Disclaimer: "People could learn a lot from llamas."

(An: The starting of a new chapter. Eee. I know I said I was going to only work on weekends, but to me, this still is the weekend. No school. Squee. And whenever I think of pain, I think of that scene from El Dorado, with the "Kkk-kk!" finger thing bit.

Author: Ok, now, a note for this chapter: the animation is really weird during the theif chase scene. Lots of deceptive tilework and playing with dimensions and such. So if it's confusing, don't blame me. Also, the Obligatory Cheesy Love Ballad appears in this chapter. Be afraid, be very afraid.

"I foresee pain," Remy mumbles, flipping through his script. "Lots of it."

"Yep," Storm cackles.

Author: Come on, the sooner we do this, the less we have to think about the Cheesy Love Ballad.

Remy creeps, backwards, no less, out of the bathroom. Piotr is still sitting on the floor working on Kitty's shoe. Remy tucks the backscratcher into his trench coat. "Hey, can I keep dis?"

Author: Sure, knock yerself out.

"Cool!"

He runs into Piotr, who is alerted only by his smell. "Problem. Big problem. Reeeally big problem." They end up grabbing each other, back to back, and Piotr flips him over in front of him. Remy grabs Kitty's shoe. Why? I don't know. I still think he's a klepto.

"The princess's shoe!" Piotr cries, outraged. "Well, da, I worked for what, two scenes on that?"

Author: Piotr, I thought you were a good character. -shakes head sadly- What is this world coming to?

"Halt in the name of King Mags!" Piotr yells as Remy runs down a black-and-white tiled halllway. "Who are you?"

Author: Factoid: In the movie, the theif doesn't have a name. The whole time he's just "The Thief." Weird, no?

"Heh heh... Pysched!" Remy says as he hides behind a black stripe that only looks like part of the wall.

Author: I'm getting a headache here...

"How do you think we feel?" Remy and Piotr yell.

"I couldn't believe what I was saying. Suddenly I was defending the crown!" Piotr narrates as his screen counterpart backpedals to catch up. "Stop theif!"

"Man, who decorated dis place?" Remy mutter-thinks as he nearly falls off the edge of a staircase that appears to continue but really doesn't.

They run along a hallway that looks flat, but as it continues into color it turns out that Piotr is in a lower section while Remy can just run right on by.

"Ooh, clever tilework, is this not somethin' else?" Remy thinks as he goes over a patch of blue-and-white that looks like a hole. Then, moving on a bit to an identical section, it turns out that this bit really is a hole... "Ooh, not agaaaain..."

Piotr runs right out onto it and falls with his- as mentioned- abnormally long legs outstretched. "Whoa!"

Now they slide down the banister of another black-and-white-stair case, this one all spiraly and bumpy.

Author: Ok, I suck at description. So sue me!

"One of these days, somebody's gonna take you up on that," Storm mutters.

Now the stairs are going straight, but the banister curves, giving the effect of riding a roller coaster. "I'm gonna puke!" Remy yells.

Author: Can't tell; your theif makeup's green.

"Give it back!" Piotr says, having caught up to Remy and grabbing at the shoe.

They are actually on seperate banisters, so Piotr keeps going while Remy goes flying. Somehow, he's above a busy courtyard and smashes through some stained glass windows. "Oh, de pain, de pain!"

"Good thing we got him to sign that waiver," Storm comments.

Author: I hope you're all thouroughly confused by now?

"Don't mind me!"

Piotr finally slides off the banister and onto the floor. However, his momentum is enough to keep him going and he slides through and under a number of doorways and Random Black Guard Dudes to crash into a room where Pietro and the Courtiers are apparently having a meeting. In his usual klutzy way, he slams right into Pietro and ends up sitting on top of him. "Aha! You've finished Kitty's shoe, you've done it very well!" Pietro observes, pulling it from Piotr's hands. "And now she has no need of you," he continues, backing Piotr against a wall and taking out that all-uses-stick into a pitchfork-type-dealy that just misses impaling him, "I'll put you in a cell!"

The Courtiers cackle.

A lock clicks and Piotr is apparently now in a jail cell, using his pretty yarn to make a picture of Kitty's face.

Author: Warning! There's enough sap in this next bit to make syrup! And I would know!

"I was sure I would never see the princess again. But I couldn't stop thinking about her." His yarn looks like it's crying before he drops it... or at least the picture of Kitty does. "Little did I know she was thinking about me too."

"Boy, I do a lot of singing in this, don't I?" Kitty asks, as we switch to another section of the palace with her in it.

"Yep, that too was in the contract," Storm explains.

"I close my eyes and see his eyes," Kitty sings, pacing back and forth in front of a window.

So soft and warm and clear!"

Back to Piotr, who's now lying stretched out on his cot, focusing on his eyes... damn, that's cheesy. "Do I really have to sing this? It would make me uncomfortable."

"Hey, if I have to sing it, you have to sing it!" Kitty yells, from off-stage.

"To be honest, sometimes she scares me," Piotr murmurs.

"She scares us all," Storm agrees.

"I HEARD THAT!"

Piotr eeps and decides it's better to sing than to get on the bad side of Kitty. "I dream awake of holding her

I dream that she's right here."

Back to Kitty, who's now by a veil... and a candle... and a jewelry box, and apparently clutching the shoe Piot repaired.

Author: That's Plot Irregularity- damn, I've lost count!

"I sense in all his silences

More than his words could say..."

Back to Piotr. "This is very unreasonable."

Author: Sing or I'll have Storm smite you. Don't forget, metal conducts electricity.

Piotr eeps again. "I have never been so scared."

"Hey, if you can't make 'em like you, make 'em fear you, right?" Logan yells from that little patch of non-existance he's on.

Author and Storm: Damn straight!

Piotr shudders again and sings. "Don't fight your feelings, says my heart

A heart I will obey!"

Now they go into the worst bit for the theme, the Unconcious Duet.

"Am I feeling love?

Am I feeling love?

Can it really be happening to me

Am I feeling love?"

Piotr leans out his little barred window while Kitty hums accompaniment. "For sure a most unlikely match," he sings, bending a daisy down towards one of his omnipresent tacks,

"Improbable and strange..."

Back to Kitty, who tenderly puts the shoe in her jewelry box. "Yeesh, this is cheesy."

Author: It's cheese with another abberation. During the whole thing, her shoe was pink. Now it's purple with little pearly things on it... I notice these things, ok!

"But one it seems my heart and I

Refuse to rearrange!"

"Am I feeling love?

Am I feeling love?

Can it really be happening to me?

Am I feeling love?"

Author: The good thing is, this song is short.

Piotr sighs and curls up on his bench, all melancholy and crap.

"The next morning, as I shared breakfast with my new-found friends," his friends are the mice, "I could almost feel the trouble brewing. Pietro was up to something. I had to escape and warn the princess." Piotr climbs up on top of the ball that's tied to his leg- that sounds wrong, somehow- and gets up to that window again. Funny, he didn't have to do that during the ballad... A bunch of people are passing by.

We switch to Kitty, who apparently is now in Piotr's line of sight, sitting beneath a yellow-and-white pavilion, eating a pear. "This is actually pretty good."

"Pietro had ordered a polo match in Kitty's honor." Note that the pink pavilion is beneath it. Weird. "Of course, she was far from impressed."

"Oh imperial majesty!" Pietro cries, trying to wake up Magneto.

"Yes, yes, Pietro..."

"From farthest Cathay, at my bidding were sent, the best polo ponies of the Orient!"

We see said ponies, the same ones Remy saw.

"Very nice.."

"To please King Mags, beloved by all, commence the game, in short, play ball!"

Remy comes along, looking fatigued. "What an idiot I am! All that trouble for a stupid backscratcher!" The polo ball rolls along next to him and Remy, fascinated, seems not to notice the shaking ground or the thundering of hooves. "I'm going to be hurt now, right?"

Author: Hopefully your will is in order.

"And remember, you signed a waiver; thus none of this is our fault!" Storm adds.

"What's this? A small white ball? Now that's somethin'!" Then, of course, he gets smacked with a polo mallet. "Maybe I should jus' leave dis ball alone!" Remy mumbles, edging away from it. But the ball will not be swayed. "Shoo! Leave me alone! It's a devil ball!" Once again, he gets smacked and is left on the ground. "Mommy..."

Back to Kitty and Magneto, and that weird pink pavilion.

Author: I hate to make so much note of it, but it's really starting to bug me. What is its purpouse? Its function-mutters thusly to self-

"Is it really that important?" Kitty asks.

Author: You should've heard me when I went to see the third HP movie. -shudders-

Kitty shrugs and taps Magneto, who is asleep again-

"Boy, that stuff's powerful," Storm comment, eyeing her hand grenades full of sleepy gas.

"Father? Father?"

"Hmm, what what?"

"Do you know where the cobbler has gone to?"

"Eh, what? Eh, no. Isn't he with you, fixing your shoe?" Pietro snickers while they talk.

"No, he seems to have vanished."

"Oh, no... Duck and cover, duck and cover." Remy attempts to take refuge in a rabbit hole. "Outta the way bunny. Get in! Ah. Whew. Boy. Ah. Hmm. Hello ball... Ball!" Remy gets swept out of his hole and into a completely random tree, that apparently shows it's the middle of fall by its leaves. "Polo ponies!"

Back to Kitty and Pietro for a second. Kitty's still eating her pear, and Pietro's now making eyes at her. Kitty, naturally, is disgusted, and pitches her pear at him. She misses, and Pietro cackles again.

Author: Well, that was sufficiently pointless...

"Whatever happened to badminton?" Remy stammers as he is once again pursued by the ball and the polo players.

Back to Pietro and Crew...

"Happy is the kingdom in this milk and honeyed land!" Pietro proclaims. Happy are the subjects who live beneath your hand! We rejoice at all around us, as this beautuous evening falls, safe beneath the sure protection of the ancient golden balls!" As he says this, naturally, we switch to a shot of said balls... that sounded bad too, didn't it?

"That night, King Mag's dreams turned into nightmares, foretelling the destruction of his kingdom by a giant war machine." We, of course, see King Mag's dream, which is of the Impressionistic hills and Avalanche and his army of Clones.

Magneto awakens, all panicky."Pietro! Pietro! Get me Pietro! NOW!" As soon as he yells this, a Random Old Black Dude claps his hands, causing the Random Gong Dude from chapter one to clang his gong... again.

People in the courtyard run around calling for him as we see the thief, safe away from any polo matches or rabbits.

"Everythin' hurts, why do I do dis?" Remy mutter-thinks, then spots the golden balls, once again hearing a cash register ding. "Oh, yeah, pain's gone... feeling good, feelin' fine!"

Author: Ok, that's that, you can go back to your lives now!

"Yo, why'd you make me stay like this if we weren't even gonna have me in it?" Toad yells, outraged. Ok, so maybe he's not a vulture... a condor, perhaps? Some big black bird with a beak and a fez, anyway.

Author: Because it's funny, of course.

"Medic," Remy implores. "I really need help here. Jus' been smited, jus' fell off a building, jus' been assaulted by a rabbit... damn, everything does hurt..."

"Poor baby," 'Ro soothes. "If it weren't so much fun to smite you I'd help."

(And that's that. Review!)