Today's reality check is brought to you by...the hole in my head. Yep. They took a piece of my head out! Don't worry, I'm doing fine in the banana pudding state of health, but it makes me say 'man' all the time, man.

ROOC-Read or Die
"Bonjour! Err-bee here with your ROOCDT for today," Urby piped.
"Madame Colette?" Urby gestured to the Colette Beastial, who was completely decked in black.
"...So, what do I do?"
"Lisez!" Urby pointed to a sign reading "Royally OOC Disclaimer Theater".
The Gothic Colette paused.
"Roses are red
Violence is bloody
Urby owns nothing
This poem is really cruddy," she struck a pose boredly.
"Merci!" Urby leaped and did a dance. "Finalement!"
"Uh, thanks, I'm here all week," Colette coughed.
"ZEE END!" Urby screamed, the sooner as this was over, the sooner she could get out of the French suit-geez it was hot.

"Wheee! We almost dieeeeeeed!" Sheryl squealed, and gasped at the random ladybug that whizzed by.

"And...you're happy?" Kratos sighed, shaking his head. Hey, he's human again! Everyone clap.

"My life flashed before my eyes and I finally learned the truth about the Fluffy incident," she whispered to him.

"Fluffy...Incident?" Kratos muttered.

"It's a really long story. I think I'd zone out in the middle," Sheryl said rather honestly.

"Let's go to Palmacosta!" Lynn pointed to the sky and missed by a few inches. She needs to get her sight checked...

"I'll come with you," Neil announced, "since I wanna know why my boss is acting so weird."

"Shore," the group said in eerie unison, and they all danced off into the sunset accompanied by various sickeningly cute animals and everyone was happy and there were rainbows every day.

Just kidding, but wouldn't it be freaky if that happened?

"Auuuuurgh...the happiness...the goodness...it pains me..." Runic hacked, twitching on the ground and bleeding.

"Jeez, that even scared me," Kratos shivered a bit.

"Saaaaave meeeee..."

"Okay, we'll just walk like we always do..." Lloyd began trekking. Fortunately, no rainbows or any other shmuck.

"I'll...I'll...I'll say please!"

"What was that?" Raine bent over to hear the writhing Dark Elf better.

"You...insolent...wretch! I'm dying here!"

"Oh. How very nice," Raine walked away.

"Someone help me, dammit!"

Sheryl boinked him a healing spell. What, you didn't know she was a healer? Well, you do now. Oh yeah, just in case I forget, she uses a whip too. Just so you know.

Yeah, so they're at Palmacosta now. Just so you know.

"There's no one here," Genis remarked as they entered the government building.

Colette turned, gasping softly. "Shhh! I hear voices from downstairs."

"You sure?" Lynn scratched an ear.

"Let's go!" Sheryl was bouncing off the walls. "I wanna get on with the storyline! And maybe some creampuffs too..."

So they went downstairs, where Dorr, his daughter, and a Desian where conversing in a rather gloomy dungeon. Although I've never seen a cheery dungeon myself, so maybe that's redundant.

"When will my wife, I mean, Clara, return to her original form?" Dorr demanded.

"When you pay up," the Desian sneered, leaning back.

"I've given all I can!" Dorr wailed. "The donations, offerings to the Church of Martel, the municipal taxes…I've squeezed money out of everywhere I can!"

"Awww, too bad," the Desian coughed a bit and lit a cigarette. "Maybe we'll remove the Demon Seed from your wife after you cough up more." He left, laughing and wheezing. Moral: Don't smoke, kids, it turns you into evil Desians.

"Daddy..." the child tugged at Dorr's pants.

"Soon, Kilia, soon." He reassured the worried kid.

"Hey!" Lloyd made a grand entrance, with the others of course. But he's the main character, so we focus on him.

Dorr gasped, blanching.

"What's the matter? You look like you saw a ghost," Lloyd sniggered.

"Really?" Lynn gave Lloyd a mirror. "Hold up, I'm setting this thing up." She poked a small watering can she placed in front of Lloyd. "Okay! I Confine...uh, how 'bout...Ash?"

There was a flash of light, and a kinda lanky blue-haired phantom boy with a rather large scarf popped out. He wasn't anything special, but it gave the others quite a spook.

"What? Where am I? And where's Marona?" Ash cried, floating around and nearly yanking his hair out.

"Chill," Lynn held up her hand. "You're not on Phantom Isle anymore."

"Then where am I?" Ash wailed. "Marona was stuck in a huge Random Dungeon and she's going to get a Game Over if I don't go there quick! I was the last Phantom alive!"

"Egads! That's really bad!" Lynn gasped, the only one having a clue what the heck he was talking about. "Uh...mess around until you run out of turns? How long do you stay Confined again?"

"Five turns!" Ash was now going through people and nearly screaming his head off. "Marona's not going to survive five turns! It was a Desperate floor!"

"Holy crap!" Lynn yelped. "But...doesn't she have Return?"

"Oh. Yeah. Yes she does," Ash floated calmly. "I guess I can mess around until she uses it," he mused, picking up a box and floating around. "Whoo, I've equipped a crate!"

Then he vanished with a different light show.

Everyone (except Lynn) gave an audible shiver. Having a worried Phantom pass through your gut is not an experience to forget.

"Oh. Okay, so that's what it looks like. Dorr didn't quite look that way," Lloyd examined himself in the mirror. Hey, kids! Point to whomever can guess where Ash comes from! And I can tell you right now, it's not Pokemon!

"Why are you doing this?" Lloyd recovered, tossing the mirror away. Eeek, it broke-seven years of bad luck for you!

Dorr sighed, gritting his teeth. "My father, the original Governor-General, was soft. The Desians killed him, and planted the Demon Seed in my wife as a warning." he walked over to a cell covered by a cloth sheet.

"See what has become of my wife, Clara!"

Everyone gasped. I mean, there were even exclamation points. That meant it was serious, man.

Genis whimpered and hid behind his sister's leg. "Wh...what's that monster?"

The thing in question was a horrible-looking...well, fiend, since I can't call her a monster. Rather looked like Marble when you looked at it. Lynn shivered and hid in Runic's sack again.

"She's...crying...she's crying out in pain. You mustn't call her a monster," Colette said softly.

"Neil! What are you doing here?" Dorr demanded, having found the dood.

"I just want to know why you're doing this!" Neil stepped forward.

"You betrayed me!" Dorr growled.

"You betrayed the people!" Lloyd pointed accusingly.

"Be quiet, boy! What do you know about the meaning of justice?" Dorr lashed out.

"Don't even think about spewing the word 'justice'! I hate that word!" Lloyd yelled.

"So do I," Runic said meekly, playing with his hair. "I also hate the words love, happiness, and good..."

"Why didn't you just give up your position as Governor-General to search for help? You're just a coward who couldn't give up his social status for his wife!" Lloyd spat.

"Lloyd, stop!" Colette intervened, grabbing his arm.

"Colette...!" he turned, wincing. Her grip was rather brutal.

"Why don't we look for the medicine? I'm sure we could find it," Colette offered gently.

"You'd...do that...for me?" Dorr perked up a bit.

"It's my job to help everyone as Chosen, right?" Colette smiled. "There's a little bit of Martel in each of us. Just believe."

"That's a laugh!" Kilia interrupted. She gave Dorr an alarmingly powerful blow. "The goddess Martel would never help such a pack of rats!"

"You!" Sheryl pointed. "Go apologize to your dad right this instant!"

"Dad? I would never have a fool of a father like him!" Kilia laughed airily, transforming into something worthy of being called a monster. You know how she looks like. If you don't, go play the game because it's awesome and you should anyway.

"I am a servant of Pronyma, one of the five Desian Grand Cardinals. I was simply here to observe the new cultivating technique produced by Lord Magnius." Kilia laughed. She kicked Dorr's limp body with disgust. "That fool was too busy looking for a cure that doesn't exist to save his monster wife that he didn't realize that his daughter was dead. It makes me laugh!" and laugh she did.

"You...vile thing!" Sheryl jabbed a finger at her. "I'll...I'll think of something worse to call you later!"

So yeah, they beat her up, because that's what heroes do, right? Yeah, I thought so, man.

"How could I lose to such inferior beings?" Kilia rasped. Having an idea (gasp! oh noes) she undid the lock on Clara's door.

"Fine. If I can't kill you, this monster will!" Kilia said before vanishing.

Clara stomped out of her prison and raised her claws to attack with a fearsome roar. Although I've never heard a friendly roar myself, so maybe that's redundant.

"Clara, stop!" Colette cried, flying up to Clara's height.

Clara paused, put her claws down slowly, seemed to think a bit, and tromped out of the building and into the city. How did they know it was the city? Duh. They listened to the screams.

Dorr coughed weakly. "Lloyd...is my real daughter all right?"

Lloyd was silent for a beat. "Yeah," he lied.

The group murmured quietly amongst themselves at the comment.

"Please…save my wife…I don't want Kilia to be alone when she comes home." Dorr croaked...and he croaked.

A bit of silence to honor him, and suddenly:

"Hey, look what the guy gave me!" Lloyd exclaimed, holding up a pass.

"Yey!" everyone cheered, utterly forgetting the dead dood.

After they returned upstairs, an unskippable conversation started. Man, I've gone through this before! Press Start! What? That doesn't work? Man, that means I'll have to watch it...

"Thank you for all your help," Neil sighed.

"Sure. It was the least we could do." Lloyd said.

"Personally I'd have nuked them with an Omega spell," Runic coughed.

"Lloyd, the Exspheres on the prisoners!" Colette reminded him.

"Right, those," Lloyd remembered.

"What about them? Should we remove them?" Neil asked.

"Exspheres are Dwarven technology. I assume only dwarf could safely remove them," Kratos suggested.

"Oh yeah!" Lloyd scratched his head. "I think Dad would be able to take them off. Send a letter to a dwarf named Dirk in Iselia under my name."

"Wait up, wait up," Neil gasped, scribbling on a piece of paper. "So...to Dirkiniselia?"

"No!" Lloyd growled. "Dirk. He's in Iselia. He lives there!"

"Oh!" Neil scribbled out what he wrote earlier. "You gotta slow down."

The filed out of the government building to wander around and generally chill. I mean, c'mon, they just had a boss fight, I think you'd want some ice cream after that, man. I mean, I would. Peach sounds nice right about now.

Colette slurped a bit of orange sherbet from a small cup. And when I say small, I mean raise-an-eyebrow small. A maybe-she's-on-a-diet small. Or a...aw, forget about it. It was dinky.

"Lloyd," she began, putting down her cup, "why did you lie to Dorr about his daughter?" her tone was disarmingly calm.

Lloyd tried to keep his dollop of ice cream on his cone. "Well...because he's a father," he managed after some rather humiliating stunts. "But I wonder why he asked."

"Every parent wants the best for their children, right?" Colette speculated, swishing the cup around. She paused thoughtfully.

"That cloud looks like a baby bunny," she said suddenly, pointing.

"Really?" Lloyd tried to look at it from a different angle.

"You see? The ears, body..."

"Oh! That's cute."

"Hey, you two lovebirds! We need you!" Genis yelled over the crowd.

"Shut up!" Lloyd threw his beloved ice cream at him, which connected with a satisfying clop.

On the wrong person. Unfortunately.

"Hey!" Sheryl cried, shaking the offending stuff off her. "That was mean!"

So they went to tell Cacao what happened, boo hoo, hugs all around, Runic lost another pint of blood because all the happy hugs...

"So what now?" Lloyd asked.

"We could go to Thoda Geyser to fetch that statue," Genis pointed out.

"Okay! Let's go!"

"Washtubs," Runic sneered. "We're going in washtubs." He turned to the clerk questioningly.

"Yep," she smiled. "Best way to get to Thoda Geyser."

"Boats?" Runic suggested tartly.

"Cost-efficient, dolt," Raine slapped him upside the head.

"Four tubs?" Genis observed. "There's not enough for all of us."

"You can count!" Runic snorted, clapping as a butterfly went by. "Forgive the clichéd clapping-but I just had to applaud!"

"We could sit in pairs," Lynn suggested.

"Co-ed Washtubs!" Sheryl squealed, sounding impossibly much like a preppy schoolgirl.

"Oh woe," Genis groaned, pretty sure who he'd be next to.

They filed into their washtubs...except Raine.

"What's up?" Colette asked, tipping her head.

"I'm not going," the Professor said stubbornly, standing on the dock.

"But you have to!" Colette lectured in a sensible tone. "We can't leave you behind!"

"No!" Raine snapped.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Awww, come on," Runic growled, scrambling on to the dock. He grabbed the back of her shirt and dangled her over the water. "I'll drop you if you don't go now."

Raine squeaked.

"Hurry up, my grip is slipping," Runic sang, dropping her momentarily (I have no idea how to do that either. Maybe he caught her foot or something)

"Okay, alright, fine!" Raine shrieked. "Just get me on something solid!"

So the group cast off.

"Cheese, I didn't know you liked her so much," Genis sneered.

"Shut up," Runic spat, searching his tub. "...Crap!"

"Now what?" Lloyd asked.

"We forgot the oars!"

"Awww, cream puffs!" Sheryl shouted. "What do we do, go out and push?"

"Fishies!" Lynn squealed, pointing at the silvery darts as they swam by. "Let's net 'em and let them drag us!"

"Dear, it doesn't work that way," Raine said softly, trying to inch herself as far away from the water as possible in the tiny tub she was in. "It would have to be a stupid amount of fish, anyway. Besides, where would you get the net?"

"Awww," Lynn pouted, for she had thought it was a good idea.

"Current's going along fine," Sheryl pointed. "I think it'll get us there soon enough."

A bit of quiet as everyone inched along.

"Now what?" Lloyd asked.

"You're bored so easily," Genis sighed.

"Wanna play Twenty Questions?" Sheryl called out.

"Sure."

"Okay, got one."

"Is it...a person?"

"Yeah."

"Urby Maki?"

"Man, you're good."

Colette had her gaze glued to the sky.

"What's up? Did you become a vegetable?" Genis called.

"I don't know, maybe she's a green pepper!" Sheryl answered, hoping the mention of the angel's MOST HATED FOOD IN DAS WORLD would prompt a reaction.

Colette kept her head up. Finally, she said:

"Clouds."

Colette earned the title of "Cloudwatcher".
Personally, I don't see anything up there, but I'm too busy typing at my computer. What? Where is this 'outside' you speak of?

Suddenly Raine jumped a few feet, barely landing back into her tub and screaming a rather inhuman (yeah, I know she ain't) shriek.

"What's up?" Genis asked.

"RAAAAIIN!" she screamed.

The others didn't get it because they thought she was talking in third person, but it hit 'em when the raindrops hit 'em.

"Eeee!" Sheryl wailed, liquefying. "This is storm rain!"

Turns out she was right because lightning flashed and it was all like boom-sha-ka-la-ka-la-ka...

But not.

So the sea started PMS'ing and it was like RAWR and everyone was like EEEK and it was scary, man. I mean, they were in dinky little tubs, I think you'd be scared too, man.

It all went down the drain when one of the tubs capsized. And just to tick you off, I'm not telling you which one it was.

"Genis!" Raine screamed.

"Sher!" Runic bawled. Damn, they gave it away!

Suddenly there was a frantic tweeting from Runic's shirt.

It was Diana, whom we had all forgotten about long ago! Welcome back. We missed you...not.

Diana squawked, fluttering over to Colette and yanking on her hair.

"Ow! What?" the poor girl sniffed.

Diana motioned to the ropes connecting the tubs together with a wing.

"Okay," Colette said, not sure what the bird wanted but decided to say that anyway.

Happy enough that he girl had accepted, Diana fluttered to one of the ropes and began pulling. Colette found another and strained against it.

"Colette, you fool," Lynn groaned weakly. Golden-Eyes were never suited to the sea. "Never fly in a storm!"

Fool or not, thanks to her they got on dry land safely.

The first thing everyone did was kiss the ground.

The second thing everyone did was spit out the sand. I mean, it's sand, it's pretty yucky, man.

The third thing everyone did was try to console Raine.

"But he's dead, dead dead dead!" she babbled. Then she curled up and refused to do anything else.

Lynn sat, looking hawkishly at the horizon.

"Don't stare into the lightning, it'll hurt your eyes," Runic coughed.

She pointed some ways off. "Neehaoe."

"What's that?"

"A bubble?"

"It's coming this way!"

The whachamacallit called out. "Guuuuuuuuuuuuys!"

Something else wailed, "Heeeeeeeeeaaaaalp!"

"Sher!" Runic screamed, tripping over the watching Lynn.

"Genis!" Raine gasped, wading into the water.

Sheryl had formed herself into a bubble for Genis, to protect him from the seawater.

"Are you alright?" Raine demanded, trying to get to the boy through the film of water-skin. "How is it like?"

"I...I think I'm gonna hurl," Genis moaned. "It's hot and wet. And, like, I'm running out of air."

"Get him out, you!" Raine yelled at Sheryl, but the water-girl had passed out. "Genis, how are you doing now?"

"I'm starting to see pretty colors," he said weakly. "Wait no, it's going all black..."

"Hang on!" the group rallied, trying to get Genis out. Except Lynn, who's currently knocked out because Runic tripped over her, Runic, who tripped, and Sheryl, who as I said passed out.

"Give me that!" Raine grabbed one of Lloyd's swords.

"Raine, don't do what I think you're going to do!" Lloyd gasped.

If he thought she was going to stab her brother out of Sheryl's bubble...well, she did it.

And then the author decided this would be a great time to end the chapter...

Important note. You must read this:

Lately my life has turned very shitty.
First of all there is something buggy about the internet. I can surf perfectly fine. But when it comes to Javascript buttons, certain things go haywire.
I'm talking about the "Reply" "Compose" and "Delete" buttons on my e-mail.
So yes, I can read e-mail, but no, I can't talk to anyone. I'm marooned on this island that's so hot the flies drop dead.
Second I've got a bad case of inspiration constipation-aka writer's block. No new material from me for a while.

I need to play more Disgaea. Now. Gotta go.