"Hi there, Head here!" the head went on. "Hey, are you upside down?" Nadil's head paused.
"No…" growled Cesia quietly.
"Oh, silly me!" said Head. "It's me that's upside down! Stupid incompetent knights can't even put me away properly… oh well, Crew's Clues is next! On Flick Jr!"
Head rolled off, to be replaced by Shydeman and Shyrendora. In unison, they smiled and proclaimed, "Flick Jr is just for me!", flicked each other, and left.
A house appeared on the screen. Very young versions of Shydeman and Shyrendora were playing on the lawn.
"Do you see a snow puppy?" asked Shydeman cutely. Far-off barking was heard.
"No, but I heard a snow puppy!" lisped Shyrendora, giggling.
The door of the house opened, revealing Kai-stern.
"Crewger!" he called. The two demons scrammed as Crewger galloped onscreen, barking excitedly. "Oh, hi!" Kai-stern said to the screen. "I'm Kai-stern! This is my dog, Crewger!" Crewger barked. "Do you know what today is?" Kai-stern continued. "Today's a very special day! Rath is coming to visit us!"
"Oh, what fun," moaned Cesia.
"Won't that be fun?" chortled Kai-stern. "We should get him a present! What do you think he wants?"
Crewger ran barking in circles, then turned to the camera and threw something. Cesia flinched as a snowball flattened out across the screen. Kai-stern, however, was thrilled.
"Oh! I get it! You want to play Crew's Clues to find out what we need to give Rath!" Slamming his fists from side to side to create a beat, he sang. "We are gonna play Crew's Clues, cuz it's a really great game!" He then beamed so brightly that the snowball melted off the screen. "Will you help me find Crewger's clues?" Kai-stern asked.
"No," muttered Cesia.
"You will!? Great!" Kai-stern enthused. "To play Crew's Clues you gotta find…"
He paused. Cesia said nothing.
"A snowball! Right! That's the first…"
Silence.
"Clue! We put it in our notebook cuz they're Crew's clues, Crew's clues!" Kai-stern sang brightly. "You gotta find another snowball, that's the second clue, we put it in our notebook cuz it's whose clues? Crew's clues! We gotta find the last snowball, that's the third clue. Put it in our notebook cuz they're Crew's clues, Crew's clues! You know what to do! Sit down in our thinking chair and think, think, thi-i-i-nk. Cuz when you lose your mind and take a step at a time you can do anything that you wanna do!" With Crewger's barking and random harmonica noises, the song wound down. Suddenly a clanking noise was heard. Kai-stern cocked an ear and wiggled his eyebrows. "I wonder what that noise is!" he chortled. "Let's go take a look." Humming energetically, he jogged outside to find dragon fighters sitting next to a pile of sparkling stuff.
"Look, Kai-stern! We're making things out of metal!" proclaimed the blond one.
"See, I made a building!" preened the brunet one.
"I'm making a cat," remarked the black haired one, revealing his partially finished creation.
"I made a boat," finished the blond one. He moved aside, revealing another pile of metal scraps. Cesia noted the snowball sitting on the pile of metal, but obviously no one else did. Then,
"A clue! A clue!" shouted the voices of unseen children.
"It's not a shoe," chuckled Kai-stern, "It's a boat!"
"No, a clue!" cried the invisible children.
"Oh! You see a clue!? Where!?"
Cesia sighed and rolled her eyes as it took Kai-stern about a minute to locate the clue. At that time there was a drumroll for two full seconds as he finally allowed himself to see it with a look of shock so intense Cesia feared for his health.
"It's a clue!" he cried. "Here on this, this metal! You know what we need? Our handy dandy…"
Here he paused, evidently expecting the answer to be given to him. And it was.
"Notebook!" cried the unseen children.
"Notebook! Right!" Kai-stern whipped out a notebook shaped like a bottle of poison. He flipped it open and drew a pile he labeled "Metal". "Now," he said, tapping his stripy blue crayon on his chin, "What would Rath want that was made out of metal?" The picture left the notebook to float above his head. He paused, yet again, as if expecting Cesia to supply an answer. Obviously he thought she had, for he said "You may be right. But let's find two more clues to make sure."
"Be my guest," muttered Cesia, rolling over. Kai-stern gazed fondly at the drawing of the metal pile floating above his head. Far away screams were then heard. Kai-stern blinked and the picture returned to the notebook as he slammed it shut, pointed in the direction of the screams, gave Cesia a wink and a thumbs-up, and took off. The camera followed his gentle jogging to where Cernozura and Ruwalk were reading a book about danger. Kai-stern sneaked up behind them and looked at the book. He looked back at the camera and put a finger to his lips. Cesia saw that the book was a pop-up book. Ruwalk pulled a tab to reveal a clue about the danger on the next page. Then he turned the page and a giant pop-up demon exploded up before their faces. Cernozura screamed excitedly, then giggled. Ruwalk pulled the tab under the demon and showed broken glass. Cernozura gasped in anticipation. Ruwalk turned the page and a huge collection of sharp knives and sporks burst out of the book. Cernozura screamed happily again. Ruwalk grinned at her and started to turn the page, but Kai-stern cried "Stop!"
For resting there amongst the knives and broken glass was a snowball!
"A clue!" cried the invisible children.
"Yes!" proclaimed Kai-stern. "There's a clue on this, this… Ruwalk? What danger is this?"
"Uh…" said Ruwalk, checking under a flap, "this is the danger of sharp objects!"
"Right! So these sharp objects… are a clue! You know what we need, our handy dandy notebook!"
Kai-stern pulled out said notebook and drew a jagged line. "Sharp!" he wrote next to it.
"Right. So what could Rath want that's metal…" The picture of metal floated above his head. "… and sharp?" The sharp line joined it. Kai-stern stood looking up at the picture for a while, then back at the camera. "You know what I think? I think we need to find the third clue."
Just as he flipped the notebook shut, a voice was heard; its cry was of a kind to bring eternal bliss to men's souls. (Or at least Kai-stern's.) Its words?
"Mailtime, mailtime, mailtime, mailtime, mailtime!" Kai-stern leapt into the air and gave an ecstatic cry: "Here's the mail, it never fails, it makes me wanna wag my tail!"
To Cesia's disgust, he did, then continued: "When it comes, I wanna wail, 'MAAAAAIIIIL!'"
He galloped over to Tetheus, who was standing with an air of disgust looking at Kai-stern and holding a letter with his fingertips.
"Here's your letter." He handed it to Kai-stern and walked away. Kai-stern reverently held the letter and looked at the camera. "We," he said, "just got a letter." He shook it back and forth to create a beat again and sang. "We just got a letter, we just got a letter, we just got a letter, wonder who it's from?"
Having ended the song, he turned the letter over and opened the flap. "Look!" he said. "It's a letter from our friends!"
"Hi, Crewger! Hi, Kai-stern!" sang several small children from the image inside the letter. "We're making demons out of toothpicks and marshmallows!" The first child held up a marshmallowy demon just as the ground shook and a voice yelled, "DEMONS!?"
The image of children happily playing turned into chaos as a familiar black-haired boy careened into the picture, waving a sword and crying for blood. Kai-stern hastily closed the letter as blood-curdling screams were heard. Looking frazzled and dropping the letter on the ground, he said "Let's go find the third clue, what do you think?"
He did not have to look far. A mutilated marshmallow demon rolled out of the letter as he walked by, partially encased in a snowball. Kai-stern picked it up.
"It's a clue," he said, wonderingly. "A clue, here on this… dead demon? O…K…" He slowly pulled out his notebook and drew a dead demon on the third page. Wait-- third page?
"We have all three clues!" Kai-stern cried excitedly. "You know what this means? It's time to go to our thinking chair!"
Instantly, The Chair That Wasn't There A Second Ago appeared and Kai-stern sat in it. "Ok," he said, leaning forward. "Now that we're in our thinking chair, let's- " He pulled the crayon out. " think."
"What could we get Rath that's metal, sharp, and kills demons?" The pictures floated over his head. Alfeegi randomly wandered in at that moment. "A sword? He wants a new sword? He broke another sword!?"
"A sword!" cried Kai-stern. "That's it! We just figured out Crew's clues!" Leaping up, he sang again.
"We just figured out Crew's clues, we just figured out Crew's clues, we just figured out Crew's clues, cuz we're very smart!"
Alfeegi shook his head and walked out as Crewger ecstatically dragged in a sword and dropped it at Kai-stern's feet. At that point, Rath burst in the door.
"Guess what, Kai-stern! I killed all these little demons and there were a million, I swear, but I broke my sword-- Oh, a new sword? For me? Thank you, Kai-stern!" Rath danced around the room with Kai-stern and Crewger. Ruwalk, Cernozura, and the three dragon fighters came and danced too. Tetheus and Alfeegi stood in the corner and looked disapproving. Kai-stern danced up to the camera and began to sing one last time.
"Now it's time for 'so long', but we'll sing just one more song. Thanks for doing your part, you sure are smart! You know with me and you and my dog Crew, we can do anything that we wanna do!"
The party faded out with the end of the song and Head bounced back.
"Hi there, Head here! Do you know what I'm doing? I'm hopping! Don't go away, cuz Kitchel the Explorer is next! Stay tuned for a hopping good time! Ho ho ho!"
Bierrez, holding a script, walked boredly up behind Head and picked him up. "What channel is this?" he asked tiredly, reading from the script.
"Flick Jr!" chortled Head.
"Flick Jr is just for me," sighed Bierrez, who then drop-kicked Head a long distance away, held up his script, burned it in front of the camera, and left.
The door in Cesia's room banged open as Rath burst in, out of breath. "Hey, Cesia! What's up?"
Cesia moaned and looked pitifully up at him, mentally begging for mercy.
"You say the TV isn't up loud enough? I'll fix it!" He bounced up to the TV and turned the volume higher. "Kay then, see ya!" he bounced back out of the room, slamming the door. He was singing about demons and new swords so loudly that he didn't hear Cesia's tortured screaming.
"Thatz!" came Kitchel's friendly voice from the TV.
"Kitchel!" Thatz's voice cried exuberantly.
