes, their feelers tickling and irritating his skin.

         He didn't rush to wipe the bugs off his body. In fact, up until this moment, his eyes had been closed, and closed hard. Deep inside himself, he knew that he wasn't going to be looking at Tarah's lawn when he decided to accept the reality of his situation and look upon the world. He could feel it beckoning him like a train wreck, and like all present to a train wreck, his inclination to view it overtook all other instincts.

         The first thing Andy saw before him was a brilliant blue sky, covered with a outcropping of snow-white cumulus. Birds of the like he'd seen fluttered overhead, He could see the treetops form a canopy in the corner of his vision, along with a few large red objects that he couldn't quite define. He realised that he would need to stand in order to get a better view, and as he did so, he mentally prepared himself for any shocks that his surroundings might cause him.

         What needs to be described here could be called a forest, or perhaps an oversized lawn that had never been cut. Everything about his surroundings indicated that it was an exaggerated, Small fungi common in Starlight City suburbs were present here at ten times their unusual size; the red objects he noted earlier turned out to be a even larger variety of 'shroom. All kinds of botanical life was within sight, some of which did not co-exist in the same season.

         The trees were all gigantic, like the century old oaks one find every now and again, only with dozens of them with eyesight all competing for his attention. Strange animal noises could be heard coming, a great deal of them unfamiliar. A small brook a little to the west added a small amount of tranquility to the setting, the one thing relatively normal about his surroundings. Nevertheless, the whole thing came across as a belabored artist's drug-induced idea of nature, and it was sensory overload for Andrew Champion.

         The boy's heart-rate was through the roof, and his green bang flared like fire as he turned this way and that in a panic. What had happened? How did he get here, and what was here exactly? Was he asleep now? Did someone slip him something?

         (Calm down,) a sharp voice from his rational half interjected, like the banging of a gavel in the rowdy courtroom of the consciousness. He responded quickly to this and willed his body to stop shaking, quietly reminding himself that he was not in immediate danger before he could start panic again. He gritted his teeth and sucked in air through them, feeling his heart beats slow to a more regular rhythm. And, through the special Courage Training that Mari had given him, he began to methodically go over the events that led him to this point, trying to mentally file them all into a proper place.

         (Okay, it's obvious this isn't Starlight City,) he told himself slowly, closing his eyes to free himself of the exotic imagery. (The last thing I remember is walking up to the ash tree in Tarah's yard, and then...all this. I need to find out where I am, and for that, I need to find someone to tell me. A signpost, a map, anyone or anything that speaks my language, it's all good right now.)

         Andy felt his determination grow, a calling for the quest settling deeper than the fear in his heart. His hands went to the bandanna that still covered his forehead, the familiarity of the cloth between his fingers comforting. (This bandanna is the symbol of my personal accomplishments. It's my sign that I can handle what Destiny throws at me, and throw it back. If something strange is happening to me, then I have to be strange myself.)

         He reached for the twin tendrils of his bandanna, which hung loosely in the warm, June-like weather. With two hands, he tightened the bandanna around his forehead, and his eyes opened once more to his unusual new setting, this time with courage.

         With his mind set, he began walking.

*****

         A hour or so ran by, and the sun had moved to the three o'clock position, behind a few clouds as to make the light and heat more bearable. Time seemed to pass normally in this realm (Andy had been referring to this place in his head as a "realm"), even if nothing else was normal about this place. The jungle-like canopies generally kept things cool for any being under their gentle shade, and there was also a small amount of dew left over from the night before. Once you got used to the gigantic man-eating plants that popped up every now and again, it was quite the pleasant place.

         Andy wiped a bead of sweat from his head as he trudged up another small hill between more gargantuan oaks. Though he had managed to find a relatively walkable pathway through the mysterious forest, he found he had to periodically swipe foliage out of the way. Aiding him in this manner was a fallen ciper tree branch that currently substituted as a staff. Whatever bizarre creatures that inhabited the forest had not yet revealed themselves, but he could always hear the noises, and thusly felt more secure with a weapon.

         His spirits were generally high, considering the circumstances. It was nice and warm here, warm enough to prompt Andy to take off his jacket and tie it around his waist to keep from sweating all over it. The fresh air revitalized him, and he now felt like the main character of an adventure story. As he grew more comfortable with his surroundings, he took the time to examine his surroundings more closely, picking out any oddity he could find.

         Of which there were many.

         Those of note:

         Flowers with bud that continually opened and closed in rhythm. Each time they opened, they made a small musical chirp, and since each flower opened at a different set time, they managed to create quite a little tune.

         Long, vine-like growths that hung and perhaps even grew high up in the treetops. Again, they were vine-like but not actually vines, for at the end of each was a small tulip-like bud that indicated it was another strange type of flower.

         Again, giant man-eating plants. Open maws big enough to fit a human up to his or her hips, and with "incisors" sharp enough to chomp that human down to size. (he steered clear of those)

         Large, rocky monoliths covered with moss. Certainly not strange in of itself, but there was the fact that they seemed to somehow be moving very slightly.

         There was another thing odd about the mobile boulders. Andy scrambled over some bushes, and then carefully edged up to one of the boulders to examine the etchings in the rock face. There were some crude pictures of plants and animals, obviously those native to this realm, judging by their unfamiliarity. There was also a small, smiling stick figure, carrying what seemed to be a staff in its hand, with a crude speech balloon above it encasing the words: "PLANTS ARE OUR FRIENDS!"

         (So there's at least one person here) Andy thought with a satisfied smile. (I'll find this person)

         He quickly turned away to set about on his journey again, but then on a sudden thought whirled back to the boulder. The unabashed, ernest attitude coming from the stick figure's message had struck something inside of Andy, and he appraised the drawing more carefully, a wild hunch forming in the recesses of his mind. Yes, there wasn't a doubt. That stick figure has glasses, twin pigtails, and a unmistakable passion for nature that he could help but find charming.

         (Then this means...)

         Any revelations that Andy was going through were cut short by the menacing growl coming from his rear. He turned around, and felt the color drain from his face as he caught sight of the first creature of the realm to reveal itself to him, standing outside of a thicket like it had always been there. It had the body of a tiger, but its stripes were green and brown, and it bore a snake's head in place of the standard feline mug. To add just the right touch of fearful oddity, its tail was also a snake, hissing and snapping like live wire.

         A chimera of a creation, apparently brought him just to give him a violent death. Sent from Hell, perhaps?

         Andy followed his first impulse immediately, and took off for a dense cluster of trees to his right. Looking behind him, he could already tell the action was pointless, for though the beast was still a ways off, it has ample reason to be confident of its ability to catch its prey. It moved at a steady pace, obviously not wanting to overexert itself for what it thought was an easy meal. It hissed calmly through its fangs, as if licking its lips with blood-hunger.

         Andy felt a terrible frustration building up within him, tearing apart any memory of his once-chipper attitude. Just one second after finding something in the same vicinity as an answer, his life was to be fodder for some monster. He felt his hand tighten around his ciper stick, still held firmly in hand. All of a sudden, he just stopped and turned to face the creature, mentally turning it from an unstoppable force into his sworn opponent.

         "You hungry, friend?!" he yelled at the beast, as if trying to dampen its spirit with his barbed tongue. "I'll make you choke on that appetite!!" Feeling more and more ridiculous by the second, he decided to throw all pride to the wind and adopted a mock martial-arts pose with his weapon. "Ho-choi!"

         Andrew Champion. Died in cheesy martial-arts fight with fantasy demon. A very exciting epitaph, he supposed.

         And that's when he caught a small blur, undefinable in shape, streaking from the lower branches of the oak trees. It started out moving from branch to branch, then moved onto the side of a large trunk, sprung off that to another branch, and started sliding down a root that had somehow. This shape, now recognizable as a very familiar young girl, moved with the sharp grace of a stuntman in a martial-arts flick, with all the acrobatics that it entails. It reached the end of the root at an almost inhuman pace, and sprung off it to perform an upside-down mid-air corkscrew, spinning upright to land in between the beast and Andy, with bent knees and an outstretched palm at the beast to keep it at bay.

         Tarah's expression was as serious as Andy had ever seen, and yet there was a certain serenity to her manner, not unlike Mari's zen when she practiced her Double Helix Style. She neither retreated nor advanced on the beast, but kept her curiously calm eyes trained on the beast, straightening up with a subtle pride. He had trained under the Double Helix style long enough to pick up on the distinct signs of competence and technique in the girl's posture. She was a martial artist, possibly on the same level as Mari herself.

         What she did next wasn't an exhibition of martial skill, but perhaps an indicator of the "maybe more." Slowly, she moved toward the beast, and her outstretched arm slackened a bit. Losing the sense of urgency, a small smile appeared on Tarah's lips, gentle and sympathetic. To Andy's shock, she went right up to the beast and put its hand on its cobra-like crest, and he felt at a loss at what to do.

         No screaming or shouting for Tarah to move turned out to be necessary for her to avoid danger, as the situation was quickly going from tense to surreal. Tarah was gently talking to the beast with closed eyes, and it seemed to be responding, nodding its head as if in understanding. Both their eyes were closed, and they shared a certain synchronization, like a psychic mind meld. And then the beast opened its eyes, turned around, and slowly started walking back into the thicket, its camouflage allowing it to quickly become unnoticeable in the expansive forest.

         Andy stared with astonishment at his friend, who seemed to be a amalgam of the familiar and extraordinary. The worry that she had obviously kept bottled up was surfacing on her features, and she was taking some rather large heaving breaths. The boy walked up to her, dropping his ciper stick on the ground. "Tarah?" he said, his face curling up in confusion.

         She turned to him, her expression unreadable. "Andrew, what are you doing here?" she asked him, staring with large protrubant eyes.

         Tarah was dressed in a tank top and a pair of khaki cargo shorts; he had sometimes seen her in this getup when she had gotten through tracking bugs. However, there was a few notable additions to her ensemble. Strapped to her back via a sling was a long green staff of sorts, and her wrist was adorned with a coiled vine that wrapped around like a bracer. Though this youth was known to accessorize strangely, Andy wondered if these items had some sort of special use in this realm.

         He had taken too long to respond to her, and Tarah was walking up to him, a strange urgency in her manner. "Andrew, you can't tell anybody about this place." she said, gripping the front of his shirt. "It's a secret to everybody! Please Andrew, you can't tell anybody about this place!" She was getting frantic, speaking faster and faster, her eyes filled with some unrevealed fear. "Don't tell!"

         "Okay, okay!" Andy broke in to keep her form hyperventilating. "I won't tell." Tarah's breaths were short and shallow; Andy had no idea what could scare a girl that never showed much fear to begin with. On a sudden thought, he placed his hands on her shoulders to steady her shaking frame. "I won't tell anyone, Tarah," he told her, trying to put her worries to rest.

         Tarah blinked a few times, her breathing slowing down to a more regular pace. Then, she smiled. "Okay, I believe you," she said.

         Andy stared into her honest eyes, and couldn't fight the blush coming to his cheeks. The trust he had won from Tarah had a way of embarrasing him sometimes. He broke away from her and coughed a few times in his hand. "Uh Tarah, what is this place exactly?" he asked her, peeking at her from the corner of his eye.

         "This is Broodring," she said conversationally, smiling pleasantly at him. "It's the birth point and distributing center for all mana energy in the world."

         "...huh?" The previous statement struck Andy with the same clarity as a koala quacking, and he didn't get much out of it other than the name of this strange locale. "Birth point...what?"

         "The birth point of all mana energy in the world," she repeated. "Come on Andrew, it's Chapter 7 of Rizenfort's Big Book of Nature Mythology! I thought everybody knew about mana distribution!"

         "Uh, I only skimmed it at the bookstore," he said, turning away and rubbing the back of his hair. A part of Andy still grounded in his world of Pangaea wanted to point out the significance of the word "mythology" to Tarah, and the fact that the book was regarded as a flop by many vendors, though it was true that he had skimmed it. In the end, he decided that any argument on the book's validity was futile, especially after what he had experienced on this night. (or day as it was; there was obviously a time discrepancy between Broodring and Pangaea) He was in Tarah's world, and he would just have to let her lead him by the hand.

         Tarah was smiling again. "It's okay," she said. "I can tell you on the way, when we go visit the jaggerflies in the Great Prairie." Her face lit up with excitement and zeal, her fists clenching. "Just think about it, now we can have all sorts of adventures now with the plants and animals. Oh Andrew, I'm so happy you found me here!" She stepped up and hugged him, and Andy cautiously put a hand on her back, still a bit bewildered by this experience.

         He suddenly felt her stiffen up like a ramrod. "Oh, I'm late!" she cried, backing away from him and turning around in a flurry of pigtails. "I gotta go!" She stepped into the middle of the clearing, where the mobile boulders had just departed from, and put her cupped hands to her mouth. The girl then made a high-pitched shrieking noise, like a kazoo modified with a computer sound editor. Afterwords, she folded her hands behind her back and waited expectantly, rocking back and forth on her heels.

         Andy refrained from cocking his eyebrow, somehow knowing that his questions about this seemingly random action would be answered. Sure enough, a small lizard darted from the treetops and right up to Tarah's feet. She giggled at the agile amphibian hopped onto her clothes and crawled its way up to her shoulders, where it perched like a pirate captain's parrot. "Do you remember Cornflower?" she asked him, stroking the animal's neck with her finger.

         "Yeah," he responded, recalling the last time he had seen the creature: lying in a fish tank in Tarah's room. The creature looked at him with glassy eyes, and made a noise that was something between a guffaw and a grunt. He winced a bit; Cornflower never really took to Andy, even though he had befriended its master. He could feel a grudge radiating from the supposedly simple creature; could it somehow be angry at the shameful way he had once treated Tarah in front of his former friends?

         By now, Cornflower had leapt off Tarah's shoulder onto the grassy clearing. The girl was poised in front of the lizard and appeared to be chanting some sort of witchcraft; at least, with her eyes that's how it appeared. Her right hand was thrust palm-out towards Cornflower, with her left gripping onto her wrist. Cornflower seemed to be responding, twitching in comprehension.

         Then, the lizard suddenly jumped ten feet in the air, spinning around like some sort of aerial top. Its arms and legs became like putty, sloppily stretching out to ten times their usual length. The body and head soon followed in this transformation, as the form of the creature bulged and fluctuated in an attempt to become a scaled-up version of its original form. When Cornflower had landed, it crowded the clearing at around twenty times its former girth, with a new neck frill resembling the creature's namesake, and a certain underlying strength in its limbs.

         Andy looked slackjawed at the giant lizard, shook his head, and went back to looking slackjawed again. He had thought Tarah would provided some semblance of normalcy to this fantastic realm, but the issues had once again become further complicated. Cornflower regarded him with a casual, yet powerful stare; almost patronizing, if a lizard was capable of being so. 'Yes, Mr. Peer Pressure, I can kick your ass from here to Pangaea' is what the creature seemed to be saying to him; the boy could believe that.

         With a accustomed manner born from practice, Tarah leapt an impossible five feet upwards to land on the lizard's back, straddling it as one would a steed. "C'mon, Andrew!" she called from atop Cornflower, offering him an arm up.

         Andy hesitated a moment at the proffered hand, regarding it as his ticket to another world. She would only drag him down deeper into this wonderland he had stumbled into. But again, he was in Tarah's world. He had always known, deep down, that any association with her would involve throwing away reservation and throwing himself headlong into the dark unknown.

         And after his previous trials, he had learned not to fear the darkness.

         With a confident smile, he gave his trust to Tarah and let her pull him up onto Cornflower. The lizard grunted at this unwelcome passenger, while Tarah rubbed its neck in an attempt to soothe it. Andy adjusted himself on the lizard's back, straddling it as Tarah had before him. Instinctively, he braced himself as if he had just slid into a circus cannon; somehow, he knew he would soon be moving very, very fast.

         "Hi ho, Cornflower!" Tarah cried out, raising a fist in the air. "Let's go!"

         With a massive leap, Cornflower bolted upwards through the canopies, and Andy could feel the leaves and small branches breaking against his back. He had time to hold one more breath from the clearing as the lizard sprung from the branches to bound across this mysterious land called Broodring.

*****

         The open skies stretched like a tarp above the world, covering everything with a veneer of snow-white and liquid-blue. It encompassed everything up to the horizon, but unlike much of the "real" world, there were no buildings or other man-made constructions to break up the natural splendor. Broodring proved to be just as fantastic a place from on high as it did at ground level, with the giant orange mushrooms standing like grand monuments among the more subtle earth tones. And just ahead of the horizon, with leaves like green fire and a trunk easily half-a-kilometer in diameter, was a grand ash tree, large enough to make the oak trees look like broccoli tuffs.

         Andy stared with mouth agape at the beastly ash dwarfing him even as Tarah's steed Cornflower traversed the treetops like a super-human frog. He had heard about such a marvel of nature existing in the parallel worlds in his old childhood fairy tale books. It was Yggdrassil, the World Tree. A staple in all adventure stories, but now right in front of his eyes, solemn and grand.

         Andy shook his head a few times to clear the webbing tying up his faculties. He was already in the middle of a conversation, and she was talking again. "So, the Green Vines style, right?" he tried to confirm, going back to the last topic he could remember discussing before he had spaced out.

         "That's right!" Tarah said cheerfully, turning around in her seat to smile at him. "It's the ancient style used by druids to protect the satellite ash tree from Hitory Rancha's developers in 432 A.S., who wanted to make the world's first overcrowded subdivision."

         "And so...you're druid?" he queried, trying to keep track of all the new information as he tried to keep his lunch down with all the jumps Cornflower was performing.

         "Well, I'm more dryad than druid," the girl corrected, carefully guiding the lizard to the east. "I have about 10% dryad blood, so the masters of Broodring thinks that makes me ready to get some druid training anyway, even though I'm not directly related to them. I wish I was through. They live in such nice gardens, with the most beautiful insects and animals."

         "Dryad...?" Andy pondered, lowers his head a bit to look at Cornflower's riveted skin underneath him. His mind was wracked with trying to figure out how to phrase this, to get at the hidden nature of his mysterious friend. "Tarah...what do you do here?" he asked her, knowing he would have to be specific with her.

         Tarah looked at him strangely. "Didn't you get to Chapter 15 in Rizenfort's Big Book?" she asked him, taking her hands off Cornflower's neck. "I'm the Yggdrasseer, of course. I protect Broodring and the World Tree from any force that wants to use their power for evil."

         This statement had only a brief moment to sink in before Tarah quickly turned her attention to a large meadow they were currently bounding over. "Oh look, the jaggerflies are out now!" she called out, looking at the distant grassland as if its blades were grazing her cheeks. "Cornflower, land here!"

         "J-Jaggerflies?" Andy gurbled, squinting hard at the mosaic pattern the grass seemed to create.

         With a few quick hops, Cornflower moved from the canopies to the shorter maple trees until it was able to move to the meadow without injury. The lizard took a moment to adjust itself on terrafirma, its frill ruffling and fluctuating. It lowered its neck a moment later, and Tarah gracefully slid down and hopped over its head, landing upright on the plains like a gymnast trying to earn her 9.6. Andy was left to stumble off the creature from the side, as Cornflower decided to continue its obstinate attitude towards him and raise its neck the second Tarah jumped off.

         Andy took a brief moment to catch his breath, and followed his friend, who had moved towards the center of the field. Among the tall grass and marigolds, she waited like a pigtailed scarecrow, with arms outstretched to the light gales. The boy stood and waited just a few steps shy of Tarah, somehow feeling he was intruding. It was almost like she was some sort of goddess in this place, and one needed special permission just to speak in her presence.

         "They're coming, Andrew," she said, as if to calm the tension in Andy's bones. Although the atmosphere felt as a church to him, Tarah's mouth was uplifted in a small, knowing smile. The mystery surrounding her actions was a bit unsettling, and Andy folded his arms in a small gesture of insecurity. That was as far as he would go to chickening out, though; the things Tarah did would always form into some semblance of logical reason, given time and patience.

         The flickering of eleven small insects caught Andy's eyes, which followed them as they popped up through the grass. They were some sort of odd dragonfly creatures, with bodies that curved like fishing hooks and wings that made odd clicking noises as they waved through the air. Each one of them alighted on either one of Tarah's shoulders, making an uneven formation; five on the right and six on the left. Tarah's eyes had opened up now, and she was excitedly glancing between them as if they were a litter of newborn pups.

         By her next actions, though, it was more likely they were her friends, not her pets.

         "Is everybody doing okay today?" she asked the one closest to her, just as if addressing one of the classmates she never talked to. "...that's good," she responded a moment later, in cue with a small twitch from the creature she was 'conversing' with. "I hope you guys managed to keep away from the hawks this time around." She laughed airily. "That was a rough one!"

         "Oh Epheredora, you're hurt after all!" she suddenly cried, staring past the jaggerflies to the one on the end, who seemed to be favoring its right leg. "I told you not to tempt the hawks with a bad attitude! That's okay," she ended her lecture with a shrug and a smile. "I know you're strong! You guys are the best!"

         In appreciation of her approval of them, the jaggerflies all departed from her shoulders and began to buzz around her. They flapped their translucent wings in her face, stinging her cheeks with small zephyrs. "Hey, that tickles!" she giggled, shielding her face in mock protest.

         Andy smiled, walking up to her. "Looks like you're a little more popular here than at Starlight City," he said wryly, folding his arms over his stomach.

         "Yeah!" Tarah replied, favoring him with a cheerful smile. "I really love it here!"

         They both chuckled as the jaggerflies formed a ring around them in a sort of impromptu festival dance. "So, this Yggdraseer thing, it's pretty tough, right?" the boy asked.

         "Oh, it's a very serious occupation," she replied seriously, nodding her head vigorously. "Not only do I have to defend Broodring from the forces that want to use it for evil, but I also have to manage the balance of mana all the time. But that's okay, because I get a lot of neat powers to help me. I'll show them all to you soon..."

         Her eyes suddenly shot open. "Oh, I almost forgot about Chompy!" she exclaimed, looking off from Andy and into the distant trees. "He's been causing a lot of trouble again!"

         As Tarah dashed back to the resting Cornflower, Andy desperately scrambled to keep up with her. "Tarah, where're you going?" he gasped, the jaggerflies dispersing around him like a sparkling mist. "Who's Chompy?"

         "A giant man-eating plant," she said, reaching a hand out to him. "Come on!"

         A scant few seconds later, they were flying once again.

*****

         "I don't see what the big deal is." The wheezing voice cut through their earlobes like a barbed wire. "I'm just sitting here by myself, drinking up what's right here waiting for me."

         "But you're hurting the rest of the plant life around you and disrupting the delicate balance!" Tarah insisted, gesturing broadly with her hands. "You need to stop that!"

         Before Andy and Tarah, shrouded in the darker depths of the forest, was an oversized venus fly-trap, straight out of a science fiction B movie. The bestial bulb was gifted with an elaborate root system, wrapping around the neighboring flora and obviously very capable of choking the life out of it. Its head was as round as a cabbage, with a very human-like maw sporting a set of curved fangs. Right now, that maw seemed to be twisted into a very human-like expression; a smug grin, to be exact.

         "What's the big deal, anyway?" Chompy drolled on lazily, waving a vine at them in an expression of lazire fare. "I'm just going by the rules of cause and effect. I'm hungry, so the other plants get a little less food than normal."

         "I changed my mind about that during a class assignment!" Tarah shot back, waving her arms frantically. "If you can talk to me, than you can control yourself and reach an equilibrium with the environment like all the other plants!"

         "Bluh, you're a little baby Yggdraseer," the plant crooned, once again showing off his odd imitation of a smile. "A little brat playing at being grown up. What do you really know about the balance of nature anyway?"

         The blood ran hot in Andy's veins at the insults. "I don't know half of what this Broodring place is all about, but I think we can both see when something's being a weed," he blurted out, stepping up to Chompy in an act of defiance. "Why do you deserve more than your fair share?"

         If Chompy had eyes, they would have narrowed at that moment. "Who the heck are you?" he barked, regarding him contemptuously. "Some sort of puffy dandelion?"

         "I'm Andrew Champion," the boy replied, subconsciously running a hand through his fluffy, dandelion-like hair. "Both me and Tarah know what to do with people...er, plants that push others around."

         "Little sap, I could smack your roots clear across Broodring." A dangerous lilt entered into the tone of the sentient flower, his protruding vines thrashing with anticipation. "What do I have to be scared of?"

         "Why don't you just try it?" Andy barked out, feeling his temples throb with adrenaline. "I'm been trained in the Double Helix style, buddy!"

         "Dandelion!"

         "Weed!"

         "Andrew, Chompy, stop it!" Tarah cried out, thrusting herself between them. She escorted Andy off to the side. "Andrew, what's wrong?" she asked, her face flush with concern. "Chompy isn't that bad!"

         "I'm sorry, I'm guess I'm getting a little hyper today," he relented, shaking his head. A small part of his brain balked at the absurdity of arguing with foliage, but it was quickly drowned out by how darned irritated he was with that plant. Going with the latter feeling, he approached the plant again, trying to keep his temper in check. "Look, Chompy, why do you need all this extra nourishment, anyway. Moderation can be fun, too."

         "I guess I'm bit of a sinner," Chompy confessed unabashedly, his bulb retreating back into its nest of roots. "Lust doesn't do it for me, so why not a little Gluttony."

         Andy sighed, slumping his shoulders in defeat. "He's pretty stubborn." he said, going back over to Tarah. "Kind of like humans in a way."

         "Chompy likes the human world a lot, and he sends a lot of spores out there," Tarah explained. "Chompy even sides with the housing developers sometimes when I talk to him."

         "Ouch," Andy winced with imagined pain.

         "You're funny, Andrew!" Tarah added, giggling lightly. "I've never seen someone get into a fight with Chompy before."

         Andy blushed slightly, wondering once again if this mysterious land was playing a joke on him. (But if it makes Tarah happy, why not?)

         Andy and Tarah smiled at each other gently; Chompy regarding their moment with a cynical air about him.

         And then, all of a sudden, a shadowy swath broke from the darkness and plunged onto Andy with the force of a flying shoulder tackle. The blow knocked the boy clear to the hard earth, and he struggled amongst the leaves as the mysterious form pushed him into the dirt. Something sharp and slick with saliva was shining in front of his face, and he instinctively recoiled from it. "W-whug...?" he choked incoherently, the fight-or-flight instinct within him flaring up frantically.

         "Andrew!" Tarah cried out desperately. Sparing no second, she reached behind her for the staff still bound to her back. Bringing it up to bear, she swung the implement in a wide arc, knocking the shadowy form off into a hardwood tree. She quickly shifted the staff in her hands and went to tend to the boy, who was gasping desperately for air.

         "What...what's going on?" he managed to get out, leaning lightly on Tarah for support. His eyes darted surreptitiously to the weapon in the girl's hand. The staff appeared to be formed of a large, green rose stem, with a cluster of thorns on the bottom and a crystal blossom on the top. A small green light seemed to be radiating form within the closed petals.

         "Bed Bugs," Chompy answered him, a strange anxiety in the twitch of his vines. "They've been attacking Broodring for a good while now."

         "Bed Bugs?" Andy groaned, his eyebrows furrowing in wild confusion.

         "They're nefarious Dream Demons that appear when people sleep," Tarah said quickly, her eyes darting about like fireflies. "Sometimes Dream Demons take the form of neat bugs, but I don't know anything else about them."

         Andy and Tarah's attention was drawn back toward the shadow form, which had regained its footing on the forest floor. The Bed Bug, as it were, appeared as a pitchblack cross between a louse and a cockroach, as large as a medium-sized man. It stood on its hind legs like a circus dog, and its lanky front legs spread and folded like snapping pincers. With sharp fangs jutting out from its maw, and tiny flightless wings pinned to its back, the Bed Bug was the most vile, disturbing thing Andy had seen in his life...and worse still, it was not alone.

         From behind the curtain of trees, a host of Bed Bugs identical to the first joined their brother, and there were now easily a dozen of them in Chompy's small clearing. They surrounded the trio, forming a lopsided ellipse that threatened to collapse in on them like an art tool in a computer paint program. Andy and Tarah backed up against each other instinctively; Chompy thrashed his vines as if trying to ward off evil spirits. And a fiery ember grew in Tarah's eyes, her teeth gnashed like a rabid rodent.

         "I won't let them harm my garden or my friends..." the girl muttered, her grip tightening on her rose staff.

         "Andrew, run away!" Tarah called out, rushing from his side as if spurred. And then she was spinning towards them in a twisting round-off, right into the midst of the Bed Bugs' reach.

         "Tarah!!" Andy cried out helplessly. But Tarah was already upon the dark beasts, wielding the large staff as if it were a marching band baton. She bat away a pair of the Bed Bugs with two wide swings of her staff, and retreated into a back flip that carried her away from another's pinching grip. The girl popped up behind the devil, and clocked it on the head with a single hard thrust of the crystal rosebud. She then shifted her weight to avoid a jab from a Bed Bug's spindly leg, fell to her knees, and rebounded at the creature with a wide, crescent slash.

         "Come on, sapling!" Chompy cheered gruffly from the sidelines. "Even a baby Yggdraseer can take on these little deviants!"

         Andy stared at her transfixed, his jaw hanging down in a perfect emulation of a nutcracker soldier. (She...she's amazing...)

         With the spectacle the girl was creating, none of the Bed Bugs had any prerogative to attack Andy and Chompy. Tarah defended them perfectly, moving through the forest like wild fire, trying her hardest to claim this battlefield. But she remained outnumbered; the resourceful insects pressed their advantage without reservation. And although Tarah was much faster than them, she was at a loss to avoid this many attacks from this many opponents for this much time.

         "Eerk!" she winced, as the front leg of an approaching Bed Bug grazed her right cheek. She swung about haphazardly, knocking it away with a rather clumsy slash of her staff.

         "No, Tarah!" Andy's body coiled up like a python. "Get away from her!!" he roared, and all notions of fight-or-flight quickly shifted to "fight." Rushing the Bed Bug closest to Tarah, the boy flung out the strongest spinning kick his competence of the martial arts could muster. Unfortunately, his power was still too modest for making a dent in the creature's thick shell, and he bounced away and onto the ground, his leg pulsing with a liquid pain.

         "Don't Andrew!" Tarah said, batting away another Bed Bug. "Just go!" She frantically whirled around in a half-moon slash in an attempt to chase away the shadowy beasts.

         The Bed Bugs let out a gargled wail of triumph, ready to prey upon Tarah's new found weakness. Together as one, they began to close in.

         ...A piercing light shattered the clammy forest darkness, and Andy heard the unmistakable shriek of cold steel. Six of the twelve devils were sent flying, their bodies scattered all over the improvised arena. The boy's eyes caught the naked, gleaming blade of a zatoichi cane sword, blessed "gohei" paper strips dangling from its jet black grip. Its swordmaster, a thirty-something black man with short cropped hair and a trim beard, held the weapon aloft as if heralding a new dawn.

         "...P-Professor Clark?!" Andy gasped.

         Mr. Clark stared at the prone creatures with a battle-forged leer, and flicked out a hidden braid tucked within his collar that Andy had never noticed before. With two deft motions, he slipped the blade back into its scabbard, the sword once again taking the appearance of a gentleman's walking stick. Holding his weapon in a traditional samurai sword-drawing form, he drew upon all the subtle strength hidden in his wiry form. He bent his knees, his fingers dancing about the sword's grip.

         "SSSOOII!" he suddenly shouted, drawing his blade in a blazing strike that sent out a wave of compressed, superheated air. Then, a large, fiery explosion rocked the Bed Bugs, the flames and smoke rolling into each other like a hellish armadillo.

         "Tarah, now!!" the man's commanding voice sounded out, his leaden gaze never leaving his burning opponents.

"Okay, Professor!" Tarah called back. Spinning her weapon upright, she adopted a pose resembling an ancient religious deacon. Her eyes closed shut in prayer as she mumbled her meditations to the rose staff. A gentle wind began to form at her feet, wrapping her up like a warm fleece. The flowers and grass moved about as if in synchronization to her chanting; even Chompy seemed to be responding slightly to the ritual.

         "Great World Tree Yggdrassil, give me the power of my birthright!" the pigtailed girl called out to the ancient land of Broodring. "Bless me with the full gift of the dryad, for the sake of Pangaea!"

         Andy was forced to avert his eyes as a blinding flash lit up the trees for one fleeting instant. And then it was done, and he could peek through his fingers at the newest wonder of this world.

         Before the young lad now, in place of the girl he knew as Tarah Reichardt, was a figure that could easily be described as a mythic being of old. She wore a frayed elfen dress that ended at her knees, a garb befitting a true wood nymph. Her braids had morphed into twin twisting tendrils of silken green hair, and two disks of light levitated in front of her eyes to simulate the glasses that had disappeared from her face. And yet, when this mythic being turned her gentle gaze upon Andy, he knew in his heart that this was truly Tarah after all, and he removed his hands from his face with complete trust in his incredible friend.

         "The true form of the Yggdraseer..." Chompy whispered, an uncharacteristic reverence in his raspy voice. "Wilder than the wilds..."

         Yggdraseer Tarah turned to face the recovering Bed Bugs, who were oozing with a viscous indigo fluid. And with an otherworldly squeal, she unleashed the fury of nature upon her hapless foes. "HAIIII!!!!"

*****

         In the front yard of the Reichardt residence, the baby ash tree glowed with the buildup of mana energy. Flashing multitude shades of green luminescence, it lit up the yard like a holiday light show. With one final release, it ceased its proud display, as Andy, Mr. Clark, and a human Tarah Reichert were deposited onto the grassy lawn. Save for the small green embers of ethereal energy that hung in the air, there was no evidence that they had been anywhere else other than their hometown of Starlight City.

         "See, Andrew, these are the satellite ash trees of Yggdrassil!" Tarah explained, walking across the grass as she were just out for a neighborhood stroll. "I can enter and leave Broodring from any one of these!"

         "So this is how I ended up there," Andy said, regarding the ash tree with subtle awe. "What a incredible trip..."

         "Andy, your actions before were reckless and undisciplined." Mr. Clark spoke sharply, that rigid scowl once again on his face. "Good intentions are no excuse for poor planning. Don't endanger Tarah if you want to a remain part of our world."

         "I know, I know," Andy hastily apologized, trying to wave off the criticism. "But sir, why were you there to help us with those bug creatures? And what was that thing you did with the sword?"

         The normally reserved professor lowered his head, glancing solemnly at the cane sword by his side. "When I was around your age, I began training in the art of sword sorcery," he said. "I have been a guest of the mystical realms for a very long time now. The Balrog Sword can release a combustion wave by storing magical energy when sheathed. It's simply a trinket in the end, as Tarah's Crystal Rose will be much stronger once she grows into her power."

         "The Professor helps me sometimes when I go to Broodring," Tarah explained, walking over to her teacher's side. "He's really fun to talk to about things there, even more fun than talking about the bugs I caught!" She put a hand to her dimple, struck by a sudden notion. "Although the plants and animals there don't really like him very much. It think it's because he uses the fire sword, and that hurts plants."

         "All this time, a samurai warrior in Starlight Jr. High," Andy shook his head in astonishment. "I never knew..."

         "Andy, none of it has anything to do with English," the man reminded him, with a bit of reluctant humor tugging at his lip.

         Tarah smiled and absently tickled Cornflower, who had reverted back into a normal pet lizard. "So, Andrew, I guess you think I'm even weirder now, huh!" she said cheerfully, without an ounce of shame.

         Then again, why should she be ashamed? "I think you're fantastic," Andy told her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'm glad to be a part of Broodring with you."

         She beamed like a bespectacled sunrise, positively glowing in the silent night. Even Cornflower seemed a little more docile now, his hidden frill revealing itself and bristling with approval.

         "But Chompy still ticks me off," the boy added, a small growl rumbling in his throat.

         Tarah starred at him as though he was a man-eating machine from the planet Narcillia. Then, she exploded into a near-hysterical fit of laughter, grabbing onto her stomach as if it would burst.

*****

         Unbeknownst to the amicable trio, the cold eyes of a tall, dark man were watching as he balanced atop a telephone pole just across the street. The violent slash of hair over his face hung like a worn out dishrag, adding an additional malice to his already raging disquiet. The facade of nobility still remained in his statue-like demeanor, as if he was a rooftop gargoyle from gothic architecture. And like the unpleasant gargoyle, he was not pleased; not at all.

         "All my machinations carefully orchestrated, and yet Tarah is doing...well." The man put a hand to his chin in contemplation. "Who is this Andrew Champion?"

                             END