Santa Helena: The Blessing Of The Curse

Somewhere on the island of Oahu, in the year 3768, I heard my mother complain to my father after she received the bills from the mail, “We’ll never be rich! It’s our destiny to be below middle-class!” My father, a big, brawny man with a short, black beard, said no word but rocked in his old dark squeaky rocking chair, drinking the unsweetened coffee in his clay mug. Feeling a bit depressed, I rushed out of the door of our log cabin made of some mysterious black wood—maybe plastic! It was cloudy that day, yet the colorful tropical birds still chirped as they perched on nearby palm and pine trees. Treading on the deep green grass that stood about three feet high, I rested my chin on my tanned hand, rough and weary from all that packing and moving boxes into our “new” home. I mused for about five minutes on how my family could survive here since the cost of living was so outrageous, but came up with nothing; thus, I walked back into my cabin, which was plagued with antique furniture that my mother was planning to sell. About five feet tall and a bit wide at the waist, my mother told me, “Matt, your friend Satoko is coming to visit in a few days—” “We don’t have spare cash to take her anywhere!” I said, but she countered, “You do!” Then, I said, “You haven’t been giving me money since I was ten!” Yet, she retaliated, “But, that allowance can grow in the bank; you haven’t pulled it out of the bank, have you?!”

“No, ma’am; hell no, ma’am!” I lied, “that money is growing like a tree planted by the rivers of water, but that’s our emergency cash!!” She then said in a strict tone, “She deserves to have a good time here! At least you owe her that much.” Afterwards, I said quite hotly, “Satoko? I owe her nothing!” “What about those high grades she helped you obtain in college? What about that time when she rescued you from that burning building? What about that time when she saved you from that bully in the biology lab!?” I stood my ground. “I could’ve burned his skin off with those chemicals, but, no, Satoko honey insisted on testing her kung fu and karate on that god-forsaken fellow! I hope he’s with his mamma in hell for all his atrocities!” “What about that $100 Starbucks gift card she gave you when you almost starved to death before class!?” my mother countered yet again! A tear rolling down my cheek, I put my hand on my heart and exclaimed after sniffing, “I owe her my life! She’s been so good to me; therefore, by the grace of God—if He has anymore grace to give me—I shall return the favor!!!!!!” Later that night in my sleep, I found myself walking on the water of a small lagoon surrounded by palm trees on an evening lit by a full moon. Shortly afterwards, out of nowhere came a grey-haired man in sky-blue armor and a red and gold cape. His chestplate was filled with all kinds of precious stones while a faint, silver glow emanated from his being. As soon as I

recognized his face, I got on my knees, inquiring, “Lord Wyatt, what must I do to be saved?” He responded in his soft humble tone, “Saved? I thought you’re already a Christian!” Then, I corrected, “No no no, I mean saved—from my financial ‘crisis’!” “Remember that story I told you—” he started before I stopped him with “Not Halloween Island!” But, his assured, “Yes, Matthew, Halloween Island, where Governor Saint Helen Eleven and her settlers lived before they mysteriously went missing. It is said in the history books from UMUC that St. Helen hid her vast treasure somewhere on Mt. Helen, a mountain that I cannot locate on my GPS (global positioning system), but I believe it still exists somewhere on that haunted island—” “And, you want me to find the treasure and figure out what happened to the settlers—” He then stopped me by saying, “Correct! The reputation of UMUC is on the line!” Soon after, I awoke at noon the next sunny day… Running down the stairs, I exclaimed, “Mom, Dad, I know exactly where to take Satoko—” But, they yelled, “Boy, not Halloween Island! It’s dangerous, and that treasure is a myth; you might not make it back alive!” I reasoned, “I believe—no, I know that treasure exists on that island; I know I can do it! I just need to be there! And, if I die, I’ll make even more money in heaven, and I won’t be a burden to you!”

They were speechless for a moment and said with an iota (a small amount) of excitement at the thought of seeing me gone, “Well, uh, if you think it’s worth it, take my shotgun with you!” Therefore, I ran to the dark attic to get my mother's blue, eight-barreled loaded shotgun, which should give me an upper hand on the haunted island… Soon afterwards, the door bell rang loudly before I ran down the stairs to see who it was. It was Satoko—a lightskinned, black- haired young woman with phenomenal strength hidden in that slender frame! She was wearing light blue jeans and a red T-shirt under her black trench coat—I guess the air conditioner was on high in the taxi cab. Her smile seemed to say, “What’s up, negro!”; among the heap of clothing and other “necessities” (nail cutter, polish, file, hair dryer, comb, brush, makeup—among other things) stuffed forcefully into her big blue bag was her golden, crescent-shape katana (samurai sword) Solar Moon, which was about four feet long, that she won after winning first place in a fencing competition! Yes! That might help us out on our journey… “So, what’s up, Matty Mack!” said she, giving me a high five. “Nothing—uh, interesting; I think I know a place that you’ll love.” As I spoke, I saw the faces of my parents looking down, implying, “Oh, boy, this is NOT going to be good.” Yet, I continued, “Ever heard of Halloween Island? No? Well, since today’s Halloween, I thought I’d take you somewhere—uh, ‘special’!” “Wow, do we get to fight ghosts and goblins and stuff!?!” “Yep, sister! And, we have to pay only for the boat ride! So, take that katana with us—” I assured, yet she stopped me by

saying, “Uh, are the ghosts holograms or machines or folks in costumes?” So, I answered, “Whatever it is, it’s legal! Don’t worry, nobody will sue us!” With no hesitation, around 1:00 pm, Satoko and I, in my brown jeans, yellow T-shirt, and blue shoes, made way to our old, rugged car porch that housed our beat-up, dark brown Cadillac Escalade 5000; once turned on, this SUV hovers about one yard above the ground, since vehicles started to have no wheels since the thirty-first century. I overheard my father’s whispering to Satoko: “Satoko, if you survive, try to come back with our Cadillac!” Satoko, thinking it was a joke, chuckled and insisted on driving the SUV (sports utility vehicle); so, I gave her the keys, which I thought was my last mistake! On the four-lane highway, I noticed, “Hey, Satoko, this is America! We drive on the right side of the—whoa! Watch that truck!” She turned to the left-most lane, cursing the driver as if he were on the wrong side of the road. After some reckless driving, we arrived at the rocky parking lot next to the dock, where there was only one low-class wooden yacht that had barnacles stuck on the bottom of the ship; it had only one life boat on it. A Polynesian woman was walking hastily to her beige Toyota, the only vehicle in this lot besides ours… “Hello there, ma’am!” I said, “We need a ride to Halloween—” She halted, wide-eyed, “Hell no, bra (brother), that island is no good. I came there and went back in the same minute! Bra, that place is haunted! They don't call it Halloween Island for nothing, yeah?” I took out my expired military ID card—which said “OVERSEAS ONLY” and had only one side of my face since I

wasn't ready for the picture!—and said with a manly, CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) tone, “Listen, ma’am, my partner and I are ordered by the Hawaiian government to investigate that island.” Satoko added, “Girl, you heard the man: if you don’t take us to that island, we’ll see you in federal prison!” Not knowing what a military ID card is for, she said, “OK, sista (sister), you two make yourselves comfortable in the yacht; I’ll be there in a minute, yeah?” The ship was barren—nothing except wooden floors and walls! There was a wooden counter and a man selling spam musu bi, a slice of spam and rice wrapped in a seaweed called nori. Politely, I asked the man at the counter for two musubis, but he said, “$3.45 each!” Outraged, I signaled to Satoko to teach this guy a “lesson”; she knew exactly what I was talking about: she put on her dark sunglasses that changed her appearance from a cute novice detective to a cold-blooded firstrate manslayer and uttered softly, “I want five spam musubis—” Before she could finish, the man responded, “Yes, ma’am; of course, ma’am! You can have as many as you like— free of charge…!” Though Halloween Island was about five miles away from Oahu, it took us five hours to get there on this slow wooden junk! In the meantime, back against the wall, Satoko took a short nap while I leaned my head on her shoulder, listening to some fast-beat techno music on her mp3 player… Soon, the Polynesian captain called us to the deck when the ship was about one hundred yards from the black beach, showed us the life boat, and gave us two oars, saying, “I’m not getting any closer to that island; you CIA guys are good at paddling, yeah?” We told her “Yeah, thanks” and jumped onto the boat, paddling to the forsaken island around 6:00 pm.

The sand, soil, and tree trunks on this island were pitchblack, and the leaves of the trees had a mysterious orange or purple shade! Even the “satanic” rainbow, pear-shaped fruits gave off a faint glow! Walking through the quiet, scentless scenery as the sun sank below the horizon, Satoko and I heard a “WHOOOOOO” sound nearby, scaring us to life! Floating four feet off the dark soil was some kind of rounded marshmallow about four feet in diameter with blue eyes and a mouth—greatly resembling a video game character. With a look of excitement, Satoko exclaimed, “Wow, it’s Kirby!” But, I screamed “Aaaagghhrr! It’s the devil!” and stitched eight shotgun shells through his ghastly frame, yet the bullets went through him, not harming the ghost at all! I leaped out of panic, and Satoko caught me in her arms, running back to the dark beach, but our life boat wasn’t there! Scramming for our lives as the sun was below the horizon, we made our way to a cave that was seemingly carved out of some hill; I turned back yet couldn’t see the ghost! Still, Satoko and I ventured into the cave which had florescent light bulbs hanging from the ceiling! Even the stalactites and stalagmites (cone-like structures that sprout from the ceiling or ground, respectively) had Christmas lights on them! “Satoko, is this a cave?” Her only response was, “Hell no!” In the narrow passage was a white map nailed to a jagged, rocky wall; sadly, it didn’t pinpoint the location of Mt. Helen. We afterwards found ourselves in a large room with a beige coffee table between a beige, leather sofa and a Sanyo flatscreen TV hung on a jagged wall; to our right was a extra large, black computer which had no buttons or switches but had the logo: “Dell: Complex science for simple living!” Before we could scan the rest of the room, a brawny man in his pajamas and

wizard-like sleeping cap popped out of another doorway, exclaiming, “Oh my God! H—h—how did you get in here? Err, I forgot to turn on the energy shields again!” Recognizing his face, I inquired, “Are you Captain Arithmetic by chance? I only watched his show while I was taking algebra classes—” He then exclaimed, “Oh, great! Just GREAT! Now you know where my hideout is! Don’t tell this to the media, or I won’t have peace!” “We aren’t journalists,” I assured, “We just want to know what you know about Mt. Helen—” Wide-eyed, the captain raised his voice, “The mountain of Santa Helena!? The summit of vast treasure? I searched for it on and couldn’t find it; I even flew over this island ten times— in vain. We must find it, for my TV show hangs in the balance!” Satoko then gave a look that implied, “Treasure? Matthew, what the hell did you set me up for this time???!!!!! I thought this was an amusement park!!!” I ignored her, saying to the captain, “By the way, do you know how to defeat ghosts?” He answered, “You’ll need to learn the bright side of the Force; that’s what the young folks call it, but its scientific name is Bright Arithmagics, the science of exorcism—” Cutting him off, I exclaimed, “Wait a minute—that’s the stuff Lord Wyatt taught me, isn’t it? I thought it was nothing more than some weird yoga exercises!”

“It is, but it can also send ghosts and other monsters back to heaven, purgatory, or wherever the hell they're supposed to go! Lord Wyatt used to be my teacher, but I came here to do some research on the dark side of the Force, Dark Arithmagics, the science of evil!” “And, uh, what did you find out?” Satoko asked. His response was, “Only a hypothesis: the monsters on this island were not mutated by volcanic smoke but were summoned or reincarnated by Grey Arithmagics.” I afterwards inquired, “So, um, how do we activate our arithmagics?” Soon after, he exclaimed, “You must say the magic phrase to warm up for the arithmagics at least three times a day: ‘1, 2, 3, life got better since I bought my Wii!!!!’” Satoko looked at him as if she were to say “What the hell was that!?!” but I uttered, “But—but, I can't even afford a used one on !!” So, he asked, “Well, um, do you have a PS3, Xbox 360, or a PhD??” “I have none of them!” I panicked, but he said, “But, you need to rhyme with a number! It’s the only way!” Thus, I made up my own: “7, 6, 5, 4, I have $5, but I want more!” “No no no no no!” the captain said like a machine gun, “You must say it with enthusiasm!” Ergo, Satoko and I did and got heartburn! Floating one yard off the ground, our eyes

began to glow as we yelled, “Whoa, sir, how do we control this—” He replied, “Now, it’s time to warm up the Arithmagics! Try Hindu squats.” So we did and were on the ground again, yet he continued, “Now, twenty-five push-ups…nineteen situps…seven crunches…eighty-five lunges… Now, stretch out your hands and imagine the power of exorcism flowing from your veins to a target.” Eagerly, we did as commanded, and behold, white streaks of lightning exploded from our fingertips, yet the lightning went through Captain Arithmetic; I guess “White Force”—as the younger generation calls it—doesn't work on everything… “Oh my God!” spoke Satoko, “I thought only God could do that!” Shortly afterwards, I said, “Well, uh, we have to get going; thank you, mister—” “Beckham—Sir Allan Beckham, captain of the USS (United States Ship) Palin during World War VIII (8). Go forth and find your treasure, for, if you don't believe, you won't succeed!” I kept those words with me as Satoko and I rushed out of the cave. It was dark now, and the invisible new moon didn’t help one bit! We valiantly marched through the “satanic” woods, weapons in hand, and met some more “Kirbys” along the way, banishing them with our new skills. Suddenly, coming our way were female werewolves/foxes and giant yellow-green blobs with big eyes that seemed to say “How’s it going!?” We summoned white holy flares that didn't affect the non-ghosts! By the time we figured that out, a werefox soared five feet off the ground, thrusting me backwards by a dragon kick to my chin, yet I rolled back onto my feet; before I could get a good

aim at the fox-woman, I had to parry more kicks and punches with my eight-barreled shotgun, swinging it like a kung fu spear expert—though I wasn't… I seized the opportunity to give her a rifle-butt strike to her cheek and a low roundhouse kick to her right leg, followed by eight shotgun pellets to the abdomen. Soon after I blasted away more nearby werewolves, and after Satoko chopped some blob-monsters, another group of fiends sprang out of nowhere, comprising ghosts, werewolves/foxes, and skeletons with semi-automatic rifles! Satoko, swinging her Solar Moon left and right, swiped the enemy bullets as if she were playing tennis while I heard Lord Wyatt’s voice in my head: “Channel Arithmagic energy into your shotgun!” Thus, I did and launched a shining shotgun shell into the air; at the snap of my fingers, the shell burst into a radiant rain of divine judgment, banishing ghosts and nonghosts! I wasn’t able to reload my shotgun, and more fiends rushed toward us! Charging her katana with Arithmagics, Satoko slammed Solar Moon to the ground, emitting a blinding shockwave that cleared a portion of the dark meadow of ghosts, although a small percentage flew over the shockwave. I threw more holy balls at the ghosts and bashed/kicked my way through more werefoxes and skeletons. “Satoko, run! We don't have time for this crap!” A swift werefox dived to the ground to grab my foot in order to bring me to a halt. I thrust the butt of my shotgun to her forehead before I held her by the neck in front of me, using her as a shield to shield me from a ghost’s satanic toxic breath which took care of the werefox for me… Blowing ghosts out of our way, we encountered an eerie, purple mist; once we crossed the violet fog, we were translated to another part of the island—I think…

The soil was still black, but the trees were all dead! The smell of pumpkins were everywhere as we saw pumpkins with eyes and mouths, hopping toward us with a funny “Heeheeheehee!” Since they were so slow, I didn’t waste my bullets on them… Deeper in the shadowy forest was a headless black figure, encased in black armor, with a big dark shield and a five-footlong rifle, riding on a dark horse that exhaled smoke from its nostrils! A large pumpkin hopped on his shoulders to be his head before the large stallion advanced toward us! Like a marathon runner, Satoko charged and then slid on the ground so she could slice off the legs of the stallion with her spellcharged blade, while I shot the pumpkin off the horseman, who now was no threat since he had no brain; that was easier than I thought… Walking up a steep slope, we came across that purple mist again! This time, behind the mist was a chilling scenery of a mountain top. The snow mysteriously had a grey tint to it, and the harsh frigid air blew Satoko’s hair like a blow dryer. Before we could get to the top, I was halted at the sight of a red and gold treasure chest! Excitement kept me warm as I spoke, “Satoko, hahahaha! This is what we’ve been waiting for!—what the—” I was about to spew out a vile four-letter word, but Lord Wyatt’s voice rung clearly in my mind: “Don’t curse, or you might get cursed!” Popping out of nowhere appeared some spirit, hovering two feet off the snow; dressed in a grey witch outfit, the spirit looked like--like--Hannah Montana?—without blood, sleep, and bliss (happiness)!

“So, you must be St. Helen or Santa Helena or whatever those Latinos call you!” I said. She countered, “And, you want my money or my treasure or whatever the hell you Latinos like to steal!” Yet, I reasoned, “You’re a spirit; why do you need money?!” She answered, “The afterlife isn’t cheap, you know; when you see Hades, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about!” “Well, uh, what happened to the settlers here, and how did you become governor!?” I asked, making her put her hands up, implying, “Whew, don’t ask me too much at once, man.” She then answered, “I can’t sing well; I always wanted to sing like Hannah Montana, but—errr, don’t get me started on that witch! The settlers started moving to Montana to attend Hannah’s concerts. So, I banned them from moving away from this island, but then, they started using the internet and TV to hear that witch’s ‘chants’; so, I forced my father to tax them to death with my Dark Arithmagics. He didn’t listen to me; so— uh…I became governor and taxed them myself!” Satoko exclaimed, “Oh my God! She’s the spirit of Hitler and Stalin combined!” And, I added, “Girl, if you want to imitate someone, you ought to imitate Hilary Duff! Hilary beats Hannah any day, right, Satoko!?” “Hell no! Hannah’s perfect! You must be dipping ‘duff’ (snuff)!” I stopped the argument with “Whatever. Miss Eleven, we need to borrow this money—” Suddenly, she put her demonic

paws on the treasure chest and exclaimed, “NOOOO! Mortals always buy things on credit; they never pay off their debts! That’s why their descendants have to pay them off!” She afterwards exploded dark lightning at me, who blocked it swiftly with my faithful shotgun. The battle lasted for about half an hour; so, I’ll just hit the high points: Dark flames exploded from Helen’s feet, allowing her to flying through the evening air, raining down black bolts of satanic justice, giving us a sudden scare. Satoko and I mustered some Bright Arithmagic moves, but Helen was not hurt! Exceedingly frightened, I almost panicked until I heard Wyatt’s voice in our heads: “Bright Arithmagics are weakened through fear! You must believe that you can defeat her! Faith powers up White Force! Just treat her like the rest of the ghosts you fought; she’s no different!” By faith, Satoko struck her down with a spell-charged air wave from her katana swing. Charging my blue worn-out shoes with arithmagics and spinning diagonally in mid-air, I delivered a dozen spin-kicks, a magic-charged pallet, and some holy voltage, followed by Satoko’s nine kicks and twelve spell-slashes! The dark saint, breathing heavily, slammed her palms to the snow, mustering eerie geysers that gave us some bruises; among other chainattacks, she launched dark fire like a crazed woman who wasted her money on drugs and gambling. After our lightning and fire clashed for the next twenty minutes, Helen finally disappeared, leaving the money behind! As soon as I picked up the chest, the peak of the mountain exploded into a fountain of lava, making us run back to where we came. Scratched by thorns and other objects as we darted through the satanic forests, we ran alongside the monsters that now thought of us—and Sir Allan Beckham—as fellow escapees, and dashed towards the beach, where that wooden

yacht was waiting about a hundred yards away! “Oh, look! It’s them!” shouted the Polynesian captain to her friend, “I thought they went to hell! Maybe we should be CIA agents!” And, the monsters yelled, “Hey, don’t leave without us! I don’t want to get scorched back here!” Since I wasn’t a good swimmer, Satoko put me on her back and darted through the molecules of water like a swordfish while I kept a tight grip on the money… As soon as Satoko and I arrived at my house in a new dark-green Chevrolet Suburban 3028 the next morning, my parents were more shocked than excited to see us…! Sakoto then looked at me, saying sweetly, “I LOVE Hawaii!” I responded, “I do now!” Eventually, UMUC’s history books were labeled by the New York Times: “Extraordinary!” “Accurate!” and “Up-to-date!” This all wouldn’t have happened if Wyatt hadn’t empowered me with faith to take on any challenge! The next year, Satoko and I took a vacation to Paris, France, and took lodge in a Gothic-style hotel. That same night, alone in my room, I heard a “Whhooooo! My money, my precious! Stop spending it; give it back!” Sweat rolled down my face as I screamed, “Satoko, is that you…?”

********************************* Matthew Dollar's Account ********************************* “My money; quit spending my money!!!!!!!!” a ticked-off eerie voice which sounded like Saint Helen’s said. I sprung out of my bed and looked around my dark room with moon light seeping through the window near the headboard, yet my eight-barreled shotgun was nowhere to be found! “Crap!” I thought to myself, “I knew Satoko and I should’ve brought our weapons to Paris! Now, I’m screwed!” I instinctively snatched my credit card, which had half the treasure from Mt. Helen (Satoko had the other half), and cried “Satoko?!? Satoko!?!” The voice of Saint Helen then uttered, “Vile spirits, attack him and get that credit card! My powers aren’t fully restored yet; don’t fail me!!!” Suddenly, pale, corpse-like humans hovering two feet off the floor made their way into my small, humble room without the use of a door!!! I quickly grabbed the five-foot-tall pole lamp and charged it with the holy energy of my Bright Arithmagics. I grabbed the lamp with so much force that the plug fled the outlet as I swung the lamp like a third-rate kung fu spear master. My pole lamp blazing with a ghastly whitish flame, I swung it around to beat back the ghost to my right; then, I leaped after the spirit to my left to execute four horizontal strikes, six diagonal swings, and a holy-charged dual-kick before landing on my bed to roll away from another

ghost’s hellish claw slash. Back on my feet in an instant, I parried away a multiple-hit combo and jumped to the other side of my bed, evading an eerie comet-like projectile that smashed through my window (we’ll refer to magic projectiles as quantum [singular] and quanta [plural]); I—while flying to the doorway by a ghost’s heavy, shadowy kick—emitted a holy helix that burned away another ghost. The spirit that kicked me dashed toward me, spewing a barrage of small, dark, sharp, star-shaped quanta from her out-stretched hands and fingers; swiftly, I got back up and deflected her quanta like an intrepid, fourth-rate fire dancer, launching a searing, shining arcshaped quantum (to be specific, we may call this an arc) with my last wing, burning away the vile spirit. “Saint Helen Eleven, where the hell are you!?! Quit sending these fiendish pawns to do thy bidding! C’mon ‘n’ fight me like woman—a real woman!!!” I bluffed as I glanced around for Satoko. Since I wasn’t used to this fighting (it’s been a year since I’ve practiced this art of magic and combat), my spiritual and physical energies were evaporating as fast as they condensed due to my adrenaline rush. All was quiet when I walked in the hallway to knock on Satoko’s door (she and I had separate rooms; no, we didn’t have a feud; we just wanted to make sure our credit cards wouldn’t get stolen…); there was no answer, and the door was locked! Suddenly, a pale humanoid darted through the door, attempting to lance my abdomen with his short spear (wow, I never knew ghosts carried weapons; sadly, when the ghosts die, their weapons go with them. Yeah, go ahead—let it out: crap!!!), but fortunately, I was quick enough to pole-lamp-block this attempt, kick him back into the room, and summon another flaring arc that went through the door and took the spirit

“home” since he didn’t come back to haunt me. (Bright Arithmagics hardly affect physical objects.) It shocked me that nobody awoke from all this noise; it then dawned upon me that perhaps Satoko and I were the only ones lodging in this gothic-style hotel. “SATOKO!!!!!!!!!!” I shouted, “This ain’t funny! If you can hear me, I can use some help!!” “Hmph, what happened to that courageous boy who almost got rid of me last year?” It was Santa Helena’s girly, sassy voice. “Hmm, look who’s talking! Anyways, the man who fought you last year weighed five pounds less but had 10% more muscle mass!” I said, trying to track Helena’s voice. (I’ll sometimes use Helena and Helen interchangeably; note that I’m still referring to Saint Helen Eleven.) The voice seemed to come from the first floor; I gave a little peek, and to my surprise, Helena stood there on the stairs waiting for me. I tried to distract her mind (if she had one) by saying, “Don’t you make good money in Hades? I mean, you were the governor’s daughter—” “I am the governor’s daughter!” she said like an adamant two-year-old—if two-year-olds could speak good English. “As I said before, Hades isn’t cheap! My salary is high but so are my expenses. Even though I’m a spirit, I still need my make-up, blow dryer, dishwasher, hairspray, lotion, body wash…(This went on forever; so, I’ll fast-forward it for you)…and I still need more money to afford that high-tech scuba gear so I can tour the Lake of Fire!—aaaargggghh!” I took her by surprise through a powerful blazing dropkick, and my radiant comet blew her to the foyer of the hotel, but it was a trap—a doggone trap!!! Two werefoxes lurking

behind the stairs sprang up to attack me, but I, using the pole lamp for support, jumped in mid-air to do the splits, kicking the werefoxes in their faces at the same time (yep, my legs felt rather uncomfortable after that, thank you). Consequently, this left me open for a ghost woman’s spirit lasso which squeezed my torso as she threw me into the door! Next thing I knew, I was rolling on the lawn of the hotel. The unnaturally bright moonlight shining overhead, I could see all sorts of monsters charging after me—werewolves/foxes/tigresses, skeletons, humanoid ghosts, Kirby-looking ghosts, and of course, the cute, big, yellow-green blob amebas with those big, green eyes that imply “How’s it going?!” “Crap! How the hell am I gonna kill all twenty of them!?!” I thought while swiping every quantum that came my way. Bold, daring, optimistic, and reckless as ever, I charged at them when I had the chance, cutting through some, throwing spells at some, doing combos on others, and getting beat back by most. After three diagonal hits, two thrusts, three horizontal strikes, and a rushing kick, a werefox managed to take me to the ground by her kick (I block every hit before the kick), and she was about to thrust her spear up my butt; suddenly, I heard a loud thump sound and got up; Satoko, all sweaty from saving herself in her own fight—I guess, managed to tackle the werefox and split her head by means of a strong, glowing knee-strike. Satoko was still on the ground when a skeleton, werewolf, and weretigress charged toward us; thus, I rolled onto Satoko’s back and performed some fancy break dancing kicks to sweep away their arms, deflecting their attacks. Satoko and I then held hands so Satoko could swing me roundabout as I charged the soles of my shoes for a roundabout running-kick that pushed back ghosts and skeletons.

Then came the blobs… We tried to fend them off with the spears on the ground, but the spears were too dull to do any impressive damage. “Lord, I’m ready! We can use a miracle just about now; I just wanted You to know—” I thought as Satoko and I dodged some dark, gooey quanta the blobs spat at us. (Remember, White Arighmagics are effective on ghosts only, not monsters!) Suddenly, a double-helix, ruby flame flashed from behind us, drilling into a blob monster, destroying it; we didn’t have time to see who fired the flare as we evaded/swiped away dark quanta and now focused on Santa Helena, who was cheering the blobs before throwing black lightning at us! Dodging the bolts while the blobs seemed to be dying one by one, I seized the opportunity to shoot Helen to the ground, and Satoko did a flying knee-strike to her belly. Helena slid backwards on the ground and then flew up to unleash eerie auroras that nearly sent my brown skin to oblivion; Satoko high-jumped to attack the “saint” from behind, but Miss Eleven countered by executing multiple kicks that dropped Satoko to the ground. I then launched four radiant arcs from my pole lamp and leaped high to execute four swings, two spinning kicks, and a mighty heel-slam before I fell back on my feet on the ground. Before Eleven could flee from the scene, Satoko hurled a few comets to keep Helen from coming back anytime soon. “This is soooooo not fair! You three will pay for this!!!” she said as she flew toward the moon… Satoko and I turned back to see our “miracle worker.” We were expecting cops with high-powered flamethrowers, but instead we saw a single, short-haired, brown-skinned woman

in a red jacket, blue jeans, and brown, rugged stockings. The face was all too familiar for us. “Monica!” we said cheerfully, “What are you doing here in Paris? That was some fancy Arithmagics!” “Your Arithmagics was good, too,” she complimented, “I learned Red Arithmagics a while ago. So, who was that ghost lady that took off?” We explained how we took Saint Helen’s treasure, that Helen wants it back, and how we learned the anti-ghost Bright Arithmagics. Strangely, no security guards—or anyone, for that matter—came see what’s going on; I guess the ghosts/monsters “silenced” them so they could finish Satoko and me easier. I let the women rest in Satoko’s room and went back to mine to put back the pole lamp; I really needed some sleep… I had one of those visions again. I was in a dark room illuminated by a desk lamp sitting over a computer monitor. There were four chairs beside the computer desk; they were occupied by Satoko, Monica, and Lord Wyatt—dressed in some red-and-gold armor. He bid me to have a seat as he explained his research. Typing “witches’ high Sabbath” on his Google search engine, Lord Wyatt clicked on the heading “Journal of an Ancient, Absent-Minded Wise Man” and said, “According to this article, Sigmund Steiner, researcher at the Unknown University of Berlin, seemed to have written down the story of his expedition with this master, Alexus de la Crois (I think it’s pronounced “cwah”)…” The words on the monitor seemed to be in German; unable to read it, the women and I trusted in Wyatt’s paraphrased summary of the journal: “…In the year 2020, Alexus ventured underground to locate the whereabouts of the

First Hawaiian Bank that settled somewhere on an island near France since it wasn’t getting much business in Oahu. The bank was buried after a volcanic eruption around 2017, according to ancient news sources. Alexus finally found the bank around November 2020, and one of the most interesting things happened—” “Hold it, Master Wyatt!” I said, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but where’s this French Hawaiian Bank thingy?” “Sir Steiner didn’t say; I guess it’s location was so recognized a long time ago that everyone knew what you meant if you were to say ‘the First Hawaiian Bank’; I’ll try to find some clues to its location—” “Um, Wyatt, could you get back to the story? I can’t read German!” said Satoko with a mixture of boredom, excitement, anticipation, and intensity. “Oh, yes, now where was I?” Monica reminded, “The part where that French guy found something interesting in that bank!” “Oh, thanks, Monica!” Lord Wyatt continued: “Sigmund and Alexus found a rather gigantic tree—which they referred to as the ‘Tree of Wealth’; some humanoid spirits floated around its branches, plucking out coin rolls and dollar bills, and other spirits placed some insignificant amounts of money into the safes, where the tree roots originated. Sigmund and Alexus call this phenomenon the ‘Witches’ High Sabbath’— when the barrier between the physical and spiritual realms wears thin; though they weren’t certain why spirits needed money, they believed that the Tree of Wealth regenerates cash! Sadly, when the spirits were about to return to the spiritual

realm, they spotted Alexus and went after him; Sigmund fled the underground bank and never saw Alexus de la Crois ever again! Sir Steiner left the keys of the Library of Ancient Myths and Secrets to his descendants in Orleans. I believe this library may hold some clues on where to find the lost First Hawaiian Bank of France!” “Oh, that reminds me…” I told Wyatt about our incident with Santa Helena. Not as shocked as we expected, Master Wyatt plainly uttered with his soft voice, “Ah, I see; Helena wants your credit cards so she can regenerate them at the Tree.” Monica pondered aloud, “I wonder why she didn’t do that a long time ago.” “Some folks don’t think right,” I sighed, “I guess she was going to do it last year, but Satoko and I—you know—” “So, you want us to find the bank!” “Yes, Satoko, very clever; besides, this may be your chance to make extra money!” “Oh, yes, Wyatt!” Monica screamed with joy, “You can count me in!!!!” “Very well; I knew I can trust you three.” “Whadya mean ‘three’?” I questioned, not very excited about this Franco-Hawaiian thing, “Looking around and finding clues ain’t my cup of tea; this ‘adventure’ is almost like getting lost in a shopping mall; this is a woman thing!”

He responded, “Not quite, Matthew; I’ve heard that there’s some monster activity going on in some haunted places ‘round the world. You can put your fighting skills to the test.” “Then, count me in, brotha!!!” After all that, I awoke around 10:00 a.m…

************************************* Matthew Dollar's Account ************************************* Satoko, Monica, and I were surprised that no investigators came to our hotel—which had a few windows/doors broken; you would expect someone to watch over this two-star hotel, right….? “Well, Satoko, sorry to cut our vacation short—” I said. “Don’t worry; adventure and vacation are synonyms in my vocabulary!” she answered joyfully. Monica replied, “That’s good, for Danger is my middle name!” Satoko and I were stunned at the words “Monica Danger J-Walker” on her ID card! “Now, why don’t we get something to eat!?” “Does France have Burger King or Taco Bell?” “C’mon, Matty Mack!” Satoko yelled at me, “This is FRANCE! No time to be low-class!” Monica then uttered, “I’d rather be low-class than to spend euros for unfulfilling food—speaking of low-class, you think there’s some food downstairs in the mess hall?” We went to the empty cafeteria and “stole” a good snack behind the “Employees Only” door; swiftly, we left the deserted gothic-style hotel and waved for a taxi ride. What pulled over nigh (near) our sidewalk was a hover mobile no longer than the twin-sized bed I just slept on last night!

We’re gonna drive in this sh—” I was about to spew out a horrible anathema, but my good conscience held my tounge, “—Well, I guess this is all we can get, eh?” Monica offered, “Well, I guess we can wait half an hour for a car or SUV to come over—” “Hell no!” our impatient Satoko shouted as she opened the door and shoved us in as if we were baggage! Speaking of baggage, we didn’t carry any big luggage with us, fortunately…Satoko rode in the front with the driver, who asked, “Where do you wish to go, madame?” “Orleans!” “Orleans?!?” he said, wide-eyed, “Do you foreigners have any idea how far zat eez from here!!!?” He complied when Satoko flashed an overly sufficient amount of euros across his face…The ride was quite uncomfortable; so, in order to revive my spirits of joy, excitement, and peace, I asked the driver to find some French techno music on the radio. I really needed the music once the driver started weaving through traffic, passing in the no-passing zones, and downright driving deliberately on the other side of the road, among other things such as running on the red lights, paying no heed to pedestrians, and trying to out-maneuver the cops! Around 11:00 a.m., by the blessing of Abraham, we arrived in Orleans in one piece! Getting out of the satanically cramp hover mobile, I took a deep breath and said, “Aw, sweet old Orleans!” Monica and Satoko became quite uncomfortable when used the French pronunciation (“Or-leh-ons”) and suggested that I use the American one (“Or-leens”), but I insisted on using the French pronunciation. We didn’t know much French or German; so,

how the hell are we going to find a descendant of Sir Sigmund Steiner? To our surprise, there were many English-speaking folks near the plaza. There was a two-tone-colored shopping mall (the top half was light brown, and the bottom half, dark brown) about the size of a mansion. The light-blue, transparent neon laser door deactivated when we came nigh; it then reactivated once we past it. (Don’t ask me if this door is dangerous; I don’t know and I don’t want to find out!) The huge golden light bulbs showered their light above us, and the long, wide hall branched off into many shopping areas—too numerous for me to count. The fake gold floor reflected our image back to us like a gold-tinted mirror. Soon, the women [Satoko and Monica] forgot about our purpose here in Orleans (Or-leh-ons!) and started to drift off like a poor swimmer in a strong current. “Don’t worry, Matty!” Satoko uttered, “We’ll get back to the mission, but first, we need to enjoy our stay here in Or-leens!” “You mean Or-leh-ons—” Monica raised her voice, “Or-leens, Matthew! C’mon, Satoko, let’s have some fun!” With that, they vanished (I almost mean that literally)! Ergo (therefore), I strolled down the halls, looking for old folks sitting on the benches to inquire them about the descendants of Sigmund. The first man I spoke to spoke remarkably good English; he seemed to have a good blend of Orleans and Edinburg blood in him. “What would you want from a bloody old man like me, son?” “I’m looking for the descendants of a researcher named Sigmund Steiner; might you have any relative information on this subject, sir?”

“Steiner? Hmmn, never heard of him; sorry, son; I’m just a useless old man—” “Oh, don’t be too modest, sir,” I cheered, “You are still useful, even in thy (your) old age!” “Thank you, son; I needed that…” I then stopped an old woman on a wheelchair, saying, “Excuse me, madame!” “What are you doing, young man? Let go ov my chair!” “I would like to ask you something—” “No more questions! I had enough ov you salespeople een ziz pless!” “I—I just wanted to know if you know anything about the descendants of Sigmund—” Her attitude changed completely, “The Descendants of Sigmund? Eet’s een my house; eet eez ze best book I’ve ever read so far!” “Oh, thank you, madame—” I said depressingly as I slowly walked away. “Wait a minute, monsieur! You aren’t going to steal eet from my house, are you?” “Of course not, madame!” A new thought then entered my mind. “So, madame, what was ze book about?” Her accent was rubbing off on me.

“I don’t remember too much…The descendants were very special people who held ze key to an ancient library of magical knowledge. Fiction stories are so intriguing, aren’t the, monsieur?” I answered, “Yes, Madame; did ze book tell zee (thee: the early modern English form of our you) where zey lived?” She thought for a moment and said, “I don’t remember all of zem, but zer was a man who lived not far from here; if ze story eez true, he should be…” She gave me the location of his house; fictitious or not, it was worth a try! The elderly lady and I conversed about science fiction for a few minutes, and then she remembered that she was late for a birthday party…suddenly, my French accent faded away… Afterwards, something:

I

overheard

two

guys

talking

about

“Did you hear about a group of young people looking for some treasure-thingy called ‘Ze Tree ov Life’?” “I’ve heard about eet. Hmph, young folks—always falling for myths to get reech queekly; why don’t zey work hard for a change?” “Are they talking about us????” I pondered. Suddenly, Satoko’s voiced struck me from behind: “Hey, Matty Mack, did you do any shopping?” “Uh, no, but—” “What!?” condemned Monica, “C’mon, Mack Matty, you’d better take advantage of this opportunity to buy something!”

“Don’t worry; I can order stuff online. Anyways, are you gals finished yet?” “Mm-hmm,” Satoko hummed, “We had our stuff shipped back to our houses! Now, let’s get back to the mission!” I told them about my new discovery, and we walked to a large, gothic-style house a few blocks away from the noisy plaza. Monica had no compassion on the bronze doornail, and after a moment, the door slowly opened; behind the door was a skinny young man who looked more like a Londoner than anything else; he even looked more Londoner than human!—kidding… “Are you Sigmund Steiner’s descendant, or do we look for another?” I asked. He responded quite playfully, “What do you think?” “I think you’re just some lowly English servant boy who got laid-off in London and came all the way here to get a job and to fool around with the hostess when the host is not around,” Monica said frankly. He laughed, “Hahaha! I like that one, mate; ‘twas bloody good, but actually, I am the host, and I’d be more than jolly to make this yellow fellow of yours my hostess, if you’re interested, my dear—” “Not interested!” Satoko answered swiftly and roughly, “We’re here to see a descendant of Sir Steiner to obtain the key to the doggone Library of Ancient Myth and Secrets already.” “Hmm, getting down to business—I like that, my lady,” said the young man to Satoko with his British accent; “I am a descendant of whom you speak by the name of Sherlock E. Steiner; my mother and grandfather were British, and I

received much of their genes. Anyways, why do you wish to visit the Library of Ancient Myths and Secrets?” Monica and I let Satoko answer, since Sherlock was looking at her up and down, then up and down again, then down and up, then left and right. He was about to go from left to right, but Satoko finally uttered, “We just want to see it, and that’s all you need to know!” “I’m sorry to be so intrusive, my lady! Perhaps I should go with you—” (Satoko’s face didn’t look so happy…) “—I’m curious to see what’s in the Library, too, but my friends never wanted to accompany me; you never know what’s in the library until you go, eh?” Satoko’s face seemed to imply, “Will you please get the doggone key before I explode!!?!!” “Oh, I’ll get ready in a second—like a doornail in a hand basket!” We never understood his similes; so, when you see an irrelevant simile such as this, just ignore it—for your own psychological well-being. We waited patiently for five minutes. “Should we let this freak come with us!? I mean, I have nothing against Brits, but this guy—” I cut her off, saying, “He might know some fancy Arithmagics; we should take ‘im; besides, he seems to have a crush on you.” “Shut up, Matthew!” she told me, “If he has a crush on me, I’m gonna crush him!!!” Monica then suggested, “Well, if he has no Arithmagics, I guess we could steal his key ‘n’ throw ‘im back in this house ‘n’ run.”

“C’mon, ladies, he can’t be that bad,” said I. “I’m ready!” he said. “Oh, we forgot to introduce ourselves,” said I, “My name is—” “The name’s Monica Danger J-Walker, the sweet monsterslaying maiden of Red Arithmagics!” she cut me off. “Ahem! My name’s Mateo Dinero de la Bendición, but just call me Matty Mack or Mack Matty, since I couldn’t afford a Mac; it makes me feel better.” Satoko looked away and uttered, “Just call me Satoko Shinobi Shikaku, the greatest assassin of the 37th century.” “Great! Well, let me lock my door, and we’ll be on our way, like a bumblebee in a warm, lovely desert!” “Um, Sherlock, do you know any Arithmagics?” I asked. “Why yes, I know the healing powers of Blue Arithmagics and Green Arithmagics, natures power in the form of magic.” “Uh, Sherlock, may we call you ‘Simile’?” “Of course, Lady Satoko; why ‘Simile’?” “Cuz your similes don’t make sense!” With that, she walked away… Simile didn’t own a car; so, we got a ride from the same driver as before; Simile, Monica, and I were stuffed in the back while Satoko rode shotgun (in the front).

“You want me to take you to ze southern French port? Arr you insane!!!” exclaimed the driver. “We have to go to Corsica, sir; we have no time to spare,” uttered Simile Steiner. “Well, I don’t have enough electreecitee in zis hybrid to—” He hushed his lips even before Satoko could slap several hundred euros on his lap! (Note: she’s not using the money we got from Mt. Helen!) Wide-eyed, Simile whispered to me, “Wow; this woman is bloody rich!!!” “You may share her wealth one of these days, if you know what I mean.” “Shut up, Matty! Monica, that’s not funny! Hey, you, quit laughing and drive!!!” Needless to say, we arrived at the port sooner than a defensive driver would…! The time was now 1:35 p.m., and there were no boats, save a very familiar one… The Polynesian captain gasped in horror as she saw us coming: “You—you CIA guys again!!” “CIA? Wow, this is bloody awesome, like a Frisbee in New Jersey!” “Shut up, Sim,” Satoko told Simile, “Ma’am, we need to get to Corsica ASAP (as soon as possible); do I make myself clear!?” “Hey, you can’t just use my boat, yeah? That’s MY private property! You guys are violating da American Constitution, yeah?”

“Excuse me?!!” said Satoko as she put on her dark sunglasses that transformed her from a cute detective to a cold-blooded manslayer from Tokyo. “Yes, of course, madame; right this way.” Her wooden junk was no better than before, I assume—because we arrived at Corsica around 6:35!

**************************************** Mateo Dineo's Account ***************************************** The sun fought to stay above the horizon to get one last peek at us as Simile led us to a pinkish purple house near the coast; we asked him if this was the Library, but he said this was the house of a high school rival. “And, what are we doing at a rival’s house? You’d better have a good explanation!” Satoko screamed, about to squeeze Simile’s throat. “Sorry, my lady, but I don’t know exactly where the Library is, but I know it’s around here somewhere. I’m sure my rival will help us, like a black cat swimming in the ocean!” Monica and I glanced at each other in bewilderment. Satoko looked away from him in disgust and rang the door bell—I mean that literally… “Who the hell can that be?!” a Scottish voice said, getting closer to the door. To our surprise, the man at the door looked very similar to Simile!—but a little more rugged. “Simile, you dastard! What the hell do you—” (We couldn’t believe he called Sherlock “Simile,” too! I guess we’re not the only ones with simile issues…) The young man glanced at Satoko and gasped, “No way in bloody hell; that woman is NOT your girlfriend! Admit it! You can’t amount up to anything—just like Dad said!”

“Aw, you’re just jealous, eh, Metaphor?” Sim said, putting his arm around Satoko’s shoulders. She implied in a stern tone, “Simile, I’m gonna warn you only once—” Sim whispered, “Please, my lady, could you play along? This is my moment of ‘triumph’!” Satoko found it hard to put on a smile; Sim’s cologne was quite strong. She tried a sweet voice; it sounded so insincere that even you and I could do better in a karaoke bar (she must’ve been pissed-off): “So, Simile honey, what are we here for, hmmnn?” She then pinched his check like a sweet grandmother, but she pinched it so hard that Sim had to shriek like a little girl before he said, “Metaphor, you promised that once I amount up to something, you’ll take me to the Library of Ancient Myths and Secrets!” “Please, Metaphor; he means ‘something’ to me,” said Satoko, hugging Sim so tightly that Monica and I could’ve sworn by heaven and hell that we heard some ribs break! “Metaphor looked down while kicking at the rocky terrain and said, “I don’t know where it is.” “You what!!??” “Dad never told me either.” Satoko then jumped on Simile—like a tigress pouncing upon her prey (how about that simile, huh, Simile?!)—and pummeled him for using her “feminine” charm in vain. He seemed to enjoy it… “No, my money! Matthew, this—this can’t be!” Monica sobbed as if she lost a loved one. “Don’t worry, Monica; we’ll find that Tree of Wealth in no time!” I cheered, ever so optimistic.

I then stared into the ocean and saw something…I guess Simile’s simile—ah, I’ll let you see it for yourself: a black cat was floating in the Mediterranean Sea, practicing its swimming techniques, I suppose. It was getting dark; so, I shouted: “You, Sun, get up that horizon one more time!” A great voice responded, “My muscles are getting cramped! Make it quick!” My eyes deceived me not—it was a black cat swimming in the water! I yelled, “Hey, you! Yeah, you! Who else is black around here!? You know where the Library of Ancient Myths and Secrets is?” Its meowing voice replied, “It’s on the northeast side of this island. You’ll need a key—” “Thanks, kitty!” said I. Suddenly, a shark fin came riding around the poor cat, which submerged for a long, long time… “Metaphor, you aren’t gonna let us walk there, are ya?” “I’m not doing this for you, Simile; I’m doing this for that yellow fellow over there; now, get in the mini-van, all of you!” It didn’t take us long to get to the Library. Simile and Monica hopped out of the hovering van in no time. Metaphor gave Satoko a keycard, saying, “This one’s the real key; Sim’s is a fake, but he doesn’t know it!” “Thanks, Metaphor!” She looked lively again, “He’s not my boyfriend.” With a smile, she slipped a piece of paper into his shirt pocket. “Satoko, what the bloody hell was that!?” Sim said, racing back to the van, “Did you give him your phone number?—like a wasp and a meadow lark?” “Shut up, Sim; it’s none of your business! Whadya looking at, Matty Mack? Let’s go!!!!!!!”

While Metaphor drove home, and while the crescent moon gave the sun a break, we stared in awe at the neon lights that read “Welcome to the Library of Ancient Myths and Secrets! This area is off-limits; for more information, call the Sigmund family!”—however you say that in French; though Sim didn’t know much French, we took his word for it. Sim started swearing once his keycard didn’t work; he tried again and again, but the swiping machine couldn’t read his card. Satoko pushed him forcibly to the side and opened sliding doors in no time. “S—Satoko, where did you get that key, for heaven’s sake?” “Sim, I’m not in the mood for this; let’s go!” The dim, florescent lights sprayed their light throughout the room. There were rows of shelves containing eBookreaders; we took our time and read a few for some clues. One eBook-reader had the following excerpt: “White Arithmagics is effective on vile spirits, whereas Black Arithmagics slays humans with ease. The forces of nature are bond in the magical gestures of Green Arithmagics, and Red Arithmagics destroys a vile new kingdom of animals—commonly referred to as ‘monsters’; healing/immunity properties are contained in Blue Arithmagics, but degenerative/autoimmune qualities are sealed in Purple Arithmagics. It has been said that Gray Arithmagics are used by great evil spirits to bring forth the monsters, but more research is needed to confirm it. One soul can learn only three Arithmagics per adventure, but she/he can easily uninstall one from her/his being and reinstall another in these quick, simple steps….” --Photophase-Nemesis “Only three per adventure!!?!! How cruel can this story get!?” I thought as a tear rolled down my check.

“Matthew, what was that? Are you crying?” Satoko asked in disdain. “No, just—just something in my eye—” I couldn’t hide my sorrow well enough. Satoko snatched the eBook-reader from me; after reading it, she shouted, “Only three Arithmagics per adventure!? What kind or script…Who’s this PhotophaseNemesis-guy anyways!?” To “install” some more Arithmagics, we did some funny exercise moves (84 Hindu squats; 54 push-ups; 18 sit-ups; saying “Hail, Mary” four times in French, “Glory be” in Latin ten times, “Back to the grave, living dead!” in Italian six times, and “What the bloody hell has Satan wrought?!” with a Scottish accent; and emitting onomatopoeias such as hiss, pop, bang, growl, clang, and shut up!); Monica had Red, Purple, and Green; Simile—Blue, Green, and Purple; Satoko—White, Red, and Green; I had Green, Blue, and White. It was quite coincidental that we all had Green Arithmagics; I guess we all wanted to have elemental powers…Sadly, PhotophaseNemesis—whoever the hell that freak was—didn’t write down the installation exercises for Gray and Black Arithmagics! I kept the eBook-reader in case we wanted to change our Arithmagics. We tried to “install” a four one, but the fourth was nullified… We searched the library for more clues—in vain—until Monica pulled a pink eBook-reader off the shelf; the shelf moved like a sliding door, revealing a dark room that was lit by the ghastly screen saver of the computer monitor. We could now hear some scary music-box music from the ambient, hidden speakers!

Besides the mainframe computer, there were some “legendary” weapons on display in glass cases along the walls. Satoko got a dark, purple, highly oversized katana named Lunar Sun; though it was made out of metal, its blade was retractable like a lightsaber! Simile retrieved Gloomsnout, a battery-powered greenish sniper rifle about five feet long with a foot-long laser bayonet. Monica beheld her two pink, spiky, serrated chain whips called Rabid Vines. And, I had two, eightbarreled revolvers resembling dragon heads; the silver one was named Engraver, and the gold—Inscriber (they are powered by DD batteries, not bullets! I thought we passed the age of bullets…) “Hmn, I wonder who put these in here!” said Simile as if he were a detective, like Satoko (kidding). I answered, “Your ancestors, right?” “Yeah, y’could be right—” “Guys, look at this!” Monica seemingly hacked into the mainframe, only to find a single, DOCX word document. “All that memory space just to hold THIS?” Sim yelled, “At least they could’ve made it a bloody PDF! Well, what does it say?” The word document contained an unintelligible computer lingo that not even Monica J-Walker could interpret. I heard Satoko emit a vile word that started with an s, but she kept denying it, saying that she said “Shh…!” because she heard something in this noiseless room. Anyways, Monica had an idea: She sent the document to her fake-ruby cell phone and sent the document to Lord Wyatt’s email account and called him on her cell phone: “Hey, Wyatt! Check your email; we have something for you to translate for us.”

We could hear his voice through the phone: “Is it French, Italian, German, or Korean?” “Neither; this is worse than the language of ghosts and goblins (which is English; somehow, when folks die and come back to the physical realm, they fairly good English grammar; thus, the monsters they create know English—which is a good thing for us)!” “Oh, God!!” Wyatt said; we guess he saw the word document, “It may take me a while to translate this; I’ll call you back later.” “OK, thanks; bye, Lord Wyatt!” “Lord Wyatt? Is he some nobleman of Great Britain by chance, like a pauper in a star brigade?” We ignored his simile, and Monica stated, “Y’know, he never told us; ‘twas Matthew who first started calling him that!” My companions looked at me in suspicion, but I just said, “Don’t worry about it; it’s a rather long story. Gotta make the old man feel special, right?” We all then began to explore the room, as if there was something we couldn’t see in this near-empty room… Later, Simile was pathetically pushing against the heavy, light-blueand-black mainframe. “Hrrrr,hhrrrm,” he grinned like a bodybuilder-wannabe, “Could somebody give me a bloody hand with this? There’s something behind the mainframe!” Satoko literally tossed poor Simile out of the way and pushed the mainframe to the side all by herself. We spotted a doorknob shaped like Hello Kitty; before we could say “Aw, isn’t that cute,” Monica twisted the knob, making us fall through the rather large trap-door!

“Aaarrgghhh!” “No! I don’t wanna go to hell!!!!” “Whoa! Satoko, hold me!!!!!” “Get the hell off me, Simile!” Fortunately, the pile of abandoned eBook-readers made quite a cushion for us. We couldn’t see sh—oops, shouldn’t use that lingo—in this pitch-black chamber; conjuring glowing orbs in our hands, we could see scores of shelves with eBookreaders; besides a few wooden tables/chairs, the shelves were about it, until we thought of an idea: “Seducing” gravity with some funny, feminine gestures, we tilted scores of eBooks out of alignment; after trying that technique on a few shelves, we heard a door open…somewhere. A bookshelf moved in the children’s section, unveiling a long tunnel. Suddenly, bullets soared from holes in the walls of the hall, and I, unfortunately leading the pack, had to parry the bullets with Inscriber and Engraver. Later, we encountered a cylindrical room with a winding staircase and an eBook-reader sitting in the mist of the ground, which read: “Nah, nah, nah-nah, nah! Beware of traps in the days to come….” “What the bloody hell was that!!!!?” we shouted in unison. We hiked up the stairs, to open a door with a Hello Kitty doorknob, and what do you know, we were back in the mainframe room, and the trap-door was sealed again! We went back to the first room of the library and heard some voices. “Hey, looks like somebody beat us here!” said a male voice that sounded like a New Yorker.

A womanly French voice then uttered, “Zat’s good; we needed ze key, wheech we don’t have!” “Whatever, we need some clues to find that bloody French Hawaiian Bank thingy,” an Australian male voice said, “C’mon, mates, let’s get some cash!” A rough, womanly ghetto voice agreed: “Can’t wait ‘til we find somethin’ good; y’all be careful; I sense danger in there!” Simile whispered, “Mack, what do we do?” I asked Monica, and she asked Satoko the same question; Satoko then inquired of Simile, who tossed the same question back at me. I ended this useless game by whispering, “Let’s just walk outta here in peace; if they ask us anything, just tell ‘em we didn’t see anything special.” We followed the plan, which lasted only four seconds. “Hold it, mates!” hollered the Australian with brown, short hair, an orange jacket, and brown jeans. He threw his cigar to the ground and took out his revolvers, “What’er you guys and gals doing down here?” Satoko answered, “We can ask you the same thing—” “Girl, you’d better answer the doggone question or else—” the long, wavy-haired ebon ghetto woman in a pink trench coat and a black sweat pants cried. Satoko vexed, “Or else what?!” I broke the tension with, “We were just strollin’ by ‘n’ saw those neon lights, and we went inside; didn’t see anything interesting; so, we’re leaving—”

“Y’expect me to believe that hogwash?” the northerner questioned. Monica answered, “Does it matter? We’re leaving in peace; we’re not in the mood to fend off some thugs right now.” “How dare you call us ‘zugs’!” the French woman ranted, “We are Team Alpha, ze elite treasure-hunting group!” She then started introducing her comrades: “Zis eez Bobby (the northerener), Icabod (the Australian), Crafty (the ghetto woman), and I’m Joan Poirot (pronounced “Zhon Pwa-row,” if I remember correctly…)!” I thought the honorable thing to do was to introduce ourselves also: “Well, then, madame, this is Monica, that guy is Simile, she’s Satoko, and I’m Matty Mack; as for our team— could you excuse us for a moment? We need to decide a name.” I gathered my companions nigh me, saying, “We need a flashy name that stands out!” Sim: “Team Beta!” Me: “Nah, that sounds second-rate.” Monica: “Team Gamma!” Me: “No, that’s third-rate.” Satoko: “Team Zeta!” Me: “C’mon, guys! We need something—creative!” I could hear Team Alpha tapping its feet impatiently as it mumbled something while checking its iPods.

Sim: “The CIA!” Satoko: “Sim, that’s ‘top secret’! I told you about that!” Monica: “The Ghostbusters!” Me: “Monica, that’s too low-class; we’re higher than that!” Sim: “The Defenders of Peace!” Me: “Simile, that’s too high-class; we’re lower than that!” Satoko: “The Vagabonds of Fortune!” Me: “That’s not middle-class enough; we need something more in the center!” Monica: “The Eyes of the Storm!” Me: “That sounds too peaceful; we need more chaos!” Satoko: “Chevrolet Blanc!” Me: “That’s too much chaos; you don’t even know what that means, do you?” Satoko: “No, but it sounds good.” Sim, Monica: “Well, Mack, why don’t you think of something?” I thought for another hour—kidding! “I can’t think of anything good right now; so, how ‘bout a temporary one, Crimson Avalanchers?” My companions: “OK!”

I turned back to face Team Alpha and said, “We have only a temporary one: Crimson Avalanchers!” The foes murmured to themselves, “Man, that sounds better than ours!” “Yeah, why didn’t we think of that?!?” Crafty then told me, “I know y’all’er hidin’ somethin’; they don’t call me ‘Crafty’ for nothing, y’know!” “I thought crafty folks don’t carry a big laser axe like that!” “Hush it, lil’ Matty; I’m the only one who makes those sly comments, you hear me, boy?” “Who’re you callin’ ‘little,’ fool!” I was outraged; even my mamma doesn’t call me “little” and gets away with it. “Whew, Lord have mercy on this little freak before I send him to heaven!” yelled Crafty, “NOBODY calls me ‘fool,’ you hear me!? Not even my mamma can call me that! Not even Obama!” Icabod and Monica then spoke, “Are we gonna settle this (fight), or are we just gonna call each other names all night?” With that, we went on rampage; the males and I knitted bullets through the air as the females kicked/slashed at each other—like mad women doing some kind of “tango of pain”— and occasionally fenced with the wind to deflect straying bullets. My special, battery-powered revolvers shot out eight bullets at a time (sixteen in total), yet Bobby rolled out of the way and forced gravity to slide a shelf toward me, but I gathered some ions in the air with some funny hand gestures and unleashed two lightning octuple-helixes from my guns,

shaving off a portion of the moving shelf. Crafty and Satoko held their oversized, cumbersome weapons in one hand as they danced away from each other’s multi-strikes; to them, it seemed like a battle of pride than anything else. Everyone— even Crimson Avalanchers-tried to evade Monica’s serrated chain whips; they looked unforgiving, even when she didn’t summon purple poisonous cirrus clouds. Simile didn’t seem very proficient at bullet-blocking as the rest of us were; I had to shine my healing blue rays on his wounds every now and then. We were hopping/gliding/flipping all around this room, wrecking the place while we blasted/rammed opposite team members like enraged gymnasts and tossed shelves, eBookreaders, and some weird-looking quanta. I fired relentlessly at Joan, who ripped the photon bullets out of the air with her two double-sided lightsabers. She was still charging after me; so, by gravitational forces, I tripped her by tossing some eBook-readers at her feet and mustered another electric octuple-helix, but she rolled away, got up, and threw some purple cancerous arcs at me, who knocked them away with my bullets and barrels. I was then forced to parry more of Joan’s dynamic short-ranged attacks, yet she managed to cut my side, kick me backwards, and spray me with some baneful helixes; after healing myself, I raced back to Joan and spun up-side-down like a tornado (we’ll can this the “funnel kick”), attempting to kick her hands out of the way while I stitched photons through her shoes. Monica drew some thermal energy to her palms so she could launch it out as a fiery, bubbly corona (Green Arigthmagics), forcing Icabod and Bobby to duck low; Bob (Bobby) and Bod (Icabod) opened fire on Monica and Sim; Monica was doin OK, but Simile was getting his shoulders/thighs a bit charred. (Bob and Bod seemingly didn’t have their guns in stun mode, but I could be

wrong…) Ergo, Satoko jumped in front of him and whacked away the vile bullets and even reflected some back at the gunners. Joan was back on her feet—again! I thought I just shot that woman’s feet! Blue Arithmagics can be annoying at times. Joan and Satoko began to sword-tango with each other like vicious, unlicensed, freelancing fire dancers! Grabbing Crafty’s right leg with her Rabid Vine, Monica took the ghetto woman to the floor while I, like a first-rate psychopath, flipped/rolled/dashed/cart-wheeled my way through the swarm of laser shells in the crossfire and pulled Crafty up by the neck at point blank. “I’m gonna blow this woman to heaven or hell!” I shouted; I then whispered to Crafty, “Not as crafty as you thought you were, heh?” If she had enough saliva in her mouth, she would have spat on me! Satoko then shouted: “Drop your weapons and scram!” “Forget ‘bout me!” screamed Crafty, “Kill them freaks ‘n’ get that money!” Team Alpha, deeming Crafty as an indispensable asset, dropped its weapons and slowly walked back to its hover van. “Now, you all get some sleep, you hear me?” said I. Then, Satoko added, “And, don’t forget to floss! Someone’s breath doesn’t smell so good!” She gave Crafty a breath mint… “You may have won this battle,” said Bobby, “but you ain’t gonna get that money!” With that, they drove off…I had a rather sad look on my face. “Matty, are you all right?” Sim asked caringly.

“We shouldn’t be fighting like this; I mean, we’re eight of a kind—we’re treasure hunters; we should act more civilized toward each other—” “Like a rat and an anteater?” “No, Simile—like a rat and a rat, or an anteater and an anteater.” Monica commented somewhat philosophically, “Well, money corrupts, but I still want it! I still think we should’ve killed those guys/gals. I’m sure they’ll be back with a vengeance!” “Amen!” Satoko agreed, “This world’s not big enough for eight treasure hunters; maybe six, but seven is a stretch! But, ‘twas fun fighting a human for a change…” We then spent the night at Metaphor’s lovely abode and told him what happened. “Wow! That was quite exciting!” he exclaimed. “Wanna come with us?” “No, sorry—” “Why not?” “I can’t; I wasted all my leave just to help Simile find a good job; I’ll be put in prison if I take a vacation now! So, how’s your job, Sim?” Sim glanced anxiously at Monica and said, “Well, I—got laid off—” “Oh, Sim, don’t give me that hogwash again!”

“But, but, this time, it’s true, Metaphor! The company manager said he had more French maids that the whole population of Orleans; so, I—ended up on welfare…” Metaphor slammed his mug on the coffee table, yelling, “You useless swine of a beggar! You are a disgrace to the family! The Steiner family never went on welfare before—until YOU broke the record for the worse…!” “Well, you were supposed to help me!” “How am I supposed to help you all the time when I’m working hard here in Corsica while you’re up there in Orleans!?” Simile then said, “Well, uh, don’t worry; I’ll make it up to you—I’ll find the treasure!” “We’ll find the treasure,” Monica corrected; Satoko added, “And, we didn’t include you in our plan to share the spoils.” “Well, then, include me!!! I’m helping you find the treasure!” Satoko answered, “No, you aren’t! I had to save your butt tonight! You couldn’t even provide us a key card that works! You’re nothing but dead weight I have to lug around!” Simile then wept like a pathetic group of swine, “Hhhh— whahahahahahahah! How could you CIA guys be so mean to me!—” “CI-what???” Metaphor questioned in amazement. Satoko was about to chop Sim’s head off, but instead she told Metaphor, “Yeah, we’re the Common Folk Investigators of Legendary Alms!”

“Whaahahahaha—heeheeheewhee!” cried our “useless swine”; I handed out a yellow handkerchief from by black short pants pocket, and he blew his nose on it and handed it back to me; I let him keep it, uttering, “Aw, c’mon, Satoko; at least he tried to be a hero; he just needs a little more training. This is his chance to prove his father wrong!” Monica agreed with me, yet Satoko was hardly moved by Sim’s cry and said, “Well, if he wants to die early, let ‘im do it!” His tears dried in an instant, like rubbing alcohol. “You— you mean I get to come with you, like a helicopter on a rooftop?” “Yep, whatever the hell that means,” said I, “Welcome to the Common Folk Investigators of Legendary Alms!” Monica: “Well, I guess we can give him 15% of the spoils.” Sim: “Isn’t it supposed to be 25%?” Monica: “Don’t push it, Sim; you’re not a full member yet!”

***************************************** Matthew Dollar's Account ***************************************** Around 10:00 in the morning--oh, by the way, when I give you the time, assume that the weather is fair, unless otherwise stated! Also, we kept Team Alpha's weapons: I kept the two double-bladed, deep pink lightsabers (well, I needed something I could handle!), Satoko kept the semi-automatic rifle, Monica-the two revolvers (not Inscriber/Engraver), and poor Simile was stuck with the pink retractable laser pole axe (he didn't have a choice; he didn't have full CIA membership yet...). The Team Alpha weapons were our secondary weapons, by the way... So, ahem!--around 10:00 a.m., while we were eating breakfast cooked by Metaphor (just imagine four of your favorite dishes), I heard my yellow waterproof cell phone in my yellow-green-and-red, checkered jacket. I swallowed my food and answered, "Yellow?!?" "Yes, it's me," At the sound of Lord Wyatt's concerned tone, my companions crowded around me. "So, did you translate it?" "Yes, only some parts of it; I need more time...I sent it to Monica's email address!" "Metaphor, may I use your comp--" Monica couldn't even finish. "Of course, Miss J-Walker!"

She logged into her Gmail ; there, she opened the attachment and read the readable DOCX format: "One for darkness, one for light One for love, one for the fight One for hope, the other, dispair What will these warriors find hidden there But a warning to those who come in To see true evil is to see within But, at the end, a ray of light For you will win and end the fight" --Songsforever (This poem was expertly crafted acquaintance named Meggen Olson!)

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Satoko: "Dr. Wyatt, I'm not good at riddles--" Wyatt: "You don't have to be; you see, I believe 'love,' 'hope,' 'despair,' 'the fight,' 'darkness,' and 'light' are referring to the haunted islands that mysteriously appeared around A.D. 2075. These six islands are supposed to have the six keys that are needed to open the gate of the French Hawaiian Bank!" Me: "So, who's this Songsforever person? Is that his/her real name?" Wyatt: "No, it was a codename given to her by the Steiner family, who hired her to make riddles to keep the secrets hidden--"

Sim: "How come I didn't know that?!" Met(aphor): "I guess Dad died before he could tell us anything--" Wyatt: "Who's there?" Sim: "Oh, this is my brother Metaphor, and I'm Simile Steiner, a proud member of the CIA!" Wyatt: "CI-what?????????????" Satoko: "Never mind that, Lord Wyatt." Wyatt: "OK, well, Mr. Steiner, you sound like an Englishman." Sim: "I've heard that before, but I AM a descendant of Sigmund; I opended the doors of the Library--" Met: "I object! 'Twas my key that did it!" Sim: "That's true, but I have a key, too!" Met: "'Twas a fake that Dad created just in case you gave it to the wrong hands!" Wyatt: "OK, guys, I believe ya." Me: "So, where's the nearest island to 'raid'?" Wyatt: "There's an artificial flying island quite across from Corsica in the Atlantic; it's known as Radi Isle which has the Shining Cathedral!" Monica: "Great! Let's get going!"

Wyatt: "There's something I need to warn you about: There's a shadowy ghost fleet that sails around the Mediterranean. The captain's sins were so bad that they kept his soul down here long after his body died, according to legend. Thus, he was known as 'Sinbad'!" Me: "Well, thanks for your help, Lord Wyatt! See ya later!" Wyatt: "Bye, good luck!" Monica: "Metaphor, have you seen a Polynesian woman around here?" Met: "Why yes, I think she went to the market place near the coast--" With that, we took off to the market place. Searching all the tents at the swap meet, we finally found the captain of the wooden junk, who gasped in horror, "Hhhhh! You again!? Why me? Have I sinned!?--" Satoko then commanded, "In the name of the Central Intelegence Agency, we demand you to take us to Radi Isle!" Sim: "But--but, I thought CIA stood for--" Satoko: "Put a sock in it, Sim!" The captain: "Radi Isle? Are you crazy? I heard nobody comes back from there alive, yeah?" Monica: "Yeah, YOU won't if you don't take us there!" The captain: "Do I get paid for this!?" Satoko: "We'll think about it; just take us to that island!"

We finally understood why there was a catapult on the junk's deck; I guess she took her friends up there before...I asked the captain for her name, so we don't have to keep calling her "the Polynesian captain." She was reluctant to tell me and demanded some payment; after giving her five euros, she said her name was "Aukai," which was Hawaiian for seafarer. It was too coincidental for me to believe, but I accepted it; can't expect much truth from five euros, eh...? Our names were "confidential"; so, I gave her "fake" ones: Matty Mack, Monique, Simile, and Sakura. Not long afterwards, we saw dark clouds coming our way; beneath the clouds were about ten large sailboats that cruised toward us quickly; we couldn't escape; this junk was too slow. The ten boats surrounded us, five on both sides. "Hhhhh!" gasped Aukai, "It's Sinbad, 'the man who sinned so badly'!" Unusually calm, I asked, "So, what did he do, and why is he after us???" Aukai looked more embarrassed than frightened: "He cheated on the volcano goddess Pele with--with--my mother. Pele cursed his soul and made him wander the seas--forever! One way to undo this curse is to kill--me." My companions looked at me as if they were to say, "Well, are we gonna let 'er die or what?" "Is there any--uh, un-suicidal way to end this?" asked I. She took out a black sword-dildo from her jacket pocket: "According to legend, my mom used to use this on him during their 'quality time'; its touch will destroy him."

My CIA buddies and she told me in unison, "Mack Matty, you should use it to slay him; you're good with small weapons, like crafty folks, right?" I protested, "Why can't Sat--I mean--Sakura or Monique do the 'honors'? Why me?!?" The ships moved in closer, giving us a better look at Sinbad's soul: a tanned, brawny man with a black, sleeveless shirt, blue jeans, and a Quaker hat? He also had two, doublehelix, yellow-and-orange lightsabers and a sly grin! I put that sword-dildo in my pocket before taking out my revolvers, and Aukai and my companions got out their guns, ready for action. A whole host of humanoid/Kirby ghosts, werewolves/foxes/tigresses, and skeletons jumped onto our ship as we blew them away with our gun Arithmagics. I shot sixteen bullets in the air and did a descending hand gesture; the bullets exploded into multi-helix tornados of ghastly light that cleansed the deck of ghosts. Monique did a similar technique by Red Arithmagics to burn away some non-ghosts, but our foes kept coming at us like a stampede of fire ants! Spinning 1,080 degrees, I shot wildly at foes until they came so close that I had to evade an onslaught of punches, kicks, and Black Arithmagics as if I were some fifth-rate acrobat. I gunned down a werewolf and got a big gash on my back and rolled forward by the impact; before I used Blue Arithmagics (to save spirit energy, you should try to heal several wounds with one spell), I back-flipped over the one who cut, printing revolver photons at the whorish werefox's head while in midair and doing a funnel-kick against a nearby weretigress. Once on my feet, I dived forward while blasting away more fiends in my way before I cart-wheeled away from a weretigress' massive axe-swing. After much shooting, we ran low on gun

battery-power and took out our melee weapons; Simile swung that cumbersome axe so poorly, getting beat-up badly here and there; ergo, I healed him and me and tossed him one of my deep pink double-lighsaber. "Simile, screw that stout thing and take this!" "Thanks, Mack! I owe you one!" "Forget it; it's nothing! Watch behind you!" Now, he was hopping, rolling, flipping, blocking, and swinging that double-saber like an inept fire dancer! Sakura then held her broad, gigantic katana up high to charge her blade with "frost energy" (in other words, draining the blade's thermal energy) and swung that sword horizontally as if she held a grudge against the wind, unleashing a line of icicles (Green Arithmagics). When Monique and Aukai were slashing away some foes with their chain whip/lightspear, I decided it was time to mess with "Sinbad" and his double-helix plasma blades. He was a spirit being; therefore, I had to imbue Bright Arithmagics into my saber, making sparkles around the bright, deep pink blades as I ran toward him. Executing a sword-waltz with seemingly unnatural style and grace, we counterpoised each other's brands, kicks, and tricks until I seized the chance to high-jump over him and spin up-side-down in mid-air, mowing through his neck! I landed on my feet and faced Sinbad, only to see him unharmed! I completely forgot about that dildo! A werewolf came up behind me and tried to knife me, but I swiftly pruned his arms and pushed him off the boat by summoning a weak horizontal tornado (we'll call this a "wind tunnel" for sake of ease) from my right palm. Sinbad then made a swirling gesture with his sabers, unleashing a

frigid corona which I had to leap over. As soon as I landed, I poked my sword backwards and then forwards, killing off two slowpokes; from Sinbad's curtails came evil black arcs that were quite invisible in this dark scenery, but I, soaring forward like a propeller, slashed them away, but before I could come nigh him, a weretigress managed to grab my leg and hurled me into Mr. Steiner, he and I tumbling across the deck, and Sim’s axe slid out of his pocket. “Sorry ‘bout that, Simile; you OK?” “No problem; I think I’m OK…” I sprung into the air in no time, hacking/kicking at the fiends surrounding me like a foolish unlicensed tai quan do trainer. Picking up and activating the laser axe, I stuck the axe head in the deck and swung on it like a brown-belt poledancer with many kicks, curtails, and that running kick that Neo did in The Matrix Reloaded! Once I quit it with the poledancing, colorless ripples came forth from my front kick and pushed down some foes—except Sinbad, who formed an X with his blades, resisting the small waves of repulsions by some mystical force. He and I clashed blades/shins/elbows one more time; I missed his left slash but got struck down by his immediate left elbow-thrust, making me tumble behind Aukai, who blocked his hit and jolted him away for me! I then pounced upon him, executing a series of psychotic curtails; if he did get hit, he didn’t seem hurt by my attacks. Ergo, along with my demented chisels, I added some jumping roundhouse kicks, but he negated them with his own (yes, it was quite painful, thank you); my shins were getting sore, but I had no time for Blue Arithmagics. I instinctively, decisively lashed out at Sinbad and attempted to jam my saber into his sternum, but with one sword, Sinbad deflected my thrust, and with the

other, he sliced my forearm (luckily, it wasn’t cut off…) and kicked me backwards through a strong, painful front kick, may back/butt facing the floor; the sharp electrical sting from the cut almost made me cuss while some gushing blood exploded from the wound like lava from a volcano. Happily leaping toward me, Sinbad would have ended me, if Sakura’s gigantic Lunar Sun hadn’t kept his blades at bay. Sakura (Satoko): “Matty, now!” Me: “Whadya mean ‘now’???” Sakura: “NOW, you doggone maggot!!!!” I mysteriously remembered that black sword-dildo in my pocket, rolling behind Sinbad and tried to shove that dildo up his…but, he fleetly dashed to my left. Whirling 1,080 degrees counterclockwise, Sinbad obviously was trying to get rid of poor old me—judging by the strength he put into his slashed, which I had to parry (I can’t blame him, for he’s the only foe on the ship right now!). My CIA buddies and our lovely seafarer kept him occupied as I dashed behind him and threw the dildo—guided by gravitational Green Arithmagics—straight to his—you know… “NOOOOO!” Sinbad was banished to another realm—and so were his double-helix blades and the dark clouds above us. Aukai was so happy to be alive that she didn’t know what to say; so, she said nothing until we came night Radi Isle. In no time, my CIA members and I, with the help of Aukai, were launched from the catapult and onto the island that was fifty yards above us; it was very bright up here, and we didn’t have our sunglasses—except Satoko; so, the following portion of this chapter shall be according to…

****************************************************** Satoko’s Account ****************************************************** We were expecting more up here. As far as I could tell, there was NOTHING here on Radi—wait a sec! I could see some wooden signs sticking out from—from nothing? The Shining Cathedral must be some invisible temple or something. My friends and that rotten Steiner fellow followed me as we walked into a hall; we knew it was a hall because we were halted by invisible walls when we tried to move to the sides. We continued forward, and I noticed some golden, glistening words that were too bright for my companions to look at directly. Mack: “Hey, Satoko, why’re you stopping? You see something?—whoa!—something’s bright on the ground.” Me: “They’re words—perhaps another riddle—” Monica: “Well, what does it say?” Me: “‘If thou haveth faith like a mustard seed, you shall speak to the mountain, and it shall obey thee.’” Sim: “Hmnn, another bloody riddle, like key lime pie on Saturday morning!” I taunted, “One riddle is more than enough, Simile!” I scanned the tan-colored ground near this riddle for more clues; I saw an engraved picture of a tree and a golden stone resembling a seed. I picked up the stone and strode further, only to see an engraved picture of a mountain with a “key hole”

for the gold stone; after placing the seed-like stone in the “key hole,” nothing seemed to happen, and I bumped into an invisible wall behind the mountain picture. Mack: “Satoko, I believe you need to speak to the mountain!” Me: “Matty, don’t be silly—” Mack: “C’mon, try it with a sweet voice; you’re a good singer, aren’t you?” Me: “Matty Mack, don’t you flatter my bad singing! You know it ain’t good!” I then spoke doubtfully with enthusiasm, “Mountain, be thou moved…” I added some four-letter words in there, too, but a mystic voice told me that this story was rated PG-13; so, I won’t record what I said…Anyways, nothing happened. Me: “See, Matty, I told you—” Mack: “Aw, c’mon, Satoko! You gotta say it with faith!” He then put on a mean, forceful look, stomped the ground with one leg, and pointed at the mountain engraving with his right middle finger while shouting: “Mountain—whew!—you’d better step aside before the wrath of GOD cometh upon thee!—and thy children! What was that? You talkin’ back to me? Don’t— don’t you gimme that look, sucka! Put a smile on that crummy face and move to the side!” Nothing happened, yet Mack Matty continued: “Look, ya big ol’ maggot, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way! You can move your unglamorous buttocks to the side, or God’s gonna send His angels to do it for you!”

We thought Mack had lost it—until the tile with the engraving slid to the left, and we also head some passages open all around us, though we couldn’t see it. Monica: “Way to go, Matty; that was cool!” Mack: “Did you hear what that mountain called me?” All, except Matty: “Uh, we didn’t hear anything—” Mack: “It called me a mack-daddy! NO mountain calls me mack-daddy and lives!!! Whew, these mountains think they’re so high—” Me: “Matthew, it’s OK; the mountain humbled itself and moved to the side—just like you told it to!” Mack sighed and said calmly, “Yeah, you’re right; let’s go.” But, before we could continue through the hall, Matty just had to say something: “I’ll let you get away with it this time, Mountain, but next time, you ain’t gonna be so lucky!—you hear me? YOU HEAR ME!?!?!?!? Don’t you turn your back on me! You’d better look at me when I’m talkin’ to you…!” We finally made it to the other room—or whatever the hell it was. The next glistening message was: “Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift thee up.” A bit before us were some engravings that resembled hand prints; we guessed we had to touch them with our own; to do this, we had to bow—or do the handstand; we chose to bow down, and our “room” ascended to a higher floor! Feeling our way through some invisible walls as the unbearable sunlight’s heat gnawed at us from above, we came upon another shimmering note which I read: “‘When thou givest to the poor, doth not let thy left hand know what thy right hand is doing.’” To our left was

a statue that greatly resembled Matty, and its hands were open, ready to receive some alms from the CIA (my acronym). To our right was a big golden bullion. Our weakling Simile used both hands to up the bullion in the statue’s hands, yet nothing happened, I guess this was my task; being the strongest member of the team, with my right hand, I placed the bullion back on the ground, then back in the statue’s hand while my left hand was in my black precious, designer’s trench coat pocket. A “door” opened somewhere in this “room,” and we felt our way up a winding stairway and into another doggone room. The heat was too much to bear, forcing us to take off our jackets and use them as umbrellas, shielding us from the sun’s onslaught. In the next “room” was a electronic notepad that hanged on nothing, as far as we could tell, and another riddle read: “Faith, hope, and love—these three, but the greatest of these is love.” On the note pad were the numbers 1, 2, and 3 and three blanks lines beside each number; using the stylus pen, Monica wrote beside 1, 2, and 3 love, faith, and hope— respectively. We heard another door open! The last riddle in the next room seemed too easy; we had to let Simile handle this; if he failed, he would’ve lost his junior CIA membership! I read the last riddle: “‘If thy hand or thy foot causeth thee to sin, cut it off, for it is better to enter life halt or maimed than to have two hands and two feet and be cast into everlasting fire!” Me: “Sim, cut off the obsidian parts of the statue—not the marble, got it?” Sim: “Yes, my lady!” …The “room” rose to the highest floor in no time! Ironically, it felt cooler up here, though we were closer to the sun. There was no key up here, only an eBook-reader on some invisible—I don’t know… Monica gave Lord Wyatt a call: “Yo, Wyatt, we’re on top of the Shining

Cathedral, but we don’t see a key, only some white eBookreader.” Wyatt: “Exactly! You see, I’ve been doing some research; the riddle masters Songsforever and Photophase-Nemesis created poems—magic verses, if you wish—to open the First Hawaiian Gate.” Monica: “Great! Thanks a lot, Dr. Wyatt! See ya…!” As soon as we retrieved the magic verse, the floor seemingly shifted to a slide, taking us back to the ground. I never had an adventure as easy as this in my life; even putting up with Simile’s similes was harder than that! Sim: “Ever wondered why Sigmund—or whoever—built that First Hawaiian Gate?” Monica: “Um, to keep the ghosts away?” Mack: “Maybe the Gate was there all along; perhaps the employees in charge of the money kept these magic verses with ‘em, and Sigmund found them and scattered them after he fled the Bank. Maybe spirits can’t pass through the Gate. That might be why—oh, never mind…” We looked down from Radi Isle to see the ship; there seemed to be other people on the ship! I didn’t like this one bit, and we dived off the floating island and into the water…

********************************** Aukai’s Account ********************************** I was waiting for those CIA guys to come back, which I doubted; about to light up my Cuban cigar with my thermal Green Arithmagics, I was stunned to hear a girly voice behind me: “Damn, we could be late!” I turned around quickly, only to see a small band of humanoid ghosts! I didn’t know Bright Arithmagics; so, this was gonna be hell, yeah? A ghost girl in a whitish-grey witch outfit pointed her steel-bristled broom at me; she looked similar to—to—Hannah Montana? The spirit: “Is anyone up there?” Me: “I dunno!” “Whadya mean ‘I dunno’?! Don’t lie to me, witch!” “Hmph, look who’s talking!” “Don’t play games with me! Where’s the key!?” “What key?” “The key to the First Hawaiian Bank! Some magic force keeps me from getting into the Bank!” “Never heard of that—” The girly spirit had enough of me and ordered her handful of ghosts to kill me, yeah? Suddenly, I heard a loud plunck sound in the water. “Those CIA guys must be back!” I thought while activating my lightspear.

Deflecting quite a multitude of strikes and quanta, I threw some ropes overboard so those CIA guys could help me, yeah? The fighting was just about over when the CIA guys started crossing blades with the ghosts; that Sakura woman was scarier than the ghosts and finished the minor ghosts all by herself—spinning vertically in mid-air, spinning like an enraged beyblade, and launching serrated holy tunnels, while the rest of us dealt with the ghost witch, flying around as she blocked our attacks, yeah? Once she was on the ground, Mack high-spun-jumped in the air, and his pink blade landed right on the steel bristles brought by the witch’s twirling aerial upper-cut-slash. With her satanic strength, she tossed him higher into the air and deflected our quanta, yeah? Mack fell on the deck feet-first, but the witch ghost managed to get behind me and held her steel sharp bristles to my neck!— yeah? Mack: “Don’t do it, Helena; your fight is with us—not her!” Helena: Then, you’d better gimme that key!” Mack: “What key? We didn’t get a key.” Helena: “Whadya mean? You have the key! You’re the heroes of this story; you must’ve gotten something up there!” Mack (looking at Sakura): “How come we have to be the heroes? I thought we were the villains. I mean, we just highjacked a temple for crying out loud!” Sakura: “Well, you see, the author always keeps us on the spotlight; so, I guess that makes us the protagonists.” Monique: “Aw, man, I always wanted to be an antagonist; I—I just wanna know how it feels—”

Helena: “It feels good, I tell ya! You should try it sometime; maybe we can be partners in the next sequel!” Mack: “Rrrr, once I get my hands on the author, I’m gonna kick his—” Helena: “Sorry to break up the tension, but—I’m waiting! I have an appointment at 11:00! I need my nail manicured!” Me: “Forget about me! I’m just a low-life seafarer. Keep the key, you fools! Sakura: “Aukai, your sacrifice won’t be in vain.” Helena: “Hey, wait a minute! Heroes are supposed to value human life! What kind of heroes are you?!?” Sakura: “A different breed of heroes—with financial issues!” Monique: “We’re not heroes! We’re protagonists!—get that straight through your hallow brain!” Mack: “Sato—I mean, Sakura, just give her the doggone ‘device’ that we got from Radi Isle.” Sakura: “We’re gonna trade this for her? Hell no!!!” Sim: “My lady, please do it—for the author; you know how sensitive he is about innocent deaths; I’m sure he’ll repay the favor—” Sakura: “With what? He can’t even put food on his own table!!!”

Mack: “Sakura, just give her the doggone thing; Aukai’s an indispensable asset! We can’t lose her—at least not until we find another seafarer…” Spewing an expletive, Satoko tossed a white eBook-reader into the air, and Helena caught it with the other hand. Helena: “This is no key; it’s just some stupid poem! You’d better gimme the key or I’m gonna—whew, you don’t wanna know what I’m gonna do to this whore!” Me: “I’m no whore—I’m a seafarer! My daddy was a whore, yeah?” Mack: “Helena, that is the key—one of the magic verses that will open the French Hawaiian Bank!” Helena: “Fine! If you’re lying to me, I’ll kill this seafaring hoe—you hear me!?” She let go of me and flew away… ***************************** Mateo Dinero’s Account ***************************** Monica—I mean, Monique started to sob; I tried to comfort her, but when I came nigh, she cried, “Snnff, snnff, see what happens to protagonists? THIS!!! Helena’s gonna get that doggone treasure, whahahahahahahh!” I shined a ray of hope onto her soul, saying, “She has only one key, and I don’t think she knows where to find the other five; we still have a chance!!! Let’s call Wyatt to find out where we should go next.

Ring, ring! “Hello? Satoko?” “Shhh! Wyatt, call me ‘Sakura’ right now.” “What?!?” “It’s CIA business! We wanna know where the haunted islands are.” “OK, Sakura; ‘love’ is supposed to be warm, right? So, I think the poem is referring to Halloween Island, which still has some volcanic issues from last year! ‘Hope’ seems to be referring to Hoap Les, a haunted isle right off the Cape of Good Hope. I believe ‘despair’ refers to a floating island near the Maldives; it’s surrounded by a magical barrier known as the ‘Dismal Twister.’ I can’t really pinpoint what ‘the fight’ and ‘darkness’ are referring to; I need more research! So, how’s the ‘key’?” “We lost it,” Sakura admitted. “What? How?!” “It’s a ‘long’ story,” said I, “Let’s just say Santa Helena took it by force.” “I see…well, you still have a chance. Saint Helen can’t do much with one verse, I suppose.” Satoko spoke up, “Thanks for your help, Dr. Wyatt; we need to cheer up Monique and Simile right now.” “Monique?”

Sakura lowered her voice, “It’s Monica’s code name.” “Oh, I see; well, call me if you need me. Gotta do some more researching. Good bye, and tell Monique and Simile to never give up…!” Satoko then told Aukai in a stern tone, “You need to upgrade this ship ASAP (as soon as possible)! We need this boat to be swift! That’s an order!” “Hey, you’re not the boss of me!” “We just saved your life! You owe us at least that much.” “I didn’t want my meager life, but you shoved it up my—” “Then, I’ll be happy to take it from you.” “On second thought, I’ll upgrade this junk ASAP, but I need some money; it might take a while. “Good! Now, take us back to Corsica; we need to think of a cheap form of transportation that’ll take us to those haunted isles fast.” Around 4:00 p.m., we made it back to Metaphor’s house. “Hey, Metaphor, you have any CC (for melee weapons) or DD (for firearms) batteries we could use?” asked I. “Yes, right here; take what you need! Oh, by the way, tomorrow, I have to take a business trip to Hawaii; so, I won’t be around to—” “Take us with you!!!!!” we all shouted with joy…!

****************************************************** Mateo Dinero’s Account ****************************************************** 4:00 the next afternoon—oh, by the way, our clothes from the last chapter still needed drying; so, we wore a different set: Monica wore red, and when I say “red,” I mean red—from top to bottom; she even had a hat and a short cape on! Satoko wore a khaki T-shirt tucked in her bell-bottom dark blue jeans with a black belt with a dragon-head buckle; her black running shoes had retractable spikes, and she had another long, black trench coat ready to rumble, but she didn’t need it for Halloween Island…Simile wore almost the same thing as Satoko (aw, isn’t that sweet…!), but his jeans were lighter and weren’t bell-bottom. As for me, I had to cheer myself up by wearing yellow (short pants, T-shirt, pouch, socks, shoes, and even underwear)! So, ahem!—4:01 p.m., a light-blue high-tech aerospace craft landed beside Metaphor’s house like a helicopter on a rooftop! We all hopped inside before the hatch could completely open. The stewardesses, wearing some kind of long French maid costumes, looked at us CIA folks and then at Metaphor, asking, “And, who are zey?!” “Um, they’re friends of mine that wanna tour Hawaii; we have enough seats for them, don’t we?” The stewardesses let us stay onboard. (Look, if you want to use flight attendant, fine! I’ll use stewardess since it’s shorter. As far as I know, stewardess is not a cuss word yet; so, don’t correct my word-usage!)

The ride went smoothly, even when we were confronted by hijackers. Hopping onto the wings of the aero craft, the stewardesses blew away the enemy aircrafts with their heavyduty, anti-armor assault rifles and rocket launchers. The hijacker planes fell out of the sky like meteors once the stewardesses knitted the planes with long plasma pellets. Before we knew the battle began, it was already over! At 4:58, we could see a dark, rocky island with many volcanic rivers. We asked Metaphor if we could parachute down to Halloween Island, but he told the pilot to drop us off with a smooth landing; after we got off, the pilot took Metaphor to Oahu…As mentioned before, Halloween Island was nothing like it was last year (read Santa Helena’s prologue for more details). The chilling effects of the aircraft’s airconditioning swiftly faded once the molten gales from the glowing lavafalls blew on our frigid frames. Traversing on the rocky, blackish-brown terrain, we CIA folks encountered a familiar group of people that were wearing almost the same clothes as in Chapter 3. “Hmph, Team Alpha,” we scoffed. Icabod: “Not anymore, mates; by a unanimous vote, we officially changed our name to Indigo Avalanchers!” I (Matthew Dollar): “Aw, how second-rate! C’mon, Crafty, couldn’t you think of somethin’ better than that?” Crafty: “Yep, this is the best name I could think of at the time; isn’t it marvelous?” I: “Yes, I marvel why you stole Avalanchers from our name.” Crafty: “Don’t you get crafty with me, boy! I told you ‘bout them witty jokes!”

I: “Anyways, how did you know something good would be down here?” Crafty (boastingly): “My craftiness told me; you see, just look at this devil-ridden place! Even Satan wouldn’t make his abode in here! Yet, I figured this was the perfect place to hide somethin’ valuable—like them keys to the French Hawaiian Bank!” Satoko (whispering as she elbowed my belly): “That [sixletter word starting with an n] woman could be lying; they may have followed us!” I (whispering back): “Either way, that sista’s crafty!” I (to the Indigo Avalanchers): “Well, if you’ll excuse us, we have some business to attend to—” Bobby: “Hey! Wait a minute! We have to settle this the hard way!” Icabod then got out his Wii remote from his yellow jeans; we thought he was crazy until he pressed the A-button, emitting a light-green laser blade! Bobby’s cigarette-lighter also unleashed a flaring blade while Crafty’s short stick elongated into a cryo scythe! Joan (remember, it’s “Zhohn,” not “Joe-Ann,” like Satoko and Monica think it is) had two doublesided, yellow thunderboltblades; Sim and I asked Joan if we could trade our pink double-swords for her thunderboltblades; she granted our wish; now, my melee weapon matched with my outfit! I: “C’mon, Avalanchers; can’t we do this the peaceful way?—the team that finds the key first gets to keep it?” Crafty: “We don’t do that civilized crap ‘round here; you’d better fight or lose! This world ain’t rich enough for the 8 of us!”

I came up with a compromise: “Fine, but I don’t want anyone of us injured for this foolishness; our weapons have to be in stun mode, and no Arithmagics!” We Avalanchers agreed to the rules; Crafty’s scythe and Bobby’s lighter didn’t have stun mode; so, I gave Crafty her laser axe back, and Bobby turned on his iPod, activating a pinkish-purple blade! Lunar Sun and Rapid Vines were metal (they definitely don’t have a stun mode); thus, Icabod spared his light-blue MP3 sabers for them; all guns in non-lethal mode, we Avalanchers crossed blades and bullets. I thought it’d be appropriate for the witty to challenge the crafty; ergo, I jumped at Crafty with innumerable rapid spinslashes, but she blocked each hit, rotating that axe like a propeller, and kicked me forward. She managed to parry my eight diagonal curtails, pierce, up-stroke, spin-slashes, and even my professionally executed roundhouse! Still on the offensive, I feigned to perform a powerful down-stroke, but then I tripped her with a low roundhouse instead. After spewing something like “You rotten half-[offensive term with an n in it],” Crafty girl rolled back and then did some funnel kicks (remember that move from Ch.3?), forcing me to back-flip away from her rotating low cuts. If I didn’t roll to the side, her next broad swing would’ve knocked me into the lava rivers nearby! We both clashed and flipped around like crazy gymnasts in a coliseum, until the sting of my thunderboltblade’s upward stroke landed on her groin, pushing her backwards. She emitted something like “Yowww! Oh my god!—I’m gonna [expletive] this lil’ half-wit.” Trying to combo me, Crafty did a low slash, which I flipped over, and I stung her upper torso; she was cursing the day I was born now! After three hard roundslashes, two up-strokes, one jumping downstroke, five electron shells, one rushing horizontal swing, and

two more electron bullets (I blocked each one so far), Crafty girl suddenly rolled to the side and tried to shoot my hip; as I high-jumped over the bullet, she rolled toward me and shoved her axe up my butt/balls! “Meowwww!!!!” I attempted to jam my double-sided saber through her forearm, but she rolled away; so, I stapled eight non-lethal photons in her left buttcheek with my revolver. We both found it painful to move our legs, but we had to, darting to each other like Irish witches in the Stellar Navy. I deflected her thrust attack, hopped, and wrapped my leg around her thigh; I then tilted to my left so both of us could fall to the hard ground (we’ll call this technique the “aerial scissor takedown” for sake of ease). We both counterpoised our rapid curtails and rolled away, canceling each other’s bullets before we got close again. Halting each others’ swing, we held a blocking pose for two seconds; I then let go of my saber and shifted to the side to unleash an onslaught of rapid-fire punches and a tripping low kick. Flipping back to get my double-sword while taking a last few shots at Crafty, I and the other Avalanchers then healed ourselves, put our weapons back to lethal mode, and ended our little game when we felt the ground rumble. Lava began to sprout out of the rivers for a few seconds, and glowing, red, fiery beings came out of the lava! All: “What the hell—” I: “Cr—Crafty, hold me!” Crafty came nigh me and wrapped her arm around my waist as we examined the humanoid lava creatures shaped like athletic whores (we’ll call them “hotties” for identification purposes; if you have a better name, let me know)! The hotties ran toward us as if we were unwelcomed invaders! Joan, Satoko, Monica, and Icabod

wasted no time breezing ruby helixes through these finds as the rest of us lashed/shot at them; the Red Arithmagics were effective on them—though they didn’t die in one hit—but any other attack didn’t seem to work, except Crafty’s cryo scythe. Another multitude of hotties emerged from the rivers, and we didn’t have the time/spirit energy to deal with them. Crafty: “We need to work as a team and scram!” I: “That’s the last thing I’d expect you to say…!” We all scrammed to a lava cavern in Mt. Helen, and the hotties didn’t seem to follow us…The cavern path branched off into four paths, two opposite team members taking one path; Crafty and I stuck together…How ironic! The person who cursed the day I was born a few minutes ago now blessed the same day! The rocky corridor Crafty and I walked through had torches of different colored flames which led to what seemed to be a dead end. According to Crafty, the wall seemed rather fragile; she told me to stand back which I did; she then spent five seconds charging her scythe with gravitational Green Arithmagics in order to unleash a dynamic heavy strike that shattered the wall which barred us from a lava chamber. There were lava falls along the walls of this chamber, pouring their volcanic torrent into the rather small lava lake with floating “rock islands” scattered throughout the lake. You guessed it: Crafty and I weren’t going to just hop onto the rocks with no resistance, now were we? Hell no, the author just had to sprout up some more hotties to give us some target practice (well, we weren’t the sharpest shooters in the world…). Crafty got out her laser-powered sawn-off shotgun while I— well, you know. By cryo Green Arithmagics, I still had a hard

time siphoning thermal energy out of my Engraver and Inscriber—duh!—I, my weapons, and the rocks I was stepping on were sizzling. Thus, it took more spirit energy for Crafty and I to “charge” our guns with “frost energy”! My icicle octuple-helixes seemed very effective on the hotties, but more sprung up from this molten lake! Expending more SE (spirit energy), Crafty and I rained down some more of those middleclass tornado-helix gun spells which “blazed” through the volcanic fiends. Jump-flipping from rock to rock, we stitched more cryo photons through the upcoming hotties until we made it to the other side of the tiny lake, where a winding hall lay before us. A rocky door suddenly slammed shut behind us, forcing us to venture further into the hall lit by overhead torches. Suddenly, as we were strolling through the hall, using her slydevil senses, Crafty held her big scythe in front of me, saying, “Hold it; I sense danger!” Using my slyangel senses, I gently moved her scythe back to her side and said, “Let’s keep going; I sense triumph!” She looked at me as if she were to say, “Boy, you getting’ smart with me!?!” I ignored her glance as we walked further; sure enough, her prediction was just as accurate as mine. Some portions of the walls began to quiver, and out of the walls came eight-feet-tall, massive humanoid fiends shaped like bodybuilders of molten rock (we’ll call them “moltems” for sake of reference)! Since their rocky frames were hot, I thought I could explode them if I could just cool them off, which I did with my handy-dandy revolvers; the moltems’ explosions made quite a mess, and some debris would have hurt me if Crafty didn’t deflect them; other than that, the moltems were no threat. I assumed Crafty heard about that trick before, though her facial expression seemed to imply that I was some kind of genius; then, her proud demeanor emerged

once again... Somewhere at the end of this winding hall, we observed a pictogram: the stick-figure seemed to be stepping on a certain part of the ground, and a door opens; as it passes through the door, it’s rounded head was on the ground!— though it’s body is standing! Needless to say, we weren’t very excited about the pictogram, and we were too lazy to squash every square inch of this floor; thus, Crafty and I pressed gently against the ground with our colorless gravitational Arithmagics. The great door before us opened before we could figure out which part of the floor was the secret button. We passed the door and examined this dimly-lit room, which looked like the interior of a castle! Everything seemed to be made out of smooth, brownish stones, except for the ruby moltems wielding their stone broadswords, long swords, double-swords, double-axes, pole axes, halberds, and/or sworddildos? There were even small pools/rivers of lava, which the fiendish hotties sprouted out of…! Crafty and I couldn’t examine the chamber further and saved our gun battery power by getting out our melee weapons; expending much SE, I temporary “converted” my thunderboltblades to frigidboltblades so I can mow down some fiends without Crafty’s cooperation… My double-sword swirling in front of me like a propeller, I summoned an Antarctic wind tunnel (horizontal tornado) that cut through some hotties/moltems, but one moltem leaped over the wind tunnel and attempted to stamp my head with its heavy, gigantic war hammer, making a rather large crater in the ground where I would’ve been had I not moved! I swiftly ran up the shaft of the hammer to shatter the rock monster’s neck, and its head rolled off into one of the rivers while I, spinning up-side-down in mid-air, showered shining sleety arcs on some more fiends that sprung out of nowhere; the debris from the moltem explosions sometimes

slammed against me; ergo, my voluptuous buttocks got a severe whooping whenever I wasn’t careful… (I didn’t want to waste energy casting Blue Arithmagics unless the pain became unbearable.) Another small group of moltem busted from a secret door to the right of this room; a moltem held its mighty halberd up high, preparing for a harsh downward strike; highjumping to the halberd’s shaft and swinging off it to soar past the moltem, Crafty ran up a column behind the moltem for two seconds, leaped off (spinning wildly in mid-air), and unleashed another horde of frigid parabolas at the fiends below, and I had to rigorously parry the moltem debris. When I was defending myself against the explosions, a hottie punched right through my back, where my heart is! I rolled forward in pain and casted Blue Arithmagics on my torso before I drew my last breath. Vengeful, I turned back to discharge a flurry of arctic blade-thin crescents at the upcoming pack of hotties. Our ebon beauty used gravitational Arithmagics to push me out of the way so I can barely escape a moltem’s boomerang attack! The skirmish ended quite abruptly after that, giving me a chance to thank Crafty; instead of being humbled, she became even haughtier…! We ventured through the secret door mentioned in the previous paragraph; the next room was dark, and though they didn’t produce light, there were fiery words on the wall to our right that read: “The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity; it setteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell!” Crafty and I didn’t get what the riddle meant at the time; I’ve never eaten chili peppers in my life! Whoosh! A searing gale swept swiftly toward us, but we rolled out of the way in opposite directions. Crafty and I used

Arithmagics as flashlights, only to behold an obese dragon with maroon scales; after much shooting, slicing, and spellcasting, we found out that the dragon’s scales were chill-proof. What were we supposed to do? Become Hawaiian barbecued chicken?! Hell no! My time on this earth wasn’t over yet—not until I see the Tree of Wealth... Anyways, Crafty didn’t do anything but dodged a series of fire-breaths from the dragon’s wide-open mouth. While our ebon beauty distracted this fiend, I managed to shoot off its tongue; afterwards, since it was too obese to chase us, the maroon dragon stomped its four feet, barking at us like an enraged puppy that hasn’t eaten in five hours. Crafty and I ignored it and ventured to the next door, revealing a room with a red ebook-reader in a small cage on a table. I decreed: “All right, Crafty, whoever gets that thing first gets to keep it.” Crafty nodded in agreement, but her smile seemed to betray her nod; she started searching the chairs, table, and drawers in the table for some key to the cage. This ebook-reader was quite slim, and fortunately, my fingers were skinny enough to fit through the cage! “Crafty, we’re finished here; let’s go.” The ebon beauty looked at me as if she were to say, “H—how the hell did you do that?! What kink o’ [obscenity] witchcraft—” Before I could put the ebook-reader in my yellow pouch, some monsters (moltems and hotties) came out of nowhere (actually, out of secret door-walls) and hit my precious ebookreader out of my doggone hand! While I fought so hard to fend off those feisty fiends, Crafty retrieved the ebook-reader! “Hey, Crafty, I got it first!” “Finders keepers, loosers weepers!”

“Damnation!!!” I thought. Going through the door across from us, we witnessed a hallway that branched off into five tunnels with the following colors from left to right: white, red, yellow, brown, and black. There was also a “riddle” on the wall that read, “Love is blind; so, make up your minds, suckas!” Crafty then proposed, “I’ll take the black—” but I uttered in a demanding tone, “Crafty, we are not going to split! We might not make it out of here!” “You might not make it out of here without me; I can take care of myself; I’m a big girl now!” “With a big head.” “Boy, you gettin’ crafty with me!!?!!” “Crafty, please, let’s just stick together. That’s the least you can do since you stole myebook-reader!” “Fine, which one do you want to take?” I held Crafty’s right hand just in case she tried to split, and we chose the red tunnel—not because it was red but because it looked safe, or at least we thought so… We were sadly mistaken. Spikes and flames sprung out of the walls at irregular intervals; we weren’t Indiana Jones, or any other first-rate adventurer for that matter; so, we got cut and scorched here and there until I casted Blue Arithmagics at the end of the tunnel. Were our troubles over? Almost… After the tunnel, a secret door abruptly locked Crafty and me in a cylindrical room. The ceiling spikes descended swiftly upon us; my hope was fading as we searched the room for clues.

There were none—save the brown pillar in the center of the room, which had the words, “Perfect love casts away all fear; you’d better think fast, dimwits! Ain’t got much time left!” Crafty screamed in distress, “What the [obscenity] does that mean!?” My brain worked overtime by trying to crack this rather blunt riddle. Only one thing came to mind, and our ebon beauty seemed to be thinking the same thing; we reluctantly came closer to each other as if we were to kiss, but we then looked away from each other as if we were to say, “Kissing someone from another treasure huntin’ team? Hell no! I’d rather die!” The descending spikes reminded us of our limited time; so, we asked each other in unison, “Are HIV positive or anything along those lines???” Once the spikes were one centimeter above Crafty (she was taller than me by quite a bit), we kissed like a married couple reunited after 10,000 years, and the spikes stopped moving, and a portion of the wall across from us vanished, revealing another long passageway. As we wiped off our lips, I tried to get our minds off that kissing stuff by asking, “Um, Crafty, is—uh, ‘Crafty’ our real name?” “Hell no! A person with a real name like that must be into some witchcraft! My mamma ain’t a voodoo! ‘Crafty’ is just some team name, and don’t you ask me for my real name! It’s too good for your skinny lil’ ears, boy.” Finally, we arrived at another lava lake—with no means of getting across! We read a riddle on a stalagmite: “Love covers all sins, even suicide! Give it a shot!” To my horror, Crafty walked to the burning lake and attempted to jump in!!! “Crafty! NO!!!!!!!!!!!!” To my relief, Crafty was able to stand on the lava unharmed. I then reasoned, “Hmn, I guess

my concern for your safety triggered the riddle’s intended effect!” Crafty blushed a little and uttered, “Well, you comin’ with me?” “That depends if you’re concerned about my safety!” Favorably, I also walked on the lava unharmed, and we made it to the other side of the lake. (I guess Crafty had no choice but to let me live; if I died, I would obviously not be concerned about her life; thus, the riddle’s effect would wear off, and well…) The next chamber (lit by rectangular lava pools) was filled with hotties and moltems; the moltems were equipped with old-fashioned semi-automatic rifles of the twenty-fifth century with stone bayonets attached to them. I activated my thunderboltblades so I could nullify their bullets, which had the opposite magnetic charge of my blade. Their bullets just went straight to my blade, doing me no harm. As I breezed my way through the moltems, Crafty didn’t even break a sweat when mowing through wit that cryo scythe. Spinning wildly in mid-air, running up columns, slashing around like half-crazed swords masters, shooting fiends while up-side-down, and summoning frigid vortexes and other Green Arithmagics spells—while messing up the place quite a bit, Crafty and I took those fiends “home,” but then we felt the ground quiver at regular intervals. Blasting through a wall came a gigantic moltem! (Does thirty feet tall mean anything to you? Even its spear was that long!) Swinging that lance like a maniac, the moltem knocked down most of the columns, stalagmites, and stalactites, forcing us into evasion mode. Once she had the chance, using her Satoko-like strength with anti-gravity Arithmagics, our crafty ebon woman grabbed me and threw me up towards the last

hanging stalactite, where I ran up further before hopping onto the giant’s left shoulder. To my surprise, there was a glowing red ON/OFF switch on the back of this thing’s neck; I guess Crafty knew that; maybe that’s why she threw me up here in the first place! No time to waste, I pulled down the switch— after evading several swat attempts from the giant—and the robot-thingy stopped functioning; ‘twas easier than I thought! Once I managed to finally get off that thing, I commended Crafty for devising that tactic, which made her even haughtier! We passed a few more winding halls as the blazing heat became less bearable. Crafty and I then came across a rather small chamber with a pit of lava in the middle. Above the lava was a humanoid being that looked much like Sailor Pluto in a onepiece made of molten rock. I: “Are—are you Pele by chance?” Pele: “Yes, I am the volcanic goddess Pele; what business do you have here?!?” Crafty: “Well, um, we didn’t come here to worship, but we really just wanted, eh—” Wings of blazing fire suddenly appeared on Pele’s back! Crafty and I got out our weapons just to be safe. Pele: “You didn’t come here to worship!? Then what!? You wish to destroy me? My, you mortals have some nerves challenging a semi-mortal like me! Very well then; if you wish to be Hawaiian barbecued chicken—” I: “Whoa whoa, hold it, sista!”

Pele: “I am NOT your sister! I am a goddess, not some human like you, and besides, do I look black to you?” I: “Well, not exactly, but you do have a very beautiful tan, I must say—isn’t that right, Crafty?” Crafty: “Yes, yes, a very nice tan; I wish I had one of— wait a minute, I do have one; I’m the darkest one here!” Pele: “Don’t flatter me, mortals! If you wish to be my loyal servants, then say so already!!!” I: “No thanks, sista.” Pele: “Then you wish to fight?” Crafty: “No, we don’t wanna go that way, either.” Pele: “You didn’t come sweating all this way—trespassing on MY territory—for nothing, am I right?” I: “Yes, you have a point there, sista; you see, our business is finished here, and we’re looking for a way out—hmn, will you excuse me for a moment?” Something began to vibrate rigorously in my left pants pocket. It couldn’t have been my cell phone, which is in my right pocket. Suddenly, I remembered the sword-dildo which I forgot to return to Aukai. I held up the dildo, and instantly, a trail of dark gas oozed out of the dildo and descended to my side. Once the gas finished oozing, Sinbad appeared from the gas! I guess I banished him to the “dildo realm”! “Sinbad!!!!” Pele uttered in her harsh, womanly tone, “You—you detestable object! How dare you show your face here!?”

My physical energy slowly began to drain the longer Sinbad stayed out of his “cage”; perhaps his soul is getting his energy from me? I still suppose Sinbad could give us the upper-hand if we had to fight Pele… “Pele, I am sorry for what I’ve done,” Sinbad uttered in a rather solemn, manly tone, “While sailing the lonely seas, I thought about what I did and how much pain you must feel.” Sinbad got on his knees like a repentant sinner, saying, “Now I know I—I can’t live without your love, and I’ll never be the same without your forgiveness; I may not deserve this, but— will you—forgive me?” Touched by his remorse, Pele flew toward him, made him stand up, and said, “Of course, my Sinbad!” It got mushy after that, and Crafty ended their romantic reunion with a loud “Ahem!” Pele: “Oh, so, are you their spirit guardian now?” Sinbad: “Yes, I am the boy’s guardian; he defeated me in a ‘fair’ fight, and now I must go with him.” I: “Don’t worry, sista; he’s in good hands! When we finish our—uh, ‘buisness,’ we’ll bring him back to you.” Pele: “Before you go, would you like to learn a new Purple Arithmagic technique known as the ‘Hollywood Barrier’?” We (intrigued as hell): “Hmn, yes, ma’am; please tell us more about this ‘Hollywood Barrier’!” Pele: “You see, this barrier—which can spread for miles, if you put much mental energy into it—can prevent people within the barrier from performing Arithmagics—except Blue

and White—and super acrobatic skills, such as bullet-blocking, wall-running, and the like. Crafty: “That—doesn’t sound too useful—” I: “Oh, but it can be!—depending on the circumstance. If you don’t like someone blocking and dodging your bullets, you can pin him/her down in the Hollywood Barrier!” Crafty: “Hmph, I knew that; I just thought you didn’t. So, Pele, how long does this barrier lasts?” Pele: Depending upon how much mental energy you invest into the spell, it could last for one minute to one day!” We Avalanchers: “Wow, that’s quite useful and not-souseful at the same time!” Pele: “Listen well, mortals, as I teach you the technique…” The technique was more mental than anything else; though we could activate the H-Barrier instantly, it drained our psychic energy, as if we took three intense exams at once! Pele showed us a passage leading out of this castle-cavern, supposedly. In this labyrinth of a passage—and Pele didn’t follow us to guide us—Crafty, Sinbad, and I met up with the other Avalanchers, who proclaimed to have a better adventure than we did. They asked us where Sinbad came from; our vague explanation was of no avail. We told them about the “Hollywood Barrier,” while Sinbad, who was quite familiar with this passage, led us out of this relentlessly blazing “hell hole”! My Crimson Avalanchers then crowded around me and asked if I found the key. After telling them my sad story,

Monica and Satoko started spewing cuss words at me, but Similie seemed to understand why I couldn’t get the ebook. So hurt by the cuss words, I didn’t say a word until we got out of the “hell hole.” “Well, mate, until our paths cross again!” Icabod said, taking off his hat and giving a slight bow to Satoko, “I enjoyed our little adventure, Satoko; well, so long.” They [Indigo Avalanchers] swiftly faded off into the distance while we looked at Satoko as if we were to say, “Well, Satoko, what was so ‘enjoyable’ about your adventure?” She glanced back at us, implying, “Well, I ain’t gonna tell you!” We stared at her again as if we were to say, “C’mon, ‘Toko, what was it all about? It can’t be that good—” She glanced at us again, implying once more, “Ask me that question again, and I’m gonna kill somebody!” Similie didn’t infer the body language correctly and asked, “So, Miss ‘Toko, how was it with that Icabod guy— AHHH!” Our yellow fellow turned back to pounce upon and strangle poor Similie. Tempted to re-summon Sinbad, Monica and I had an extremely challenging moment when we tried to get Satoko off him, getting hurt in the process! By the time we managed to get Toko off him—and calm her down a bit— Similie was knocked out cold!—forcing Monica to carry him! (I felt like a wuss after all that fighting in the cave, and you KNOW Toko had no soft feelings for poor Sim!) Anyways, how were we going to get off this island?! I doubted that Metaphor’s pilot would come back for us; we were STOWAWAYS, for writing in full caps/italics (for crying out loud)! So, we ran in the direction of our “Indigo brethren” and saw them starting up their motorboat, just about to take off!

****************************************************** Monica J-Walker’s Account ****************************************************** Mack (waving at our rival Avalanchers with both arms): “Hey there, our brethren—” The Indigo Avalanchers looked at us as if they were to say, “Brethr-what?!?” But, Matthew Dollar continued: “Would you be so kind as to give us a ride on your ‘marvelous’ little boat?” The Indigo Avalanchers gazed at us, implying, “Don’t you have your own means of transportation? How the hell did you get here in the first place?!” Joan (remember, it’s “Joe-Ann,” not “Zhon”—as Mack pronounces it) didn’t seem to enjoy the fact that the other three were willing to let us ride. Icabod: “You’re going to Oahu? Great! Then, climb aboard, my ‘Crimson Brethren’!” (‘Twas more like walk than climb; the boat looked nothing more than a yellow wooden raft with a motor in the back!) Once onboard, I laid Similie down to rest. Bobby then asked, “What happened to Sim?” in his heavy northeast American accent. I replied, “I ‘think’ he got heatstroke; I’m sure he’ll be fine when we get away from this island.” Crafty’s glance at Satoko implied, “That sounds like hogwash; c’mon, Toko, you did somethin’ to ‘im, didn’t ya?” She then inferred from Toko’s glance: “It’s a ‘long’ story. You don’t wanna know…” Once at Waikiki’s beach, we treasure-hunting “Brethren” parted ways, and Matty Mack called his parents on his yellow water-proof cell phone so they could pick us up so we can stay at their house for the night, supposedly…

6:03 p.m., we arrived at Mack’s plastic-looking log cabin (I swear it felt like plastic!). Though the sun was going down the horizon, we could still see the third-quarter moon fading into existence. We introduced Sim to Mack’s parents, who were quite excited to see a real-life Englishman; they never stopped talking to him; they couldn’t get enough of his “exquisite” accent. Toko and I ventured up the dangerous squeaky stairs to see Matthew’s room—a dilapidated junk yard of a room! Mold seemed to be popping up on the walls and headboard, and the big cracks in the walls served as windows, since this room didn’t have any. Amongst the clutter of junk on the floor, Mack found an out-dated eight-barreled shotgun which he swore (without the use of expletives) he used against Helena last year; Satoko confirmed his claim and found her gigantic, golden katana Solar Moon, which she swore (with a plethora of expletives) that she used against Helena last year; Mateo Dinero confirmed her claim and summarized the tale in his own words… Certainly, Halloween Island was not even close to what it looks like now… While Mack was telling his tail—and swinging his toy weapons to demonstrate some action scenes, making more cracks in the walls—Satoko’s katanas emanated a green glow when she held them close together; a blinding glow then flashed throughout the room, and in Satoko’s hands was an enormous, emerald-looking, serated, double-helix sword, which she named Stellar Cross just to tick off some people. Not as amazed as Matty and me, Toko insisted that Mack continued telling their tale… (Note: Stellar Cross can “revert” back to Solar Moon and Lunar Sun.)

After dinner, around 6:15, Similie finally had the chance to call Metaphor with my cell phone! Judging by what I overheard, one of the flight attendants seemed to have Met’s cell phone. Sim: “Metaphor! Hello, my good friend! You won’t believe what Satoko just did to me a while ago!—hello?—who’s this? Cindy?! Well, where’s—missing? What bloody madness do you mean by ‘missing’!?—what?—where was that again? Well, what about the police!?—off limits! You have to be kidding!!! What? You’re not kidding!? Well, OK; have a nice night…” As soon as Sim depressingly got back inside the house, Mack asked him, “So, what did the stewardess say?” I (Miss J-Walker): “You meant flight attendant, right?” Mack (raising his voice): “Stewardess is a faster synonym, Monica; no time for that ‘political-correctness’ crap! That’s a no-no in this house, if you can call it a house! What’s so ‘political’ about flying anyways?!!! So, Sim, sounds like Metaphor got kidnapped; what happened?” Sim (stepping outside the house, so he could use flight attendant without breaking the house rules): “According to the flight attendant, Metaphor ventured off to see the historic Pali (pronounced ‘polly’) Lookout and never came back! Some people found his rental car and trench coat! The police won’t investigate until tomorrow since the lookout is off-limits at night!!!!” Mack had a horrified look on his face. Toko, Sim, and I: “What’s wrong, Matty?” (Of course, the previous sentence was just an “estimate” of what we said; each

of us said it in our own dialect, tone, and choice of words! Sim actually said compassionately: “Is there something wrong, my good fellow?” I said it unemotionally: “What’s the matter, Mack; spit it out already.” And, Satoko said it harshly: “What the [obscenity] is wrong with you, Matty; don’t waste my time!” Please keep this in mind when reading a quote supposedly said by multiple characters.) Mack: “P-P-P-Pali is—HAUNTED!!! It’s not safe at night! We gotta rescue him before it’s too late! Something bad will—I dare say—happen to him!” Mack’s parents: “What! But, that place is danger—well, with Satoko and Monica, I guess you’re in good hands; get in the SUV.” Around 6:53 p.m. the same night, we were blazing through the trail which cut through the dense—extremely dense—forest, which blotted out the moon’s waning light at times. We Avalanchers got out of the hover mobile which stopped behind an Enterprise rental car. Satoko (sighing softly): “Poor Metaphor—” We looked at her, implying, “What did you say? You never said that for Similie!” Mack told his dad, “If we’re not back after midnight—” He didn’t need to finish the sentence; his dad got the message—whatever it was... Fanned by the chilling air, we traversed the old road and found that Sim’s and our hightech weapons wouldn’t work. Satoko gave Mack Solar Moon, and Mack gave Sim his eight-barreled shotgun.

****************************************************** Similie Steiner’s Account ****************************************************** The air was so unusually chilly that I thanked God that Matty Mack convinced me to take my warm black trench coat, which was similar to Satoko’s. We Avalanchers, walking briskly but quietly on the wide old trail encapsulated by a dense forest of withered trees, used our Arithmagics to see our way through the darkness that almost defied light’s penetration; the tall old trees snuffed out the silver light of the third-quarter moon as we heard music-box music in the distance—utterly unnerving, I must say! Had it not been for Metaphor’s absence, I would never be in such a bloody place as this—like a rat and a cobweb! A neutral odor filled our frigid lungs, even after we spotted a detestable object that swiftly passed through the dense woods and onto the road! Ugly was too kind an adjective for this horrifying being— at least for me. The phosphorescent, ghastly, white, gigantic blob monster suggested vast malice with its eyes. Since it passed the woods with such unnatural silence, grace, and velocity, we Crimson Avalanchers assumed the blob to be a ghost blob, and, supposedly, White Arithmagics are effective on ghastly objects—not Red Arithmagics. Swiftly moving towards us, the huge ghost blob slammed the road, emitting a wide shock wave of gravel! My fair lady Satoko imbued gravitational Arithmagics with Lunar Sun so she could cut the wave into two by a crashing dynamic blow before the wave could hit us. Charging Solar Moon with exorcist powers, Mack released some short-ranged, blade-thin holy parabolas while I unleashed an octuple-helix of silver fire.

Though the ghost blob had a high pain threshold, we eventually disposed of this hideous creature as it ran through trees and shrubs, not touching them at all! I was appalled by this ghastly madness, but it’ll get much worse later. At Satoko’s behest, we fearfully tagged along behind her, continuing down the eerie, god-forsaken road. Mack just so happened to be looking back to me. A look of horror was on his face as he shouted, “Sim, behind thee!” I instantly squatted and I felt something kick my bottom, causing me to roll forward. When I got up and turned around, I saw quite unfamiliar creatures, “lizard women,” as Matty calls them; these green-skinned, women-like beings with scaly armor, lizard-like tails, and glowing eyes rushed after me. Their long, blade-like fins which extended from their elbows almost sunk deep into my skin, if it were not for my shotgun and the heroines’ R. Arithmagics. More came out of the woods to strike, but I shot them down before they get near. The skirmish ended rather swiftly, and we Crimson Avalanchers thought it best to stay off the road and in the woods, which weren’t much safer! Mack then took out an ebook (from Chapter 3) from one of his three yellow pouches on his waist; we made sure that we were “equipped” with W. Arithmagics. Mack coincidentally had Red, White, and Blue Arithmagics! Now, supposedly, we were ready for any kind of threat. ****************************************************** Monica J-Walker’s Account ****************************************************** I suddenly felt the urge to defecate; so, I “dismissed” myself from the rest of the gang. Before I could even pull down my pants, I heard something moving behind me; I

mysteriously no longer had the urge to defecate as I strode back to the gang. Mack: “Wow, I wish I could pee that quick!” I: “I didn’t; I lost the urge—” Toko: “Somethin’ freaked you out, huh?” I: “Yeah, frankly; I heard somethin’ over there.” Through Arithmagics, we scanned the area where I heard the noise, and a pale, bloodless human sprung up from the ground! Sim: “Ahhhhh! My jolly goodness! It’s—it’s a zombie! Let’s shoot the bloodless fiend!” Mack (holding Sim’s shotgun away from the zombie): “Oh, not yet; let’s see if we can get some info about Metaphor.” Mack then walked toward with much confidence, saying, “Excuse me, ma’am, my friend here (pointing to me) didn’t mean to defecate on your property—” Zombie (now standing straight): “Aaarrr?” Satoko (whispering to Mack): “Matty, I don’t think she knows English—” I: “But, the ghosts do!” Matty Mack: “Ma’am, we just wanted to know if you’ve seen anyone who looks similar to my white friend here (pointing to you know who).”

The zombie spoke in some unintelligible lingo that sounded like “Bllaaaah blaaaahhh blah; rarrr rrarrr ra?” Sim: “Matty, I didn’t understand a word she uttered!” Mack (listening intently): “Shhhh!” Zombie girl: “Blah blah rarrah?” Mack: “Yeah, white like him; no tan whatsoever!” Zombie: “Ratatatatatat.” Mack: “That’s right, a tan trench coat—similar to theirs (pointing to Sim and Toko honey).” Zomb: “Duh duh rah blah blaah.” Mack: “Why, he’s this fellow’s brother; we have to find him before your cousins make fried rice out of him!” Zomb: “Che che ra!!!” Mack: “Sorry; didn’t mean to offend your kin, but that’s the common stereotype around here; ever watched a zombie movie?” Zomb: “Nene rane.” Mack: “See, I told you! Gotta be careful around your zombie brethren. Anyways, you know what happened to our poor fellow?” Zomb: “Neggah urrar eutarra blah.”

Mack: “Kidnapped by ghosts!? You makin’ this up, woman? No? Hmn, I see. Well, thank you for your time, ma’am—” Suddenly, a pack of lizard women dropped from the trees and almost minced us to the afterlife, but the zombie woman knew drunken boxing!—the martial arts of the ghouls! She made our fight much easier. Needless to say, we warded them off in about one minute. Zomb: “Hubbub dada dud bubbah blah—blah.” Mack: “Oh, he went to the northeast, eh? Oh, OK; well— what was that?—neutral from what? Hey, come back here!” Zomb (sleepily digging into the ground): “Blaaah blaaaah blaaah, negga rarrra.” Mack: “Well, uh, have a nice nap, too!” Satoko (looking at Mack): “Matthew, summarize that damned conversation!!” Mack: “She said Metaphor got kidnapped by some ghost warriors, if there’s such a thing. He was taken that way (pointing to his northeast, which could have been southwest for all we knew). She said she didn’t want to help us too much since she is neutral.” All (except Mack, what!????????????????”

obviously):

“Neutral

from

Mack: “I dunno; I guess we’ll find out….” And, sure enough, we found out in no time!

****************************************************** Mateo Dinero’s Account ****************************************************** We strode to the northeast (it could’ve been the southeast for all we could tell; we couldn’t afford a GPS device; I didn’t pay for that service on my cell phone), and suddenly, we were ambushed by ancient Hawaiian warriors with ancient muskets, spears, and pistol-daggers! Some chief with a great spear walked toward us and said--with no accent whatsoever, "Are you spies of Kalanikupule???!" After we Avalanchers glanced at each other in bewilderment, I said, "We--we don't know who the hell that guy is! We're--uh, neutral, just like that zombie lady back there (pointing backwards with my left thumb); we're just innocent travelers looking for a 'long-lost' friend. Have you seen any white guys lately?" "Yes," said the chief-looking guy, "He was taken captive by Kalanikupule's men." I: "Are you--uh, King Kamehameha by chance?" Mr. Chief: "No, I am a subordinate of the great King Kamehameha, the one who will unify all the Hawaiian Islands!" We Crimson Avalanchers fought hard to keep ourselves from laughing; I mean, Hawaii was unified more than a millennia ago! It's sad that these ghosts warriors didn't keep up with current events; they're fighting an already-won war!!!

I then improvised, "Well then, Mr. Chief of Kamehameha, since we seem to have a common enemy, perhaps we could join forces??" "Hmph," Chief scoffed, "be my guest, but I won't be responsible for your deaths." Satoko: "We're fine warriors, and we'll prove it! Just tell us where to go, and we won't let you down!" Chief (pointing to his north, which could be south for all we know): "Hmn, I like that warrior spirit! We must move forward to the Nu'uanau Mountain Ridge and take out those cannons that have been shelling us earlier!" Mr. Chief then gave us (except Similie) a musket and a bag of bullets and gun powder. I tossed Sim Solar Moon since I'm not so highly proficient with gigantic swords. (Don't get me wrong; I'm not bad with those weapons, but I need a weapon that I'm very good with, since we're fighting a war! It might do me more harm than good, but it may work wonders on Sim, who doesn't have special preferences for any weapon in general.) I was surprised that we living folk could wield ghostweapons; how come we couldn't wield them in the past? There must be some kind of spiritual laws governing this phenomenon, if we could call it that...Or, perhaps, they were zombie-weapons.... Suddenly, all of us felt--um, how should I say this?-vulnerable; not because we were going to face cannons but because... Monica: "That felt as if someone issued the Hollywood Barrier!" Even the ghost/zombie soldiers agreed. Who know how long this invisible barrier's going to last...!

****************************************************** Metaphor Steiner's Account ****************************************************** "Let go of me, you rotten slime!" I screamed as some men in some Hawaiian warrior costumes carried me to a tent. Out of the ten came a chief, I suppose. I had a feeling I wasn't going to last much longer... Many thoughts were running through my mind: "Who'll take care of Similie? Bleh, that slugepot needs to take care of himself for once--or, perhaps more than once. Wh-what will happen to me? What did I do? Are these guys the security police or forest rangers of some sinister kind? Will I live to see tomorrow? Do I wantto live to see tomorrow? I suppose I'd be better off dead than alive at this point. I'm sure that good-fornothing Similie and his CIA gang won't be able to rescue me in time. But, will I be able to see Satoko again? Just one last look..." My thoughts fled me as the supposed chief walked toward me and asked, "Do you know where Kamehameha's army is? How many men and cannons does he have?! Is he heading for the mountain ridge?!?" Unfamiliar with Hawaiian history, culture, and current events, I plainly uttered: "I do not know this 'Kamehameha' fellow of whom you speak; are you referring to Goku from Dragonball Z?" The supposed chief smacked my cheek so hard I thought my face was going to fall off! "Don't feign ignorance with me,

Englishman! For Kalanikupule's army to triumph, we need information, and you SHALL give it to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I: "I have no good knowledge of this place, and I don't have much time to keep up with the Dragonball Z episodes! I'm just a humble man doing business here for a while--" Supposed chief: "Ah, so you're a weapon merchant! Giver us some of your muskets and cannons--then, I'll consider your meager life!" I: "I do not sell such fiendish old-fashion bullet pipes that must be tediously reloaded after one shot! My company does not sell war items; so, you have no use for me; would you please let me go now? I have to urinate." Supposed chief: "Yes, we'll let you go; you may urinate--in HELL! Kill him!" I had to improvise, "No no no, wait! Some of the natives told me a legend: There is a Z-shaped ball blessed by some ancient Chinese dragon who flew over here while eating fried rice long ago; the dragon noticed that these people [the native Hawaiians] didn't eat rice (I know not if that's true or not); so, she blessed this island with a Z-shaped ball that grants so much power--too much power for one Englishman!" Supposed chief: "Where do we find this--'dragonball'?" I: "Um, I believe it's somewhere--" I pointed to the mountain ridge. My would-be executioner put his broadsword back, and the chief said to some of the nearby soldiers, "Well, let's find this 'dragonball'! Don't tell Kalanikupule about this; that ball is mine, all mine!--you hear me, Englishman!?"

"Yes, sire!" was all I said... ****************************************************** Matthew Dollar's Account ****************************************************** We CIA folks charged our hands, weapons, and shoes with White Arithmagics as we encountered the first wave of enemies, which comprised ghost, Kirby ghosts, zombies, skeletons, werewolves, and even lizard women! As we hid/peeked behind old withered trees, our "bullet pipes" sneered at each other at irregular intervals. Using the bag of bullets, paper, and gun powder Mr. Chief gave me, I watched other ghost comrades reloading their muskets and figured out how to reload mine--such a time-consuming task, if you ask me: stuff the paper, gun powder, and bullet into the barrel and force them down even more with a thin metal stick. In the meantime, comrades/enemies all around us were screaming bloody murder in the utmost agony; sadly, Monica and Satoko were saving their spirit energy for the foes and comforted the wounded allies with "Shut up!!! Shut the [expletive] up! I'm trying to aim with this [obscenity] excuse for a rifle!" Thus, Sim and I tried to be the "angels fo the battlefield" by touching/shooting their wounds with our glowing, blue hands and bullets--while feisty pellets sneered past us from almost all sides! (The effects of the Hollywood Barrier prohibited farranged Arithmagics, except Arithmagic gun spells the range of non-gun Arithmagics was only about twenty-four inches in this H-Barrier; Pele forgot to mention that in the last chapter!) Booooooooooossshhhhhhhhhhh!

DDDDDDDRRRRRRRRRR Thump! The next thing I knew was a dozen blown-away comrades and some fallen trees. "The cannons!" someone cried, "be careful and fear not!" Still, vile pellets zipped by us, nearly killing me on one occasion, if it weren't for Monica; eventually, I grew tired of this tedious reloading and decided to get closer so I can knife the blasted fiends with the pistol-dagger I got from a fallen werewolf comrade. I yelled at Similie--the wielder of my postmodern God-blessed eight-barreled shotgun: "Similie, cover me! I'm gonna 'flank' them!" "With what? You haven't reloaded yet!!" "With THIS!" "You can't shoot anyone that that blasted, bloody knife, Matty; have gone mad (crazy)!?!" "No, while the enemies are reloading, I can knife their god-forsaken hinds!" "All right; you be careful!" Some soldiers then asked me, "Are you sure about this-madness?" I: "Heck, I'm sure; you lads should come along; I'm gonna need some manpower to pull this off! Satoko, Monica, are you with me?" Monica: "Hell no! I'll stay behind with the others!"

Satoko: "All right, my brave lads, move your Hawaiian [plural of a three-letter word] like a [participle of a four-letter word] sinner running out of hell!!! Sim, we need you to come follow us so you can help clear a path with us!" As soon as foes tried to gun us "brave lads" as we got closer and hid behind more trees and shrubs when necessary, Sim and Monica blew the blasted fiends out of our way, folks around us creaming with shouts that cannot be uttered by living fellows. I then encountered a reloading werewolf and... "Ack!!!!" I took him "home" as my other "brave lads" took out the other nearby fiends; Sim fired at more foes in the distance with my shotgun with a moderate spreading ability. On my second encounter, I wasn't so lucky. The humanoid ghost dropped his musket, grabbed my wrist, and kicked me to the ground; I thought he was going to bayonet my butt, but his bloody head then rolled passed me; I got up, only to hear Satoko, standing beside the head corpse (if we could use that term), scream: "Well, get up already; ain't got time for that crap!" The third and fifth encounters went rather smoothly, until some of my men got killed. Satoko (hiding behind the same tree as I): "Similie, what the...is going on?!?" Not-too-distant voice: "I'm reloading; take cover--" Boooooooooommmmmssshhhhhh! Some cannonballs ripped through some trees where some of my "brave lads" were hiding. I healed the handfull of allies that survived the blast, though they were missing some limbs; Mr. Chief permitted them to leave the battlefield...

Sim (less distant than before): "I'm ready; let's move!" Holding my musket barrel (to use the musket's butt as a club) as if I were wielding a crescent-moon spear, I (and some "brave lads")--while bullets cussed past the field back and forth at irregular intervals--sneaked around some bushes and caught some reloading fiends off-guard; a zombie, spotting us in horror, tried to unsheathe the longsword on this side, but I put my foot on the hilt, so he couldn't draw that blade, and clubbed his head: WWWWFFFFFFFFFHHHHH!!! (The sound you make by swinging a golf club.) One foe would've bayoneted me if a ghost comrade's broadsword didn't burrow through the foe's waist! Before a lizard woman could take a good aim at Toko, I swiftly bent down to take a fallen enemy's longsword and threw it at her! The fiend didn't fire the musket but dropped it (out of pain and because she now lacked a left forearm) to get her spear; Toko gave her a swift trip to the afterlife... We picked up the loaded rifle and moved on. Needless to say, Similie and his "brave lads" were having an easier time (with my semi-automatic shotgun--ahem!), though they still had to hide/crawl like the rest of us. "Stay the [expletive] down! What's wrong with you soldiers?!! Wanna get shot? Then, use your common sense!" Toko scolded her comrades, who weren't familiar with post-modern warfare tactics. Moving like POWs (prisoners of war) crawling out of hell at a snail's pace, we finally unloaded our musket shells on an unsuspecting group of reloading zombies and lizard women. Once we came to the spot where the group died, another small

band ambushed us! I lost some good men, and a humanoid ghost was about to bayonet my heart! I hopped back miss it and then lunged forward to rifle-butt his face, yet he still managed to get up; so, outraged, I bent down (evading my opponent's rifle-butt stroke), grabbed a "dead" man's (if we can use that term) hatchet and cut him clean through through the ankles, making her fall; Toko spared no mercy on that fool... Another fiend would've pierced my lung had Satoko not kick me out of the way to fend off his attacks! After throwing that hatchet at somebody (I believe 'twas a foe, but I'm not quite sure...), I grabbed a loaded pistol-dagger from a fallen lizard woman comrade and shot Toko's attacker, yet Satoko didn't even thank me but yelled, "Move on; let's go, suckas!!!" My last unfortunate encounter was when I was facing another mixed group of fiends (mostly lizard women, though). Not reloading their rifles, they seemed to be waiting for us; ergo, Similie peeked from his willow tree and started shooting, leaving a pond of dead folks for any scavengers that had the guts to fetch food during this heated battle! 'Twas a trap!--a bloody, doggone hell of a fiendish trap! Dropping down from nearby tree branches, some lizard women pummeled us in no time!--rendering some of us eternally unconscious and some others heavily wounded! Due to the dynamic impact of a bloody lizard wench's shield and hammer, Sim dropped his shotgun! I thought all hell was going to break loose when a lizard wench picked up that shotgun and shot me square in the abdomen; I flew back to the ground, but I felt no abdominal pain; it must've been the work of Similie...Anyways, I got back up and threw my pistol-daggers at that wench while others tackled her. A fellow Kirby-looking ghost blew away many fiends with that eight-barreled shotgun, but she didn't even bother to get the fiend that tackled me from behind, pummeling me as if I

killed his wife (if he had one). Flat on my stomach with a musket in my hands, I managed to thrust my backwards, luckily getting my attacker in the neck. A lizard women then took me to the ground again (man, I was unlucky! Why didn't anyone help me?!!); this time, I was flat on my back, blocking her every strike. I managed to impale her thrice--four times-five times--six times!--but, she was still on me, stamping my flat chest with her heavy hammer as if I were some kind of envelope to mailed to her grandmother! Looking around pathetically, I got the female Kirby ghost's attention, "Ma'am, I could use some help here!" She took out that feisty resilient lizard wench and resumed her pellet-onslaught. (She couldn't get enough of that shotgun, until it ran out of ammo, when she was forced to hand it back to Sim since she didn't know how to reload it...) Picking up "dead" men's rifles, pistol-daggers, and muskets, the we continued this "flanking process" a few times more until we got the enemies on the run. Meanwhile, the rifle-sneers and cannon-roars where dying out as we pushed the enemy from the valley to the cliffs; things really started to get nasty then; 'twas hand-to-hand time, and the H-Barrier was still in effect. Time to be that small-weapon genius my Crimson Brethren claimed me to be in Chapter 4...! ****************************************************** Metaphor Steiner's Account ****************************************************** "Englishman! Have you found it yet?!" the supposed chief uttered with the utmost impatience. I: "Not yet, sire; I'm sure it's somewhere around this cliff."

Messenger: "Sir, I have news--" Supposed chief: "What is it now!???" Messenger: "Kalanikupule has been severely wounded; he retreated and put you in charge--" Supposed chief: "Good! Now, help us find a Z-shaped ball!" The messenger glanced at me as if he were to say, "Has he gone mad?" "Hurry, Englishman; the enemy is here! Once we find that ball, Oahu will be mine--all mine-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha !" "Yes, sire" was all I said... ****************************************************** Mateo Dinero's Account ****************************************************** A charging spearman lunged at me, but I caught his spear with my right arm, trimmed his neck with my left hand's pistol dagger, and tripped to lifeless corpse just to look intimidating; the next charging foes didn't seem impressed (perhaps I killed an amateur?). As soon as my left crescent kick deflected a foe's sword-thrust, my right pistol-dagger (let's just call it a knife) sank deep into his belly; I then used the swordsman as a shield against a bayonet attack, threw my right knife at the musketeer's mouth (my aim wasn't that great; I was just lucky), and took the swordsman's short sword. Swaying my knife and sword diagonally left and right in rapid succession, I

parried every strike from a spearman until he pushed me to a tree by a heavy fan kick! I: "Where the hell did you learn those kung fu moves!??" Spearman: "From HELL!" (I assume he meant that litterally.) My right crescent kick caught his pierce attack, but he let go of his spear and attempted to use my balls as a punching bag for his rapid-fire wing chun punches, yet I was one step ahead, I knife-swiped his wrists and mowed off his head. I must admit Similie, who wasn't very far from Monica and me, fared fairly well with Solar Moon, though he--and sometimes I--had to heal his wounds from time to time. I: "Simile, are you OK? Need help?" Sim: "No, thank you; I can handle them--for the time being, at least..." After I threw my short sword at one of Sim's foes to make his life a bit smoother, another spearman almost lanced me, if didn't move a bit to the side, attempting to knife his neck; unpredictably, my foe let go of his spear, halted my stab attempt, and kicked me to the ground. He was going to slice through my mid-section, but an ally Kirby ghost cut him on the side, yet this spearman then tried to fend off my Kirby friend. Though I intended to aim for the heart, my hurled knife struck one of his balls (I believe it was the left one; I forget exactly which one got hit, but we can ask Satoko later...); my ally took him "home" after that and helped me up while I took the foe's spear.

"Thank you, sire," I told the Kirby ghost. "You're welcome, my lad; let us move on with haste!" I heard approaching footsteps behind me as I parried a swordswoman's (lizard woman, if you really want to get racial) seven slashes, four roundhouses, and a low swing (these attacks weren't consecutive but mixed-up) before I had a chance to kick her away and leave my spear in her flat chestplate so I could wing-chun the heavy-set zombie (who know some drunken boxing) behind me. The zombie beat me back with his iron (or what I assumed to be iron) gauntlets/greeves, but I managed to take him down (by our handy-dandy scissor take down), pull the spear out of the swordswench, and stick it into the zombie's liver--if he still had one, yet the once-man-whore had enough strength to keep fighting! While he and I traded/evaded third-rate kung fu kicks/punches, Monica's serrated Rabid Vine made my duel much smoother, and I pushed the spear deeper into his liver! Monica and I let him pray to his gods one last time in his dying moments, but Satoko's Lunar Sun cut his prayer short! I: "Satoko! I can't believe you can't even spare enough decency to let the poor foe finish his prayer!" Satoko (angrily but carelessly): "So what?! He's goin' to hell anyways!" I: "But, respect and honor still have their place on the battlefield." Toko honey: "Not while I'm on it!" Monica: "Whatever! Let's go!"

I (talking to the "dead" zombie while pulling the spear out of him): "Sorry 'bout that, mate; she's usually sweet, but she does have a temper of a tempest! I hope you'll understand; women get feisty on the battlefield." Monica: "Who'er you talking to? Let's go, Matthew!" I (still chatting with the corpse): "See what I mean? Don't worry; you'll get used to it in Hades...!" I somersaulted over a humanoid ghost's low broadsword swing and flung my long spear at the heart of the zombie carrying two short swords, which I took from him; turning back to the broadswordghost, I--Matthew Dollar ("Mateo Dinero," in case you haven't figured it out by now), the supposed short-weapon genius--deflected his incoming curtails (with my left sword) and issued a consecutive left and right stroke to this neck (with my right sword), just to be safe. My next opponent (a greyish-green, Kirby-looking ghost with two broadswords) wasn't going to make my night any easier. As soon as I averted her pierce attack, the K-ghost halted my right slash with her left! Before I could knee-strike her, she swiftly leaped back to refocus. Every time I lashed out with a combo (or part of a combo) attack, she would dance out of the way or cancel my attack(s) with the same attack(s), and I instinctively did the same to her! This frustrating "stalemate tango" continued for half an hour (it felt like an hour, but 'twas actually 10.81 seconds--according to Monica's count), until the K-ghost started getting tricky: As we counterpoised each other's strikes, the K-ghost started to shuffle in a semi-circle around me; once she sought the opportunity, she ducked dow to trip me, but I cart-wheeled backwards, barely missing her strike. Unfortunately, as soon

as I was on my feet, she leaped forward with a heavy dash; I got quite a big cut across my torso and got thrown back to a tree. I: "Where the hell did you learn that?!?" Kirby ghost: "From my grandparents' house in hell!" I managed to put on a smile despite the pain: "Well, before you go back there, you can learn a trick or two from me." K-ghost: "We'll see about that." We sword-tangoed once more, but this time, the K-ghost was going all out; she did just about every trick in the book! (She even tried to pull down my pants on one occasion!) Though I tried to parry or dance away from her attacks, I was still getting whooped! She was quick and skilled--I'll give her that, but I still had one trick in my pouch. "Sinbad!!!!! My medical insurance ain't gonna be enough for my wounds if you don't get outta that thing!" Out of the smoke came my genie; I then put the sword-dildo back in my pocket. K-ghost (amazed as hell): "Where the heck did you get that?" I: "From a sea-faring damsel on a forlorn junk!" I was quite amazed that Sinbad's high-tech double-helix photon blades weren't affected by the mystical barrier that deactivated mine...

Anyways, the K-ghost still put up a remarkable fight as she dodged, blocked, somersaulted, and even countered our attacks! But, eventually, the two of her broadswords and feet couldn't withstand the combos from our four swords and feet. We [Sinbad and I] let the bloody Kirby ghost pray to whomever the hell she needed to pray to before she bled peacefully... More bayonets and blades breezed past me while I tried to dodge/block every attack from my next three attackers; I felt a few searing stings here and there, but the cuts weren't fatal enough to waste SE (spirit energy) for, at least not yet...My PE (physical energy) waning slowly due to my genie Sinbad, I rolled out of range or the musketeer's broad swing and cut him on the side! Then, I helped Sinbad take out the swordszombie. A blazing wound was tattooed across my back by some goodfor-nothing spearman, and before I healed myself via B. Arithmagics, I threw my short swords at him, slowing him down considerably enough for Monica to finish him with ease; afterwards, I picked up a musket. (Please keep in mind that our SE is draining since we have to charge our weapons with W. Arith. to defeat ghosts!) The last opponent I'll tell you about was a tall, skinny, muscular guy, much like me--with the skin tone to match! Anyways, his smile seemed to boast in his smooth, long sword-six feet long, to be exact! (No, it's not as wide or long as Satoko's eight-foot-long Stellar Cross [Solar Moon + Lunar Sun]!) I told Sinbad to mess with some other nearby fighters; I wanted to humble this longswordfreak! He charged at me with a variety of swift slashes, which I did my best to avoid or parry. Due to his reckless combo, his longsword got caught in a tree trunk, and he couldn't pull it

out in time to fend off my rifle-butt strike to his cheek, and he tumbled to the ground; I was about to sink my bayonet into his sternum, be he put his hands up, shrieking like a frightened homeless man. I pittied him; so, I ordered him to pull out that longsword for "Round 2": The longswordfreak's uppercut, two left/right/diagonal curtails, spinning trip-slashes, another uppercut, and forcefull down-stoke almost gave me a free ticket to heaven's gate, but instead, they just aggravated my heartburn, since I tap-danced frantically away from each hit!--looking for an opening--which wasn't much of an opening: you see, the longswordfreak figured that he couldn't lift up his sword in time to fend my lunge attack after his heavy down-stroke (the same one mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph); thus, he rolled to left, and my bayonet sank deep into a bloody tree trunk! I couldn't pull the doggone thing out! There I was for the next ten seconds or so--, bobbing/weaving, flipping, shuffling, somersaulting, and using almost all the tricks in the "Book of Zumba"!--like an amateur gymnast wannabe who performs for a few dollars just to support his meager life!--until I sought the chance to deliver the following rotary combo (all the following moves are spin-attacks, in other words): a jumping back, a roundhouse, a low trip-kick (which missed), and uppercut (also missed), two backhand strikes, another uppercut, and a fan kick, followed by an slower, stronger fan kick! Sadly, the freak blocked or evaded most of my spin attacks, but my last kick took him to the ground, yet he rolled back up in no time, ready to mince me with a vengeance, like a psychotic antagonist in a horror movie!--such as this (kidding). Rushing to my aid with a horrified look came Sinbad, but I made a stopping gesture with my hand, implying, "Don't

worry, brotha! I can handle him; this fool has nothin' on me!" My genie resumed slaying whomever the hell he was slaying... Sometime during the longswordfreak's rain of curtails, as I somersaulted over a war hammer, I retrieved the war hammer, landing back on my feet. I leaped backwards--far enough from his reach--and threw the heavy huge hammer at him, who fell flat on his back; I drop-kicked the longsword out of his hand and fetched the hammer beside him; I held the hammer up high and stared into his fear-filled eyes. I didn't want to kill a ghost I don't have to kill; he used to be human, after all; I just wanted Metaphor back, not a blood-bath! So, I didn't squash his skull into mash potatoes; instead, I let him live and run off the battlefield... Now, the enemy army was quite nigh the cliff! We then could see Metaphor and some chief-looking guy in the distance. I: "Similie." Sim: "Yes?" I: "Wanna be a hero?" Sim: "Um, uh--Matty, what madness are you implying!?" I: "I want you to be to take out that chief over there! Looks as if he's forcing Met to hard labor! This is your chance to be a hero!" Sim: "Aren't you going to help me!?" I: "Uh, only when you really need it; ye gotta make a good impression in front of Metaphor. I hope you had the chance to observe Satoko's katana techniques; you're gonna need 'em!"

****************************************************** Metaphor Steiner's Account ****************************************************** Amongst all the swashbuckling, I came across a smooth, rounded, Z-shaped rock and exclaimed to the chief in fake excitement, "Look, I've found it! Here it is!" The chief snatched it from me and held it to the evening sky, yelling, "Hahahahahahahahah--bwahahahahahahahahaha!!! Look in despair, all you foes! I have the blessing of the Chinese fried rice dragon; all the power of heave and Earth has been given unto me! Now, bow down to your new master! I said BOW DOWN, all of you mortals! What?!? Why do you not fear me!? Do you fancy me mad? I am evil incarnate; EVIL, I say!!! So, worship me before I unleash my satanic judgment upon all of you grasshoppers!" Mack: "That fiend has gone mad! Similie, finish him while we deal with the others!" The supposed chief then said to me, "H-how do we unleash its power? TELL ME, you vile, corrupted Englishman!" I: "I--I do not know! Perhaps you are too evil to wield its power--" Supposed chief: "Then, wield it for me!!! We're going to die!!" Confused and terrified, a good minority of his men fled him and jumped of the cliff, but others stood their ground.

Supposed chief: "Find out how to unleash its power while I take care of this foolhardy Englishman (Similie)." I: "Similie, you fool! Stop playing the hero; you can't defeat him by yourself! Call for help!" My foolish brother: "NO, I'm a hero! Santa Helena said so herself!" I: "Santa who?!?" My foolish brother: "Just sit back! I'll handle this fiendish madman and send him back to the asylums of hell!" I: "Don't die on me, Similie; you're the only brother I have!" "Yes, sire" was all he said... ****************************************************** Similie Steiner's Account ****************************************************** Suddenly, I felt that the Hollywood Barrier had been lifted, while the supposed chief (let's call him "S.C" for the author's tiring hands) walked triumphantly toward me with a heavy, long, spike mace--like a proud jaguar without life insurance. With the H-Barrier gone, could now use gravitational Arithmagics to make Solar Moon much lighter for me, consuming much spirit energy. S.C. and I tried to intimidate each other through name-calling seemed to affect me more that it affected S.C., but I had to remain strong focused--Metaphor's watching!

Using both ends of the mace to strike, S.C. glided at me with a variety of rotary swings, up/downwards thrusts/slashes, kicks sweep-attacks, and some weird-looking quanta, but I managed to block or evade each hit, hover backwards like kung fu stunt actresses, and emitted a trail of impaling icicle stalagmites by stomping the ground; by some color-less air ripples, S.C. shattered my approaching stampede of spikes! I, quite appalled by my shattered stalagmite, hurled myself at him with a series of diagonal slashes and spin-slashes, but, as soon as my last strike landed on his guarding mace, S.C. kicked me away and launched an Antarctic tunnel, making Solar Moon fly out of my hand! Solar Moon was quit far from me now, but there were many fallen comrades' and foes' weapons on the ground, like a graveyard armory! I healed myself swiftly and retrieved two pistol-daggers from a fallen ghost acquaintance so I could try some of Mack Matty's exquisite knife-fighting techniques on the unruly fiend before me. After cart-wheeling over his low swings, ducking under his high ones, and rolling past his diagonal ones, I swiftly concluded that the daggers were not the right weapons for me--at least not at this time. Therefore, I kept a good distance away from him and threw both daggers at him; though I tried to aim for the throat, the daggers found themselves lodged in one of his poor balls (I believe it was the right one, but perhaps Monica can tell us which one got hit); I felt quite sorry for him as he howled in unspeakable misery, but I, retrieving a nearby pike, had no time for sympathy. As soon as he healed his wounds, I spiraled after him in a sparkling, starry helix (W. Arithmagics), yet S.C. leaped over me, his shadowy parabola hitting me in the back! "Ow," I thought as I rubbed my back with B. Arithmagics, "You'll pay for that, you filthy maggot!"

Still in mid-air, S.C. unleashed a barrage of weird-looking quanta; ergo, I rolled/tap-danced out of the was while I summoned a few quick thunderbolts from the charcoal-grey clouds. S.C. then managed to avert/dodge my multiple snowballs, pierces, and slashes (I wasn't a fast kicker like Matty Mack); then, I tried a broad--very broad--swing which he ducked under! Before he could do any harm, I let go of my spear, knee-kicked his forehead (he staggered back), and wingchun punched his chest, neck, and face like wasp fighting a rhinoceros! (My punches were so unprofessional that they seemed ineffective, but I'm sure Matty would praise me from trying.) After he rolled away from me, S.C.'s face implied, "Whoa, what the bloody hell was that!? I'd better be more careful with this despicable urchin!" Oh, but, his last mistake was yet to come: Using gravity's power, I gave "life" to my fallen spear and let it thrust and sweep on it's own accord; S.C. counterpoised every attack from the spear; so, I made the spear soar from under his legs to hit his buttocks, making him stagger towards me. Infuriated, S.C. mace-danced with the spear and eventually beat the "life" out the poor battered spear. "Right where I want you, you bloody oaf!" I thought. Now, S.C. was between me and that golden razor-sharp Solar Moon; consuming an irreletively high amount of SE (spirit energy), I made gravity toss nearby weapons at him (I charged them with W. Arithmagics, of course); he, in mid-air, frantically swiped them away as I made Solar Moon soar to his neck from behind. I: "Take that, you blasted man-wench!"

S.C.: "How--how could I lose to the likes of you--you filthy evil swine!--uhhhhh...." By this time, most of S.C.'s men were disposed of, and the remaining ones fought valiantly until pushed off the cliff. Mack Matty kept two pistol-daggers for souvenirs... After the battle, I was expecting 100% praise from my brother, but I had to settle with this: "Similie, you fool! You almost got killed! But, thanks for saving my life from that wretched madman." I: "Ah, that's what brothers are for; 'twas about time that I repaid thee for the times you save my life!" We both laughed. My CIA friends ran toward us. Lady Satoko: "Oh, Metaphor, are you all right?" Met: "Yes, thank you; Similie just saved my life!" Satoko glanced at me angrily, implying, "That freak? You gotta be kidding me! I could've done better if Mack told me you were here! Damn him!" I then put my hands on my hips as if I were to say, "Hey! Heroes deserve more respect than that! How come he gets Satoko!??? He didn't do anything!" Lady Satoko: "Are you cold, Metaphor?" Met: "Well, yes, a little--" While she put her trench coat on Met, my dear Satoko hugged him and kissed him on the cheek!!!! I couldn't believe my eyes! I plucked my eyes out, wiped them on my trench coat, and put them back into their sockets, yet they deceived me not: my Satoko was hugging Metaphor! INCONCEIVABLE, I say! Intolerable to the highest degree, if I may add! What kind of

flirt is Metaphor!!!!???? Yet, the look on Mack's and Monica's faces implied, "Aw, isn't that cute?!!! Similie might've gotten the same treatment if he got kidnapped." Maybe next time, I should be the victim..... I handed Solar Moon back to my lady Satoko, and she snatched it and wiped the hilt with her shirt! I looked at her as if I were to say, "Hey! I don't have the flu!" Mr. Chief: "Thank you so much for helping us! I do not know if we could have made it without your excellent fighting skills." Mack: "Oh, 'twas a pleasure; I look forward to--" Suddenly, the ghost army disappeared, and that musicbox music resumed its eerie "chant" from a distance! Met: "Did you see that, or have I gone mad!?" Monica: "These things happen all the time, Metaphor; it's hard to get used to." Met then had a disgusted look on his face: "My golly! I've been kidnapped by--ghosts???? I thought this madness happens only in ghost stories!!!" Lady Satoko (looking at you--the reader[s]): "We are in a ghost story, right!?!"

****************************************************** Metaphor Steiner's Account ****************************************************** Whooosh, whooosh, whoooosh! As my acquaintances walked forward, I stopped and looked back, and--my jolly goodness!--there was an orange, long, dragon with golden hair! She even had a carton of freshly-cooked fried rice in her hand! Dropping from the starry evening sky, she kicked the Z-shaped ball toward me as if she were to say, "Keep if for a souvenir; you'll never know what kind of power it holds until you unleash it!" I: "Hey, please wait, ma'am; would you be so kind to tell me how to unleash its power?!" The Chinese dragon shot back up to the sky; the wink of her blazing eye implied, "You'll figure it out one day; in due time, my lad, in due time." Without a sound, she flew away! Monica: "Metaphor, what's the hold up? Are you emotionally attached to the forest?" I: "Did you see that dragon? She kicked this thing at me and flew away!" CIA folks: "No, I wasn't looking in that direction, but I swear I smelt some fried rice!" (Remember, they all said the previous sentence in their own way; I just recorded Mack's quote.)

****************************************************** Mateo Dinero's Account ****************************************************** Met told us about the "legend" that he made up to delay his death. 'Twas strange that this legend seemingly became true; does Metaphor have secret "narrating powers"? Perhaps this was a true legend? Too much madness in one day takes a toll on psyche. We dropped the subject and followed the musicbox music. To our slight surprise, the once-whore from before was in her blue robe and wizard-like sleeping cap and was winding up her music box. Zombie: "Ratatatatatat?" ("Won the battle?") I: "Yes, we had a great time; you should've joined us!" Zombie: "Neggah buh buh dahdah." ("I would've if I knew which one was the winning side.") I: "Haha, I know how you feel, sista!" Zomb: "Blah rah rah; har lo lah?" (It's 11:50; would you like to sleep over in my 'house'?") I: "Ma'am, I would love to, but we really have to get back. Sweet dreams!" Zomb: "Blah, blah, blah..." ("It's been 45 years since I had a dream! Oh, well, maybe I'll sleep better now since those armies are gone; I had enough of their cannons...)

Now, do you remember at the end of Chapter 5 when I told my dad to wait until midnight before leaving? Well, at 11:59, my parents were about to leave, but I shouted, "Hey, it's not 12:01 yet! What's wrong with your clock!?" We [Sim, Monica, and I] drove with my parents, but Satoko and Metaphor drove in the Enterprise rental car..............................

********************************************** Matthew Dollar’s Account ********************************************** 11:23 the next morning, after we [Sim, Monica, and I] took a good shower, changed outfits, and had a rather decent breakfast for a change, we Avalanchers headed to Metaphor’s hotel in Waikiki to see Satoko. We couldn’t tell if Satoko changed clothes or not because she had so many of the same outfit, but she did emanate a noticeable pleasant odor. Using our stipulated outfit color definition from Chapter 5, Monica wore dark pink, Similie wore sky blue, and I wore green [don’t get me wrong; I’m no environmentalist]. Now, what does this have to do with the story? Nothing!—except for the fact that we so happened to be wearing waterproof outfits. Now, let’s get back to business! On our way to Waikiki, we saw a bargain on a few plaques—a very, very favorable bargain, or so we thought; so, after we got Satoko, we took her to one of the plaques to read it out loud like a sixth grader: “Climb on board for a one way trip from Oahu to the Cape of Good Hope!—for only $5 per family. The food and lodging are free….” She was speechless for a second and said, “Well, let’s say farewell to Metaphor and your parents; Met will be here for a while longer.” So, we said bye to Met and finally made it to the parking lot near the dock.

As soon as we arrived, we saw scores of people walking away from the boat, but a good minority of them had the courage to get on the boat—an old, outdated, beat-up, barnacle-infested, wooden junk! I can go on with downsides of this boat, but I won’t; I’ll just leave you with this image: an algae-covered thirty-first-century sunken ship that has be recovered and repaired by some four-rate mechanics from a dry dock on a third-world country! Despite all the “liabilities” of this junk, my father (I call him “Pops”), a big ship lover, wanted to ride on the doggone thing! Pops: “Ooooh, I love big boats! them ‘fore I die!”

I gotta sail one o’

Mom: “Are you crazy!? We’re gonna die before the anchor gets pulled up! They ain’t got life boats on this forlorn thing!!” Pops: “Who said it ain’t got life boats?” Mom (frantically waving the ad paper at Pops): “My God! Can’t you read the small print! We’re gonna die! We’re all gonna die!!!” Pops: “So what if I die!? At least I can sail one last time ‘n’ tell Jesus ‘bout my adventure; I’m sure He’ll love ma boat stories!” Mom: “Honey, I need you to live ‘n’ work so I’ll have enough money for shoppin’!”

Pops then contacted his supervisor via cell phone and told him that he was going to take another one-week vacation! He even had a luggage of clothes in the SUV trunk! Pops: “Cora, we need to get on this boat.” Mom: “Hell no we don’t, Leroy!” Once my old man makes up his mind, nothing—I mean nothing—can stop him—unless an angel came down and struck him on his side. Satoko and I knew that as one of the laws of nature, though Mamma lived with Pops longer than we have. Mamma was hoping for an angel to stop Pops, but Gabriel, Michael, nor any other angel—or demon, for that matter—came to pay a visit. Well, at least our friend Similie will have some company. This ship was far faster than Aukai’s piece of crap! Based on Pops’ calculations, we’d be at the Cape in about two full days! Then, we Avalanchers can take a short trip to Hoap Les, our next destination! Soon, we found out the unlicensed captain’s name was Captain Smith; he never mentioned his first named (if he had one) and admitted that he was unlicensed, but he assured us of a safe trip— if the weather was good…So, we assumed his first name was Captain… Even the sea gulls looked down in pity, saying in a squawking tone, “Boy, you shouldn’t have came— squawk—mamma told you not to come—squawk!”

I: “But, it’s only $5! Where can you find a $5-ride?” Gull: “At Wal Mart—squawk.” I: “Wal Mart offers boat rides already?” Gull: “Yep, squawk, you can get a $3-ride that’s better than this [four-letter word]!” I: “Aw, man! We’re setting sail now! You could’ve told me this earlier!” Gull (flying away): “Too bad, suckas, squawk, too bad; see ya when you cross the bar!” I: “‘Cross the bar’? Oh, hell no! It ain’t ma time yet; this junk can sink to the bottom of hell, but it ain’t ma time!—not until I find the Tree of Wealth.” Gull (in the distance): “We’ll see ‘bout that— squawk—we’ll definitely see ‘bout that…” ****************************************** Similie Steiner’s Account of the Mess Hall ****************************************** So, how was the food? I think I will let you decide: I: “This dining facility smells quite stale, don’t you think?”

Mom (Mack’s Mom): “Oh, don’t worry; you can call it a mess hall; there’s nothing political ‘bout eatin’, but yes, I can’t stand the smell!” Suddenly, a gorgeous waitress strode toward us and yelled, “Whady’all waitin’ for? Quit holdin’ up the line and take a seat!” So, we did. We waited about ten minutes; then, instead of passing out menus, the waitress passed around trays of water glasses and bread—unleavened bread, to be exact. Mack (standing up): “What the heck is this!? Some kind of Passover!? It ain’t Sunday—” The athletic waitress grabbed Mack by the shoulder and put him back in his back-less chair, saying, “Sit down, boy; what did you expect for five dollars!? An Italian buffet?” Suddenly, Pops—as we’ll call him—got out a jar of bacon bits and put it on his bread. Mom: “Where did you get that?” Pops: “I know somethin’ like this was bound to happen; so, I brought this along! You’ll get used to it the more you sail on ‘bargain boats’ like this.” Before Monica could lift her unleavened bread from her plate, Pops said, “Hold it! Since we’re eatin’ Passover food, we might as well pray.” He then led us in prayer, “Ohhhhh, Lord! Please bless this meal, if we can call it a

meal, for the health of our flesh and the strength of our bones, if this thing has any calcium. And if we die on this ship, we know we’re coming home with You; so, let us die quickly and painlessly—” Mom “intervened” for Pops: “Ohhhhh, Lord, don’t listen to my husband; this bread is makin’ ‘im a bit senile! Don’t let this junk sink on us, Lord! It ain’t our time yet! We need to shop Macey’s before we see the Kingdom! And, Lord, please help our friend Simile find a decent, stable job so he doesn’t have to be on welfare; don’t let him be a burden to the tax-payers, Lord; we thank You for it all in Jesus’ name—” All (even the waitresses and atheists): “Amen!” ********************************************** Monica J-Walker’s Account of the Pool and Lodge ********************************************** After that rotten snack at the mess hall (I’m sure folks in hell have a better meal than that!), the other fellow passengers who brought swimming gear took a dip in the medium-sized, green, salty pool; ‘twas obvious that the water was taken from the ocean. You and I could see crabs, octopuses, and shrimp at the bottom of the pool! Imagine swimming in an unkept aquarium… (We CIA folks and Dollars didn’t swim since we didn’t have the proper attire.) Captain Smith just happened to be strolling by the pool, enjoying the warm sun and the cool breeze, I complained to him about everything in the mess hall—

from the moss-covered walls to the cold-hearted waitresses. He apologized for the lousy service but told me not to expect anything fancy from a five-dollar ride; he also assured that the upcoming dinner won’t be much better. Gazing at the forlorn excuse for a pool, I asked Smith about the lobsters and other things in the pool; then, an idea struck Captain (if that’s his first name); he summoned the waiters/waitresses to fetch some of the sea life in the pool to take them to the kitchen; he thanked me from giving me the idea and went his way. I assumed our dinner will be quite promising… With nothing to do at the forlorn pool, we CIA folks and the Dollars retired to our rooms. Oh, by the way, none of us passengers had a room assigned to us; so, I guessed we had to claim our room before someone else did; obviously, Mr. and Mrs. Dollar wanted their own room—Room 23; thus, Satoko forced Matty to dwell with her in Room 24; thus, Simile was stuck with me. Sim didn’t seem very excited about not living with Toko girl, but I didn’t care; I just wanted some TV. Every door of the boat apartment rooms didn’t have locks on them!!! So, peeking through every room, Sim and I chose the best-looking room—Room 35. Now, don’t be misled by the term best-looking; Room 35 wasn’t all that great, but ‘twas better than the others. The doors squeaked like a dying horse; moss and algae were the wallpaper. Barnacles lived on the toilet, and growing in the bathtub were some more algae. After

I landed on the hard squeaking full-sized bed, I thought my body would break if I did that one more time; I let Sim use the algae-stuffed, good-for-nothing pillows, which had a note on one of them: “Welcome to Captain Smith’s piece of junk! What the hell did you expect for $5!?! The back of this card has the Sinner’s Prayer, just in case this damned thing sinks anytime soon…I hope you’ll enjoy your trip and make the most of what you have. The drawer to your left should have a manual on how to make your own toothbrush and soap out of the crap in the bathroom (algae, barnacles, etc.)! I’ll be your maid for this doggone trip, and I’ll try to help you to the best of my ability, but don’t you call me before 8 a.m. and after 5 p.m., got it? –Melissa” Sim and I spent the rest of the afternoon watching kung fu and cowboy movies on the beat-up 21st century TV… ************************************************* Satoko Shikaku’s Account of the Mess Hall ************************************************* Mine and Matty’s short lousy nap was disrupted by some loud Latin music which seemed to be coming from the mess hall. 7:00 p.m., we made your way to the mess hall. Though lit up by a gigantic disco ball from the ceiling, the dining facility looked almost the same as before, ‘cept for the buffet table and that the tables and chairs were bunched up to create some dancing space! There was

fried lobster, crab, shrimp, octopus, bread, and rice at the buffet! Did the cooks get the sea food from that damned pool? We Avalanchers ate little so we could do some zumba, salsa, and some other slow-paced/fast-paced dances. (Captain Smith must be preparing us for some African dances at the Cape, I reckon…) Not used to this, Mr. Dollar and Simile kept tripping and slipping like drunk comedians; Mack scolded Monica, Mrs. Dollar, and I when we laughed at them. Mack: “Aw, c’mon, don’t laugh; they aren’t used to this; how would you like to be laughed at?!” I: “Well, I wouldn’t be on the dance floor if I were that bad, heeheehaha!” Mrs. Dollar, Monica, Matty Mack, and I rocked the night away, making everyone else look like third-rate amateurs. I never knew Matthew was a belly dancer; his slim frame can move! His arms and torso could sway like the waves we were riding on, and his skinny hips put some of the women (and men) in a trance! If he were doing this on the streets, you and I could mistake him for a hooker! Then, after dancing for about an hour and a half, we pigged out at the buffet! Monica and I went overboard with the lobster and octopus; Mr. and Mrs. Dollar took out the crabs in no time; not very fond of any kind of sea food, Sim and Mack indulged on unleavened bread and fruit juices—fresh from the juicer!—to prevent scurvy should

the junk’s engine malfunction, which would force us to use the wind and sails………..! Mrs. Dollar and I thanked Captain for planning such a great dinner, but he humbly said that ‘twas Monica and Matthew’s idea… ************************************************* Mateo Dinero’s Account of the Night ************************************************* After having a ball, we all retired to our lodge. Satoko got out Stellar Cross and tossed me Lunar Sun (thus, she was left with Solar Moon), saying, “C’mon, Matty, nothing makes me sleep faster than a good sword fight!” I: “What? Did you do that with Metaphor last night!?” She didn’t answer… I: “But, we just finished eating, and besides, you don’t wanna mess up the beds and drawers; we might have to pay for it!” Toko girl: “Then, don’t hit ‘em! I ate more than you; so, you should have the upper hand!” I didn’t; I had to heal myself via B. Arithmagics just to keep up; Toko thought I was going easy on her and started cursing at me, telling me to fight harder. Blocking, rolling, and jumping, we sparred for about two minutes. Toko landed ten small scratches on me, but I landed only two on her… “Whew, thanks for the spar, Matt; I knew I could count on you! Let’s get some rest.”

I thought I was going to barf out all my precious anti-scurvy juice, but I was lucky… Toko opened the medium-sized window wide and turned off the lights. In no time, a cold evening breeze and the silver moonlight poured into our room. Toko could tell I was shivering. “You OK, Mack?” she said sweetly. “Nope, is there an aircon in this god-forsaken room?” “Nope, just the window.” “May you close it for me?” “Hell no! I’m hot!” “But, I’m cold!” “But, I’m hot!” she repeated quite hotly but sweetly. I then tried to get up to close the window, but she grabbed me, saying, “Don’t you close that window, Matty; I mean it!” She then wrapped me in a cocoon with the blanket. “You OK now?” she asked. “No, not really,” said I. She then took off her trench coat and put it on me. “You OK now?” she asked.

“Uh, not quite,” said I. To end my misery, I snuggled up beside Toko honey, who emanated a good amount of thermal energy. After about four hours of peaceful sleep, things started getting spooky… Cccccrrrrrtttkkkkkk! We [Toko and I] heard something crack from under us, waking us up; immediately, the bed fell down a few inches as if the bed’s legs broke off! I: “Aggghrrr! Satoko, hold me!!!!” She did; then, we got off the bed; it seemed that the bed’s legs went through the floor; ‘twas a matter of time before the whole room went through the floor, I reckon. ‘Twas around 2:04 a.m. when we heard the bathroom door squeal; ‘twas half open when we came back! Thinking Smith was playing tricks on us, we when outside to the dock. Behind the pool and at the front edge of the dock was unmistakably an apparition! (Twenty-four-year-old women don’t glow in the dark, do they?) Her pink hair and silver, long dress rippled in the eerie wind; her white high-heels didn’t make a sound when she turned back to see us; then she turned back to face the dim moon. We could hear Smith coming behind us. Satoko: “Who is she? Is she evil?”

Smith: “I’m not sure; I’ve never asked her any personal questions before. She comes here almost every day around this time. She hasn’t caused me any trouble yet.” Mustering all the courage we had, Toko, Captain, and I marched to meet the apparition. I: “Hello, ma’am! Ghost: “Hi!” I: “This is Satoko, that’s Captain Smith, and you can call me Matty; what’s your name?” Ghost: “I don’t remember; call me whatever you like.” I: “Well, ‘tis a lovely morning, isn’t it, Rose?” Rose, the apparition: “No, no morning is lovely anymore.” I (like some British psychiatrist): “Well then, Rose, I’ve heard that you’re a ‘regular passenger’ on this boat; is there some history behind it?” Some eerie, soft guitar music mysteriously playing in the distance, Rose told her tale: “’Twas about 100 years ago when a volcanic island named Hoap Les came into being; my betrothed heard that there was some treasure (perhaps gold) on that

island and set out to make a fortune before our wedding. Oh, Robert—I’ll never forget his name! Sadly, he never returned from his journey; I tried to contact him, but he never answered his cell phone; thus, I was determined to find out what happened to him and sailed on this ship. To my dismay, this ship sank to the bottom of the ocean. None onboard survived, yet I was bound to this ocean by sorrow and love; I can’t leave this world peacefully until I find out what happened to my Robert!” Rose then pulled out a necklace; it didn’t shine in the dim moonlight, which was often engulfed by the black clouds. It was made of large pearls and a dark red—very dark red—heart-shaped jewel. “You are going to Hoap Les, I presume?” Rose spoke sweetly. I answered, “Yeah, this ship is headed for the Cape, but my friends and I are heading for Hoap Les; do you have any favors to ask, madame?” “Yes, if you would be so kind, could you find out what happened to Robert for me? Mystical forces forbid me to roam the lands. If you see his apparition, perhaps he’ll recognize this necklace.” Noiselessly, she handed the necklace to me; as soon as it touched my hand, the necklace made noises again, like normal pearls do! Rose: “I sense a malevolent event is going to happen later this day, but I’m sure you’ll be able to survive it; you’re the heroes of this story, after all, correct?”

Satoko: “That’s what they say…” Smiling, she then bid us farewell and walked off the ship, floating in mid-air before fading into the dark horizon. A cigar still in his mouth, Captain uttered, “Well, I guess we’d better get some sleep; I have a bad feeling about this.” Therefore, Toko honey and I went back to our room for some much-needed sleep; we didn’t worry about what would happen later in the day, since worrying about what we couldn’t change didn’t sedate us well… ************************************************* Satoko Shikaku’s Account of the Mess Hall 2 *********************************************** ‘Twas 9:04 in the morning when I awoke; the salty air pushed the waves along like some kind of slave-owner. Scattered across the sky were gray clouds that blotted out some sunlight at times; the sea gulls, which were cussing something a on the window sill at Matthew, were what really woke me up. I never had such a refreshing sleep in a long while… ‘Twas very quiet ‘round here; if I hadn’t seen folks walking to the mess hall, I would’ve assumed that everyone (‘cept Mack and I) got kidnapped or something. Walking on that squeaky wooden flooring were Mack and I, heading straight for the mess hall, where Captain already forewarned the diners about the premonition he already had. He assumed that the “evil event” was some sort of storm, and he told everyone to be ready for

anything and not to eat too much. After his speech, the mess hall became even more silent—dead as a funeral recession—no plates scratching, no people chatting, NOTHING! Who wanted to eat heavily anyways?—wait, let me rephrase that: Who could eat heavily!? If you didn’t go to the juicer table with Mack for some fresh juice, you were stuck with two donuts, a small glass of milk, and a cup of noodles! No buffet whatsoever (besides the juicer table); despite my ethnicity, I was expecting something better than this; this could be our last day on this damned ship! Most of us chose the noodles and donuts, be Mateo had a ball at the juicer table, coming up with the tastiest combination of fruits. He said the best drink was the following combo: apples, lemons, mangos, strawberries, and pears. I wondered if that juice had anything to do with that smile on his face; I suppose not, since he smiled 99% in this whole story we’re trying to tell you in terms you can understand! Remember the former Team Alpha’s weapons we got in Chapter 3? Well, we tried to evenly distribute them to some trustworthy-looking passengers. Mack and Sim soon found out that their thunderboltblades can be divided into two swords; thus, they both had one, and the other two boltblades were give to two other folks. I let Captain have Solar Moon. After the humble breakfast, we Avalancher stood on the deck, waiting for the worst to happened; it didn’t happen; so, we watched a little TV—then came back to

the deck. Finally, around 11:15 a.m., we noticed something emerging toward us head on! Coming out of the water were gigantic octopus-like beings; the “tentacles” had dragon heads at the ends. These tentacles seemed to be the “legs” of these womanlike creatures, who were clad in armor made of sea shells; their rope-like (I almost mean that literally), sea-weedlooking (this one, too), bluish-green, long hair hung lifelessly from their scalps like willow branches. Their light-blue skin and eyes suggested some kind of peril. (Ever seen Medusa from the film The Little Mermaid? Well, these beings looked close to her—but a hundred times bigger and prettier!) To add to our misery, a small horde of gargoyle-looking folks accompanied the three giant sea women. “What bloody malice has come upon us!?!” screamed.

Simile

Captain replied, “I’ve seen haunted ships and wicked mermaid harlots, but I’ve never seen anything like this!” Mack tried to negotiate with the hydra women, but they wouldn’t listen and almost knocked Matty off the deck! ************************************************* The Hydras of Normandy: Mack Matty’s Account ************************************************* Several tentacles (we’ll call them “dragons” for another synonym) unleashed a stream of giant bubbles

from their mouths to the deck! All of us passengers rolled away from their beams in time. Boring into the deck, another dragon missed me as I high-jumped onto it; I ran on it until I wasn’t too far from the hydra woman it was connected to. Soaring like a cannonball in mid-air, I landed on the core of one sea monster, the octopus-like portion below the hydra woman’s belly. I climbed up this woman, with the aid of my lighting sword, and slit her throat before one of her powerful dragons whacked me back to the deck! It felt as if someone smacked my whole right side with a giant hammer head!—not to mention the pain I felt when I landed on the deck on my left! I was relieved to know that Captain Smith knew B. Arith… Since ‘twas quite cloudy now, I made a downward slashing gesture with my three-foot-long blade, to sprinkle some lightning on some fiends, taking a great deal of SE (spirit energy, in case you forgot) to perform! While Simile was trying to snipe the hydra women from afar, and while Monica rained down a few more lightning bolts, I spun vertically in mid-air to mow down a gargoyle, but it parried my rapid assault with its pitchfork. I rolled away from the fiend’s dark fire helixes (Black Arithmagics) once my feet touched the deck. Seeing a young boy having trouble gunning down some gargoyles, I tossed a weak small whirlwind at my opponent by a swift dismissing gesture, and Smith finished it for me. (I would’ve done a more powerful whirlwind, but I my Arithmagics was too low-level at the time.) The boy’s electron bullet missed the intended target and went straight for me! I rebounded it to the unlucky gargoyle’s back like a lucky third-rate baseball star wannabe.

“Wow! Cool! I bet I can do that!” the young boy said excitedly.” “It just takes a little timing; try not to miss like that again; I might not make it next time!” “OK!” he answered before diving away from a tentacle’s bubble beam, which made a crushing sound at the mess hall’s wall, leaving several wooden board on the floor. A gargoyle’s pitchfork almost sent me to heaven, but it got caught in my dad’s two-by-four wooden board. Unable to get it’s ‘fork out in time, the fiend gave off a series of wing-slashes, followed by a few windy arcs, which split the board; Pops picked up the ‘fork and drove it into the foe’s heart. Suddenly, a tentacle grabbed my father’s leg, almost pulling him off board, but Satoko honey severed the dragon by emitting a paper-thin, neon ruby parabola from her down-hack gesture. I was propelled by a hard—very hard—blow that made me fall face-down on the deck; I never knew what real back pain was until I felt that whack! Before I could debate if I should cast Blue Arithmagics on my sore back, Monica had to pull me back by a gravitational spell when a dragon tentacle swept me off the deck! Once I was back on the deck, I evaded several sweep attacks while throwing spark balls at the tentacles to keep them off the deck. A few gargoyles were bothering Simile; at the snap of my fingers, bolts of lightning descended from a cloud,

roasting two fiends, but two others dodged the bolts and resumed harassing poor Sim.

Sim: “Matty, how do you grab a spear with your leg again?” I: “A crescent kick—like THIS!” One of the gargoyles darted at me, attempting to lance my voluptuous hips, but before that fool could poke me, I crescent-kicked the spear to the side and immediately held its spear between my hamstring and calf muscles, like I did in the previous chapter (I guess Sim didn’t catch on yet…) I then gave off two swift strikes to its neck. Sim did a splendid job of emulating my trick! I: “Nice work, Sim!” Sim: “Thanks for the tip—” I: “Look out!” Crrrrrrrrrruuuuussshhhhh!!! A tentacle dragon just took out half the cafeteria! “My God! This boat might not last much longer!” Monica shouted at Captain—for some reason…Smith then looked at her as if he were to say, “Well, what the doggone hell can I do ‘bout it?! Blow it up myself!?”

We needed to take out those hydra women—without using too much SE! Captain did a harebrained trick: when a hydra woman was quite night the boat, he jumped towards her, soaring like a second-rate kung fu stunt actress, but the sea creature smacked him back to the boat with her dragon before you could even get close! Well, at least he distracted her for me… You see, after fencing rapidly/viciously with another gargoyle, I knocked away her pitchfork, got onto her back, and beat on her head with my hilt. She then flew around wildly as she tried to get me off her back. In time, she was right above the hydra woman that smacked Smith to the deck like a tennis star. Dropping off her back, I landed onto the hydra woman, slit her throat, and hopped back on the gargoyle before she could roundhouse me! Now, some other gargoyles were dashing toward me to get me off their comrade sister; this left them open to the passengers’ photon/electron bullets and my Avalanchers’ bolt showers—which missed often; my CIA folks weren’t very good at aiming/timing the lightning attacks, making me look like a pro! Thus, with gravity force, I slowed down the flying fiends so my comrades could shoot/spell them a little easier. Finally, the last hydra (or what we assumed to be the last hydra woman) assisted getting me off the poor gargoyle; the sad thing was that the hydra not only smacked me but also the gargoyle to the water! While plunging to the water like a drunk comet, I successfully landed some lighting on that forlorn woman. The gargoyle distracted a hammerhead shark as I doggypaddled to the rope Smith let down for me…

************************************************* Abandoned Ship! Simile Steiner’s Account ************************************************* I was glad to know that Mack was OK, yet more trouble lay down the road for us… Crewman: “Our engine—and the backup engines— isn’t working!” Smith: “And, why’s that?” Crew woman: “Those engines are cheap, bra; they probably couldn’t handle too much damage from the hydra women, yeah?” Smith: “I knew something like that was gonna happ’n, but I didn’t think ‘twould happ’n this soon!” Crewman: “So, what do we do now, Capt’n?” Smith: “Taking that battered cigar out of his mouth): “Plan Z!” It didn’t take us long to figure out his plan… The crew members got out many long oars and gave one to each of the passengers (me included). Even the children in the strollers had to row with us! Captain (looking through his telescope): “C’mon y’all, put some damned muscle into it! I see land in the

distance; I think those hydra women got us off-course; so, we could be heading for Hoap Les, which isn’t too far from the Cape of Good Hope.” Mistaking Hoap Les for hopeless, passengers jumped off the bloody boat!

some

poor

I: “Sire, do you not have a GPS to verify your claim?” Captain: “My God, I can’t even offer you a decent meal and lodging, and now you think I can afford a doggone GPS!?” I: “I’m sorry, sire; please pardon my ignorance.” Captain: “It’s all right; just keep rowing…” After singing some children’s nursery rhymes like “Row, row, row your junk roughly down the sea; miserably, miserably, miserably, miserably, hope is but a dream,” Mr. Dollar noticed something behind us! “My God, Capt’n, now what the hell is that big ol’ wench behind us? She ain’t our tub boat, is she?” We all looked behind us, only to behold a giant, black-and-red hydra woman! Those bloody wenches are already giant, but this witch made the previous hydras look small, like an anteater and a buffalo on Saturday mornings! Captain: “Lord Jesus, where were You since I cheated on my wife last Sunday?! We’d better start rowin’

faster; an unlicensed Captain like me can’t get tub boat service!” Crewman (hysterically): “Hhhhh! It’s—it’s Tiamat!— the Ruler of the Indian Ocean!” Young boy: “Cool! Is that true?” Crewman: “I dunno; it’s just one of those legends I’ve heard.” Satoko: “Legend or not, we’re all gonna die—” Before she could finish, about half of the passengers dived off the boat! I suppose the rest of us would suffer the same fate sooner or later. Very unfortunate, I must say… Like a deer in a rainforest, we paddled as hard and fast as we could! Yet, Tiamat caught up to us swiftly, like a water strider with a cigarette. With one powerful slam of one of her dragon tentacles, our poor ship—if we dare venture to call it that—was crushed in half, like a mouse in a parrot’s cage! All: “Aaaaaaaaaggggggrrrrrrrrrhhhhh!!!!!” I: “Eeeeeekkkkk (like a little girl)! me!!!!”

Satoko, hold

Toko darling: “Get the damned hell off me, or I’ll—” Puuuuuuuuuuuuussssssssssssssshhhhhhhh!

Fortunately, I was still clinging to Lady Toko when she swam to the surface. My jolly goodness! Though the Indian Ocean was said to be the warmest ocean, ‘twas cold—bloody cold! The word cold cannot accurately describe how I felt, yet icy would give you the wrong impression, but if I had to choose one adjective, I would use icy! ‘Twas so icy that I—I passed out…like a moose on a moonless, starry night… ************************************************* Monica J-Walker’s Account of the Marooning ************************************************* Using one of my Rabid Vines, I pulled a rather large, wooden board to me, and several other people—even the one that jumped off earlier—got on the board; the nonswimmers (i.e. the waiters and Matty Mack; no offense, Mack, but your doggy-paddling sucks!) had to get on first; we had to look for other boards for the fairly-good swimmers (i.e. the waitresses and me). Those who knew G. Arithmagics had to fend off Tiamat by summoning lightning and pushing back her tidal waves. This tedious process went on for about three minutes until she got bored of us and swam away; Tiamat exhaled some purple sleeping dust before she got pissed-off by the bolts, and Mack was able to conjure an anti-sleep barrier (Blue Arith.) on Satoko before he—you know…Everyone, ‘cept Toko girl, passed out by that doggone fairy dust attack…

************************************************* Satoko Shikaku’s Account of the Marooning ************************************************* I needed Smith and Monica to propel their doggone large boards with aqua Arithmagics, but I had to do everything!—eating up my SE in the process; my Blue Arithmagics wasn’t high-level enough to nullify the fairy dust’s side effect. After about fifteen minutes, a very strange event occurred; now, that doesn’t sound new, now does it? I mean, this story’s been strange ever since that doggone prologue, but this baby was strange! (Oh, by the way, I’m going to stipulate something in this story; you’ve probably had the impression that all of us characters in this tale are pretty. Well, not really; most are just average; most look no better than you; just cute, that’s all. Some have moles, freckles, pimples, rashes, scars, or—by Satan—a combination of those items! Even without blemishes, some characters still don’t look all that special. So, when we narrators use words like pretty or ugly, you KNOW the character we’re describing stands out quite a bit. For your information, I don’t want to brag—but, my God, since we’re on the subject—Crafy, I, and this mermaid freak are around 11.5 on the beauty scale, if there is such a thing—though it varies depending on whose measuring us, but I just wanted you to know… And by the way, most folks [other than Sim and Mack] have their degree of adipose tissue, if you know what I mean; I’m not saying that everyone [‘cept Sim,

Mack, and a few others] is fat, but NOBODY in this story is anything close to anorexic! Very few are skinny, but most are average—or a little bigger than that…) You remember that negro cat in Chapter 3? Well, here he was, riding on a shark fin! Suddenly, a pretty, tough-looking undine with 16-pack abs like me popped to the surface and said hello in English! I thought I lost my damned mind for a second; then, that cat started saying something in his kitty lingo. I forcefully woke up Mateo to translate whatever the hell that cat was saying. I (spanking Matthew’s butt): “Matty, wake up; wake the [four-letter word] up!” ************************************************* Matthew Dollar’s Account of the Marooning ************************************************* I: “Mamma? Who the hell is spanking me? What did I do?—aaaggghhhr! It’s—it’s a shark woman!” Mermaid (in her calm, womanly tone—like most women in this forlorn tale): “Fear not! I’m a holy undine of the Hammerhead Sect.” I: “Whew, that’s good to know—hey, it’s Kitty again; (I then looked to Satoko.) Remember him from Chapter 3?” Kitty: “I thought ‘twas Chapter 4!” I: “Uh-uh, brotha; ‘twas Chapter 3!”

Kitty: “My God, it had to be Chapter 4!” I: “Don’t argue with me, brotha! I remember that!” Kitty: “But, I put it in Chapter 4 of my journal!” I: “Well, then, you’d better reformat your journal! Anyways, I thought you were dead already!” Kitty: “No, my mermaid friend was just teaching me how to fend off a shark!” (Kitty [whispering to you]: “Actually, I drowned, but the author of this story resurrected me out of pity…”) I: “Well, that’s nice to know; so, what can I do for you?” Kitty: “Nothin’; we just wanted to help out!” I: “Wow, thanks! Oh, by the way, I’m Matthew, but you can call me Mack Matty, since I can’t afford a Mac. It makes me feel better.” Toko honey: “I’m Satoko, but just call me Toko—it’s faster. This fool (shaking Sim, who was sleeping soundly on her back) is Simile; that’s Monica; those two are Leroy and Cora Dollar; that guy’s Captain Smith, an unlicensed captain, by the way… And, I dunno who the hell the rest are, but I know that guy all the way over there is a devout atheist!”

Mermaid (in English): “I’m Shalanka, but just call me Sharky; you can call George (pointing to our black cat) Kitty if you like.” During our travel, I asked Shalanka, “Hey, Sharky, do you understand kitty lingo, or am I the only one who does?” Sharky: “You’re the only one I know who can fully understand it. I can speak it, but I understand only a few words.” I: “Like what?” Shalanka: “Meow.” I: “Sista, that can mean a whole lot o’ things!” Sharky: “Yes, I’m still learning; I’m intrigued by this lingo; that’s why I let him travel with me.” (Sharky [whispering to you]: “Well, actually, the author of this story threw him at me and told me to take care of him!”) I: “I see, I see…” I taught her a few new words while we were “sailing”; you can imagine kitty lingo has much to do with body language. Perhaps normal people can never fully understand it; do I have some kind of gift? I never thought about it until today; don’t tell me that sneaky

little author gave it to me! Anyhow, thank God I’m not normal! Shalanka: “…So, what does it mean when they snarl while saying rawrrr?” I: “It generally means I’m gonna!” Sharky: “What about when they lift their left paw and say purrr?” I: “That’s the ‘cuss signal’; it’s usually used for the fword. You know something in the sentence is gonna be damned!” Shalanka: “Wow, is that true, George?” Kitty: “Yep!” Sharky (I hope I’m not confusing you by using both names interchangeably; I just want you to remember both!): “I remember you using that on me, you sneaky little furball.” George: “No, no, no, that was the right paw! Mack, tell ‘er ‘bout it!” I: “The right paw is the ‘bless signal’; it’s usually used when you say something but mean no offense; it can also be used to bless or commend something.” Sharky: “Aw, I see…”

(Satoko [whispering to you]: “Don’t try this crap at home……………………..!”) ‘Twas around 2:41 when the clouds started clearing. So, I shouted to the sun, “Sun, how far are we from Hoap Les?” He answered, “About 30 minutes, brotha; I see some shark fins heading your way, and they ain’t mermaids! But, chill out, bro; they don’t look all that great; you should be fine. Anyways, I thought you two were the heroes of this story!” I: “I’ve heard that before… Thanks anyways, Sun!” “Don’t call me ‘Sun’! It’s—it’s too embarrassing; Luna’s gonna start laughing at me once she hears that I’ve been call a son of a human; she ‘n’ her stars are gonna get the wrong impression, ‘n’ her gossip spreads like hellfire; I’m gonna be the laughing stalk of the whole doggone Milky Way!” I put my hand on my heart and exclaimed, “I—I feel your pain, brotha; so, what should I call you?” “Um, Helio should be fine.” “Well, thanks for the info, Helio!” “Don’t worry ‘bout it, brotha; I gon nothin’ else to do today besides drifting through your sky. My iPod’s still in repair. I don’t drift well without ma rap music…” George: “You should try some blues or techno or something—”

Helio: “Hell no, Kitty! I need some Usher in here!” Shalanka: “Oh, did you hear his new song!?” Helio: “Yeah, that song was so good I almost cried…” Kitty: “Aw, c’mon; ‘twasn’t that good as his other song…” Fifteen minutes later—when Sharky, Kitty and “Heely” finished babbling about their favorite rap songs and artists (the ones that haven’t got shot yet…)—the shark fins faded into view! At the snap of their fingers, Sharky and George (how coincidental!) had weapons in their hands! Shalanka’s was a long war hammer with a huge, pearl hammer head (huge doesn’t accurately describe it), and Kitty’s was a miniature harpoon with a plain halberd head. While Toko and I propelled the boards, the mermaid and cat took out the sharks in no time!—well, not literally… After the skirmish, I asked Kitty, “H—how did you do that?!” Kitty: “Do what?” I: “That ‘thing’!” Kitty: “What thing????” I: “Y’know, the snapping-finger, weapon-appearing thing!!!!”

Kitty: “Oh, hahaha!” He then looked at Sharky as if he were to say, “Should we tell this half-negro?” She gave an affirmative nod. Pointing to Satoko, he looked at Shalanka, implying, “You should tell ‘em; that yellow sista can’t understand ma lingo, and ma English ain’t that good yet…”) The undine the spoke up: “It’s called Brown Arithmagics, the magic of storage capacity. You see, you can convert some objects into ‘soul matter’; which is stored in your brain as ‘magicbytes’; big items like a desk cost a ton of magicbytes, but one of your pouches should cost around one magicbytes. I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard that you can increase your mental capacity by eating soul food regularly…” Toko honey: “Now, that is SOMETHIN’!” I: “But, it won’t do us any good if we don’t install it first, right? So, let me uninstall my White Arithmagics.” One minute later…. I: “OK, Sharky, how do we install it?” Shalanka: “Now, do this (yoga tree pose)…now, this (yoga mountain pose)…OK, this (some kind of bodybuilder pose)…now, two push-ups—no, not three; do it again!—all over again! OK, now two push-ups; that’s better…five situps; c’mon, Mack, get it up! Ninety-five frog jumps…now, think deeply for eight seconds in the mountain pose…jump up and say Shut up! Ow, not at me! That

hurt…OK, sixty-five squats…another two push-ups; don’t screw up this time; you’re almost finished! Now, drink one ounce of green tea—” Satoko: “My God, we ain’t at some Chinese restaurant; is there an ‘alternate code’?” Sharky: “Yeah, think deeply and imagine drinking some hot oolong tea—” I: “But, I don’t like hot drinks!” Satoko: “Just do it, Matty!” I: “Ow, my tongue got burnt!” Shalanka: “Good, you’re almost there! Hop thrice…clap twice…now, hum your favorite rap song for ten seconds.” I: “But, I don’t like rap music!” Sharky: “OK then, your worst techno song.” I: “But, I don’t have a worst techno song!” Shalanka: “Then, by God, your average country song…aw, c’mon, Toko, you hum better than that; don’t disgrace Usher!” Toko girl (embarrassed): “I’m trying, I’m trying, g’dammit!”

Sharky: “Now, that was better…OK, hop up and say I got it!” We: “I got it!” Shalanka: “Well, now you got it! If you want to uninstall it, just do the same codes but say I ain’t got it at the end, OK?” I (typing the codes down in Photophase-Nemesis’ ebook-reader): “OK!” Sharky: “Well, try it; don’t be bashful!” I held my pouches in one hand and snapped with the other, and behold, the pouches were gone! Toko honey did the same with Lunar Sun. Kitty: “You don’t always have to snap; you can try something funny like this!” He pulled a handkerchief from his right ear; So, I yanked my pouches out of my noise, and Toko spat out Lunar Sun! We were so excited about this spell that we kept doing it ‘til our SE ran low! I: “Hey now, what happens when you store up too much soul matter?” Sharky: “You become forgetful; I tried stashing all the desktop computers in a store when I was little; I forgot my name and age until I unstashed the comps!” I: “Wow, thanks a lot!”

George: “No problem; well, there’s Hoap Les. gotta go now; seeya!”

We

Sharky: “Good-bye!” We: “Bye-bye!” On the beach of Hoap Les, we lay on the sand for a while, waiting for the other to get up; soon, we fell into a nice refreshing nap…