CCS does not belong to me...ooh, interesting nane and chapter.
I won't say what happens! Don't believe in spoilers (actually, yes I do, but just read for yourself)!
A very interesting chapter...yes, I've already said that, now read and review!

Dwarf Land
We were in the dwarf's land. There was a slight humming as we approached. Vash seemed to be in perfect harmony with the place. Kelli too seemed relaxed, but concerned for the rest of us, who were a little afraid and scared: We had never been here before.
As we walked through the streets, many dwarfs looked at us. Most of them were women, doing their daily shopping. There were dressed in typical dwarf clothing, and they were very short, only about four feet high: the usual height for a dwarf, explained Vash.
I would like to describe their clothing a little more, however, there was almost no way I could. They were dressed in a tough, leathery material on the top, with no sleeves, green, tight pants, with matching green shoes and hats. Their hats were long, hanging down their back and their shoes were curled up with little balls at the tip of their shoes and hats. These were men's clothes. The men walking down the street seemed to have a bow and a quiver full of arrows on their back
The women had much nicer clothes. Their dress consisted of a great blue or blue dress with an apron draped over it, much like an Alice in Wonderland dress.
"I'd love to own one of those." Rene said, looking at them.
"You can go shopping after we save the world." Vash said, walking rather quickly as everyone on the road stopped to stare at the kids, who were just as interesting in the dwarfs.
"Where are we going?" Liz asked, running every step or two to catch up with Vash's powerful stride.
"To the mayor's house." Kelli said. "Vash is going to tell him our plan, and while we do our ambush, he will prepare his troops, and afterwards, when the battle (as in two hundred of the Queen's men against us) begins, after our ambush, we will have the dwarfs to help us."
"The dwarfs won't be too happy if we tell them our plan now." Vash said. "After we win, they will, but they won't like to hear that we plan to risk their lives along with theirs when we attack. They can live happily down here, free to their own extent, without anyone getting killed, but for now, they like it better down here than up there. Once we get rid of the queen and her men, the tables will shift, believe me."
"So how sure are you that the mayor will agree to your plan?" Rene asked, hopping to keep up with Vash.
"Because I know him." Vash said. "He is the descendant of Clay the Elder."
"Really?" Snowy asked. "So he's human?"
"More of a mix." Vash said, running now. "C'mon, we have to time to waste." With all the dwarfs staring, most of us were more than happy to run. Vash led us to the mayor's office.
The major's office was a very spectacular house that you couldn't miss. It looked like a Victorian house right out of nowhere, surrounded by cottages. The smell of the cottages surrounding the house warmed the kids.
"Food!" Kanari said.
"Hmm, baked apples!" Rene said.
"Look, that lady's doing her laundry!" Snowy pointed out. We all gathered at the fence to watch the pieces of clothing she put up with clips.
"Wow." Doughboy said. "You know, this is a very interesting place. I'd like to study the Dwarf's Land when we grow up."
"Perhaps one day we can come back." I said. "It's a beautiful place."
"Yeah." Doughboy agreed.
The mayor's house had a big lawn and several trees, only the trees were leafless, and there were several dead, dry, crumpled leaves on the ground.
"It must be autumn." Rene said.
"That's strange, isn't it?" Liz asked. "It's spring where we live."
"When the little circles rotate around the big circle, they must change seasons too." Kelli said.
"But not that fast." Kanari argued.
"Remember, time travels at different rates." Vash said. "What takes an earth week to move can take a Uri year."
"How long IS a Uri year?" Kero asked.
"Around four hundred, sixty-eight days." Vash said.
"Wow." Rene said, amazed.
"Are we ever going to go in?" Kanari asked, looking at the black gate. Vash's hand actually trembled as he opened the gate for all of us.
"It's been such a long time." He said. Kelli nodded. We started to head up the walkway.
"Oh, my watch just ticked!" I said. "A second has past since we left the Fourth Dimension."
"Really?" Rene asked.
"So the Fourth Dimension time isn't the same as Uri." Liz said. "How peculiar."
"How interesting." Doughboy said.
"We've been gone from earth for fifteen minutes, exactly." I said. "I think time in the Fourth Dimension travels faster than Earth."
"Possibly." Anora said. I had forgotten she was still with us and was shocked to hear her voice. Like Cherry, she had been sleeping the whole time and had just woken up. "That's the one thing I'll have to do when we get back."
"What?" Doughboy asked.
"Time it."
"In math, the Fourth Dimension is time." I said. "So it does make sense it would be the Fourth Dimension which travels faster." We walked up the steps of the great Victorian house, which I now thought to be a mansion ("Wow, I think this is even bigger than my house!" Rene said). "And Fifth Dimension would be space travel, makes sense, moving from planet to planet."
"We've heard this lecture already." Kanari said as Vash rang the bell. The conversation was cut short as a small, bald headed, and jolly old man opened the door.
"Well, hello there! Who do we have here?"
"Mr. Clay?" Vash asked.
"Oh, my, Vash!" Mr. Clay (Clay was actually his first name, but Vash had called him Mr. Clay since he was little and the name sort of stuck) said. "It sure has been a long time. Good to have you back! And you brought friends, too!"
"Yes, sir." Vash said. "Is Clay the Elder still here?"
"Yes." Mr. Clay opened the door and led them to the living room. Clay the Elder was sitting on a rocking chair, smoking a pipe. Vash ran forward and knelt down before him, followed very closely by Kelli and Anora.
The rest of us looked at each other. It might have been polite, but we didn't know him yet (and, actually, not bowing was the right thing to do).
"Vash, Anora, Kelli." Clay the Elder said. His voice seemed to croak ad squeak, but you knew you were talking to someone with wisdom and trust. Clay the Elder smiled.
"Have you fulfilled your destiny?" He asked.
"To you, yes, to Queen Jewel, never." Kelli rippled. "These are our friends." She introduced us one by one, and each of us went up to either curtsey or bow (Doughboy was the only one who bowed, since he was a gent.). "We have come back to return the land to the nobles, the dwarfs."
"God Bless you." Said the old man. "Clay, prepare the troops at once."
"What troops?" Mr. Clay asked.
"They're planning an ambush, aren't you?" Clay the Elder's eyes twinkled. "There's nothing I don't know. When word leaks out about the attack on the Queen's dome, there will be nothing else to do but for them to fight all those man. While they fight the knights (I suppose he means Galdius and Lumbeus and all my other brothers. Well, not brothers, I wasn't the child of Queen Jewel, thank goodness, but all her slaves, her two sons, Galdius and Hermz, and some of my "sisters" who may know how to fight, Vash thought.) we will fight the army."
"Makes sense." Mr. Clay walked out of the room.
"Yuki." Clay the Elder said. "You have the Crystal Ball."
"Why, yes." I said, presenting the globe that Ms. Jewel had given to me. Clay the Elder smiled.
"What do you see?" I concentrated on the ball. At first, nothing happened. Then I began to see orange dots on the ball. Suddenly, purple static electricity began to form and rotate around the ball. Then, I felt blinded. I could no longer see the others or Clay the Elder. I learned closer to the ball. Instead, I could see something being played.
"The Battle." I murmured softly. Clay the Elder, Vash, Kelli, Kero, and Anora all leaned closer to hear what I was saying. "Galdius, first, holding the flag, the flag of the Queen, not Uri. He represents the Queen, not Uri, galloping on a black horse, as fast as he can, charging, leading his knights, a whole bunch of people, and then the army. The knights are of four boys and two girls. The four boys would be Lumbeus, Galdius, Hermz, and Lyair. The girls are Jade and Lair."
"Lair." Vash said. "That means she's gotten free."
"Should we go back and try to stop her?" Kelli asked.
"No use." Vash said. "But how did she get back here? The gate closed! Are you sure it's Lair."
"Sure, Lair, yes, it is she." I said, still in a daze. "They rescued Lair after our ambush."
"Oh, okay, go on." Kelli said.
"The flag Galdius has is with a scorpion with a green background." I said.
"The third best flag." Vash whistled. "This means that this is our third big battle."
"So many of them." I said, meaning the army. "So many, compared to all of our dwarfs. And we have all the dwarfs we could have had. Oh, but look! Half of our army of dwarfs is on the back of the hill. Why? Strange, why don't they have swords and are ready to fight. Oh, my, they have arrows."
"Dwarfs are deadly archers." Vash said. "From the hill, they probably can shoot half the army."
"Unless the army puts their shields up." Kelli said. "But then, they will have to stall, and it will be harder to move towards of dwarfs. Then the archers will aim for the legs."
"Ouch." Liz said.
"As soon as the two armies get close enough, there is nothing else the archers can do but take out their swords and charge." Kelli said.
"Oh. Liz said. I twitched and suddenly snapped out of the daze.
"Ow." I said, rubbing the side of my head.
"Are you all right?" Snowy asked. I nodded and rubbed my temple.
"It hurts." I whined.
"She used a lot of energy." Clay the Elder said, picking up the globe from the table and handing it back to me. "Use it wisely."
"What happened?" I asked.
"When she gets used to this, she will remember her illusions of the future better." Clay the Elder said. "Now, someone explain everything to her and I'll get some beds and food for you. Tomorrow we'll all go shopping and get ready for the ambush."
"Please, can you tell us what time of the day it is?" Vash asked, pulling out his pocket watch. "Mine doesn't say. It only tells the time."
"Tis be the morning." Clay the Elder said. "But the time of the day doesn't matter in the Underground."
"Too true." Vash said. "That means we got here in the middle of the night and traveled her in the night."
"I must be exhausted." Kanari yawned.
"That actually makes sense." Rene said. "We left the Third Dimension, Earth, at night too."
"Oh." Liz said. "You're right. I'm surprised we didn't feel all sleepy whatsoever."
"I'm afraid you'll have to adjust to the sleep during day and fight during night pattern for your ambush." Clay the Elder said. "Until those three great battles, that is."
"We must be spending a long time on Uri." Kelli said. "This battle must've been harder than we thought."
"Well, little Clay has sent forty men out to post flyers throughout town." Clay the Elder said. "It doesn't take that long. Dwarfs are good at war, and with a few touch-ups, we can join you at the battlefield."
"Clay, why are you living down here instead of in your hut on the top of Jade Mountain?" Vash asked. Clay the Elder sighed.
"It's a very long story, dear Vash." He said. "Rest up first, youguns, and I'll tell you the story at dinnertime. Anyone hungry now?" Since everyone had eaten, they weren't hungry (they would've been, especially Doughboy, if they had known about the food they were going to eat), and Clay the Elder sent them to bed.
"Sleep well." Clay the Elder said as eight pairs of legs, followed by a Kero, Anora, and Cherry (who had attentively listened but not talked) walked up the stairs.
"Yuki, when you gazed into the ball and saw us fighting, did you see Nakita with us?" Vash wanted to know.
"I don't know." I said. "I don't remember." Vash sighed. Kelli put a hand on his shoulder.
"I know Vash, we'd all like to know if she's come back to us or if we've saved her yet."
"What excitement she's missing." Kanari said.
"Whatever she may be doing right now." Vash replied. "We can be sure it's much more gruesome and fighting that what we're about to experience. Poor Nakita." There was no more talking. Vash looked on and walked up the stairs with deadly eyes. Yes, he regretted what he did, but there was no time for regretting, only for planning to get Nakita back. Vash gritted his teeth. These plans had better work. He wondered how vulnerable they were without one person and looked around.
Kelli, his sister, was right beside him, comforting everyone. Yes, Kelli and Anora would mean a lot in helping. Especially his and Kelli's wonder attacks and Anora's power to swoop down and scratch someone's face, just like a raven or a hawk.
Yuki followed them, with her globe under her jacket and her cards in her pocket, along with her Sealing Wand, which was attacked to a string around her neck. She was wondering the same thing, and was wondering if what Ariel had said to her a long time ago was still valid, "You are the most powerful of them all, hence I will destroy you!" She hoped she was still of use to the team.
Her buddies, Snowy, Liz, and Doughboy followed behind. They all had their weapons minimized.
Snowy's wand was in her hand, though, and her spell book was on a chain tied to a belt loop in her pants. She had her hair tied up the same way as always, and her hands seemed to be twitching to show off all the new spells that she had learned. Snowy and Yuki would sure come in handy. They had a wide range of attacks.
Liz, on the other hand, had her sword pinned as the brooch on her collar, and Vash imagined her with her lightning quick rapier. He longed to go back into the Queen's Dome and find the sword he had loved and practiced with. He signed as he remembered that long, light blue sword with green scorpions crawling on the side. Yes, he hated scorpions. But that could be changed. Kelli had a sword to, a dark blue one, with patterns of violet flowers on them. Both, in his mind, appeared to be stained with blood. But he knew they were clean. It was a ritual to clean a sword after use, use in killing, that is. He would borrow a sword from Clay the Elder and train Liz up to her standards a little more. She needed to know what it was like.
Doughboy. Vash didn't know about Doughboy. From what the girls had told him, he had a Link attack, an attack that told him where to find things, but which was no longer in use. His pendant hung on his neck, the pink pendant. Yuki and Snowy had told him the story of how it got there, how they brought it for him and forced him to have it. Vash knew Doughboy would have rather had a basketball or soccer ball. Vash also knew that Doughboy had a memorization attack that changed someone's memory, something that might come in handy during the battle. But he knew nothing more. Doughboy was very mysterious in his ways, and whenever he practiced his magic, he made sure no one knew about it. Also, Doughboy didn't like Vash. He wasn't sure why. Vash knew that Doughboy hadn't like the fact that he had been evil and part of Queen Jewel's army, the fact that he had tried to steal Jewel's from him, the fact that Vash became leader of the group, or because Vash let go of Nakita. Closer to the last one. Doughboy had intentionally gotten nastier since the last incident, and then, when Vash (according to all the girls) had become the leader, they both cut off the communicating business whatsoever. Vash was sorry for all the things he'd done, and he hadn't meant them to end up like that, but Doughboy seemed to think there was more behind all this. He seemed to think that Vash was a traitor. But Vash knew there was something else behind it too.
He shook his head and turned to Rene. Rene, he wondered what she could do. He had seen Snowy in battle, and wondered if Rene was any good with Snowy's old weapons. Little did he know that for the past week since Nakita's disappearance, all the kids had been practicing, and Snowy had been coaching Rene. Her Golden Ring and Power Hoops had gotten pretty good, as he observed in the Fourth Dimension when they came upon Lair. He wondered if there were any other attacks than that.
But the good thing was that most of them could fly. He wished desperately that him and Liz could fly, but that was impossible. Without the powers for the two of them to fly, the rest of the group would have to remain on the ground during battle to ensure safety to the two of them-and Vash knew that his friends (exclude Doughboy for a second, Vash had to think about that) would do that. Doughboy had the lousy float option, which came in handy, considering the fact that it was a shield to enemies -if you attacked him with spears, they would bounce right off-unless you were on the same side. If we accidentally hit Doughboy, Vash reasoned, he would experience much pain.
And last there was Kanari. Excluding Nakita, Kanari couldn't do much, according to his knowledge. Apparently, until Ms. Jewel came along, Kanari and Nakita couldn't do anything but hang around and keep an eye out. He knew that Kanari had a sun with the attack Flash, which blinded people, up to twelve. That might be powerful.
And Nakita, when and if she came back (no, Vash slapped himself, not if, when!!) she had the Bells, whatever they did. Personally, he thought that it affected someone's hearing and made him or her deaf. That way, if both Kanari and Nakita affected you, you would be in a very unfortunate position.
Vash looked at Kero next, since he had already though about Anora. Kero was sitting on Yuki's shoulder. Yuki would transfer him to Cerberus, no problem about that, not at all. They didn't need to worry about Kero. And Cherry, well, Vash frowned. He wondered what Yuki would do, whether she would let Cherry battle or not. So far, Cherry had no known attacks, and was little, feeble, and seemingly fragile to the harsh world. Yuki had grown quite fond of the little thing, almost as fond as Nakita had. Cherry often whimpered for Nakita, though, and it broke everyone's heart. But to leave Cherry with the dwarfs was unthinkable. She'd think we were abandoning her, and maybe get sick. He wondered whether Nakita would have let the little thing battle and whether Yuki could battle at all with Cherry's burden. It was surely a problem. He would advise Yuki to talk over the matter with Clay the Elder at dinnertime.
Vash sighed in relief. Yes, one person did mean a lot. But he was pretty confident of their status. They should be able to win. But what did those three battles and no Nakita in Yuki's globe ball mean?

What will happen? The next chapter is called Preparations, where they prepare for the battle and get everything, and explore the Dwarf's Land more. Please Review! I'm sorry for any insults I've caused anyone (*cough, which sounds oddly like Vash*).