Sake: (holds up sign that reads: ) Disclaimer: Chapter 1. See it. ^-^ Plus, any major stores, companies, etc. mentioned are not Zoshi's. (throws sign away) Now, the author is still missing. Her whereabouts are unknown, though there were reported sighting in Chicago, Los Angeles, the Tokyo Tower, and Loch Ness. Recently we've received the following from a man in a lobster suit. It seems to be some sort of message or –

Riku: *runs up* They're coming!

(In the background can be heard cries of "String Cheese!" and "ARGH! Not In My Hair!!!")

Sake: *pales* We must go. I leave you with this! *throws  a bunch of papers at you*

Riku: Hurry up!

*They scuttle off on the back of what seems to be a giant mechanical cockroach*

You look down at the papers in your hand and read:

Flight of the Muses:

The Search for Sanity

(^-- Another random title, although it might come into play later. Keyword there: might.)

(Sephy: Yay! Sanity!)

(Get back in the story!)

(Sephy: *pouts, walks away*)

          When we left them, our soon to be adventurers had split up. Actually, it was more like two of them decided to keep their brains and left the others. Now, all that was left at the house was a slow-witted cat boy, attempting to prove a sword plastic, and a hotheaded insane ex-general, intent on proving it not.

          "See, I'll prove it!" Skiz held the 'Masamune' over the stove and reached for the knob.

          "Nooooo!" I. Sephy (okay, I'm going to drop the 'I' from now on, you all still know who I'm talking about…) leaped forward and grabbed the sword, holding it tightly. "Don't hurt it!!!"

          "Hurt?" Skiz seemed puzzled. "Plastic can't be hurt."

          "Of course it can!" Sephy sniffled, petting the sword.

          "Oh." Skiz suddenly felt very sorry for all the plastic soldiers he'd used his magnifying glass on. But this passed quickly. "Where's Sake?"

          "What?" Sephy stood up straight, looking around. Of course it would have worked better and he would have seen more if he had been outside. "The idiots left without us!!"

          Quite enraged, he stormed out of the house, leaving Skiz standing by the stove, still a little puzzled. Then, realizing he'd be left all alone with no one to talk to or even pounce, the cat boy dashed out after Sephy.

          "Sephy," He called, running up to catch with him, as he was already halfway down the block. "Shouldn't we lock the door?"

          "Who cares about locking doors?! I wanna know why I got left behind!" Sephy snarled.

          They walked down the (quite normal and nowhere near inter-worldly) street some more, turning at the corner and walking past a McDonalds. Skiz stopped suddenly, looking longingly into the window as someone got his fish sandwich. Of course, from his distance, it might have been a Big Mac, a cheeseburger, or even a Fresh Salad. But to his cat-like imagination, which ruled over whatever human imagination dwelled alongside it with an iron paw, it was a fish sandwich.

          "Seeeeepppphhhhhy!!" Skiz whined, grabbing Sephy's arm and pulling. "I wanna fish sandwich!!!"

          "No! You were a bad cat boy and let them leave without us! No fish sandwich for you!" Sephy started walking again, Skiz still clinging to his arm.

          "But Sephy, pleeeeaaase?" Skiz dug his feet into the cement and pulled back. Then said, sounding slightly hill-billyish while doing so. "I looooove yooouuuu."

          "Shut up!" Sephy pulled his arm out of the iron grasp, and Skiz fell over, having nothing to hold on to. "Fine! I'll get you the stupid sandwich! But then we're leaving, right?"

          "Right!" Skiz bounced up happily.

          Sephiroth led the way in, grumbling unhappily. He bought the sandwich, handed it to Skiz, and made to walk out the door. That's when he noticed it.

          There was no grass; there were no trees. There was… dark blue, with some little colored blocks floating around in it.

          "Oooohhh! Look at the pretty colors Sephy!" Skiz got as close to the window as he could get and still eat the sandwich.

          "Um, what just happened?" Sephy asked, scratching his head.

          "Well sir, that was the one hundredth fish sandwich we've sold today. We've gone into Inter-World mode." A smiling cash register lady beamed at him.

          "Er…" Sephy blinked, a little scared by the white light that was shining off of her bleached teeth, and turned back to the window. "Now what do we do?"

Meanwhile…

          Our other pair of adventurers was well on their way. Where to, neither of them knew. Where from, that was easy. As far away from Skiz and Sephy as possible.

          "So, we're in Produce World." Riku said. "Two blocks away from the house."

          "Yes." Sake answered, hiding behind some celery stalks and a tomato.

          "Why, may I ask?" Riku refused to hide behind vegetables. Instead, he was hiding behind a stand of pasta boxes and lasagna pans.

          "Because, this is the last place they'll look!" Sake hissed, then ducked down as a lady walked up.

          Now, truth be told, their makeshift hiding spots weren't the greatest. For one thing, tomatoes didn't have furry ears and celery stalks were not known to sprout long white tails. Also, the last time anyone checked, pasta boxes didn't glower at vegetables.

          The lady went about, trying to pick out a good tomato. In an effort to be kind to a customer, Sake picked one out for her. Seeing a celery stalk with an arm hand her a tomato, the lady thanked it nicely. Then ran away screaming "The End Is Coming! VEGETABLES SHALL RULE THE WORLD!"

          "Oh, great. Now you've done it." Riku threw off the boxes and pans and took off. Sake raced after him, trying to get celery leaves out of his mouth.

          "It wasn't my fault she didn't know how to pick vegetables!" Sake grab Riku and dove behind a conveniently placed watermelon box just as a horde of employees raced to the vegetable aisle.

          "Now what do we do?" Riku sighed.

          "Well, you could always walk out nonchalantly and pretend nothing happened." A voice spoke up from the top of the watermelon pile.

          "What?! Who said that?!"

          Riku and Sake looked up to see…

*DUNDUNDUNNNNNNN!!!*

          A piggy bank. White. With a red bow. And a dust mask covering its face. You know, the paper kind that you might just use when you're painting? Or sanding? Or cleaning your room? That kind.

          "Ahhh! Noooo!!" Sake cried, collapsing to the ground and shivering in fear.

          "What? What's going on?!" Riku looked from the piggy bank to Sake. From Sake to the piggy bank. From the piggy bank to the watermelons. Hey, the guy was getting hungry!

          "It's the Piggy Bank!" Sake trembled, causing his voice to sound like a person who was on a shaky ride.

          "Yes, it is I! Muahahahahaa!" The Piggy Bank said, dancing on her dainty white porcelain feet (as the person who made her didn't give her any hooves).

          "And… why are you here?" Riku asked, not one bit scared of the Piggy Bank.

          "TO PUNISH SAKE FOR LOSING THE AUTHOR!!" Lightning crackled all over the store, short circuiting fuses and blowing up the canned foods aisle.

          "Nooooooo!" Sake shrieked, trying to fit inside a coconut. "It wasn't my fault!!!"

          "Look, isn't there some way to make it up to you?" Riku asked hurriedly, not really scared of the Piggy Bank but also not really wanting to see Sake embarrass himself any more. Currently, the cat boy was attempting to fit his foot into a lemon. And his tail into a lime.

          "Make it up?! Hmmm… For losing the author, you shall-" The Piggy Bank paused for dramatic effect. "BRING ME A SHRUBBERY!!!"

 *PAUSE*

 *START*

          "Uh, how about some truffles?" Sake asked sacredly.

          "Fine then. But you must-" The Piggy Bank paused again for dramatic effect, which didn't work quite as well as it had the first time. "BUY ME ALL THE TRUFFLES IN THE STORE! MUAHAHAHAA!!"

          "Right away!" Sake jumped up happily and ran through the store, grabbing all the bags, boxes, and containers of truffles and tossing them into a handy shopping cart.

          "You really have him whipped, don't you?" Riku stood, eating his third slice of watermelon.

          "Heh heh heh… snort…" The Piggy Bank was somehow inhaling the watermelon through the dust mask, and already on her fifth slice.

Back in the Inter-World McDonalds…

          "NOW TELL ME HOW TO GET OUTTA HERE!!" Sephy gripped the still-beaming cash register lady's shirt collar tightly.

          "Sir, if you will just calm down and take a seat. MY manager will come out to see you in just a few moments." The lady squeaked from her tightened vocal cords. But she still smiled.

          "NO! A FEW MOMENTS ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!" Sephy was shaking with rage. Not only did he have to waste his money on a stupid cat, not only did he have no idea where he was, not only was this annoying lady not telling him something he really, really wanted to know, not only was she nearly blinding him with her teeth's bleached whiteness, he had left his coffee at home. And it had just turned that peculiar shade of orange he liked.

          Skiz bounced over and stole a soda.

          "Sir, are you going to pay for that?" The happy lady squeaked. Skiz stopped.

          "Uh… No?" He bounced off again to watch the flying blocks.

          "Now tell me lady," Sephy growled lowly. "How to we get back to our world?"

          "Well, sir, if you'd only said that the first time…" The lady began. Sephy growled violently. "You just have to get a gummi ship."

          "What in the fifth galaxy is a gummi ship?" Sephy asked, quite surprised, and dropped the lady on the floor.

          "Ooooo! Are we going to the fifth galaxy?" Skiz cried out happily.

          "No!" Sephy looked at the lady. "Where can we find a gummi ship?"

          "Well you can't find one in here, silly, if that's what you're thinking." The lady sat up and brushed some dirt off of her shining whites (after all the bleach they weren't really pearly). "You'd have to go outside and go somewhere else."

          "But… we can't go outside without a gummi ship." Sephy was getting mad again.

          "Nope, I guess you can't." She smiled brightly.

          All through the conversation, between trying to drink the soda, watch the blocks, and eating a fish sandwich (his fifth), all Skiz caught was 'go outside'.

          "We're going outside! Yay!" Skiz bounced out the door.

          "What! No, you idiot! Not out there!" Sephy dashed out after him, quite sure that if he'd let Skiz perish in the darkness of gummi space, or accidentally crash into a giant colored block, someone would have his head for sure.

          "Good bye, have a nice day, and please come again."

          And now Skiz and Sephy found themselves floating in dark blue nothingness. Occasionally dotted by some random, neon colored block.

(Or geometrical shape. But no organic shapes. Just geometric. Meaning they all had sharp edges. Or something. Oh, wait, there were organic shapes. Like meteors. Or asteroids. Or-)

          "A-hem" Sephy glared into the darkness of space.

          "Author?!" Skiz twirled around happily, then grabbed his throat. "Sephy! I can't breathe! Is that bad?"

          Sephy was having his own problems. Not only was he finding it also hard to breathe, he was seeing a giant shape come at them. Out of nowhere. Maybe he was hallucinating?

          And so it happened that the two ended up being swallowed by a giant chain store. Meaning, it sold chains. But then again, there WAS a chain of stores that sold chains. So this was, in fact, a chain of chain stores, or a chain of stores that sold chains?

          Either way, the two found themselves surrounded by masses of chains.

          "Oooooh, Sephy, its all so shiny!" Skiz said, mesmerized by the light reflecting off thousands of chain links.

          Sephy was busy exchanging glares with burly looking chain wearers. They glared. He glared. They glared some more. He met their glare and raised them twenty. Before anyone knew it, a game of newly revolutionized glare-poker had begun and bets were adding up to thousands of chocolate chip cookies. And milk. Can't have chocolate chip cookies without milk. Or bourbon.

          "Hey, what's this?" Skiz, ignoring the shouts and yells and catcalls and wolf whistles that surrounded the glarers, had found himself a big, giant, paper bag. Without a thought, he jumped in. "Wheee!"

          Oh, what fun! What glorious wondrous, funny fun fun! He twirled around in it, pawed at it, until, at the very bottom, he found…

          "String cheese!" Skiz bounced out of the bag in frenzy-filled happiness. "I found string cheese!!"

          He bounced over to where Sephy was standing, string cheese hanging out of his mouth, and two more bags of cheese in his hands.

          "Look Sephy! String Cheese!" Skiz tossed a handful of already strung out cheese into the air.

          And there was much rejoicing.

          "Okay, what did you just do?" Sephy looked at Skiz, trying to ignore the now dancing, singing, and all out celebrating chain-wearers.

          "String Cheese!" Skiz thrust a handful of cheese at Sephy.

          "I don't want cheese!" Sephy pushed the hand in his face away. It was then that the dancing of the rejoicing chain wearers reached its high point. A light began shining from the chains on the walls and floor and shelves, as if each chain link was joining in the celebration.

          And all because of some string cheese.

          Then, a loud noise came, whisked Sephy and Skiz away, and pushed them through the wall and into the next store.

Back with the Piggy Bank…

          Riku, Sake, and the Piggy Bank were sitting around a café table at the nearby Café. Thus, the café table. Makes sense.

          "Do you know how we're supposed to find the Author?" Sake asked the Piggy Bank as she inhaled the truffles.

          "Easy. Use that thing." She pointed a hoof-less foot in a random direction.

          Sake and Riku looked to see a giant, four foot high mechanical thing standing where she pointed. It wiggled its shiny mechanical feet and waved its shiny mechanical antennas.

          "What is it?" Riku asked.

          "It's a transport vehicle! Sheesh, can't you tell?" The Piggy Bank snorted.

          "It looks like a giant cockroach." Sake said. The giant mechanical cockroach went up and smacked him in the head with an antenna.

          "Be nice. Its sensitive." The Piggy Bank said.

          "Can it help me find my friends too?" Riku asked hopefully.

          "Sure, why not." The Piggy Bank waved a foot dismissively, and turned back to her truffles.

          "Let's take it then!" Sake jumped up from his seat, and the cockroach hissed a little.

          "Er… maybe I should just walk." Riku stood up and backed away a little, in front of the next-door salon's door.

          "No, come one, it's not that-" Sake was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a man in a lobster suit.

          "Telegram." The man said in a computer-generated voice, handed Sake a brown envelope, and disappeared just as suddenly as he'd come.

          Sake opened the envelope, and as he looked over the contents and spoke to the readers, Riku saw movement from the corner of his eye. His mind alarms went off. SKIZ AND SEPHY!! In the… salon?

          It doesn't matter, he thought, we gotta go! He ran over to Sake.

          "They're coming!" Riku jumped onto the cockroach's back.

"String Cheese!" Skiz voice reached outside as he threw some more cheese into the air.

          "Argh! Not In My Hair!" Sephy growled, loud enough for the neighborhood to hear.

Sake panicked, threw the papers at the readers, and, not recognizing his muse-buddie's voices, as some would think he did, and without even bothering to ask just who it was that was coming, jumped onto the cockroach's back. And they scuttled off… into the setting sun…

          Sephy stepped out of the salon, wishing he could lock the insanely happy cat-boy in it. Unfortunately, the lock was on the inside. Skiz bounced out, petted the Piggy Bank, who was still inhaling her truffles, and tripped over a paper.

          "What's that?" Skiz said, and Sephy picked it up.

          "It's www. angelfire. com/ moon/ rgh/ images/ sephskizsake.jpg , along with a note." Sephy looked a little confused.

          "What's the note say?" Skiz got up, jumped on the table, and looked over Sephy's shoulder.

          "It says: **Author here. This is the end of chapter two. Randomness is popping up. Why? RANDOM HUMOR FICS. That's why. Argh. Sorry again if I steal any ideas anyway along. Um, lets see. Yes, the picture. Excuse my inability at drawing chibi. I hope Sephy doesn't look too bad. Sake looks high. Excuse that. Skiz looks fine. And YES, those are fairy wings. Hee hee hee… and if you can't read the words, e-mail me. They're not important though, you'll probably figure them out. Well, later, and out. Buh bye.**" Sephy stared intently at the picture for a second. "Hey! Why isn't there color?! HOW ARE PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO WITNESS THE GREATNESS OF MY FAIRY WINGS IF THERE ISN"T ANY COLOR?!?!?!"

          "Oooo, look, see, Author agrees, it IS plastic!" Skiz points at the paper.

          Sephy rages on. And the two take off. Opposite the setting sun. But then turn left and run into a Subway. Oh boy.