Against the Pigs

by Cracked Bat

Part two of an ongoing story base on early information about EarthBound 64. Follows Ricky and Krause's adventures after the events of Fall of the Pig King. R&R.

RECAP OF RECENT EVENTS AND INTRODUCTION

It was the summer of 201X AD in a place just south of Greater Eagleland and big things were being set into motion. In the obscure hick town of Einesville, the crashing of a strange object changed the lives of two twin boys and their foster father and uncle, Flint. While the twins Ricky and Krause fled their farmhouse with their dog Boney, Flint had a strange adventure involving talking, armed pigs and their monarch that ended with him crashing into the middle of the desert and learning the exact fate of his family. Eventually, the three were reunited in the small mining community of Coal Town. As they tried to flee, they were contacted via dream with a hero of the past – Buzz-Buzz himself! Ricky acquired the sound stone and was sent off on a quest to save the world from the strange pigs. Not much later, they met with a young adventurer by the name of Espeon and his short, silent companion known only as SD, both already seeking the Tunnel of Gold. After a few days of travel they reached the caves – only to find that pigs had already taken it! The twins became separated from the others and finally arrived at the Gold Tunnel and met its unusual inhabitant after some harrowing adventures. Meanwhile, Flint and his friends fought back pigs until eventually it was between just Flint and the Pig King. Flint tricked his foe into falling into a pit of acid, but he too was brought down with his vile enemy. As for the twins and the others…this story is about their adventures.

The darkened Great Hall was bustling with a bunch of grizzled pigs who had moments before were ordered out of their bunks, into their armor and out into the Great Hall. The most common subject of discussion was, "Why the heck did they pull us out of bed at 5 AM?" or "This better be good!" Suddenly the loudspeakers on the high vaulted ceilings sounded.

ALL HAIL THE GOOD HUMAN!

There was a murmur of surprise. Usually the Good Human, being nearly equal with the Pig King, used a speaker to represent him, not show up in person. They anxiously filed into rows, threw up their right trotters and grunted in a salute. The screen high on the wall flickered in, showing the shadow of a pudgy-looking face surrounded by what looked like the cockpit of the spider-machine.

"My good pigs," the silhouetted figure said in a squeaky yet strangely intimidating voice, "You have been congregated for a truly special occasion!"

The pigs snorted loudly in unison as a hail.

"Our King has won a major battle in our cause to reclaim the world! No longer stands Flint Lee, the guardian of the Targets and once the most powerful member in the bloodline of the Chosen One! A most painful thorn in our sides has been removed! Rejoice!"

There was a wild cheer from the organized ranks of pigs, stomping and snorting. A raised hand from the figure silenced it all as if a howitzer were pointed at them.

"Indeed, this is a watermark in our path to inevitable success. The Target Children are on the move! They are weak, vulnerable, and without that bothersome Flint to hide them under his wretched wing!"

The pigs snorted in salute.

"We have our enemy in a moment of a defeat that must be seized! We shall show the thieving humans who the righteous owners of this world are! The gates to the Promised Time are ever closer! We shall avenge our ancestors, who were raised in slavery, their whole lives waiting for the day of their slaughter!"

The wild salutes were raised once again, and silenced in the same way.

"The Time is drawing ever nearer! Soon we will regain our rightful place in this world, and the humans will stand alongside the slime slaves in status! We shall have power, and punish the humans for their vile deeds!"

The wild hooting and snorting started up once again, but the figure did not silence it that time.

"Pigs, my comrades! Go forth! Grab your weapons and get into your ranks, for the true war begins today…the war for freedom! The war for vengeance! The world shall see the day the Snout rises over the pathetic populace of humans! Go forth and fight for not only the present, but avenge the past and pave the stones for the future!"

The pigs had been stirred into a wild frenzy. Already they were dashing out of the doors to the armory, their ranks now forgotten. Slowly, the spider-machine floated up whence it came, the speaker cackling maniacally.

CHAPTER 1 THE TINY TOWN OF SNOWMAN

The warm, white light around the twins was fading. Suddenly all was dark, and it seemed to Krause that they were being flung extremely fast through the depths of the vast universe. Incomprehensible lights flew past them for what felt like about a minute, then the silence was broken by a loud and rather uncanny blast. Slowly, his senses began to return from the shock and he found himself surrounded once again by white, only it felt very damp and cold. With a little groan, he pulled his face out of a snow bank and looked about. This was nowhere that he could remember; for one the land covered in about two feet of snow. Small evergreen-covered cliffs surrounded him and large snowflakes were drifting lazily down from the gray sky despite the season. Most remarkable, however, was that about thirty feet away stood a strange looking building sided with a sort of dull metal, a large funnel of sorts protruding from the flat roof. A large sign above the door simply read "LAB." Krause shivered and took a step towards the large building when something occurred to him.

"Ricky? Ricky!" he called. As if to answer him, another blast was heard and his brother Ricky appeared with his head in the snow bank next to where his had been. His brother groaned and emerged wearily, his brown hair covered in snow.

"Ricky! You're alive!" Krause said with a little laugh. Ricky replied by spitting snow out of his mouth.

"Ugh…why do I always have to wind up getting the worst outcome in the worst scenarios…?" he looked around, shuddered from the cold and continued, "Do you happen to know where we are?"

"Happy to see you too," Krause said sarcastically, "And I don't have the slightest clue where we are. Why not start by going over into that large building over yonder?"

They did just that, no elaboration needed. A large, surprisingly tidy laboratory-like room greeted them. A few pleasantly colored tables held beakers in a neat fashion, and a few other tables bore strange gizmos and gadgets that even Krause couldn't begin to understand. Ricky hesitantly stepped inside.

"SPOONGANAWUNGA?" boomed a deep voice. The twins spun around and were face-to-chest with a large, primitive looking man wearing nothing but a loincloth and a really dumb smile on his watermelon-shaped head.

"Um…you are?" Ricky managed to say.

"BIGFOOT!" he exclaimed with a voice that nearly shook the laboratory. Before anything else could be said, there were footsteps coming from around a corner. A stocky, wizened man clad in a white lab coat and thick glasses appeared.

"Indeed!" he said to the two twins in the doorway while adjusting his glasses, "I'm guessing you're the two Jeff referred to?"

Ricky answered, "Actually, it's a bit hard to explain, but we were blasted here from a cave somewhere in a desert. Could you…tell us where we are?"

"So that would explain the two sonic booms I just heard. Nearly shook up my lab, they did!" the man blinked and shook his head, "But how rude of me! I'm the famous Dr. Andonuts. Please don't mind my friend here, he's peace loving and friendly, and sometimes he shares his beef jerky. Have a seat!"

The two twins slowly sat down on chairs around a table with just a black telephone on it and Dr. Andonuts settled down on another across from them.

"So, who are you two?" the doctor asked.

"I'm Krause Lee, and this is my brother, Ricky."

He nodded. "I'll answer your question now. You're in Winters, about four thousand miles from any desert! I'm thinking you were teleported."

"What?" said Ricky.

"Teleported. Until recently, it was a science fiction concept that involved projecting something at extremely high speed through space and looping it back to travel from one place to another in a very short time. However, just twenty years ago I witnessed this marvel in four exceptional children…Oh, but I ramble!"

"Four kids?" Krause cut in.

Andonuts blinked, "Four kids. Those who know about them call them the Chosen Four. I'm sure the word has spread enough now, and there might even be a cult or two following them! Anyway, they saved the world and I helped quite a lot." Dr. Andonuts chuckled, "I used to be so much better at keeping secrets…I created a timespace-traveling machine with the help of some…unusual people and that allowed them to travel back through time and defeat a vast alien threat."

Ricky and Krause looked at each other.

"Would you two happen to like some donuts?"

"That would be good," said Krause, "And do you have any coffee?"

"Well…actually I was just asking. There aren't any bakeries around here and donuts are sparse, especially this time of year," at that last sentence he grimaced.

Ricky spoke out this time. "Hey, your lab is cool and all, but we're in the middle of doing big, important things and we're in a little hurry."

Dr. Andonuts sighed, "I understand. You're probably following some mysterious calling from a friend you haven't met and they're running out of time. I would offer some form of transportation, but my latest Sky Runner and Phase Distorter are on exhibition in Summers somewhere…I suppose I could still help you out, though. One of my colleagues has recently discovered some strange aircraft in a desert far south of here."

"Did it say PORK Bean on it?" Krause asked, then he nearly slapped himself in the face when he realized what he said, but then Ricky did it for him.

The doctor paused, "Oh…well yes it did! You two twins have quite the adventuresome uncle."

"You know Flint?" said Ricky.

"No, but he founds fascinating from what my colleague told me. Anyhow, I was going to say that it's currently under heavy repair and would be virtual suicide to try piloting it. But don't worry. I've kept one of my older Sky Runners for quite some time. Come, follow me!"

The followed him up some stairs that led to a balcony above the lab that encircled the base of what looked like a large, closed chimney and stopped at something that made the twins raise their eyebrows. The doctor was standing in front of a beat-up, windowed silver sphere with an antenna atop of it.

"So this is what?" said Krause hesitantly.

"This is an early model of the Sky Runner series," Dr. Andonuts replied, smiling warmly underneath his mustache. "It runs as well as it looks. Step inside!"

Ricky grinned awkwardly, opened the hatch in the side, and stepped in. Cramped leather seats surrounded a control panel that consisted of nothing more complicated than two colorful buttons, a joystick and a little speaker.

"Looks like it could run," said Krause's voice from behind him.

"Yes, it's in…adequate working order," said Dr. Andonuts, "But the thing is, this model is stuck on a permanent auto-pilot due to an unfortunate circuit malfunction that occurred in a crash landing in Threed back in '9X."

"What?"

"Sorry, I forgot to tell you. But no matter! I'll just program it to travel to a certain location. Are you headed to anywhere in particular?"

"Um…Krause? Have a place you want to go to next?"

Krause blinked. "You're the leader, bro."

"Okay then…where's the closest town?" Ricky asked.

The doctor adjusted his glasses and gave a moment of thought. "I took a trip somewhere last month…yes. I believe that little flyspeck was called Snowman."

"Okay, it's as good as any town."
"Very well! It won't take very long for me to program, if I can remember how his dang thing works…But in the meantime, why not go downstairs and watch TV? Or maybe you could have a look at the Instant Revitalization Device. Just don't do anything that'll blow up the lab!"

With that, the doctor crawled into the Sky Runner with a tool kit and began working on the control board. Ricky and Krause walked back down the staircase and found a little TV sitting on a table in a somewhat neglected corner.

"I wonder if they have cable up here," said Krause, "It's been too long since I've seen Splatterman."

It turned out that there were only three channels, one operated by the Snow Wood Boarding School, one that looked like a documentary channel if Krause adjusted the antennae just right, and a news station. It seemed nothing big was going on in world news, but the twins certainly knew better. The Pig King and someone (or something) called the Master were preparing to unleash an enormous horde of pigs against mankind, and Ricky was the only one who could stop them.

"Thank you for that editorial, Charles," said the news anchor, "And don't forget to vote on the online poll. Today's topic is: should radical terrorists be allowed to carry bombs? In other news, it seems that in hog farms all around the world, pigs are behaving unusually. There have been several reports in southern Eagleland in particular that have piqued the WWN's interest. We now go to Mandy in Einesville."

"Woah!" exclaimed Krause, "Something happened in Einesville? Impossible!"

"Shhh!"
A familiar scene appeared on the TV set. A lady was on the road next to a rolling field of grain very close to their old house, the sky surprisingly gray.

"Thank you, Wendell. I'm here in Einesville, where a couple that owns a small hog farm has just returned from a vacation."

The camera panned jerkily to the side and old Mr. and Mrs. Hoggs were standing grim-faced in front of what was once their house. It looked like it had been torn down brutally to the foundation except for a wall with the words LONG LIVE THE PIG KING written on it in almost chicken scratch.

"What do you think happened?" the lady asked.

Mr. Hoggs just furrowed his brow and said, "I have no idea, woman. M' father built this house with his bare hands and I worked this little farm for m' whole life. We went through drought, famine and pestilence only to have our house torn down and vandalized. M' pigs're gone, m' chickens're dead and my equipment's ruined. I'll see to it that whoever did this will have their life redefined as a livin' Hell."

"I see. Do you think this could be linked by the fact that pigs all over the world are acting weirdly?"

"Pigs?" he almost smiled, "Well, if they did it, I'm not hesitatin' in butcherin' every one of 'em!"
"Well…thank you."

The scene then changed to something that made the twins jump. Where their house had once been, there was now a pile of junk. The lady said something, but they didn't pick it up. The screen went back to the news anchor; who made a useless comment. The two twins looked at each other.

"They're on to us," Ricky said gruffly.

Krause was about to say something, but a loud blasting sound from upstairs that cut him off.

"Dr. Andonuts!" he called.

"No, don't worry!" he shouted back, "I've made all the necessary adjustments!"
The two twins climbed the steps again and found the doctor wiping his blackened glasses off in front of the Sky Runner.

"So this will take us to Snowman?" Ricky asked.

Dr. Andonuts just smiled. "I can't make any promises, but we all have to take risks. Now hop on it, if you're up to it."

Ricky slowly stepped inside, followed by Krause, who shut the door. The doctor rushed over to a porthole as the whole machine began to jerk back and forth.

"What do we do?" shouted Krause.

"Push the red button!" Dr. Andonuts shouted back.

Ricky did this, and the thing began to lift off the balcony and through the now-opened dome and out into the wintry weather. Immediately they stopped rising and started moving steadily over snowy, pine tree-covered cliffs. After about five minutes of traveling this way, the Sky Runner lurched and began ascending rapidly. Soon they were in the clouds and Ricky was beginning to feel a bit sick from vertigo. It seemed they were moving much faster now, despite the lack of speedometer. Maybe a half an hour passed and they dropped down through the clouds and into beautiful, forested slopes covered in pine trees. The land began to drop, and soon a small village was seen over a ridge.

"This must be it," said Krause cheerfully. But as they came closer, the town looked anything but cheerful. A few deteriorating buildings and withering trees were seemingly all that made up this village as they began to slow down and descend. Suddenly the Sky Runner began to wobble a bit, then stop altogether. The twins screamed as their aircraft hurtled spinning towards the town below. With one hand, Ricky desperately grabbed at the joystick…

"Oh crap. We're screwed! Bail out!" he shouted as it refused to move. In a last-ditch attempt, Ricky grabbed the door handle, flung himself against it and fell right out into the cold. There was a loud crash of crunching metal right as he hit the snow. With most of the energy he had left, Ricky pulled himself out of the snowdrift and hustled over to the Sky Runner. It was on its side in the snow that seemed to be shoveled out of the way of a town-square covered in fresh debris. A little red light blinked in the place where the Sky Runner used to have a door.

"Krause!" he shouted into the wreckage.

"I'm here, bro…" his brother groaned. A scraped and bruised Krause pulled himself halfway up, groaned again, and tumbled out into the town-square, "Sticking with you…is never boring."

A stream of blood came from the side of Krause's mouth as he groaned yet again. Ricky turned around and noticed that about a dozen people were standing in a circle a safe distance around him.

"This is the coolest thing that happened since that hippie with a limp came here and played the guitar with his toes," a girl's voice said from the silent crowd.

Ricky glared at them. "What're you doing standing around like nimrods? My brother's hurt!"

With that, Ricky stomped over to Krause's side and, with hardly any thought of what he was doing, thrust his hand out to his head and said, "PK Lifeup alpha!" For a split second, a blue light flashed from his palm, then after a few moments, Krause groaned again and began to pull himself to his feet. There was a gasp from the crowd.

"Um…hello," said Krause as usefully as possible.

"What's going on here?" a woman's voice called. A middle-aged woman with a strange hat parted the tiny crowd. She took a look at the twins, then at the wrecked Sky Runner, then at everybody else.

"Could one of you explain this?" she said, glaring at everybody present with piercing blue eyes.

Krause cleared his throat and wiped the blood away from his mouth. "Well, we were in that UFO-thing over there, which is called the Sky Runner. Dr. Andonuts gave it to us because we needed some form of transportation other than walking, because as you can see, we're not wearing the right stuff to be walking the snow. We were supposed to land here softly, but obviously that didn't really happen. Sorry about all the commotion! So…yeah."

"You're right!" said a man in the crowd. "This is the coolest thing since that hippie!"
There was a murmur in the crowd, and now several more people were gathering around them.

"Come with me," the woman said in a soft voice to the twins. They hesitated, then followed her through the crowd. It looked as if Snowman had seen better days. The few buildings were built like cross-timber houses, only poorly maintained. The woman led them down a brick street that turned into a dirt road leading through dilapidated, snow-covered pines. They rounded the side of a rather large cliff and came upon what looked to be a chapel or maybe even a small chateau in surprisingly good repair nestled in between two cliff-sides. They followed her up to the open front door and right inside. It was a rather cozy place, with little arched stained glass windows covering each wall and a fireplace in one corner. Several rows of pews sat before a simple altar with two candles atop of it.

"Have a seat," the woman said, "Anywhere is fine."

As they did this, Krause asked, "Excuse me, m'am. But who're you?"

"I'm known around here as Ana. I suppose you could say I'm the priestess of the town. Before we continue, I'd like to know both of your names."

"I'm Ricky."

"And I'm Krause…I'm with him."
"I'm guessing you two are twins?"
"That's right."

"Ricky, I noticed that you did something back there. You said PK Lifeup alpha and your brother got up?"

Ricky blinked. "Yeah, but I'm not quite sure what I did…do you know?"

Ana smiled slightly. "Well, I'm not so sure myself. I believe it's been called Psychokinesis, psychic powers, or even psionics. Oh…you're hurt."

Ricky looked down at his hand, which had a cut on it that was bleeding slightly. Before he could say anything about it not being a big deal, Ana put her hand over it. Ricky suddenly was filled with a jolt of energy; then he gasped as he saw that there was barely a scar where the cut had been.

"Woah…" said Krause.

"You two are on an adventure, aren't you?"

"What makes you think that?" Ricky said.

Ana smiled again. "I went on one myself…about thirty years ago when I was just a girl. This kind of stuff happens when kids go out trying to save the world," she blinked, "Oh, I'm sorry. Well, you're welcome here in Snowman. Please stay as long as you need."

A stocky, trenchcoated figure stood overlooking the village from a hill. The figure grunted a bit; then lifted up a bowler hat to reveal a hog's face. It was hard to lie low in such a pathetic little human's hamlet. Ironically, big news came out of such a small place. Both Target Children were somehow in the town, along with a salvageable aircraft. The pig grunted with gruff laughter.

(I'll get extra slop for a start; then the Pig King Himself will give me a Medal of Stellar Achievement, a suitable raise for a pig of my quality and several sows to boot…)

(Thinking of rewards already, Larry?)

The pig spun around and saw not one, but a whole brigade, of pigs in shiny assault armor with swords at their belts and spears on their backs. In front was a large hog clad in black armor and wearing a similarly large sword on his back.

(You…made it this far already?)

(Believe it. Humans are especially stupid about train security. A bunch of short people and a big person come on board with trenchcoats and carrying heavy luggage. It's a miracle they haven't killed themselves yet and laughable that we have to help them do it! Anyway…not bad for a rookie, Larry.)

(Thank you, sir. When do you think you're gonna attack…I want to get ready to…um…fight. That's all.)

The tall pig squealed a laugh. (We're gonna wait until humans usually have dinner. Six seventeen, or when the sun reaches halfway towards that mountain. We're not letting any of 'em live. The war is 100% ours if we pull this one off. The Z-3 Brigade will be legendary…)

CHAPTER 2 THE SCOURING OF SNOWMAN

Ricky and Krause were relieved to finally take showers, which were in the sparse living quarters of the chapel. They were bruised, cut, and dirty from their recent adventures and they hadn't showered in about a week to begin with. When they were finally washed, they sat out in the chapel with a map that Krause had found.

"Alright," Ricky said, "Where are we going now?"

According to the map, they were now along the border of Greater Eagleland and the Sky Runner had taken them across Icy Strait, a narrow sea channel separating Winters and Eagleland. The nearest city on the map was the metropolis of Fourside, being about two hundred miles southeast via train.

"I say we make tracks for Fourside by tomorrow morning, or whenever the train comes," Krause said, "Maybe there's a Sanctuary somewhere around there too. It's up to you, though."

Ricky sighed. "I think we need a little break or something. After dinner, I'm getting to bed and I ain't waking up until about noon. We'll leave the day after tomorrow. How much more powerful can those pigs get in a day anyway?"
Krause looked around a bit. "I wonder where Ana went. She sort of disappeared when we took showers."

As if to answer his question, the doors suddenly flew open and in came Ana, panting and missing her strange hat.

"Ana?" Ricky said, "Where were you…I mean there you are!"

The woman quickly looked out into the snow and a distant shout and something like a squeal rang out.

"Come with me!" she said hastily, "Something's happening!"

Another squeal broke out.

"Pigs!" Krause exclaimed.

"What tipped you off, the squeal?" Ricky called from the entryway as he dexterously slung his pack over his shoulders and drew his bat.

"Wait up!"

Krause whipped out the frying pan from his belt and got his pack half-on before a scream was heard and Ana bolted out the door. The twins followed as fast as they could. Ana was calling things like "Everybody get out of here!" and "Make for the cave!" over the screams that were becoming much louder. They had reached the edge of the tiny town when Krause finally managed to get his pack totally on. Their greeting wasn't very friendly, to say the least. Two fully armored pigs wielding spears were chasing a girl who was screaming her lungs out.

"Stand back," Ana said before holding her hands out and saying, "PK Fire!"

The twins gasped as a fan of flames erupted from her outstretched fingers and spread out towards the pigs, which were closing in on the little girl. The pigs had only a moment to squeal before they were reduced to melted armor and charred pork. The girl was sprawled out nearby, whimpering softly.

"Hurry up, Penny!" Ana said, "We need to get out of here!"

The girl slowly climbed to her feet. Ana grabbed her hand and ran. Ana kept calling for everyone to escape. In little time, they reached a little bridge going across a half-frozen stream. They stopped for a moment to rest and Krause turned around just in time to see four pigs, the one in the lead at least seven feet tall and clad in black armor and wielding a large sword.

"Watch out! Behind us!" he shouted just in time to let Ricky dodge a spear that was hurled at him.

"Go on ahead!" Ana shouted, "Head for the train tracks for now!"

"But…"

"I need to protect my town, and I don't want you getting hurt! Take Penny!"
Ricky grabbed the girl's wrist and ran across the little bridge while Ana executed another PK Fire. They ran to a large pine tree and stopped to catch their breath. Ricky looked back towards the town. It appeared that Ana was now trying to fight off the largest pig with a burning branch. Beyond the bridge it looked as if the town was losing. A column of dark smoke rose from several houses and the shouts of people mixed with squeals of pigs. Penny whimpered.

"It's okay," said Krause, "I think it'll turn out for the better. And if you cry, the pigs will find us easier."

Penny began crying much louder and Ricky grimaced. "You really make me sad sometimes. We better get moving."

With that, Ricky grabbed Penny's wrist again and began running, Krause following as fast as he could.

"Hey, bro! I think we lost 'em! Maybe we could (pant) slow down a bit?"

Of course, as they looked towards the next stand of pine trees, four sword-swinging, shield-bearing pigs leaped out at them.

"Go hide somewhere!" Ricky told Penny, who obeyed without hesitation. The four pigs shot her a quick glance, then focused on the twins. Ricky and Krause got back-to-back like the heroes in the movies did as their enemies closed in. Ricky lunged out with his bat at the closest pig, knocking its little helmet off and sending it sprawling backwards into the snow. Krause tried his best to fight off the two that were attacking him, but a shield bash to the face stopped any further attempts. He slumped to the ground, leaving Ricky to deal with three highly trained evil pigs. They closed in and with one hard swing of his bat, Ricky shattered a shield and a pig's wrist. The two pigs jumped towards him from either side, swords out to skewer him. Then Ricky suddenly remembered something Flint had done to two thugs in one of his stories and sidestepped the two pigs. Their swords hit each other and they both squealed and fell on top of Krause.

"Krause!" Ricky shouted.

"I can hear you…" Krause mumbled. He pulled himself up from underneath the two pigs, already covered in some darkish blood. Ricky just blinked.

"You look awful."

Krause glared with his blackened eye. But suddenly another squeal was heard and more pigs were rounding a corner, the one in the lead the large pig they had seen minutes earlier, only significantly more battered. Krause looked at one of the pigs' large round shields; then noticed that they were on the top of a snow-covered hill.

"Not again!" said Ricky.

"They ain't catching us this time," said Krause. Before Ricky could say anything, Krause snatched one of the fallen pigs' shields and sat down in it.

"Krause, what in the hey are you doing?"

"Get on! They won't be able to catch a sled speeding down a hill, would they?"

Ricky grinned. "That may be the worst idea I've heard since seedless watermelon, but we're gonna die either way."

Ricky jumped on behind Krause and pushed off. The shields must've been very well polished, because they were going faster than Ricky had anticipated. The hill was also much bigger than anticipated, and Krause somehow hadn't spotted the trees near the bottom. A spray of snow blinded them for a second, then they screamed as Ricky used his arms to navigate around a large pine tree just in time. They swerved back towards their course, Ricky doing an excellent job in avoiding trees. Suddenly something nearly grazed Ricky's ear. He turned around and saw a pig riding on a sleek sled with runners. He gritted his teeth and steered hard to the right, just barely missing a tree.

"What're you doing?" Krause shouted to him. He swerved back around and realized they were reaching the bottom of the hill. It seemed there were railroad tracks just beyond a little stream, and a train was approaching.

"When I say bail out, we bail out, okay?" he shouted to his brother. He steered around a tree and began counting. 1…2…

WOOSH!

They had hit a log with snow piled on one side like a ramp that was conveniently right next to the creek. They were launched into the air, the train now moving by.

"We're gonna die!" screamed Krause. But then the boxcars stopped and they sailed right onto an empty flatbed, skidded off of it and landed face-first into a pile of snow, the shield clattering off a rock right next to them.

"This is the last time I land in a snow bank," said Ricky.

"This is the last time somebody lands on me," Krause mumbled.

Ricky pulled himself up and watched the train go by. Suddenly he realized how cold it was and that he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

"We better find a place to stay for now," Krause said, "I'm cold."

Something suddenly snapped in Ricky's brain. "Wait a minute. We can't leave Snowman for the pigs to burn down and the people living there to be slaughtered!"

"What?" Krause said, "Why didn't you say that when we were at the top of the hill? I'm not going back up there now!"

"No, what I mean was, we need to go get help and warn the government about the pig threat."

"So we're gonna follow the train tracks? That map said the nearest town ain't less than two hundred miles away. I ain't walking that far with these clothes on! And besides, if we make twenty miles a day if we don't die of frostbite, it's…ten days? By then the pigs will pick us out like crawdads in a barrel, stab us to death and eat us if they don't take us captive and torture us until we beg to be stabbed!"

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"You're making sense, Krause. But do you have a better suggestion?"

"Well…oh screw it. But I ain't staying out here much longer. I can hardly feel my feet anymore."

The area around them consisted mostly of evergreens going up a gentle slope towards a bigger forest, but the train tracks seemed a better option than trekking through the woods. Maybe there would be a logging camp or something in before they reached the town…Before Ricky could advance his train of thought any further, it was abruptly derailed by a vulgar shout that rang throughout the valley.

"Long live the Pig King!"

Ana stumbled down the path, her breath coming out in gasps. Behind her the smoke from her sad village rose in black columns. Part of her was telling her to go back and fight the pigs for the sake of her town, another part was telling her to keep on her course to the cave to aid those who escaped, another was telling her to flee and hide and yet another was telling her that she was hungry. She stopped to catch her breath against a pine tree. Ana was a strong woman who usually wouldn't be winded after a 200-yard run, but her brain was still throbbing from the fight at the bridge. It had been close to thirty years since she had manifested that much psychic energy at once; and it was taking its toll. She shook her head and continued at a less blistering pace. After following several pairs of footsteps into the snow, she reached a gnarled old oak tree overrun at the roots with dead underbrush. She parted some of the brush and stepped down into a large, well-hidden limestone hole the locals had affectionately called "the cave."

"Who goes there?" called the gruff voice of Chuck the lumberjack from the darkness, "I've got an axe here and-"

"It's Ana," she said, walking into the dark. A small flame sprang from her finger and she looked around at everybody. Chuck, wearing a flannel shirt that was cut on the arm and holding a bloodied axe, stood in front of maybe a dozen or so frightened-looking townsfolk. Ana lit some dry wood on the damp floor with her finger and the little cave was lit up. She slumped down against the wall and sighed while everybody situated himself or herself around the fire.

"What are we doing now, ma'm?" a boy named Jonathan asked, "Are we even gonna try stopping those…pigs and try to find everybody?"

Ana sighed wearily. "I don't know much about them and less about why they came to attack, but I'm afraid there's not much we could do. They've already started burning our town, and about fifty people are still out there."

"Hey! What about those kids that went with you?" a man named Bert said, "Where are they now? That Rick kid used magic like you do."

Ana paused a bit before responding. "I can't say anything as to where they are now, but there was something strange about them, despite the obvious fact that they fell from a strange aircraft…They followed me to the little bridge and I let them run while I held off the pigs. I'll tell you the rest later. I'm going back to do what I can."

A silence fell on the circle of townsfolk as Ana brushed off her skirt and climbed back through the hole. If her observations were correct, only seven pigs remained in the actual town itself, but only God and the narrator knew how many more there may be. She quickly came up with a plan. There was a borderline ancient telephone in the hotel that had a direct connection to the Northern Eagleland Emergency Dispatchers phone board. If you can't guess her plan by now, you should not be reading this right now. Quickly, she fought back her fatigue and dashed down the path towards Snowman. Suddenly a sharp squeal broke out; and just as suddenly, two club-wielding pigs leaped out of hiding from pines on either side of the path. As she held out her hand to unleash another fireball, one of the hogs swiftly lunged out and hit her square in the forehead. All went dark instantly and she crumpled to the snow-covered ground with a long groan. The two swine snorted horribly, their foul breath making clouds in the crisp air. The pig that hadn't done anything grabbed Ana by her hair and began to drag her towards town.

"Long live the Pig King!" the other shouted in English, then he followed his friend at a brisk pace, snorting all the way.

Penny had half the mind to wail her eyes out and run like the little 10-year old girl she was at what she had just witnessed, but her intuition was screaming, "Don't do that you nimrod! You might as well ask to be caught!" so she stayed put behind the rock. As the two pigs passed around the corner, she slowly crept from her hiding place. Even Penny knew how paranoid old Jack was, and how his phone had a direct line to the emergency dispatchers. She got on all fours and skirted around the pines towards the town. After what seemed like hours, she finally reached the first house, where she ducked behind a barrel just in time to avoid a hog marching around the corner. A few pigs were loitering around in the square, most examining the strange spaceship-thing that had landed hours earlier. She averted her eyes when the large, ugly pig appeared dragging Old Jack by a leg, grunting evilly. Three houses later, she crawled through the back window of Jack Hotel and landed with a loud crash behind the desk. Cautiously, she pulled herself to her feet, grabbed the receiver and hit the green button labeled EMERGENCY…

CHAPTER 3 DANGER IN THE DARK WOODS

Ricky and Krause had silently agreed on following the train tracks southwards after hearing the shout of the pig on the edge of town. Of course, they stuck to the trees and hedges to not make themselves extremely conspicuous. After maybe a half an hour, they began to feel much warmer, and soon enough, the snow receded into patches of slush underneath pine trees and the sun shone through the clouds. After following the tracks around a gentle hill, they suddenly found themselves looking at what was, very plainly, a small hobo camp near a worn-out station platform. To the non-hobo's eye, it was an unsightly clutter of four battered tents, a campfire and a half a dozen train-jumping bums laughing amongst themselves. That was the twins' exact impression.

"Hey, y'all!" a hobo wearing a tattered, wide-brimmed hat called, "We got some visitors!"

The whole camp quieted down and turned to face Ricky and Krause. Ricky suddenly remembered all the things Flint had told him about hobos from his experiences of his adventuring days. He had told him that their numbers had dwindled in their area significantly due to the fact that hobos jump on trains, and bullet trains are very hard to jump on. He also remembered that they were the friendlier of homeless folk and usually worked for their food and helped others while they traveled, but Flint also said he had some troubles with the few that took up such things as banditry and kidnapping.

"They're hobos," Ricky whispered to his brother, "Be ready for anything."

A wizened old hobo sitting close to the campfire stood up and walked over towards the twins with a hand out and a grin that exposed all nine of his teeth.

"Kids…my name's Grandpa Billy. Welcome to my humble hobo camp! Now what can I call you two?"

"I'm Krause, and he's Ricky."

"Well hello then, Krause and Ricky!" he shook each of their hands vigorously and chuckled to himself, "Come over by the fire, you two look like you could use some warmth and food."

They hesitantly followed the man across the railroad tracks and into the camp. The other hobos introduced themselves with names like Flatbed Jimmy and One-eyed Sam, despite the fact that he had both of his eyes.

"Say, are you another one of them pilgrims?" Grandpa Billy asked after a series of cheerful introductions and very strong handshakes.

"Pilgrims?" Ricky said.

"Oh…well, we're from Northern Eagleland and we're headed southwards towards Threed to find work at the new farms. There have been some people lately who're traveling by foot towards some cave over yonder forests. After some screwball said there's something magical about it, those crazy no-bos're making pilgrimages there. Not that they'll return, of course, them forests are filled with wolves, bears and who-knows-what-else this time of year. Oh sorry? Were you gonna say something?"

"Um…this cave…what do you know about it?"

"This no-bo said he found some sort of spring there, only it burned like fire and ran out of the top of some rock." he laughed, "Crazy, crazy…So where're you from?"

"Look, I'm sorry, but if I were you, I'd pack up and leave really soon," said Ricky, "Do you know about the town of Snowman?"

"Yes…we were there last night…what about it now?"

"There's a good chance that it's burnt into charcoal as we speak."

"It's true," added Krause, "And the guys who're burning it are personally after us…um…Ricky? Should I tell 'em anything else?"

There was a brief, melodramatic silence that fell on the camp that was broken only by the crackling of the fire. Then the hobo called Elliot the Eagle spoke out.

"This sounds like a real hole-in-the-boot…I'm thinking they're not lying at all…"

"We've gotta do something!" One-eyed Sam said.

"Like what?" Oil-can Oliver interjected, taking a puff on his cigarette, "What if they're no-good lying no-bo boys? And if they're telling the truth, who's gonna believe some cotton-ball story from the likes of us?"

It seemed as if the camp had suddenly forgotten about the twins as they began arguing amongst themselves about the ordeal. Grandpa Billy, who had been silent, drew a knife from his coat and struck the ground. For some reason, this quieted the little crowd very quickly.

"When we agreed to be a brotherhood of hobos, we agreed to help folks whenever they needed it and…a few other things. Get my drift? We're setting off southwards in ten minutes, and we're warning the first people we see. In the meantime, get these kids something to wear besides what they're wearing now."

In a matter of minutes, Ricky and Krause were wearing tattered old coats that reeked of a hobo. That is, they smelled like cigarettes, caked dirt, oil and a faint wood scent. The hobos invited the twins to come along with them, but Ricky told them that they were traveling another direction. After some dispute, the twins ended up receiving "excess goods" from the already materialistically lacking hobos before being sent on their way. The hobos somehow packed everything up and began their long journey on foot to the closest human settlement.

"Not bad for our first day back into the real world, eh, Ricky?" Krause said as they began to travel down the path. Ricky just gave him a funny look.

"Well, I mean ain't it something that in a whole afternoon we met a scientist, totally trashed his invention, sparked an attack on an innocent town, became bearers of ill omen and hobo friends. And now we're heading out into a forest filled with dangerous animals just to get to one of those crazy sanctuaries."

Ricky stopped. "If you want to go back and follow those dirty hobos and probably be caught by pigs, you can do that."

"Geez! No offense meant…"

With that, they continued on their way. The forest quickly grew dense with tall evergreens and began to slope upwards. For being an evergreen forest, they trudged through lots of rugged underbrush and climbed over many outcroppings of rock. As the sun slowly progressed across the northern sky, the forest's shadows became ever longer and the air became chilly. Krause stopped their trek countless times, claiming to have heard something moving nearby or have seen a shadow lurking nearby. Soon enough, the twins experienced their first night in the Dark Woods.

Everything seemed to be going wrong from the very start. Clouds rolled in after the sun set and it began to sleet. The twins stumbled about for maybe an hour, trying to keep under the pines to avoid the sleet if possible. Finally, they reached a shallow stone overhang on a rocky hillside. Even then, neither Ricky nor Krause could start a fire and they ended up wasting nearly half of the matches supplied by the hobos. So they ate their dinners in a cold, miserable silence and fell asleep nearly instantly despite the hard ground.

Krause awoke with a groan the next morning. His back felt harder than the rock he slept on and there was a low, soupy fog around their overhang. Worse, however, was the fact that neither Ricky nor his gear was in sight.

"Ricky?"

The silence continued.

"Okay, where are you now?" he said irritably, "We've gotta get going and it's not funny that you're playing on my fears."

Krause only heard the cawing of a crow as a response. He groaned again, climbed to his feet and grabbed his pack. He was beginning to feel very nervous. Ricky may be sarcastic and had grown slightly cynical about their adventure, but Krause usually played all the lowbrow pranks. After a brief internal argument, he grabbed his frying pan and began his search for his brother. The ground was hard and rocky and the sleet still covered the ground, so tracking seemed out of the question. He slowly made his way up the slope, calling out his brother's name frequently with no success. Soon there were the scattered calls of birds and the rustling of things in the underbrush, and Krause was feeling even more discomforted. He called his brother's name one last time and the response froze his blood. He had seen enough movies to know that the howling close behind him belonged to a wolf. Krause broke into his best dash up the slope, blinded beyond twenty feet due to the fog.

"Ricky! Ricky!" he shouted as he ran, but his voice soon failed him. He later learned that it was because he was at a much higher altitude than he was used to, but that doesn't have much to do with the action scene. Krause dodged around some trees and scrambled over a boulder, but still the feral baying of the wolves came ever closer. The slope soon gave way to a flat field dotted with fewer trees than before, but a jagged cliff rose from the side of it. A quick estimation of the wolves' barks gave Krause about a hundred feet of distance between them. With most of his remaining strength, he flat-out sprinted across the field towards the cliffs. With any luck, he reckoned that he could either scale them or find a place to hide. Finally, Krause made it to the edge of a largish boulder when he felt something grab him by the leg and pull him down to the grass with a yelp. He looked up and saw Ricky, who dragged him behind the boulder.

"Ricky!" Krause snapped, "You about scared the crap out of me!"

Ricky put his finger to his mouth and peered around the edge of the boulder. The little pack of wolves appeared in the thinning fog at the edge of the field, stopped and began to sniff. Then they barked at each other for a moment until the one that was apparently the alpha male growled loudly and barked a few times. The other four immediately began following their noses.

"What're doing now?" Krause whispered very softly.

Ricky pointed to a crevice in the cliff-face and began crawling towards it. To Krause it was little more than a crack, but Ricky had somehow crawled through it. He followed nervously and after an uncomfortable few seconds, he found himself in a small cave lit by a hole in the ceiling. Ricky was against a wall, breathing heavily.

"Can we talk now?" Krause asked.

"Just try not to wake the dead," said Ricky with a grin, "First off, I figured I'd trip you and give you a hand back there because you've saved my skin so many times, I figured I'd try to return the favor."

"You totally scared the crap outta' me, bro. Don't do that again. And where the heck were you? It also scared the crap outta' me when I woke up and you were gone…but thanks."

"You're welcome and sorry about that. Yesterday I knew we were being watched by something, I just lied because didn't wanna scare you too badly. So I got up real early and scouted ahead to see what we were up against. At the top of this cliff is another cave - "

"You left me all alone?" Krause interrupted, "And you knew there was something goin' on?"

Ricky sighed. "You never get up early, and besides, if we were gonna be attacked in our sleep, I figured they'd already have done so and we're taking a risk by just being here. But this cave; I think it's where we're looking for."

Ricky went on to describe how he got close enough to see that trees, shrubs and boulders hid the cave entrance and how the cave opened into a concrete hallway. There were no visible guards, but he didn't want to take any chances either. He was starting to head back when suddenly a bear hiding in a shrubbery took him by surprise. He was able to somehow escape and fall into the cave they were sitting in. Either the bear gave up or reported back to whomever was obviously controlling the animals. Krause related to his story and they both realized how fortunate they were.

"I hope our luck keeps up," Ricky said grimly, "If we're gonna get through that cave alive, we're gonna need lots of it."

After a quick snack, the twins made use of a dead vine growing down the hole and climbed out. Ricky led the way through the trees to where he remembered the cave being. It was a slow process. They crept around rocks and hid behind trees, looking around before moving somewhere to make sure nothing was watching them while trying not to make too much noise. Finally, Ricky nodded and pointed to a cluster of trees on an incline. They crawled on their bellies and reached it. The cave opened more into the ground than the side of the slope, but it looked like they could manage walking down it.

"I guess I'm going first," Krause said.

CHAPTER 4 THE MIND OF DARKNESS

The twins' descent into the tunnel soon became dark, but Ricky pulled out his miner's helmet and turned it on. Finally, the passage leveled out and they found themselves in a dimly lit concrete room furnished by a great mass of ventilation shafts and exposed pipes and filled with the dull roar of re-circulating air.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Ricky asked Krause.

"It depends."

"Okay, you could get into one of the larger shafts and see what's in the area."

Krause looked at him like lobsters were crawling out of his ears. "I'm the one who goes first, bro, but I ain't cannon fodder. We should just lie low and hopefully we won't run into anything."

Ricky nodded and took note of the room while Krause led the way through the sleek metal door at the end of the room and into a hallway that slanted ever downwards into darkness. They walked along once again, but this time the passageway leveled out rather quickly and turned a corner, around which was the sound of dripping water and a mechanical hum. Krause peeked around the corner and beheld a natural cavern small in comparison to the ones in Cactus Desert, but there was much more water dripping from the ceilings. The mechanical hum came from a circular glowing gate at the opposite end that could be reached by a narrow causeway across the pool of water that took up much of the cavern. This gate was complete with a metal catwalk above it, something that looked like a futuristic turret gun and several guards clad in all black and wearing big, chrome-visor helmets on their heads. Krause described this sight to his brother.

"Oh crap. We've either hit the front or back gate of this place. We're gonna have to find another way around."

Ricky looked around the corner in a search for a way that they could get across without being shot up and failed. In the end, they decided that the ventilation shafts would be a better option.

"Okay," Krause said with a cynical smile, "but if we get sucked into a furnace or a giant fan, the pigs will take over the world."

"You're gonna wish for that death after we're through with you," a gruff voice sounded. The twins jumped and saw not one, but six of the guards standing at the corner with big, shiny lasers drawn.

"Don't get so worked up, Rambo," said another, "These may be the ones Boss is after. He wants them alive, if reasonably possible. Set your beams to stun."

The twins bolted around the corner while the guards fumbled with their laser beams. The guards followed right behind with lasers blasting. It's a rule of thumb that all helmeted gunmen are rotten shots, so the twins managed to dodge them by zipping back and forth across the corridor until Krause's arm was numbed and they found the door at the top of the passage not only closed, but locked tight.

"Son of a…" Ricky shouted as he kicked the door, "Krause! Your bad key machine! Get it out!"
"I ain't even feeling my best arm, bro. You can't expect me to sling off my pack, unzip it, take out the bad key machine, stick it into the lock and start it up with my left hand before the guards bust us up?"

"You had enough time to say that!" Ricky shouted as a laser bolt hit the door just inches away from him. Krause threw off his pack and began to struggle with it.

"Zipper's stuck!" he reported.

Ricky made an angry noise. "Forget it!"

He almost involuntarily turned to the guards, held out his hand, and shouted, "PK Fire!" A line of red flames burst from his fingertips and spread out towards the fast-approaching guards. They just had enough time for muffled screams before they met the fire head-on and were either charred or forced backwards. The fire dissipated and Ricky slumped over, breathing heavily. His brain felt just as hot as the guards probably did while they were blasted.

"Ricky…?"

All Ricky could do was groan and grab his head. The hall was suddenly much brighter, because red lights were flashing and sirens were blaring. The three guards that had managed to escape must've sounded an alarm. Ricky pulled himself to his feet.

"You okay?" Krause said.

"Maybe."

Krause smiled and slapped his brother on the shoulder. He slowly approached one of the burnt-up guards, held his nose and pried the warm laser gun from his hand.

"C'mon. We gotta hide somewhere."

Ricky nodded and Krause examined his new weapon. His limited mechanical knowledge told him that the intensity of the gun was determined by how far one pulled a gauge on the side. With one hand, Krause managed to pull it to a high power and fire it at the latch, which blew a hole right through the door and knocked him off his feet with the backlash. Ricky pushed the door down and ran through, Krause following close behind with the gun.

"Give that gun here," Ricky said, and Krause obeyed. His brain was cooling down rapidly and he had enough brainpower to blast the largest air vent and duck inside, if not before blasting the heck out of the wall to fully fulfill his fantasy of having an adjustable laser gun. He didn't have enough brainpower to realize that he was leaving a trail a blind idiot could follow.

The air vents were unpleasant. A wind was constantly blowing against the twins, Krause's arm was still totally numb and Ricky could barely crawl through. Finally, Krause announced that there was a dim light up ahead and went to investigate. What he saw was something like this:

A mechanical spider-like figure floated apprehensively about two feet above the ground. The grotesque, bloated brain swimming in the juices all contained in a glass dome at the top was stressed out.

"Deactivate the alarms, but keep all personnel on high alert. That noise shall pay havoc on my audio sensors if I hear it again. Make a scan for all carbon-based life in the area and continue with the investigations in the northern sector. I have some reason to believe they have gotten into the ventilation. These human whelps are valuable to our mission."

The computer in front of the robot beeped and the juice surrounding the brain churned violently.

"Do not question my reasoning. There is no doubt about it. The sudden burst of psychic energy, the lingering presence…"

The computer whirred.

"Of course you fail to realize my reasoning. You are a simpleton executive computer. Hinder me not with your fourteen-kilobyte arguments and carry out your task, lest I see to it that you be broken into a rewired with a chain saw."

The computer made a blip and began making working noises.

"I am overseeing an operation on psychic energy spots for the Good Human and I am given a pocket calculator to work it. Alas! Had I still had my body, I would laugh at the irony. But 'tis not the time for humor. The Chosen Ones' whelps are within the compound and must be found, lest they once more interfere with the plans for Earth's righteous order. But 'tis no task for any incompetent animal, for although I could somewhat easily possess every one of them without so much as straining my mind, there is too little I can currently do to compensate for mortal weaknesses and lack of psionics. These whelps are not to be treated lightly… Yes…'tis a task I must undertake personally. When located, I shall lead them into a trap and then the Good Human shall have his whelps…Is my broadcaster still activated? No matter! Deactivate cranial broadcaster now."

And then it was silent. The robot floated out the door and it shut behind him with a hydraulic rush.

"So what are we gonna do?" Ricky asked.

"That's my line! I think my arm's working now and I'm sick of these shafts. Let's get out of here before we fall down a chute like we almost did five minutes ago."

"You're saying you want us to go into the computer room?"

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

A blast of air came from behind them.

"No," Ricky said over the noise, "A robot wants to get us and hand us over to some 'Good Human' whose probably in league with the Pigs and you want to go right into the central computer system? I think I'll start making the decisions again…"

"It's the last thing they'll expect!"

"That's because it's completely stupid!"

There was a short pause.

"Where else are we gonna go? They're probably investigating the vents right now thanks to you blasting up that room!"

"Okay…just this once."

Krause tried to carefully remove the vent cover with no success, so Ricky slid him the laser gun and Krause blasted the thing off. He lowered himself down onto a large piece of hardware, then helped Ricky do the same. No alarm that they could hear went off, so that was a good sign. Krause quietly considered trying to find their location and destination on the computer, but quickly realized that they were risking too much already. Ricky crept over to the door, opened it quietly and looked about. Beyond the little computer room was a natural passage lit by dim, crude lights. Two guards were walking their way, talking and laughing. Ricky shut the door but listened to their conversation.

"Boss says those kids we're after have somehow infiltrated our security and are a threat to the operation."

There was more laughter.

"Yeah, and I also heard one of 'em breathes fire and the other's killed two hundred pigs with a donkey's jawbone without breaking a sweat. I could take 'em with one hand behind my back!"

Ricky raised an eyebrow as one said they needed to report to the Burning Spring immediately and that they were wasting time by talking. Krause stood beside him with a wide grin. The guard spoke again.

"No, the orders said for me to specifically come alone. It's either something good or something bad. Wish me luck."

"Oh…uh…see you later then. Good luck!"

"Easier than falling out of bed, right?" Krause said.

"This is too good to be true…" Ricky replied. He opened the door cautiously and crept out, ducking into the shadows along the side with Krause close behind, laser gun drawn. They followed the lone guard through a series of turns that didn't seem very well guarded. Finally the guard stopped at a door, took a deep breath, opened it and walked through.

"Come on!" Ricky said to Krause. They ran across the passageway and stopped before the door.

"Wait a minute…do you think this is a trap?" Ricky asked, "If I heard you right in that shaft, that robot wants to lead us into a trap and get us."

Krause stopped where he was and adjusted the setting on his laser gun. "Maybe it is. But we've gone this far. I'll…go first, but if it turns out to be a trap, save my skin, okay?"

Ricky tried to smile as he nodded assent. Krause's heart was in his throat as he turned the handle and stepped into a round metal room with only the guard he saw enter moments ago against one wall, typing something into a keypad.

"Freeze!" Krause shouted, holding out his gun. Ricky came into the room right behind his brother and shut the door. The guard slowly turned his helmeted head.

"Get against the wall and I won't blow your brains out!" Krause continued. The guard suddenly flickered as if he were a fading mirage and a new image appeared that made the twins gasp. Before them floated the spider-like robot with the bloated brain.

"Easier than falling out of bed, right?" he perfectly imitated Krause's voice.

"Shut up!" Krause shouted, and he fired a blast at the mechanical fiend. The beam exploded on an invisible barrier about a foot away from his target.

"Enough of this idiocy!" the robot scoffed. Krause's gun flew from his hands, and in a dazzling light show released its ammunition while spinning in midair. The twins backed against the wall in a fearful silence as the robot drifted closer to them, waving its arachnid limbs mockingly.

"Perhaps the Good Human was correct in his assumptions that you really are just pathetic, minuscule whelps with powerful parents…but I do sense a degree of potential in one of you. It should be a favor to this world should I decide to kill you both right now, but I shall be court-martialed by my 'superiors' should I do so. However, it has come to my attention that one of you bears an artifact that piques my interests. Would you care to let me see it, Ricky?"

Ricky tried to back even further against the locked door when the robot floated closer to him, the vile juices its brain tank floating in churning and gurgling.

"Will the human whelp not speak? I am granting you an opportunity to willfully surrender your sound stone to me. You do not want me to control your mind and make you give it to me, do you?"

"You can pry it off of my cold, dead body, you creep," Ricky said. He held out his hand and said, "PK Fire!" A flash of flames roared from his outstretched fingers and engulfed the robot. The fiend let out a mechanical wail and was hurled to the ground. Krause grabbed the spent laser gun and dashed in to deliver a blow to the glass dome, but he was jerked off of his feet and sent flailing through the air and into the wall with a loud thud. The robot regained its composure, only slightly blackened and with a large crack in its brain tank where the now-steaming brain juices dripped out. Ricky drew his baseball bat, panting heavily and sweating.

"You…imbeciles! You shall meet your fates at my expense!"

Ricky was grimly ready to be torn into pieces or implode defending his quest, but instead his enemy flickered and vanished and there was an awkward silence for a moment. He walked over to Krause, who lolled his head when he asked him if he was okay.

"Nnuh…did you kill it?"

"I don't know. But I have a feeling we're gonna have to get out of here very quickly."

Suddenly the door flew open and in stormed a half a dozen guards with visors down and weapons set on eradication. They formed a circle around the twins.

"Don't anybody move!" one said.

"We have orders to kill you two at the drop of a hat, so listen up!" another added.

Krause groaned, scratched his head and stood up. The guards moved a step closer, putting the barrels just inches away from the twins' faces.

"What now?" Ricky whispered.

"Let me handle this," Krause whispered back.

"Come with us; and hurry! The Pigs are expecting a delivery."

Krause cleared his throat and lifted his head up. "Excuse me, mister, but do you really enjoy what you're doing?"

There was a silence in which the guards looked towards their leader, who had lifted his visor up. He drew a deep breath before answering.

"I hope you're not thinking that this is the only thing I ever do or that this makes me feel big or anything. I don't bark orders to people, point guns at others, then brag about my exploits at the bar with my pals when I'm off-duty like some officers I could mention. No, I'm actually just doing this to support my family back in Fourside," his lower lip began to quiver, "I wasn't any good as a businessman, a bakery manager or any of those odd jobs I had for about four years. I decided I was a physical man, but I'm non-competitive and Eagleland hasn't had an army in…twenty-eight years now? There weren't any bodyguard positions, so I decided to leave my family for awhile to search for my true self and I got picked up by this seedy guy who offered me decent cash for a lower-level officer work," he seemed to be stifling a sniffle. "And now here I am a year later with a $3800-per-month paycheck and pointing a gun at two little kids. I'm…sorry about all of this. Men, you're all dismissed. I think I need some time alone."

The officer lowered his visor and swiftly left the room. Ricky was staring at Krause with his jaw on the floor. The other guards slowly lowered their weapons and began to cautiously back away.

"How did you do that?" Ricky asked. A smug shrug was his answer.

Another guard stepped forward. "Now…come with us. We're gonna shoot dead you if you don't!"

The other guards didn't seem to be at all into what they were doing. The truth was, Krause hit the weak point of one of the most brutal officers in the base and the rest of the guards were feeling rather shocked and demoralized by it all.

"You guys make me sad!" the guard said to the rest of the team, "You all don't wanna be guinea pigs in Boss's 'researches', do you?"

To this the guards hesitantly aimed their guns at the twins. Ricky glared at Krause as the second-in-command stepped forward and grabbed him by the arms and handcuffed him.

"What does that look mean?" Krause asked as another guard carefully handcuffed him. They were stripped of their packs and hustled out of the room and down the corridor, making several turns that the Ricky made not of while Krause seemed to look deep in some fiendish plot to get them free. Finally, as the plaques on the walls indicated, they were approaching the barracks and detention blocks.

"Excuse me," Krause said, "I've been having to pee all day and I haven't gotten to because I've been infiltrating and saving my brother's skin and that doesn't leave much free time. So…"

"No!" the guard leading him barked.

"Okay then. I really have to go. So I could take off my shorts right here and pee on the floor or just go in my underwear. Either one would be disgusting and a mess to clean up. Besides, there's a bathroom right over there. Why not?"

They came to a halt and the second-in-command nodded reluctantly behind his chrome visor.

"But somebody guard the stall door. If he takes too long, get him out of there. We're on a tight schedule!"

Krause gave Ricky a wink that none of the guards caught and went inside. It was unlike any other public bathroom he had seen, mostly because it was clean due to the fact that minor mistakes were punished by cleaning the place with a toothbrush. Krause approached one of the stalls and went in, the guard right behind him with his back turned, but he was still handcuffed. Krause did his business, but while he did, he pulled out the bad key machine that he placed in his pocket and carefully began to activate it. He stalled for a few seconds and flushed the toilet to hide the click while he slipped off his handcuffs. Cautiously, he set the lid down and stood on top of it, ready to execute his plan. The guard flung the door open and unwittingly met Krause with arms free and flying towards him with a wicked grin. Krause executed a flying kick to the crotch and tackled his opponent with a thud and a high-pitched moan of agony that rang throughout the bathroom. Krause grabbed the laser gun and pointed it at the guard, who was trying to pull himself up.

"Don't even think about it, or I'll blast you," he said casually. Suddenly the door behind him burst open and two guards came through with weapons pointed at Krause. He ran behind the open stall door to dodge two blasts that left little smoldering holes in the wall. Thinking quick, Krause ducked around the door and fired at the fluorescent light above the guards, creating an explosion of glass and electricity that made the guards shoot wild. He fired again, this time at one of the guards who was reeling around in the confusion, who fell back against the wall with a smoldering hole in his lower breastplate. Then he realized what he had done. He hadn't ever killed another human being before, and before now the worst ethical thing he had done in terms of combat was knocking out a talking cobra with a frying pan. Krause had killed somebody, and he decided that he didn't like it very much. He quickly set his gun to stun right before a laser beam that pierced the stall door grazed his arm. He peeked around the door once again and fired twice, each shot missing its mark. Three more blasts through the door were dangerously close to him, so he dropped to the floor for a new strategy.

"Give up your weapon now and come peacefully and we won't turn you into Swiss cheese!" the officer's voice barked. From his position in the gap under the stall door, all but one of the remaining three guards were in the room and beginning to approach him. Krause's heart crawled even further up his throat when he realized his changes of survival in a shoot-out like this were slim to none, if he ran out of tricks in his sleeve.

"Come out now! You don't want us to come back there, do you?"

"You won't have to worry about that," Krause replied in the calmest voice he could manage. Then he took good aim and stunned the officer's foot.

"Kill that little illegitimate!" he shouted. The laser blared again and Krause jumped back from his position. The laser impact sent the door flying shut and Krause wide open. He took another shot at the immobile officer as he ran for the door, casting a sorrowful glance at the dying guard before leaving. He ran right into the guard not only restraining, but holding a gun to, Ricky. Krause paused for a moment; then he shot a stun beam at the guard's head and he fell limp.

"Krause!" Ricky exclaimed as he shook his stunned captor loose, "I was thinking you'd never get out there without being blasted out of orbit first!"
"Get them! Don't worry about me!" the leader's voice called from the bathroom. Krause quickly adjusted the gun and blew Ricky's handcuffs apart.

"Let me handle this guy!" Ricky told Krause. The last guard was behind the door. Ricky flung it open and slammed it against his foe, who staggered backwards. Ricky went in swinging and the guard finally fell.

"You…" the officer said. Ricky turned his head and the second-in-command was hopping away into a corner due to his lame foot. His gun made a strange noise when he tried firing it. His eyes grew wide with horror in realization that he was out of ammunition.

"I've got a few questions to ask," Ricky said. In response, the guard muttered something and reached for the side of his helmet.

"No, you're not calling for help as long as I'm here. We need to know the way to the Burning Spring and a quick way out."

The second-in-command raised his visor and grinned. "Too late. There's already at least fifty of us coming this way. It would be a waste to know that, because you won't live to get there."

"Listen up!" Krause barked, who had just entered, "We need answers. I'd be happy to stun every part of you that you don't need right now until I'm happy with what I hear."

The guard, humiliated at losing his nerve to a child, disclosed that to get to Burning Spring, they would have to go through the barracks and past another security gate. When at first he didn't disclose a way around it, he got both of his legs zapped. He revealed that there was a maintenance hallway that had been closed off in the main courtyard, but could be entered if they could climb over yellow tape. From Burning Spring, there was a natural shaft that went down and southwards that had a rumored connection to the old sewers in Fourside. Finally, when asked if he was telling the truth, he just smiled and Krause proceeded to have his arms shocked. He told them that it was the risk of interrogating somebody who hates your guts. Just for good measure, Krause shocked his head before they left the bathroom and reclaimed their packs to follow the information they had just received.

Meanwhile, the robot that had been defeated for the first time in nearly thirty Earth years brooded in his chambers, if they could be called chambers. It looked more to a human's eye like a big metal tube with lots of wires and blinking lights. But he brooded nonetheless.

"I gave up my feeble mortal form two centuries ago to ascend to a level of near-divinity. Yet alas! I am dependent on such things as technology to support me. I let my defenses down for long enough for my systems to be damaged. The juices I depend on…how they sear my mind! I have totally lost focus of my psionic abilities for the moment. I have feared this many a time, but I cast it all aside as foolishness. Ascension to perfection never meets perfection as the end result. However, I shall not accept this. I am the greatest mind the galaxy has seen, immortalized to carry out destiny…sent into retreat by a human whelp! The fool inhabitants of this pathetic asteroid of a planet shall not live a day in light until I have full retribution against those whelps. This I swear to the Good Human and myself. Long live the Pigs."

Another electronic shock went into the bloated brain and numbed it so further surgeries could be done.

CHAPTER 5 BEYOND THE CAVES

The hallway took a left turn and the twins came upon the living area of the staff and guards. It actually looked hospitable, with the large courtyard lit by a very long shaft that let the sun in and lined with shrubs and trees. Along a balcony at the top were tables where the cafeteria patrons could enjoy their food with each other, while the bottom floor was lined with doors leading to various quarters. Ricky and Krause might have stopped and rested on the benches for awhile if the place hadn't been swarming with guards getting ready to blast their butts out of the galaxy.

"Over there!" Ricky shouted, pointing to a narrow hallway while he ducked behind a bench. Ricky ran along, stooped over, while Krause took up the rear, shooting as much as possible with minimal accuracy. After several close calls, the twins finally reached the hallway. Krause fired a few shots at the entrance to deter any pursuit. Then Ricky turned around and gasped.

"Please don't shoot!" said the man standing behind him. He stepped further into the light and the twins recognized that the muscular, middle-aged man was the officer whose will had been broken by Krause. He still carried his laser gun, but he was clad in street clothes that looked much more comfortable than the armor.

"You gonna shoot us?" Krause asked.

The man blinked heavily. "What makes you think that? I've given my lifestyle a little thought and realized that no degree of militarism will ever truly satisfy me. You think that after inspiring me like that, I'd shoot you?"

A laser bolt exploded on the wall and the ex-officer motioned for the twins to hide in an alcove. They hastily followed his advice while the man held off the advancing guards.

"So what are you planning on doing for a living?" Krause asked. The man nailed a guard in the helmet and he ducked back into the cramped alcove to dodge oncoming fire.

"I'm going back to my family in Fourside," he said, firing around the corner and hitting a guard in the chest, "Then maybe I'll look to pursue," he shot another guard at point-blank range; his target reeled and let out a scream of agony, "A career in real estate perhaps."

"That sounds cool! Maybe you'll be the CEO of the Fourside Real Estate Agency someday," the man shot a guard in the arm and whipped him in the helmet with a bone-chilling crack, "and have a tower named after you."

"No," the man said, blasting yet another guard, "I never want to be in a position of that much power." Another guard bit the dust, "Because that much power is far too stressful for a simple man," he took several shots at a guard, finally hitting the target in the head, "such as myself."

"By the way, what can I call you?"

The man took another shot, shattering a light and spraying a shower of sparks down on a guard shooting at them. He then shot him thrice in the torso before answering. "Brandon, please."

"Nice meeting you. I'm Krause, and that's my brother Ricky."

The laser blasts finally stopped and smoke was everywhere. The sounds of many nearby footfalls told them that they wouldn't be safe for long.

"Thanks," said Ricky, "Listen, we're trying to get to the Burning Spring and then jet. Could you help us?"

"Of course. Follow me, you two, and try not to hurt yourselves."

Brandon loaded another ammo clip into his laser gun as they ran down the narrow passage lit here and there by bare light bulbs. After about a minute, they came upon an intersection and stopped.

"I thought you knew the way!" Krause shouted.

"Please don't shout!" replied Brandon. "It interrupts my thought process when people badger me like that!"

Suddenly the familiar sound of laserfire echoed nearby.

"This way!" Brandon said, pointing right. They began descending a steep staircase and Brandon took up the back. Ricky had his bat out now and Krause borrowed another ammo clip from Bandon's belt pouch and struggled to put it into the gun. The mood became very tense as their guide explained that he hadn't ever seen Burning Spring, but knew that it was guarded by more than humans or animals. After a long time, the stairs finally stopped and gave way to yet another hallway. But this was different from the drab hallways they had gotten used to previously, for it seemed that a strange kind of heat was radiating from the walls around them and a curious red glow illuminated the place despite the absence of lights. The group starting moving at a more cautious pace as the hallway widened and became increasingly warmer. Suddenly Brandon told everybody to stop for a moment.

"If it's okay with you," he said, "Could you tell me what the heck you two are doing in a place like this anyway? From what we heard from the Pigs, you two are terrorists seeking to dismantle their "righteous revolt" and continue human dominion over the world. If this is true, why are you infiltrating a secret psychic energy research facility instead of suicide bombing the PORK Fortress?"

Ricky shook his head. "Actually, it's more complicated than that. We might be terrorists to our enemies, but we're more like the Chosen Four all over again."

"The Chosen Four? Could you…elaborate?"

"Back in the nineties, there were four kids who saved the world from an alien invasion with the help of mystical powers and something called the Sound Stone, which Uncle Flint said had some ties to special places on Earth. That's pretty much all I've been told. What's weird is that now I have this stone and I have to get to four locations to gather enough strength to stop the Pig Threat. And Krause is helping me out."

Brandon sort of shrugged. "Good as any reason. Now if you really want to get there, we have to move before we get caught again."

As they trudged on through the intensifying heat and light, Ricky seemed to feel something strange inside of him that he hadn't felt before. It was a bit hard to describe, but it was a sense of feeling much stronger, yet utterly overwhelmed by an even greater force. At long last, the passage seemed to finally end at a large black door that, despite the temperature around them, was cool to the touch. The door lacked a very important thing, and that was a knob, handle or latch.

"What now?" said Krause.

Brandon cast his head down. "I forgot to tell you guys, but I now I remember that the doors leading into Burning Spring can only be opened from the CPU."

"Oh, now you tell us!" Ricky exclaimed, and suddenly the strange sensation he was experiencing left him like a fire meeting a pail of water. "Hear that, Krause? We have to go back to that computer room and open it from there! With any luck we won't be caught by guards or pigs or whatever else is in this place!"

"Don't have a cow, bro!" Krause snapped, "If you start panicking now, we'll all panic and we won't find a way through! Maybe a high-powered laser beam could break it. It worked before, right?"

Krause and Brandon began to bicker with each other while Ricky drew a deep breath, slung off his backpack, sat down and opened it in hopes of finding something useful. Right at the top sat what the adventure relied on, the Sound Stone. He hadn't gotten a look at it since Coal Town, and it was now quite different. In one of the circles around the carving of the Earth came a greenish glow and, even stranger, it emitted a strange melodic noise. Ricky blinked and slowly picked it up and the strange sensation returned, but this time it seemed stronger. He rose to his feet and held the Stone to the door. Krause said something, but Ricky didn't really hear him. The door began to shudder, then a mighty WHUMP was heard and it flew off its hinges and was hurtled to the smoking ground twenty feet below. Brandon caught Ricky just in time before he could be pulled in by the intense convection current.

"You'll never cease to scare the crap out of me, Ricky," said Krause.

Ricky grinned back and put the Sound Stone back in his pack as he slung it on. Somehow he knew what had happened. The Sanctuaries were essentially locations where the energy that we call psychic power surges stronger than usual. As to why this is, nobody really knows. Some theories speculate that a high concentration of a certain element, such as the gold in the Golden Tunnel or the sulfur in the Burning Spring emit a certain field of power that can be manipulated in certain ways. Some theories are even weirder. But Ricky knew that he had conquered a Sanctuary and another seemed within his grasp. Now if they could only solve the problem of descending a twenty-foot slope into a pool of smoldering sulfur without killing themselves.

"I'll go first," said Brandon, putting the gun at his belt, "You'll know whether or not I find a safe path."

Cautiously, he took a step onto a stone, braced himself against the slope and began to climb ever slowly towards the pool. There were quite a few close calls, but the only injury he suffered were to his palms, which blistered in the heat. Finally, he crawled onto a boulder near the bottom, turned to the twins, and smiled.

"Good job!" Krause said. "I'm next!"

"No," Ricky cut in, and Krause gave him a funny look, "It feels like the place is drawing me in…I'm going to answer it. Stay up here."

So Ricky got on all fours and began his crawl down into the slope. The feeling inside of him was now overwhelming and a sense of peace rolled over him. He hardly felt the rumbling that broke out all around him, but it was enough to get him to fall face-first into a rock and shake sense back into him. The whole crater was shaking violently as if in an earthquake and the pool of sulfur was spewing itself all over. Brandon was behind the boulder at the bottom, clutching his head and yelling for Ricky to get out of there. It reeked of rotten eggs more than ever.

"Ricky!" Krause shouted, "Get your butt out of there!"

Ricky drew his bat and began to scramble up the slope. About ten feet from the top, he turned his head and saw a large, misshapen mechanical thing rising from the sulfur. It appeared to stand tall on two leg-like metal pillars and have a box with a PORK Snout design built onto it that moved about like a turret. Thick, acrid smoke poured from everywhere there was an opening and a hose attached to the bottom of the thing wildly spewed a blazing inferno.

"Brandon! Get outta' there!" Ricky shouted. Brandon fired a laser blast at the behemoth of a machine and shouted something back, but it was lost in the raging fireball that he dodged by ducking back behind the boulder. Ricky kept on scrambling up the slope, grabbed Krause's outstretched arm and was finally pulled up, coughing in the smoke. The robot turned itself around and suddenly a concealed rocket battery opened up and unleashed its rockets at the twins. The ceiling above them exploded and came down where they would've been if Ricky and Krause hadn't hit the dirt with seconds to spare. After that, everything happened very quickly. Brandon struggled up the slope, firing crazily at the robot with little success while being shot at himself and taking one or two beams. Krause set his gun on the highest setting and fired a shot, which exploded a few feet away from the target in a flash and bang and knocked him backwards. Ricky did his best trying to hide behind rocks and find a place to possibly blast the fiend with a PK Fire.

"It blocked our retreat, didn't it?" Brandon shouted as he ducked behind a boulder next to Ricky. Ricky responded with a 'yeah' that was drowned out by a howling 'bling' noise coming from the robot. Ricky jumped over to Brandon, saw that he had a laser wound on his arm and quickly healed him with a PK Life-up.

"How are we gonna beat this thing?" Ricky shouted. Krause fired another blast that exploded against the armor and left a crater which sulfuric smoke poured from. Brandon tried to take a deep breath before responding, but he just ended up doing a lot of coughing.

"We can't do much."

Just as he said this, their foe seemed to falter for a moment as it was about to unleash a barrage of rockets at the boulder giving Ricky and Brandon cover. Deep in the labyrinth of the base, the bloated brain awoke in the middle of a surgery and had shut down the robot's systems. With its newly recovered psychic powers, it swiftly took control of the machine and commenced the assault. Before anybody could ponder why the thing had stopped shooting, twelve rockets sailed from batteries and hit the base of the crater. All at once, the walls began to collapse and take our intrepid heroes right with them. Ricky, Krause and Brandon screamed as they tumbled through the darkness, being beaten and bruised by debris and blinded by sulfur. They all agreed that this was a most uncomfortable adventure.

"Yes, it would appear by all accounts that both of the whelps are dead, Good Human," the robot said to the image on the screen, a shadow of a fat man's face. "Would you care to explain to you their demise?"

"You have failed me, Brain. I would eliminate you, but having a mind such as yourself on my side is a hard thing to replace. Just don't screw up again; do you understand?"

"Yes, Good Human. Long live the Pigs."

The robot scoffed to itself internally. Humans got themselves too caught up in personal agendas and desires to be capable decision-makers. They were too close-minded to see the bigger picture. He had hardly cared that the twins were presumably buried alive and no longer a threat to his plans, but he made a huge screaming deal about the fact that he hadn't the pleasure to kill them himself. He laughed internally once more when he realized that he had done the same sort of thing. All this thought took approximately 6 milliseconds.

The Good Human continued. "Just to prove your value, I would like you to mobilize a sizable force of whatever you can find in your area to move south, towards Fourside particularly. I am in preparation to launch a campaign massive enough to bring humanity to its knees. I have already captured Winterhaven and started the production of a new line of aircraft that will leave the pathetic populace too stunned to even wet themselves. All I need you to do is get as many troops as possible and wait for your orders. Shall I elaborate any further?"

"It shouldn't be necessary, Good Human."

"Okay. I have to go make a pre-campaign speech soon and I may be running a bit late. I can assume that there's enough in you yet for me to say 'thank you' in advance. Thank you."

The screen blanked out and the robot laughed again, but this time out loud. It was a horrible grating sound that would make any mortal's spine go numb. The Good Human deemed him unworthy of tasks that would he better suited to its intelligence level. If he would not get the respect he deserved as a most trusted general, he just had to laugh and plot even further.

Brandon moaned and twitched his arm slightly. It was still dark, and he felt as if he were being crushed by a great weight, which he was. Slowly, he pulled himself out from underneath a pile of debris and flopped down on the moist floor.

"Brandon?" Krause's voice said from nearby. He turned his head and saw Krause sitting on a boulder above him in the light of the flashlight he held.

"Right, that's my name…I think. How long have we been down here?"

Krause shrugged. "I just got up a couple of minutes ago. I was on top of all the rubble, so I didn't get as much of a beating as Ricky, but my head feels like it's gonna be split in half."

"Ricky? Where is he?"

Krause paused for a moment. "Over here. He's still unconscious and I don't know much about first aid, but it looks like he got busted up pretty wicked."

Brandon struggled to his feet and limped over to Krause. The fall threw his left leg a bit out of its normal position, but he managed to keep his balance until he actually saw Ricky. His pale head was propped up against a rock and a small stream of blood ran out of his open mouth, where a hoarse breathing noise was heard. Brandon bent over his body and waved his hand.
Ricky groaned and cringed. "Ow…"

"Ricky!"
"Where are…we? Ow! Ugh! Pain!"

Brandon pulled himself to his good foot. "Don't worry about a thing, kid. The worst is only behind us. Better in a damp cave than facing that robot, right?"

"Oh crap!" Ricky exclaimed. He pushed Krause away, bolted upright, grabbed his brother's flashlight and shone it towards the rubble. "Crap! We need to get back there!"

Ricky set the flashlight down and started to move the stones away until suddenly he painfully remembered that he had been beaten and bruised and stopped.

"I was so close…" he lamented, then he turned to the other two and raised his voice. "Are you just gonna sit there and stare at me? We need to save the world!"

"Okay, now's not the time to have a cow, bro," Krause said, "If you can't remember, we were blasted out by that robot up there, survived a giant cave-in and now we're probably at least a hundred feet below Burning Spring. We can't dig our way of there."

"I have to save the world!" Ricky retorted, his voice cracking into a cough. With that, he fell back onto his knees and took several deep breaths. "But a good drink would hit the spot right now…"

The twins ate while Brandon, despite his bad leg, volunteered to scout ahead. An hour later, Ricky was feeling good enough to stand without shaking all over and Brandon had returned with the best news they had heard all day. The cave led towards what looked like an old, dried-out sewer tunnel. Krause had lost his gun during the fall, but Brandon's seemed serviceable, so if they ran into any trouble, they wouldn't have to worry about much. While they followed Brandon through the darkness, Ricky felt lower and lower in spirits. There was no way to turn around and reach the Sanctuary now, unless maybe if they had a bulldozer with a turret gun on top to dig through the rubble and kill the robot respectively. Sadly, nobody in their group normally carried these on their person and all seemed lost. The others would never understand how he felt then. Although he had failed to reach a sanctuary and gain more of the power to destroy their enemy, something in the back of his brain game him a sense of slight hope. He decided that having a small amount of optimism was better than being sickeningly melodramatic and dwelled on that glimmer of hope for the rest of the day. Their progress was slow and they camped out in an old sewer tunnel after about an hour and a half of trekking.

The next day, Krause let out a whoop of joy when he saw light other than his dimming flashlight. A few iron rungs led up to a manhole that was leaking out bright light around the edges. Brandon climbed up the rungs carefully, gave it several shakes, said screw it, and blasted the heck out of it. With Krause bracing his bad leg from below, he heaved the cover up and off, then climbed up into the middle of a small, unkempt public bathroom. But the air smelled as fresh as any mountain air and they barely heard the Hispanic man at the urinal scream something at them in Spanish. Krause smiled apologetically at the angry Spaniard and tossed him a quarter before they all walked out the door. To their mild surprise, they were standing behind a bar in a darkened café. This wasn't nearly as surprising as the man standing on a table in the middle and giving what sounded like a rallying speech in a voice that Ricky and Krause knew. Nobody seemed to notice their presence, so Krause walked up to a woman listening to the man and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Um…'scuse me ma'am, do you know who that is?"

"Quiet! I'm trying to listen to what he has to say!" she snapped back softly. "And for heaven's sake, boy! Take a bath! You're downright filthy."

Krause rolled, then widened his eyes in indignation and surprise, respectively. "Hey, Ricky? Doesn't that guy up there look familiar?"

The young man turned towards them as he explained that he had faced the likes of pigs in the recent past and stopped. It dawned in both of their brains that the speaker was none other than the Espeon with a whip at his belt, albeit unshaven and wearing more comfortable-looking street clothes as well as a pistol.

"'Lo, Espeon," Ricky said with a grin.

Espeon turned to the little crowd, a surprised smile spreading on his weary face. "Sorry, but I just saw two friends of mine that I told you were dead."