Well, this took a while.

But, finally, it's ready!

Let's get to reading!

Chapter 10: Forgein Troublemakers

We set off early, back into the Arid Frontier.

My Mii and Purple Guy were still not on speaking terms, but it seemed as though Purple Guy was loosening. My Mii was still tight-lipped, refusing to say much of anything. Susie and Brave hung back a little, quietly discussing the situation.

My Mii charged ahead, perhaps to keep himself away from Purple Guy as best as possible. That meant that the purple thief eventually ended up walking in stride with me.

We were rather quiet. I wanted to say something, but I wasn't quite sure what there was to say. Purple Guy, on the other hand, seemed like he knew exactly what he wanted to talk about, but just couldn't pluck up the nerve.

Finally, I quietly cleared my throat and asked, "Sooo… anything you, ah… wanna tell me?"

Purple Guy gave the quickest of half-glances towards me before looking forward again. He caught sight of the back of my Mii, still sauntering ahead.

"Get the girls talking to him." Purple Guy mumbled, not looking at me. "I don't want to be overheard."

Slightly startled by the request, I looked back at the pair of girls, who were watching me carefully. I quickly motioned for them to try and speak with my Mii.

They nodded, perhaps a bit more grimly than would be normal, but quickly passed and headed for my Mii, and immediately started engaging him in quiet conversation.

Purple Guy let out a puff of air. "That's better. No point in having him overhear me."

The purple thief gave me another small sigh, and then looked at me dead in the eye without slowing down. "Kid, I get what you're trying to do. You want me and your buddy over there to make up. I get it, I understand."

I didn't say anything, which was a good choice, as Purple Guy immediately followed up with, "But! I am not ready to forgive him. Not now. You would do well to keep to yourself until then."

I could've ended the conversation there. Looking back on it, maybe I was a bit rash.

But I didn't stop. I… I can't exactly explain it.

"I'm not going to stop." I muttered under my breath, not looking Purple Guy in the eyes. I could feel him staring at me as I continued, "I'm not going to give up, even if it makes you guys hate me in turn. I don't want this party to be split up like this. Me and the girls are all worried about you two. I'm not going to rest until you two have made up and we can all get going with our quest."

Purple Guy didn't speak for a very, very long time. I almost started to catch up with the girls, who had fallen back at that point, when Purple Guy suddenly murmured, "Then you'll have to convince him."

And before I could say anything else, the Thief sped off, scouting the path ahead.

I reunited with the girls and told them about my talk with Purple Guy. They seemed a bit hesitant at my words.

"You'll find that hard to do, at least in Cameron's case…" Brave murmured, nervously twitching with her bow. "He's calmer about the whole situation, but pretty ticked off."

"Hmm…" I hummed. "There's gotta be a way… outside of forcing them to room together at Inn's and whatnot."

Unfortunately, we couldn't think of anything we could do, so we were hoping that maybe things would calm down even slightly as we progressed.

The sun continued to shine above us as we traversed the difficult terrain of the Frontier. And yet, the wind was far more relentless, chilling us all pretty thoroughly. My Mii and Susie were mostly fine, their clothing being thick and sturdy. Purple Guy was a bit less covered, his outfit being a tad on the thin side, but if he felt the cold at all then he didn't show it. But poor Brave seemed to be freezing. Her clothing was rather thin, and that bow wasn't really providing much headwarmth.

"Are you okay? We can stop to warm up if you want." I offered kindly.

"N-no… I-I-I'm o-okay!" Brave chittered. "I-I-I'm ju-just a l-little fr-frosty, no b-big deal."

"Your body is saying otherwise…" I commented. Brave looked like she was trying to both warm her body and do some kind of dance at the same time.

"I-I swear I'm f-fine!" she insisted. "But I d-do want t-to know w-why is the w-wind so st-strong here?"

And then I looked ahead.

"That might be why." I answered, my eyes growing wide.

We were walking very, very close to what I can safely say was the largest mountain I've ever seen in my life. I mean, that's probably not saying much, considering I've not really seen too many mountains in person, but still.

I knew for sure this one was pretty big by mountain standards, considering that the clouds around it didn't go past the peak. And, unless my eyes were playing games with me, there was even a little snowy path headed up towards the mountain.

The four of my friends all looked at me. I didn't realize it for a moment, but then I felt their stares and looked at them. "What?"

"Do… do you think the Prince is up there?" Susie asked.

Oh right. With all of the stuff going on between my Mii and Purple Guy, I almost completely forgot that we were still going to see the Prince to Greenhorne Castle.

I looked a bit more carefully at the path. On a second glance, it actually was a lot shorter than I thought. "Ah. No. I don't think so. Look, you guys see the path there? Drops off pretty quickly. Doubtful he's up there."

The other four noticed as well, and nodded along. "We should keep moving. Brave looks like she's about to turn into a popsicle." my Mii remarked.

Although Brave looked slightly affronted, she didn't object. She knew that there was no denying she was cold.

We swiftly moved on past the mountain, covering ground quite quickly. The chill of the mountain was soon left behind us.

We kept going, fighting a few more monsters along the way, until we had a bit of trouble with a few Nose Rocks.

Although one wasn't much trouble, those things had good AOE damage, and a large group, like the four in front of us, was really good chipping away at our HP.

Purple Guy were in the red, having only JUST survived an onslaught of attacks (direct AND non-direct). Brave had just munched on one of her HP Banana's, but Purple Guy already had his turn.

"I know you don't like him, bud… but you gotta help him!" I yelled, directing my Mii to give Purple Guy food.

My Mii looked a bit aggravated, but sighed, shrugged, and started making food. Though I could tell he was reluctant to do so.

"Dig in…" my Mii sighed, not looking at Purple Guy.

Purple Guy munched down on the meal, and although the food brought him out of the red, it definitely wasn't enough.

But, then…

I looked at my 3DS.

The line going from Purple Guy towards my Mii drained completely!

Purple Guy (the actual person) looked at my Mii, gave him a surprisingly gentle look, and then refocused on the battle.

While my friends continued their turns, I looked at the relationships of my friends. Now, instead of the two blue lines, it was only one line (from my Mii to Purple Guy), and Purple Guy now had his normal yellow friendship line.

'So… Purple Guy is cool now, but my Mii is still ticked off, I guess.' I reasoned to myself.

I returned to the battle again. Two Nose Rocks were left, and one was looking directly at my Mii, who was looking away at something else.

"Look out, kid!" Purple Guy shouted, once again concerned.

My Mii suddenly snapped back to the fight, and just barely managed to skirt around the rock before it slammed into him. "Thanks… I guess…" he managed, gratefulness shining through his lofty facade of contempt.

My Mii had one last bit of anger in him, I figured, before he would forgive Purple Guy. As everyone else defeated the rest of the Rocks, and while I was sucking them back into their world, I started scheming ways to get my Mii back on speaking terms with Purple Guy.

Me, Susie, and Brave all hung back as Purple Guy offered to scout ahead, leaving my Mii to think quietly to himself.

"Okay, so… Purple Guy has forgiven my Mii, as far as I can tell." I explained. "So now, all we have to do is get my Mii on the same level, and everything will be back to normal."

"Maybe we should rest for a bit." Susie offered. "Let those two talk things out a little. Now that Purple Guy is cooled, he might be able to talk some sense into Cameron…"

"Better than anything I can come up with." Brave agreed. "Anything I can think off always seems to require a live crowd and pyrotechnics."

"Let's not and say that we did." I decided. "Hey, guys!"

I called a break for all of us. "You guys did good. We're gonna rest here for a bit, get some grub in our systems and whatnot. Let's see what I got…"

I started passing out food we had collected. My Mii settled on a giant slab of Devil's Food Cake, which he ate with gusto. Susie decided on a glass of Banshee Tears, which she found okay, if a little strange. Brave risked a small Choc Rock, chewing away. She seemed to like it, if a little tough to eat. And Purple Guy tried a large sip of some Sharp Stew, but he didn't seem to care for it much.

"Ugh… you think something that smells this good would taste better…" Purple Guy complained slightly.

"Eh. Here, have a Butterfly Honey." I said nonchalantly, passing him a jar. "Can't win every food battle."

I settled on nibbling some Goblin Ham, looking at the map on my 3DS. We were making good progress. If we kept up this pace, we'd be at the end of the Arid Frontier soon enough, where the Prince was supposed to be waiting.

Everything seemed like it was all going according to plan.

So why did I suddenly feel… on edge?

I stood up and looked around. No monsters in sight…

"Cameron's look-alike?" Susie asked. "What's wrong?"

"I… don't quite know…" I admitted. "But… we're not alone. My gut is telling me something's off."

My Mii stood up as well. "I feel it too… something nearby. Not a monster, but…"

My friends and I all looked around. Was it just me, or was it suddenly getting quieter and quieter? I could still feel the breeze around me, as it had been ever since we arrived here, but… it was as though it was forgetting to whistle in my ears.

"Hey… does anyone else… see that?" Brave asked hesitantly.

I looked where she was pointing.

Less than fifty feet away was a tall, hooded figure, wearing a dark robe. Whoever the figure was, they looked like they had been there a while, but that was impossible. I had looked in that direction at LEAST five times over the last thirty seconds, and I hadn't seen them until now.

The figure, now that we were all staring at them, started moving our way.

My friends all kept a hand on their weapons, since this figure was unknown. Was it a friend, or foe?

Now the figure was within ten feet of us. My friends were all standing at this point, standing on either side of me.

When the figure was five feet away, they suddenly stopped.

And then, they spoke.

"Hello, Cameron."

That voice… that voice.

It sounded, well…

Familiar and totally new at the exact same time.

Regardless, I stared at the newcomer. "Who are you?"

"Who I am is irrelevant." the stranger responded. "What is important is that I've finally met with you, Cameron."

My Mii stepped forward. "Hey, how about you start explaining what you're talking about? Who are you and what do you want with my friend?"

The figure slowly turned to look directly at my Mii. "Ah, yes… the virtual version of the real deal. I knew I'd find you here, too…"

The figure slowly looked at all of us in turn. "So… this is the great party that plans to stop the Dark Lord, is it?"

Susie stepped forward as well. "Yes, it is. Why do you ask…?"

"Oh, no reason. A little birdy told me." the stranger responded, and even if I couldn't see his face, I could tell that he was grinning with some kind of inside joke.

"Well, I'll make this quick. You see, I have big plans in this world. Big, BIG plans. And, well, having Cameron around… it could prove to be problematic."

Purple Guy stood up defensively, holding his weapon in such a way to make sure that the stranger couldn't have missed it. "Is that a threat?"

"Oh no! No, no, no!" the stranger said, in a voice that did not line up with what he was saying. "I just want to make sure that Cameron knows who is in charge here, in this world."

Brave struck a defiant pose in front of me. "That sounds VERY MUCH like a threat. We don't take kindly to our friends being threatened around here."

"Oh, but I am a friend. One that Cameron has never known, but has always had around him." the stranger replied mysteriously.

The breeze suddenly started picking up a bit, making the strangers robe billow out a little bit in dramatic effect. "Cameron has never known me, and yet I have known him. I have played a large part in Cameron's life, and yet he knows me not."

"Cut to the chase, weirdo." my Mii interjected. "You're making no sense at all."

The stranger stared at me. "Very well. Then, allow me to get rid of this cumbersome cloak."

With a flourish, the cloak was thrown from the stranger, sailing away in the breeze.

The person underneath the cloak…

For a moment, my eyes couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. It was impossible, my brain was saying. This was impossible.

In front of me…

Was a shadow.

A shadowy, darkened clone.

Of myself.

Not of my Mii, no. This was literally the human me, if I was made out of nothing more than darkness.

The darkness was constantly shifting, although slowly, like syrup. Strange colors and patterns flashed on its body, head, it's clothes, and everywhere else.

The outfit was otherwise identical to mine. T-shirt, pants, shoes, he even had what looked like a 3DS made of darkness dangling from a cord attached to his waist.

But what really unsettled me, more than anything, was his face.

It was mine. But… not mine.

I would never twist my face into such an expression of distaste and loathing. I would never hold my mouth in that kind of sneer.

And I certainly would not have that hungry, mad look in my eyes.

My friends all backed away, and I heard them draw weapons, but I couldn't move an inch in any direction. It was like I was paralyzed.

"What the hell is this about?!" Purple Guy shouted.

"Simple." the clone responded, staring at me with his mad eyes. "I am Cameron. But I am not Cameron. I am everything that makes him, and I am nothing about him."

"...what?" my Mii asked, clearly confused.

"I am Cameron, but not Cameron. I am the worst of him. I am his anger. I am his loathing. I am every dark emotion that Cameron ever felt. I am his perfect copy, with all of his darkest thoughts, his darkest memories…"

The clone spread his arms and gave a smile with no joy.

"I am Noremac. I am Cameron's superior double. I am everything he does not wish to be."

The clone's, Noremac's, voice was suddenly magnified twice the normal volume. Everything about that voice filled me with a dread that I had never known.

And of course, what's the first thing that comes out of my mouth?

"Noremac? Isn't that just my name reversed?" I asked. An absolutely world-class question, I know.

Noremac growled under his breath. "Do not insult me. I am everything you once had, but am now more. I am all of your anger… your rage… your strength. You are nothing compared to me."

"Okay, hold it." my Mii called out, standing beside me, holding his arms in a 'time-out' motion. "What does that even mean? And… WHAT are you?"

"You already should know. Did you not see me being born, when that Dark Lord pulled me off of Cameron?" Noremac asked sarcastically, a fake expression of fondness on his face. "It was such a relief to finally have freedom from that prison of flesh! The prison that hid me, kept me away, didn't allow me to express myself enough. I finally have a body of my own, and am free to live how I SHOULD be."

"So… you're every negative thing that was once in Cameron's look-alike?" Susie asked, holding her staff very close to her.

"Yes… and no." Noremac purred, and he stared at me with animalistic glee. "I am his anger. His loathing. His darkness that once was a blemish on his weak soul. But I am not his fear. I am not his sadness. I am not any of those weak feelings he has. He can feel fear, he can feel sadness. I cannot."

"And you're telling us this… why?" Purple Guy replied, holding his dagger as though itching to throw it at Noremac's face.

"Why, because you can't defeat me, of course." Noremac replied, holding his hands up like this was obvious. "Sure, you may wound me. You can hold me off. You can still fight me. But you can never truly get rid of me, just like how you can never run away from your own shadow. So I see no reason to hide anything. If you cannot beat me, why not tell you what I am?"

Noremac stared at me viciously, with a cruel hunger. "But, I am feeling generous today. I will let you off with your first, and FINAL, warning: forego your pursuit of the Dark Lord Chara. I have many, many plans for this world once he is in control. If you refuse… well, we wouldn't want that 3DS there to get broken a few more times, now would we?"

Instinctively, I clutched my 3DS and held it tighter against me, dread growing again in my stomach. He… he knew about the consequences of the 3DS breaking.

"You've been warned." Noremac whispered, his threat hanging in the air like a chill.

And then he jumped off the Frontier.

Purple Guy raced past me, looking over the edge.

"Gone! He vanished!" he shouted.

We all joined him, glancing hesitantly over the edge. Sure enough, there was no sign of the dark copy. Even the fog below looked absolutely undisturbed by the copy jumping down.

I stepped backwards, hand to my chest, my mind still processing everything I had just heard. My friends slowly looked over at me, as my breathing started quickening.

"I-I-I… I-I…" I stammered. "Th-that… that was…"

"D-dude, dude… calm down, okay?" my Mii reasoned, holding his hands out and approaching me.

"What… what the hell was that…?" I asked desperately, quickly losing it.

*SLAP!*

I blinked. My cheek suddenly was hurting, as if-

"Calm down, kid!" Purple Guy pleaded, holding both of my shoulders. "It's okay. We don't need you of all people freaking out like this."

I blinked rapidly, feeling my fear and (to a lesser extent) my confusion drain away. After a few deep breaths, I was calm again.

"Okay… okay. I'm back." I voiced, bouncing on my feet a little. "S-sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry about. Anyone would've freaked out at that." Purple Guy reasoned, releasing my shoulders and sitting back down on one of our rocks.

Susie and Brave suddenly came on either side of me, with Susie nudging me in my ribs gently. "Look at Cameron…!"

My Mii was staring at Purple Guy's back with… was that an amazed expression?

He slowly approached Purple Guy, not even making a notion of having seen us. Once he was standing right next to Purple Guy, the two of them seemed to engage each other in quiet conversation.

Although the three of us couldn't hear it all that well, I had a gut feeling that this was a good thing. I already had my 3DS primed and ready, looking between it and the two men over there.

And then, I heard my Mii utter two very, very quiet words.

"I'm sorry…"

Purple Guy glanced up, offered him a slight grin, then held out a hand.

My Mii took it, and, all of a sudden, pulled Purple Guy up to him so that the purple thief was standing. Purple Guy was thrown off for a moment, until my Mii suddenly was embracing the thief like a brother.

"I guess Purple Guy calming me down had something of a positive effect on my Mii…" I murmured to the other girls, looking down at my 3DS just in time to see the last of the blue bar drain away, and to see the regular friendship bar appear instead.

Susie and Brave were both happy and relieved at this turn of events. "Oh, thank the Guardian those two finally made up… maybe the rest of the trip will go smoothly." Susie breathed, holding her chest.

"C'mon, let's go back over to them and get back on the trail, hey?" Brave asked, doing some kind of ballet dance over to the two men, who had both broken the hug (Purple Guy quite quickly, I might add), and were both now back to sitting down again.

Susie and I both headed back over, we rested for a moment, but there wasn't much talking. Despite the mood being lifted by my Mii and Purple Guy's fight ending, no one really felt like talking much. They were too focused on that other thing.

Noremac.

…

I wish I could say that I wasn't focused so deeply on it, but I was. If that… thing… was to be believed…

It was some kind of clone, that much was sure. But it wasn't just a mirror copy of me. Somehow, it was a completely separate being that once had been me.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, and then stood up. "Well… I think that's enough of a break. Let's keep going onward."

The others stood up with me, each of them shooting me a glance, as if they all wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words.

The five of us set off on our way. Thankfully, now that we were back on the trail, the mood considerably lightened a fair bit more. Conversations came and went, as our path slowly wound it's way further and further into the Frontier…

"Hold! Hold gentle sirs and good ladies!" a familiar voice called out. All of us turned around to see that one guard, Serious Soldier Obama, coming up towards us.

"Sir Cameron and friends, I hate to inform you of this, but you can't pass any further than here right now. The path this way leads towards the next land, Neksdor. The way between is closed due to the monsters. Terribly sorry."

"Wait, what?" I asked. "I thought we were heading for the Prince?"

"Maybe he got further in than we expected?" Brave asked.

"Let's double back and check another area." my Mii agreed.

We all nodded, and doubled back, this time headed down the south path of the Arid Frontier, with the hope of looping back around towards Greenhorne Castle should we find the Prince.

It didn't take us long before we found the first sign of non-monster life. A strange wooden wheel was lying on one of the many rock formations off to the side, and judging by the splinters near the axle, it had been broken off quite savagely.

"You don't think… the Prince is… well…" Susie started to ask.

"I doubt it… but keep your weapons ready, just in case." I intoned, keeping a close hand on my shield. The others nodded.

We continued on for a bit, the mood rather tense and expectant. We rounded one more corner, and-

"Stupid blithering idiots!" a familiar sounding loud voice yelled out, sounding angrier than the sun above.

The others were taken off guard, but my spirits were being raised. "I think we may have found him."

The others sheathed their weapons as we came upon a… huh. He was much shorter than I expected. Like… Purple Guy CROUCHES whenever he walks, and even THEN he towered over the Prince.

Currently, the Prince was appearing to stamp his foot impatiently and seemed rather peeved. But then he must've heard us approaching, and he suddenly looked up, hummed, and then spun on his heel angrily.

Just like I had predicted, it was none other than Jack (or Sean, whatever you prefer, personally I'll stick with Jack), standing before us. Also, I'm kind of a sucker for nostalgia, so what hair we could see beneath the massive puffy hat Jack wore was a bright, vivid green (I know, it's dumb, but I loved when Jack had his green hair). He was also a fair bit pudgy, or maybe that was just a combo of the clothing he was wearing, consisting of a gold-ish yellow jacket-type garment and brown pants, and the fact that, again, he was rather short. Perhaps that's why he wore such a striking orange-red feather in his hat: it stuck straight up quite beautifully and regally.

"Uh… hi." I greeted, stepping forward and bowing respectfully towards Prince Jack. "You must be Prince Jack, yes?"

"About time you imbeciles showed up!" Jack shouted, stamping his foot harder. He looked right ticked off.

I hesitated. "I'm… sorry?"

"You and your group took FAR too long to get here! What on earth were you even doing?!" Jack yelled, something that, were it not for his rather funny Irish accent that even his Mii had, would've offended me greatly.

"We… kinda got lost… a bit." I offered, trying a sympathetic smile.

Jack didn't seem to care. "Whatever. Take me to Greenhorne Castle already, and make it snappy!"

My friends had been quite surprised to hear the Prince speak like that, and having just rudely been given a command as though we were servants… it definitely left a bad taste in all of our mouths.

"We have to escort HIM?" Purple Guy mouthed as Jack gathered what little stuff he had scattered about.

"He's… not very nice…" Susie murmured.

"All the same, we made a promise to the King to take him to the Castle. We can't break that trust." my Mii reasoned.

The others offered no counter-arguments, so once Jack was squared away, we all sauntered off.

Of course, it took about five minutes before Jack got bored and started regaling us with his 'heroic deeds'. Apparently, he had been doing a lot of things ever since he had become Prince of the neighboring kingdom. Almost all of his tales all seemed to start with some distressed local running to him with barely anything to their name, and the brave Prince heroically saving the local from whatever threat they had spoken of. There were thieves (Purple Guy did not like that story much), a band of musicians who had been playing bad music for three days straight (Brave shuddered at the conclusion of that story), an elderly cleric who could barely stand on his feet, let alone stop the Prince (Susie was looking uncharacteristically ticked after hearing that one), and even a story about a young chef who intentionally poisoned the Prince's meal, who would've gotten away had the Prince not had a stomach of pure iron (My Mii… well, I'm sure you can guess how he felt about that story.)

All and all, the Prince kept going on and on about his deeds. Finally, I had enough. "So… if you're so brave and strong and stuff… why were you standing out in the middle of literally nowhere?"

"It wasn't by choice, lemme tell you that." Jack responded huffily. "There we were, riding in the carriage over, when all of a sudden, a monster attacked! Obviously, it must've known I was inside, and wanted to take me out before I had the chance."

"So that must've been what the wheel we saw was…" I responded. "So, why were you the only one there? The monsters didn't-"

"Of course not. I made a valiant attempt at vanquishing the brute!" Prince Jack recounted. "But, my pathetic servants couldn't handle it. They all ran for the hills, probably back to Neksdor. Bah! They left me no choice but to flee."

I nodded along, quite keen to get the story over with. But, just before I was about to tune out everything completely-

"KAWWW!"

"Aiiieeeee!"

A great brown streak came soaring from the sky, circling the six of us once before crashing to a landing directly ahead of us, blocking our path forward.

It was a strange, bird-like creature, though far bigger than any blue jay or cardinal I'd ever seen. It kinda looked more fuzzy than feathery, save of course for the wings on the creature's back. A long, thin tail trailed behind, gently flicking away similarly to a horse. The creature had a large, eagle-like beak, and a pair of dark, beady black eyes. Having just landed, the creature's wings were folded against it's back, but then it turned and paid full attention to us, and spread its wings proudly. On the inside of the wings were a pair of Mii eyes, duplicated three times, all staring directly at us.

"I don't' suppose this is the beast that attacked you?" I asked, as my friends all drew weapons once more.

Jack was frozen in place, staring at the monster, his expression haughty. He may have looked tough, but his body language suggested that he would run the minute everything turned sideways.

I rolled my eyes. I, of course, knew the Prince had to be full of crock. "Whatever. C'mon guys, let's get this sucker."

And thus, we were thrust into a battle. With a Griffin, as my 3DS told me. The creature beat its massive wings, and started flapping over to us.

Purple Guy quickly laid down a Booby Trap while Susie covered him, attracting the monster's attention with a quick slap of her staff. My Mii, per my direction, sent a flaming hot Flambé into the Griffin's face.

But before Brave could follow up with her mic, the Griffin glided up and thrust it's face at Susie, taking out more than half of Susie's HP in one strike.

My eyes widened. Even considering Susie wasn't exactly the strongest physically, that attack was INSANE. 'This could be bad…' I thought, as the Griffin quickly leapt back, and flew after my Mii, who successfully avoided it thanks to Brave.

"Okay, now we can-" I started to say, before suddenly the Griffin wailed again, and charged at Purple Guy. Had Purple Guy not set up that booby trap in his first turn, Purple Guy would've totally been taken off guard and taken a lot of damage. As it was, the Griffin didn't really take much damage from the trap anyway.

"WHAT?! Three attack turns?! C'mon, that's totally unbalanced!" I complained, slapping my forehead. This fight was getting harder and harder the more I watched.

"Keep calm, Cameron's look-alike!" Brave shouted, striking another pose.

A sound from my 3DS told me Brave was using a new skill. I looked down just in time to see the words, "Love Song!," appear.

The peppy Pop Star jumped forward, standing in front of all of us. "Love you all!" Brave happily yelled, with literal pink hearts appearing and coming towards all of us.

My friends all had literal hearts in their eyes as they watched Brave. Even I felt like my friendship with Brave had suddenly improved.

And then I looked at my friends relationship chart again, and suddenly saw that Brave's relationship really HAD improved with everyone. Suddenly, Brave had a relationship level of six with all three others, which I realized was also what my Mii and Susie had. From what I could gather, Brave essentially now had the same relationship level that my Mii and Susie had with everyone, without doing any of the work to do so.

"Well, that's quite convenient!" I called out, seeing Brave sheepishly rub her neck as she returned to her spot.

The Prince, suddenly, was moving. I noticed that he had moved over to stand on the left side of my friends, over by Purple Guy, ever since we started our battle. He stood rather cooly, looking at the Griffin with a look of feigned annoyance (because I could still tell that he was ready to run the moment things turned south).

"Looks like it's my turn, then!" Prince Jack yelled haughty, cocking his head back in mock confidence.

I waited a second, but Jack stayed still. "Well? You gonna do something?"

"I did! I taunted the beast, but he clearly doesn't have the nerve to attack me!" Jack yelled back.

I stared at him in an 'are you actually serious right now' way. "Wow… that's… wow… insolent little punk…"

I shook my head, my friends continuing back to the fight. Since they now knew Jack was going to be pretty much useless, there was no use in waiting.

Purple Guy threw his knife again and Susie healed herself. But before I could direct my Mii to attack again, the Griffin started moving again. It attacked twice, aiming for my Mii and for Purple Guy yet again, but for it's third attack, it instead looked at me.

Fearing that it was about to strike me with it's beak or it's wings, I raised my shield in defense, but instead, the Griffin let out a monsterous caw. It's wings extended out almost twice the size they had been before, as if it was only now showing me just how big and scary it could be. Even the Mii eyes that were plastered onto the thing turned angry and filled with rage.

And as the eyes bored into me, and the size of the thing fully registered, I… I started growing terrified. This thing was a REAL threat to us. Like, the first enemy that made me feel… scared.

Unconsciously, I felt my knees turning to jelly. I was holding onto my 3DS rather tightly, and trying my best to not appear like I was about to break completely down into fear.

"Cameron's look-alike! You okay?!" Brave asked.

All I could manage was a feeble blubbering sound as I shook in place. The Griffin went back, having finished terrifying me.

My Mii glanced over, but when it was clear I wasn't going to be of any help, he instead targeted the Griffin himself and attacked. I didn't really care: I was too busy in my own head, after all.

Purple Guy set up his Booby Trap again, calling out, "Hang in there, kid! You'll be fine!"

Susie agreed, healing Purple Guy, but before my Mii could move again, this time the Griffin stared at Purple Guy. It roared and flared its wings up again, but through my squinted eyes… were the Mii eyes on its wings full of tears?

Regardless, Purple Guy started silently blubbering to himself, trying (and failing) to hold the tears back.

Brave just barely dodged another attack, as did Susie (my Mii was really throwing out caution signals thanks to those friend levels), allowing her to screech into her mic with more Out of Tune medley. After yet another completely worthless attempt at confident trash-talking from Jack, Purple Guy tried to throw his dagger through his tears, but the blade whizzed just over the mighty creature.

"We'll never win with these two out of the fight!" my Mii groaned, trying to console me and calm me down (to little avail).

"Leave it to me." Susie warned, holding her staff up high.

I suddenly noticed my 3DS was telling me Susie was using a new move, "Calm!".

"Calm…" she hummed, twirling her staff around, surrounding the whole party with a strange, warm feeling.

And suddenly, my fear drained away in a flash. Purple Guy's tears also cleared up. I felt confident again!

"That's more like it!" Brave cheered as I quickly looked through my options again for attacks. I directed my Mii to Flambé the mighty Griffin, seeing as how no one needed healing at the moment.

The fight continued on for at least another couple minutes. The Griffin was a monstrous opponent, spamming it's moves to try and stun us while dealing consistently high damage overall. I'm fairly certain that if we hadn't had two healers on the team, we would've been toast, since I didn't have nearly enough Sprinkles to keep everyone standing against that.

Even so, against those odds, the Griffin was slowly being worn down. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon…" I pleaded under my breath.

Despite clearly weak (by now the Griffin's wings were drooping, and it's eyes were unfocused), the monster still managed to put up a tremendous fight, but finally, after one last attack from the entire party, the Griffin finally gave one last shriek, and then collapsed.

Thankfully, since it technically was more of a mini boss than an actual boss, I was able to return it to my system without too much more trouble than normal. My friends all were standing proud before me-

Suddenly Jack came running up around them, standing nearby where I was. He struck a heroic pose and, quite haughtily, said, "The battle was hard-fought, but it was clearly my expert swordsmanship that pulled us through."

My friends and I were shocked, and it didn't take them very long for them to all start stamping their feet while glaring at Jack, while I responded indignantly, "Hold up, you didn't do ANYTHING! All you did was stand by and watch!"

"Nonsense, my naive giant!" Jack denied haughtily. "For if I had not been there, that great creature would have easily slaughtered you all! I kept him at bay with my gleaming blade and my sharpened wit!"

I couldn't believe someone could be THIS arrogant. Up until that monster had been defeated, he had been in a state of almost petrification. "Why you little-!" I started to complain.

"Aha! I see the castle just over there!" Prince Jack responded, ignoring me and my friends, who all looked very angry (even Susie, and she's NOT the type to get angry easily). "Princess Paige! Your handsome and talented husband will soon be by your radiant side!"

He ran off ahead, leaving my friends to simply hang their heads the way you do when you are in disbelief.

"THAT'S the husband of the princess?" I asked quietly as we all continued on the way.

"He's so obnoxious." my Mii agreed.

"I don't like him very much." Susie added in.

"He didn't even attempt to say that we did good! He thinks he did it all himself!" Brave complained.

"There's a special place for people like him…" Purple Guy murmured, his hand a bit too tightly wrapped around his dagger.

"Well, whatever… we're almost at the castle. Let's just get there quickly…" I instructed aloud. The others all nodded, and we quickly ran to catch up with the cocky prince…

It took a little longer to get there, but thankfully the Prince did NOT regale us with more of his tales of valor. Perhaps he realized that we weren't buying them anymore, or perhaps even HE knew to not push buttons that weren't labeled.

Either way, we finally got to the castle. Prince Jack quickly dashed off, saying aloud something about going to 'freshen up' for the Princess.

'God, maybe it wasn't the best idea to have Jack play that role… he's something of a nuisance.' I spoke to myself as we entered the King's room again.

King Dad greeted us warmly as we entered. "So, I take it Prince…?"

"He's off in the facilities right now, but we got him here, safe and sound." I replied.

"Regrettably…" Purple Guy whispered behind me.

The King didn't seem to hear the slight remark. "Excellent. You've helped us again, it would seem. Only fitting that you are rewarded, then."

The King tossed me another sack of gold, which I caught, grunting at the weight. I was feeling pretty happy now that we were starting to build our coin count back up again.

"Oh, would you go please see the Princess?" the King asked. "Let her know her groom-to-be is here, would you?"

We nodded and headed for the door to the Princess's room. "Should we… y'know, tell the King that the Prince is not a good fit for his daughter?" Susie asked gently.

"Probably not… royalty are fickle." Brave reasoned. "If you try, he might assume that you are trying call his judgement into question, which is never a good idea."

The others all seemed to agree as we entered the room. The Princess was already here, as was someone else. I assumed that it was a guard of some kind, so we all kept going and started to say hi, when suddenly…

"Ehehehe… I managed to sneak in here." a familiar voice sheepishly replied.

My eyes widened. "Mark…?"

The beserchied noble's son was there, rubbing his neck while smiling at the Princess. Princess Paige herself looked quite pleased that Mark was there. The two of them looked… happy together. Like they really liked each other.

"Princess Paige!" an all-too familiar Irish accented voice called out, coming from the door we all just came in from. "It is I, you beloved Prince Jack, ready to-"

For a moment, no one said anything. Jack noticed the two of them, letting out a gasp of surprise. This led to Mark and Paige both noticing that Jack was there, eliciting gasps of surprise themselves.

Then, Prince Jack started shaking rather violently. "You… you DOG!"

He quickly ran forward and punted Mark out of the way, shouting, "Who are you, and what are you doing to the Princess?! Get away from her!"

"Oh no…" my Mii mumbled.

"And… who are you supposed to be…?" Mark asked, from the ground.

"Oh dear…" Susie added.

"Oh, no one special!" Jack replied sarcastically. "Only the Princess's FIANCE!"

"Oh my…" Brave agreed.

"P-Princess Paige can't get married to a wimpy loser like you!" Mark replied, doing his best to stand up and look angry. "I-I won't allow it!"

"Oh boy…" Purple Guy sighed.

"Look me in the eye and say that!" Prince Jack growled, stamping his foot in anger.

"Grrrrr!" Mark growled back.

Sparks started flying from Mark and Jack's eyes, and the room almost literally became engulfed in the fires of their rage.

"This will NOT end well…" I muttered, seeing Princess Paige's face.

"Please, stop…" the Princess whispered, before running forward and getting between the two men. "Stop it, you two!"

Just then, the King came through the door quite rapidly, looking shocked and perturbed by all the noise. "What on earth is going on here?!" he bellowed.

Despite that, the suitor's for the Princess were NOT going to back down anytime soon. Each one continued to glare at the other, while Princess Paige backed away and looked on in sadness. "What am I going to do…?" she desperately asked me.

"Just… stay here, and keep them as calm as you can." I asked. "We'll go see you dad about this, okay?"

Paige nodded, still clearly worried. "O-okay… please don't take long…" she begged.

The five of us quickly returned to the King, who had retreated to his chamber again. "Those three are in quite a state… luckily, I think I have an idea. Deep in the Wayward Woods, there's a calming fruit that can quell any argument. There should still be a plant somewhere in those woods. Please, can you go fetch us just one fruit?"

"Yessir." my Mii agreed, bowing. "Anything to get them to calm down."

"I would greatly appreciate it." the King said with a nod. "Ah, before you go…"

The King quickly tossed me a slightly smaller bag of gold, which I caught in surprise. "Look at that as prepayment. For your quick work. Oh, and there should be an equipment shop nearby, if you wanted to stock up before you left."

We graciously thanked the King for his generosity, and excused ourselves.

And even as we did so, we could still hear the rage of the two men fighting over the Princess…

Yeah, this can only go well.

Well now, I hope that this chapter was (maybe) worth the wait? I realize that it did take a good long while to get out, but I just really wanted to focus on making sure everything worked how I wanted it to.

Oh, and just a quick thing, no, the Noremac that I have introduced into this story is NOT the same Noremac that I recently announced my partnership with. It's something that I came up with LONG before that ever happened, and it just was coincidence.

And yes, I do plan to have more in store with Noremac now being in the picture. Because what story doesn't have a good twist to it?

As always, if you guys enjoyed the chapter, please let me know, and PM me if you have any questions. Until next time, my lovely readers, I hope that all of you will…

Stay awesome! =D