This story is rated PG for violence and mature themes.

Disclaimer: I wonder if Marc Brown ever has to write disclaimers.

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When we last left the Arthur characters at the end of "Arthur Goes Fourth II: The Second Time Around":

- Marina was coping with the telepathic abilities that had grown steadily stronger ever since her experience in the imaginary dimension Spiritus Mundi. These powers enabled her to read minds, plant hypnotic commands, sense the objects surrounding her, and memorize at an astounding rate. With the assistance of Francine and Muffy, she used her powers to track down and identify the kidnapper of Odette Cooper, which led to the girl's rescue. After this Muffy angered Marina by revealing the secret of her telepathic abilities in a TV newscast.

- Francine and Beat discovered that they had feelings for each other. Francine, however, refused to act on them, out of fear that they might change as she grew older.

- Sue Ellen was in the Elwood City Hospital, recuperating from injuries sustained in a plane accident that took place in Africa.

- Alan traveled back in time to save Francine from an accident that would leave her in a coma. When he returned to the present, he discovered that his interference with the flow of time had resulted in the creation of a duplicate of himself. One of the Alans went on with his life, while the other traveled into the future, where he was adopted...by the first Alan and his wife, D.W.

- As a result of Muffy's role in the rescue of the kidnapped Odette, Mr. Cooper was dismissed from the Crosswire lawsuit. This allowed Muffy and Van to see each other freely, although the rest of the Coopers still harbored animosity toward the Crosswires.

And now, on with the story...

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"You should have killed me while you still had the power to do so!" gloated Marina, her voice echoing, her eyes glowing with a strange white light.

A few meters away stood Captain Arthur of the starship Secondprize, surrounded by styrofoam boulders. Grabbing his laser pistol from its holster, he tried to get off a shot at Marina, but the girl fired streams of energy from her eyes to knock the weapon from his hand.

Marina laughed wickedly. "Muwahahahaha! Your compassion is your weakness, Captain Arthur!"

As Arthur backed away fearfully, he felt an irresistible force bind his feet to the spot...and cause his knees to bend.

"Bow down before me!" Marina exulted. "Pray to me! I am your god!"

Then she woke up in a cold sweat. Looking around with her enhanced senses, she found to her relief that she was in the familiar surroundings of her bedroom.

She moaned despondently. "I wish these powers would just go away."

"You don't really mean that," said the male voice that she had heard earlier in the evening.

Marina sat up quickly. "Who are you?" she demanded.

The voice continued to speak, calmly and soothingly. "I am known as The Professor."

"The Professor," Marina repeated to herself. "Oh, I get it. You want me to go to some freak school where I can learn to use my freak powers for the benefit of mankind."

"'Freak' is such a harsh word," said the voice. "You're different. Unique."

"I don't want to be unique!" Marina shot back.

The voice paused for a moment. "Think about it. If you change your mind, you know where to find me."

Then the image of a small, apparently abandoned house appeared in Marina's mind. Without needing to ask, she knew exactly how to locate it. Not that she wanted to.

----

As Muffy wandered down the hallway of Uppity Downs Academy with her classmate Neville, a black-haired rabbit boy, she pressed him for more details on Newton's third law of motion.

"I still don't understand. If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, then how does anything move? If I push you, then you push me right back, and the forces are equal, so neither of us moves, right?"

"It's not that simple," Neville explained. "Your mass isn't the same as mine, and the acceleration is equal to the force divided by the mass. Plus there's the fact that your shoes are exerting a force on the..."

Neville suddenly noticed that Muffy was no longer walking alongside him. Looking back, he saw that she had turned aside and was pushing open the door to the girls' washroom.

"Hmph," he grunted. "How rude." Checking his watch, he continued onward.

Sitting at his desk as Mr. Pryce-Jones passed around the science tests, Neville wondered why Muffy hadn't arrived yet. I guess that big nose of hers takes longer to powder, he thought.

Then Muffy walked nonchalantly into the classroom. Mr. Pryce-Jones and all the other students looked at her...and froze in shock.

All eyes followed her as she made her way to her seat. Nobody moved or uttered a sound.

Climbing into her desk, Muffy noted with curiosity that everybody was staring at her with expressions of muted disbelief. "What's going on?" she asked obliviously.

Mr. Pryce-Jones straightened up and cleared his throat. "You seem to have forgotten something, Muffy."

Mavis, the red-headed hamster girl with glasses, let out a long-suppressed giggle.

Muffy looked down...and saw that she was dressed in nothing but her undershirt and underpants.

"AAAAAARRRRGH!"

(To be continued...)