There went the ringing in the phone. The annoying, low noise that droned on and had the side-effect of making you antsy in your anticipation. Ninten was no exception to this. Nearly trembling in his excitement and impatience, he was relieved when it stopped and a voice was heard on the other side.

"Excuse me, who is this?"

Ninten instinctively jumped back a bit in his surprise. He didn't quite remember Loid's voice being anything at all similar to this! It was certainly more... deep at least. There was something in their voice that made him think it was a refined yet rough-edged sound. He quickly picked his senses back up and responded:

"This is Ninten."

"You mean the little boy with the baseball cap turned from far back when?"

"Yeah... Hey, is this Loid?"

There was a hearty laugh on the other side of the line before he had gotten an answer.

"No, no. I'm Loid's father."

"Th-Then can I speak to him? Quickly?"

"I'm afraid not," the man stated with his tone turning quickly grim. Ninten felt the color of his face run and he let out a short-lived and quiet gasp. He grabbed a firm grasp on the table and the handset, making a rattling noise out of the table with its multiple pans and utensils inside shifted about.

"Why not?!" Ninten cried. This was not what he was expecting at all for his plans.

"He's... away. He got transferred to a boarding school over in Foggyland a couple years back."

"Foggyland?!"

"Yes. If you want to know more, kiddo, he's in Winters. Snow Wood Boarding School. I have their number somewhere around the house with his stuff, but I think you're better off looking for their number elsewhere in a book or something. It might be a little trouble, but if you really need to talk to him, that's the only way."

And for once that phrase was true. He had never step foot in a foreign country, and especially not in a boarding school's area. He quickly added in a thank you and was about to hang up before he heard the other start up again.

"Hey, before you go I wanted to just say thanks for taking the trouble to talk with my kid. I'm sure he appreciates it as much as I do."

"Of course! See you, Sir!"

Ninten slammed the handset back onto the phone and placed his hat on his head. A irritated 'tch tch tch' came from his mother as he rushed to find the yellow book containing any number imaginable. He didn't think he'd have much luck, but it was always worth a try. Taking the book, he dropped it with a great big 'thump!' onto the kitchen table before beginning to flip through it. His eyes scanned the small lines of text as his fingers quickly flipped through. At last, he was able to find just what he needed. Getting a pair of scissors out from the kitchen cabinet, his mother had scolded him multiple times throughout for darting around the room with such haste and disregard to safety.

By the time Ninten was at the phone once more, the book was left at the table with a giant square of paper cut out and little snippets and remains of it scattered nearby it as Ninten held a sloppily cut line with the exact number he needed as he began to dial. Awkwardly holding the handset in the same hand he was dialing, he was once more shaking with the same energy he had had when he went to his first baseball game as a young child. Keeping the handset close to his ear and mouth when he had finished, he waited and waited.

'Please work, please work, please work...'

"Ah, hello. You have called the Snow Wood Boarding House. How may I be of assistance?"

"D-Do you have a Loid there? L-O-I-D, I mean."

"Do you not have a last name available, sir?"

"No, I don't..."

"May I ask who is calling then?"

"A.. A friend. Yeah, I've been his bud for a while. My name is Ninten."

"Let me look in our records, though you may be waiting a while. I do apologize for the inconvenience, but it's the best I can do with what limited information you were able to provide."

Ninten stood there, his fingers tapping at the desk while the piece of paper was scrunched up between his fingers. He really should have asked for Loid's name back then. What a big idiot he was trying to call a private school with probably a gazillion students! He was relying on the fact he spelt his name weird to be his savior for a connection!

"Ah, I believe I do have a hold of him. Let me connect you to his room. If he's not there, call back and I shall leave a note in his box to notify him."

"Thank you, Ma'am!"

C'mon, Loid- Pick up! If he wasn't there, what a colossal waste this would've been. He technically could wait, but boy did he not want to do that. The kind of information he had riding on his brain right now was too important to have to wait of all things.

"H-Hello..?"

"LOID, BUDDY!"

"EEEAAAAUUGH-!"

beeeeep beeeeeeep...

Well, looks like that didn't go as planned. Rolling his eyes and releasing a big sigh, he began to dial once more.

"Hello there. You have reached the Snow Wood Boarding House. How may I help you?"

"Can I just call Loid again, lady?"

"Ah, you, young boy! What went wrong last time? Was he not there?"

"Er... he was there alright."

"Then what's the matter?"

"Could you just redial for me, please? I'd rather not talk about it."

"In just a moment, if you will."

beeep beeeeeeeep...

"I AM SO SORRY IF THIS IS YOU AGAIN, NINTEN."

Ninten couldn't help but let loose a chuckle when he was greeted by the other. Now this sounded more like him!

"D-Don't worry 'bout it!"

A couple of deep breaths could be heard on the other side of the line as he listened.

"S..So, hello...," Loid spoke afterwards. There was a long pause that followed it before Ninten felt the need to fill in the gap. He'd rather make this worthwhile than waste all this money. Ugh, international phone prices. He hoped his dad wouldn't kill him when he saw the bill.

"Long time no see, buddy! Or I guess, in this case hear."

"Yeah... Say, we haven't talked in ages. Why now?"

"Well, buckle up your seatbelt because I'm about to tell you one heck of a tale, Loid!"

"Oh God..."

"Okay, so here's the big news-"

"For the love of all that's good and safe, please don't ask me to be your kid's Godfather."

Ninten froze up upon hearing what Loid had decided to interrupt him with before bursting into a hearty, loud laughter. Echoing ever so slightly throughout the room, his boisterous voice was accompanied by a 'shhh!' from his mother.

Ninten said:

"Don't worry, pal. I didn't get hitched just yet."

Loid gave a sigh of relief as if he had been holding his breath in for quite some time.

"Good to have that situated out. I don't do well with that kind of stuff.

"Anyway, what were you saying?" Loid asked, a faint and nervous laugh lived shortly on his end.

"I was gonna tell you what Ana told me."

"Wait a second- You still write letters to her but you didn't think about calling me once in the last six to seven years?"

Loid could hear a sigh on the other side of the line before Ninten responded:

"Listen... I'm forgetful."

"Yeah, forgetful alright concerning someone who isn't your girlfriend!"

"Wait a second- How'd you know that?"

"Pffft, as if you thought it wasn't plain obvious. I'm not a dumb weakling for crying out loud, Ninten! I don't need to be there for whatever happened while I was booted out, I can just take a pretty darn good look and make an assumption. Wasn't I a friend of yours? Friends talk to each other. You have a tier list just as everybody else does and you decide to contact someone else by the typical pain-staking process of waiting and writing by hand over me. If that isn't the cherry on top of everything else I saw, I don't know what is."

"Yeah, yeah... Alright then. But I do have something she wanted me to tell you."

"Oh, so you didn't want to tell me? You're just forcing yourself?"

"No, no, no! I'm sorry for wording it that way, pal."

"...Apology accepted."

"I... This is really big on your plate. Let me start from the beginning."

Taking a deep breath, Ninten started:

"So, do you remember Giegue? You know, the funky ali-"

"I'm very well aware of him. You were saying?" Loid interrupted.

"Well, Ana thinks he's coming back. And I know how crazy that sounds-"

"Except he pointed out at the end that he was going to come back anyway."

"Well, yes, but I didn't think it'd be so soon."

"He specifically said he'd face you again! Do you not remember this stuff?"

"I guess not, but still! Ana thinks we won't be the people to stop him. No, she thinks it's going to be some other group of kids. Kids with psychic powers just like you and- I mean Ana and me."

"Poor kids," Loid stated flatly, devoid of any actual sound of sympathy.

"You're hilarious, Loid. You really are, but Ana wants to propose something."

"And that would be...?"

"A little road trip."