Gradually the pace of Zurg's boots slowed down. He no longer hopped over the bushes like an oversized purple bunny being chased by a fox. Moreover, the closer the destination loomed, the ickier shade of green his face received.

It was back there, the call of the soil. The odd feeling of bewitchment that had teemed along his spine over forty years ago. But now... now the emotion was not a gentle fairy offering him a snow-white slender hand to hold. No, the lore-singing elf of his imagination had abruptly grown venomous fangs, her eyes had turned to vile, red slits, and her once so beautiful slim body had turned scaly, squirming, slimy. All the beauty of that allurement had been swept away. All the charm of that age-old stone ring, all the uplifting feeling of adventure... it all had carried horrible, image-distorting falsity in it. Now, as the Nex Crucio ruins and the elder version of that adventuresome boy met again after the decades, the burned stones seemed to growl some sort of terrible black song of doom. Their mossy heads peeked from behind the high-growing, time-honored tree roots. The whole rushing trio stopped dead as Zora halted totally his footwear's stomping.

"A-are w-whh-eee th... th...there now--hhhh?" Booster panted, sweat dripping down his bald. A few meters behind, XR was jammed in a great swampy tuft of moss, and his caterpillars were rolling merely nowhere.

"Well, seems like a good spot for me to get stuck here forever!" the robot snarled. Accelerating his crawlers, he tried another spurt out of the soggy prison. But this caused him only to sink deeper. "I don't know how our Jedi Master knew to stop on the right spot. Maybe he used the force or whatever obi-van-kenobi-codswallop. But whatever, Mira's signal tracks end here."

At this point, Zora uttered the ever-first syllables during the forest racing. So far he had been as mute as a fish on dry land.

"This place..." he murmured beetle-browed, "...the ominous sensation inside me has only grown. I cannot explain what it is. This place bears something nameless inside itself, something more evil than my whole stock of distilled evilness I had in my glorious palace..."

The air stood still in the misty green pavilion of ancient trees. A lonely owl hooted somewhere nearby. XR and Munchapper stole glances from one another.

"You know this place, Sir?" the red alien noted.

"Yes... Behind there", the Emperor pointed at the oak formation ahead, "there is an old, destroyed tower or fortress of some kind. I do not quite know its history. It has no name; it has not been marked in the maps. I... used to come here often when I was young."

The two chums leered at the cracked, miry pillars that were protruding from the ground like broken, rotten teeth from an old skull's bony gums. But they could not perceive Zurg's odd graveness concerning this forgotten site. That was just a bunch of boring brittle wrecks, nothing fundamental. Was it not more important to try to search for Mira than start playing archeologist?

"Umm, hello?" the mecha waved a set of desperate fingers, "Shouldn't we try to find our princess? The damsel is in distress. And I'm in distress. Someone get me out of this boghole, I think it wants to eat me!" He was now halfway sunken inside the tussock. But the hummock had no time to enjoy his metallic aroma completely, since Booster came swiftly to dig him out of its sodden embrace. Soon XR was safely back on the dry land, but his linguistic features had not been enhanced a bit. Now he was uttering highly non-children-friendly expressions, due to the fact that his brilliantly polished lower body was covered with tacky dripping slush. Not to mention that his caterpillars were half-clogged with grass and mud.

"Oh the bliss of this idyllic forest pique-nique! I'm loving every microsecond!"

The royal had advanced a few gaits towards the rocks. He was fingering his beard with severe contemplation. So, the Tangean had sent the message from somewhere here... but why here? At least forty years ago this nook had been utterly abandoned. Even now, the life consisted almost only of those ruddy owls and some squirrels hyperactively bouncing in the trees. And, if she had been here, where was she now? Or was it all a false alarm?

No, the latter notion was out of the question. Nothing swept away the portentous presence of the Dark Side. As if these very stones were emitting it, the earth underneath radiating its atrocious, deceitful existence...

'A great evilness was hidden within the forest...'  His mother had not driveled abracadabra, not even in this case. Had not her bedtime stories always had a truth basis? Like the one about Natron, the one of the wee genius' ultimate favorites. Every kind of legend about a great dark menace had always intrigued him the most as a pint-high brat.

With labor, he pushed the lamentable thoughts aside.

"Now, grubs... eh... whatever. We shall start searching for your Tangean friend. XR, do you have any kind of itchymizer to trace her DNA or relevant?"

"Sure, sure, let's do it in the snuffles style!" The little android drew an artificial smell detector out of his midsection. The device, which resembled an overly swollen humanoid nose, started sniffing and snuffling the air around, its rather hairy nostrils quivering enthusiastically. After a few seconds, the loose body part began spluttering and sneezing ferociously.

"Hey, the snout got a trace! It obviously sensed the divinely odorous scent of Mira's perfume!" the mecha exaggerated. He aimed his wheels towards the rock formation, but was in a few minutes blocked up amidst the high, tangled rootstalks. In every case, it was now confirmed that the last traces of the blueblood ended somewhere inside those burned ruins.

Zora had no trouble whatsoever to climb over the rhizome and enter the ill-boding dead turret. Booster somehow squeezed through the gap between two massive oaks, obviously with the famous 'think thin'-method. XR was once more generously freed from the root cage. The troop slowly entered the time-beaten circle of formidable mysteries. Inside the ruins it was easier to move around, since the site was rather large and there was plentiful of space even for the Jo-Adian to waddle. The tarnished stones stared at them callously with nonexistent eyes. Another heir of the Lightyear blood had treaded upon the secrets of his ancestry.

Zurg hiked grimly around the crushed bastions. They looked like just the same as forty years ago. Perhaps the rain had grooved a bit more their surface, perhaps more lichen had bearded them... but nothing could fade their colossal, uncanny majesty. He paced tardily past a collapsed wall that still bore ornamental engravings about wriggling vipers. That reminded him of the one thing he had wondered as a snotty pre-teen... Why was this wreck full of snake symbols? Kaon or its near cities had no relevant architecture whatsoever; this creepy turret had its very unique face. More snakes... the Emperor scowled at a carefully sculpted pillar that had a hideous-looking rupture in the middle. Its other end apparently lay somewhere under the earth's moss. The remaining part of it was hewed into the form of an enormous, uprising cerastes. Where mold and moss was not growing, the animal's scales showed almost nitpicky detail. But this hole was definitely not an ancient snake farm... that was sure.

The search seemed more futile than trying to find a grain of rice from a swimming pool full of sand. XR's extraneous nose kept sputtering and spattering, but abruptly it just plain lost the stench. Zurg erupted like a small volcano as the two rangers began shrugging shiftless, demanding them to find a gazillion other ways to snoop around. Huffing, he emerged from the middle of the main stone ring to cool himself down a tad. He had lost enough enamel already today by grating his teeth, and by this tempo, would need to consider dentures in a few weeks. But wise calming-down saved his gloriously dazzling big chewing bones from such a terrible destruction. Arms folded over his chest, face in a grimace that resembled an overhand knot, he trotted among the bushes and glared at the tiny owls that were coming to goggle at the sudden hubbub in their normally so peaceful habitat. Zora had always had the impression that ninety percent of this primeval forest's fauna consisted of owls. Big and fat or thumbnail-sized, always there was a pack of these roundish birds lolling somewhere. As if someone had dumped the whole galaxy's owls on this particular planet.

Still hugging his sides, the male approached a strange-looking cluster of stones a bit further from the main devil's nest. It bore likeliness to Celtic dolomites, but was missing the roofing. Instead, it had a third wall made of gravure-decorated smooth granite. This particular boulder was smashed behind the two opposite stones so that it was like a little room with only three murals. A huge, craggy branch of a hoary willow curved over the whole formation like a large, skeletal hand ready to snatch the cringing rocks into a hard pinch.

The dusky greenness created eerie shadows among the bushes. Especially the ancient willow looked as though it had been the skeleton of some giant, primordial monster. The ragged holes in its immense trunk stared hollowly around. Almost one could see vileness in their grimace. But Emperor Zurg, the nefarious galactic ex-terror did not shiver in his pants just because of some old ugly tree. Moreover, his perilous dagger-sharp scowl made those pathetic vegetables almost shudder inside their baulks.

His gaits converged the semi-dolomite. Even this cairn was more familiar to him than his pockets. The wee Zoxedazeĉ had often stood inside it, picking his nose, gaping at the snake illustrations that meandered across the three walls. The willow's branch had sprouted leaves still then. But obviously sometime during the Evil Z Empire's reign, the tree had for the most part fossilized.

Zora had never understood the meaning of this extraneous rock hovel. Perhaps it was some sort of altar. From some point of view, it resembled one. It was not burned like the rest of its siblings; obviously the major destruction had never kissed it with flames. But... what sense was in the idea of it being an altar, he inquired himself. Pitiful childish imagination... The old man found his awareness roaming again. He was supposed to concentrate on finding clues about the lost blue girl. According to the parchment, the foe -whoever diabolic dark lord that then was- had trapped her into some sort of devil's snare. What was that supposed to be? And why would the wheezing transmission had come from here?

He picked the crumpled parchment pieces out of his pocket. The inkblotted, askew handwriting fought with itself on the material's amber surface. His own lettering looked quite much the same: theatrical, billowing, edgy. But there seemed to be nothing new in the old mantra of those gloating messages. Just the same sick cackling of a psychopath sadist.

But, out of the blue some brilliantly purple lightbulb ignited inside Zurg's brainbucket. This smell...  he had been pouting previously due to the icky moldy reek coming from the letter shreds. Actually, as he was stagnating here near the quasi-zombified willow, that same stench hovered faintly in the air. It was the typical tang of rotting leaves and mildew, the most typical smell of forest soil. Of course, the Emperor could have not instantly associated it. Tens of years he had ruled a demonic planet, where every single green turf had been maliciously whacked away or burned. He had hated fresh nature through the deepest chasms of his subconscious.

He squatted down onto the brushwood mat to verify his assumption. Yes, the reek was deeper now. He crept a few meters hither and thither, ending up to hunker right inside the weird dolomite. The smell was even stronger just an inch above the rock, where some bottle-green moss was sojourning. He raised the parchment rags once more underneath his thin nose and sniffed them.

The following sizzle in Zora's synapses was a complex squirm of associations wriggling to and fro. Musty stink, old ruins, parchment, the vaults and crypts of his nightmare, the Dark Side's prowling presence, the bewitching lore of the soil, Mira's muddled message...

Was there something under the ground?

The sole lux of this notion was so startling, that the man escaped on his legs. It felt somehow thoroughly absurd, and on the other hand, fiendishly clever. But would not someone know if there was something underneath? This was a common forest, though this spot perched nearly ten kilometers away from Kaon. Still, somehow, the conception made perfectly sense. It was the only logical terminal where all the roads of reflection ended.

He targeted a cantankerous goggle at the dolomite's floor. It was partly buried into the moss, but in places, a smooth stone basis was visible. Out of sheer, abrupt curiosity, he kicked some of the biggest tussocks away with a foot the size of a miniature rowboat. More of that rock was revealed. Some angry dungbeetles and earthworms writhed viciously in the mould heaps he had so violently lashed aside. His determined boot thumped the stone slab hard a few times.

There was a hollow echo beneath the rock.

He stamped again the hard surface, picking his ear vulgarly with an index. No, Zora had not heard wrong. The earth responded with the same low-booming echo. Frowning, he descended onto his fours. Could there perhaps be some kind of separate hatch or relevant leading to the possible empty space underneath? Stubbornly solid bedrock did not give such a symphony when being knocked; there truly had to be something below.

He brushed more mould off from the stone floor's surface. For a while, he endeavored searching for edges, seams, anything that could be the characteristics of a liftable shutter. He even ran his fingers along the walls' baseboards, but nothing even there. Raising up, he wiped the soil off from his expensive, tailored trousers, and set a confused finger onto his lower lip. The conception of that subterranean crypt had in a nanosecond transformed into such an obsession, that Zurg would by any means have to find out if his gloriously genius mind had cooked up a perfect theorem. But... if His Majesty was on the right track, how was anyone supposed to get down there, if there was no door whatsoever? He was no Casper the Friendly Ghost nor had a single milliliter of Tangean blood in his veins. But perhaps the rock could be cut open. Oh, if he only had had his imperial uniform now on, he would have blasted that blasted block-witted block into spinning ions with his eye lasers! Or, so he believed.

"Lackeys!" he clicked his fingers to the space rangers that were merely loitering in the monolith garden. "I shall need your help here!" Rather lazily toddling, the addressed emerged from the sea of broken stones and tottered over the shrubberies. The Emperor shot them with a very cattish glare. No need to mention, that those two space heroes had not spotted even a footprint. On the other hand, it was swiftly revealed to the gang leader that they had not been as idle as mushrooms under a tree. XR had hearingly fluoroscoped some of the stone structures with a T-ray scanner, but it had showed nothing but solid rock. In any case, now the royal was demanding the robot to apply the same gizmo to monitor if there was something under the stone slab.

For Zurg's surprise and slight disappointment, XR could produce only shrugs concerning the rock. The scanner screen gave the impression as though the ground would be as passable as a cul-de-sac. Nonetheless, the old male's snarl was not content at all with the result. Why did something sound hollow if it was solid? The next stubborn growl inquired the android to try cutting the rock with laser and see if it would loosen.

"Now see here, grandpa, the fluoroscope would have shown if there's a secret, mysterious pirate cave below there." XR jabbered while he tuned his laser drill. "See, I saw this rock off, and we'll come across just a heap of mould, or perhaps an angry mole whose house we have so brutally broken..." Nonetheless, the next view gave some amazed yelps and caused vastly more head-scratching. Actually, the cyborg's laser did nothing. It hissed and crackled fiercely, but the rock remained without a scratch. Evidently, this quite neatly gave basis to Zurg's assumptions.

"That double-doomed unpurple stone is laser-proof! Now how normal is that? So perfectly perverted. Why would some sniveling pipsqueak want to build a laser-proof building inside a dratted forest?"

"I don't know. Maybe some paranoid hermit who's afraid of an intergalactic Armageddon", the wee tin jar blurted. Next, the squad attempted to saw the rock with an ultraviolet laser, with no better luck. And, eventually, not even a low-tuned proton ray heaved up the mulish brick. They could not pitch the latter doohickey into any higher frequencies, because that would have possibly caused a massive forest-fire. Even now some of the nearest bushes had been nicely charred. And what became to Zurg, he was throwing a tantrum like a five-year-old brat that did not get ice cream. He wanted to go through that granite and immediately!

Yet, now even XR and Booster had to admit that this was beyond normal. A small discussion about the odds of some kind of a force field covering the stone lighted up among the triplet. Although the likelihood of such a thing was as minuscule as a quark, it on the other hand might have explained why Mira's transmission was distorted so infernally, and why the T-ray scanner could not penetrate the surface. But how did that make any sense, in the long run? Force fields in a common forest, in the middle of ancient ruins?

XR's last means to try to chop that bull-headed stone was a Gluon Disintegrator, which the LGM's had developed a few months ago. Of course the prototype of this drill had been installed inside the expandable ranger. The whole science relating to gluon annihilating was still in the cradle, but at least the dojigger in his midsection was rather stable-functioning. Rubbing his fists together and grinning like Arnold Schwarzenegger, XR aimed the gluon disintegration ray towards the stone. A pinkish beam of light flashed in the air, and with a horrible stink, the rock surprisingly began melting. The three faces were drawn into jubilant grins. Slowly, but surely, a reedy hole started forming onto the ground. As the granite melted, its particles turned to sheer vapor. And, the gap grimacing amongst the vegetation truly showed that the space beneath the stone was nothing but enclosed. Moreover, there seemed to be some sort of vast hall down there. The daylight did not yet reveal the whole room, but shaded the murals near the broken ceiling with misty lumen. Evidently they had been one day made of rather finely-sculpted bricks, and they curved upwards to form artful arching. Here and there, tree roots meandered across the walls they had partly pierced, and tiny light-fearing insects escaped into their black muddy nests.

A drastic shiver went down Zora's spine, while a white-cold emotion froze his heart.

That crypt down there looked just like the one in his ghastly nocturnal torture.

"Now, this is freaking me out", the robot shuddered while watching at the sepulcher vault. "You're saying Mira's down there? And I thought they got stuff like this only in those old black-and-white vampire movies!"

"I do not know..." Zoxedaszeĉ croaked, "But we shall go down there. Now."

It was a sheer miracle how Munchapper squeezed himself through the molten stone and ultimately thudded onto the arcade's floor. The triplet was in the very same passageway, which Evil Buzz used as his foyer into the bowels of earth. The slippery staircase jutted in one cobwebbed corner, vanishing upwards towards the tree-entrance. A few meters distance from the gang, was a heavy stone door leading somewhere. It was just barely Munchapper's size, but perhaps with a good kick of luck, he might force himself through a tight spot once more. The structures down here were clearly designed for human-sized beings, not for extramorphean aliens.

The triplet soon perceived how much cleaner and drier it was behind that very exit. The mud and insects were gone, and the air was a tad less dank than in the lobby. XR lit a cozy yellow spotlight to guide the way in the new crypt they had encountered. Visibly some tomb raider used this corridor rather frequently. Still, nothing faded away the eerie atmosphere lingering in every single nook... especially as it felt like that the adventurers had just submerged inside the Emperor's ominous, gothic nightmare.

--------------------

A malignantly sadistic grin lit Evil Buzz Lightyear's face. The little phosphorescent spy screen in his hands showed a nervous female figure wandering along an unlit alleyway. The girl looked feeble, exhausted, and kept clasping her ribs every once in a while, bursting into deep-gurgling coughs. Yet, this only lifted up the Shadow's sick exhilaration. She suffered. She almost crawled. And she was to crawl and suffer even more.

He adjusted a few of the portable monitor's buttons. Mira Nova was roving along the main alleyway of Level 4.2-Y. How on Saturn had she gotten so far from the blue cells? That he could not understand. Something in his 'waterproof' plan had leaked. Yet... the Princess looked so fatigued, that it would be a piece of meteoroid to take her down single-handedly. Or... was he underestimating the Tangean? In his own universe, Mira was a tenacious fighter whom he had not yet vanquished. Undoubtedly she had to have at least a few of the same features also in this alternate reality. Hence he should be a tad more careful in his actions. Evil Buzz, in his overflowing egoism, kept easily forgetting that he was an invalid. So, for a second he considered slipping into the shelter of his invisibility cloak, but comprehended that he could not hide his weapon anyhow. He could not shoot the runaway bird through the cloth; he would only fire his own robes. But... he would eliminate that lass for sure. She was just on the way, causing extraneous harm.

Fondling his snake staff with gloved fingertips, he adjusted the plasma-laser pulse regulator on its handle. The viper was turning deadly venomous now, as the controller was slid from stun to kill. Or... maybe just a bit below the killing dose, so that she would pine... His ill mind took pleasure in every moment of the sadistic dream he cherished. A sniggering cackle rattled in the stairway as he with a swirl of cloak took a flight towards the unsuspecting woman.              

***********

Mira took a moment to observe the way she had selected. It was leading upwards, and that was a good sign. Indisputably, she was trapped deep under the ground. As long as she would come across staircases leading towards the earth's surface, she would have at least some hope of finding out of this Gehenna. Nova had ascended a few of those on her voyage across these endless-feeling arcades. Another positive sign was also the lesser mustiness of air. Still... all the climbing and strolling drained her energy maliciously, not to mention that her throat was burning with thirst.

She was panting in a fork of three different alleyways. Oh, how she hated this labyrinth. In her desperation, she had even attempted to leer around for guideposts or relevant. Occasionally her regard had attached itself onto a few timeworn brass plates pinned onto the walls. But they were so battered that she could not distinguish the old, curvy lettering carved on them. Whoever had designed this limbo, definitely had wished the travelers to get lost and decay in the abysmal tunnels.

Tip, tip, tip... Water was dripping somewhere. Her heavy, wheezing inhales got mixed with the noise. But, abruptly she pricked up her ears, turning stiff on her position.

Had she heard a gush of canvas sweeping nearby­?

In sudden panic, she twirled around, jumping a few inches aside from her previous posture. This prompt twist perhaps saved a centimeter of her life, since a microsecond later, a green flash of light hit the wall beside her, shattering a part of the tiling.

Manic laughter boomed somewhere nearby her, croaking in the fusty air with the voice of Buzz Lightyear. Mira could not see clearly forwards, the green blaze was burning as two blaring blotches in her oculars. Somewhere behind the after image of that half-fatal fire, hovered faintly the outline of a man in black, flowing robes. Evil Buzz had extinguished his lantern, and insidiously swept behind Nova by taking a cunning detour.

Cold fear suddenly strangled the woman's throat. This catacombish maze alone was horrible enough to cause desperate panic. And now she had seemingly collided with the lethal Minotaur himself. Her strength was so drained, so rundown... but Mira would not surrender, nor be devoured by that gorgon. She would combat as long as even one string of life held her soul together.

Another green blaze whizzed in the air, hitting her partly. The plasma-laser pulse ripped the left side of her space ranger uniform broken, and made her moan in stinging pain. Haphazardly the Tangean replied to the fire, shooting with her still working wrist laser. Oh, if only those flaring green spots had vanished from her visual field. She hardly saw longer than a few feet onwards. And what to do in a ghastly situation like this? The Princess would need to flee, and fast. Go upwards. Anywhere, upwards, there would be the salvation. This frail hope she repeated in her mind as a mantra. It boosted her almost nonexistent force at least an inch. Her legs leapt into a run. Another zap with a hoarse laughter thundered somewhere near her.

"Want to play tag, huh? Hahahahah. Come here and crawl... you know you want to end that pathetic life of yours... it has no meaning... wouldn't death be so blissful... hehehehe..." Evil Buzz drawled in a sickly persuading, almost honeyed tone. This merely sent more cold wriggles down Mira's spine. She randomly chose one of the three tunnels in the fork, starting to rush along it. Blazes of green light were swirling around her as manic, murderous fireworks. Her legs were throbbing; her lungs were being grilled in stinging perdition... Coughing mucus out of her throat, she as her last hope activated the jetpack. The tunnel was wide enough so that she could fly in it. Only if it would lead somewhere...

Please don't let it be an impasse... she moaned in her mind. The jetpack swooped into life, and a light sensation of freedom spread through her body as the air started carrying her. And, miraculously, there were evident stairs ahead... leading upwards. With a sharp curve, she accelerated her pace and soon was whizzing upwards the escalators, dodging more of those hellish shots. Nonetheless, her feeble joy of escaping did not last long. Abruptly, a horrid, paralyzing stream of wrench wormed through her body. With a sickening crunch, she was dropped onto one landing. Her jetpack was smoldering, the second wing was crushed. Her right gauntlet was partly molten; not even a crumb of her wrist ray was functional.

"Here kitty kitty kitty..." the Shadow's awfully cajoling falsetto was singing feet away from her. Coughing and spluttering, she took an attempt to get back on her legs. But it was impossible, she hardly felt them. Her muscles were on fire, nettling, smarting, as if she had been rolling about on hot coals. A dull, monotonous hum was pounding in her head, ready to lull her into sleep... eternal sleep...

"NO... no... no... you can't give up, you just can't!" she bit her lips, obliging her shivering arms to drag her form into a sitting position. Somewhere behind Nova, the Shadow gloated with silent snorts, taking ill satisfaction of her painful attempts to get up.

"I know you want to end it... now, cry in front of me, crawl in front of me... Bow to death, princessy. I might even make it easy on you... the death might be quick... it might be even painless... I would not know... I have never died..."

A callous, sepulchral muteness hovered above the stairhead a few creeping seconds. The only rending noises were Mira's stridulous inhales. But her inners were screaming through her flaming eyes. Her mad scowl told the Shadow that his wishes were futile. Even in the near death, Nova was not kneeling to that mere demon. In the phosphorescent, green glow of her uniform remains, the two foes stared at one another. So... this was what the pride of the galaxy had finally become? A murderer, fallen to the bottomless damnation of the Dark Side.

None of them spoke before an odd whirr started romping in Evil Buzz' pocket.

"What the---" he snapped, taking a slapdash glance at his robes, where the portable monitor was hidden. It was lightly screaming with the intruder warning signal.

The small distraction was enough. Nova had no idea from where she sucked the abrupt energy into her. Perhaps it was just the steeled determination of not to die squirming in front of that devil's pawn. Although the ache slashed her every muscle and articular, Mira took a spurt upwards and began limping up the remaining set of stairs. Her legs were not to follow the thoughts, they staggered, persisted every gait... but on she went, forcibly... the seconds were jammed inside the thick, glutinous goo of confusion. She had no idea what was occurring behind her.

The Shadow glared at his monitor with disbelief. The spy screen showed three figures walking fast along the main entrance corridor. This sole observation had petrified him so deeply that he did not even notice how the injured prey began slowly hauling herself out of the death's nest. How could this be? Nobody was supposed to get inside here, the least to find inside this forgotten fortress.

Yet, Evil Buzz' hackles rose upper, as he perceived who was leading the intruder army. A toweringly tall, sturdy, scowling figure draped in purple... the odd father of the real Buzz Lightyear.

A few more steps... just a few more... two more... one more... still one more... there was light coming from the open doorway. Dancing, placidly yellow light... unlike the venom-green lux of the pursuing menace. Mira was crawling up the escalator on her fours, coughing phlegm and tiny blood drops out of her lungs. There were voices in the ether... familiar, encouragingly familiar voices...

A few more steps... Her hand reached the exit's threshold. A few seconds later, her upper body splatted onto the stone slabs of the main corridor's floor. The vaulted archway was spinning in her vision, the yellow lumen created uncanny shapes and shadows to frolic around. Three darker figures were emerging from the dusk... were they just ghosts of her tired attentiveness, or children of reality? As if she had seen Booster, XR, and some third man wrigglingly jogging along the corridor...

She feebly raised a trembling hand upwards, and produced a raucous croak.

"...Help me..."

...to be continued... Comments?