Chapter 18: Terra Firma

The night air is cool against my skin as I stand out on the balcony that looks onto the City beyond, the thousands of lights painting the sky a multitude of colors and choking out the stars, all except for one, a great crimson one, shining and pulsing through the colorful haze. A faint breeze barely stirs the air around me, but it's enough to cause a brief chill to cut through the thin black night shirt, a replica of one Bastion tells me was a favorite in our younger years. Beneath me, the grounds of B's backyard rest silently, outlined in the still silver and shadow of proper moonlight, thanks to having enough distance away from the City's glow.

"I'm just glad that you're safe, Ben," Yusei had said, two nights prior in the parking garage beneath Leo and Luna's Tops apartment. "If you had been injured, or captured, or worse… then it all would have been for nothing."

Ever since my arrival in New Domino City via Pipeline, I'd been absolutely dreading the conversation I was bound to have with Yusei about the unfortunate fate of my Duel Runner. Upon finding him injured on Leo and Luna's doorstep, I had been trying to prepare for the anger, the rage he no doubt would feel to know that due to my own failings, the Duel Runner we had all worked so hard to build was now destroyed. The time spent restlessly scouring the junk coming in from the City for parts, the physical exertion of putting them together to form something resembling a working machine, the rescue of Blitz… I couldn't blame him for being angry.

But rather than going off on me, Yusei responded with understanding. He placed a firm grip on my shoulder, looked me in the eyes, told me that my safety was paramount in that operation.

"Never assume your value is less than some machine. It's just a vehicle to help you reach your dreams," he continued, squeezing my shoulder. "You made it here—and with a lot more luck than I had, clearly, falling in with people like Bastion. The fact that you're able to work toward your goal just shows that we were right to put our faith in you. Rally's dreams, and the dreams of all our other friends are with you."

I smile slightly as I recall Yusei's words, my eyes tracing the darkened path that winds its way through Bastion's back garden. The hanging leaves and clustered fronds of plants as well as the shaded-black and moonlit-silver flowers move gently in the lazy wind.

Looking back to the City looming above us, it amazes me how little of the urban soundtrack drifts our way; with the level of technology there is now, part of me wonders if the lack of ruckus is achieved through some sort of device. Bastion may have designed one himself, if someone hadn't already.

"So you're leaving, just like that?" I found myself asking. My eyebrows knit together as my face twisted into a slight disapproving frown. "Shouldn't we stick together? Do you even have anywhere to go, Yusei?"

The spiky-haired man smiled at me. "This isn't the last time we'll see one another, Ben," he said. "We're bound by friendship, both through Rally and the others, and through each other. You took me in when I was injured, and helped me back to health. Our goals will take us in different directions, the paths diverging, but they'll cross again, I have no doubt about that. Soon, too, probably."

I paused, finding it rather amusing that this was probably the most I'd ever heard Yusei speak before. "I still want to try my hand against your Synchros some day."

"And I want to see what your Elemental Heroes are all about. Leo tells me that Shapeshift of yours is a formidable opponent to face."

Shapeshift made a rather smug comment in my mind, causing me to bite my lip to keep from laughing derisively. Instead, I smiled faintly, and stuck my hand out. "Don't keep me waiting too long."

He reached out and took my hand, shook it firmly. "It's a promise. Next time we meet, it'll be as opponents."

And then, without another word, he was gone. The roar of his Duel Runner engine rumbled through the cement structure as it came alive, rattling my bones from the inside. Then it started to fade, slowly, until it blended in with the symphony of the urban night.

I wonder where Yusei is now. A pang of guilt runs through my chest; I had just let him leave. He never answered my question about having anywhere to go.

Yusei will be fine, Boss. He came from the Satellite, he's tough. Shapeshift reassures me. You, on the other hand, have probably grown soft from mooching off B. When was the last time you dueled, like three episodes ago? And you didn't even win!

"Are you trying to help or not, Morphy?" I question, the ghost of a laugh accompanying it. When we're alone like this, I see no reason not to speak out loud to the other resident of my headspace. "And I would have won, if the old coot hadn't slipped Pot of Greed into my deck."

Can I only choose one? Help or mock?

Deep down, I know he's right—about Yusei, at least. He made it through the Pipeline, what could New Domino have to offer that could best someone like that?

My thoughts drift further back to the Black Rose, that enormous dragon of hers, the damage she was able to deal to the area around her. Real damage. How was that even possible? And that thing she said about a Mark…

Knock knock…

The rapping on my door is quiet, likely would have been inaudible if the City noise were washing over us now. Knowing there's only one other person in this house—or at least, one other person who should be in this house—I turn and pad across the carpeted floor toward the door, twisting the knob and pulling it open.

Bastion stands there, sleep clinging to him like a robe that he decided to put on over the robe he already wears. He reaches up with a wrinkly fist and rubs one of his eyes, opening his mouth in a small round o and yawning.

"Isn't it past your bedtime, B?" I ask playfully, stepping aside and gesturing for him to come in, pulling the swivel chair from my desk and rolling it over to him.

"Almost. Eleven at night, I like to be in bed by now usually," he answers, his accent seeming to become more prominent the more tired he gets. "But there was something I wanted to talk to you about. Involving your… future."

"My future? You make it sound ominous," I return, taking a seat on my bed while he sits down in the chair. "Should we be talking about this now? Why not in the morning?"

"I don't think you'd like the topic any better in the morning either," he replied.

Part of me wants to make a joke about him kicking me out, but I stifle that urge. Much as we mess around as if we were both teenagers still, I know Bastion well enough that he wouldn't come to me this late without good reason.

"I'm listening, B," I say. "Can't be that bad, can it?"

He pauses, tilting his head back and forth as if gauging the issue, and how he should disclose the information he has. Finally, heaving a sigh, he says, "I think that we need to step up our efforts in finding Terra Firma. If we can find him, I believe we can unlock your memories."

Ask if you can hear the sound, of my voice through the cold hard ground,

Our first sight is a shot of the Satellite and the City, a diagonal slash dividing the two. Ben and Bastion appear, Ben in the Satellite, Bastion in the City; they face away from one another, facing to the left and right respectively. They reach their hands in front of them, grasping for something off-screen, and close their eyes. The screen is constantly flashing black, and after their eyes shut the screen stops flashing and becomes solid black.

I lost it while searching for you, I screamed into the dark,

We open back up on a shot of Ben's eyes opening, before zooming out to find him overlooking the City at night, the lights of the buildings shining like thousands of tiny stars. He's all alone, until Shapeshift appears behind him, with several other Heroes joining in further behind.

If the world we're living in, has a single soul that you love,

Cut to Bastion's house, the living room. The old man and Dr. Pepper sit next to one another on a couch, a photo album propped open before them. We pan over the various pictures, most of the faces obscured by well-placed glare from lights—until coming to a stop on an image of Ben and Bastion in their younger years, dressed in Ra Yellow uniforms with their arms tossed around one another, both grinning.

If it holds a shred of meaning, well, then it's worth every fight!

A wrinkled hand glides across the photo, before the book is shut. We zoom up on Bastion's face, and for the briefest of moments, he appears youthful again, a flash of determination in his eyes.

And when all that we know comes to push and shove,

The other characters begin to appear in quick succession, appearing in various poses with their Signer dragons beside or behind them as we begin to pan across the sky. Starting with Yusei and Stardust Dragon, we go next to Jack and Red Dragon Archfiend,

Then we will pierce the heavens!

Next are Leo and Luna sharing the screen, Power Tool Dragon and Ancient Fairy Dragon behind them. Next is Akiza, her face obscured by her Black Rose Witch mask, Black Rose Dragon roaring and spreading thousands of red petals behind her.

The colors we see are new to you and me when we see the sky—

The Dragon Star shines brightly in center frame now, red and pulsating. Clouds swirl around it, gray and purple and black, before a sudden burst of red from the star blows them all away. The camera slams downward to see Rally staring up at the sky, and smiling.

As we began to run,

Jump cut to Ben and Bastion in a Duel Runner, the old man sitting in a side car as they rocket toward the camera, both of them grinning maniacally.

So we can finally feel the sun,

We zoom out a bit to find ourselves in the Kaiba Dome, with Goodwin watching on from his booth with his back turned.

Finally, you and I feel so alive, I feel your beating heart!

We now see Yusei and Jack riding alongside one another, Stardust and Red Dragon locked in combat as the pair speeds out of frame.

If you believe in me, we'll find where we were meant to be—

Ben and Akiza in a ground duel appears next, Elemental Hero Shapeshift somersaulting and cartwheeling around the field as Black Rose Dragon attempts to slash at him with its vines. Ben and Akiza's eyes meet, and the rage in Akiza's eyes softens a bit.

Now who cares about tomorrow, if today we are free?

Leo and Luna walk beside Bastion now, wandering through his immense garden. The old man says something, causing Leo to start laughing as Luna smiles brightly. She looks off to the side and sees Kuribon bouncing along with them.

My answer is always "Yes,"

The cast now stands assembled in front of Bastion's mansion in a freeze frame, centered around Ben; Bastion is to his immediate right, Akiza to his left, Yusei to Bastion's right, Jack to Akiza's left and so on. Rally, Leo and Luna are chasing Dr. Pepper in front, and over Rally's head Ben's face is just barely visible.

That I will always be with you.

One final cut puts our focus back on the old photo of Bastion and Ben. This time, however, it's elderly Bastion and Ben standing together, still smiling as bright as ever.

"That's all well and good," I say, stuffing a piece of leftover strawberry cake into my mouth and washing it down with a swallow of milk. "But do you even know how to begin looking for Terra Firma? It's a big City."

A mischievous smirk comes to the old man's face. "Why, Ben, I thought you'd never ask. How do you think I found out you had arrived in the City?"

"You said that you found my name in the logs of Sector Security. Speaking of which, how did you get access to those anyway? Those have to be like, confidential, right?" I say.

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" he replies rather mysteriously. "The point is, I'm quite handy with a computer. My special rig—she's been serving me faithfully for decades now, and with her at my fingertips, I can find just about anything in this City."

"Your computer is a she?"

He sighs. "That's… not really what I wanted you to take from that, but yes," he answers, a bit of exasperation seeping into his tone. "Her name is Sabrina."

"Sabrina?" The word seems familiar on the tip of my tongue; I rummage around inside my obscured brain for the connecting meaning.

"Don't worry about it," he says quickly. "The point is that—"

"Isn't she that—"

"THE POINT IS…" Bastion says, pushing on past my query with gritted teeth, "I can run various programs that will check any electronic database throughout New Domino that she can sink her teeth into. Any mention of Terra Firma will be marked down and set aside in our own logs for examination in the future. I know that you're missing more than a few of your other Heroes, so I'll be setting the parameters to search for any mention of Elemental Heroes in general."

I nod, not entirely understanding the computer-speech he's using. I assume that the gist is that this computer of his, named after a girl from a video game, is going to find my Heroes for me.

"Computers have come so far since we were young," the old man says wistfully, taking a sip of his warm milk. "I remember when your Duel Disk was cutting edge technology. Now… well, we have card games on motorcycles, and the Country Bear Jamboree has only an eighty-three percent chance of having the animatronics come to life and attack people."

"Has… has that happened before?"

"Good night, Ben," Bastion says, downing his remaining milk and placing the glass in the sink for the morning. "Get some sleep, we'll be getting up early to begin calibrating Sabrina."

"Bastion, has that happened before?!"

That old man can really annoy me sometimes.

Sleep came quickly after I settled into bed. Dr. Pepper had hardly stirred since Bastion and I went down to the kitchen for our late night chat, barely lifting his head and blinking a couple times to acknowledge my return, and yawning out a, "Go to bed, Young Master," before falling back asleep on his modified dog bed.

Soon, I was snug under the covers, head resting on my pillow and the comforter pulled up over my ear—a habit that Bastion had explained was a precaution from when I was a child and afraid of ghosts, a phobia I had outgrown in the years that came after. Dr. Pepper, however, claimed that when we met, I was fifteen and still afraid of ghosts.

While I don't know if my childhood vision of ghosts are real, if there are spirits like Dr. Pepper running around, I don't want them whispering in my ear at night. However, as the dream rolls in, I remember Magure's appearance in my mind, and think that I don't really need them to whisper into my ear. In my slumbering state, they can appear before me with apparent ease.

It's a shadow, or some other type of silhouette, shapeless in the void of shifting blues and blacks of my subconscious, expanding and shrinking, stretching and twisting, growing, surrounding, closing in around me. A roar of static is in my ears, rushing around me like a waterfall of white noise. I turn in circles, only seeing the void of colors being swallowed up by this darkness.

From the corners of my eyes, I think that I can see movement here and there, a faint sighting of something blacker-than-black stirring in the inkiness of the shadow. I open my mouth and call out, "Who are you?" but my voice is lost to the sound.

Green. Something green catches my attention, appearing for just an instant before disappearing entirely once more. Then the laughter, the bone-chilling laughter comes, piercing my ears and sending shivers down my spine like someone dropped a tray of ice cubes down my back.

"Who am I?" a voice responds, as unidentifiable as the initial shape that wrapped around me in this black cocoon. "That's something you should know the answer to, Ben. There was a time you had an answer to every question I could throw at you… probably stolen from Bastion, though they may have been."

Though I can't discern a tone, inflection, or even gender of the speaker, I can't help but feel a certain passive-aggressiveness radiating off the words like heat. "Afraid I don't have answers to many things right now," I find myself replying, trying to keep myself grounded, unafraid. If this were a bad situation, Magure would step in, I know it.

"And Bastion is keeping them from you," the voice answered back. It seemed to be coming from behind me this time, where before it sounded as if it were being spoken in front of me, where the shadow had once stood. "He doesn't want you to know the truth. He wants you to stay… in the dark. Oh, I'm funny."

A chuckle emanates from nowhere, somehow low and rumbling, yet high and shrieking, giving the same general experience of nails on a chalkboard and a coffin being lowered into a grave.

"Yeah, real funny," I shoot back. "Bastion is my best friend. What…"

I want to ask what he could be keeping away from me, but before I can even finish the question… I can't. It would be an idiotic question. Seventy years have passed; there's got to be enough to fill libraries with things I don't know, things he hasn't told me yet. Even if the things that directly pertain to me, or the friends I had, can only fill a few books, there's no way he's had a chance to tell me even a fraction of it.

As if reading my mind, the voice goes on, "He can tell you. But he hasn't. Why is that?" It pauses to give me a moment to answer; I'm not sure if that was rhetorical, or a genuine response was wanted, but they continue anyway. "Because the truth of what happened would break you."

The phrase break you particularly sticks out in my mind, punctuated with another cold chuckle that makes me feel as if someone were standing on my grave. "Then why aren't you telling me?"

The sensation of a hand softly caressing my cheek. The words suddenly grow smoother, less harsh, "I don't want to see that from you, Ben," they say. "No one may break you… but me."

An arrow of dread jolts through my mind, and an overcoming feeling of familiarity. The hand caressing my cheek evolves into a tight hug, slowly building up strength and beginning to suffocate me. The voice takes on an almost feminine quality, wailing like a horrific wind, "I told you last time, Ben…"

"YOU. BELONG. TO ME!"

I wake up with a loud gasp. The mattress and pillows beneath my head are soaked with sweat, the blankets twisted and knotted as if I were tossing and turning like a tornado—which, I probably was. Inadvertently, I'm breathing heavily, like I was actually being suffocated in that dream. Maybe I was.

Even without the change in voice at the end, I could have figured out just by those last words that this was the same person who spoke to me that first night at B's house, back when he told me his name was Mr. M. Familiar as ever, but the identity lingering beyond the event horizon of my hidden memories. I sigh, and look toward the tortoise bed to find it empty.

You really have not been having good luck with dreams, Boss, Shapeshift says.

After the ordeal of that dream, I find myself unable to stop from chuckling at his lame joke. That's one way to put it, Morphy. Don't suppose you can tell me anything about it?

Can't. We're an inseparable duo, you and I—if you don't know it, I don't know it. Sadly, that means that your memories are beyond my access.

But you give me tips on dueling when I can't think of a move? I wonder.

Muscle memory, I guess. You know the plays, you just can't remember how they fit together, he explains. Besides, you just don't remember them, you're out of practice. They aren't locked away like your actual memories.

So, you don't know what B's apparently keeping from me, then. It wasn't a question.

Even if I did, I couldn't, or more likely wouldn't tell you.

Shouldn't expect anything less.

Soon enough, I hear Bastion rapping on my door with his fist. "Come on, Ben, it's time to begin our work. Sabrina won't calibrate herself!"

An exhalation of air through my nose, resembling a laugh. I still can't believe he named that computer Sabrina.

You've got a real piece of work for a friend there, Boss, Shapeshift remarks as I roll out of bed, pad over to the dresser, and begin to pull out clothes for the day.

"You took your time, Ben," Bastion says. Or at least, I assume it's Bastion, as the high-backed chair which looks like it belongs in the laboratory of an evil genius obscures his form.

This room is one I have never been in, not until now. Situated on the first floor of the house in a small room which I initially assumed to be a storage closet and sealed off with a plain wooden door, you'd probably never have guessed what lay beyond it was likely inspired by some evildoer's lab from a spy movie.

"This place is bigger than it looks from the outside," I reply, looking around.

"My wife said something similar, many years ago," Bastion says. Before I can ask the meaning of this, he goes on, "But, it looks bigger, because it is. You recall that shed that's built onto the side of the house? Where I store gasoline and Styrofoam?"

"Yes, but I still don't know why you're storing gasoline and Styrofoam," I answer.

"Don't worry about it for now," he says, waving it off. I can't help but worry about it even more. "Anyway. Hasn't it always seemed much more shallow than it ought to be?" He stops, and allows me to nod my answer. "That's because beyond the back of that shed, is this room."

"Isn't it kind of… dangerous to keep all this next to your storage place for Styrofoam and gasoline?"

"Stop worrying about the Styrofoam and gasoline, and come help me," he says, reaching a hand around the back of his chair and waving me forward to join him.

Affixed to the wall in front of his chair is a massive computer monitor, which currently displays dozens of lines of numbers and letters in some odd, garbled mess. I can hear his fingers tapping quickly at a keyboard, the keystrokes clicking rapidly like Morse code. A cursor blinks across the screen, while somewhere in the room, a fan starts to whir.

I walk around to his side, and a second keyboard suddenly juts out of the wall as if spring-loaded. I look to him, and though he doesn't look back, he answers, "Just follow my instructions and type exactly what I tell you to. Sabrina is sensitive, and the inputs need to be precise and swift."

"You aren't joking about calling the computer Sab—"

"Hush. As your legal guardian, I order you to type."

He speaks loudly as the whir of the fan grows louder and is joined in by other noises associated with computers booting up. Several beeps, a few bops, here and there a boop. An oddly familiar startup noise.

The screen flashes a multitude of colors as we do our inputs, and I can't help but hold my breath as he announces we're getting close to the end. My palms are getting sweaty, my fingertips seeming to glide across the keyboard smoothly. Knots of worry build up in the pit of my stomach; what if I mess it up at the last second?

A mouse clicks. We wait.

…

…

…

"You've got mail!" chimes an electronic voice.

"I've got mail?" Bastion says curiously. After tilting his head a few times, he decides, "I'll open it later. We have work to do for now," and moves the cursor across the screen and clicks on a program.

"I guess computers have come pretty far since we were young, huh B?" I ask, trying to make conversation as the old man maneuvers his way through some application, his eyes glued to the screen.

"Oh, not really," he replies. "Pomegranate has been putting out terrible tech for decades now, and some of the new Doors machines can barely run Doom properly. We're in a rather sorry era of computers right now, if you ask me. That's why I built Sabrina here. She runs on Pinux."

"I see." I say, despite not seeing.

After a few minutes of him fiddling around with various software, a simple gray box appears on the screen. The text is rather plain, reading, [Greetings, BASTION MISAWA. What can I assist you with today?]

A second box appears underneath, white and with the blinking cursor as a typing prompt. Bastion types back, [Search for card.]

[Understood. Please wait while the database initializes … … …]

"This will take a minute," Bastion whispers, leaning back in his chair. "So, uh, see any good movies lately?"

"Bastion the only time I've watched TV since arriving here is with you right beside me."

"I'm just trying to make conversation, Ben," he says, acting offended.

"So, why are you just now stepping up your efforts to find Terra Firma?" I ask, deciding to move the topic to something more relevant.

He stares at the initializing box. "I've never stopped looking for him," he replies, "but now that I actually have you here, with me… something's telling me that we need to get him back. He was taken from your deck a long time ago, Ben, and I think that's part of what brought you here."

I think back to Shapeshift mentioning how Terra Firma has been my companion longer than any of my other Heroes. The whole purpose of getting to New Domino was to unlock my memories, find out who I really am; could Terra Firma really be the key to it all?

"Oh, we're in!" Bastion says, pumping his fist excitedly. "Thank you, Sabrina!"

The gray box has expanded into a much larger gray box, this one showing a multitude of various empty white boxes with dropdown arrows. Bastion laces his fingers together, pushes his arms out in front of his chest, and cracks them.

"This is where the fun begins," he muses, beginning to type away furiously, as if his life depended on it. Or perhaps my life. "Ben, go get me a ginger ale, please. If you thought the initializing process takes time, well… my lovely lady here will be searching every database in New Domino for record of a Terra Firma card. I helped develop the tech infrastructure of this city—there's a lot of databases here."

"How do you know you'll find the right Terra Firma card?" I ask.

He looks up at me and smiles rather wryly. "The same reason I knew I found you. Just as there's only one Ben, there's only one Terra Firma. And no one knows either of them better than I do."

I can't help but smile back as a glimpse of the Bastion I knew growing up peaks through. This is the man I saw as a brother. The man I'd go through hell and back for.

The man that I will now go and get a ginger ale for.

As luck would have it, the refrigerator in the kitchen has only one can of the ginger soda that he had requested, crammed at the back of the soda drawer so far that I need to drop to my knees and fish for it to pull it out. Once my fingers wrap around the cold metal cylinder and I'm back on my feet, I take a moment and crack open the top. I can't remember ever having a ginger ale, surely the old man won't care if I have a sip of his, right?

I begin to walk back toward the computer room, raising the can to my lips, when a sudden knock at the door echoes through the foyer. Turning to face it, I can see two shadowed silhouettes against the frosted glass window, and take a cautious step forward. As far as I know, the old man isn't expecting any visitors.

"Young Master, weren't you delivering something to the old man?" Dr. Pepper's voice floats up from the floor. I hadn't even noticed his arrival, but there he stands, staring up at me with his one eye.

"There's someone at the door," I answer, gesturing at said object. I start walking toward it again, but he quickly scrambles to get in front of me.

"The old man needs his ginger ale, Young Master," he says, trying to nudge me back in the direction of the computer room. There's a slight waver in his voice, as if he's worried about something. "If they need to see anyone here, they can leave a message."

Another knock, this one much more insistent, followed by the chime of a doorbell. Whoever this is, they're very persistent. I step around Dr. Pepper and begin walking toward the door once more.

"Ben? Where are you?" Bastion's voice comes from the hallway near the computer room. I can hear his footsteps as he walks in and joins us in the foyer. "Ben, the search is still loading. Did you get my ginger ale?"

I hold up the can for him to see. "There's someone at the door," I say once more, finally reaching the previously indicated portal to the outside world. "You weren't expecting anyone, were you?"

"I don't believe so. See what they want, but unless they're Sky Scouts, send them away," Bastion replies.

"Young Master! Don't open that door!" Dr. Pepper warns, too late as my hand closes around the doorknob and turns.

I pull the door open to reveal not two, but three people standing on the other side of the glass pane of the outer door. Two tall men in black suits stand flanking a much shorter one, purple-haired and dressed in a red coat with golden trim. Thin red lines cross vertically over his eyes, and his lips are reddened as well, giving the appearance of something akin to a clown.

"Ben West, I presume?" he asks, crossing a gloved hand over his chest.

From behind me, I can hear Dr. Pepper swearing repeatedly. Bastion, apparently shocked at the sight of these men, mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like, "Tax collectors…"

A grin stretches across the man's face as he continues, "I am Lazar, vice-director of Sector Security. I've been sent to retrieve you by my superior, Director Rex Goodwin. He's been very worried about you. Did you receive our email informing you of our arrival?"

I'm back. Well, that's what we'll say, before inevitably I run out of steam again. But we're going to act like that won't happen, eh?

Anyway! I am so, so sorry with how long this chapter took to get out. Yeah, I know, I suck. You don't have to tell me twice. I'll be honest with ya, I just could not figure out where I wanted to go from that last chapter. Did I want to do a full scene with Ben and Yusei? Keep hanging around with the twins for a bit? As you can see, I went in a more or less different route. I had intended to update this sooner, with a sort of 'omake chapter' in celebration of Ben's birthday, but that came and went without me having a single spark of inspiration for this.

A heads-up, I'm back in school now. What does that mean? Well, while I have more of an excuse to screw around on my computer, I will probably have something I actually need to do. But providing the inspiration is actually with me for a while now (I knocked this chapter out over the course of a week, kinda proud of myself) I'm hoping I'll at least be able to get through the Fortune Cup arc. If nothing else, we're about to start it. But, that's the end of my stupid ramblings about personal life stuff. I'll get on with this.

So, all in all, a more plot-heavy chapter. Ben and Yusei had a nice chat about Ben's safety. Ben and Bastion had a heart-to-heart about finding Terra Firma. Bastion has a computer named after Sabrina from Pokémon—who saw that coming? Ben had another mysterious dream, and found out that Bastion is hoarding Styrofoam and gasoline. Why is Bastion hoarding Styrofoam and gasoline, and what is his fixation with tax collectors? Where is Terra Firma, and will they be able to find out with Goodwin's goons at the door? Why has Rex Goodwin been looking for Ben? Has he realized that Bastion basically broke him out of prison? But more importantly, why does he care?

Find out next time, on Stardust Accelerator: A Hero in Time!

Also, just to address a couple reviews I got, even though you're not likely to see this… is Ben's name really the best criticism you could come up with?

Anyways, as always, take care, brrrrush yo hair, I'll see ya when I see ya, PEACE~!

~Chase