Slowly, a dark figure emerged from the shadows, lit only by the pale, dim light of the bulky rectangular object she clutched in her hands. Closer she came, stalking her prey, movements getting faster and faster as though remembering what movement used to feel like, way back when it was a common thing for her, closer and closer, till at last she was close enough to pounce-!

HI GUYS! I'm putting up another chapter! Wanna read?

Not a long chapter, but enough to gain the story a little momentum again. Enjoy!


Chaotic Friday

This tunnel went on for much longer than Tom had anticipated, with many more turns and twists than he could keep track of. He'd gotten lost three times over before he noticed the markings on the wall, discreetly pointing the correct turns to take at each junction.

Takinom had come to gather him an hour ago, and after some last-minute prepping they had gone on their way through a secret passage in Chaor's room to enter these tunnels. Just when it began to seem like they would never get there, the tunnel suddenly opened up into a large room. There was an area halfway across the room (probably a football field away) that was green and beautiful, a garden of sorts. And far off in the corner sat a little hut. This was is. This was the destination Takinom had told him about. And despite all the prepping she had given him, the tips and instructions on what was going to happen here, the whole sight of it still shocked him. The whole idea about what this place meant for the Underworld leader, about the mysteries and torments it had solved for him and the questions and sleepless nights it had created for him as well, began to overwhelm Tom once again. This was incredible. Unbelievable. And here he was, about to witness perhaps the greatest secret Chaor had…

From across the chamber, the door to the hut opened.


"Sooooooooo… You guys know any good jokes?"

Maxxor and Chaor looked incredulously at Peyton. "What? It's a fair question. Here, I got one to get 'cha started: Why didn't the skeleton ask the ghost on a date? ...No guesses? Not a one? Ok, ok, I'll tell ya; 'Cause he didn't have the guts! Ha, get it, the guts!"

The two creatures repeated in their heads their individual mantras of how it would be bad to stuff a shoe in the boy's mouth. Or a fist, in the case of Chaor's alternate mental mantra. Or another double cheeseburger, by Maxxor's second choice.

"Ooh, ooh, here's a favorite: Why do elephants paint their toenails red?"

Maxxor sighed and put his head in his hand. Chaor raised an eyebrow. "What on Perim is an elephant?"

Maxxor gave in to the inevitable. "Why, Peyton?"

"So they can hide in cherry trees! Ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree?" Once more the faces of his two friends just stared at him. He took that as his expected answer of no. "Well, see how good it works? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, yeah… Oh, man, that one's brilliant. Every time. Hey, I got another one..."

Luckily Sarah was walking back then, stopping the floodgates of bad jokes from opening any wider. She sat down with an unhappy look on her face. "Bad news guys," she said, placing the two busted scanners on the table. "Everyone who could fix these are busy with everyone else who was playing at the time, which was a lot of people, apparently. And they're gonna want some incentive to do it. One guy wants a Maxxor scan, ironically enough. But one better than Tom's."

"Then we'll give it to him," Maxxor consented immediately. "Tell him to meet us in three day's time, and he'll have his scan. With my battle armor, if that helps him consent."

"Yeah, cute, and he's gonna believe we have the power to tell Maxxor when to be where, how? He said it 'cause he knows we don't have it. These guys aren't gonna help us out till their sales wear down a bit. Which could be quite a while."

"How long is quite a while?" Chaor asked stiffly. It was clear he was daring her to give a long estimate, for the universe to even try and suggest that he spend even an hour longer here.

"Probably… my best guess… a few days."

Everyone was silent as they waited for the explosion and the snapping remarks to begin streaming from Tom's mouth. Chaor slowly rose from his seat, and Kaz's posture suggested Maxxor was preparing to take down the bigger figure if needed. Chaor clenched his fists. Then released them. And walked away from the table.

Everyone else was frozen. "…Did big, red, anger-management issues just walk away from an opportunity to break my ear drums?" Peyton was the first to break the silence.

"I think so," Sarah replied. She started to stand up, but Maxxor stopped her.

"Let him go. There is… much more than we understand happening here. I suspect tonight there is something vital he is absent from, and now he fears further absences."

"Vital?" Sarah scrunched her nose. "What, some big important series of Underworld councils?"

"Perhaps," Maxxor said. "But I suspect something much more personal than that."

"Wait, whoa there, your mortal enemy is having an emotional breakdown?" Peyton waved his hands through the air. "One: Chaor? Gettin' teary-eyed? No comprendo, amigo. Dos: Hello? Mortal enemy? What's with the pity party? And three: Remind me again why it's a good idea to let him wander around without a babysitter?"

"Don't question me, Peyton. Just leave him be," Maxxor said firmly, using his "obey me or else" stare. However, he knew the boy's questions were valid. Why did he feel such a respect and pity towards Chaor's apparent heartache, whatever it might be? And what sort of trauma in the Underworld leader's life could possibly bring such a creature to a state such as this?


Tom gulped and tried to keep from staring across the crackling fire at the figure turning the spit. Takinom was talking, trying again to communicate and hardly getting anywhere, as was usual for these visits, apparently. Her words were clumsily copied by the figure, who would always add a flourish of hands to emphasize the words after they had been repeated. The gift of meat they had brought sizzled and smelled wonderful after having been seasoned with the fresh herbs, but Tom could hardly think about the food. He found himself staring again, the figure across the flames pretending not to notice. He felt Takinom's disapproval and could hear her threats already. But how could he keep from staring? Seriously. Three-fourths of all the creatures of Perim would pay steep prices to be where he was now, to know what he now knew. And the other fourth wouldn't be too opposed to the paying the price either.

The spit continued turning, and as it did the cook looked into Tom's (well, Chaor's) eyes. The horns on her head were too obvious to ignore, the tint of her skin too blatant to dispute. Her figure and eyes were not as evident, but that only impressed the point further, and Tom was once again struck by how deep they went, how intelligent and yet how innocent they were. Not for the first time, he forced himself to slow his heart and keep his cool. Because who wouldn't be sitting here, jaw on the floor at this point?

He was about to have dinner with Chaor's daughter.


Wow, lots of feelings and stuff in this chapter, right? And bad jokes. So I'm curious, did anybody guess what Chaor's secret was? Any guesses as to what Maxxor's secret is?

If you think you know, send me a pm! And if anyone guesses Maxxor's secret right, I'll send you the little back-story I wrote with more info than what's gonna be put in this story, for Chaor's and Maxxor's stories behind their secrets!

That's right, the secrets behind the secrets! With little secret cubby-holes for secret notes filled with secret secrets...and secret secret secrets with secrets made up of secrets... all secreted away in secrets told only in secret... secet secrets... the word secret doesn't look right after you secretly type it too many secret times... Anyways, it'll probably be a good two chapters before we get to Maxxor's secr- ...er, his untold tale, so you've got a fighting chance! I'll tell you when the window of opportunity is closing, don't worry about it. And keep writing, all of you! Whenever I see a new review, I love jumping online to read the stories you've written yourself. I LOVE them. Devour them, really. I'm a nerd. But here you are, still reading me as I babble on, which means it's probably not just me, and I'm not alone in the universe after all. So... thanks for that too. Yup. It's pretty nice of you to still be reading my blabbing, because I'm really not saying anything anymore. Well, not anything important. But how can we really judge what's important and what's not anyways? I mean, somewhere in all of this fine print I might be about to give away one of those secrets I was writing about earlier. Drat, that word still looks wrong. Am I spelling it wrong? I don't think so, but I've just looked at it for so long that I can't help but think, "Man, there has got to be a better way to spell that word. 'Cause this way is starting to seem a bit ridiculous." But, back to what you're thinking. You're probably reading this thinking I have something I'm trying to convey, or perhaps that I'm about let something important slip, because surely there's a point to me writing all of this, because how could someone who is also a fan of Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes not have a point behind a long string of babble that would only make sense at the end of the seemingly random thoughts, with a clencher of a spell-binding single sentence that creates an effect like pulling together the drawstrings of a sack after carefully stringing the laces through the correct holes and dropping little tidbits into the pouch? There has got to be something at the end of such a list of words and ideas, something that could be beneficial to you, to your curiosity, something to console the fact that you have already read so much of it. I might be about to reward you for your dilligence in carefully absorbing each of my words with something those other poor souls with no patience will never get to enjoy. You could be about to become the next most knowledgable person in the entire country, whatever country yours might be. You could be about to become a millionaire because you know what no one else does. You could be about to find the answer to life itself. There is no telling what this could all be building up to, what sort of magnficent treasure awaits you at the end of this paragraph! Nothing can quench your need for that knowledge, nothing can stand in the way of your determination to take in every last word!

...So... later guys!