IN DEEP MIRE

The parking lot in the basement was not any better when Nami and her friends arrived there. Although there were no sign of beasts in here, debris can be seen everywhere in the confines of the area, and most of the cars that were parked in there were crushed by these falling debris. Nami attempted to find her car, dearly hoping that it would still be in pristine condition.

To her relief, her car was, at its place, still unharmed. As they approached it, Nami fumbled through her pocket and, much to her dismay, realised that she had forgotten her keys whilst scrambling to get out of the apartment block. 'And going back is not really an option now, is it?' Luminous asked, to which Nami shook her head.

'I guess this calls for the good ol' method of starting a car.' Checky raised an arm at the door to the driver's seat as he resumed, 'Sorry, desperate times call for desperate measures.'

Nami, suddenly realising what Checky was about to do, yelled, 'WAIT! I'm still…'

Checky smashed the window of the door, breaking it to many pieces.

'...paying the loan….' Nami blurted out what remained of her sentence.

Checky crouched down below the dashboard and, after some tinkering, pulled out two open wires. He connected the two wires, which sparkled and sizzled. With three or so attempts, the car managed to start up.

'I think it's best I drive, Nami,' Checky said as he reinserted the wires and got up, and, seeing the half-uncertain, half-annoyed look on Nami's face, tried to reassure her, 'I'll pay your loan.'

'Yeah, as if you will,' thought Nami, while they got on.

To their luck, there was little to no resistance while Checky attempted to find his way out of the parking lot among the mess. However, as they got to the exit, they found that it had been completely blocked by fallen debris. Although there were gaps that could fit an ordinary human, there were none that could fit something as big as a car. After declaring that there were no other ways to get out of the place they were in, Checky got out of the car to examine the mess, followed by the other three.

'How far is it from here to NTU?' asked Checky.

'A thirty-minute drive,' Nami replied - to Checky's disappointment - as she tried to get through the gaps among the debris outside, and the others followed. She surveyed the outside world, taking in a breath of fresh air. The alleyway they were in was completely deserted, but there were obvious wreckages here and there, as if the town they were in had been war-torn. Above their heads the flying mutants soared and circled around in the sky, with an occasional screech from them.

'We have no choice but to walk there,' announced Checky.

Though by no means concurring with Checky, the four of them started to walk towards the main street, but as they came there, Checky motioned for them to stop, before gesturing for them to hide behind the corner of a building. They peered over and looked at what lay ahead of them. In a distance were Lotus and Orchid, along with some beefy minions that, albeit with some difference, looked quite like her usual chief rabbit minions that had always accompanied Orchid. Lotus seemed to be issuing orders to some of these minions, with Orchid by his side. A few moments later, the minions headed off, while Lotus and Orchid left too with some other minions in another direction. As they went off, Orchid promptly turned around, looking straight in Nami's direction, her eyes slightly gleaming, causing them to duck behind the corner to avert her gaze. She turned back and went away, and moments later, several beasts filled the main street and started to patrol there.

'This will be an awfully long walk,' remarked Nami.

'Anything useful that you could conjure up would be….. useful, now,' Checky had had high hopes on her.

Nami tried, but failed. She was thinking that a time warp straight to their destination would be most timely, but she could not cause a time warp to happen.

'We have to figure this out,' said Checky.

'Indeed, Captain Obvious,' mused Phantom.

They walked back towards the caved-in entrance of the car park, which Nami studied for a while. Soon, she thought of something and summoned her three guests. 'Hey guys, I think I got a plan….'

Checky squeezed through the little slit between the debris covering up the car park entrance, got into Nami's car and started it. Nami took a deep breath and, at the cue of the humming engine from within, reached out a hand.

'I hope this works….' she thought to herself, and sure enough, as if time was being rewound, the pile of debris started to stir and moments later, darted upwards from where they piled up, and started reforming themselves into the structure of the car park entrance. When they stopped, the entrance seemed like there had been no destruction at all.

'Quick!' Nami called out, motioning for Checky to drive out of the car park. He did so, and after Nami and the others got into the car, drove towards the path branching out from the alleyway they were in. Moments later, they heard a loud rumble from where the entrance was. They looked back to see that the car park entrance was, yet again, caved in. At this cue, Checky drove along this path and out onto the main street, where hardly any beast remained - they had heard the loud rumble from the crumbling of the entrance and had all gone there to investigate.

Relieved at the absence of minions, Nami started directing Checky towards NTU. She picked the small roads that cars usually would hardly go through, for a considerable amount of beasts still patrolled the main routes, though they were oblivious towards the four's presence in their vicinity. Nami marvelled at how fast it took for the whole of Singapore to transform into a ghost city - they could see no people alive on their way.

Out of the blue, Phantom started speaking, 'Hey Checky, I wanna ask you a question.'

'Yeah?'

'It's…. about this bear head of yours. You know how much I wanted to get a glimpse of what's hidden under this cute mascot, and so I sought to steal it away from you so that I could possibly get a good look at your… awesome face. Well, conveniently enough I didn't have to - you took it off yourself. But still, with one question answered brings another one, or should I say a few more questions.'

To that Checky did not respond, but he cocked his ears.

'It would seem like this is not your first time in this world, yes?'

'Well of course, I mean we've already been here for a day or two.'

'You know what I mean, Checky.'

Silence.

'And this bear head of yours is most curious to me…..' Phantom touched the bear head that was on Checky's head and a few moments later, it transformed into a card that seemed like it was a part of Phantom's deck, resting atop his head. Phantom went and picked the card from Checky's head.

'Hey! Give it back now! How do you know it's able to transform?'

'Oh, let's just say that I overheard your conversation with Nami a night ago.'

Checky fell silent, while Nami urged Phantom to return it to Checky. However, Phantom did not heed and proceeded to read the card on his hand.

'Ahh, interesting. A picture of a bear mascot - first time I have seen amongst this deck. Oh, doesn't this look like your usual self, Checky. A bear mascot…. not quite in my books but as I can tell, you are hiding something from me. Now, just what is the relationship between this' - Phantom waved the card in the air - 'and this world we're in now?'

'Phantom, this is to be kept a secret. Now give it back,' Checky began to grow impatient.

'And you know exactly my job is to steal secrets, right? I will hold on to this until I get what I want.'

'Alright, alright. Yes, I had been to this world before. And yes, Nami was kind enough to take me in. There, you happy now?'

'Not so fast, cutey bear. I got wind that this thing in my hand now is not so much a common thing even in the Maple World, right?'

'Oh, Phantom, the only thing this thing is good at is shapeshifting. Can you now return it to him, for my sake? He really needs his bear head back,' Nami started to chip in.

'Not until this last question: Checky, what is the deal with your dream?'

Silence.

'If it can help us get back to the Maple World, I will gladly keep your secret.'

After another silence, Checky finally spoke, 'It was Rhinne. She spoke of designated places to be if we were to cross worlds, but beyond that there is nothing else I know of, and all I know was that I came here through Time Temple, and that I forgot where I went to return. I guess Nami could see that now, that we have to go somewhere in this world to be able to return.'

'...good enough,' Phantom decided from Checky's cryptic and - to him - nonsensical reply that he would not sate his curiosity, but he got what he came for anyway. 'You know, you can have this back. A bland object is not a good treasure to steal,' he said as he tapped the card onto Checky's head, which turned instantly into a bear head encasing his head again.

'We need to get off here,' Checky said, noting the heightened security of Lotus's and Orchid's minions within the campus of his alma mater. Driving straight in could cause unwanted attention and land them into trouble. As they got on to the NTU campus, they noticed that certain building blocks were desecrated, while some others remained intact.

'School of engineering….. School of engineering…' muttered Checky as he tried to find his bearings. The others, not knowing what he was up to, could only follow him.

'What is it now, Checky?' asked Nami.

'I need to get there… if there's anything we can use to get us outta here, it's gotta be there.'

Mindful of the patrolling units in there, they kept low and tried to evade the beasts as much as possible. While doing so, Checky tried to recall the way to his destination.

'There are so many of them here!' said Nami anxiously.

'I have a feeling they know where we are going,' said Luminous.

They went from block to block, ever cautious of where there were heading, until at last Checky said, 'This is it! See there?' he said, pointing towards a building in the distance, which was still relatively unharmed, 'That's the building where the school of engineering is.'

However optimistic he might have sounded, this optimism was quickly diminished by the sheer number of beasts that were there, which greatly outnumbered those that they saw along the way here, or even at the apartment block. Checky, however, seemed to have a plan.

'We need to get into this one, then we can use the interlinking bridge to get there,' said he as he motioned for the other three to enter the building right next to them. True enough, few monsters were within that building, and they were able to avert their gaze. As they got to the bridge that Checky mentioned, they saw that a bird-beast was in the way, back-facing them.

'The other way's too far from here. We'll have to put him down,' said Checky. As they were trying to quietly approach the bird-beast, it suddenly flapped its wings, and flew off the bridge, crowing loudly away.

'What was that?' asked Nami. However, her question was soon answered as she heard the rising screeching and furious roaring around them. A loud series of thumping could be heard approaching closer and closer to them, as if a virtual thunderstorm was on its way.

'Run!' yelled Checky, and everything was thrown into chaos. They started running as soon as they heard the emergent state in which Checky yelled. It was then that they realised that the horde of beasts that were patrolling the campus were all on to them.

They managed to get indoors when a few beasts caught on to them, halting them.

'Something up your sleeve, girl?' asked Phantom.

Nami focused hard on a time-stopping spell, but it wouldn't work no matter how hard she focused. Finally, when something did come of it, all it did was to slow time down, except the four of them. Not the kind that she had expected, but at least the beasts were now slow enough that even as beasts pounced and claws swung, they were able to evade their grasp. They deemed this sufficient and continued to hurry their way.

The spell did not last, though, as time around them seemed to gradually resume its normal pace. The beasts in pursuit of them started to catch up, and they started to use their weapons to fend them off. At last, when they finally made room for themselves, Checky opened a large door, bade for them to enter, and closed it. They found themselves in a large auditorium, and, after confirming that they were no longer being pursued at the moment, collapsed to take a breather.

'I never thought it could be….. exhausting to run in this world….' Phantom said as he panted for air.

'Where are we now?' asked Luminous.

As Checky studied this place, saying, 'This is an auditorium, of….. This is it! We're at the school of engineering.'

'So now, what are we here for again?' asked Phantom.

'There should be a storage where all the raw materials and tools were stored, if we can get there, I could make some things that could get us out of this situation.'

'Where then is it?'

Checky walked to the side of the auditorium, looked out of the window on one of the side doors before pointing outwards and motioning for the others to come to him.

'Just right there. If we can just make it across without alerting them…..'

Just then, a minion walked right past the door, and turned its head towards the window, prompting them to duck behind cover. The minion looked towards their direction for a while before walking away from the door.

Suddenly, Nami seemed to be aware of something, and alerted the others.

'We need to go out from the top, now! They're coming!'

While others were still taking in her words, she already sped to the top of the auditorium, and within a few seconds the doors at the bottom swung open, with a few beasts busting in. Wasting no time, the remaining three followed Nami out of the auditorium.

They tried escaping to a place with as few beasts as possible, but to no avail - the minions were closing in on them, and before long the four of them found themselves cornered.

In a minute, they were surrounded by a horde of beasts while some beefy rabbit minions burst out to seize the four of them, restricting their movements with an iron grip and robbing them of whatever freedom they had. All the while the beasts trampled around and howled and cackled, as if they were all bloodthirsty, as a tiger minion came out and approached Nami, ready to claw her to death first.

'Hold!' someone commanded, and the beasts around them stopped what they were about to do. The four recognised this voice to be one of Lotus's. Sure enough, from the horde of beasts surrounding them came Lotus and his sister, in their commander uniforms.

'Well well well, what do we have here?' Orchid teasingly asked as she came close to study her captives. She looked from face to face at each of the four, and stopped before Nami.

'Well aren't you an interesting one,' she said coldly. Nami tried to conjure something to relieve them of this situation but she could not seem to summon her powers at that moment. In a distance, she saw Lotus holding out a hand, power brewing within it.

'No you don't! I'm not letting my sister die in front of me again,' Lotus angrily bellowed.

'You're the one he seeks, clearly,' Orchid said after studying Nami a little more.

Lotus was about to direct an attack towards them when Orchid gripped onto his arm and told him not to. 'Not yet, Lotus dear,' she said.

'You never thought today would be one of your weakest moments did you?' mocked Orchid.

'Ehh, whatever. One of these days I will kill Lotus and make you suffer what I had to endure again. I killed him once, and I can do that again,' Phantom goaded.

'Oh can you now?' Lotus said as a bolt of energy from himself struck Phantom making him wince in pain. He was preparing to strike him again until he was stopped by Orchid. 'We'll save it for later, won't we, brother dearest?'

Lotus stopped, sighed, and replied, 'Yes Orchid, of course we will.'

'Now whatever shall we do to you, now that we got you here, hmm…' Orchid trailed off.

'H-how do you know we're trying to get here?' Checky felt like he had to ask.

'Oh, we know where you are going. We know where you need to go to set things to right. I take delight in watching you pathetic human beings shrivel in pain as my minions slowly torture you to death, and you best think I would do it.'

Checky took a gulp at this prospect, yet she continued, 'But it would be too easy for us, plus to do so would be to go contrary to his plans right now, so you know what, Lotus and I are actually going to leave you here to your sorry asses, and carry out further actions to fulfill his wish. Go on. Just go to where you wanna go. Lotus and I will be waiting for you… along with many others,' Orchid turned towards Nami and whispered, 'and we look forward to what you can do.'

With that, Orchid dismissed his minions which released the four of them, and bade Lotus go. Lotus, however, approached Phantom so closely until their faces were just inches apart.

'You're lucky Orchid told me not to kill you straight away. I would if I could; my heart has been aching for revenge all these years. You don't understand how painful it was to go through what Gelimer had for me, and you best bet I'll do the same to you!'

'We will see about that,' replied Phantom with a smirk of confidence.

Lotus scowled at him for a while before turning away to his sister. 'Let's go, Orchid,' he said, before both of them vanished before their eyes.

'His plan?' Nami questioned.

'Must be the Black Mage, no others,' Luminous quickly dismissed her doubt.

'No, something's odd here. There's someone else apart from him, and he is definitely the one behind their operations now. I don't think it's him. I can feel it,' Nami quickly clarified.

'Well, all's well, at least we're all still alive. Let's go to the storage now,' Checky called to them.

A/N: Back I am again! :D

So, after a slew of events that just happened to the game itself, plus 'real-life commitments', I was surprised to even be able to find time to write again, for I thought it would be a longer time till this chapter gets to be released. But anyway, yay me I guess.

You might have noticed that my focus in the recent few chapters seemed to be focused specifically on Nami & Co. In my defence, I had to keep the plot moving and after some thoughts, I decided that by shifting the focus to them it would be easier to describe the chain of events that happened to them along the way, as compared to Soro and Ruriko. Now don't get me wrong, these two are also on the move, but I figured that Nami's scene would be more eventful than the other two.

Apart from that, I felt that Tear's scene is also equally important. I'd had plans to focus on Nami's and Tear's scenes, in that I want to use Nami as a representative to describe the three people's move to Korea, and, at the same time, to describe what happens to Tear, who as you have noticed is already in the correct location, in the meantime.

Now shifting the focus to Nami makes things easier, in that Singapore, being a small country, is a better place on which to make Nami's journey more eventful without unnecessarily dragging this part of the story too much. However, some challenges I faced include reflecting the characters of the three people already in-game, as well as thinking how the four would confront Lotus and Orchid. Now here I want you readers to bear with me, because I know for those of you who've actually followed the canon, Lotus and Orchid would be portrayed as rather pitiful characters and hence you people may actually sympathise with them. But here I hope that you'd take this lens off your eyes and portray those two as wicked people again, although I concede that I would still highlight the special and indestructible bond between the twin spirits.