Welcome, dear readers, and hello to another chapter of the Invasion of Lost Faces.

Let's not waste our time, eh?

Chapter 6: Extra Lives

The others turned to see what I was looking at.

That dark part of the cave we were just in?

That was only the entrance.

Now we were in what looked like the main cave part of the place.

Soft light was coming from massive crystals growing just about everywhere, and there appeared to be a flowing stream that followed the path forward.

I couldn't focus very much on that, however, because I kept hearing little noises all over the place. And I thought the forest was bad. In here, a monster could be at the other END of the cave and I'd probably hear any noise it made.

My Mii looked around with me. "W-woah… it's so pretty." he whispered.

I agreed with him, even if I was still worried deeply about monsters in here.

"We should be careful…" Purple Guy murmured. Even though we'd been running like crazy for a moment before, he didn't look tired at all or sweaty for that matter.

=Music: Subterranean=

We cautiously moved inward, wary of any noises that sounded particularly close to us. The path regularly crossed the stream of water that flowed the direction we walked. With the deepest part being almost up to my calf, we didn't like those moments we had to wade through it. And yes, it was cold water too.

I was quietly gripping as we crossed one slightly larger part that managed to drench my feet…

When I heard a noise above us.

"Wait, guys!" I slowly called out, pausing.

The others did so too.

I slowly looked up.

I saw something moving high above on the distant ceiling.

"Maybe… maybe it was just a bat…?" I offered weakly.

And then a shape fell from the roof, headed right for my face.

Somehow I just barely managed to pull up my wooden shield at just the right time to block the thing from landing on my head.

*SPLUCH!*

"Ergh…" I groaned, lowering my shield. A green goop now covered the entire face of my shield.

"That's gross…" my Mii muttered with me.

Then the goop opened it's eye.

I will not lie: I let out a not-very-manly shout and ran in circles around my friends, screaming, "AUGH! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!"

My flailing eventually shook off the thing, whatever it was, creating a large squishing sound as it slammed into the ground.

Then it rose back up, and I realized that it was some sort of tiny slime, green in color with only one eye attached to it.

It didn't even move towards us. It just, kinda… sat there. Looking at us.

"What… is that?" Susie asked, grabbing my arm.

I consulted my 3DS. "Seems to be called an… 'Apple Jelly.'" I murmured. I did a double take. "Wait, does that mean this thing is edible?"

Suddenly, the slime slowly moved forward, not in an angry way, but more curious, it looked like.

And it seemed to be looking directly at Susie.

She looked slightly scared. "Wh-why is it coming towards me…?" she whispered.

"I don't know…" I whispered back. "But… it doesn't feel hostile… at least, not yet."

The cleric slowly let go of my arm and took a tentative step forward towards the slime.

The creature kept quietly advancing, up until it was almost on top of her, and then it stopped.

For a moment, nothing happened.

"H-hey… little jelly…" Susie murmured, gently holding her hand out.

The jelly gently touched Susie's hand, then moved forward and clung to Susie, the eye attached to it looking… happy.

"I think it likes you." I chuckled.

"Awww…" Susie cooed, her eyes shiny. She stood and hugged the little blob to her chest warmly.

"I think we found the ONLY friendly monster in this world, guys." I called back, glancing over my shoulder.

My Mii was running around in circles, with three more of those blobs chasing him, Brave was doing her best to dance around another one, and Purple Guy was dashing all over the place to avoid ANOTHER three.

"WOAH!" I shouted, quickly getting Susie's attention. "We have trouble!"

Susie stood up, that slime still cradled in her arms. "What?"

It jumped out of her arms and latched onto my face.

"AUGH! GIT ET AFF GIT ET AFF GIT ET AFF!" I shouted, flailing all over the place.

"Don't hurt them! I-I think they just wanna play!" Susie called out, sounding worried. Whether that concern was for us or the slimes, I couldn't tell.

Someone stopped me from running around and grabbed ahold of the slime on my face, pulling. I pulled backwards, and eventually the thing popped off and landed on the ground.

Brave, my savior, dusted me off. "All better!" she shouted proudly.

The other slimes grouped up around the one Brave threw off my face. Now that I could see again, I noticed that some had eyes, others had noses, and a few had mouths. Only one part for each, though.

"Let's do this!" my Mii called out to us.

"W-wait! I'm sure they don't wanna hurt us!" Susie interjected.

That comment was quickly disproven when two of the jelly's hopped forward and slammed into her as hard as they could, which appeared to be quite a bit considering, you know… 'jelly.'

"*sigh* Guess not…" she sighed defeatedly, holding up her staff.

=Music: Battle: Greenhorne=

Susie (almost reluctantly) charged forward and slammed her staff into the slime on the far left, almost instantly defeating it.

"Oh boy, an enemy that's weak but comes in large numbers. Perfect…" I murmured.

Purple Guy huffed at me. "Watch and learn, people. This is how we get things done."

I heard my system beeping again, and I looked down in time to see, 'First Cool Quirk!' 'Pressure Point.'

He threw his Chef's Dagger with a bit more strength than I think he usually did, calling out 'That's the spot!'. The weapon sailed around and slammed into each and everyone one of the slimes, completely decimating the ones on the ends.

And just like that, the dagger returned to Purple Guy's hand.

"Seriously, you have to teach me how you do that." I stated.

Purple Guy smirked at me.

My Mii and Brave went next and then it was each of the remaining Apple Jelly's turns. They were reduced to little more than four, but that didn't mean they couldn't pose a substantial threat.

The first one charged forward for Brave, knocking her around a bit.

The next two charged after her, and she took a knee. The things might not have been very strong, but with one right after another all attacking her at once…

Then the last one tried to move for her, to finish her off. I tried to grab my sprinkles, but the slime was too fast. Brave's eyes were closed in worry…

And then my 3DS beeped again. 'New Kind Quirk!' 'Cover'.

Susie did her little dance again, and then rushed in front of Brave.

"Don't give in!" she called out, arms spread out wide to block the Jelly from Brave.

Brave looked completely surprised, right up until the Jelly slammed into Susie and retreated.

"Thank you!" the Pop Star thanked profusely, smiling broadly at Susie as she moved back to her normal spot.

Suddenly, I noticed on my 3DS the heart meter again. The heart between Susie and Brave filled up a little more, but this time it managed to fill in completely. It played a sound effect and then called out, 'Growing closer!', before returning to an empty heart.

The two of them seemed to nod a little at each other, glancing to the side, before doing a small pose together. With a start, I realized that they had just learned Show Off, like my Mii and Susie had before. As if that wasn't already cool enough, both Susie's and Brave's HP were completely filled on top of that.

'That's perfect!' I thought to myself.

Another few turns of my friends went, in which two more Jelly's were defeated, the last two were weakly still standing.

Then Brave had her move. She glanced over at Susie again…

And then gained MORE pep in her step. The line between the two came up again, and Brave threw her microphone with more force than normal.

And just like that, the last two slimes were defeated.

=Music: The Spoils of War=

My friends had a brief celebration while I collected the spoils.

"Let's see… ooh, Slime Jelly, three whole servings…" I mumbled to myself, picking up the treats. It was a large hunk of some kind of pudding-like jelly, golden in color and on a rather fancy plate. "Certainly take this… what else…"

After I also picked up the money the monsters dropped, I stood back up and turned towards my friends. They seemed ready to head out, so I motioned for them to keep going.

=Music: Subterranean=

I kept my eyes on the little mini-map my 3DS had on it every time we entered a dungeon. I was always trying to make sure that we wouldn't get lost in here, or miss some sort of hidden opportunity.

Then, all of a sudden, I looked up in time run headfirst into a signpost.

I recoiled slightly, rubbing my forehead. Slowly, I asked, "...why… why is there a random signpost right here?"

Susie stepped forward with me. "These things are all over the place… basically a way so that adventurers don't get lost while in a dungeon."

I hummed something in understanding, before looking back down at my 3DS. Suddenly an image of the world map came up on screen, with two arrows. One lead towards the exit of the cave, but the other lead towards what definitely was a rather large chest.

"Where should we go?" my Mii asked me. "You have the map."

I thought about it for a moment. Eventually, I selected the path that lead to the chest, simply because the game wouldn't show me something like that if it wouldn't be at least somewhat worth my time.

"Let's head that way. Maybe there's something useful down there…" I offered.

The signboard pointed us towards a slightly smaller part of the cave, that seemed a little more twisty than the part we were in currently.

"Roads less traveled." Purple Guy commented. "No telling what loot might be hidden back there…"

With no one else offering any contrary, we all headed into the path I selected.

Quickly after entering, the ceiling of the cave sloped downward quickly, making a very significant bottleneck.

And with my height, the only way I could keep moving forward was to get down on my hands and knees and crawl. My Mii was right there with me, seeing as he was the exact same height at me. The others were bent over themselves, moving slowly to not bang their heads against the ceiling.

"Me and my great ideas…" I grumbled to myself.

"Let's just pray no monsters like this part either, otherwise we might have a problem…" Susie softly commented.

"Oh, you all need to man up. This is nothing." Purple Guy called out. He was crouched down in a way that looked natural, easy. I had a feeling that if he was up front he'd have already made his way out of this spot long before us.

Brave was at the very back, and she was easily the slowest of us all. Her problem was that she kept getting her clothes and hair caught in the strangest of places, that made her stop and pull it free before she could keep going. "Ugh… my poor bow… I hope it'll still be nice and cute after this…"

Eventually, and I use that term loosely since it felt like days before we got out, the cave widened out to it's normal space.

I stood, stretching out my tightened muscles. "Urgh… feels really good to stretch…"

And then I heard something, just as Brave managed to get out and join the rest of us.

Quiet, soft sobbing, directly ahead of us.

My friends quickly grew cautious. Was another person in here?

"Hello?" I called out quietly. Even at that volume, my voice still echoed pretty loudly. No doubt that whatever was sobbing heard me.

The sobbing slowly grew a little louder, though that could've just been the echoing of the cave.

We slowly walked forward, doing our best to not draw the attention of a monster that could've been in hiding in the shadows.

Then, we rounded a corner, and we found our crying sound.

A figure was sitting on the ground, with deep blue hair and a small body, from what I could see of it anyway. It definitely was the source of sobbing.

"Is… that a Mii?" I hesitantly asked.

"I can't tell…" my Mii whispered softly.

We slowly approached the crying figure. It only seemed to cry harder the closer we got to it.

Once we were about five feet away, I slowly took another half-step forward and asked, "Erm… hello? Are… are you alright?"

The crying slowly paused, and the creature slowly started to turn around.

And right as I thought I would've seen what the creature looked like, it whipped around and shouted right in my face.

I fell over on my rump, my friends quickly jumping in front of me for my own safety.

The creature now was fully visible for us to see. The thing was wearing what looked like tattered children clothes of some kind. The creature had blue skin, and…

I almost gasped. Unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, I would've sworn those were the EXACT same blue eyes that I saw when we entered this place.

Oddly enough, despite not having a Mii nose or mouth attached to the creature, it still felt as though this was the first monster with a defined face, if that makes any sense at all. I could almost clearly make out some sort of shape akin to a nose, and there even seemed a place that would easily fit a mouth of some sort.

Despite that, the creature started floating up, the long blue hair of the creature almost creating a large circle around it.

"What IS that?!" I asked loudly.

Then, I heard giggling behind me.

I turned and just barely ducked in time to avoid something fast wizz past my hair.

Purple Guy got clipped in the back of the head, and he angrily turned around. "What in the-"

That's when I saw ANOTHER one of these blue creatures, giggling at us while… it's hair pulled back. I realized that I almost got hit by the creature's HAIR, of all things.

I started to sweat. "Erm… I don't like this…"

Then, as I tried to backup while my friends kept their eyes on both monsters…

"Cameron's look-alike! DUCK!" Brave yelled.

Unfortunately, the warning came too late, and by the time I registered what Brave was telling me to do, I was already face-first on the cold, hard ground, pain flaring up from the back of my head.

ANOTHER giggle, and it didn't take a brain surgeon to now that now THREE of those blue creatures surrounded us all. My friends were all backed up in a tight circle, with me nearby. I guess those things lost interest the moment I fell down.

I groggily stood back up. The hit to my head felt like a small truck had collided with it. Exaggeration, yes, but it still really, REALLY hurt.

"O-ow…" I moaned, trying to see if the hit left any blood or anything. I couldn't find any, thankfully.

My friends quickly got into battle ready stance, and the creatures floated to a place where they could attack easier.

=Music: Battle: Greenhorne=

I slowly stood up while Purple Guy and Susie took their turns, quickly getting some early damage in.

Then the creatures, which I finally was able to identify as a horde of 'Banshee', (which was not comforting in the slightest.) floated forward and used their hair as large flails to jab my Mii, Purple Guy, and Brave in the chest.

'Huh. Guess not EVERYthing needs to be aimed at the face.' I slowly thought, getting my Mii to Flambé one of the Banshee's (I'm pretty sure I aimed at the one that hit me in the back of the head, but my thoughts were still a tad scrambled, so…).

Despite doing a lot of damage, the creature STILL did not fall, meaning we still have a large supply of three of these things to destroy. That thought did not comfort me at all.

A few more blows back and forth were exchanged between parties, and after another minute one Banshee was down with another close to being defeated. However, we were running quite low on HP Sprinkles, and that worried me deeply.

The blue eyed one seemed nervous. It attempted another blow at my Mii, but my friends simply retaliated by taking out the other remaining Banshee, leaving it all by itself.

It rapidly looked back and forth at all of us, before finally focusing on me. It made some sort of upset sound and then…

The eyes changed to be more… tear-filled. And large streams of tears poured from it's eyes while it made crying noises, though something about them felt rather… fake.

"Those are crocodile tears, aren't they?" I asked. "How dumb do you think I'll be to fall for…"

The Banshee wailed harder, and tears flowed even faster.

"To… to fall for…" I stammered. My mind's resistance was starting to crumble. "...a-aww…" I slowly cooed, my eyes growing quite teary. Tears started coming out of my eyes, large, blinding tears.

My friends seemed surprised at the the amount of tears coming out of me right now. I probably would've been too, had I not been so upset at seeing the crying Banshee.

"*sob* P-Please stop crying…" I blubbered, unable to stop the tears from flowing at all.

Suddenly, the Banshee did stop crying. It seemed… smug.

I tried to stop crying, but it didn't work. The tears continued to flow. "*sob* C-can't… *sob* stop…"

"Just… hang in there, Cameron's look-alike!" Susie called out. "Th-this can't take much longer, right?"

Susie moved, healing my Mii, Purple Guy set up his booby trap, and then it was my Mii's turn.

I tried my hardest to look at the options on my 3DS to direct my Mii, but the options were blurring together and making it impossible to see what was what. For all I knew, the options were suddenly written backwards Chinese and then turned into Pig Latin.

I blindly tapped an option, and tried to tap the enemy. My Mii raised his frying pan and charged, but… he missed.

"What-?" he called back. "Why'd you tell me to attack there?"

"C-can't… *sob* see…" I blubbered. "Can't see… *sob sob* see straight…"

"Kid, get it together!" Purple Guy yelled at me. "It was fake tears, you can't respond to that with REAL tears."

After a few more attacks from the rest of my friends, the remaining Banshee finally bit the dust. The moment it was defeated, my crying quickly began to fade.

=Music Fades Out=

In a minute, my tears were all gone, meaning I was back to normal, albeit rather thirsty.

"Are you alright, Cameron's look-alike?" Brave asked me, her voice concerned.

"Eurgh… y-yeah, I… I think I'm okay now." I replied, wiping away the tear tracks left behind.

"Good, because your thing is beeping louder and louder." my Mii warned.

I looked at my 3DS. The screen was starting to turn red in warning.

"Oh… that's probably not a good thing." I murmured, preparing my stance. I was in no mood to discover what would happen to us if I failed to absorb the monsters in a timely fashion.

I quickly aimed it at the Banshee's, but… only two of them started coming towards me.

They were quickly absorbed back into the system, but the last one, the blue-eyed one… it stayed on the ground. The system didn't seem to mind, though, and returned to normal.

"W-what?" I asked, crouching down to the Banshee in question. By all rights, it looked defeated…

Then all of a sudden I was whipped back by a blow to the stomach.

=Music: Losing Face=

I landed right at my friend's feet, and when I looked up, the Banshee was rising back up into the air.

"T-that's not possible…!" my Mii responded, his voice uncharacteristically shaky. "Monster's shouldn't get back up when defeated!"

Then, a horrible thought crossed my mind.

I looked back down at the 3DS.

The Banshee still had a tiny sliver of HP remaining.

It faked it's own defeat!

"Oh for the love of-" I started to swear.

But then the Banshee…

Floated away quickly.

The five of us watched, dumbfounded, as the creature quickly floated away in a huff, still very much alive.

"... is… is that a consequence of me not acting fast enough… or…?" I asked.

"I… I don't believe so…" Purple Guy responded, his eyes calculated. "Banshee's are curious creatures. They have far more emotion than other monsters that we've fought before … perhaps that one simply got off lucky. If we see it again, we'll be more than ready to take it out for real."

He said all this while casually picking some dirt from… I would assume his fingernails, but Mii's don't really have those, so… I guess he was just making the motion?

In any event, he soon turned towards me. His face was… rather angry. "Enough of that. Kid, what HAPPENED out there? You just suddenly started bawling your eyes out. I mean, you should've at least KNOWN that it was a trap?"

I grew defensive. "O-of course I did! I just… I'm not used to all this magical emotion tapping and all that. I mean, if YOU had seen it's face the way I was seeing it, you'd understand…"

"Still, that's no way to keep acting. One of these days, your emotions are gonna get the best of you, and when that happens…"

Purple Guy turned, heading on ahead while finishing, "Then the Dark Lord wins."

He disappeared around a corner, leaving the four of us staring at where he left.

"Did… did I do something wrong?" I asked.

"Mmm… I think he's just a little stressed right now…" Susie offered, nervously fiddling with her staff. "He's probably just wanting to vent a little frustration before it builds up in him too much."

"Plus, he's under a lot of pressure to act cool and calm all the time, so…" my Mii murmured, though… he looked a tad miffed himself. I suppose that Purple Guy yelling at me kinda felt he was yelling at him.

I slowly took a deep breath, then stated, "Well, standing here's not gonna do us any favors. Let's just see what's up ahead."

The other three nodded, and we all went onward.

Turns out Purple Guy hadn't gone that far. When we managed to catch up to him he was staring at something just past the corner.

"Hey. Sorry, we were-" I started to greet.

Then I looked out at what Purple Guy was looking at.

MY eyes grew wide as dinner plates. The others crowded around to see what I was seeing as well.

Just around the corner, in a beam of sunlight from somewhere above, a massive, and I mean MASSIVE, chest was sitting there, made of some sort of bright blue wood and gold detailing. The thing was EASILY twice the size as me and my Mii.

"Woah… that's a big one." I murmured quietly.

Purple Guy's hands were rubbing together with a grin on his face. "Just what I like to see. Shall we?"

We all approached. As soon as we were close enough, I looked back at my 3DS and tapped on Open.

The lock glowed, and the chest flew open wide… but nothing came out the top.

Confused, I tried consulting the 3DS, but there was nothing on the screen.

"Erm… whatever's in there isn't coming out unless we make it…" I murmured.

The five of us glanced back and forth at each other, trying to see if someone would step up to looking inside.

"Oh fine." I sighed, and then quickly headed over to a small pile of rocks nearby the right side.

The others watched me carefully as I slowly pulled myself up past the lip of the chest. I quickly tried to see if anything was inside the thing…

When all of a sudden I slipped and fell inside.

As if THAT wasn't bad enough, the lid suddenly slammed shut on me, leaving me trapped inside.

"AH! GUYS!" I shouted, pounding on the walls.

Utter silence.

"G… guys…?" I called out, trying to hear anything.

Nothing. Either this chest was very soundproof, or my friends were so stunned that they weren't moving.

I tried looking at my 3DS for help.

But that's when a horrible, HORRIBLE chill ran down my spine.

I slowly looked behind me.

The face of a certain blue-eye Banshee greeted me, eyes turned up haughtily.

The color drained from my face, and I desperately pounded on the walls, screaming at the top of my lungs, "GUYS! HELP! THERE'S A BANSHEE IN HERE! HELP ME!"

The Banshee made a very evil giggling sound, and then…

Came the pain.

Over and over, the Banshee used it's hair to slam into whatever it could find. My legs, my arms, my torso, my face… everywhere.

Every hit felt like I was being wacked by a mallet. My body was screaming in pain. My bones felt like they were breaking, my body felt like it was bleeding…

And I couldn't do anything to change it. My friends were nowhere to be found, and I was all alone.

Eventually, I was lying flat on the ground, barely able to see anything with one eye blackened, some limbs probably broken, and blood oozing out of several large cuts on my body.

The Banshee looked quite pleased, and seemed to be pulling back it's hair one last time, to finish me off.

The hair came fast, and I did the only thing that I could think of.

Where the hair would've connected with my face, instead I blocked it with the only things in my hands, my 3DS, just barely.

The system broke into a million pieces, as though it was made of mere glass.

For a second, everything stopped. The Banshee froze in place, I couldn't move no matter what… it felt like the entire world had skipped a beat.

Then, all of a sudden, it was as if an invisible rope wrapped around my waist was suddenly yanked backwards at the speed of sound.

Colors and sounds blurred around me. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't move a muscle.

And suddenly, I opened my eyes.

And fell over on the spot.

"Woah! C-Cameron's look-alike, are you okay?" Susie yelped, staring at me.

I panted heavily, looking around wildly.

I… I was right back where I had been not even five minutes ago.

My friends all were standing around me, looking at me with concerned looks. I was on my back.

"Wh-what… what happened…?" I asked, shakily getting back up to my feet.

"You… you just pushed a thing on your system there, and… simply collapsed." Brave explained.

It was then that I saw the lid of the golden chest before me, and it was wide open.

My face paled. "M-m-m-monster… i-in the chest…!" I managed, pointing a shaky finger.

Purple Guy quickly took off, quickly scaling the same way I had and looking in. "What are you going on about? There's no monster in here…"

"Y-yes, there was!" I adamantly explained. "I-I climbed up to where you were, and was about to look in deeper when… when…"

"D.. dude, you've...been standing here the whole time. You never… climbed up there." my Mii responded, looking confused, concerned, and afraid all at once.

"I-I swear there was! I-it was that same blue-eyed Banshee that escaped, too!" I insisted, shakily getting back on my feet.

Susie looked at my Mii, then slowly came towards me, resting a hand on my shoulder. "Maybe… maybe you should sit down for a second, Cameron's look-alike…"

"I'm NOT crazy, guys!" I shouted, making everyone but Purple Guy jump a little. "I-I swear! I know I did!"

Purple Guy slowly climbed back down. Without our knowledge, he'd already grabbed whatever was now inside the chest and was already out. "Kid, give up the lie, okay? None of us believe you."

"I'm NOT LYING!" I yelled. "What about my tone and body language makes you THINK I'm lying?!"

Purple Guy's eyebrows scrunched together. "Look, kid, I looked inside that entire thing. There was no sign on ANY kind of monster in there. Only thing inside was this."

He pulled out a brand few frying pan from somewhere behind him. It looked like it was made out of some kind of stone, with white detailing on the inside edge and a wooden handle, painted red.

"A… Wok?" Brave asked.

"You know what that is?" my Mii asked, turning towards her.

Brave stuck her nose up a little. "I studied a little history before this. I don't devote ALL my time to dancing, ya know."

"Guys, please… I'm… I'm NOT lying…!" I insisted, but my voice was losing strength. Did… did I really imagine that?

It was then that my 3DS beeped.

And the area around me faded once more into black space.

"Wha-" I started to ask, before noticing something on the screen.

"Cause of reset: Banshee. Explanation: After reducing Cameron to a point of almost death, the Banshee then destroyed the 3DS. Reset quickly occurred soon after."

"Reset…?" I asked.

"Well now, isn't this a surprise?" the voice of the Guardian spoke to me. "Seems as though you let that system of yours get destroyed at one point or another."

"So… I really DID almost die just then…" I whispered.

"But, you allowed something worse to happen, and let the Banshee destroy the system. This causes a paradox of the world, since the entire world now should not exist. After all, it came FROM your system, did it not?"

I nodded slowly.

"It would appear as though the system is aware of this, and have developed a failsafe. In the event of catastrophic failure, it will quickly use the last legs of power remaining in those fleeting moments to 'reset' the world back to a previous state."

"So… kinda like Extra Lives, then?" I asked, like the gamer I really was at heart.

"In a sense, yes. But… I have a feeling that these resets are quite limited. After all, just like these 'Extra Lives' you are familiar with, you can only use so many before you run out. I estimate that you have ten chances remaining before… bad things."

"...what kind of bad things?" I asked hesitantly, already a guess in my mind.

"I don't believe you would like to know the feeling of having both your world and Miitopia consumed into a paradoxical black-hole-that-swallows-the-whole-universe type situation?"

I shuddered heavily.

"But I do not believe you should have much to worry about, however. I believe that you shall be most vigilant in keeping your system - and by extension, Miitopia - in safe condition."

"Yeah… I guess it IS better to know the dangers, rather than be blind to them…" I murmured. "But… hey, if I just rewound time back to a previous point… how do you know what just happened?"

The Guardian made a sound similar to chuckling. "My boy, I have much more power than you believe. Though, please do not try to reset too many times. Even I go back in time when it happens. It's… inconvenient, as you'd imagine."

I nodded. "Thank you, erm… great Guardian."

And just a moment later, I snapped back to normal reality with my friends.

I suddenly felt really dizzy from everything that had just transpired, so I quickly sat down on a rock nearby and expelled a large sigh.

I felt someone patting me on the back. I expected it to be Susie, and I was not mistaken.

She was sitting down next to me, a somewhat worried expression on her face.

"I-it's okay, Cameron's look-alike… maybe you just need a break." Susie murmured.

For once, I agreed with her. "Yeah… I think so too…"

The rest of the group followed suit, and we all took a few minutes to catch our breaths and recover. Though I'm pretty certain that the others, specifically Brave and my Mii, were doing it purely to let me recover.

I have no idea if I actually managed to convince any of them of the Lives thing, not at the time, anyway. I knew that there was no way I could simply ignore it, or not tell them, but at the time I figured I'd just let the matter rest for a while. I could, and would, come back to it later. Not now.

Eventually, we got up and continued on our way, my Mii now sporting his new Wok. The path we travelled, however eventually proved itself to loop right back to where we started.

We agreed that we all had seen enough of this path, and we quickly made out way back, the return trip much easier than the way there.

Once we returned to the signpost, I instructed our group to head on forward towards what I hoped was the exit.

More enemies and such made the going slow, but we kept going. Eventually we'd find the end of this path, right?

Such hopes were proven true when, further ahead, the cave seemed to be growing lighter. Our group pressed on faster, hoping to find our way out of this cave…

And then we rounded the corner and were almost blinded.

The light flooding in from the surface was too bright for us.

Even so, we all raced forward to be in the warm, welcoming light as opposed to the dark, damp cave.

Slowly, my eyes adjusted, and I took my first look at this new area.

My first thought: We were much higher off the ground than normal.

This area was definitely more castle-like than all the other areas we've visited so far. The ground was like the wall of a castle of some kind, green stone bricks of some kind, and the occasional flag adjourning the path ahead.

"You were right Brave!" I exclaimed.

The Pop Star looked ecstatic. "Yes! I knew it! Maybe this will be a way to get to the castle!"

The others all looked hopeful too, and we quickly started heading forward.

However, our hopes were soon unfortunately dashed.

As we quickly reached what appeared like an old guard tower, abandoned, and no more path beyond that.

Purple Guy best summed up my thoughts. "Really? All that work in the cave, and it was for naught?"

Brave looked ashamed. Seeing that, my Mii stepped forward and offered a few words of encouragement. "Hey… at least you had an idea. It was worth a shot. Let's just head back and see if there was another path we missed somewhere."

We slowly started headed back towards the cave, the castle in the distance taunting us by being so close, yet so far.

However, I stopped.

The others quickly noticed my sudden pause, and looked at me. "Umm, Cameron's look-alike?" Brave called out.

I… I felt something was wrong. Something… something felt different, all of a sudden.

"I… I don't think we're alone here." I managed.

And then all of a sudden a loud laugh cut through the air like a boomerang.

And I felt myself getting lifted off the ground by a giant purple hand.

And then I heard words.

"Oh, DO you?"

Chara was here.

We were ambushed.

Oh. Well.

That's certainly a way to end a chapter, no?

But hey, by next chapter I can say that we'll be out of where the demo of the game itself ends, so hey! That's something, right?

So, yeah, I knew that if I was putting my OC in, I needed to have a splash of crazy thrown in the mix, hence my rather sudden and, dare I say, brilliant idea to include the Extra Lives system.

Expect that to come into play several times throughout the story. I mean, I wouldn't put something in my stories wouldn't them having some sort of special impact, right?

But hey, how hard could letting a game system like that break again?

*looks at own 3DS, which is covered in scratches and a few chips in the cover, among other small damages*

*clears throat* Erm, anyway…

I hope readers enjoyed this chapter! This one kinda was weird for me to write for while at the end there, but I managed to get this the way I wanted. Or at least, the way that felt the most normal by the end of it all.

If you guys have any questions, please don't hesitate to PM me, and I'll do my best to answer them.

This is ButterHunter, and until the next chapter…

Stay awesome! =D