No Matter What

by Chazno-01

A year into the Skeleton King war against the undead, The entire Hyper-force seemed to be winning the battles but losing hope that it will ever end, but a small discovery with extraordinary power was made: Chiro's long-dead parents knew the Alchemist! Now, the team must gather lost pages of two enchanted journals holding visions of the past, and endure every angle...no matter what.

21. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: I own a few OC's but the main characters of "SRMTHFG!" belongs to Ciro Neili, Kaa the python belongs to Disney/Kipling, and the guest characters from "Anastasia" and "Bartok the Magnificent" belong to 20th Century Fox.

Chapter 21

Although the streets of St. Petersberg, Russia, had neon lights added to them, the night was disturbingly dark, making it hard for the Hyperforce or the Sun Riders to find the address on the flier... though they know they are getting close, as Cassia Capuchin knows it is somewhere close by the Anichkov Bridge, where the statues of horse tamers still stood.

"If I'm reading this correctly," said Cassia Capuchin, relying on light from Gibson's helmet-lamp, "our destination is at the intersection of the Fontanka River... which this bridge still stands over... and this city's main roadway, Nevsky Prospect. Historically, that is the old Beloselsky-Belozersky, alias the Sergei Palace, but I don't know what they call that building these days, provided it's still there."

"Ugh, I think it's... that one!" said Otto, pointing to the newly restored ruin, "There's something coming out of it!"

He was right, for at that moment, a swarm of sickly-green, ghastly demons came out of the Sergei Palace and, in a matter of seconds, possessed the horse statues, bringing them to life and breaking them away from the "horse-tamers"! Chiro and Jinmay wasted no time grabbing one of the stone-horses by the mane... as that and it's tail seemed to be the only parts of these demonic creatures that seemed to be truely real, flowing in the wind... in attempt to restain it. Despite the effort, it didn't work!

The Sun Riders noticed the Hyperforce's struggle before taking on the remaining three "horse" creatures.

"There's more then one way to break a horse!" said Super Quasar, charging up his solar-helmet.

"Quasar's right!" said Johnny Sunspot, slinging several black-hole attacks at the stone-horse closest to him, "Let's turn these stone stallions into rubble!"

"Ha! Child's play, Johnny!" Aurora Six said, almost giggling as she aimed her weapon right where the heart of a real horse would have been, "Sun-Gun Dazzle-Stun!"

"Blackhole Barrage!" shouted Johnny.

"Solar Helmet Hot-Shot!" yelled Quasar.

As each Sun Rider did their signature attack, three of the four stone-horses were shattered into countless pieces. All the while, Mandarin, the mostly-reformed orange monkey, lost his patience upon seeing the Hyperforce's battle against their stone-horse was taking so long (thus forgetting he's on probation) and he punched the creature in the chin, knocking it's head off. That was a mistake, as handful of the glowing, winged demons came out of the stone-horse's neck, scattering all over the Hyperforce, but most of them surrounded Mandarin and, within seconds, reduced him to the form he had before he became cybernetic!

Seeing that, all three Sun Riders assumed the worst, and looked back... sure enough, the peices of stone they scattered were starting to move on account of unseen forces!

"I don't like this!" said Johnny, "Prepare the Super Solar Strike!"

Before they could do their group attack, the stone pieces seemed to leap off the bridge pavement while getting between the Sun Riders, and started to transform. A third of those peices surrounded Aurora, forming a stone box around her without any doors or windows, which was uncomfortably small! She made attempt to leap over the forming walls while she still had a chance, but some of the stones turned into shackles that kept her in place as her prison formed around her, faster and faster... she screamed, knowing what's about to happen!

"Aurora!" Johnny and Quasar shouted together, as they ran to aid her, but they quickly had problems of their own, as another third of the stone pieces turned into a horde of cobras and anocondas that attacked Quasar!

"AAAAH!" shouted Quasar, running the wrong way in attempt to escape,"WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE SNAKES?!"

All the while, the remaining third of the stone pieces fused together and quickly became organic, forming into the kind of monster that haunts all of Johnny Sunspot's nightmares: a giant female spider in clown get-up with the mannerisms of an all-too-unwelcome relative.

"John-John!" the clown-like spider shouted in a sickening sing-song tone.

"Oh no!" said Johnny, froze with fear, "Not Aunt Matilda!"

The creature grabbed Johnny before he could even comprehend a chance to escape, and started weaving her web around his body.

"I knitted you a sweater!" said the Matilda-clown-spider, pulling a pie-shaped bomb out from behind her thorax, "And I made you our favorite: Coconut cream pie!"

"No! Auntie! That's your favorite! I don't even like coco-!" Johnny said, squirming in protest only to be verbally cut off when the creature tossed the pie at face, causing the bomb in the pie to blow up, coating the smallest Sun Rider in a super-sticky paste of coconut cream!

"You are so cute, John-John-san," the clown-spider hissed, licking her lips, "I could just EAT YOU UP!"

"NO!"

Johnny was just about to be eaten when the entire Hyperforce noticed what was going on and finished defeating their stone-horse just to help the Sun Riders out... in the process, Sparx and Gibson were knocked into opposite railing of the bridge, bumping their heads. Aside from the fact that those two each had three of those glowing, winged demons flying around their heads (like circling birdies from any old bump on the head), those the red and blue monkeys would have been okay!

All the while, Chiro used a Monkey-Fu energy attack to temporarily stun the clown-spider, forcing the creature to drop Johnny. By some form of good timing, the team's pet flufferbaast, Thingy, managed to keep up with the group and started licking the thick coat of coconut cream paste off the body, just enough for Otto to use his saws to cut the web!

"Oh! Yuck!" said Johnny, "Get this... what-ever-it-is off me! It's disgusting!"

"Oh brother!" Otto laughed, "You react to Thingy just like Gibson does! Come here, Thingy!"

"O.M.G!" shouted Cassia, "Gibson!"

She rushed over to the blue monkey's side to check on him. By then, the misty demon-creatures had overshadowed him and his red-headed brother, causing their worst nightmare to come true, ten-times worse then before, all from the inside out... and nobody else noticed a thing!

"Gibson! Are you alright?!" Cassia screeched, leaning in close enough to see if he was alive yet distant enough so he could breath if he is, "Speak to me!"

"Ow! I'll be fine, Cassia, really," said Gibson, opening his eyes as they slowly-but-surely began to cross in opposite directions, "it's just a bump on the old... PENGUIN BUS!"

"Huh? Gibson?!"

"No need to paint, Cass, I'm as flopsy-faced as ever! Never smerpaler!"

At this point, Sparx got up and started to laugh.

"Ha-ha-ha! 'Smerpaler', eh? I heard him use that one before!" the red monkey teased, "Sheesh! Look at that cross-eyed, drooling face! He looks totally stupid! I really wish I had a camera with me right now!"

"Fibbly-jibbits, Red!" said Gibson, stumbling all over himself, "I'm just as capable as the next hamburger-cake! Oh! Look-y there! A river! I'm going swimming!"

"Gibson! No!" shouted Cassia, grabbing his tail to stop him, "It's too early in the season in this part of the world! You'll freeze!"

Sparx just kept laughing at the sight of the ordeal, when suddenly, everything swam out of focus and started to blur!

"What the-?!" gasped Sparx, rubbing his eyes (he noticed the ocular-orb covering was broken off which made him panic more), "Oh no! Not again!"

As Sparx was beginning to realize the reality that he might be going blind again... thinking it just might be permanent this time... Antauri was suffering a few technical difficulties while trying to free Aurora from her box, so Nova had to take over. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the bridge from their destination, Chulan-Kumari tried using her flute music to charm the snakes that are chasing Quasar, only to find that it's not working!

"I don't get it!" Chulan-Kumari gasped, "This never went wrong before!"

"Ugh, maybe they just don't like that song!" said Otto, as he just got Johnny free, "Try playing something else!"

Johnny Sunspot rolled his eyes before noticing that Aurora is only half-free from her prison, just enough to re-stun the clown-spider as it was just coming to! Taking the opportunity, he unleashed a bunch of blackholes upon the snake horde. In turn, Quasar unleashed one of his Solar Helmet Hot-Shots to distroy what was left of the box containing Aurora, as well as the shackles keeping her in place.

Realizing that things are really getting weird around here gave the group a whole new reason to investigate the Sergei Palace. Wasting no time getting inside, they found the old ruin was not only rebuilt, but also remodeled as a type of hotel and place-of-buisness for preformers!

"Whoever it was that gave us that paper said there's a back-door," said Chiro, "so it's probably the furthest room on the ground floor. Let's keep moving."

Halfway through the hallway, however, Otto and Gibson (in his irrational state) got sidetracked by music coming from one of the rooms. Those two went inside that room, and the rest of the Hyperforce followed them to get them back, except for Antauri, who was getting another case of glitches that kept the Sun Riders very busy.

During the detour, most of the Monkey Team ended up on a 3D-movie-set where the locals were making a holographic version of the musical Anastasia, and since the lot of them are not part of the original cast, they became an out-take for the opening number. Despite that, however, the song did manage to continue, revealing one of the greatest local mysteries:

"St. Petersburg is gloomy..."

"...St. Petersberg is bleak..."

"...My underwear got frozen standing here all week!"

"Oh! Since the revolution, our lives have been so gray! Thank goodness for the gossip that gets us through the day. Hey! Have you heard there's a rumor in St. Petersberg? Have you heard what they're saying on the street?"

"Although the Czar did not survive, one daughter may still be alive."

"The Princess Anastasia!"

"But please, do not repeat."

"It's a rumor, a legend, a mystery! Something whispered in an alleyway or through a crack! It's a rumor that's part of our history!"

"They say her royal grand-mama will pay a royal sum..."

"... to someone who can bring the princess back!"

"Uh, boss?" said one of the performers, noticing Otto has walked through his holographic character (the Cossack on the horse), "Aren't you going to say 'cut' already? Those children and animals are not part of the show and they are ruining the test run of our crowd effect!"

"Are you kidding?!" said the director, "They just inspired a simple plot-twist that would separate our holograph show from the original '20th Century Fox' animated version!"

"A ruble for this painting! It's Romanov, I swear!"

"Count Yusopov's pajamas! Comrads, buy the pair!"

"I got this from the palace: it's lined with real fur!"

"It could be worth a fortune, if it belonged to HER!"

The hyperforce heard several details of this "rumor" getting too close to the background holographs, and the story became clear: ten years before the gossip-scene took place, the entire country of Russia upraised against the Imperial rulers, the Romanov family. Many claimed it had to be done because the Czar at the time Nicolas II, was a terrible leader despite being a wonderful father, but a few handfuls felt guilty and blamed the whole mess on some curse. Whichever way it is sliced, many lives were destroyed overnight, and the only surviving member of the family was Nicolas' mother, Dowager Empress Marie... if the rumors are true, however, there might be a chance his youngest daughter, Anastasia Nicolila Romanov, could be alive also. It seemed that the biggest detail of the plot, however, revolved around this tiny, golden jewelry box that a con-man named Damitri brought out of storage while talking (or in this case, singing) with his partner, Vlad.

"It's the rumor, the legend, the mystery! It's the Princess Anastasia who will help us fly! You and I, friend, will go down in history: we'll find a girl to play the part, and teach her what to say... dress her up and take her to pa-ree! Imagine the reward her dear old Grand-mama will pay! Who else could pull it off but you and me? We'll be rich!"

"We'll be rich!"

"We'll be out!"

"WE'LL BE OUT!"

"And St. Petersberg will have some more to talk about!"

Sparx shook his head at that verse in the song. Being blind might have made it more likely for him to stumble around, but it also increased his hearing enough for him to notice the tell-tale static in the audio-system which proved it was all just a holographic movie. He seen several of those when he lived at the Vertigo-a-go-go Intergalactic Themepark, but recalls only two other movies with a plot simular enough to this one.

"It's just a guess," the red monkey said, as the holographic preformers sang the bridge of the song in which they gossiped in gibberish, "but those two goons would probably find the real-deal without knowing it and the joke would be on them!"

"HEY! Have you heard there's a rumor in St. Petersberg? Have you heard? Comrads, what do you suppose?! A facinating mystery!"

"The biggest con in history!"

"The Princess Anastasia: Alive or Dead?!"

"Who knows? Shh!"

"And cut!" shouted the director, turning off the system, "Alright, people that was a whole lot better, but maybe my whole 'tourists from the future' plot-twist might not work out after all, so lets do this one last time, only this time... get those BEASTS off the stage! Oh! And make sure to get rid of their pet monkeys too!"

"WE'RE NOT PETS!" shouted Sparx, Nova, Otto, and Cassia.

"I'm confused," said Gibson, "doesn't 'teachers pet' count anymore."

Cassia face-palms herself with one hand while grabbing the loopy blue-monkey's arm with the other as the lot of them were shooed to the exit, except for the two humans.

"Um, Chiro?" asked Jinmay, "Why did that guy use the word 'beasts' on us like it was an insult?!"

"(Sigh!) Because, Jinmay," Chiro explained, "in some parts of the universe, it is!"

No sooner was that said did a ridiculously large security gaurd grab the two teens by the scarves and tossed them through the exit like they were yesterday's garbage. Once back in the hallway, Otto annoyed everyone by humming the catchy tune they chanced upon before the Hyperforce made it to the further down the hall, where they noticed that the Sun Riders managed to pin Antauri down long enough to do a decent system's check.

"Any untrained eye would say there's nothing wrong with you, Antauri," said Johnny, "but I noticed your fluctuation system is a tad off-kilter, as though it picked up an energy signature that shouldn't be there. How to conteract this kind of virus, however, is beyond me... I never seen anything like this!"

"Say! Johnny!" said Sparx (facing the wrong direction until Nova corrected him), "After you're done fixing whatever's wrong with Antauri, can you fix my eyes too?"

"And Gibson's brain?!" added Cassia, before whispering into her blue monkey's ear: "Smart or stupid, I know you are still the same monkey in your heart, and I will always love you for that much no matter what. Alas, it seems you're bound to get hurt without your usual mind... I only want what's best for you."

Hearing that, Gibson flinched for a moment, placing both hands on his head, forcing himself to concentrate... he wanted to return the compliment without embarrassing himself, but in a matter of seconds, his almost-straighted eyes were crossed again as he said with a smile: "Oo! Look at me! I'm a helicopter! Wee!"

The entire Hyperforce gasped as their scientist spread out his arms and started spinning himself around-and-around while making helicopter noises with his mouth... he even started using his drills in this childish-yet-dangerous preformance. In a moment or two, thankfully, he got dizzy, turned his weapons off, and fell backwards upon the floor! Gibson was beside himself at this point: he can't tell if he's laughing because he's lost his mind, or because a part of himself was actually enjoying this nonsence.

'...Only... I'm not supposed to enjoy this, am I?' Gibson wondered on a subconcious level, 'After all, I'm not really feral anymore, and sure as Cranius-Epsolon is my Alma Mater, this is no way to behave around a intellegent young lady such as Casssia Capuchin! True... she did just say she'd love me even if I was an idiot, but what if she changes her mind... or worse! She could be lying! If I can't regain enough control to hold a rational appearance, she could reject me, like Lulubelle did when the assignment I did for her gave her a B- instead of an A+, and if I get rejected my anyone, the entire universe, including the rest of the Monkey Team, won't let me live it down!'

"I don't know," laughed Mandarin, "I think I like those two better this way: a blind baffoon and a babbling idiot!"

"Shut up, Mandarin!" yelled Chiro.

"Quite an improvement... speaking of improvements, you could repair them later if you want to;" the orange monkey rambled on, "right now priority number one should be making me a new set of cybernetic armor! Stronger then my last one at best!"

"Mandarin," Chiro spoke again, in an I-warning-you tone of voice, "had you already forgotten that you are on probation?"

"A true warrior is not supposed to have any weaknesses what-so-ever, and whatever happened that made me a normal monkey again is not doing me any justice and... oh no! I've become so vulnerable that I'm asking a bunch of HUMANS for a favor! What's wrong with me?!"

"MANDARIN!"

"WHAT?!"

"You're not, by chance, afraid of weakness, are you?"

"Well... maybe a little... bah! So what?! I always figured that is normal for monkeys with an exraordinary destiny, and mine has to be the greatest of all Primate-kind! Why else would I be named 'Mandarin'? After all, that very title does mean 'Royal Advisor', an omen that my power should be second to royalty, which in turn is second only to the gods!"

"It's also the name of the kind of fruit your fur-color matches. Anyhow, I don't care how high you placed your own pedestal, 'cause armor or no armor, you are forbidden to fight until further notice, the Vanara Court sentanced that on you! In fact, I'm willing to let your antics with that stone-horse off with a warning, but once we get Kaa back to India,we are taking you streight to Angel Grove, California where you'll be scrubbing floors at Darwin Manor for a whole week; no supper! Am I clear?!"

"Grr! Transparently. I am not afraid of taking orders from a child."

After hearing that exchange, Antauri figured out what was really happening.

"You might not know it, Mandarin," the silver monkey explained, "but over a year ago, your clone had once used dark magic to make our worst nightmares, our most terrible fears, become a reality. Just like now, Sparx, Gibson, and I were the first three on the team to be effected."

"Yeah! That's right," said Sparx, "losing my eyesight is always the worst thing to happen to any pilot, and that night was the first time it ever happened to me... I crashed the Fist Rocket because of that! As our medic, Gibson was supposed to cure me, but somehow he lost his marbles mid-diagnostics: instead of his usual science gibberish, he started using regular gibberish; randomly talking about looking for a pony and wanting a pet kangaroo! It would have been funny if I wasn't blind... but then I heard his drills spinning close to my head as he shouted 'Is it time for the disection party?!' and I thought: 'He is trying to kill me!' but for some reason he didn't kill me!"

"I wasn't... trying to... kill you... Sparx..." Gibson forced himself to say, torn against himself by unseen forces, "I wanted to... help you... I know that what I did... was irrational... but I just... could not... help it... PEANUT-BUTTER-BOWLING-BALLS! D'oh!"

"Oh brother!" Sparx moaned, "I don't know what's even stupider, Gibson: the fact I can't see the show you're putting on, let alone enjoy it, or the fact you didn't just tell anybody that you're scared of looking like an idiot before this happened the first time around!"

"You mean this isn't just the results of a mere bump on the head?" said Cassia, giggling, "Well, I'll be a human's uncle! This is... fantastic news!"

"Huh?" said Gibson, his rational and irrational sides on the same page, "I'm confused."

"Don't you get it?! Now that I know what the real problem is, I don't have to worry about you so much anymore! I don't know for sure if you'd understand this, but appearing irrational and actually BEING irrational are two very different things!"

"They seem quite simular to me... MY! WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CRATOR! TIME TO GO DIGGING FOR MOON-ROCKS!"

As Gibson activated one of his drills and plunged it into the hallway floor, Nova started to shake as he looked, to her, like some kind of monster... just like what happened during the previous night-of-fear mess! Her knees were trembling and her heart was beating uncomfortably fast! She had the sudden urge to just scream and run away but she struggled against it, forcing herself to stay put.

"It's only Gibson... it's only Gibson..." she kept telling herself,fear revealing itself in the tone of her sudden chant.

"Hey, are you okay, Nova?" the blinded Sparx said, turning his head towards her voice, "I mean, you sound terrible."

"Just wait and see, Gibson," Cassia continued, unaware of what is happening to Nova, "a few Shame Attacking exercises here and there; you'll be back and better then ever."

"In the meantime," sighed Antauri, "it appears that our team will have to make do without a medic. Normally, I would fill, but much like last time, it seems my fear of losing control of this robotic body has come true... thank goodness your clone isn't here, Mandarin. Having a few glitches in the system was frightening enough. What made it worse was that Skelemandarin overpowered my will with his own... ordered me to hunt down the rest of the team; if Sparx and Nova didn't manage to reboot my systems, I would have-!"

"Bah! That idiot double of mine!" grunted Mandarin, "Does he not get any real ideas of his own?! Honestly, Antauri, your part of this tale sounds like a poorly constructed reinactment of this novel that frightened you when we were children: 'The Oni's Puppet'. Remember?"

"Hey!" all three Sun Riders said together, "We read that book!"

"True most of it was scary," continued Johnny, "but the final chapter made it so hilarious! Turned out the guy telling the tale wasn't really possessed by a demon at all! It was all just a fever dream on account of getting a very bad heat-stroke! His friends were all alive and well, and visited him while he woke up in the hospital with bandages on his sunburned body... only for him to get scared by his cousin wearing a mask that looked like the demon! Funny or what?"

There was an akward pause.

"Good grief! My mom was right," moaned Chiro, "that novel is the sloppiest ghost-story ever written in the Nexxo-4 Galaxy! Not much help for Antauri, either."

"Don't be so sure," said Chulan-Kumari, waving her hand as she walked down the hallway further, as to becon the others to follow, "back in the Himalayas, there is an old folk tale with a simular theme. It seems humans used to believe that, when they pass away and leave the mortal realm behind, their souls have to pass this test before they could get into the divine realm."

"What kind of a test?" asked Otto.

"Funny you should ask at a time like this, Otto. According to my caregiver, the Guru, when a person's time is truly up, their fears take on the form of monsters, one for every day of the month they passed away on... '29 for February on a leap-year', he once said. If I remember the tale right, the lost soul will meet these monsters from worst to least, and are always given the same two choices for each encounter: surrender or flee. If you try to escape, you will always escape, just barely, only to find yourself lost in the dark for a while before getting jumped by the next less-frightening monster, and the cycle starts all over. Guru told me that if you escape all the monsters you'll be reborn as either a ghost or a worm, depending on your karma. If you surrender to one of the monsters, however, and let it consume you, your soul proved itself worthy of a proper do-over and gets reincarnated on a much higher level; the scarier the monster you refuse to run from, the more fulfilling your next life will be."

"I bet the scariest one offers the best!"

"Now, that's the funny part: if you surrender to the first and worst of these monsters, you'd discover that monster out of all of them doesn't even have any teeth in it's mouth; in fact, unlike it's less-frightening siblings, it lacks enough substance to actually be real!"

"You mean the whole thing is just some kind of joke?"

"Exactly! Once the lost souls discover the illusion, they often break into fits of laughter realizing they've been running from some cosmic prank that has been played on them for usually several rebirths! It is said that each soul that finds this out for themselves offically passes the test, and doesn't really need to be reincarnated anymore; the gates to the Realm of Heaven would just swing open and let the brave new soul in. The way I see it, whatever is happening to us right now might be good practice for when our time is up; after all, nobody truely dies of fear!"

"Maybe not normally," a strange little voice said from the ceiling, "but I overheard a lot of things from these halls, and I got to warn you that whoever restored Rasputin's Reliquary, which you should know is the cause of all this, wants you monkeys dead! Dead, dead, dead!"

"W-who said that?!" said Nova.

"How should I know?" said Sparx, "I'm blind as a bat, remember?!"

"Hey!" the voice spoke again, "Let me tell you something, sir, what you just said right there, that is one of the oldest insults in the book! I've been hearing that one my whole life, and I'm telling you, not all bats are actually blind, in fact most of us can see very well, I should know... I am a bat!"

At that moment, a little albino bat flew down in front of everyone. Most of the group was merely startled but Nova, overcome with terror, saw the tiny creature as an ugly bat scarier then Pike's beast form! The yellow monkey screamed in terror: "HELP! VAMPIRE!"

"Ugh! Come on!" the little bat said, "She's kidding, right? I'm not even that kind of a bat; if anything, you might put me down as some sort of a fruit bat, with just one-forth bug-eater on my father's side... no meat. No blood even!"

"Sorry about Nova," said Chiro, "she's not quite herself. In fact, a handful of us hadn't been since... well, a few minutes ago. It's a long story."

"That's okay," said the bat, landing in the palm of Chiro's hand, "you see, my ansestors may be South American, but I myself was born and raised here in Russia; I grew up on long stories, in fact, to be honest with you, the locals in this country love long stories more then anything else in the world! I am not kidding."

"Uh-huh, I figured that much," sighed Johnny Sunspot, "after having to hear that rediculous song just a few doors back!"

"Actually, I thought it's kind of catchy," said Otto, before breaking into song again, "Have you heard there's a rumor in St. Petersburg, have you heard what they're saying on the street... Oh! By the way, do you have any idea why that policeman glared at everyone else just for talking about this Princess Anastasia? I mean, it's there job to protect everyone, including the royal family, right?"

"Look! You keep that bat busy if you want!" said Johnny, "We're scouting ahead to find this freak show and see what's really going on around here!"

"Alright-y there, it's your funeral." the bat warned before answering Otto's question, "By the way, you clearly need to pay a little more attention to the lyrics, because the first verse of that catchy tune mentioned the Russian Revolution. I mean, the last ruler, Nicolas Romanov the Second, was a great father and a well-meaning guy, but honesty, he was a very lousy king. He had no idea that, while he gave his family everything they could ever need to be happy, everyone else in the country was miserable. The biggest mistake the Czar made, in fact, was banishing Rasputin! You know, many thought Rasputin was a holy man, including the Romanov family, but he was a greedy, dangerous, power-mad old phony... I never should have trusted him enough to call him 'Master' in the first place!"

"Wait a minute!" Cassia interrupted, "You mean you know about what happened because you were actually there?! H-how could that be? You'd have to be over two-thousand years old to have seen the Russian Revolution and live to tell it today!"

"Actually, I'm two-thousand-one-hundred-and-twenty-eight, ma-am. Maybe even older since I was born just a few centuries before the balalaika was invented, but hey! Who besides me is counting how long I had actually been alive, huh? Anyhow, the burden of immortality is nothing compared to what that creep Rasputin did after he was banished him: he just gave his very soul away to some demon in exchange for the power to distroy the royal family, given in the form of this glowing insence bottle with a skull-shaped dispenser that spits out tiny winged smoke-people!"

"Just like the ones that attacked us!" growled Mandarin, "Ugh! I knew this whole freak-show ordeal was a trap!"

Chiro shook his head. "Let's keep moving team." he said, guiding Sparx with his free hand, "You can tell us everything else on the way, bat."

"Hey! I have a name you know: it's Bartok." said the white bat, Bartok, "And maybe I will. Sparing the grusome details, Anastasia and her grandmother were the only surviving members of the royal family... though for ten years even I thought the princess was dead... and the disturbing part that half of that mob involved in that mess weren't even possessed! Some of them, who were part of the first Russian Mafia, actually thought Russia would be better off without a royal family in charge; that the people would be able to thrive better on their own, and the due off the Romanovs to prove it!"

"That's awful!" said Chiro.

"It gets worse," Bartok concluded, "see, from that night on, those jerks took control of the law around here and anyone who publicly mentioned the Romanov family, let alone wether or not Anastasia was alive, is automaticly assumed to be conspiring against the Mafia. That's why that Cossack gave that look during that number of that musical: it was a warning glance, telling everyone that they better shut up about that or else... well, believe me, you don't want to know. Good thing that was centuries ago; now we can talk about whatever we want!"

Before anything more could be said, the Hyperforce made it to the furthest room at the end of the hall. There was a ticket stand, and a couple of signs over the door which Cassia read outloud: "'Ivan Paxboyatsya's Bazaar of the Bizarre: Closed until 7:30 AM' Phew! Ugh, I mean... to bad! What a shame!"

"We weren't planning on paying for tickets anyway." said Otto, "Look at the handles on that doorway, Aurora used her stun-gun to trick the lock for us, isn't that nice? Well! Last one in is a rotten banana!"

"Otto! Wait!" Chulan-Kumari started to say, but before she could remind him to be careful, he burst the door open... and screamed!

"What the-?" said Bartok, "Clams with... feet?! Whoa!"

Between the Hyperforce and the inside of the bizarre was a blockade of giant clams on human legs! In his state of stupidity, Gibson jumped right in it, and savored every snap like a massage (secretly, this was the only part of his current condition that he actually missed from the last time his fear of looking stupid came true)! Otto, however, was mustering all the willpower he could to keep himself from crying.

"Uh, Cassia," the green monkey said, voice wavering, "what month is it?"

"I don't know," the female Capuchin confessed, "I lost track of time ever since I came to this side of the world! Judging by the fact it's seasonally early spring it is either March or April!"

"Both 'R' months!" Otto sighed in relief as he actived his drills, "Great! Now I could just slice them up and make clam chowder out of them just like last time!"

Paxboyatsya made his presence known with an evil laugh as he stepped out of the shadows with the reliquary in hand. "Not if they eat you first!" he sneered, as he unleashed another wave of smoke-demons to fill the giant clams with power, doubling their already large size and filling their mouths with razor-sharp teeth! Cassia had to stop on a few toes just to keep these large, mutating creatures from eating Gibson, but it seemed that their main target was Otto, who sweat-dropped and turned pale at the sight of what's happening.

"Uh-oh! AAAAAAAH!"

The green monkey was about to run off, but Chulan-Kumari stopped him.

"I won't let you make a worm out of yourself, Otto!" she explained, "You have to fight back! Don't worry, I will be there for you as long as I could be!"

Just as soon as she said that, another burst from the reliquary pushed her straight onto the back of the two-headed wolf! Both heads growled at her, as though one head wanted to bight her head off and the other wanted to eat everything else, but the Langur dealt with single-headed wolves in the Himalayas that were tougher then this misfit!

"Oh! Shut up!" she screached, butting the heads of the two-headed wolf together, knocking the beast out in an instant, allowing her to jump off it's back with ease, but before she could laugh at her short triumph, let alone help Otto with his nightmare, hers started to come true. Suddenly, and without warning, Chulan-Kumari felt itchy all over, and it only took a matter of seconds to see why, as a bunch of tiny specks were seen bouncing in and out of her fur.

"FLEAS!" Kumari gasped in panic while scratching herself wildly, "That mutt had infested me with fleas! I NEVER HAVE FLEAS! Otto! Help me!"

"Help you?!" Screached Otto, his saws clashing with the teeth of the giant clams, "Who's gonna help me?!"

"Good grief! Those two have issues, don't they Gibson?" Cassia said to her cross-eyed, drooling, but still somewhat loveable soulmate, "I mean, Chulan-Kumari's fear of fleas is understandable... in fact, next to that, the fear of appearing irrational is nothing... but clams with feet?! Ha! Next to Otto's worst nightmare, my own issues with chickens seem purfectly normal... right?"

At that moment, a bunch of chains came out of nowhere, latched around Cassia's neck like the most uncomfortable leash ever made, and yanked her closer to the 10 foot man-eating rooster, pinning her in place next to the monster's feeding area, and it's muzzle was removed!

"Oh no! Waldo-zilla!" Cassia paniced, realizing her fear of chickens had come back to haunt her ten-fold, but upon noticing that she wasn't going to escape this with a steel-chain leash-andpcollar around her neck, she could only dodge each peck just to stay alive. All the while, she noticed Gibson was just standing there drooling, as though he didn't have a thought in his head... or did he?

"Gibson!" She shouted to him, dodging a couple of pecks, "I could use some help here!"

"Don't worry Cass-sea-yah," he said back to her, drills at the ready, "I already have a plan to... um... what were we talking about again?"

"GIBSON!"

Meanwhile, Chiro, Jinmay, and Mandarin had just managed to sneak around the chaos around them... Antauri tried to Ghost-Phase under it only to get the lower half of his body stick in the floor on the other side of the room! Alongside the silver monkey, Aurora was trapped in a large jack-in-the box, Johnny was in a spiderweb made of silk, wool, and rubber balloons, and Quasar... had fainted at the sight of Kaa the python.

Poor Kaa. He was surrounded by tiger-headed poachers, all of which had their guns pointed towards him to keep him from escaping until a young, firmilar voice got their attention:

"Hey! Cat-faced bullies! Point those things in a direction that won't make me angry!"

"Chiro! Oh, thank Manasssa you found me!" Kaa gave a hiss of both relief and concern, "You ssshould not have ssspoke in sssuch a manner to thessse nightmaresss, chosssen one! Ssshere Khan hasss tormented me sinccce I wasss very sssmall, even after he passsssed away! He'sss not a forccce to take ssso lightly!"

Such a warning didn't stop Jinmay and Chiro from attacking the tiger-headed monsters as Mandarin was tasked with getting the python out of there... being on probation and forbidden to do anything violent, the orange monkey felt he had little else to do to prove his own worth.

"You mussst be the original Mandarin. I've heard whissspers of you before I wass taken here: your clone confessssssed you were still alive to me and no-one elssse. We are both fortunate I'm ssstill digesssting... if you tassste asss rotten asss thisss Ssskelemandarin had, I would not want to ssswallow you up."

"Humph! No wonder the boy set me up for this stupid task! I figured this whole thing is a trap, but nobody really listens to me anymore. At any rate, you'd be much easier for me to carry if I had only kept the ape-like strength and size my corruption had granted me, but at the size I am now, those two better hurry up with your gaurds."

"That'sss the leassst of our problemsss! Ivan Paxboyatsssya put ssshackesss on my coilsss to keep me from ssslithering away, and he alssso ssshrunk hisss own nephew and put him in a cage over the back door... neither of usss could essscape without the keysss in that warlock'sss troussser pocketsss."

"Oh, for Shuggazoom's sake! BARTOK! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

The little bat was already flying overhead.

"I'm right here, Mandarin!" said Bartok, "Sheesh! Enough already, with the whining and the fussing! It's no wonder the rest of the team doesn't listen to you anymore!"

"Just shut up and get the keys!" the orange monkey growled, "The enemy has them on him! Hurry up! I don't have all night!"

"Okay-okay! Don't get so testy! By the way, would it really kill you to say 'please' every now and then? I mean... come on!"

"Ugh! Fine... PLEASE hurry up! While you are at it, there's a tiny prisoner caged over the back door; once you get the keys, any of them to free him and toss the rest of them to me! Got it?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"(Sigh!) Finally, for the first time in years... respect."

Bartok rolled his eyes as he flew to his assignment, but once he got close enough to Ivan Paxboyatsya (just as he was using the Reliquary to turn Chiro into a small boy) the albino bat's worst nightmare started to come true as well. The dark energy of Rasputin's Reliquary, combined with the saunce-glitch triggered by Cassia's current panic attack, summoned the ghost of the original Rasputin, allowing the un-holy man to possess the body of the Reliquary's current user right before Bartok's eyes!

"BARTOK! You miserable rodent!" the dark minister's voice boomed from the con-man's mouth, "How dare you double-cross me when I was so close to completing my revenge on the Romanov family?! You swore your loyalty to me until my dark purpose is fulfilled, Anastasia was the last to be distroyed, and you flew away, COWARD! Now, all of Russia will be distroyed because of you!"

Bartok paniced, and flew backwards at what just happened, and witnessed as the demonic glow in Lord Paxboyatsya's eyes was on-and-off, as the Freak-show master struggled to regain control.

"What the-?! RASPUTIN!" Paxboyatsya shouted with his own voice, "What are you doing in my body?! Get out! You are ruining the get-rich-quick-scheme of the millenium!"

"Mwa-ha-ha! It seems that whatever brought me back from the Netherworld made your worst fear come true along with that of this treachurous bat! You business is offically under new management, the country you call home shall suffer more then it did during the revolution, and there is nothing you can do about it but watch!"

"No! This is wrong! I just wanted to the world's most extraordinary freak-show, you were not part of the deal I made with the Skeleton King!"

"Oh? Yet I am, Paxboyatsya: my powers, my rules!"

"(Gasp!) I HAVE BEEN SWINDLED! Bartok! Take my keys and get my nephew Boris out of here! Hurry! I don't know how much longer I could hold Rasputin back!"

Paxboyatsya tossed the key-ring, and Bartok caught it and used the right key upon the cage holding the tiny Boris, letting the world's tiniest person ride on his back to safety as the keys were passed to Mandarin, who used them to help Kaa escape. All the while, Cassia forced herself to face her fear of chickens, wrestling with the giant rooster's beak like it was the jaws of a crocodile, but despite how much she still wants Gibson to help her, she almost gave up on him.

"Look, Gibson! If you don't want to help me, fine!" she screamed, "I think I am just about over this nonsense anyway! Besides, it's not your fault you became too stupid to know how to cope with your own issues, let alone humor them!"

She noticed that the blue monkey's eyes almost (but not quite) started to uncross themselves when he heard those words.

"W-what?" he murmured, "What did you say?"

A ray of hope lit up in Cassia's heart seeing this. It seems that the direct approach wasn't getting anyone anywhere, but in Gibson's case at the very least, reverse psychology might help break this spell. She nailed him again.

"Oh come on, Gibson! Every real genius knows that the best way to overcome the fear of looking like a fool is to make a fool of one's self on purpose... that's all a 'Shame Attacking Excercise' is anyway! However, if you really are dumb enough to let these little grimlins do all the guess-work for you, then maybe you don't even understand a word I'm saying anyhow!"

Gibson placed both hands on his head while squinting his eyes shut, forcing himself to think straight long enough to have an intellegent conversation with his girl.

"I can understand you, Cassia, and I already made a fool of myself in your favor! W-what about that time I put on a comedy act to prove my creativity and make you laugh?!"

"You didn't put enough effort into it!"

"What about our first kiss? All the antics we shared in Shangrai-La, remember?!"

"You were feral at the time, Gibson! Unless your usual mind is conciously aware of what you are doing, it doesn't count! Ugh! What's the point trying to reason with a duncecap like you?!"

"I am not a duncecap! I can deliberately play out of character if I had to!"

"I doubt it, quack! Here we are with a huge audiance, and you refuse to preform! If you don't really want to, that's fine by me! Once I am done with this poppy-cock, and find a way to get this leash off of me, I'll just go and take my disappointment somewhere else!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Hearing that scream, Paxboyatsya snickered.

"The blue one has fallen first, Rasputin," he gloated to the demon in his body, "his fear of looking foolish caused him to distroy himself from the inside, and once every single member of the hyperforce is undone by their own fears, your powers will be mine forever!"

"Ugh! You don't know the first thing about torchure, do you?" moaned Rasputin.

What the demonic minester meant soon became clear: Gibson didn't scream in agony, but rather in frustration! In that very moment, the blue monkey let go of all consern on how irrational he looked; he was more focused on proving himself to Cassia! After beating his own chest, he jumped onto the backside of the giant rooster and plucked off every single feather. The resulting rubber-chicken-like image caused Cassia to laugh, causing the rooster to look embarrassed, attempt covering himself up... and disappear in a puff of green smoke, which cleared quickly, revealing an 87-year-old year old man on a rocking chair eating KFC!

"Oh! So it's really a man who is eating CHICKEN!" said Cassia, still giggling, "Hee-hee-hee! Oh brother! I can't believe I was so nervous over THIS of all things!"

"Then why do I still have these giant tail-feathers?!" Gibson thought outloud, waving around said feathers in his grip, "Purhaps as soon as my lab is repaired I shall examine these under a... THING-A-MAY-DOODLE! D'oh! Almost! Not yet! Must keep using it! Think: crazy! Obnoxious! Worth leaving my usual comforts... but what?!"

As Gibson struggled yet again to come up with a plan (much to Cassia's annoyance) Otto managed to give the sharp-toothed-walking-clams something to chew on by slicing the leash off the two-headed wolf and tossing that mutt into their mouths. In the blink of an eye, the "clams" turned into a pile of pebbles and the "wolf" turned back into a puppy-dog with a stuffed-animal head on it's collar, all while Chulan-Kumari continued to scratch herself.

"Ugh! Kumari! You can stop itching now!" the green monkey said, "I think the monsters are fake, fleas and all."

Chulan-Kumari stopped scratching herself long enough to realize that Otto was right: no bite marks. She realized something else, too. "Otto, what happened to Sparx and Nova?"

Otto looked around and saw that his red and yellow friends were nowhere in sight, and he started to worry about them until he remembered something:

"Nova's worst fear is being scared, and the last time this kind of thing happened to us she dragged Sparx along with her like he was her stuffed sock-monkey or something."

"Are you saying that she just grabbed him while he is blind and ran off to find a place to hide, just like that?! I don't know about you, but I think that is sweet and creepy at the same time!"

"Never mind that! This whole mess is like that story you just told us: by facing our fears, the whole thing becomes a joke, but if they don't face it... I don't know if they'll even last the night! Come on! We got to go out there and find them!"

"You two aren't going anywhere!" Rasputin shouted, using the Reliquary's power on Antauri and Jinmay... the silver monkey was pulled out of the floor and started struggling against himself for control, where as the robot-girl found she was unable to use her powers and she was momentarily see-through!

"Jinmay!" the now-younger Chiro shouted, "Are you okay?!"

The boy hero's squeaky toddler voice got a lot of unneeded attention, especially from Mandarin, who burst into tears and laughter!

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Take a look at yourself, Chiro!" the orange monkey laughed, "To think, I thought I was the only one who doesn't like being weak... your worst nightmare is being nothing but a-!"

"A POWERLESS LITTLE BOY! I KNOW!" yelled Chiro, "Go ahead and laugh! You have that much in common with your clone anyway!"

"Don't worry Chiro, I'm fine," said Jinmay, becoming solid again, "but I think I almost disappeared for a second. I... I can't disappear! If that happened, how will I be able to help anyone? How will I be able to prove how much I love you, Chiro?! No! It can't be!"

"JINMAY!"

The sound of young-Chiro's consern seemed to distract Johnny's nightmare. The spider-clown-version of his Aunt Matilda accidently threw a coconut-cream pie at herself, causing Johnny to laugh, which the web of balloons he is trapped in to pop and the eight-legged monster to vanish into thin air! As a result, Johnny ended up falling on top of Quasar, jolting his larger team-mate awake and back on his feet just as they were surrounded by a horde of venomous vipers. Quasar started to sweat, and his knees were shaking.

"Forget the vipers, Quasar!" said Johnny, "I think those snakes are just a mirage of some kind! Just help our friends get the real snake, Kaa, as far away from here as possible and you'll have nothing to worry about... OKAY?!"

Quasar just jumped into Johnny's arms while screaming like a school-girl!

"Ugh! That does it!" Aurora's voice was heard from inside the gigantic jack-in-the-box, "I had enough! SUN-GUN DAZZLE-STUN!"

In a flash of light, peices of wood scattered everywhere and the female Sun-Rider stood in the middle of it all and noticed how thin each peice actually was as they fell.

"Huh. Guess the walls weren't closing in on me after all." she murmured before she noticed Antauri's plight, thus using her stun-gun to break Cassia's chain-leash, "Cassia! Kumari! Gibson! Otto! Go help Chiro, Jinmay, and Mandarin! Get Kaa out of here to someplace warm! The boys and I will hold off Antauri for as long as we can! Run!"

Without bothering to argue, what was left of the Hyperforce carried Kaa and followed Bartok (carring Boris) out of the Sergei Theature and headed streight to the abandoned Romanov Palace, as the Sun Riders did their part in aiding the escape.

"SUPER SOLAR STRIKE!"

The trio's most powerful attack eliminated the vipers, stunned the out-of-control Antauri, and knocked the reborn Rasputin into a wall, all while sheilding the dog and the man who refused to stop eating chicken. Of course, it would take a whole lot more then that to stop Rasputin!

"Bah! You think you've won?!" the enemy yelled, unleashing a whole bunch of smoke demons from his Reliquary, "You fools will never escape me... nobody will! Arise my minions! Let your evil shine through all the nightmares of St. Petersburg! Do as you see fit to see they all suffer!"

Within the following moment, the Hyperforce saw that the streets of the Russian city were full of monsters, demons, and disasters! Since it was their job to fight evil, they almost dropped Kaa in attempt to fight, but after what they experianced, it was clear that they'll never be able to save the people of St. Petersburg unless they could find the courage to help themselves. Besides, after they get their python friend out of the cold, the Hyperforce knew that two of their members, Sparx and Nova, were still in the dark about what's really going on.

On the bright-side (if you can call it that) the Romanov Palace seemed to be a safe-haven from what is going on around them. The ruin seen better days, but it was still structured enough to offer some comfort during their temporary stay.

"I cannot believe it," moaned Gibson, forcing himself to think logically again, "how stupid I looked making a turkey out of that rooster! It somehow felt right, but according to my upbringing it's not supposed to feel that way... or hit the hay... or roll in a puddle of mud! Ugh!"

"Hush! Shh-shh!" Cassia said, gently yet playfully as she gave her beloved blue monkey a gentle shoulder rub, "It's okay, Gibby, you did better then I expected. I'm almost sorry I pushed you like that, even if it was for your own good."

"You... do not... understand," the blue monkey said, as his struggle to stay logical started to overlap with a struggle to stay awake, "I'm the team's medic and... head of... science. If anything goes wrong... I'm the one who... has... too-"

"I'll cover for you the best I can, Gibson," she said, carressing his face with one hand and his rib-cage area with the other, "just focus on your own health. Honestly. This war stretched you a bit thin already; top it off with what happened tonight and... well, let's just say you might need bed-rest for at least a few days, a whole week tops."

"Cassia's right, sir," said Bartok, "just take it easy, watch your blood pressure. Before I was immortal my nephew, Izzy, just keeled over one day, mid-mango! Stress, it's a killer, sir, and he's a fruit-bat!"

"Speaking of nephews," said Otto, "did Boris tell you anything about his uncle's deal with the Skeleton King?"

"Just the parts I missed," Bartok explained, "appearently, if a ten-fold version of what scares you most doesn't distroy you guys before the sun rises tomarrow morning, the deal will be off, Paxboyatsya will lose the powers he was granted, and he will turn to dust."

"We might not have that kind of time!" whined Chiro, "There are thousands of people involved with this mess! There's got to be another way out, Bartok!"

"There's only one other way, Chiro: that Reliquary, the key to our current enemy's powers, has to be distroyed... again! Trust me, I seen Anastasia herself do it the first time. True, the dark forces peiced that thing back together again after several centuries, but until then, the worst of it would be over the very second it's in pieces."

"In the meantime," said Chulan-Kumari, "our only chance to survive this mess is to will ourselves to face what scares us the most no matter how intence it gets for us... a good sense of humor is said to help in these ordeals, if only we could find something to laugh at. By the way, the student just surpassed the teacher tonight."

"Hypnotized Kaa to sleep after putting him next to the fireplace, did you?" asked Cassia.

"Well... not really... though that was what I was aiming for... but I did make him think that this old coat-rack is a female python. Does that count?"

"Go back upstairs and try again, Kumari."

"Aw! Come on, Cassia!"

"Don't moan at me! Just do it!"

Mandarin just sat their and shook his head as he held the Crystal-Ball Orb, which not only contained the ghost of the Aki the Alchemist, but Jinmay as well. She had to be kept in there, temporarily, or else her fear of being unable to help the team would cause her to vanish into thin air, and Mandarin had been tasked to gaurd it, even though he's forbidden to fight. With a sigh, the orange monkey redirected his gaze to the portrait at the top of the stairs to the grand-ballroom where the team was currently in. It was the royal family portrait illustrating the final generation of the Romanov family line. Which one did Bartok claim was Anastasia again? Whichever she was Mandarin just stared at the portrait, confused at what he saw.

"I don't understand," he murmured, "if I recall this planet's history correctly, most born of royal blood are stern, battle-worthy entities from the start, yet aside from how they dress, the Romanov family looks like any other. There is nothing powerful about any of them, let alone the one called Anastasia."

"Well, appearances can be decieving," said Bartok, "look again! You might see that if Emperor Nicolas II and Emperess Alexandra only knew how badly Russia had suffered at the time, their reign would have been the best one yet. After all, they had the best intentions for their own kids; think how many families they would have improved along with their own if that curse didn't take the opportunity away from them. You know, as their only son, young Alexei was the traditional heir, but I say Anastasia, their youngest daughter, would have been a much better successor to the crown. True, she was a wild, mischievious little imp when she was a little girl; wouldn't listen to anybody except her parents, but it's the fact she had a mind of her own and expressed it so well that would have made her a very wise ruler."

"Yet you claim that she gave that all up in favor of a con-man. No empire could continue with that kind of a desision."

"Of course, she gave it up, Mandarin. She and Damitri loved each other. Besides, he had the street-smarts, she had the common sense; they completed one another... from what I heard, that's a whole lot more then what you ever done."

After hearing all that, the portrait seemed to take on a whole new life in it before the eyes of the orange monkey. The Romanovs were indeed royal blood, but they seemed to be more then that, holding a more idealic family connection then many others he witnessed (or thought he witnessed) in real families... so warm and happy. He would've envied them if they hadn't died long before he was even born. It was when his eyes met with the smallest female in the image, Anastasia, that really struck a nerve he never knew he had: while the rest of the Romanovs were staring at the fourth-wall of the portrait, Anastasia's seemed upcast toward the faces of her parents. She held hands with her mother, while her free hand seemed to figit with a peice of cloth on her own yellow dress. Her smile seemed innocent yet impatient, as though she couldn't wait for the portait to be finished so she could go play, and the artist took an extra moment longer just to put that detail in out of amusement.

Looking around, he found another portrait with young Anastasia in it: just her and her grandmother, Doweger Empress Marie. The princess had a drowsy expression on her face, yet had more then enough energy to stand up as straight as an eight-year-old possibly could as well as cling extremely tight to her grandmother's hand. It seemed clear that Anastasia was bored with people always wanting to paint her, but is willing to put up with it just to spend time with her beloved "grand-mama". Somehow, in both portraits, Mandarin saw something in the young princess... something that reminded him of his days as a younger monkey that he lost when he swallowed the flesh of the Dark Ones and got himself corrupted. Something he didn't know was missing before but, now that he does know, he really wants it back. The question is: what is it?

'If I ever chance upon the ghost of this former royal,' the orange monkey quietly decided, 'I will have to ask her myself. For now, I better check on my own successor, Chiro. Being reduced to a child after all he's been through is far worse then the kind of weakness I am going through.'

Mandarin wasted no time finding Chiro, who was talking to someone who, at first, seemed to be a stranger, but upon taking a closer look, he noticed that it was, in truth, Pike the Vampire. The main reason the well-meaning blood-drinker was hard to recognize was because the swarm of smoke demons that brought everyone else's nightmares to life effected him as well, so instead of the eternal form of a seven-year-old boy, Pike was forced to become a young adult. He looked like a male version of Wilhelmina Harker, if the illustrations Mandarin seen in one Dracula novel were accurate enough.

"Look, Pike, I'm serious," young-Chiro said, "I have very few memories of my past and most of the ones I do have a miserable! I have don't have a clue as to what my life was really like when I was this young for real except for the fact it was all down hill from there, and I ended up in a lousy old orphanage! Even the fact that the Skeleton King has most of my stuff from way back then convinced me that I didn't have a very happy childhood."

"Well at least you're still a child at all," said adult-Pike, "I hate the way I look as an adult, that's why I easily stayed a seven-year old for centuries, before my immortality was taken away from me in the Alchemist's favor, now anything would make me grow up, even if I don't want to."

"Oh! Come on! It's not all that bad. In fact, you're one good looking grown up!"

"I know, that's what scares me... I mean, haven't you ever seen a female-vampire in HEAT?! Well, I did ages ago, and I must warn you, it's not pretty. In fact, you might say it's like... Oh! How do I put this? It's like LENA HYENA with fangs!"

"Lena... who?!"

"Believe me, kid, you don't want to know. I can say this much though: that cartoon character gives me the willies!"

As the spoke, some of the smoke-demons slipped into the palace through a crack in the wall, possessing an old rag doll that some tourist's child left benind during the start of the Pollution Age, and turning it into an actual life-sized woman in a black dress. She stood right behind Pike and Chiro started to point at the angle she stood while making an uncomfortable face that made the male vampire piece it all together: "There's someone right behind me, isn't there?"

Pike turned around, quickly yet with caution, and saw the woman that "mysteriously" appeared out of nowhere. She was half a mile down the ballroom from where he sat, and her back was turned to him, so it's clear she didn't notice him yet. Normally, he'd make it a principle in life to keep it that way, but there was something about being in an adult's body that made Pike want to hold those flawless hourglass curves... in fact, from this angle, she's just too good to be true! Pike decided to reach her with his voice alone, just to be safe.

"Um... excuse me... uh, ma'am," he stammered (he never talked to a beautiful lady before, especially not in his prefered child-like form), "that's some... crazy weather out there, huh? What, with the... demonic mist and the... uh, 100% chance of... humans screaming in terror. Ha-ha!"

Young-Chiro palmed his own face. "If Sparx were here, and he was able to see this," he moaned, "he'd throw up!"

None-the-less, the lady figure turned around in a way that made her look all the more enticing, though it was clear she wasn't doing it on purpose. Her long, flowing hair covered up most of her face... only her eyes were showing. Any common man would've assumed she was purfect by that first impression, but Chiro remembered the chaos that Sparx got them all into on Tolomac 3, and so he wanted to warn Pike against jumping to conclusions... but he couldn't find the words to warn him with.

"(Ahem!) Anyhow..." said Pike trying to look and sound as macho as possible, "if... for any reason... you have to leave the building in the middle of the night... what, with this 'weather' and all... I could make a decent enough bodyguard and escort for you. So... how about it?"

Suddenly, the behavior of the lady in black changed from mysterious and sudductive to creepy and despirate, as her hair became a wild mess in her own excitement, revealing how ugly her face really is, shouting: "WHAT A MAAAAN!"

"Oh no!" adult-Pike thought outloud, as the cartoon-y female vampire ran towards him in attempt to kiss him, "Not HER! What was I thinking?!"

Acting fast, Pike tore a curtian off one of the large window and used it as a barrier between himself and his persuer. As she got herself tangled up in the long, red cloth, Pike hid himself in another room in the palace... of course, that old trick only lasted a moment or two, as the scary woman used her ugly head to poke a hole into the cloth, turning the curtain into a shall of some kind, or a second layer to her dress, before giving chase again. "YOO-HOO! LOVER-BOY! IT'S LENA HYENA!"

(Author's Note: sorry folks, I couldn't resist putting her in. When I was young, I seen the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", and Lena Hyena's bit was the one part that really made me laugh... guess I'm just a sucker for comedy-of-errors. I would have spoiled her surprise arrival in this fanfiction by putting her name in the disclaimer, but I have no idea if she was Disney's work or that of Warner Brothers... or some other animation company... because it was that kind of movie. Like I said, SORRY!)

Young-Chiro and Mandarin just stared aqwardly at the sight of Pike's worst nightmare come true before them.

"I don't know about what Sparx or Nova would think of this," said Mandarin, braking the silence, "but I for one am still debating over wether I should laugh, cry, or blow chunks seeing that."

"Looks like we are on the right page for once, Mandarin." said Chiro, just as Thingy, unchanged, managed to squirm out of his shirt holding Jinmay's hankerchief in his mouth, "Oh! Thingy! I'm sorry! I forgot you were in there! Oh, man. Slingshot better be back with some parts of the Super Robot repaired by now! Odds are, he might have seen where Sparx and Nova ran off to, they managed to shut down Antauri before, they have to do it again."

As if on cue, a burst of wind blew Slingshot right through the window where Pike tore off the curtain... thankfully, the shattered glass missed young-Chiro, Mandarin, and Thingy.

"Woah! Strange weather!" the robotic warrior said as he stood upright again, "everybody here is screaming over the stupidest things that are happening to them and everything, and I find scrap-or-greymatter of Mazoeno anywhere and-! What the-?! Chiro?! Is that you?! What happened to you... humans don't shrink in the wash! Do they?"

"Never mind that now, Slingshot," said young-Chiro, "how's the Super Robot doing?"

"Repairs are 62% complete on my Prototype, though I have no idea what to do about the Nebutron 9... I think I got all it's exterior peices, but it's internal structure, or at least what's left of it, is all so foreign to me."

"Had you seen Sparx and Nova while you were gathering all the pieces? We got... seperated from them."

"Oh! I saw them, alright! Nova wasn't quite herself; the people in St. Petersburg had more nerve then she did when I saw her, running down the path between here and Moscow, dragging Sparx behind her the entire trip. Every once in a while he kept banging himself on some tree or boulder or something... I mean, what did he do? Forget to clean his ocular-orbs?!"

At this point, the "Lena Hyena" she-vampire managed to chase adult-Pike out of his hiding place and back onto the ballroom floor.

"MY MAN!" she said, giving Pike a big, fat, sloppy kiss (much to his dismay) before pulling him around across the dancefloor against his will, "OO! YOU ARE SO LIGHT ON YOUR FEET!"

"Leave me alone, woman!" the adult-Pike, shouted just managing to squirm away, "I don't like the mumbo!"

He flew out the shattered window like he was pursuited by a vampire slayer, only for the girl of his nightmares to fly after him, "COME TO LENA!"

Although Slingshot was incapable of physically expressing emotion with his face, it was easy to tell by the way he stood there pointing just how confused he was about the ordeal, "Uh..."

"Don't ask!" said young-Chiro, "Now, before we lose track again, could you please tell me were Sparx and Nova are right now?"

At that moment, Sparx and Nova were both in the St. Petersburg Cemetary, though in panic and blindness neither of them recalled how they ended up there... let alone how they got seperated to different parts of it... but becuase they weren't together, they were volnerable!

"Some pilot I turned out to be," Sparx muttered to himself, leaning against one of the tombstones (being blind, he didn't see it was engraved: ANASTASTIA NICOLIVNA ROMANOV IONOV, 2-12-1984), "I'm almost as useless on the ground as I probably would be in the air, all because I can't even see in front of my own nose, and the worst part is that I'll probably never see Nova again even if she is still alive! Ugh! I need a sign... a hint... ANYTHING!"

Just at that moment, a gust of wind blew some kind of cloth into his face, and a voice, that of a young woman, got his attention: "Hey! That's my scarf! Can I have it back?!"

"Oh! Sorry about that," said the red monkey, pulling the scarf off his face and reaching out his arms, holding it in his hands, "here you go... uh, you might have to take it from me, because I have no idea if I'm even facing the right way. You can call me Sparx, by the way."

"Huh? Oh!" the voice said, as Sparx heard a tearing sound before the same kind of cloth he felt before was wrapped around his face (is this mystery woman bandaging his eyes with her scarf?), "I'm so sorry I didn't notice sooner, Sparx. My name is Anya. Hey! Hold still, will you? (Sigh!) Men are such babies!"

"So, you speak monkey, huh? That's a relief. Say, you didn't see another monkey somewhere around here, did you Anya? I may be blind, but I didn't forget what she looks like: golden fur, bubble-gum-colored eyes... normally bold and firey, but she's been freaking out alot lately. Any chance you know where I could find her?"

Sparx told Anya everything he could, which wasn't as much as he hoped to tell because he couldn't see anything, but at least she seemed to get the jest of it.

"Rasputin's Reliquary, huh?" said Anya, "Oh boy! Never thought anyone will have to deal with that thing ever again!"

"So are you going to help me find Nova or not?" asked Sparx, "I mean, there's no telling what could have happened to her by now, but she's probably scared halfway to death by now and I know I'm the only comfort she's got in times like this!"

"Hmm. Sounds to me like you have it bad for this girl."

"You kidding? She's the only thing worth staying on the ground for! True, she beat me up on several occassions, but hey, at least she paid attention to me."

"Ugh! Like I said before: all men are babies... to that end, I should tell you that my husband was a bit more grown up. He and I drove each other nuts for attention too, but in due time, he figured out how to earn the right kind of attention from me. I mean, really, did you and Nova ever had a serious talk about anything?"

"Only a few times. The one I remember the most is when I appologized to her for throwing a snowball at her... I was aiming for Otto, by the way... and Nova said: 'You can't really help it, Sparx, you're the dumb monkey'. Made a goofy face just to humor her. Huh. Who would have guessed me starting a war would prove how right she really was to call me that... I hope she's still okay."

"Look, I'm sorry, but I have no idea where Nova is... but Pooka just might!"

"Who's Pooka?"

No sooner had he asked did Sparx hear a shrill whistle, followed by the sound of tiny footsteps and barking that could only belong to a puppy dog. Within seconds, he felt something nip at his tail... thankfully, it was a playful bite, so it didn't hurt too much.

"Take it easy there, Pooka," Anya's voice was heard to say, "this monkey needs some help finding his girl. Sparx, I'm going to use what's left of my scarf to form a leash on Pooka's collar, do you mind if I tie the other end to your wrist?"

The red monkey extended one of his arms as he asked, "Anya, are you sure this mutt will lead me to Nova?"

"Pooka knows all of Russia like the back of his paw; he guided and protected me when I was lost, I'm sure he'll get you and Nova together again. (Moan!) There's just one small problem with this plan, though," Anya started to whisper as she explained, "Pooka's afraid of cats."

Just then, Sparx felt a sudden tug at his arms, and in a matter of seconds the make-shift leash wrapped around him like the bandages of a mummy before unwinding like the string of a yo-yo, all while Pooka was barking wildly and Anya made attempts to calm the dog down.

"Heel, Pooka! Sit! Stay. Good boy. (groan!) See what I mean, Sparx? Just the mere mentioning of them drives him crazy. All you have to do is keep your ears open for anything that might sound like a... well, you know... and if Pooka seems uncomfortable around it, all you have to do is stop to pet him, even hold him if petting isn't enough, just until he calms down. Otherwise he might get off his leash and run off trying to get back to me. Can't have that when you can't see where you're going, right?"

"I'll do what I can."

"One more thing," (Sparx felt something, a necklace perhaps, being placed around his shoulders) "this necklace was a gift from my grandmother when I was really young. I can't take it with me where I'm going, so I think it's best you and Nova should hang onto it. It has an inscription on it that might help her regain her confidence."

"Thanks, Anya. Alright, Pooka, let's find Nova."

Nova meanwhile, was trembling as she wandered among the tombstones looking for Sparx... she was extremely terrified just being in this cemetary, and would have lost all her nerves if one unusual tombstone didn't get her attention. She didn't know as much of the Russian language as Cassia did, but she understood enough to read this one:

"Hmm. 'Here lies the hopes and dreams of the Ionov Family Detective Agency'," the yellow monkey almost laughed seeing that, "oh brother! And here I thought Sparx was a big baby."

"You know, madam," said the voice of a strange young man, startling her, "you sound just like my mom when she teases my dad."

Nova turned around and saw that the person talking to her wasn't flesh-and-blood, but a type of ghost instead. At first, her fear of being afraid made him look more terrifiying then he really was, but the illusion slowly faded away as he continued to speak gently to her.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you like that. Allow me to introduce myself: I am Anatoly Ionov, my father, a former con-man, founded that detective agency... and he placed that tombstone there as a joke for us to play along with whenever business was bad. I'm surprised that thing is still standing after hundreds, maybe thousands of years."

After she introduced herself and explained all that happened, Nova begged Anatoly for any chance that Sparx was still alive, for of all the illusions that haunted her since her worst nightmare came true ten-fold, what might've happened to her boyfriend scared her most.

"I'm sure he'll find you, sight or no sight," said Anatoly, "but in the meantime, there is something I have to ask of you."

He pulled a small, round, metalic box out of his pocket. At first, Nova thought it was a proposal from a stranger, and she pushed the box away, only to notice it wasn't that kind container... in fact, it looked just like the jewelry box displayed in that holograph show she saw earlier.

"It doesn't contain rings or diamonds, just so you know," Anatoly explained, "it's a music box my mother got as a little from my great-grand-mama, Marie."

"What a minute," Nova pondered, "are you saying that your mother is really-?"

"My family can't take it with us were we're going, Nova, and I want to hear it one last time before I leave... unfortunately, it's locked. If you can find the key to open it, the whole set is ours for keeps. Who knows? Maybe the sound of it would let the rest of the team find you in order to help you, and your missing boyfriend. What do you say."

One can easily imagine the stumbling the red and yellow monkeys did at that point: Nova looking for a key to an ancient music box that might be her salvation, and Sparx, unknowingly wearing that key, doing what he can to keep Pooka calm so he could find Nova. (Who would've guessed so many stray cats lived in a cemetary?!)

Meanwhile, Bartok put his long-forsaken ship-like-wagon to use as he drove Chiro, Otto, Gibson, and Mandarin to the cemetary to look for the missing members of the team. It was figured that after the Sun Riders find a way to cure Antauri of his fear of losing control, the lot of them could put Rasputin back in the underworld where he belongs.

"Yeah, but are you guys sure it's a good idea," said Bartok, "leaving Cassia and Chulan-Kumari on their own like that?"

"They have each other and they can handle themselves," said young-Chiro, seated above the sails, "plus, Thingy fell behind, and he could be very powerful if he had to be. Besides, now that Pike is... well, grown-up... he could keep an eye on them too, just as soon as he gets over his... 'issues' with dating. (Shutters!)"

"He'll never get over it," said Mandarin, making a few candles along the way out of the fermented butter the smuggled out of Mongolia, "after all, I never could. The mere thought of getting kissed by a girl, any girl, had disgusted me ever since I was very young. That is why, when I was in charge, I tried to berid the team of Nova on several occasions, to keep the consept of romance as far away from me as possible."

"Yet you plan on making an alter for Anastasia at her gravestone," teased Otto, "asking nothing more in return then a sign as to what you can do to improve yourself. Mandarin, how do you know she won't kiss you in the process of answering your prayer?"

"I don't know for sure, Otto, but for some reason, I saw my childhood-self in the royal portraits of her, and if she's truly like me in any way when she was alive, she could tell me in her afterlife the things she had that I don't. If I know what that is, I could help win the war without fighting."

"Oo! Look at me!" said Gibson, popping up from the wagon's storage compartment wearing an old hat that's deliberately designed to look like a vegitable, "I'm a head of cabbage!"

"Oh! Hey! Wait a second there, fellow!" shouted Bartok, almost losing control of the helm, "That's a peice of one of Zozi's old costumes, you got to be careful with that! Actually... I'm surprised it wasn't eaten by moths or something by now, and (snickering!) I almost forgot how stupid that old hat looks. Better put it away... before I... ha-ha!... before I die laughing!"

Chiro slid down the mast and snatched the cabbage-hat away. "Cassia's right, Gibson," the boy-hero said, "you do need bed-rest. Maybe we should have left you at the old Romanov Palace, where it's a lot safer."

"No!" the blue monkey protest, squinting as he struggled to sound rational in his speach, "We've made... an agreement... that we-!"

"That we are in this together no matter what!" said Otto, "Yeah, we know that, but you do realize that if Cassia finds out you are not in bed, she'd freak out, and when she freaks out, she ends up summoning ghosts! Not all spirits are friendly ones, you know."

Gibson tried as hard as he could to listen to Otto, but with irrationality in control, the blue monkey found himself too easily distracted by the dumbest things.

"Wow! Look at this!" Gibson said, opening a scroll he found, "A pink slug with orange hair!"

"Now you put that back right now!" shouted Bartok, "That's the best portrait I got of my old friend, Pillof, and you're spoiling it, sir! Don't make me pull this thing over!"

At this point, Gibson accidently ripped the portrait of the strange female creature: "Oops!"

"THAT DOES IT!"

As he warned, the albino bat caused his wagon to pull to a stop. Thankfully, it was a decent walking distance from the gates of the cemetary, but they had to wait until Bartok finished mending his portrait before they could navigate the place, let alone reach Anastasia's tomb. Mandarin lit the candles he made and started praying for a sign to guide him to what he is truely ment to be, but Chiro had prayers of his own... for his team-mates, for Jinmay, and for all those less fortunate then himself. One of those prayers really stood out though.

"I hope you'd forgive Bartok for what happened to your family," said Chiro, "I know how you probably felt, becuase I'm an orphan too, I barely knew my parents, but please, hear me out. Bartok didn't know he was working on the wrong side; he thought there was some good in Rasputin, but there wasn't, and now that monster is back! Please, we could all use your help."

"I myself most of all," said Mandarin, "normally I would not ask help from anyone, dead or alive, but times are despirate. If you are not going to speak to any of us, at least send us a sign as to how this can all be undone."

In the blink of an eye, a stringed intrument (a balalaika, to be precise) materilized into thin air and fell on top of Mandarin's head! The rest of the group gasped seeing that, but Bartok burst into laughter.

"I tried to warn you about this, Mandarin," the albino bat scolded, "seriously, didn't I warn you that Anastasia had sort of an impish nature? Her parents even nicknamed her 'Shvibzik', which means 'Imp' in the old language of Russia, I am not kidding."

Suddenly, something else... or rather, someone else... started to appear on top of the tombstone. At first, she appeared as the ghost of an old woman, but in seconds she morphed into the likeness she had when she was eighteen years old, smiling mischieviously. Either way, it was easy to recognise this woman as the spirit of the former-grand-duchess, Anastasia herself!

"That was the most fun I had in ages," the female ghost said, "almost as much fun as terroriing the palace cook, or beating my husband Dimitri in an arguement."

With a wave of her hand, Anastasia restored the stringed instrument like her prank never happened, and placed it in Mandarin's arms while telling him: "You have a lot more in common with this balalaika then you ever did with me, Mandarin, that's for sure!"

(Author's Note: Had seen more in the afterlife then any would suspect, the funniest part of Anastasia's little joke on Mandarin was that she was actually making a point. If you compare the history of the Balalaika to Mandarin's past actions, you'd see the stories are almost identical!)

Mandarin was confused, but accepted the stringed instrument as the sign he asked for none-the-less, and silently thanked the ghostly grand-duchess just as another phantom, most-likely that of her husband Dimitri, made his appearance.

"Sorry I'm late, Anya," Dimitri's ghost said to his wife, "even for the likes of us, the traffic in St. Petersberg is terrible!"

"Modern-day traffic is always terrible, sir," said Bartok, "as is the fog, pollution, bright-lights... true they cleaned enough of it up almost a thousand years ago to make it look like the Polution Age never happened, but all-and-all, Russia might never be the same as it was when I was just an ordinary albino bat. Times were simpler then, by far. Okay, I'm done."

"Hello, Dimitri," Anya said, kissing her husband on the lips, "any news from the city? Or maybe my favorite detective is as clueless as ever."

Dimitri rolled his eyes, "I'm not so clueless that I failed to notice you were the real grand-duchess as I was trying to train you to be a knock-off, right? Anyhow, things are getting worse: Rasputin really did come back from the dead, and there are two robots being forced into his service."

"TWO OF THEM?!" the group gasped.

"One of them isn't a silver monkey," Chiro pondered out loud, "is it?"

"Oh! Didn't know you can see or hear me," said Dimitri, "most in the living don't. Anyhow, one of them actually is a silver monkey. His will is being replaced by that of that false-prophet, the poor chimp's fading fast. What really disturbs me, though, is how the other robot, self-addressed 'Slingshot', is being controlled: something that looked like this giant brain in a jar appeared out of nowhere and attached itself to Slingshot with what looks like glowing, demonic-puppet-strings! I saw a large-brain like that appear a few days ago while haunting the streets of Moscow, but I doubt that one has that kind of abillity."

"Woah! Even Slingshot's worst nightmare is coming true," said Otto, "but at least there aren't any clams with feet around there anymore. All the same, I'm not going back there again!"

"We'll have to!" said Chiro, "Cassia and Chulan-Kumari can't handle all that chaos themselves forever, and there's no telling what became of the Sun Riders by now!"

"You mean that trio with flashy uniforms?" asked Dimitri, "I saw them. After Rasputin put all of St. Petersberg, those three got seperated and imprisoned behind doors that contain their worst nightmares and they cannot get out unless they can face their fears on their own! If you want to know the alternative... well, you better not think about it too hard! As for Cassia and Chulan-Kumari, those female monkeys ran off looking for you guys after the nightmare of that puff-ball you call 'Thingy' had come true. If I recall the rumors correctly, the creature Thingy is afraid of looked like the original form of the Skeleton King, only a little uglier, and that exadurated bag-of-bones chased your pet all over the place claming to distroy that... thing... just like his parents and planet was distroyed. Good thing most of the surviviors that escaped the intergalactic black-market took refuge in Africa, huh?"

"He's a good detective! Really good!" said Gibson, in his cross-eyed, drooling state, "Sherlock, can you tell everyone what color are my undergarments?!"

There was an akward pause.

"Uh, Gibson..." said Mandarin "aside from the boy, we're techneckly not wearing anything, and I do not think Dimitri is that kind of detective anyway."

"Speaking of clothing," said a random ghost-girl said as she appeared out of nowhere, "your 'boy' does look cold. If you dig up the grave of my Uncle Alexy, you'll find an outfit to keep him warm along with something else that might help you with your quest to defeat the bad-guy, but you have to do it before the sun rises, or it's too late for everybody. Also, if you want to find your red and yellow friends, just follow your ears. We gave them a music box to help them comfort each other, so they're easy to find. Good luck!" With that said, she disappeared.

Anya shook her head: "That's our daughter, Alaxandra... named after my mother, but she lacks her... elegance? Probably gets it from her father."

"Oh, ha-ha-ha," said Dimitri, "very funny. Lexi has a point, though, if this whole mess is countered by morning, the worst of it will be over, and everything will be back to normal."

"That includes Jinmay, right?" asked Chiro, pulling the Alchemist's Orb out of his pocket, "Her worst fear is being unable to help me, so when that guy with Rasputin's magic made it a reality, she lost all her powers and became too intagible to touch anything! We had to put her in here with the ghost of Aki the Alchemist to keep her from disappearing altogether."

"And I honestly wish there was another way," Aki's voice said from within the orb, "for it seems her fears had been used as a pawn to get through to mine. True, I had already lived my worst nightmare every day for many years, sharing my conciousness with the Skeleton King, but there are many other things that terrify me, locked in the doorways of my mind! In only a few hours, Jinmay has broken almost every lock and opened just as many doors, unleashing every reason I had to loose control before I was corrupted!"

"I'm just trying to get out of here!" said Jinmay's voice, "Chiro needs me now more then ever! Maybe this is the door to the real world!"

"NO! NOT THAT DOOR! THAT'S WHERE I LOCKED UP THE MEMORY OF MY EX-WIFE-!"

"OOPS! Too late!"

In the blink of an eye, another female voice came out of the orb (for some odd reason, it sounds like a younger version of Madam Esimia). What this woman was saying was hard to make out becuase she's talking too fast in a nagging tone. By what young-Chiro could understand, however, Aki's ex-wife was threatening to divorce him if he doesn't settle down from his work and allow her to have children. It seemed that Anya heard it the same way, judging by how she rolled her eyes before entering the orb in essance form and pulled Jinmay out. Exposing the robot-girl's necklace, the Jewel of Hope, to light from the moon, Anya made Jinmay solid again.

"Don't worry, she's not going anywhere now," said Anya, "but her energy is still a little faded. She won't be completely restored until that demonic-bottle is broken again. Unfortunately, this nonsense will only start up again in another three millenia unless the bottle's despenser is desolved in the Potion of Life-and-Death, and only Baba Yaga has the recipe!"

"Oh no! I am not getting mixed up with the witch of the Iron Forest again!" said Bartok, "Don't get me wrong, despite her iron teeth, hocus-pocus, and everything else about her that made people scared of her for centuries, she actually quite a sweetie, but she's a hard woman to bargain with. If you seek her out for any reason, she expects favors in return, usually in the form of impossible tasks, and I should know... I had to do three of them to rescue a kidnapped prince."

"Ivan the Fifth," said Anya, "half-brother of my blood-ancestor Peter the Great. Don't ask what's so great about him... history books explain it better."

"Anastasia... Anya... would you ever forgive me for-"

"I already have, Bartok."

"You... you have?"

After hearing that exchange, Chiro made up his mind as he dug up Alexy Romanov's grave, where he found a child-sized military uniform and a toy sword... it wasn't much, but at least the outfit's warm, and the sword just might be enough for what he had in mind.

"Sorry about this, um, Alex," the teen-in-a-toddler's-body said, "but I need to borrow your things for tonight if I am going to get help from this 'Baba Yaga' character. First thing's first, though: have you seen a red or yellow monkey anywhere around here?"

Before the ghost of Prince Alexy Romanov could answer, Chiro heard the tune of a tiny music box, which he felt was a clue and a half as he followed the sound (unaware Jinmay was close behind). In the next moment or two, Sparx and Nova were in sight, embracing each other.

"Oh, Sparx," said Nova, "I was beginning to think I'll never see you again."

"I still have that thought about you," said Sparx, "but I guess holding you will just have to do. After all, I did say that I would keep you warm, right? Don't ever say I'm not a monkey of my word. By the way, you did read the inscription on that necklace? I was told there's an inscription but... well, you know."

"It didn't say much, there was only three words: 'TOGETHER IN PARIS'."

"Hey! That sounds like the bet we made when we found out Gibson was in lo-!"

"I know."

"You still want to go to Fr-?"

"There is always Texas, Sparx. After all, your brother didn't techneckly say-"

"He's a guy, Nova, what did you expect? Although, in spite of that, Cassia still seemed to under-"

"Of course she did, she's that kind of girl. Not like-"

"You're that type to me."

Chiro smiled. He knew that Sparx and Nova loved each other for a really long time, but this was the first time, as far as he knew, that those two monkeys started to finish each other's sentances like this; weird, but cute. All the same, they can't rely on just each other for warmth forever, so Chiro gently tapped both his missing monkeys on the shoulders and told them: "Sparx... Nova... are you okay? It's me, Chiro. We've been looking everywhere for you."

The two monkeys smiled hearing Chiro, even though there was something off about his voice.

"Is it really you, kid?" said Sparx, "You sound kind of funny."

"Sparx, you might not believe this," Nova tried to explain, "but Chiro has been turned into a five-year-old... again! Just like what happened the last time our worst fears came true."

"I don't remember if I told you this before," said Chiro, "but what scares me is reliving my horrible childhood, but maybe it isn't as bad as I recall it to be. I plan to find my place of birth for answers just as soon as we get this mess in St. Petersberg is straightened out, but there's a catch: in order to fix this problem once and for all, we will need to get some help from a witch."

"YOU MEAN LIKE THE ONE RIGHT BEHIND YOU?!" screeched Nova, hallusinating again as she pointed over Chiro's shoulder. As he turned around, however, he saw and recognized who it really was.

"Nova?" Jinmay said, in a weak but gentle voice that caused the illusion to fade away, "it's me."

"Jinmay!" said Nova, sighing in relief, "It is you."

"Whoa! You're worse shape then I thought," said Sparx, in his usual half-joking tone, "if you confused Jinmay for some old hag."

Upon returning Sparx, Nova, and Jinmay to the old Romanov Palace to rest, Chiro announced his plan to the entire team, including Cassia and Chulan-Kumari... they actually took the news rather well.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?!" gasped Cassia, "You can't go into the Iron Forest alone! Even if you don't get lost, no five-year-old would have a prayer against Baba Yaga! Teeth of sharpened iron, hands so swift even the wind cannot escape her grasp... she's a cannibal!"

"How do you know this for sure, Cassia?" asked Chulan-Kumari.

"I can read, remember? Just so you know, Kumari, the very first book I ever read contains stories written and told all over the world! Madam Esimia says they 're all fairy tales, but hey! You'd never know for sure."

"Guys, I'm not really five years old," said Chiro, holding up the wooden sword, "I'm fifteen! I just look ten years younger because I had been afraid of my own childhood for so long. I may not have the Power Primate, but I still had my combat training. I can handle any old witch!"

"At least you as the leader have the privaledge to fight," stated Mandarin (trying to figure out how to play the balalaika that Anastasia gave him), "combat is my greatest talent, and yet I am forbidden to take part in it, but the native monkeys could be right. By the mere sound of it, Chiro, you'd probably be safer with that Warlok and his smoke-minions."

"Um, actually Mandarin, she's not all that b-" Bartok started to say.

"That much said," the orange monkey continued, "I vollenteer to get ahold of the potion we need to distroy that demonic charm for good. Succeed or die, I shall at least be off some use to my monkey-brotheren without any interferance."

Before anyone could object, Mandarin ran off, and Bartok had to fly after him. Not long after that, Antauri ended up breaking in through one of the windows, struggling to maintain control.

"Monkey Team... run!" the silver monkey struggled to say, "I don't... want to... hurt you!"

Jinmay was too weak to move, but Gibson stayed with her (mostly because his irrational side convinced the rest of him that he could make Jinmay able to walk again by yelling at her legs) as Otto and Chulan-Kumari ran off in one direction, and Nova pulled Sparx while Cassia lead her in the other.

"Come on, Nova!" the red monkey protested, "We dealt with Antauri the last time he went rogue, we can do it again!"

Nova only stopped for a second hearing that, "I know that," she said, "but things are ten times worse then last time, we need to make a back-up plan just in case we can't stop him, and Cassia said something about a secret doorway."

Cassia lead them into Anastasia's bedroom and opened up one of the walls.

"This doorway is a shortcut through the servants quarters," the Capuchin explained, "which some believe Anastasia and her grandmother used as an emergancy exit during the seige of the palace. I saw it in a Holograph Show once. You'll be safe in here, Chiro... um? Chiro?"

"HE DIDN'T COME WITH US!" the red and yellow monkeys gasp together. Things were definately looking bad, and as for Chiro, there was only one way for things to get any worse, and all he had to prevent it was a wooden toy sword. Strangely enough, as the boy-hero used that sword to ward off Antauri's attacks, the blade seemed to be glowing with a bright green energy that made it as powerful as a real weapon, but where was that energy coming from? Was it coming from the blessings of a deceased royal family... or did Chiro have some access to the Power Primate before he discovered the Super Robot that he never knew about? Whichever is the case, Chiro knew that it kept his now-tiny body alive in battle long enough to find another way to get through to Antauri.

"Chiro... get away from me!"

"I'm not leaving you, Antauri! No matter what happens to either of us, I am not leaveing you!"

"CHIRO!"

"I know your scared. We all are, but you have to trust me! You often said that no magic in the universe could overpower the Power Primate, and there are times I doubted that is true, but maybe it is! I know you can overcome this; you have to! Please! I'd rather be distroyed by one of my own team-mates then LOOSE ANOTHER FATHER!"

It wasn't until the dark-magic's infulance caused the him to wound Chiro that the silver monkey started to regain control. The blood on his own ghost claws and the sight of the boy-hero falling over in pain caused Antauri to assume the worst, even though Chiro, in truth, was still alive, and the injury was not even fatal.

"What have I done?!" Antauri gasped, as he leaned over and picked up the boy's body, "Chiro! Please, speak to me! I didn't mean to... I mean, you were meant for great things, but I...what have I done?"

Of course, it is worth pointing out that there was a small amount of good magic inside the silver monkey that was slowly restoring some of Antauri's organic traints, and it has already restored his sence of smell and taste, allowing him to be able to eat. At this point, as he held Chiro's "dying" body in his de-clawed arms, Antauri unwittingly ended up doing something else that his robotic body deprived him of doing for over a year: he shed tears of sorrow. They were oil, at first, but in a matter of seconds, they ran as clear salt-water. After that, Chiro decided to shake off the pain and speak to his back-to-normal mentor.

"Easy, Antauri... I'm okay... ugh! Well, mostly, anyway."

"Chiro? (Gasp!) Chiro!"

Seconds after that, the rest of the team came back, looking for young-Chiro before it was too late, only to find out that the kid came through, and was able to help Antauri break his share of the fear-curse by uncovering what the silver monkey was really afraid of: loosing his student.

Cassia did a quick diagnostic on young-Chiro's body, and assured everyone else that he was going to survive. However, she started to wonder if that scar which quickly formed would still be there when and if Chiro returns to being a teenager again, and that mad Antauri a little worried until the ghost of Anastasia "Anya" Romanov Ionov appeared by the silver monkey's side and told him: "I don't blame you for worrying, though there's no need for it. Nothing is more frightening then losing, or almost losing those you love and care for. Even with my memory gone, I felt the same way after losing my family. Comrad Flemenkov, the keeper of the orphanage I grew up in, told me it is best that I blame myself for losing my family, because she thought all kids without parents are scrawny little nobodies; I was so stupid to take her advice. I know how fightening it is to be alone, but don't worry, for no matter what happens, whither your team stays together or not, you should know my family and I will be with you every step of the way, quite literally, in 'spirit'."

Meanwhile, after solving a riddle to get through the gate, Mandarin was doing rediculous tasks for Baba Yaga that made him question if vollenteering to cover for Chiro with this mission was really a wise decision. The first thing she had the orange monkey do was clean her whole house, inside and out, from top to bottom. The inside was difficult enough to clean up, because it looked like that witch hasn't bothered to use her magic to do it herself in months, maybe even years-on-end! The outside, however, was even harder. (Author's Note: Ever had to sweep the front deck, wash windows, or any other outdoor chore for your beloved grandmother like I did for mine in the past? Just imagine how much more difficult it would be if her house had chicken-legs and could run away from you just like the house of Baba Yaga!)

"I cannot take much more of this!" moaned Mandarin, "Bartok! You have wings! Go clean the outside of the house for me, please!"

"Sorry, Mandarin, but Baba Yaga told me that I'm forbidden to help you," the albino bat admitted, "and besides, I kept you from getting lost on the way to the gate, so I proactically helped enough. What's the matter with you anyway, Mandarin? Is this run-away building a bit too hard for a strong, clever monkey like you?!"

"TOO HARD?! Ha! I may be weak now, but I am not that weak... not yet, anyhow. (Gulp!) I can figure this out on my own... if I only had the time! You had heard the warning of those ghosts: if the spell over St. Petersberg isn't broken by sunrise, the Monkey Team might not survive, and I intend to make sure that they do!"

"That what are you sitting around for? You have work to do!"

It took almost an hour, but soon enough, Mandarin figured out he was going about it in all the wrong way: he had to wait for the house to stop running and gently sneak up and jump upon one of it's chicken-legs. After that, all that he had to do was hang on tight long enough to reach the front deck and pull himself up... since he hadn't actually climbed anything without levitating in years, that part of the plan proved the most exhausting! He barely had much energy for the actual cleaning part, which only took a few minutes, and after that, he almost passed out.

"Ah-ah-ah!" said Baba Yaga, just getting started on the potion her guests asked for, "Don't sit! There are a couple of other things you have to do. It seems my dearest pet, Piloff, has wandered off again. My magical intuition is telling me that she's a few miles north, in the Shadow Pit, but it is you, Mandarin, who has to bring her back to me."

It didn't take long for Mandarin, to find the Shadow Pit, but it was so dark down there that he can't see his tail in front of his own face, let alone any creature that might be the pet of a witch.

"The least she could have done was loan me a torch," the orange monkey muttered, "even if I find Piloff down here, how am I supposed to see any way to get out again?!"

Suddenly, a child-like female voice filled the caverns, "Hello?"

'Probably some poor soul got lost in the forest and fell down here by accident,' thought Mandarin, 'I do not know why I have this feeling I should help her, but it might be best that I do not do so. After all, I only have until sunrise to get the Potion of Life-and-Death from Baba Yaga, and such chivalry and compassion would only slow me down. Besides, if I do rescue this girl, she might give me a kiss... I HATE BEING KISSED BY GIRLS! Then again, it might be just a small price to pay for... OH-NO! What is wrong with me?! I must not be distracted now!'

Just then, a glowing, ghostly purple cat appeared right before his eyes.

'That has to be Piloff,' the orange monkey thought, 'after all, witches and cats always fit well together.' He then shouted to the ceiling, "Alright, Bartok! I think I found her!"

"Hurry up and bring her to the surface!" Bartok's voice shouted back, "Baba Yaga isn't a patient woman, believe me, I'm talking from experiance here!"

Mandarin slowly reached out for the purple cat. "It's alright, Piloff," he said to it, "you'll have to come with me like a good girl, now. O'm going to take you back home to Baba Yaga."

"Are you really?" the mysterious girl-voice said, as what felt like tenticals and suction-cups surrounded Mandarin's body.

'This is worse then just a girl.' he thought, 'It's some kind of monster that's speaking to me, using the voice of a girl to lure in unsuspecting victims! Oh! Thank Shuggazoom I have no attraction what-so-ever to that kind of thing!'

"Release me at once you beast!" Mandarin said, struggling to get free.

"Why?" said the voice, "I am just trying to give you a hug!"

Within seconds, Mandarin managed to free himself, only to see the purple cat run off, deeper into the caverns, and the sight of it caused him to freak out as he ran, chasing the light of that feline's glowing fur: "Piloff! Come back here!"

"Oo! You're a fickle one," said the voice, "aren't you? It's kind of cute."

This sort of thing went on for goodness knows how long, until Mandarin chased the purple cat to a dead-end within the cavern, where a pride-worth of multi-colored, glowing cats were gathered together in nests, and that got Mandarin to rethink his theory:

"Wait a minute... that cat-creature... it isn't Piloff, is it?"

"No silly!" said the mysterious voice, "it's me!"

Realizing the "monster" he was avoiding is actually tame, Mandarin felt around for one of her tenticals and let her use it to grab him and pull him close to her. He hated the idea of being hugged by anything or anyone, and it felt especially strange since he's fully organic for the first time in ages, but it was the only way to know where Piloff was in all this darkness. The orange monkey reached his arms around the creature... he could just barely remember how touch worked, but it rushed back to him fast enough to get a decent idea of what Piloff is. If not for the soft hair on the top of her head and rodent-like face, Mandarin would easily compare her to some kind of snake, only instead of smooth scales, her skin felt like it was made of rubber!

'That just might explain the disappearing and reappearing tenticals,' he thought, 'Hmm. Maybe we could use that.'

Working along with Piloff, Mandarin gathered dandruff as he could from several of those glowing cats, and asked her to hold the fur samples.

"Could you possibly make your suction-cups a bit thinner," he asked, "so the light can escape?"

"I don't know, I never done that before," she answered, "but I could try."

Following her new friend's directions, she turned her suction-cup hands into a decent floresant light, which not only helped light the way to the exit, but revealed enough of her image to startle Mandarin with the truth.

"I had no idea that you are both Bartok's 'Piloff' and the one belonging to Baba Yaga!" said Mandarin, as he carried her in the direction his own footprints were placed (despite being a cave, the floor of the Shadow Pit was just soft enough to leave tracks), "I thought it was a common name in this country of this planet."

"Oh! My name is about as unique as the rest of me," said Piloff, "believe me. So, you know Bartok the Magnificiant, huh? I had not seen him in years, and I only knew him for a couple of days, after he got me out of the Ice Quarry; I was stuck to a rock at the time. How is he?"

"He's the one who guided me to Baba Yaga's hut in the first place, Piloff. Maybe it's best that you ask him yourself."

Mandarin quickly regretted suggesting that, as the albino bat and the... whatever it is Piloff really is... did a whole lot of talking in a small amount of time catching up with each other for the first time in centuries. 'Next to these two,' the orange monkey thought, 'the gossip of the cockatoos is silent!'

As soon as Piloff was returned home, Baba Yaga squeezed some oil from the strange creature's body as well as toss in the dander that was collected from those glowing cats. Poor Mandarin, he felt like he was about to cry and pass out at the same time, and those were two things that he often told himself that warriors never do.

'Then again, I'm not really a warrior anymore, am I? I am not even worthy of wearing my old Hyperforce helmet again.' Mandarin collapsed on the floor and started crying again, even more so then he did in Mongolia, where he felt regret for the first time in his life,'What if it's too late for the rest of the team?! It's all my fault! If I only kept away from the gates of the Netherworld as the Alchemist told me, like a good monkey, then the Skeleton King would not even exist; none of us would be in this mess! Alas, the past is carved in stone, and the future is tied to a prophecy... nothing will ever be right again.'

In that moment, Baba Yaga noticed the tears running down the orange monkey's cheeks, and she managed to catch one and put it onto the cauldron, shaking her head.

"You seem to be more sensitive then I expected, Mandarin," she told him, putting Piloff in her cage, "most who have to run arrends for me don't reveal their true hearts to me until after they finish the final task. How long have you held that in?"

"Too long, and yet, not long enough. I hate myself for caving in like this, yet after all I put myself though it is the only comfort I have left."

"I would not count on that. There's still but one more task: in the west, there is a nest filled with eggs belonging to Gamayun, the bird of prophecy. She layed two egs more then she usually does each year: one of which is meant of my potion, and the other is meant for you. It is up to you to retrieve them but be warned: Gamayun's sisters, Alkonosta and Sirina, gaurd the nest while she is away, and they have this power over the mind."

"Here, Bartok," said Piloff, tossing the albino bat a couple of earplugs, "if you are going with him, you're going to need them."

"What for, Piloff?" asked Batok.

"I never been close enough to that nest myself, but is long said that Alkonosta and Sirina have singing voices so beautiful that it weaves some sort of forgetfulness spell. Any who hear their songs lose track of everything and want nothing more then to just sit around and listen to that music for the rest of their lives, which is what they end up doing. Only those few who find favor in the eyes of Gamayun herself are set free to tell the tale... unfortunately, she might not be home until dawn."

"Really?"

"Oh! Come on, Bartok!" said Mandarin, "By the mere sound of it, it is probably an old wives tale, and even if it was true, their power over the mind would be useless against me! I may not know as many potions as you, Baba Yaga, let alone the one we need to win this battle, but I did learn one in my youth that immunes the mind to forgetfulness, which I drank years ago."

"And what makes you so sure," chuckled Baba Yaga, "that your potion had not started to wear off by now?"

The Hyperforce had their hands full, for not only did they have to deal with their own fears and the monsters created by the fears of the people of St. Petersberg, but they had to deal with Slingshot as well. Thankfully, Aurora and Johnny managed to face what they were afraid of on their own, so the two members of the Sun Riders were able to help the locals so the monkeys could focus on their ally-turned-puppet.

"I know how you feel about this," said Antauri, fighting the small-yet-powerful robot, "I too had almost lost control, but Chiro helped me get it back, so we're trying to help you as well."

Slingshot tried to stand still long enough to listen, but the demon-created, ghostly puppetstrings kept pulling at his joints, forcing him to fight his own allies.

"It's not that I can't control myself!" shouted Slingshot, straining himself to prove it, "It's that Maezono is controlling me even more! You don't like losing your will to another because you don't want to hurt those you care about, but since Takayuchi sacrificed himself to save me, I have nobody to really care about but myself; I JUST WANT MY FREEDOM!"

'Ugh! He's just like the main character of The Oni's Puppet!' Antauri thought, 'At least I could see the strings, but unless he has something more to fight for, such threads would only keep growing back on him even if I cut them, that much is curtain after Otto tried several times!'

"You have more then that." said a firmiliar voice.

The team turned around, and saw the still-weakened Jinmay out on the battlefeild. This frightened the entire Hyperforce, but none more so then young-Chiro.

"Jinmay! Get out of here!" shouted Chiro, "You are in no condition to help us, and it's just to dangerous! Get back to the Romanov Palace, where you're safe!"

"Not without you Chiro," said Jinmay, "I know I cannot help you, not directly, but I should at least be with you. Slingshot, you do not know me, and I didn't know until Chiro told me, but just before the accident, Takayuchi agreed to take me in if I was ever found, and here I am... brother."

Slingshot's system went on the fritz when he heard this information: he has a foster sister?! Why did fate chose now of all times to let him know, when he's just a plaything? He knew this much for sure, though... he didn't want her to see him like this! With that in mind, Shingshot grabbed hold of the strings on his limbs, and used his newfound strength to turn that against Maezno, throwing the large brain-in-a-vat against a wall... only, it wasn't the real Maezno. It was an illusion made of smoke from Rasputin's Reliquary, so the very second Slingshot faced his fear, his restraints and the cause had disappeared.

Not long after that, as Slingshot noticed Jinmay, the foster-sister he never knew, fainted do to low energy, that Quasar overcame his fear of snakes and escaped "prison" in the Romanov Palace riding upon the coils of Kaa the python.

"We are here to fight!" said Quasar.

"Would you pleassse get off my coilsss now, Quasssar?!" hissed Kaa, "Your husssky body isss crussshing me!"

"Well-well-well," Johnny teased, "look who finally decided to show up."

"Johnny, be nice," scolded Aurora, "Quasar had only fear to face, and it was harder for him then ours were for us... 'Mr. I-Don't-Have-To-Face-All-My-Fears-At-Once'!"

"You should both be nice!" said young-Chiro, "Now that we have two more of our friends fighting along side us, we are far more likely to win. All we have to do is take out a few more of these monsters, and this Rasputin-wannabe will have to come out in the open, close enough for us to distroy the source of the problem."

At this point, adult-Pike dashed passed them screaming like a girl as his version of Lena Hyena continued to chase him around and attempt to kiss him!

"Also, somebody should... probably... take care of... that..." said young-Chiro, pointing to Pike and his problems running one direction, only to notice Thingy bouncing away from his version of the Skeleton King in the other direction, "and... that."

Meanwhile, Mandarin ended up learning the hard way that Baba Yaga was right: the spell he put on himself to immune himself to amnesia was actually starting to wear off, but it was still in tact enough for him to stay focused on the task at hand: getting a couple of eggs from Gamayun's nest.

Unfortunately, the songs of the two other mythical birds at that nest, Alkonosta and Sirina, caused the orange monkey's memory of all else to become a haze: he couldn't remember why he needed the eggs (though he knew the reason, whatever it was, is important enough). He could not remember where or who he is! Mandarin already forgot his name, and that he often thought himself as a powerful warrior... becuase he had the balalaika that Anastasia's spirit gave him at the graveyard, the orange monkey thought he was a musician! Still, his old determination and stubborness remained in tacked, as he tried to improvise a song in attempt to outdo the mesmerising song-birds.

To that end, he was able to keep the worst of their spell out, but he has, at this point, forgotten most of his childhood. He forgot he used to be bribed with food in exchange for good behavior, and was often spanked and locked in a box without supper whenever he did anything naughty. He managed to cling onto the memory of his "brothers" and "sister", but he forgotten their names too, along with how jealous he was that he wasn't the center of attention anymore becuase of their presence. Mandarin could not even remember the war, or the fact this mess was his fault in the first place for releasing one of the Dark Ones and swallowing it's flesh, though he knew he did something wrong, via a sickening feeling inside. The one thing he remembered about his past for sure was that he's a monkey who was raised by a couple of humans: one was a tall and very busy man (though he forgot what he looks like) but the other was nothing more then a little girl with big blue eyes. A little girl so young, that whatever she did to be a good mother (did he ever call her mother?) didn't turn out very well, but the point that stuck was that her actions were done with love he barely noticed.

As Mandarin continued to think of the girl who tried and failed to raise him right, he forgot about the eggs, and started pondering over her eyes. He knew he seen them somewhere else before, but where?

At this point, the racket of the two kinds of music clashing against each other motivated Gamayun to return to her nest early, and upon seeing that her sisters were trying to silance such an artistic monkey, she silanced them by making an ugly glace towards them. After that, she used a song of her own, at a tempo that harmonizes with Mandarin's balalaika playing, to help restore his memory.

In a matter of minutes, every horrible thing that Alkonosta and Sirina's song took away from his mind flooded back to the orange monkey... how little control he had over his life growing up because of the amature parenting skills of an eight-year-old girl that he never called "mother", all becuase she was not very good at being a mother at all! He still had trouble recalling all the details about the man who helped the girl raise him was, but knows now that he was known as the "Alchemist" and he had mis-matched eyes. The orange monkey remembered the names of his siblings and how much he used to hate them, along with all the reasons why... yet, during his few moments of amnesia, he discoved he cares enough about his brothers and sisters to keep anything or anyone from hurting them except himself. Soon enough, the only thing he could not remember was his own name, though he recalls that someone told him he was named after a fruit: ...Bananas? ...Apricot? ...Mango? ...Mandarin? Yes! MANDARIN! That has to be the right one, as his fur was the exact same shade of orange.

As Gamayun tossed a couple of her eggs out of the nest, and Mandarin caught them with his hands while wrapping his tail around the balalaika, he remembered the mission he needed them for, too.

"Is it safe to take these things out yet, sir?" asked Bartok, pointing to the plugs in his ears from up in a nearby tree. Mandarin nodded yes, and the albino bat removed his earplugs, "Oh! Thank goodness! Like I said before, bats have good eyesight, and by what I seen you had quite a hard time there, Mandarin, but just so you know, a bat that cannot HEAR anything doesn't have a change of knowing where he's going in the dark."

"To be honest with you," said Mandarin, still a bit hazy, "Bartok, right? Well, to be honest, I almost enjoyed the odd comfort of forgetting everything from the neglect I indured in the past and my desire to be the most powerful warrior in the universe in the furture. I had no idea how painful those memories really were... until Gamayun gave them back! These eggs better be worth that kind of agony."

"Well, I guess the yoke's on you... THE YOKE IS ON YOU! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Get it, sir? I meant 'yoke' as in 'burden', but that turned out to be a good word-choice because a 'yoke' is also the center of an egg! Ha-ha-ha-ha!"

"Very funny, Bartok... say, how would you like your face: fried or scrambled?"

"Ugh, I prefer to keep things over-easy, sir."

"Well, I don't... or rather, I thought I didn't. When I was young, the bad influance of a caregiver too young for the job only taught me that the hard way was the only way to learn anything, but now, I'm starting to think over-easy would be an egg-cellent change of pace!"

"Alright, sir. Don't want over do it, now."

But Mandarin couldn't resist making a few more lame egg-jokes along the way to Baba Yaga, much to Bartok's dismay, and by the time the witch of the Iron Forest cracked open one of those eggs and put it's contents into the potion, the smell was something they both regret.

"Ugh!" said Piloff, coiling herself to cover her nose, "I feel sick!"

"Yeah! I don't blame you." said Bartok, landing to block the smell with his wings.

"No wonder that bird gladly tossed those eggs out of the nest," said Mandarin, opening the windows of the hut, "they're ROTTEN!"

"Rotten enough for this potion to work," said Baba Yaga, mixing the mixture, "it is not for drinking anyhow. You are supposed to pour it: to forces of good it has the power to heal, but to evil things, like the cap upon the bottle that Rasputin carried around, it works as an acid, thus could distroy this curse on St. Petersberg once and for all. However, before I give this to you, Mandarin, let me ask you something: are you a rotten egg?"

The orange monkey sighed as he held the other egg in the palm of his hands. "I behaved like one in the past," he confessed, "and I only hope who I really am and who I appeared to be are two very different monkeys. I just wish... there was something I could do in order make up for my past wrongs."

Baba Yaga saw the honesty in Mandarin's eyes as she filled a bottle with the compound she just created, and hung that bottle around his neck. "You just did it." she said, showing her iron teeth as she smiled while wiping the tears from the orange monkey's face.

"What do you mean?"

"You'll understand in due time. In the meantime, I should let you know that, unlike the one I used to make the potion, YOUR egg is fertile. If you need help, throw it away and make sure that it cracks. If you had truely repented, a small bird much like it's mother will hatch, and distract the cause of the problem before instinctually returning to the forest, but if there is still too much evil in you... well, at least you'd get a decent stink-bomb out of it!"

"You cannot be serious!"

"Is this a face that looks like it's fooling around about this? Now go, and aid your family! Dawn approaches... you little shvibzik."

"I don't recall everything clearly, but I think someone else had this nickname... now, if only I could only remember what that word means. Eh! I'll figure it out later. Thank you for your help! (Akward pause.) Why did that last part feel so odd?!"

Because of the wind that Baba Yaga put in the sail of their wagon, Bartok and Mandarin managed to get to St. Petersburg in record time, but half way between the outskirts and the Freak Show, Mandarin got distracted by the sound of a little girl screaming, and he jumped off the wagon to investigate, egg and all.

Without even thinking, the orange monkey ran between the girl and her personal nightmare-creature and, telling her to duck-in-cover, he tossed the egg at that monster. The egg cracked, and while there was, indeed, a rotten-egg smell, that wasn't all that escaped the shell... a tiny bird with a human face (much like the prophet-birds that broke his mental barrier), hatched right on the spot; it distroyed the girl's monster with it's voice alone. Alas, that bird could not fly away no matter how much it tried... poor thing was born with only one wing! Quickly enough, the bird exausted itself and collapsed onto the ground, where it faded into a flower... the first geranium of the season! Mandarin was confused by the sight.

'What is that witch trying to tell me with this?' he wondered, so dazed that he almost didn't notice when the little girl kissed him on the cheek... almost didn't, but he noticed, 'And why did that not hurt me? When I was young, whenever any girl attempted to kiss any part of me, it felt like acid burning me and left a horrible taste in my mouth! Yet, this time around, the quick sensation is oddly... pleasant?!'

Mandarin was paralyzed in thought until Bartok's voice got his attention.

"Mandarin! I just saw Chiro!" the albino bat said, "He is facing off against Rasputin 2.0 all by himself and the rest of the team is too busy with other monsters to help him! We got to hurry up if we are to end this madness!"

"What?!" gasped the orange monkey, "Bartok, I... I cannot help anyone! In case you did not notice, I had already used up the egg-bomb and I am strictly forbidden to take part in any violent behavior! WHAT USE IS A WARRIOR MONKEY THAT IS NOT ALLOWED TO FIGHT?! (Toddler-like whining!)"

"You got to be kidding, sir."

"Excuse me?"

"You cleaned up Baba Yaga's house while it got up and ran away, found Piloff in the dark, and managed to stay focused on your goals even when the song of the Prophet Birds gave you amnesia for a moment or two... and you still doubt yourself? Mandarin, if you could figure a way out of those impossible tasks, then you might be able to find ways to help win this war without fighting anybody. In fact, it might be too easy for you if you actually tried."

"You...? (Sniffle!) You really think so, Bartok?"

"I know so, sir, but whatever you have to do, better do it soon, or the Monkey Team will lose their leader, and I doubt they'll trust you enough to give you that job back... yet, if ever."

"Right! Hmm... but this time you HAVE to help me! (whispering.)"

"Whoa! That's a well thought out plan. Maybe you really were in charge once."

"I just hope it is insane enough to work!"

The two waste no time getting to the Freak Show, where young-Chiro was indeed fighting against the reborn warlok... it's clear that Chiro himself didn't notice, but Mandarin's eyes almost popped out of his head as the miniture Chosen One regained his ability to transform into a monkey, but only for short moments at a time. So short, in fact, that blinking causes one to miss the transformation process as he goes back-and-forth between being a tiny human boy and being a baby monkey; the glow in the wooden sword pulsing in time with each transformation!

"It seems my hairless monkey isn't so hairless after all," murmured Mandarin, "I recall only one other with this ability... the Alchemist's apprentice, my nanny, Heng-Shi Kungshuizan! Could she really be the boy's mother?!"

"We'll ponder that later, sir," said Bartok, "right now, we have a plan to set to action, remember."

The orange monkey nodded, and slid into Rasputin's view, just as that demon was about to wring poor young-Chiro's neck with his own hands!

"You brute!" shouted Mandarin, "What kind of a man end the life of a child?! If you want to hurt him, you'll have to distroy me first!"

Rasputin laughed, and swung his demonic insence bottle, unleashing a wave of his smoke-demon minions to attack Mandarin... the orange monkey was badly hurt by the assult, but he continued to stand up and mouth off against the enemy:

"Oh sure! You use your powers on those who only have half a chance yet you'd personally attack someone in a weaker state then my own?! You, Rasputin, are by far the biggest coward then all the people you victimized in this city put together! In fact, you're so much of a coward, that you had to sell your soul to the Dark Ones for your power instead of find some way to prove yourself on your own terms! Even I was never that foolish!"

"WHAT?!" Rasputin shouted, dropping Chiro just to pursue Mandarin, "Whyyou wicked, two-timing demon monkey! Just wait until I get my hands on you! Whether you survive this night or not, you shall regret ever mentioning the Dark Forces in vain like that!"

Rasputin chased Mandarin all over the room as the orange monkey bobbed-and-weaved around every corner. In a matter of moments, the evil warlok was far enough away from Chiro for Mandarin to signal Bartok with a whistle; the albino bat swooped down and stolen his ex-master's insence bottle reliquary.

"Bartok! You miserable rodent! Give that back! What do you think you are doing?!"

"What I should have done the first time, sir... stand up to you! Like I said before: this could only end in tears!"

Flying as fast as his tiny wings could carry him, Bartok carried the reliquary to young-Chiro (who at this time was in a toddler version of his caveman form).

"Chiro! You got to distroy this thing!" the albino bat said, "Save the dispenser for last if you can, though!"

Young-Chiro nodded, and grabbed hold of the reliquary's skull-shaped dispenser with one hand while smashing the glass-bottle part with a rock in the other hand, shouting a bunch of insults at Rasputin in the monkey language until the evil reliquary was distroyed. In the blink of an eye, the soul of the evil warlok was send back to the Netherworld, restoring the original jerk Ivan Paxboyatsha. Unfortunately for him, just as Thingy's version of the Skeleton King offically disappeared, the real deal appeared right behind Paxboyatsha, and the old bone-head seemed angrier then usual (hard to tell now that he's more bone then flesh)!

"YOU HAVE FAILED ME!" the demonic ruler screached, "NOW YOU SHALL JOIN RASPUTIN WHERE HE RESIDES!"

"Czar of Darkness! This isn't what you think!" pleaded Paxboyatsha, "I tried to distroy the Hyperforce as we agreed, honestly, but that demon Rasputin overshadowed my body to reclaim his powers and attack all of St. Petersburg! We still have a few hours left until dawn, just make me another reliquary so I could finish the job! I beg you, your highness, just one more chance!"

"YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF SUCH POWER! NOW BEGONE!"

In a wave of the Skeleton King's bony hand, Paxboyatsha instantly burst into flames and turned to ashes. It was only afterwards that the old bone-head noticed Mandarin running towars young-Chiro, and the orange monkey found he was more fearful of the enemy then usual on account of being without armor, weapons, or powers.

"HOW IRONIC THAT THE ORIGINAL BEAST WOULD GET IN THE WAY OF SOMETHING HIS DOUBLE HAD ORIGINALLY THOUGHT UP." the Skeleton King taunted, "YET, QUITE FITTING, FOR WHEN THIS YEAR IS AT LEAST HALF-DONE, THERE SHALL BE A REDEFINITION OF... SELF CONFLICT... THAT I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING!"

With that said, the Skeleton King disappeared into the shadows, and Mandarin found himself and Chiro were instantly back to normal... except that the injuries they got that night were still there, and Chiro was in his underpants becuase the outfit he borrowed from Alexi Romanov's grave was too small for him.

"W-what d-d-did he m-m-mean b-b-by th-th-that?" Chiro shivered, as Mandarin poured Baba Yaga's potion on the demonic insense-dispenser, causing the skull-shaped object to melt away to noting in the orange monkey's re-cybernetic hands.

"I think he means that in six months," Mandarin pondered, "if not less, considering how long I was a prisoner in that cave, the Skeleton King expects me to duel against my own clone. It is too bad I am still on probation; I would have demanded for him to allow that battle to take place immediantly just to get it over with. Bah! What difference would it make? Although I had not fought back as I usually do, I've sustained enough injuries in this battle to face the final moment of weakness in any warrior... lulled into sleep to awake in the afterlife. Goodbye Chiro."

The second Mandarin finished his speach, he splashed Chiro's scar with what was left of the potion (instantly healing it because Chiro is a force of good) before lying on the ground.

Chiro shook his head at the orange monkey's position: flat on his back, holding a twig between his hands (too far from the flower he grew too pick it) all while shutting his eyes and sticking out his tounge. Mandarin clearly was expecting himself to die, but Anya's spirit appeared and made it clear she didn't want that to happen, as she used her energy to heal the orange monkey. During the process, Chiro noticed that Anya had transformed: the glow of her ghostly aura became brighter and warmer, and some of it wrapped around her head like a band (which somehow kept hanging sideways) and another energy burst of her aura formed what looked like large bird-wings coming out of her back.

"The work of an angel is never done," sighed Anya, "especially one with a crooked halo. Mandarin was on to something when he said we had something in common: even when I had good intentions in my human life, I had gotten myself into trouble almost every day. I never meant any harm, though, I was just trying to have fun and make people laugh, even if it's at the expence of someone else. Didn't mean I was evil."

Chiro thought it over, and then nodded with a smile as he picked up the shreaded pieces of the tiny military uniform.

"Sorry about you little brother's suit." the chosen one told the angel.

"Oh what?" said Anya, "That old thing? Alexi got himself an even better one in the afterlife. To think, his goal was to join the army and become a war-hero just as soon as he turned fourteen, he even refused food from the palace in favor of black bread in spite of his... condition... claiming he'll only eat what soldiers eat. Because of the insident, he never lived long enough in his human years to make his dream come true, but the Realm of Heaven made up for it by making him and the rest of the Romanov family into Gaurdian Angels."

Chiro sneezed, causing Anya to laugh.

"Before we completely lose the subject, though," she continued, "I'll have you know my own kids, Anatoly and Alaxandra Ionov, hid some of their outfits from their teen years in this building, right in this very room! I'm sure you'll find something of my son's that'll keep you warm, and if I know St. Petersburg, you and Jinmay will need the formal attire that the Ionov twins didn't like."

Right on cue, the spirits of Anatoly and Alexandra Ionov opened a secret door in the floor and pulled up a trunk full of clothing and (judging by the glow) enchanted journal pages.

"May our Heavenly Father guide you all on the rest of your journey." said Anatoly.

"Yeah! You'll need a lot of divine intervention!" added Alexandra, "Since death is the only thing the Skeleton King is afraid of and he's gone great legths to make himself immortal, one miracle might not be enough to help you guys win the war!"

"Sandra!"

"Well it is true enough, Toly! Fighting such a powerful demon like that would take several miracles, especially since they have ten-and-a-half months to do it."

"Alright you two," said Anya, "that's enough."

Just as the rest of the Hyperforce showed up (all back to normal), Mandarin began to stur, noticing Anya momentarily teasing him by taking the form of her eight-year-old self... she was the little girl she rescued just moments before Bartok told him Chiro needed help!

"What the-?!" the orange monkey asked, puzzled, "How could this-? I mean, why did you-?!"

"You'll understand in due time," said Dimitri, appearing right next to his wife (his halo was in worse shape then hers, and he had to act fast to keep it from falling off), "we all do. All I can say is that you have a long way to go, and you're time's not up yet... at least you're starting to get on the right track for a change."

Then, in a flash of light, the Ionov angels were gone. Chiro got dressed quickly in 19th century Russian attire (Anatoly's clothing were a decent fit) all while digging out a teen-sized military uniform and a traditional gown, each with decent winter coats... a bunch of enchanted journal pages were rolled up into a scroll and placed in one of the coat pockets. Jinmay was the one who unrolled them...

Ace and Zoey had many misadventures across the cosmos in their search for the Chosen One, but none more chaotic then the ones they had when they crash-landed on Planet Earth. Words cannot discribe how upset Ace was when he noticed the damage on their spaceship, but Zoey danced in joy upon seen how many trees were growing beneath the sky instead of underground.

"This world is much like Shuggazoom as I remember it," she said, "or at least, how I would have remembered it in my past life thousands of years ago. Everything full of life, surprises around every corner-"

"Just don't start gloating about how right you are," moaned Ace, "ever since we were fourteen you often said that Earth is real... and fate had to use a crash landing to prove it! Well at least I managed to pack my Intergalactic Charge Card to buy spare parts."

Upon arrival to the nearest mechanic's shop, however, they found out that Credit Cards had been banned from this world since the Axiom landing in 2805. Apparently, the Buy-and-Large company triggered a Pollution Age with constant consumerism, so up-to-date (year: 3818) people have to earn the things they want along with what they need; no more of that immediate-gratification nonsense!

"WHAT?!" gasped Ace, upon hearing that information, "Are you people crazy?! We need the money to repair our spaceship so we could continue our search for the Chosen One! There has to be some exception to the rules!"

"Uh, Ace?" whispered Zoey, noticing the Jewel of Hope flashing around her neck, "it seems we might have found the right planet. Look! This sacred jewel didn't glow this brightly since the moment I found it... and I don't think it's just becuase I hid our journal pages here with it."

Putting two-and-two together, Ace smiled at his girlfriend while taking her aside.

"You just might be on to something here, Zoey. After all, most of the other planets in the universe either think Earth is a myth or have no idea it even exists, and those few who know the truth about this place refuse to harm it on account that it's some kind of wildlife preserve. Something about mosquitos being an indangered species... whatever those are."

"I think they're some kind of insects, although if I know bugs, they probably multiply too quickly to be an indangered species. Some native must have made it up to prevent a space invasion from distroying the planet; crude... but oddly effective."

"Well, if someone has to resort to that kind of thing to keep the planet safe, then this world has to be scared ground, so if the Chosen One's born anywhere in the cosmos, it has to be on Earth. Good thing I developed a good work epic inspite living with a rich uncle; we might be stuck here a while."

"On top of that, being friends with you did make it easier for me to understand the obtuse ways of human beings. All tribes of changelings... foxes, seals, monkeys and more... all hold the ability to take on human form in order to talk to humanity, but becuase we know almost nothing about them, many changelings were distroyed for blowing their own cover."

"Hey, easy Zoey, that was thousands of years ago, okay?"

The conversation went on for hours, but it soon became clear that the couple were to have their hands full for a while as they continued their quest in spite being stranded here. During their first two years on Earth, in the good-old USA, they took up several odd jobs from dishwashing to dog-walking, but barely managed to have enough cash for food while saving up for spaceship parts. They made due in the meantime, making a small "earthship" style house out of the wreck from their crash, and were very close to nature, yet they knew they had to be around other people if the Chosen One is to be found before the Skeleton King gets to him first!

Upon the second anniversary of their arrival, however, poor Zoey started to come down with something. She was very itchy (though she reassured Ace that she didn't get fleas from the dogs) and had a terrible cough (though she often told him that she was just thirsty), but it wasn't until she fainted that Ace really started to worry about her, and brought him to the closest building in the area... which just so happened to be Darwin Manor, California!

At this time, Madam Esimia was just about to close her fortune-telling business for the evening when she sensed the couple coming a mile away... normally, being able to predict the inevitable, the soothsayer would have predicted they were just another pair of lovers wanting her to look into their love-lives, but she senced something was off about this. Very off!

Sensing something inevitable in the situation that wasn't supposed to happen just yet, the fortuneteller activated her inborn ability to teleport in order to get Ace and Zoey out of the cold and into one of her warm, rarely-used guestrooms. (Later on, this became Gibson's guest-room in that same building.)

"Classic case of Miasma Pox," Madam Esimia sighed, looking Zoey over, "no doubt about it!"

(Author's Note: I figured that in the 37th century, illnesses we know today go by different names on Earth and other parts of the cosmos. I had a little help from a random disease-name online generator, but I settled with "Miasma Pox" as an alternative name for "Chicken-Pox"/"Measels". Because of a story by pikurosonai00, it should be worth pointing out that to monkeys... let alone monkey-changelings like Zoey... this illness is also known as "Calimono", which combines the Spanish words Caliente and Mono, thus meaning "hot monkey" or monkey-fever.)

Hearing that, Zoey started to cry, but Ace looked confused.

"What is so bad about miasma pox?" he said, "You get a little itchy, a little drowsy... personally I barfed a couple of times, true story... then after a week or two it all goes away. It's a natural human illness as well as a phase we all went through as kids."

"I didn't," confessed Zoey, "not even in my previous life, and to changlings of my tribe, Calimono is bad news when caught as an adult in human form. Being stuck this way, I don't have much time... unless I ingest the petals of a flower from the Hydra-grass bush, tomorrow night would be my last sunset."

"Zoey, like I said before: that sort of thing took place over two-thosand years ago. A lot has changed over the ages, even medicine has improved. Besides, even if you are right, where are we supposed to find hydra-grass flowers? True, they're said to have been commonplace across the universe back when you were a princess, but now-a-days it is extremely rare, and the only two-or-three left grow back on our home planet, ON THE TOP OF MT. SHUGGAZOOM!"

"I know, Ace! I know!"

Madam Esimia shook her head as the couple held each other for what they believed might be the last time.

"It isn't over yet," the fortuneteller explained, "I've been around the cosmos more then once, and I am fully aware that this planet has a far-more-powerful substitute for Hydra-Grass Flowers; most commonly known as Chamomile. Unfortunately, it still won't be easy to get a hold of it. You see, there is this herbologist deep in the forest who grows them, and he won't give any of them away to anyone unless they could make him laugh. (Humph!) A crab has more humor then he does, that's for sure!"

Ace decided to take the risk, and Madam Esimia gave him a map to the herbologist's place from the manor... once there, he saw she was right: there were several people who tried to make this guy laugh with every joke they could think of and they can't make him crack a smile.

Meanwhile, Zoey's condition was getting worse. She wanted to scratch the itchy spots on her body, but a sense of total body weakness caused her to fall asleep instead. She had a high fever which triggered a whole chain of bad dreams (most of which involved the suffering she indured in her past life, when she was engaged to Protesis and turned his people into fish to save them from drowning). The fever was extremely high, even during the occasional moments during the day in which she was awake, and during those moment's she was dillusional and thought she was freezing... scratching herself seemed to warm her up, but Madam Esimia forbade it.

Meanwhile, Ace was having trouble amusing the herbologist. He tried the funniest pun-based jokes and riddles, a juggling rutiene, and his best impersionations of Gyrus Krinkle and Valeena, but the guy gaurding the garden filled with Chamomile and other healing plants doesn't laugh!

"Oh come on!" Ace said, just about to give up, "Lighten up already! You think the world is so care-free, don't you?! Well, my girl needs those herbs! If I don't get her some chamomile soon, she might lose her life, and if anything happens to her, I'd... I'd-"

Ace was going to cry, but he held back those tears by banging his head against a nearby tree. Upon seeing that, the herbologist started rolling on the floor, laughing himself silly! You can imagine the annoyance that filled Ace's heart and face.

"Oh! So now you find something funny about this, mister?! Becuase I don't!"

"Ha-ha-ha-ha! I'm a schadenfreude, okay? I only laugh at the delicious misery of others."

("You and me both," Mandarin thought outloud, "although, I had no idea there was an actual word for it up until now." The rest of the team shushed him.)

"You see," the herbologist explained, "I set up shop right out here in the wilderness to get away from annoying happy-go-lucky people, figuring only miserable, despirate people would bother to come looking for me way out here. Right as I am, it seems getting back to nature calms peope down, as most of my customers are in so much of a good mood by the time they find me that they annoy me in attempts to cheer me up and convince me to return to 'civilization'! If I had known that would happen, I would've set up shop in the middle of a desert instead, but hey! What's there to do?"

"Spare my girlfriend's life, that's what!" Ace said, showing a fist, "Or I'll have you laughing at yourself in the mirror for a month!"

It took a moment, maybe less, for the guy to get Ace's point.

"Uh, you said you needed Chamomile, right?" he said, getting fresh and dried samples to the check-out counter, "Well, Herbert Spice's Herbal Remedies is here to serve, and since you are the first one to make me laugh without walking away first, it's on the house... all I ask is that you don't tell anybody about what it is I laugh at; it's bad for business."

"Deal."

Ace wasted no time getting the herb samples back to Zoey, and the tea that was made from the chamomile plant healed her... mostly. Thanks to him, her case of miasma pox was no longer fatal, and her life was spared so she could see several sunrises after that night, but she was still bed-ridden with that sickness for a whole week, leaving the sheets only for bathroom breaks and a daily oatmeal bath! Aside form the chamomile tea, the only thing she could keep down for the first two days was water, and even then she claimed it hurt to swallow. For the rest of the week, however, she had recovered enough to eat solid foods again, assuming the meals were kept light, which is why Ace insisted he'd cook for her himself to make it more appealing so she'd get the most nurishment.

It was on the last night before Zoey was completely healed that Madam Esimia noticed what fell out of Ace's pocket: the photo in which the couple where children, containing the image of six little monkeys and a very firmiliar looking young man. Upon realizing who that man was, Madam Esimia gasped: "No! Could it truely be? Where has he been? Where has he been?! WHERE HAS HE BEEN?!"

"Where has who been?" asked Ace.

"Do not play dumb with me!" the fortuneteller said, pointing to the photo, "Akihito Nieli! My husband! You knew him! Had he not ever mentioned me to you? Had he not even find the letter I left him when I hid myself on this planet?!"

"(Yawn!) What letter?" asked Zoey, heading back to her room from the bathroom, "Your maiden name is Rubella Jan e Simmons, isn't it? My teacher, the Alchemist, did indeed mention you, once, but he didn't find any letter the day he realized you disappeared, though he did find a document of divorce on the floor... he signed it for both of you, sure that's what you wanted."

"What?! Ugh! I should have foreseen this, just as I forseen the inevititable, as one such vision warned me that my husband's attempts to purify the universe would be his own undoing! Although I never could predict how it would happen. One thing was for sure, Aki was working too hard on his projects and refused to listen to me when I told him to stop for his own good and the child I had yet to give birth to... miscarriage, alas, but that's besides the point. The point is, I was about to live up to my threat to divorce him one night, but upon noticing the divorce paper needed a signature from both of us in order to be legal, I found I didn't have the heart to do it. So, instead, I wrote a letter on the back of that very peice of paper telling him goodbye. I remember every word: 'Aki: if you truly loved me, you'll have to come down to Earth to find me and prove it. Farewell with sencerity, Ruby'. After leaving that letter on his desk, climbing out the window and taking the next spaceship to this planet, I spent years waiting for him to show up, but he never did."

Ace and Zoey both looked terrible.

"Aki did mention an open window," Zoey thought out loud, "you probably forgot to close it behind you, and the wind blew everything helter-shelter!"

"And since he signed the paper for himself and his 'ex-wife'," concluded Ace, "and that document needed signatures from both spouses in order to work, that means the divorce is non-in-void! You're an illegiment widow, Madam!"

"Widow?!" asked Madam Esimia.

"Let's just say that you really are a natural-born fortuneteller," explained Zoey, "to have forseen that my father-figure's effort to cleanse the universe of evil would be his undoing."

The couple told their tale to Madam Esimia, making sure she hears every detail her power to see the inevitable has missed. The fortuneteller frowned, and her tears fell no matter how hard she tried to hold them back.

"I often called him a bonehead, but I never meant this," she said, "if only I stayed with him, then the likes of this would have happened in a different way... a way that would not let the Skeleton King get his crown in the first place, but why did the Dark Ones chose my husband? Was it becuase he build the portal bridging their realm with our own?!"

"Madam, please, calm down," said Ace, "it was inevitable. We cannot change the past, but if we had the money we need to travel this world and repair our spaceship, we could ensure a much brighter future for everyone."

"If you can truly see the future," said Zoey, "then you should already know who we came here to find, and where we will find him."

Drying her eyes, Madam Esimia nodded.

"No matter what you do, or where you look," she told them, "the one you call the Chosen One will always be closer then you think, and will reveal himself in due time if you and your husband would only settle down."

"Ace and I are not married," said Zoey, "we're just friends with benefits, if not something more, and since we are both orphans the odds of a wedding are... well, highly unlikely. Besides, what does settling down from a husband have to do with finding the being of Pandorian Prophecy? He is just a warrior... is he not?"

"Believe me, child, he's more then just a warrior. Like I said: all will be revealed in due time. However, if you intend to see travel every corner of this globe to figure it out, I have some metorite samples that you could trade to our local museum in exchange for the money you need for travel. All I ask in return is that you consider me your adoptive mother in front of the public eye, and that you'd let me give you away to the one you deem worthy should you change your mind about whether or not you should get married."

"Madam Esimia... ugh, I mean, 'mom'... let's make one thing clear: as much as I love Ace as more then just friends, I just don't do weddings! My birth-parents arranged the last one I was a bride in, and the whole event brought me nothing but trouble."

"She turned her prince charming's entire tribe into fish!" said Ace, inturrupting with a bad case of the giggles.

"Ace! I told you before," Zoey shouted, blushing, "that gazort Protesis was NOT CHARMING! Plus, if he'd only forgive me, I would have been able to change them back. (Ahem!) Anyhow, before we lose the subject again, 'mother', I'm willing to offer you a deal: if I ever find a reason to get married to him other then how I feel about him, I will not only let you give me away during the ceremony and let you become the Maid of Honor, I will let you get the news of it by kissing you full on the mouth, right in front of your own customers!"

"Can I take a picture of that?" asked Ace.

"Only if you have the stomach to watch, Ace." answered Zoey, "So, what do you say, 'mom'? Deal or no-deal?"

Madam Esimia and Zoey shook hands on it, and soon enough the great journey was on the way. For eight years, Ace traveled all over the planet with Zoey in her search for the Chosen One, doing several odd jobs along the way... vollenteering at shelters for the homeless, rescuing baby animals of several species, and they even set up a decent coverfor their constant traveling by saying they are a musical duo singing for charity... but all the while, the idea of marriage stuck in the back of Ace's mind. At this point, he could no longer stand it, and he traded a small portion of their traveling fund for an engagement ring after rescuing a baby elephant from a tiger in the jungles of India, but that was the easy part... the hard part was finding the right words to pop the question with.

"Okay, little one," Ace said in front of the baby elephant (Bakul), "how about this: 'I know this isn't your thing, but we've been friends since we were kids, and I think it's time we became more then that, will you marry me?' or maybe 'Zoey, it's time we let go of the past and start a future together, will you marry me?' Come on, at least give me some kind of reaction!"

Baby Bakul only sneezed, and her trunk caused her to fall backwards in the process.

"Ugh! It's no use!" sighed Ace, glaring in desperation at the ring he bought, "Zoey was a princess form a very ancient time... I'm not so sure that they even used rings to prepose with during her past life! Odds are, even if she did want to marry me if given the chose to, I might insult her and thus cause her to change her mind. Then again... she does hate cliches. Whichever way it's sliced, events like these are once-in-a-lifetime, so it must be done with honor, but let's face the facts: it'll take a miracle for me to find the right words to propose."

Meanwhile, in the town of Pawanpur, Zoey Sulphur was continuing her search for the Chosen One in the local schools, going undercover as a substitute teacher. None of the High-or-Middle school students reawakened her Power Primate Aura, so none of them could be the right one, so she tried the Elementry levels and prayed that, if he was there, he wouldn't be too young.

Around the time she covered for one of the preschool teachers, there was a new student that day, but the other students didn't seem to pay any mind. They were too busy making fun of the scrawniest boy in class, Minku Mahajan, laughing and calling him insulting names like "coward!", "fool!", "stupid!", "loser!", and other insulting things oey didn't like to hear. She clapped her hands in attempt to get everyone's attention, as the new boy

"Good Morning, everyone," she told the class, "my name is Ms. Sulphur, I'm your substitute teacher, and the reason I am saying this to you for the second time today is becuase we seem to have a new student, so let's all make him feel welcome! Uh... children?"

The rest of the class didn't seem to be listening, as they added the new boy along with the insults they made toward Minku.

"Hey look! The fool's turned into a monkey!"

"No! There's two of them now! One is a fool, the other is a monkey!"

"Yeah! I see! A monkey and his pet fool!"

The new student didn't seem to mind their harsh words at all, however, and just smiled and waved at the rest of the class as though he took the word "monkey" as a compliment.

"Don't pay attention to them," Minku said, in a glum-yet-somewhat-hopeful tone, "they're just teasing. What's your name, new kid?"

"Maruti." the new student answered, "And what is yours?"

"Minku. Do you... want to be my friend?"

"Uh-huh."

The other students continued to tease: "'Do you wanna be my friend?!' What a dork!"

"Ha-ha! Look at them! They're holding hands!"

Maruti stopped shaking hands with Minku the very second he heard that.

"If you don't want to talk to me, I'd understand," said Minku, "everyone who wants to be my friend gets laughed at."

"Well, that won't happen anymore!" said Maruti, as he marched over to the one who made fun of their physical contact (young Patu Danu).

"Hey, monkey-boy!" said Patu, "Go away, will you?"

Maruti smiled with enthusiasum as he lifted Patu's chair and desk over his head... with Patu still in them! The new kid spun the bully around a couple of times before leaving him to dangle over the ceiling fan. Patu looked scared... and felt very foolish.

"So," said Maruti, wiping the dust from his hands, "does anybody else want to laugh at my friend?!"

The rest of the class was too busy staring at Patu on the ceiling fan to get the point of the new student's warning... some were pointing and laughing at the new victim, while others gasped in shock. As for Minku, he just smiled and sighed in relief, knowing he just made a very special friend, and knowing this new friend just took care of the bully that bugged him the most.

"Alright, everyone," Zoey scolded, as she managed to help Patu get safely back on the floor, "the show's over. Let this be a lesson to you, Patu: never underestimate those who are smaller then you, they might have more ability then you think. As for you, Maruti, I know you were just trying to help a friend in need, but there are other ways to do it besides being a bully yourself, okay?"

"But, Ms. Sulphur," said Maruti, "Patu started it!"

"I know," said Zoey, taking him aside, "I know he started it, but hanging someone on the ceiling-fan is no way to finish it. Next time, get an adult to help you against the likes of him, and if that doesn't work, it would be even better to outsmart bullies like Patu, or 'outfox the fox' as my father used to say. Think before you act; more brain, less brawn. Do you understand, child?"

"Uh... no," said Maruti, "not really, but there is one thing I hope Patu understands: nobody makes fun of my friends and gets away with it."

"Ha-ha. No doubt about that, but what do you think would happen if, for any reason, you weren't there to protect Minku?"

"Um... I don't know!"

"If I had a wild guess, bullies would pick on him again. Now, you take a wild guess: if you were in Minku's place and he was in yours, what do you think he would do? Keep on fighting your battles for you, or guide you so you could learn to protect yourself?"

"Hmmm."

"Take your time with it, no hurry."

"That first one does sound nice, but I think it might be better if he taught me how to stand up for myself."

"And that is exactly what you should do for Minku. Now, since I am a substitute teacher and this is your first day here, I'll let you off with a warning, but you better take what we just talked about to heart."

"Why?"

"Because I don't think that the real teacher of this class, Mr. Mishra, would take so kindly to the kind of behavior you shown today, and if you get expelled, Minku might lose his so-far-only friend. Do you understand, Maruti?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Good. Well, class dismissed, I'll see you after lunch."

In a matter of moments, the classroom was empty and Zoey was alone with her thoughts.

'It is tempting to claim that Maruti could be the Chosen One,' she pondered, 'for he was extremely powerful, and my share of the Power Primate essance did stur a bit in his presence... yet, for some reason, it was not fully reawakened. If I had a guess, this child could be the DECOY of the Chosen One, like us changelings are given all the time. Maybe, if the real Chosen One has to return to Earth for any reason while fulfilling his destiny to protect Planet Shuggazoom, it's Maruti's job to cover for him. Funny how things work out that way... but wait a minute... if Maruti really is the Chosen One's decoy... THEN THAT MEAN'S THE REAL-DEAL IS REALLY YOUNG! NO! NO! NO! THAT CAN'T BE THE CASE! IF THE MONKEY TEAM HAS TO BE LEAD BY A CHILD, THERE'S NO TELLING HOW THEY'LL REACT!'

Zoey was in such a fit that she was about to bang her head on her desk, only to find herself face first in a hot bowl of vegetable curry! Normally, that would have made her more upset then she already was, but she smiled, knowing only one human being quick enough, sneaky enough, and careful enough to pull something like this off upon her.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Zoey," Ace said with a smile, handing her a napkin and a spoon, "I just wanted to make sure you didn't miss your lunch break. At any rate, did you find the Chosen One yet?"

"No, but I think I found the first-runner-up for the job," answered Zoey, wiping her face off, "a small boy with extraordinary strength by the name of Maruti. If it were up to me, he'd be the one we came for, but even though the Power Primate itself reacted to him, it didn't react in the right way... I get the feeling I've overlooked something, but what?"

"Don't worry, Zoey, we'll straighten everything out during our trip to Mt. Everest tomorrow. Since it's the largest mountain on the entire planet, we could use it as a radar for your Jewel of Hope necklace and officially know where he might be that we had not looked yet. By the way, the way you blew the whistle on that preschool wrestling match earlier is a new one on you. Remember when we were kids, and you used to insist on fighters fighting dirty?"

"I was young and nieve, Ace. I had yet to learn that rules are made to keep people from going too far... made to keep us safe. Speaking of safety-"

"Don't worry, it's just a simple hike up a simple mountain! What could possibly go wrong?"

"Ugh! I hate it when you use that question. Sooner or later, it always jinxes us!"

Ace blushed, embarrassed by the fact that he tempted fate several times before, but Zoey gave him a kiss on the cheek to show no hard feelings.

Turned out, they really stepped in it that time, as the mountain climbing trip lasted two weeks, maybe even a whole month, and the couple ran into one disaster after another, and by the time they got to a cave at the top of the peak, they were snowed into it! What's worse, the Jewel of Hope was frozen solid, so they couldn't use Mt. Everest as a radar... it seemed that the mission was an absolute failure, but that was no excuse to let themselves freeze to death.

Long story short, cold weather brings people together in the strangest ways, and as the two of them slept in each other's arms to keep warm, the very entity of the Power Primate, in the form of a large green gorilla, wrapped around both of them.

The next thing Ace and Zoey knew, they were waking up in a hospital back at Angel Grove California, where they had been thawed out. Zoey took longer to recover, as she started showing signs of Morning Sickness, but Ace was out and about, trying to find a way to propose to her when she was well again... somehow his confidence to do so had been boosted. Soon enough, he found the purfect place to do it, right in the middle of the forest just outside of Darwin Manor, and he lead her there as soon as she was allowed to leave th hospital.

"Oh, Ace!" Zoey gasped at the sight of the largest oak in the forest, "What a beautiful tree!"

"It's a lot like the one I tripped over the night we met each other," said Ace, "don't you remember?"

"Yes, but... I try not to. After all, Mandarin did want to bite your nose off at the time."

"Well, I remember everything else about it. I fell into the caves and chanced upon the underground garden of Pandora while looking for my baseball, when I was chased by this wild animal and tripped over a large tree with raised roots just like this one! Only it wasn't any wild animal that chased and cornered me, it was YOU in your monkey form, and when you took on your human form in front of me for the first time and said: 'Is this your ball?' And I was like: 'You're a changeling, aren't you?' Then you shouted out: 'I ask the questions here!' After that I shouted back: 'I'm sorry!' And then-"

"-And then I noticed you were hurt and patched up your sprained ankle using near by plants. You made funny faces when you're in pain, and that convinced me you meant no harm, even though you did call Mandarin a 'Banana-Eating Pitbull'. Ha-ha-ha! You were right about him on that note, by the way... in spite what alterations the Alchemist made, and all I did to raise the monkey team against cliches, the orange monkey was the only one in the group that actually does like bananas, and I've been bribing him with peaches for years. Ironic."

"You used to bribe Mandarin?"

"Uh huh, before the Alchemist caught me and thought I was spoiling him. I tried everything: forcing him, bribing him, yelling at him, spanking him, and locking him in a box, but nothing I did ever gotMandarin to learn how to behave himself! Maybe I wasn't cut out to be a mother after all."

"Well, maybe not at the time, Zoey. At the age of eight, you didn't have the skills or the experiance to know how to take care of other kids like a mother would, but you already had the instinct for it: you fed the monkeys when they were hungry, protected them when they were in danger, and found them a safe place to rest when they were sleepy. You practically got most of it down by the time we were in High School, but you still needed time to mature before you could count as a natural mother."

"Do you think I'll ever get it right, Ace?"

"I know you will. In fact, you came really close to motherly while we were in India. I mean, think about it: if you had played it cool around Mandarin the same way you did around Maruti, your eldest foster-child would've grown into an entirely different monkey."

"Maybe, but we cannot change the past."

"No, but we can use what we learned from it to improve in the future," Ace said getting on one knee while getting the ring out of his pocket, "and after all we been through as friends, I hope we do that as more then just friends... if you want that."

"Ace... w-what is that tiny trinket in your hands?"

"I know your birth-parents tried to force you to get married thousands of years ago, and that much got me wondering if you would still do that if you had the choice to."

"Only if you are the one I am betrothed to."

"Really?"

"Yes."

Ace explained the purpose of the engagement ring as he put it on her finger, and Zoey had burst into tears of joy and laughter just before getting another case of morning sickness, but this time, her Power Primate essance and the Jewel of Hope both lit up, pointing to her lower body area!

"What was that about?" asked Ace.

"Ace, I have something to tell you," Zoey answered, easing into a whisper, "I'm pregnant."

"WHAT?!"

"I... I'm pregnant. We're going to have a baby."

"You mean we're not even married yet and I'm already a... a DADDY?!"

"Uh-huh, and becuase of my background as a primate changeling, our child would be due in eight months at the very latest."

Upon hearing all this, Ace fainted.

(Author's Note: I did some research for this part; as it turns out, monkey pregnancies very between 4 and a half months to a full 8 months, depending on the sub-species. Considering that human babies usually take nine months to be born, you'd understand Ace's shock.)

Zoey shook her head and muttered: "I wonder how he will react when he finds outthat our child is the real Chosen One. I know I'm taking not taking it well. What if I ruin this baby like I ruined Mandarin? For the sake of the entire universe, that must never happen! However, that doesn't change the fact that I still have to kiss my own 'mother' later today."

"Oh, mom," Chiro said, just as the flashback was ending, "I may have forgotten what the first five years of my childhood was like, but you didn't mess up that badly, I know that much."

"What's going on here?" asked Bartok, "Why did the whole group blank out like that for a moment there?"

"Otto told me that every time they find these enchanted journal pages they need," explained Chulan-Kumari, "they enter these flashbacks that last a few hours while time stands still here. I hadn't seen them myself, though... must be this whole Power Primate thing."

"Oh!"

After resting a few hours, the entire town greeted the Hyperforce and the Sun Riders like the heroes they were. In the warmth of the newly rebuilt Nebutron 9.5 (which was just as small as the last one, but Aurora wouldn't complain), Kaa ended up shedding his skin, and that part of him was displayed in place of the rest of him at the Bazaar of the Bizarre, which Boris Ulyanov (in his full size) took under new management. Unlike his greedy uncle before him, Boris intended to give a huge portion of the scam money to charity, considering the fact that he had more then he can spend Baba Yaga put her chicken-legged-house on display.

Later on, the Sun Riders skipped out on the victory party the locals in St. Petersburg were throwing in their honor, figuring that the sooner they return Kaa to India where he'd be safe and warm, the sooner they could join Slingshot in Moscow to track down Maezono.

During that night, however, most of the Hyperforce accepted the invitation to dance at the quickly-retored Romanov Palace... the locals figured that the ballroom of that building had been out of use for far too long. The monkeys were allowed to come as they are, but Chiro and Jinmay had to dress formally that night, so what they found in that trunk paid off... Mandarin revealing he had a talent for music came as a shock to everyone though.

"There better be no judgements against me after this," the orange monkey scowled, as the team boarded the now-rebuilt Super Robot the very second the party was over, "after all, just because I learned to cope with my weaknesses doesn't mean I am no longer the strongest monkey among us! One day, I will be allowed to partake in battle again; only then will this war against the Skeleton King be won!"

"Don't tempt me to bite you again, Mandarin," yawned Pike, snuggling his new rag doll (to him, his idea of Lena Hyena was so hideous even a vampire wouldn't love her, but she turned out to be a really cute rag-doll), as he was glad to be in a child's body again, "I'm too tired to feed off anything, and I really want to get back to Angel Grove so I can sleep during the day again."

"Glad to hear that, Pike," said Bartok, tagging along right behind Thingy, "because for the rest of the year, I'm taking the day-shift for you, sir. You know, acting as a warden, keeping Mandarin out of trouble, seeing that his rehabilitation pulls through, the works. Oh! While we are on the subject, folks, I'd like to introduce you to my partner!"

A pink female bat landed right besides the male albino one. She winked and said with a smile, "Hello there!"

Mandarin recognized her voice right away: "Piloff?! Oh no!"

"Baba Yaga turned me into a bat so I can be with Bartok," the pink thing explained, "just like when he was alone and dateless in Paris, France in the 1920's! Isn't that the most wonderful thing ever?"

That statement lead to quite a conversation between the two bats.

"Oh great!" the orange monkey complained, "Those two will give me a headache for months!"

Cassia the capuchin giggled, "Looks like gossiping bats is that fool's new worst nightmare!"

"Indeed so," said Gibson, "and Cassia, speaking of 'fools'... well, I'm sorry about-"

"I know how you behaved last night wasn't entirely your fault, Gibson. I already forgave you. However, I might need to see the recording of the things you said the last time this sort of thing happened to you. Who knows? Maybe there are a few Freudian Slips that might be the key to knowing what really goes on in your subconcious mind."

"Freudian... what? Cassia, wait!"

Soon enough, the Super Robot landed at Darwin Manor, just outside of Angel Grove, where Madam Esimia was waiting for them. The Robot returned to vehicle mode, so they all took up guest rooms around the manor... Chulan-Kumari slept in the freezer in the kitchen with a clove of garlic handy (had lived her whole life in the Himalayas), and Mandarin had to bunk in the attic with Pike the vampire on account of his selfishness.

'Cassia, you are lucky your chores piled up in your absance,' the fortuneteller thought, upon seeing the orange monkey, 'becuase if Mandarin is to earn back the trust of the rest of the team, he'll need a lot of work to do.'

Soon enough, everyone else was asleep, and Madam Esimia grabbed hold of the Crystal-Ball Orb, to have a private meeting with the ghost inside of it.

"Aki, I know that you know who I really am," she said, in a teasing sing-song tone, "and now that you do, honey-bunch, I can officially ask you if you missed me."

The voice of the Alchemist's Ghost screamed from inside the orb: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! THIS IS WORSE THEN I REMEMBER IT!"

"Come on out, will you?! Let's talk about old times while you're rubbing my feet!"

"RUBY! NOOOO!"

Author's Note: Yeah, if you ever watched "Lilo and Stitch the series" you'd know I based the Alchemist's fear of his ex-wife (really Ruby Simmons Nieli AKA: "Madam Esimia") off of the issues Jumba has with his ex-wife... and I borrowed a line from that same said issue from the Japanese Anime version.

In my 91st review by WingedWolf101, it is stated that there are way too many characters in my story (which might be why these chapters get longer every time I write them). Personally, I'd like to apologize for that, but hey! You'd meet a lot of people too if you've been traveling all over the world, let alone across the cosmos to chance upon Planet Earth! I'll try to make the main seven members of the Hyperforce the main focus of the next chapter with only a few background characters, as Chiro gets a glimpse into his parent's marriage and the first five years of his life from the day he was born in the Bermuda Triangle to his first few days in Kindergarten in Shuggazoom City. First, I need some in your reviews though:

"ancient" wedding traditions take place during Ace and Zoey's union in the Caribbean?

2. Did Chiro have any signs of holding the Power Primate Aura when he was really little, and if he did, how come he was unable to use it until he was 13 and a half years old?

3. Chiro's mother would make bento (Japanese lunch boxes) once he is able to handle solid foods... what designs in the meal would've built his appetite before he became a fan of the series "The Sun Riders"?

4. Since Mandarin will be falling behind at Darwin Manor (along with Cassia and Chulan-Kumari) what chores to you think would be fitting for him to do as punishment for his passed wrongs?

5. How will the ghost of Akihito the Alchemist make peace with his illegal widow when she does not understand that death has already parted them?

I am half-way through the story at the very least, so your opinions are more important to me then ever. The year in the Hyperforce's journey is almost a third done, if I am keeping track correctly, but the New Year on our timeline is only three days away, and it's my resolution to finish this. Please READ & REVIEW!