Chapter 1: Laundry
Displaced in Space
(This story takes place directly
after the events in GBT 1.5.)
In a torch-lit laboratory, a Green Shy Guy was picking up old blueprints and folding them away into cabinets.
“They are all idiots,” the furious Shy Guy spoke. “I can’t believe I wasted all my intellect on building those things.”
For it had been true, Clever Guy had designed and overlooked the building of the oversized Robot Mario and Bowser. Despite Clever Guy's diligent attempts to anticipate whatever actions any and all idiots could do, he was still unable to prevent both devices from beating each other up. But seeing as there no longer was a giant Mario or Bowser anymore, the blueprints and other related stat data would just have to be filed away.
With the information on the integrated stabilization systems finally in place... for the first time in his life, Clever Guy found himself with nothing to do. So Clever Guy sat at his desk with his legs rested on the top of it. He held six red and green darts in his left hand and was half-heartedly chucking them at a picture of Bowser on the far end. A few seconds later he got up and examined his handy work. The first dart hit him on the nose, the second one was deeply dug into the tail of the first...
"Sigh, another perfect game. Manipulating those Koopas is far to easy. I need a real challenge for once," moaned the green Shy Guy.
For it was true, although his master plans were far from being completed, they were running right on schedule, almost too smoothly for Clever Guy; it was as if Bowser was too stupid for words (though that in and of itself had been a hindrance at times), or maybe... he was being helped along by some other greater force.
"Nah... There may be some powerful forces out there, but none of them can compete with the pure untainted power of stupidity," Clever Guy concluded.
So he got to work at dislodging the darts from the wall. He was about to perform yet another perfect game when he thought better of it and decided to wander his lab.
He first passed his Exor Sword lodged in a stone along with several multicolored wires and tubes connected to it at various points. The eyes and mouth were not to be found on the sword’s neck; at the actual location of these items was a cylinder filled with a green liquid.
As the cylinders was connected to the sword via one or more of the tubes and wires, this was next on Clever Guy’s list of things to look at. Clever Guy approached the cylinder and pressed a button which caused the metallic shield to be lifted to allow an unobstructed view of the eyes and mouth. The eyes were more or less next to each other and floating above the mouth. After a quick readjustment to the sudden light, the eyes gazed upon the larger Shy Guy with a very real and incredible distaste for this particular being. The angry eyes and mouth expressions were only complimented by the lightning that left them and attempted to hit the Shy Guy.
“That’s right, struggle to your little heart’s desire... oh wait, you don’t have one of those, do you?” Clever Guy taunted with a disturbing yet deep down pleasure at watching the pitiful being use all of its strength uselessly.
And it continued to do so, lightning and purple energy emanating from the displaced organs in the green liquid. The cylinder went to life and lights and fluid traveled from the cylinder to a connected box which Clever Guy described as a simple yet effective use of his intellect. Dials and lights came to life as the fluid and energy reached it. Soon after, a similar collection of events made its way to the faceless Exor sword.
“Yes, yes... Continue struggling and let me drain your power all the more sooner.” The green Shy Guy spoke with a smug expression as he watched a dial reach 15%. “At this rate, I’ll have all of your power in 2 and a half days. Then I can finally be rid of you and these machines... they do so take up space... though I may still keep you around... I’ve always wanted some sort of paper weight... I wonder what sort of stand I should put you on.”
More dark energy left the floating organs and the dial reached 15.4%.
“Oh, getting feisty are you? You know, I don’t take too well to people who don’t like me too much... it doesn’t do much for my self-esteem, and I think you do know how much I like to keep my sense of self worth, don’t you?”
The organs continued to expel energy as Clever Guy pressed a button on the cylinder. A sudden jolt of negative energy zapped the organs and they floated gently to the bottom of the jar. Content that it was sufficiently stunned, Clever Guy closed the view gate on the cylinder and it continued to drain energy at a slower rate.
Next he passed by Project Alpha. Clever Guy himself didn’t lift a finger to build it (though past tense is an improper term as it was still being constructed); about 12 or so microrobotic drones were working away at the spider-like tank. It was a simple enough process: design the device on a computer, then input the data into the shared memory banks of the drones. The mini-robots would then build any device with greater speed, efficiency, and accuracy then any simple mortal being could. This made Clever Guy gain a ton more free time and allowed him to do more designing while the drones did the mindless labor.
Clever Guy at times wondered which was (or would be) his greatest invention, and more often then not it came back down to these little working drones. If he had the time or resources he could’ve already built himself a shrine and dominated all of Plit with these mini robots, as they had the power to reproduce themselves. However, that feature Clever Guy was restrained incredibly due to the drone’s reliance on petrolite, a very rare and sensitive crystalized form of crude oil.
“‘Tis a pity,” Clever Guy thought to himself as he continued his noncommittal stroll about the lab.
The next device he looked at was a brown sock held in an airless canister. Having nothing better to do he walked over to the controls and decided to tinker with it. After studying the data read out; he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Oh, my. Now THIS is worthy of my attention." Clever Guy took his data sheet and the darts after he removed them from Bowser's picture and returned to his desk to study the readout. He was quite surprised to find that he had visitors.
"What is worthy of your attention?"
Momentarily shocked, the green Shy Guy regained his composure and turned to face Kamek.
"Kamek, Kamek, Kamek... Didn't anyone tell you that it's rude to enter one's private chambers without knocking first?"
The old Magikoopa didn't respond instantly, instead he wandered around the lab skimming views at the items that Clever Guy had laid out.
"It's quite a nice setup you have here; this room used to be Ludwig's, no?" The Magikoopa spoke while deliberately neglecting to make eye contact with the underling.
"Yes, yes it was. His old laboratory has been quite useful for my purposes."
Kamek took an extra long notice of the Bowser photo and the darts resting on what had been Ludwig's desk. With a casual motion he picked up the green darts and chucked one at Bowser's nose.
"I see, you want me to play."
"That would be your decision."
With much exaggerated effort, Clever Guy picked up the red darts and without much thought or effort chucked his dart at the tail of Kamek's dart.
"Nice shot."
"It's nothing."
Kamek turned about so his back was facing the picture and threw the dart over his back. It hit the tail of Clever Guy's dart.
"So are you going to tell me?" Kamek asked in a monotone.
"Tell you what?" Clever Guy responded. His eyebrows left an impression that he was intentionally toying with Kamek. And not only that, he chucked his dart at Kamek's hat, carrying it to the far side of the room and neatly impaling it on Kamek's last dart. “I would first like to know what grants me the esteemed presence of the great Kamek, surely it was no house call. Especially as I do no believe we have been properly acquainted.”
“You already seem to know my name,” Kamek started. “And I would appreciate it if you wouldn't do that to my hat again.”
“Touché, but very well. You may address my as Clever-Guy. I was more recently hired by Lord Bowser, as an observer of his children's simple attempts at gadgety.”
“I see, well... Now that we’ve been properly introduced, would you mind explaining what was so interesting?”
“It’s some temporal and hyper-spacial physics, I guarantee you’d get lost,” Clever Guy explained and folded his arms in front of him.
“Oh, and I suppose the conversion from magical energy to a physical and elemental force is just as much out of your league?” Kamek started, not to be outworded.
"Very well. If you will accompany me to the device over there," Clever Guy stated as he moved his folded arms from his front to behind and crossed them again.
"All right." Kamek followed Clever Guy. Halfway through the short distance, he tossed his last dart casually at the photo of Bowser, hitting Clever Guy's dart in the tail. Clever Guy raised an eyebrow and motioned to the device. More often, this would be the sort of information he’d guard with his life. However there were two things that caused him to do otherwise. First off, he had been caught with some particular data. He didn’t know exactly how much Kamek knew but Clever Guy did know this: the best way to confuse your enemies is to tell them more then you think they know. It cuts off the impression that you’re hiding something from them, and they’ll be too stunned with the info to know what to do with it. The second reason, was that in all his days, Clever Guy had never seen this sort of anomaly nor known what had caused it or anything for that matter, so it didn’t help to hide what he didn’t understand himself.
"What do you see?"
"I see a brown sock floating in the air within the metallic device."
"That would be correct, more or less, save for one important detail. That sock is actually suspended in space time."
"Why would you want something like that?"
"You'd be amazed what one decides to do when they have free time."
"Why a sock?"
"Why not? Anyways, am I going to explain my-"
"No no, please carry on..."
"While the sock is in the device, it is immune to the effects of what we would know as reality. In short, it is in it's own mini-universe untainted by the forces of our world."
"Continue."
"To cut to the chase, time passes in the canister at the same rate as time in our universe. But if time slows down or speeds up in our universe we can know of that by the oxidation levels the sock has undergone."
"So you suspect something is amiss in the flow of time, is that what you are getting at?"
"Precisely. If I had chosen a more appropriate object like putting a clock in animation we could be much more exact then..."
"Clever Guy, please get back on track."
"The sock has aged between 3 days and 3 weeks instantaneously in the past hour and a half."
"Are you saying that your capsule has induced time travel?"
"No, not the micro-universe. The universe within the device is incapable of being affected by our world. The mega-universe, the one you and I both live in, has lost 3-21 days that have slipped passed us unnoticed."
"Unnoticed; that assumes that everything in Plit... was stopped in time for that period."
"Precisely, someone or thing caused a planet wide 'Time Freeze', as it were."
"Can you verify that?"
"Look, all I have is a brown sock and some paper readouts. Unless your psychic hocus pocus can do something useful... All I know is that we've lost a period of time, a period which seems to have had no seeable affect on us save for an aged sock."
"I see, well... I would appreciate it if you would keep me informed. Oh, and one other thing, King Koopa sent me down here to inform you that he has purchased a Koopa Cruiser. It appears our headquarters are going to be moved. He would most appreciate it if you would meet with him so you both can negotiate the amount of lab space you need.”
“Lab space? Well, if you would inform King Koopa that the facilities here are quite adequate and that I would greatly prefer not to have to leave. The device I just showed you with the sock, for example, is impossible to move.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, he mentioned something about a Doomsday device. Oh, and one other thing. I do doubt that King Koopa would appreciate knowing that his face was being used for darts; so I suggest that you take that down as soon as possible."
Clever Guy's face remained unchanged, but Kamek could detect to some extent a feeling of poorly suppressed aggravation. Heh, no matter, it’s not every day you’re told that your fine china was to be blown to bits.
"I will leave you in peace, and I do trust that you will do as I suggested... Clever Guy?"
With much effort, Clever Guy responded, "It... will be done."
"Good," and with that said, Kamek left Ludwig's old laboratory.
When he was sure that the door was latched Clever Guy went on a fuming rampage.
"WHY WHY WHY did that NUMBskull idiot of a monarch just go about and change my residency, of all the dumbfou... eh?
The dial that exposed the amount of energy transferred had jumped to about 17% and was rising at an alarming rate.
17.5%... 18%... 20%... 24% ... 32%
Clever Guy rushed to the canister and hit the viewer button. In an instant, the metallic cylinder frame lifted and Clever Guy could get a proper look at Exor’s face. The eyes and mouth seemed to be dissolving. Upon closer inspection Exor appeared to be undergoing some sort of self-induced matter energy conversion. He checked the dials.
49% ... 59%... 62% ... 62%
“Funny, the energy rate appears to be decreasing and stopped.”
He turned to face Exor’s face. The floating organs had now formed three spheres, dark, red, and full of rage.
It was then that Clever Guy noticed something he hadn’t quite anticipated when he separated Exor from the sword. The reason the sword’s energy levels were not increasing was due to the fact that it was no longer connected to the energy transferring device but more to the matter was floating parallel to the canister.
A yellow ring of energy coiled around the sword's neck grew up to the tip and disappeared. Then another ring did the same thing. Then another, and another. Soon the rings were appearing and disappearing at shorter and shorter intervals. All the while a purple glow enveloped the sword, growing brighter and brighter as the rings became faster and faster. Then all at once, a sudden and powerful purple beam surrounded in a yellow spiral (which looked more or less like a candy cane) ejected from the sword and met with the the cylinder and blew it up in a vibrant light. The shock of this blew Clever Guy to the other side of the room and the sword fell to the ground with a loud clank.
Slumped against the wall, Clever Guy struggled to remain conscious. The energy ejected from the sword converged with the three spheres and formed a single larger red energy ball. A small trail of sparkles followed it and were drawn to the ground. The ball of energy floated about in the room in a jerky, almost lifelike way.
Clever Guy got up from his resting place and adjusted his spectacles. He looked at the floating ball of energy, and then to the now lifeless Exor sword (yet still without a face nor mouth, but for simplicity’s sake he still continued to think of it as the Exor Sword even if Exor was no longer a part of it). The energy ball appeared to be doing the same thing, studying the sword. Then the sparkles wrapped around Exor's blade and headed upward for the lab's only sky light.
"Oh no you don't!"
Clever Guy lunged for the sword and grabbed hold of its neck. The sudden added weight yanked the energy ball downward, but it regained altitude and velocity and flew right back at the window. The energy ball passed right through the window as did the blade. but not Clever Guy. He felt the full impact of the glass and nearly lost his grip on the stolen blade. He regained his composure and readjusted his grip so it lay on Exor's claws and not the handle. A much more secure grip this was, it also gave him a better view of his arms, which were covered in blood. When and wherever this energy ball took him, it would be used as an opportunity to clean up those nasty cuts and prevent infections.
Chapter 2: Morning at Soshi
Chef Torte looked around. What was he doing here? Or more to the point, where is here?
A “Mon Dieu” was all that Chef Torte could muster.
Judging by the windows on either side of the room, wherever he was appeared to be airborne, and there were various control panels and stations. Directly in the path of Torte was an odd-looking green Yoshi with a sword. He was not smiling. Chef Torte Knew that not happy Yoshis with sharp objects are Yoshis you don’t want to meet.
The Yoshi snorted derisively and made his move, spinning around. His heavy tail thudded against the ground and brought Changling off his feet to the ground; the Yoshi brought his sword in an extremely low arc that snipped the end off of Changeling’s pointy red hat before fluttering away, chuckling. “I’ve had some practice.”
Chef Torte was fuming. How dare that stupid Yoshi insult his strongest fighter?! Wait a moment... What’s Changling doing here too? And what’s he doing attacking him? Suddenly a violent tremble overtook the room as the airborne thing, whatever it was, threw all three to the ground. The Yoshi spoke.
“Chef Torte! What’s with your ship?”
“Ship? Vhat ship? I don’t own any ships... except for zat little yellow tug boat I keep near my tub an-”
“Don’t play dumb with me!” shouted the Yoshi. “You know very well all that you’ve done with this thing here!”
The ship rocked again, sending all of the characters to the side of the room.
“Vhat do you mean? I know nozhing! And who are you? Vhat’s going on?! Why is moi here? And vhy does zee ground keep shaking?”
“Come on!” screamed Yoshi over the tumult, gathering two characters under his arms. One Chef Torte Identified as Toad the other was just some Koopa. The Yoshi instructed a nearby Princess Peach to follow him out.
“Vait! Who are zeez peoples and vhat are zhey doing here? And vhat's zhat princess doing here? Moi is very confused now and moi is not moving until I know vhat’s going on here!”
Before exiting the cockpit, the Yoshi turned back to Chef Torte and Changling. “I’m taking off with your idiot crew members too on your last transport beside my one-Yoshi ship, so I’d come along if I were you. But hey, suit yourself.”
“So zat's it? I’m dropped here in the middle of zome flying thing and it’z being blown up just as moi arrives and you all leave me?
But Changling, the Yoshi, and the rest had already made a dash for the Torte Transport, leaving the chef all by his lonesome in the cock pit. Slowly, with melodramatic tears streaming down his cheeks, he pulled his unharmed self up to the main controls. Suddenly, and without explanation, the cockpit eject button lit up, as if beckoning him to press it. “You know... I zhink I’m suppozed to press it,” thought the Chef, looking melodramatically at the flashing red button.
He pushed it.
The sound of multiple large clamps let go of their hold and the power of the clamps could be felt thoughout the cockpit. The room stopped shaking, but the clouds in the window were now flying up at an alarming rate.
“MON DIEU!” the Chef shouted. Then he remembered that of all the buttons one presses, “the Red button” is always the worst one.
The Chef ran screaming in circles and eventually made his way to the window and forced his face against it. Through the window Chef Torte saw a giant balloon. Probably that from a Zeppelin. “Oh boy! Shouted Chef Torte, “Moi loves Zeppelins. And look, it’s got moi’s face on it.” A tear formed under Torte’s semi-panicked eye.
Then, just as Chef Torte was going into an awe-struck fantasy, a giant sphere with a huge metal mustache fired a beam and sliced the balloon right through Torte’s face.
“Hey! No one does zat to moi’s face! And moi has a better mustache!”
As if on cue the cockpit, now falling at incredible speeds, rotated around so that the window that Chef Torte was looking out had a kodak moment of the rock face beneath, a violent ocean, and (worst of all) no firefighters with Zeppelin craft-sized trampolines. (Or if there were, which Chef Torte doubted highly, they were doing a mighty fine job of keeping themselves hidden, most likely like those time bomb in B-Movies that stop at the very last second.)
The pointed rock face was coming faster and faster towards the cockpit, and at an equal rate becoming larger as was Torte’s view from the window, but still no fire fighters.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-
Changling nudged Chef Torte on the shoulders.
-HHHHHH!!!” the chef continued to scream.
"Chef, calm down. You’ve had another nightmare."
"HHHHHH- Eh? Oh, I guess you’re right. Sorry. *cough*
Changling raised an eyebrow, "These nightmares have been occurring nonstop."
"Yes, I suppose; Now, *ahem* about zhat, pirate crusade, do you zhink moi could use an eye patch on ze left or ze right eye?"
"Well, I think the right eye could actually use it, your right eye is actually stronger then the left. It would help combat your lazy eye."
"Moi does NOT have lazy eye," retorted Torte.
"Then why don't you go ahead and prove it?"
"He he, do you zhink zhat moi ist zhat gullible?"
"In a word: Yes."
"Hmm... you're right. Help moi get my pirate uniform out."
"All right,"
Changling walked over to the closet and pulled out the pants and shirt while Torte grabbed the hat, vest, and eye patch from his drawer.
"You know, back on the subject of dreams, there’s this old legend my dad used to tell me that our dreams are not the pieces of our minds as most people think, but are actually manufactured in another land," said Changling as he pulled Torte's shirt over his head.
"What sort of legend is that?" replied the bouncing chef, attempting to put his legs in his pirate pants.
"Um, it’s a progressive legend. Now if you would just hold still then maybe we can get the shirt on without ripping it over your big nose".
"Poppycock. Zhere can’t be zuch things as progressive legends. And moi doesn't have a big nose," Chef Torte replied as the shirt ripped over his nose.
"See, what did I tell you?"
"Oh, zhat's nozhing; moi's Apprentice is outright nasty with zee zowing machine. He'll vix it right up."
"Right..." Changling muttered. From last recollection, they were still trying to detach Genius Guy from the official Isle of Soshi brand curtains following the Apprentice's last project with the sowing machine.
"You don't actually believe zhat 'legend’, do you?" chuckled Chef Torte as he tried to take the ripped shirt off while making annoying quote marks with his fingers.
"Well, I used to not believe... except..." Changeling mumbled.
"Except vhat? Come on, you can tell moi!" the now-hatted chef responded and prodded Changling by elbowing him in the stomach.
"Well, if you must know, I had a dream once of my dream being backordered," Changling responded with much hesitation.
Had Torte been drinking some soda, he probably would've spit it all up at Changling's face. Instead it was mostly made up of saliva and the laughter was just as harsh as any party digested carbonated beverage could get.
"He he he Hoooo, Now moi'z heard it all. Now zhink of zhis, how in ze vorld could you have dreamt about your dream being backordered if you dreamt that it was, eh?" The poor Turtle chuckled away on the floor, then regained his composure and went back to the closet to get another shirt.
"Erm, yes. Now that you mention it, it does sound loony," Changling replied sheepishly as he dug into his pocket and pulled out a hanky and wiped up the saliva. "Anyways, it looks like you're about all set, so I'll head to the kitchen and see how breakfast is coming."
"You go do zhat."
A few minutes latter most of the Team of Terror were gathered around the kitchen table. The table was round and wooden with a vase of purple and yellow flowers at the center. There were five seats empty around the table. One of them was reserved for Whomp, but he was currently laying on top of stone legs with a fire below him and pancake batter on his face.
The next chair was reserved for Embert, but he was currently the fire that was using Whomp as a griddle.
The third empty seat was reserved for the Chef’s Apprentice, but he was currently flipping pancakes off of Whomp’s face.
“HE! HE! THAT TICKLES!” bellowed the extremely heat tolerant Whomp.
“Hey! Don’t move so much or you’ll make the batter run!” argued the Apprentice.
“Stop moving like that! You don’t want the supports to buckle and take me with them!” warned Embert.
The next seat was reserved for Soshi, a dragon winged Yoshi, the last of his kind, who had, in a tragic turn of events, been killed by Whomp falling on him.
The other unoccupied seat was originally reserved for the Grand Glum Reaper but, like his Yoshi counterpart, was also spending some time being dead. Though it’s not known why he had his own seat anyway. No one had ever seen him eat when he was with them, though it must be granted, that hadn't been long.
The rest of the team of Terror were all sitting in their accustomed spots. This was really half of the remaining team. Genius Guy and Changling were busy using the cooking time to try and undo some of the stitches done to Genius Guy's labcoat. Chef Torte, on the other hand, was sitting at the table with his elbows on the red and white tablecloth, fiddling un-intently with his spoon. He could remember his nightmares (Had it really been that many?) with almost impeccable accuracy.
“Chef Torte! What’s with your ship?”
“Come on!” screamed the Yoshi over the tumult, gathering two characters under his arms. One Chef Torte Identified as Toad, the other was just some Koopa. The Yoshi instructed a nearby Princess Peach to follow him out.
As if on cue the cockpit, now falling at incredible speeds, rotated around so that the window that Chef Torte was looking out had a kodak moment of the rock face beneath, a violent ocean, and a cliff. And still the firefighters with their trampoline were no place to be seen.
These and more images flashed though his mind, some of battles, while others involved the kidnapping of the Chancellor. There was also this other thing that happened at the end of just about all his dreams that he was trying to recollect.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“Eh?” stubbled Chef Torte, coming out of his daydream.
“I said 'Penny for your thoughts.’ What’s troubling you, fearless leader?” asked Changling.
“Oh, it’s nozhing. Really. Hey Apprentice, I vont you to sew up moi's pirate shirt after breakfast," Chef Torte replied while pointing to the torn shirt laying on the counter.
“No, no, don’t change the subject. It’s those nightmares. Would you care to tell me about it?”
“Vell... okay. Zhere’s nothing wrong with telling a silly old dream. Zee details are sketchy but I keep dreaming of zees Zeppelin, zheres zees funny-looking Yoshi vith zees sword and glasses, and zome big space battle and...” Torte muttered.
“Did any of the dream look like it took place from somewhere you know?”
“You know vhat?” said Chef Torte with a bit more energy, “I have not zee foggiest clue. Zhere's one ending zhat vas very confusing, something about Jello and poof I vake up. The first time I dreamt it, it zeemed zo real.”
“You seem convinced that it was,” stated Changeling in a matter of fact tone with a hint of sarcasm.
“Perhaps, but you hear a lot of stories 'bout dreams that seem so real... it’s only zat... zhat I have this feeling zhat zomething doesn’t belong.”
“Oh!! I love that song!” shouted Genius Guy as he looked up from his coat. He'd managed to get half his side of the table tangled, with no clear sign that he was getting anywhere with the stitches. “One of these things is not like the other! One of these things just doesn’t belong! Can you tell which one of these-
Genius Guy’s off-key singing was soon brought to a halt by the PAN OF PAIN being flung in Genius Guy’s mouth.
“How so?” said Changling as the Apprentice set a steeming plate of blueberry pancakes before him.
“You know it’s just like.... you know...”
“No, I do not know.”
“It’s like one of those hunches,” said Chef Torte at last. “Vhy zhank you, Apprentice.” And the Chef dug into his stack of pancakes.
The pre-talk now apparently over, with a sigh the Magikoopa picked up a pair of scissors and returned to work on Genius Guy's coat as the Shy Guy himself started blindly wandering in various directions and bumped into the sprinkler system. A wonderful, wet, and cold shower filled the kitchen.
“GENIUS GUY!!!”
Chapter 3: Clever Guy’s Frequent Flyer Miles
Not ten minutes ago, Clever Guy was complaining that there was nothing worth all his attention. At this point however, he could use some of that piece and quiet.
The energy sphere with Exor close behind and Clever Guy hanging on for his life continued to fly at tremendous speeds. Clever Guy's grip was slowly slipping and he was losing a lot of blood. With his less scraped up arm he grabbed a hold of his coat and hooked it onto Exor's claws; a discomforting rip sound followed but failed to cut all the way and he hung from the sword in a similar fashion to that of a coat rack. Using his newfound mobility, Clever Guy took some tape from his pockets and tightly wrapped it around one of his battered arms. The intense pain that followed informed Clever Guy that there was some glass had inpenetrated his skin. He could do little more about it now that he separated from the proper medical equipment and flying at a few hundred miles an hour.
"There better be a good place you're taking me, Sparky. 'Cause if this whole thing isn't worth it, I'm going to make you wish you weren't ever summoned," Clever Guy threatened.
The threat had no conceivable effect on the runaway sphere, it neither sped up nor slowed down, it simply continued on its path carrying the sword and the Shy Guy with it at tremendous speeds. A few seconds later though, Clever Guy felt his lab coat give away. Not willing to rely on the fibers to hold him to the speeding sword, he took his bandaged hands and regained a strong grip on the sword.
Once Clever Guy had regained his grip he received a better view of his surroundings. It appeared to him that the sphere, sword, and Shy Guy were all headed toward a volcano.
Something wasn't right though... The closer Clever Guy and his travel companions went the more and more a dark spiraling cloud mass seemed to form around the top of the volcano. That was the first of his observations; his second was that the sphere was no longer a glowing ball of redness but was slowly turning a shade of purple much like the shade Exor was when the sphere was created.
"Whatever is about to happen," Clever Guy thought to himself, "is going to happen reeeeeeal soon."
Eventually when Clever Guy, Exor, and the red ball of energy became close enough, the great swirling portal above the volcano forced the injured Shy Guy to lose his grip on the sword and fly upward toward the spiraling vortex. Though, flying upward is a misprint of some sorts; he was actually falling with a somersault motion upward as he was by the vacuum effect the vortex was creating.
Using a split second to regain his sense of where he was, Clever Guy decided that the 'thief' was where his priorities lay. The vortex spiraling around the top of (what would later be revealed to him as) the Isle of Soshi, while a very abnormal phenomena, was not the issue at hand. He reached into his pockets and checked for something. Finding it, he pointed it at the Isle and a grappling hook fired from it and secured itself to the volcano. Clever Guy might have decided to use this device a bit earlier to keep his grip on Exor, but he figured that whiplash would be a very easy tactic for the energy ball to use to get rid of him.
While his grappling pen reeled him down to the ground, Clever Guy watched as the ball of light and sword entered the volcano.
Clever Guy maintained his grip on the fleeing sword as it got close to the volcano. Clever Guy's attention, however, was currently one-sided. Surviving this trip was his total concern. Not to say that he didn't possses the mental power to multitask. Quite the contrary, amongst all Shy Guys, Clever Guy was considered #5 of the top thinkers in all of the species. However, when you're hanging by an airborne sword flying toward something burning, your attention, no matter how strong it may be, will almost certainly be totally locked in on survival.