Several months had passed since the destruction of the manor. After destroying Ari's home, Stan and James had destroyed Tenel. Ari's family and Marlene had moved to the relative safety provided by Triste, but not all the villagers were so lucky. Some had died in the attack; others were left to be homeless refuges, fleeing to whatever town would take them. A few months had passed, then Stan had attacked Madril. Fortunately, he hadn't managed to do more than destroy a few houses on the upper level and both of the science labs. With the destruction of the labs, the gears that littered the city had stopped turning, but people were just happy that they had their lives; the gears could be repaired.

Ari was sitting at the bar of the Screwdriver Inn in Madril, waiting for someone.

"Heard he's immortal," said Mr. Know-It-All, the resident busybody. Mr. KIA, as he was called, knew everything that happened in Madril because he was the world's worst gossip. The only person who knew more than Mr. KIA was Mr. Big, owner of Mr. Big Inc., and the ex-Evil King of Chairmen.

Mr. KIA was currently talking to some young members of the Hero's Club. "Heard he's been around for five hundred years," he continued, to the awed chorus of the Heroes.

It was three hundred, Ari thought. And he trapped in a bottle for practically all of it.

"I heard he was friends with the Great Hero for a while," one the Heroes ventured.

Mr. KIA shook his head. "Nah, that's not true. It's just a rumor."

Actually, it was true, sort of, Ari thought. Mr. KIA was starting to get on his last nerve.

Suddenly, the door of the establishment flew open, pouring rain, sleet, and very cold air in through the door. The howling wind and darkened sky, occasionally lit by lightning, were a testament to the storm that had raged for two days. Popular rumor was that Evil King Stan had started it. Ari didn't think so, not unless Stan had learned a few new tricks. People just wanted to forget that it was the stormy season, so they could blame everything on Stan.

The newcomer to the inn managed to wrestle the door closed. Despite the heavy woolen cloak, she was quite obviously female. Below the cloak, one could just barely see though the muck that covered her boots that they were pink. A little further down, and one could see that her shadow was also pink.

She stomped up to the bar and flopped onto a bar stool next to Ari. Without bothering to pull off her cloak, or even push back the hood, she crossed her arms on the counter and dropped her head onto them.

"What happened to your umbrella?" Ari asked, rather amused in spite of himself.

"Parasol, and it blew away," came the muffled reply. "Does anyone know its me?"

Ari glanced toward the table where the Hero's Club members sat nudging each other and saying, "She's got a pink shadow! She must be the Great Hero!" He chuckled quietly and said, "Yeah. Yeah, they do."

Rosalyn groaned, but didn't move. "Tell me when they leave," she said. She had noticed them when she came in.

"Actually, they're coming this way."

"What?" Rosalyn exclaimed, bringing her head up quickly and turning. "Oh, great! Just what I need."

"Excuse me," said the first Hero. "Are you Hero Rosalyn?"

"No, I'm not," she said shortly.

"Oh," he said dejectedly just as another one said, "But-but…your shadow…"

"Will you go away?" she demanded. "I'm very busy right now."

Mumbling, the Heroes returned to their table.

"You could have been nicer about it," Ari said once they had gone. Rosalyn sighed melodramatically.

"I know…Now I feel bad. But not bad enough to start talking about my stupid pink shadow with them."

"It's the Evil King's curse on her," Mr. KIA was saying behind them. "He's the only one can remove it."

"Will it kill her?" the youngest Hero asked.

"Probably," Mr. KIA agreed.

Rosalyn rolled her eyes. "See what I mean? This is the sort of stuff I had to put up with for months until I figured out that parasol trick."

"It doesn't seem to have stopped them," Ari observed.

"It did for a while, until people figured out why I had it."

They continued to talk about inconsequential things for a long time; neither yet cared to think about what had brought them together here. At some point, an especially loud crash of thunder rocked the foundations of the building and caused the lights to flicker. The patrons of the bar panicked, thinking Stan had come at last to finish destroying Madril.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Rosalyn shouted. "It was thunder, for crying out loud! Come on, Ari. I can't take these people anymore." She stood and moved towards the door.

"Where are we going?" Ari asked as he got up to follow her.

She nearly told him, but her eyes caught on the group of Heroes. "Just follow me," she said instead.

Once outside, the noise of the storm was overpowering. Rosalyn shouted something, but she couldn't even hear herself. She grabbed Ari's arm, instead, and pulled him through the gale. After what seemed like hours, they reached their destination. This time, the hard part was getting the door open, but with the two of them working together, they managed to get into the hotel in a relatively short time.

"We need a room," she told the manager and threw a few coins on the counter.

He reached beneath the desk and pulled out the appropriate key. "Right down the hall," he said as he handed it to her. The two had only gone a few steps when the manager said, "Miss, I can't help but notice your shadow is-"

"Oh, shut up!" Rosalyn shouted without even bothering to hear him out. She managed to get to their room in record time, leaving Ari to run after her, and the manager to puzzle out what exactly he had said to offend her.

"I really hate people sometimes," Rosalyn said without preamble.

Ari smiled slightly and closed the door. "If you'd had your parasol, that's what he would have been asking about," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but that's not as bad. That's just eccentricity as far as they know."

This statement sounded rather strange, even for Rosalyn, so Ari decided not to pursue the matter. "What have you heard?" he said changing the subject.

It didn't take Rosalyn very long to understand what he meant. "Not a thing. For all I know, Stan's dropped of the face of the planet." She paused, then said as an afterthought, "And we would all be better off if he had."

"I don't understand what started this," Ari sighed. "He was fine. He was being his normal self, and then…this…"

"He's an Evil King, Ari," Rosalyn said kindly. She knew Ari tended to think of Stan as something like a friend. "It was bound to happen sometime."

"With Classification, maybe," Ari argued. "But now…" He trailed off; he didn't actually know where he was going with that sentence.

"He'd been an Evil King for way too long to change just like that," Rosalyn said. "Like me. I've been a Hero for so long, I'm not going to change that just because I no longer have to be. It's what I am, with or without Classification."

Ari couldn't think of a single argument against this line of logic, so he just shook his head. He couldn't seem to make her understand that Stan hadn't been himself at all when he'd destroyed Tenel. Stan had never been that maniacal. He had always tried to think of some excuse for putting off the destruction of anything. In a way, Rosalyn was right. Stan's bark had always been worse than his bite, so to speak. Why should that suddenly change?

Ari awoke to a loud slamming noise that caused him to start and fall off of the couch he'd been using for a bed. He sat up quickly and looked around.

The noise of storm was gone, at last. Relatively blue sky could be seen through the room's small window. Rosalyn was stomping around, trying to unpack her breakfast one-handed. The noise that had awakened Ari had been the slamming of the door. Rosalyn had gotten a new parasol in addition to breakfast. She was in a bad mood.

"Oh, you're awake," she remarked. "Here." She threw a bag at him. It contained a bagel and a small container of cream cheese.

"Rosalyn, it's just you and me," Ari said. "Put down the parasol."

Rosalyn seemed about to say something, then sighed and chuckled slightly. "Sorry," she said, tossing it on the bed. "I forgot you don't care about that."

"Bad morning?"

"In addition to the fact that I'm not a morning person?" she asked dryly. "First, I had Heroes following me from one end of town to the other, pelting me with questions. I finally managed to get rid of them by shouting 'Look! It's an Evil King!' and then running. Then, I couldn't find the right color parasol; it was either this red one or nothing. And then, Zot's was out of my gourmet pesto cheese bagels, so I had to settle for plain ones. No, it's not been a good morning."

Ari chuckled. "Any news?" he asked.

Rosalyn mumbled something, but her mouth was full of bagel, rendering her comment unintelligible. She pulled an envelope out of a pocket and tossed it to Ari. "Found it under the door this morning," she said once she had swallowed.

To: Hero Rosalyn and her apprentice Ari

It has come to my attention that there are things, which you must know. Thus, I ask of you to come and visit me in my office. Simply show this invitation to whoever stops you, and you'll have no trouble gaining entry. I'm sure there's no haste, but please come ASAP.

Mr. Big, Chairman and CEO of Mr. Big Incorporated

"I wonder what's going on," Ari said.

Rosalyn shrugged. "No clue. I just hope my fan club doesn't come back."

In fact, they did. By the time the pair reached Mr. Big Inc., Rosalyn was so angry that she was almost as pink as her shadow. Any and all attempts to get rid of the young Heroes had failed miserably. Finally, Ari said, "Hey, is that old lady getting robbed by ghosts?"

"What? Where?" the Heroes exclaimed, giving Ari and Rosalyn time to dash past the doorman. He was nice enough to let them in before asking them what their business was.

Ari handed him the note as Rosalyn leaned against the door with her head in one hand. The doorman read through it, then nodded. "I believe you know the way?"

Rosalyn didn't bother to respond; she just starting walking. Ari thanked the man and hastened to follow her. They met a few other people on their way, but no one bothered to do more than wave absentmindedly; apparently, they were all too busy to stop the newcomers.

Mr. Big Inc. was the center of information for the entire world. It was a large building, run mostly by ghosts and headed by the former Evil King of Chairmen, Mr. Big. Ari and his friends had defeated him to get part of Stan's power back. Defeated, Mr. Big had stopped trying to take over the world, and had resumed his attempts to buy it. His most recent idea was a paper that contained information about all the goings-on in the world; it could be shipped to all the cities so that people in Triste could buy it and know what was going on in Rashelo. He called it a "newspaper". Rosalyn didn't think it would catch on.

"Stan attacked Rashelo late last night," Mr. Big said without preamble as Rosalyn and Ari entered his lavishly decorated office. He was searching for something in a filing cabinet and had turned just enough to see who it was.

"He did what?" Rosalyn exclaimed.

Mr. Big nodded. "Two of my reporters and a photographer were there. Saw the whole thing." He apparently found what he was looking for: a large manila envelope full of papers. "Bills," he explained, laying it on his desk and sitting down.

"So what happened?" Rosalyn demanded. "Is everyone okay?"

"Most everyone's alright. The Hero's Club did a pretty good job of getting everyone evacuated." Mr. Big now reached into a drawer and pulled out another envelope. As he sifted papers around, he continued. "Rashelo was completely destroyed, though. A lot of people are homeless. They'll be coming here, of course. But that's not why I asked you here. This is the report of what happened. I want you to look at these pictures." He pulled out several photographs from the folder and spread them on the desk in front of Ari and Rosalyn.

Many of the photographs were pictures of the houses being blasted apart and Stan's energy shots flying through the air, although a few were of James pointing at something or other, and several were of people fleeing in all directions while the Hero's Club tried desperately to save them. These, Mr. Big pulled aside. "Not these," he said. "These don't matter. Just the rest of them."

"Why didn't your photographer get any pictures of Stan?" Ari asked.

"Glad you figured that out so quick," Mr. Big said approvingly. "As a matter of fact, he did. From what he told me, most of these empty shots of rubble and explosions were actually supposed to be of Stan."

"So, Stan doesn't photograph very well," Rosalyn said skeptically.. "So what?"

"So, Evil King or not, he should be in these pictures," Mr. Big explained. "Only two things in this world don't photograph: vampires and ghosts. Stan is neither of these."

"So what are you saying?"

Mr. Big sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes, but before he could answer, Ari interrupted. "It's not Stan."

"Exactly!" Mr. Big beamed.

"Then who is it?" Rosalyn demanded.

"Probably a ghost of some sort," Mr. Big said with a shrug.

"Look at these ones of James," Ari said. "It almost looks like he's directing something."

"That's what the reporter said. She said it looked like…James, did you say? It looked like James was telling Stan what to do."

"That's impossible," Rosalyn protested. "Stan would never let anyone tell him what to do."

"That's why I think it's not Stan," Mr. Big explained, almost as though he was talking to a child. "If it was, and I highly doubt that, he's not being himself."

"That's what I thought," Ari said. "When he blew up my house, he was just…too evil. It wasn't like him at all."

Mr. Big nodded. "Well, I just thought you should be informed. And, as a symbol of my good will, I won't even make you pay for the information."

"Oh , gee, thanks," Rosalyn said dryly. "Come on, Ari. If your house is where this started, maybe we'll get some answers there."

"Right. Thanks, Mr. Big."

Mr. Big waved him away. "No problem, kid. Just make sure you stop him before destroys my building."