fleets: It's that time of year again... EXAMMMS. Therefore, this was written while brain was (is) in mildly trauma-ed state. LOL.

Chapter 8: The Amber Alert

"Hehe… What should I do with them, do you think?"

Vaati was excited about the prospect of blowing things up and scaring people senseless. It had been way too long ago since he had last done that sort of thing. Therefore, he was more than a little disappointed when Dugal tapped his finger along the control panel and said, "Oh, just remove them from the area please. Avoid destroying them, even though I know that's your specialty."

Vaati's face fell. "That's it? You mean like, just warp them out of here?"

"Precisely." Dugal raised an eyebrow slowly when he saw the sorcerer appearing annoyed by his answer. It arched in the way someone finding a caterpillar on his piece of lettuce removes said lettuce from his plate. "I don't want to declare war on the country with the greatest military power in the world, Mr. Engst. Do you?"

"Fine," Vaati grumbled, still somewhat unconvinced. I should have given more thought when I wished to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world. I should have wished to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world 'impossible to defeat by any means in any circumstance.'

What good was it to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world when there weren't many opportunities to gloat about it?

Vaati walked back to the galley and leaned forward towards one of the circular windows where he could get a better look at all of the fighter jets. Dugal suspected there were a total of six following them. Sure enough, when Vaati walked around the galley, he counted a total of six fighter jets: three on each side of the plane and spread apart in a neat formation. Vaati walked back to the center of the plane, took a bored little sigh, and spread both arms out on either side of him. He closed his eyes and concentrated.

It was a little harder then he'd thought at first, since the plane's walls separated himself from the targets outside. He was a Wind Mage; wind magic relied heavily on having free contact with the air he wanted to manipulate. There were a few miniscule gaps between the plane's walls with the air outside that allowed him to control the wind around the jet planes; that isn't to say this was all very complicated for him.

Dugal thought this was so easy. What a naïve fool he was. If it weren't the great Sorcerer of Winds attempting this magic, then this wouldn't have been possible.

It took all of two minutes when the fighter jets momentarily took on a light blue glow and then vanished into thin air. Done with the lame work, Vaati lazily went back to the cockpit and leaned against the door. "There, satisfied?"

"Sure." Dugal nodded. "You can go back now. We'll arrive in roughly half-an-hour."

Vaati pushed himself off the wall and began to go back to the galley to grab a drink. "Finally."

Dugal's voice called back to him just as he was about to leave. "By the way, where did you send those pilots?"

"Oh, them?" A flicker of a mischievous smile played along Vaati's lips. "Somewhere over by the Bahamas. I thought they would appreciate a tropical vacation during this time of year."

XXXXXXXXX

Dark had no bearings on what time of day it was when he regained consciousness. He still felt somewhat woozy from being drugged, but he quickly snapped to attention when he remembered what had happened to him.

A small bomb had gone off in the second floor of his house, and then someone had kidnapped him…

"Bates!" he cried, sitting up hurriedly. The room he was in was so dark that he couldn't quite see where he was, and his senses were ultra-sensitive from precaution, preparing to run away or attack at the slightest hint of danger. He hesitated momentarily when his hands touched a soft mattress, and he frowned when he realized that his kidnappers had placed him kindly on a comfortable bed. "Bates, where are you?!" Dark hissed again, his mind now horrified at the possibility that he was a rape victim. He hated how he couldn't come up with another logical answer as to why someone who had bombed his house and kidnapped him would lie him down on a fluffy bed. Oh how he hated his imagination sometimes…

"Yes, infidel?" Bates fluttered into view. It was a little difficult to see him in the dark, but the teen could make out the sentry's silhouette.

Dark gave a sigh of relief. He didn't think he'd come to miss that evil overlord voice. "What happened to me, and where am I? You saw everything didn't you?"

"You were taken captive," Bates hovered in front of his face, "obviously."

"I know that!" Dark snapped. "But what else? What happened while I was unconscious?"

The sentry rolled its single eye. "Nothing much, infidel. The gentlemen escorted you to this place - it was a few hours' drive from your house - and promptly left you in this room. They were quite hospitable, I assure you."

Dark noticed the shape of a lamp next to him and he swatted his hands a few times in its general direction to see if he could find a switch. After finding it, he flipped it on and allowed his eyes to adjust to the light. "I hope 'hospitable' isn't a euphemism for anything," he muttered.

"Whatever can you mean?"

"Never mind." Dark hopped off the bed and took in his surroundings. He was in a small yet cozy room with simple wooden furniture that gave it a homey atmosphere. Even though it was comfortable, the door proved to be locked shut from outside. His captors had left him a glass and a jug of water on the table, as well as a small welcoming note that said, "Enjoy your stay." Somewhere, Dark could imagine someone laughing at him as he picked it up from the table. "You said 'gentlemen,'" he prompted, "what are they like?"

Bates settled down at the edge of the jug and he wrapped his bat wings around himself haughtily. "While it is possible for me to give you a detailed account on the mannerisms and quirks of the gentlemen in question, it will be a whole lot more productive if you saw them for yourself."

Dark snapped his fingers. "You're right! I'd forgotten."

"Typical of an inferior creature."

"Psh. I'd also hate to have to listen to your weird way of talking. You're like… Vaati's arrogance condensed."

"I am not worthy of such compliments."

"That wasn't a compliment, dork." Dark braced himself for the disorienting sensation of seeing through Bates' eye. "Bates, grant me sight."

Immediately, the vision in his left eye swirled momentarily with psychedelic colors before it settled down into something more normal. Still not used to seeing two different visions at the same time, Dark closed his right eye that was still a normal blue color.

Bates flew through the wall and outside Dark's room. The house proved to be small, and it had the feel of a temporary lodging. Most of the place was bare and poorly furnished. There were a few rooms Bates could have gone to, but it seemed the sentry knew where he was going to find the kidnappers. The sentry flew towards the far end of the hallway and went into the room with the open door. Dark tensed when he recognized the two men in the room.

Well, at least one of them.

He saw Hawk bent over his black suit jacket spread out onto a table, meticulously picking out bits of debris from the cloth with a toothpick. His innocent, doe-eyed face was scrunched in concentration as he picked out the dust and placed them in a plastic bag. Dark knew better, however, that Hawk was not as angelic as he appeared to be; he remembered the calculated coolness he had handled the 'disposal' of Harrier in Japan two years ago.

Another man wearing a business suit with a blue tie was sitting cross-legged on a rugged brown sofa, watching the screen of his laptop computer. He appeared to be Asian, maybe Japanese or Korean? His jet-black hair dangled over his face like a lazy mop. Dark was amused that he could see himself on the computer screen – they had placed him on surveillance.

Talon Three: the group that he held a venomous grudge on for being partly responsible for taking his life and throwing it violently upside down. He kind of knew that his grudge was somewhat unreasonable now, but it was hard not to hold disgust when thinking about anything related to them.

The Asian man's mouth moved. It appeared that he was talking, but Dark couldn't hear what was being said.

"Bates, can you relay what they're saying?" He whispered as he watched his own image in the laptop screen. He looked sufficiently creepy with his glowing, crimson eye. It was kind of funny, since the Hawk's partner appeared freaked out by the fact that their hostage's eye had suddenly started glowing demonically.

"Hawk, I think we're being spied on by the kid," Bates' voice came through in a form of telepathy. It wasn't exactly like hearing an actual voice through his ear – it was similar to thinking to oneself. Therefore, it wasn't Bates' usual voice that Dark heard, but the actual voices of the speakers themselves. Dark smirked, and Bates continued narrating the conversation.

"What makes you think that?"

"He keeps talking to someone named 'Bates.' He's done that ever since his eyes went all crazy."

"Well, we suspected we'd have to deal with something supernatural when we first went into this venture."

"And now I can see him smiling. I swear, it's creepy thinking about how we're being spied on instead of the other way around. How? How is he doing it? And who the hell is Bates? Where is he?"

"Kestrel, relax. This only proves that we were right about the government's aims." At this moment, Hawk finished his task of picking out debris from his jacket. He took the plastic bag and dropped it in a suitcase, and then walked over to Kestrel's computer as he put on his jacket. "Well, Mr. Petrov, we know you can hear us. Allow me to apologize for having to relocate you from your residence."

Dark smirked. He turned towards the direction where he thought the camera was in his room, and he watched as his face on the computer screen looked directly at Hawk and Kestrel. Hawk and Kestrel tried to hide it, but Dark could tell they were unsettled. "It's Dark, by the way." He swung his body around where he was sitting on the floor so they could see they had his full attention. "It's Hawk, right?"

Hawk nodded. "It's been a while."

"I see you're back to your job."

"You're mistaken there. Talon Three has liquidated."

"So I've heard. And yet here you are, kidnapping someone like me and wearing that same blue tie and calling each other with those same code names."

"Old habits die hard, Darkie," Kestrel interjected, recovered from the initial surprise. Hawk and Kestrel exchanged glances, unspoken communication going between them as though they were deciding if it was all right to speak to Dark further. They were a secretive group after all. Finally, Hawk shrugged.

"You can say we are… cleaning up after ourselves."

Dark tensed. "Are you saying you're going to clean me up?"

"Aha, you're getting the hang of our terminologies," Hawk grinned. "Rest easy. We're not here to get rid of you, though that will depend entirely on how well you behave."

"If you didn't kidnap me to get rid of me, then why did you bring me here?"

"You don't have any guesses?"

"I have a few suspicions, but I want to hear it from you."

With this, the information master of Talon Three laughed. It was soft and disarming, and Dark began to realize why they former group left the information gathering to him more than the others. He could charm the devil to heaven. "We really can't afford to tell you much. The more you know, the more likely we'll have to clean you up as well. We prefer to destroy ALL evidence, you see. So why don't you do us both a favor and stay put while we take care of everything, hmm?"

Dark sneered sarcastically. "Your jokes have poor taste, Hawk."

Hawk smiled sweetly. His eyes, however, were cruel and steely like a bird of prey's. "What's that?"

"Now that you know I can spy on you using a method you don't understand, your first logical step would be to get rid of me as soon as my usefulness is gone. It doesn't matter what I do anymore – I'm as good as dead according to you."

Hawk leaned forward against the back of the sofa. He looked at the screen with a touch of pity. "If you weren't so clever we could have arranged something to leave you alone." He shook his head. "But you're right. You leave us no choice since you've proven that you can watch us without our knowledge. No wonder," he spoke softly, which Bates mimicked perfectly for Dark, "the government wants you, Dark."

"Wait, what?" The right eye that Dark had kept closed flew open in surprise. His eyebrows knitted together as he tried to make sense of what Hawk had just said. "You're saying the government wants me… because of Bates?"

"Bates?"

"But that makes no sense." Dark rested his chin on his hands and drummed the floor with his fingers. "Vaati suspected someone would be after me before he gave me Bates – Bates was a precaution to help me because someone might be after me. That means it's not Bates that the government is after. It's something else." Dark sighed, his head tilting in general confusion. "But what? And why? Why would they want me? Did Vaati know something else that he didn't tell me?"

"Who is this Bates?" Kestrel asked.

Dark paused, taking notice of the two men again. He narrowed his red and blue eyes. "What does the government want from me?"

Hawk took over once again. He betrayed a little impatience in his voice but he kept his expression professionally civil. "We've already established that we're not exactly friends, Dark. We're not obligated to tell you. However, it is in your best interest to tell us what you know so we can protect you from the government."

Dark wasn't about to be tricked by Hawk's soothing voice, silky like a snake lying in wait in the brush. "You haven't given me reason to believe the government is my enemy. I need to judge that for myself, and to do that you have to let go of your ideas to keep things secret. Besides," Dark grinned, "I'm as good as dead, aren't I?"

"The government is definitely not on your side."

"Uhh, okay. Who was it that put a bomb in my house?"

Hawk stared at the screen for a long time. Then, he took a deep breath and shrugged. "I didn't want it to come to this." He stood up and turned his back to the screen. "While it is true that you may be as good as dead, I wonder how you would feel if the life of your friend was also on the line. Depending," Hawk glanced back to Dark on the screen, "on how you behave…" He trailed off to let Dark's imagination fill in the gaps.

"My… friend?" Dark stopped grinning. He felt a chill pass over him.

"Yes. Have you spoken to Miss Sterling recently?"

Dark shot up from where he sat. "Z-Zelda?!" He hadn't spoken to her in a long time. He, Vaati, and Zelda had hung out quite a bit after they had returned from the Avilux case. Well, it had mostly been because of Vaati's "game" with Zelda. She'd lost, of course, and she'd fallen for him.

It had been a messy end to an otherwise potentially great friendship, and Dark had resented that. Vaati had intentionally screwed everything up by becoming bored and breaking the poor girl's heart. Dark had done his best to convince Zelda out of it, and for all he knew Zelda understood where he was coming from. Still, Vaati had that irresistible charm and he was good at sounding genuine when he was far from it. It had been a one-sided affair at the end.

Or had it really? Sometimes, Dark had wondered if Vaati was deathly afraid of actually falling for someone. It meant making yourself vulnerable, giving your heart and trusting that the other person wouldn't break it. Considering Vaati, Dark could see how the sorcerer would hate dealing with feelings like that.

Whatever motive Vaati had for breaking it off, the end result was that they never spoke to each other again. Automatically assumed as being with Vaati, Zelda had broken off contact with Dark as well.

And Dark guiltily recalled not making any effort to reach out again. Zelda could be really scary when she was upset. Now that Hawk was hinting at Zelda's safety being at stake, he felt especially guilty for not having maintained contact. Holding in a tremor lest Hawk and Kestrel took advantage of his nervousness, Dark demanded with as much force as he could. "Where's Zelda? What did you do to her?!"

"We haven't done anything to her," Hawk smiled cutely, "yet."

"You bastards! You'd stoop so low so as to take hostages!"

"All we ask is your cooperation. Who is this 'Bates' you speak of, and how are you able to spy on us?"

Dark scowled. If they had a hostage he had no choice. Slowly sitting back down, he clenched his fists in frustration. There was one thing he could do to turn the situation around. He mentally reached out to the sentry eye. Bates, I want you to do everything you can to unsettle those crooks. When Dark got a mental confirmation in the form of a light snicker, he raised his head and spoke clearly to the two Talon men. "All right, you got me. I'll show you rather than explain."

"Good." Hawk smiled satisfactorily. Next to him, Kestrel relaxed on the sofa. Relaxation didn't last long, however. The man with the sunglasses sat up straight when a clammy chill passed over the back of his neck. Hawk noticed, and he made a face at his partner. "You're awfully jumpy today."

"I just felt something. It was weird." Kestrel scratched the back of his neck. "Like a corpse had touched my neck…"

Dark grinned. He could see Bates fly around and take aim for Hawk next. "Now if one of you can get a mirror and face it towards you, you will have all of your answers."

"Here I got one," Kestrel stood up and made his way to the bathroom. A few seconds later, he came back carrying a small mirror in his hands. "Is this all right?" He then noticed Hawk fidgeting, moving his weight from one foot to the other. "Er, is something the matter?"

"… Don't worry about it." It was an admirable attempt to pretend nothing was wrong when Bates decided to hop from Hawk's one foot to the other, giving the man an eerily uncomfortable feeling of having cold feet.

Dark tried not to look too amused when Bates finally looked towards the mirror in Kestrel's hands. He couldn't have them suspect he was up to no good. The sentry eye flew quickly behind Kestrel and through his head before he spread both wings wide and stopped in front of the mirror. The man with the tinted glasses freaked out from the initial onset of clammy coolness around his head, followed by catching a glimpse of a demon eye in the mirror.

"Augh!" Kestrel threw the mirror away from him and fell backwards, clutching his head. Hawk immediately took out his gun while rushing to his side.

"What is it?!" Hawk whirled around and faced the mirror when the only response from Kestrel was a shaky finger pointing at it. Shooting a glare at Dark who was suppressing laughter, Hawk cautiously approached it and picked it up. Bates repeated the maneuver from earlier. Instead of just throwing it like Kestrel had done, however, Hawk reflexively shot it with his silenced pistol.

Dark whistled. "Wowww, nice shot."

"What the hell is that thing?" Hawk snarled, his soft voice no longer sounding so nice.

Dark crossed his arms over his chest and sneered. "That is Bates." A mischievous idea crept into his head. He let his voice take on a solemn tone, and he smiled inwardly when both Hawk and Kestrel took a step away from the screen. "I've been cursed with this demon for eternity. He'll follow me wherever I go, never leaving my side until he consumes my soul. When I die…" his expression hardened, "one of you will be the next ones to be cursed by Bates."

"Y-you speak nonsense!" Kestrel cried.

"Hey, I'm just telling you guys what you wanted to know," Dark shrugged nonchalantly. "Now let Zelda go."

Hawk watched him carefully with a long, calculating cold look. After some time, he turned his heel, leaving Kestrel with the laptop. "Hmph. Her safety was guaranteed from the beginning. We don't have her hostage."

Dark blanched. "What?!"

Hawk smiled coolly. "She's currently overseas, and therefore the government can't really lay its hands on her at the moment. We don't have any interest in what the government isn't after – the more people involved, the harder it is for us to manage things so we've left her alone."

"So you… you tricked me!"

Hawk ignored him and addressed Kestrel instead. "We know about this demon now. We'll worry about it later – it doesn't seem like it can do much besides spying. Keep an eye out on government movements for now."

"What about the curse he was talking about? If he dies it'll possess us?"

"Mere superstition and bluff. We'll determine if it's really nasty later. We've got bigger things to worry about."

"Tch, you don't have to order me around, Hawk. I know what I'm doing. You're not Dugal."

Dark stood up angrily in his holding room. "Hey! Wait a second! You haven't told me anything yet!"

Hawk didn't even glance back at the screen as he waved one hand goodbye. "Nor do we need to at the moment. We will talk to you some other time, Dark."

XXXXXXXXX

"Mr. Engst, we will be arriving in less than five minutes."

Vaati shifted his weight on the couch. Slowly, he turned his head behind him so he could see out the window. They were still flying many miles above sea level. "We're not even close to the ground," he pointed out. They were flying lower than their maximum altitude, but it was still too high up for them to be close to anything.

Dugal's voice came through the intercom. "If you would keep your eye on the right-hand-side of the plane, you will see our destination."

Just slightly before Dugal finished speaking, the plane lurched and the right wing dipped towards the ground so that Vaati could get a good view of the Pacific Ocean. The sorcerer momentarily felt his arms press against the wall, gravity pulling him, before his body got used to the sensation. Down below, Vaati saw a small island about 10 miles across – it was a tiny green oasis in the turquoise desert. There were no landing pads for planes, nor were there any signs of civilization from what he could glimpse. Vaati sighed just loud enough for Dugal to be able to hear when he guessed what the man expected him to do to get down there.

"Just turn off the engines when you're ready to land." He added, "I wish you'd stop assuming I can do these things."

There was laughter from the cockpit. "But I'm right that you can do these things."

Vaati scowled and stood up. He wondered if one of these days he should pretend he couldn't do what Dugal wanted him to do, just to see that man's surprised face. Then again, he just hated the fact of even pretending to be incapable of doing something. It was really annoying…

The deep roar of the engines softened into a low purr until it fell silent. Vaati yawned, and then spread his arms to prepare a spell. A few seconds later, the plane was surrounded with a faint blue glow and decelerated in the air until it was hovering like a helicopter. Then, slowly, it descended towards the island.

"Place it gently on the beach, please, but not too close to the water because the tide might wash it away."

Huffing indignantly, Vaati followed the ex-Talon leader's request. The plane gently floated towards the white sands of the pristine beach, and Vaati let it settle onto the ground. There was a slight tremor that almost knocked the standing sorcerer off of his feet, but all in all it had been expertly maneuvered.

Vaati yawned again, and then rubbed his eyes in puzzlement when he noticed his fatigue. It couldn't have been that spell that had tired him – that was one of the easier ones he could do. And why should he be sleepy – which he was – when the sun was still up and it couldn't have been past five o'clock yet? Dugal appeared in the galley, checking his watch.

"Though I'm sure you're anxious to start exploring today, I think we should call it a day and start tomorrow. If you can somehow conceal this plane from view like you did with your flying castle, that will be splendid." Dugal wiped his glasses with his sleeve, and then propped it back on his nose. "I'll be up front. Let me know only if there's an emergency." With that, he disappeared as quickly as he'd come, leaving Vaati grumbling about how, once again, Dugal had just assumed he knew how to do something without asking first.

Then, he scratched his head. They had to call it a day? Really, when it was still so bright outside? Vaati walked over to one of the doors leading outside and kicked it open. The sound of water lapping against the sand came rhythmically, and the afternoon sun was warm and comforting even though it was winter. Why not go explore now and get the initial survey over with? Vaati thought as he looked towards the dense, tropical forest that created a green wall that cut an abrupt end to the white sand.

Another wave of fatigue hit him, and he scowled in irritation at his lack of stamina. Goddesses damn it, why do I feel so tired?!

And then it hit him. By flying out across the Pacific and crossing the International Date Line, they had been chasing the sun this entire trip. He was sleep deprived.

Vaati closed the door and went back inside. He lay across the couch and thought about another thing he had learned to consider in this modern age that he'd never had to worry about before. Back when he had been his original self, he'd been ambitious, but hadn't been able to get to the point of pursuing the world outside of Hyrule. Gale had never travelled internationally, and he couldn't recall any other incarnations that had done much worldly travelling. The issues that came with world travelling were new.

My other incarnations… ?

Vaati sat up immediately when he tried to remember his other lives before Gale's. There was something… weird… about those memories.

I can't… remember any details?

Vaati rummaged through his memory and became increasingly worried. Why? Why can't I remember them clearly?

It was all a gist. He couldn't remember anything specific. He couldn't remember birth or death, or the details of people he had met during those times. The only thing he could grasp was that vague feeling of frustration; probably from not being able to recall whom he was during that time.

Vaati flopped back down onto the couch and tried to sleep. If only I could remember some of those memories, I might have a clue on how to keep memories after death. I might learn something interesting.

His mind wandered into another line of thought that had been bothering him since the day his memory as a wind mage had returned. If I could remember, I might have been able to learn why magic doesn't exist in this world anymore…

XXXXXXXXX

Sometime in the early hours of next morning while Dark was asleep in his room, Hawk and Kestrel were intently reading private government cables that Kestrel had managed to intercept and decode. Hawk read it over several times, while Kestrel stared at it blankly.

"Are you sure?" Hawk finally asked.

"Why are you asking me that, I didn't write this or make this up," Kestrel said, slightly insulted.

Hawk took a deep breath. "The Department of Justice is thinking about issuing an Amber alert for Gale Engst: we're going to have to work fast then."

"Right, because we'll have the entire nation looking for him and his face will be posted all over public media. When that happens, it'll become really difficult for us."

Hawk sighed again and rubbed his temples. "I didn't think we'd have to worry about the Engst kid because, well, you said you thought Dugal was involved on that end, right?"

Kestrel shrugged. "Yeah. That's what I'm thinking, anyway, with seventy-percent certainty. But now that we know he's involved too, as well as Dugal, and I'm not sure Dugal knows about that because we haven't been in touch since our group fell apart…" he trailed off. He started again with a sheepish expression. "Sir wouldn't want to admit it, but without us he's just a rich bastard who's only human with slightly, slightly, more talent than us."

"Mostly human," Hawk corrected, tapping his right arm.

"Psh. Well you get my point." Kestrel crossed his arms and bit his lip. "We were both confident we wouldn't have to stick our necks into Dugal and the Engst boy's affair,"

"Yeah."

"But now we know the government, or should I say HE, wants pale face," Kestrel jabbed a finger at the window on the computer that showed the surveillance clip of Dark, "more than Darkie."

Hawk rubbed his chin. "Or maybe he wants Dugal too? You follow one, you get the other. Engst is a lot harder to hide…" he hummed thoughtfully, "I wonder, also, if the Engst boy did something troublesome for the government recently?"

Kestrel stood up, pushing his tinted glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Fact is, I don't care who he's after, be it Sir or that kid. All I want is to fuck up that government mutt's plans so much that we force him out and nab him, that traitorous son of a bitch."

Hawk patted his partner on the shoulder. "Me too." He brushed past Kestrel and walked out of the room. "Considering recent developments, I think we have no choice but tell Dark what he wants to hear. We can't afford having internal problems: we need full cooperation…"

fleets: I know, I know. I wanted to see lots of jets go boom too (or at least a bit of Vaati and Dugal doing something other than being bored on a plane). But logically speaking they wouldn't have been able to handle provoking a direct attack on one of the greatest military powers on the planet (you just don't want to piss off something like that, even if you happen to be the greatest sorcerer in the world).
But now who's Hawk and Kestrel talking about? More new people? REALLY? Or is "he" really new? Do I really know what I'm doing?

i-wish-799: Yay! Yeah, there's definitely going to be more focus on the Talon guys this time around ;)

Midna Hytwilian: Haha, everyone's in trouble (wheee!)

Purplegc: When Bates and Vaati meet up, that should be fun. :P Oy, yeah I don't know what's with the chapters these days that make me keep ending with cliffies or sort-of cliffies.

Lord Siravant: I wanted to have an aerial fight, but I thought about what would happen afterwards. Like Vaati says, it's a whole lot more complicated in the modern world than in the past (Zelda game) world...

dark digidestined: Glad I can still make people squee ;)

SubZeroChimera: Things just keep getting more convoluted...

Vaati the wind mage1: Not the Temple of Time, no. You're right, the Temple of Time is in Aokigahara, Japan. This temple is... out on a small island in the Pacific Ocean :3

henslight: Ah, don't worry about it :) I wanted that to happen too, but my logical author side told me "then they'll be super screwed afterwards," v.v; . Yay thanks! I'm happy I'm getting the hang of the character balance - I know I sort of struggled with that in Avilux for juggling so many characters at once (I think it has something to do with keeping most of the focal cast male - i.e. little/no Zelda. She made things pretty difficult to write the last time).

jioplip: What are Hawk and Kestrel up to? Seems like they hold a grudge... I'll tell you guys in the next chapter ;) Oh and thank you! :D

msfcatlover: Dark might not be too fond of Bates right now, but yeah it would have been really bad if he'd lost that stone! Now he has something to bother his kidnappers hehe.

Kate: Thanks for the reviews on my stories - I couldn't reply before because yours was an unsigned review, but I'll say this now: Thank you! :D Haha, to be honest I wasn't really planning on writing a sequel, but then a story just popped out of nowhere and I had to write it out.

Sapphiet: Thanks for the reviews! And don't worry - I'm no stranger to the busy craziness life throws at us. How DID Thistle find that out, hmm? We'll find out eventually for sure ;) Oh oops, sorry if I wasn't clear: I was trying to describe that the three other sentries had vanished, and only one (i.e. Bates) remained. Haha! Don't let Vaati hear you say that about him XD (actually, he needs to finish those video games lol). Bourdeaux is a type of red wine, and yep he's technically underage (but Vaati thinks that doesn't apply to him because he considers himself to be a lot older). He found it in the plane's fridge (and didn't tell Dugal about it, probably). Corrrect! He warped them away. To the other side of the ocean haha.

Vaati's Servant: Wow I'm flattered your mom liked the chapter too - thanks! :D

Shadow R-B: Master's (I mean... "Bates'") got a real attitude. Probably from Vaati pfft. Aww, don't be too harsh on Dugal - there's something outside his calculations that's screwing him up a bit (which Hawk and Kestrel allude to). But maybe it'll be a good lesson for those two, the two most ego-inflated people on the planet, who are on the plane right now. Those two could use a good hit to their egos once in a while.

LilyMoonstone: Yeah that's just Bates flying into the foreground. As much as I would've wanted Vaati being badass, it wouldn't have been a good idea lol.