(-is zombiefied-) O.O

Alphonse Elric: Uhhh… (-pokes-)

KINGDOM HEARTS HAS STOLEN MY SOUL!!!!!!

Al: EEEK! (-runs away-)

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"Mew!" A cat rushed into the throne room of Vulfhild, mewing ferverently. Vulfhild seemed to be alarmed by the mews.

"What?! They're coming?"

"Mew!"

"…It seems we must beef up defenses. Give the order!" Vulfhild shoved a note at the cat, which took it in its mouth and scampered off. "They came from Ide faster then I expected." She glanced around the room, a nervous gesture, but stopped when she noticed Lyon no longer under cat torture, and boredly carving into the wall 'LYON WAS HERE'. "…Well, you're no use. Let's just hope the door guards stall them."

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"…So then the window broke, and what explanation does Eph give? That I fell through it! Can you believe that?" Eirika recounted. "I mean, really. It wasn't my fault that he couldn't reach the cookies when he was seven!"

Nobody was listening.

"Hello? Hellooooooo…."

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

"Huh?" Eirika looked around, confused. "Who was that?"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" A pink haired girl crashed through the party, crying buckets. "WAAAAAAAAHHHH! WAAAAAAHHHH!" She finally shut up after crashing into Gilliam, who promptly toppled over, top heavy. "Ah. That was a nice cry! Now, where…am…I?" The girl looked around at the bowled over army nervously.

Eirika was the first up. "What the HELL is wrong with you, lady?!?"

"…Look, please, help me here! My village was razed by bandits, and they took my mirror, and then my friend Colm went to steal it back from them! So I'm looking for him—he should be at the bandit's base, I can lead you there—and then I was walking, and a horde of cats and some dude on a big-ass wyvern came out of nowhere and started attacking! I shot at the wyvern rider, and ran from the cats for fifty miles until I got to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, and asked for help! No one would hear my tale, so I sat down and looked at the menu, but then I got a paper cut and I ran out crying! So, uh…do you have a bandaid?"

There was the sound of crickets chirping. "…Anyone?" Even the crickets silenced. "…The game programmers want me to join your group anyway…so will you raid the bandit base? Maybe I'll start crying again and run them all over…."

"S-sure…yeah, okay. Sounds like you use a bow. That's good. I'm Eirika, and these are my gophers," Eirika said at last.

"GOPHERS?!" The rest of the army exploded.

"And I'm Neimi!" The pink haired girl chirped. "The bandit base is this way."

And suddenly, Franz's horse tripped on a rock, sending the cavalier flying.

"Don't die, Franz!" Seth called from the safety of his horse. Franz groaned and pulled himself up before mounting.

And thus the party traveled onward, the Lord of the Rings theme blaring in the background.

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"Borgo Ridge…Bazba's Bandits, now led by Vulfhild the Crazy Cat Lady. Our target is sighted." The speaker, a woman of about nineteen years, with the lower half of a snake, was looking through binoculars. Her olive brown skin and hair screamed peculiarity, and when she lowered the binoculars, her emerald eyes surveyed the area in front of her. Despite looking so odd, she was quite attractive.

"And that's where the Bish is," said another. This other was but a ferret with a shiny silver coat, standing upright. "Not to mention Num. Alright, we bust them out and run. Got it?"

"Ma'am! For the glory of all things…uhh…something!" The Gorgon saluted.

"Alright Ai, we attack in five seconds!"

"Yes Silver Ferret Ma'am!"

Five seconds passed in absolute silence. "…NOW!"

They screamed a battlecry and charged.

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"WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

"For the love of—what is it now, dammit?!" Eirika was pissy, needless to say.

"Th-they have…sniff…DOOR GUARDS! WAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"So? Seth, kill 'em."

"Right away, Milady!" Seth readied his lance and spurred his horse…but was quickly stopped by a barrier. "Hey! We can't touch them!"

"Nope. You can't," said one of the two door guards with spiky brown hair.

The other, a blondie, sighed. "Look, we're supposed to tell you some stupid riddle. Can we get it over with?"

"Riddle?" Eirika looked at them quizzically. "Not in the mood. Franz! Maybe you'll have more luck than General Meathead here. Get 'em!"

"Yes Milady!" Franz charged, but he and his horse crumpled into a heap when they hit the barrier. "…Ow…."

"Don't die, Franz," The blonde guard muttered through his hand.

Eirika stepped back. "Okay…fine. What's the riddle?"

"Well," the one with the safety hazard hair began, "see these two entrances behind us?"

"Yeah. And they probably both go to the same place."

"Well, the same building, yes, but different areas. One leads to the main floor, where the battle is supposed to take place, but the other leads to a Bottomless Pit of Doom!"

"Huh."

"Now, see, without walking through, you must guess which one. But, because we're nice—"

"You mean you're nice," the blonde butted in.

"—We'll give you a bit of a chance. See, you may ask one question. One of us tells the truth, and the other lies. You must use our answer to help you guess the correct entrance."

The army huddled up to decide on their question. "Okay, any ideas, all?" Eirika inquired.

"Oooh! Ooooh! Milady! I know!" Seth hooted. "See, I've heard this riddle before. Except different context. This boy was walking down a road, when the road split. Down one way was a village full of people who told the truth, and down the other way was a village of people who told lies. The boy wanted to get to the truthtellers' village, but there was no sign, only a man at the crossroads. So the boy said, 'Take me to your village.' That way, if the man told the truth, he'd get to the truthtellers' village, and if he lied, he'd wind up there anyway!"

"Seth, there's two—" Eirika couldn't stop the meathead as he approached the door guards.

"May you take me down the path you represent?" Seth asked.

The two door guards looked at him quizzically.

"…Seth? There's two of them. The one person thing won't work." Eirika moaned through a hand.

"Ah, but Milady! If anyone had played Kingdom Hearts, they would recognize these two as Sora…" Seth pointed to the spiky haired one, "…and Roxas." He finished with a gesture toward the blonde. "And they would know that they are the same person!"

"Yeah. So? Right now we count as two." Sora shrugged.

Eirika moaned again. "You blew our question, Seth."

"So…guess," Roxas challenged. "Which way? You've got five seconds."

"What?!" Eirika exploded. "FIVE seconds?! That's not even enough time to—"

"Time's up. You gotta die now," said Roxas casually. "But we have to ask another riddle to determine which one of us kills you."

Eirika groaned for the fiftieth time. "Oh, floop. Fine. What is it?"

"Pretty simple," Sora began. "You make a statement. If it's true, I'll kill you, and if it's false, Roxas will."

Then, out of the blue, Eirika smiled calmly, and even chuckled a little. "Silly boy, of course I've read Deltora Quest!" At the cameos' confused looks, she continued: "My statement is…that Roxas will kill me."

The party/group/army puzzled for a moment, before they got it. "Oh, I see!" said Seth, taking on the role of Captain Obvious. "See, if Roxas kills her, that would make her statement true, so Sora would have to kill her. But then she'd already be dead. On the other hand, if Sora killed her, the statement would be false, meaning that Roxas would have to kill her, but again, she'd already be dead. They can't touch her!"

Sora and Roxas exchanged a glance and doubled over laughing. "Hahaha! They think she's safe!"

"But…according to Deltora Quest…." Eirika trailed off.

"Yeah, but you forgot you're dealing with two of us here," Roxas reminded. "So we could both kill you."

"…Oh…shit…."

They were lazily getting up and stretching when suddenly they disappeared.

"Ummmm," said Eirika. Nothing happened. Nothing continued to happen. "What the…?"

"…Maybe their cameo time was up," Franz guessed.

Seth randomly scratched his ear before calling up, "Don't die, Franz!"

"…General? I am sitting on my horse, doing absolutely nothing. How am I going to die?"

"Don't die, Franz!"

"You people have been saying that this whole chapter! Do you enjoy torturing me?"

"Yep. Don't die, Franz!"

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"Their cameo time expired?!" Vulfhild roared. "It isn't safe for me here anymore. Come, my cats! We must retreat! Set someone else on the throne, so that the idiot heroic group thinks it's me!"

"Mew!" said the cats, dragging out by the teeth a befuddled teenager with blue hair and plopping him on the throne.

"Mmm, yes, that thief that was sneaking around. He'll do nicely. And your name, unfortunate fool?"

The boy glared. "Why should I tell you?"

"Because as of now, I can't think of any way to use the knowledge of your name against you."

"…Colm."

"Well, nice knowing you, Colm. Now prepare to be massacred by heroes. Oh, and watch the necromancer there." Vulfhild and her cats retreated.

Colm sighed and rested his head in his hand. "Alright. Who exactly are you?"

"...Lyon. Why?" Lyon groggily opened one eye. Apparently he'd dozed off.

"Like, the necromancer Lyon? The one we fight in the Black Temple with the crush on Eirika and—"

"YES THE SAME ONE!"

The wall exploded into bits without warning, and Lyon fell. Well, of course he fell. He had been chained to a wall, and that wall no longer existed. Out of the entranceway made by the explosion, a Gorgon and a Ferret peeked in.

"MOM!" The Authoress cried from upstairs. "What the HELL are you doing?! The heroes haven't entered the building yet!" Then she descended the stairs, purple and turquoise ankle-length hair swaying softly as if caught in a nonexistent breeze. Her dress billowed, her pale skin shone…and she was clearly pleased that the sound akin to a nuclear explosion was not her mother's doing, but her friend the Ferret and a disgruntled Gorgon. "Oh, hey SF!"

"Hello, Annoying One." Silver Ferret sighed. "Where's the Bish?"

"Under your feet."

"He's in the basement?" The ferret wondered aloud, and was answered by a muffled groan. "Oh! Lyon-chan!" With amazing strength for a ferret, she pulled the poor smashed Necromancer from the rubble.

Ai—the Gorgon, in case you forgot—slithered in front of Lyon. "Hail, Prince. I'm Ai, your minion for this fanfic."

Lyon blinked. "Ai…oh, geez. Don't tell me your last name is Shiteru," he groaned.

"We don't have time," Num butted in. "Let's get this guy back to his temple."

"What about the guy on the throne?" SF asked.

"Colm is supposed to join the Merry Gang of Idiots, if you would recall."

"Ah."

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Once the main party had made it to the actual battleground, things went a lot easier. Franz almost died three times, a bandit ricocheted off of Gilliam into a wall, and Ross missed another bandit, cleaving a dog in two. Still, all was well as they massacred countless bandits, even so much as at a casual pace (in Eirika's case). They reached the throne room without much incident, though having read the ASG (Almighty Strategy Guide), Eirika was baffled as to why Colm didn't appear where he was supposed to.

When they entered the throne room, she was relieved of her worry. Then she became annoyed, as did everyone else, by the sheer amount of crying Neimi suddenly engaged in.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Colm! I…I was so scared for you! I missed you! I was worried! What are you doing in the throne room? Why? Did you steal all the stuff you were supposed to? Is that my mirror? Oh, thank you Colm! And everything else, too! Oh, you're such a good thief, you! Best one I know! No wonder I had trouble finding you! See, first when I went searching, I got attacked by a wyvern rider and a bunch of cats! The wyvern rider flew off after I shot at him, but I only lost the cats after running fifty miles to a resteraunt in the middle of nowhere! So while I was there, I sat down to look at the menu, but then I got a papercut, and ran out screaming! I kept going until I bowled over Gilliam there, and then I joined Eirika's army! Oh, that's Eirika, by the way. She can be real pissy. Like PMS."

"I'm RIGHT HERE, you know," Eirika growled, turning back to kicking the rubble of the blown up wall. Then she stopped cold. All the others looked and froze as well. Neimi quieted. Gilliam stopped rhyming. Seth refrained from telling Franz not to die. Garcia paused in his drink. Ross froze midmotion in running away from Vanessa's Pegasus, which had somehow acquired a Devil Axe. The Pegasus had also halted. Moulder quit looking at his Playboy magazine.

They were all staring at the one piece of wall Eirika had flipped over with her foot.

It read: "LYON WUZ ERE."

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…This took longer than expected.

Al: Meaning you were lazy.

Well…yeah. (-sweatdrop-)

Edward Elric: (-bursts through wall-) How many times do I have to tell you to STOP KIDNAPPING MY LITTLE BROTHER?!

Oh, shut up and get back to Grado. I think Eph needs you to kill something.