Notes: Lots of subtle(?) pervy jokes. More general insanity, but I'm trying to keep in character. Game scripts help oh-so-much as far as reference goes. You know, I had to really restrain myself so much from making a "it sounds like they're doing something dirty in there, but they're really not" joke this time. (And much love to my readers! I've been a little under the weather lately, not like anybody knows or cares.)

Disclaimer, which I kinda forgot last chapter: Don't own anything I use in this fic, not even my name. Star Ocean is cool. But I like Shadow Hearts more. Not relevant!

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Log 02 – The Terror of Deep Space . . . Scary!

Maria had run out of things to do on the Diplo. Ship-wide cleaning was taken care of twice over already, not counting any attempts by Mirage or any of the others on the ship. She had even suspected Nel and Sophia to have done it at least once before. The girl had even realized how ridiculously dirty that last sentence she though sounded, and giggled for a moment as she walked down the corridor idly. It might have drawn the stares of passing Quark members, but stares weren't going to occupy her so she paid no attention to them. Maria needed something to do. Maria needed a new vocabulary and/or better wording skills that didn't sound so overly naughty. She headed to her room to take a nap, the girl's very last resort to save her sanity, and spotted Sophia...cleaning. "Go figure."

"Oh, hi! I'll be outta the way in a minute, just hold on while I finish up under the bed..." Sophia needed them too.

"No! Don't open that door!" Maria yelled, then realized Sophia had already gone into her room quite a long time ago, and the problem was, in fact, not with opening or not opening the door. "I mean...that was just to get your attention. Don't clean under that bed!"

"Why? Are you keeping something secret under there?" the brunette giggled. "I wonder what someone like you would be hiding!"

"It's not that!" Maria yelled defensively. "You see, a long time ago, I almost made the same mistake you just did."

"Really? What was it?"

"Have you ever heard of the Klausian Swamp Octopus?"

"The Klausian Swamp Octopus? What's that?" Sophia said that as a reaction, not actually thinking about what she'd said until she was already saying it. "Wait, it's self-explanatory, isn't it?"

"Yes." she nodded. "Cliff told me about it a long time ago. It's on Klaus, it lives in swamps, and it can grow to have as many as twenty tentacles!"

"T-Twenty?! Wow, it must be huge!" Then common sense started to kick in. "Wait just a minute, how does it fit under there?"

"Because of the ship's living conditions, they can't be growing that big at all." the blue-haired girl said with authority. "Maybe in their native environment they're like that, but I don't think we can expect full-grown octopi here."

"Oh, that's good! So if one jumps outta there, I'll just blast it with symbology!"

Maria backed up against the door in fear. What's wrong with her?! Isn't the possibility of being molested by a swamp octopus terrifying? I mean...

---

About seven years ago, not long after our blue-haired heroine came to stay on the Diplo, she adopted the habit of cleaning ship while she was bored. Mirage nor Marietta looked at her strangely for this, so it must have been some kind of universal female habit. Not a single person's living quarters were off-limits to that fairly innocent and naïve little twelve year-old, except one. Unbeknownst to her, Cliff had motives behind steering her away from ever seriously going through his room.

However, he wasn't perfect. One day, exactly which one not mattering, young Maria managed to slip under the radar. By the time bells were ringing in Cliff's head that a certain little girl was somewhere she shouldn't be, she was already there. "Hey, Maria. What're you...doing...?" Cliff tried not to sound especially emotional, because inquiring minds might want to get to the bottom of his charade.

"Oh, just cleaning up... I'm surprised you kept things so neat considering I never actually get to do anything here!" Though she probably didn't mean it, the blonde couldn't help but think how obnoxious that sounded.

"Maria, get out."

"Ohhhh... But why? Isn't what I'm doing good?" Guilt trips put aside, she said the word that he was expecting, but not exactly prepared for. Why.

"Well, you see, uhhh..." Cliff, with an impulsive (and maybe erratic in situations like this) thought pattern, dredged up something from the depths of his imagination. "It's because of the Klausian Swamp Octopus. I think it lives under my bed." It was also times like this he forgot Maria was over ten years old, and even kids that old weren't usually naïve enough to fall for monster-under-the-bed threats.

"What?!" Maria shouted, jumping back a little bit. "R-Really...! Really really really?"

"Yeah...really. (Whew!)"

With some unexpectedly bad timing issues came a confused and slightly worried Mirage. "So what's the commotion all about?"

"Cliff was warning me about the Klausian Swamp Octopus!" she chirped. "But what I'm wondering is, what does it look like?"

Mirage flashed her companion a frustrated look before giving Maria a lengthy scientific answer and sending her off on some other menial task. Once the girl was out of hearing distance, she spoke to nobody in particular, "You know, I can't help but think I've taken part in something horribly, horribly wrong."

"You're right. You're going to hell for this."

"Why only me?"

"Hah, come on! I don't believe in things like that!" Cliff began walking outside but stopped and turned around. "Wait a minute, are you telling me those octopus things really exist?"

"..."

"Ow!"

---

Maria snapped back into reality. "Anyway, it's really dangerous! You could get hurt, or worse, you could die."

"Is it really that bad?"

"I think so. Come on, I'm sure there's something around here we could do together."

"Alright, whatever you say!" Sophia shrugged as she was led off by Maria. "But I kind of wanted to see what it looked like..."

The truth is your greatest weapon, up in the cosmos where we both belong...