"When I returned from the collapsing Sanctuary, I wound up in California, at the coast. I... built a memorial for Helena there. And after that, I walked away, until I passed out and slept for a night. Woke up in the morning and made it back to my old house, met a few people looking for something inside of it..."

He went on to explain how Xazax had survived and was rebuilt, and how he quickly destroyed him with the same finishing move that had halted Dragon Drive FINAL's ultimate offense and defense attack. He explained how both Lee and Draco, two of their worst enemies, had been resurrected. How he learned of Maya's imprisonment and of NightShade, and how they freed Lee from Donovan's grasp.

"... all of that, in only a couple of days. Then I met up with Juno back in Africa, and helped him take down another one of the Seven Beasts. Sheena, down in Antarctica, has been defeated and the original person's been freed."

Finishing his burger, he moved his tray to the side. "And that was only yesterday."

"Wow. And here I thought I was doing something important. I, uh...I got a new jacket!" Matt extended his arms. "It's not as impressive, but my mom thinks it's cool!"

Somehow, R.D. found it in himself to laugh. "Well, if it weren't for where you wound up, we might not have learned of this Magister guy," R.D. said. "So maybe we should wait until we see what's important, right?"

Upon looking at Matt's new jacket, R.D. looked down at his own clothes. He really needed to find a new outfit now, Wulfe had did a number on this one. "Well, let's get going. I'd rather not Wulfe try to come back and tear into us again after we've eaten."

"Good point." Matt pushed himself out of the booth. "Unfortunately, while I've still got some power, I'm afraid I can't exactly bend reality on a whim like I used to do, so we'll have to find an actual car."

"Actually, those loons from the Isle gave me a motorcycle like our old boat," R.D. explained, fishing the Thunder King cube out from his satchel as he went outside. "So we can use that for now."

Pressing a button on the cube, he tossed it to the ground. In a flash of light, the cube disappeared, revealing a sleek, black-armored motorcycle, with a far-back seat framed by four, fluting exhaust pipes, and with curving armor over the tops of the wheels. If R.D. was right, the Bone Jack triple-barrel shotgun was still inside one of the side compartments of the Thunder King.

Edited by RisingDragon on October 7, 2008 at 21:02:51.

Siegfried nodded absentmindedly and picked up the pen in his ungauntleted hand, signing in a flowing German-cursive. In silence, he placed the pen down and turned from the doctor, staring out the window in tacit submission to the exhaustion finally. His shoulders sagged slightly as he heaved an exhalation, and he moved his hair, ridden with dust now, away from his face to look at the dying sun on the horizon.

Once more he said again out courteousy, "Thank you again, doctor. I appreciate your help." A moment later, footsteps could be heard echoeing through the hall, and Siegfried turned, ready to follow a messenger or a retriever without a word to bring him to the mayor and council.

Edited by Ribitta on October 7, 2008 at 21:42:57.

"Oh, what the hell is this." Matt walked around it, trying to catch all of the bike's minute details. "Who the hell pimped THIS ride?"

Edited by The Helldragon on October 8, 2008 at 19:24:37.

"I'm guessing someone at the Isle did. Just found it on my table the morning after I got back, along with a note," R.D. said. He then looked at the street, frowning. "Though I suppose we shouldn't try riding it in this mess. Likely to get ourselves killed that way."

===Argentina, South America===

The man that came for Siegfried led the knight out of the hotel and down the road, where a large, nondescript building stood, with large wooden doors. Opening them up, he ushered Siegfried inside, and took him to a certain room up on the second floor. Inside were eight men and women, each getting up in their years, and each staring at the Siegfried with closed expressions. They each sat around a curving table, and a seat had been put in the middle. One of them, a woman in her forties, gestured for him to sit in it.

Edited by RisingDragon on October 8, 2008 at 16:29:13.

"Pfft. Let's just fly." Matt blew on his fingernails, rubbed them against his shirt. "I can do that, you know."

"You'd have to, to get up on that building," R.D. said, before going over to push a button on the Thunder King and revert it back to its cube form, which he quickly put away in his satchel. "I think I remember where I woke up was. Shouldn't take us long to get there."

Matt folded his hands together. "Right. Lemme just get focused first..."

He stared toward the ground at an angle, focusing on some invisible point. About him, a gust of wind blew, slowly spiralling, gaining in strength until R.D. could feel the wind billowing against his clothes.

Now Matt looked up toward the sky and, raising his combined fists, threw them outward. At once he was launched toward the clouds, and, with a loud whoop, turned, soaring about.

R.D. merely shook his head at Matt's actions as he made himself airborne. "Wonderful," he muttered, looking down. "Now he's gonna think he's Superman."

Looking back up, he sighed. "Well, at least he has better control of his powers, now," he thought aloud. "Guess the days of truck monsters are gone."

Smashing his fist into the ground, R.D. propelled himself up onto the McDonald's building, then again to put himself on a higher roof. From there, he led the way to the building where he had first seen Matt, Hugo, and Juno, wiping out a group of Heartless that had appeared through a dimensional gateway.

Soon, he was standing on the top of a roof, looking across the street at the building he sought. The hole in the wall was still there, along with the pile of rubble he fell down when he was discovered. He frowned thoughtfully as he looked at it, then dropped down to the street, walking over to the pile itself.

Matt soon followed. This was definitely familiar...where he had first encountered Juno, along with R.D. for the first time. He noticed the man in question near one of the piles of rubble. "You see somethin'?"

"Dunno," R.D. replied, looking about as he clambered up the rubble and into the darkened interior. He whistled. Sometime after they had left, the roof had collapsed, spilling a massive about of debris in the middle of the room.

"There's... nothing here that I can see," he called out, obviously frustrated at the lack of any finds. "Everything in here is destroyed. Stupid city."

"What're you lookin' for?" Matt asked, kicking a small rock aside because, well, it just seemed like the thing to do.

"I don't know," he said, emerging from the building. "Something... anything that might spark my memory. So far all I have are scattered memories of that Mesia girl, and of killing eight of the nine Khaglessi."

"Hmmm. Well, we could always try to stangle Re-Tuul for info, the little putz." Matt glanced about. Let's hope he didn't hear that somehow. "Anyway, I say we move on for now. I need to figure out how the hell we're exactly going to be looking for the pieces of the Omega Core."

R.D. had heard Matt's words, and laughed at the comment about Re-Tuul. That would certainly be satisfying. "Well, I know a place we can go to start," he said, looking up at Matt. "Alli said one of the Daughters of Dawn, a Colleen Young, lives in North America. We can make a jump using Chaos Control to get there."

Matt didn't answer right away. Wonder how Alli was doing...

"All right, let's go. And maybe later we can see Alasea again."

He wouldn't CALL her Alli. Come on. It sounded...well, it was R.D.'s term, not his.

"Shouldn't be too much of a problem," R.D. said, jumping up next to him on the roof. He pulled out the red Chaos Emerald, one of the two Matt hadn't seen before. "Hopefully we can get close in one shot."

Tossing the jewel up into the air, causing the light to refract as the sun hit it as it came out from a cloud. As it fell, he caught it in one movement, and shouted, "Chaos Control!"

With a sound of thunder and a flash of green light, R.D. and Matt disappeared from the city that started it all.

===

The girl, nine years of age and clad in a simple white dress with blue patterning at the hem of the skirt and a light blue bolero over it, kneeled down in front of the rock in the park, looking at a lizard that was basking itself in the sun. A white beret sat atop her long blonde hair, and it slipped to the side as she cocked her head to one side, staring at the creature with bright, hazel-colored eyes. Absentmindedly, the little girl pushed her hat back up where it belonged, and continued observing the creature.

Other children were playing in the park, all of them orphans just like her. Unlike everyone else living in America, these kids weren't bothered by anything that might exist outside the city. They were protected.

Suddenly, there was a faint noise, like thunder, and she and others looked up into the sky. There were a few sparse clouds, but nothing to suggest a thunderstorm.

A few blocks away, as the thunder sounded, green light flared in the middle of the street, scattering discarded papers everywhere as two figures appeared.

As the light of Chaos Control disappeared, R.D. put the red Chaos Emerald away in his satchel, then looked about. He was surprised. This city, while looking deserted... looked strangely intact.

Rest of the entire world was broken...why did this city manage to keep itself together? As always, paranoia alarms set off, but Matt ignored them. "Where the hell are we? Is this North America?"

"Yeah," R.D. said, looking about. "Actually... I think I know why this place looks okay. When I returned to Alli's place after I recovered at my place... well, the place looked... nice. She'd been healing the land, revived some forest nearby."

Starting down the street, he looked back at his friend. "If a Daughter of Dawn is living in this city, then what's to say she didn't fix it up?"

"That's true." Guess the jump succeeded after all. Matt dug his hands in his pockets and began walking. "Well, lead the way."

R.D. continually looked about, checking out their surroundings, as he walked. He could definitely feel the presence of a Pillar of Dawn here, now that he'd been here a few moments. Where, he couldn't exactly tell. That might take a little bit to figure out.

So, in the meantime, they'd walk in the rough direction of the center of the city. Maybe they could find a map along the way.

Elsewhere, the kids were wondering where the thunder had come from, and why they couldn't hear it anymore. "I thought I heard it coming from that direction," one of them, a boy of ten years said, pointing in the general direction the noise had come from. "Should we go check it out?"

"So, enlighten me again, would ya?" Matt said. "These Pillars or whatever give the Daughters god-fearing powers that can knock off whoever the Seven throws at 'em, right?"

"In theory, yeah," R.D. said, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his cargo pants. "Me and Alasea had a tough time with the two who showed up after I killed Xazax, though. Why?"

"Maybe they realized that we are tough motherfuckers and decided they didn't want to mess around anymore," Matt said. "But now that I'm back, they'd better think twice before they try anything funny again."

"Heh."

He was getting a better bearing on the Pillar of Dawn, now. Perhaps a vague general direction in which it lay in. R.D. adjusted his course accordingly.

"So, this... Chronomancer?" he said, continuing their small talk. "Did he tell you anything else other than we screwed up by releasing Magister when we fought?"

===

"Well, you gonna come too, Ileyna?" the ten-year-old asked, looking at the nine-year-old clad in the white dress. Ileyna bit her lip, looking at the others--one other boy and another girl, both her age, decided they wanted to check it out, and were gonna go.

"Um, okay," she said, finally deciding. She trotted up to the other three, ready to go with them. She hoped Colleen didn't find out, or else she'd get so mad... "Should we do this?" she asked, voicing her worries.

"It'll be alright," the older kid reassured. "I doubt anything bad'll happen."

"Okay."

Normally Matt would be feeling all sorts of energy flowing about him, but now, it felt like just before he got the Core. It was...unnerving. "Nothin' else besides what I already told you. Hopefully he'll pop up soon with some info we can use."

"That sounds annoying," R.D. said. As he walked, he suddenly felt a faint itch, but nothing physical. This was more... instinctual. He slowed down his walk, suddenly looking around more warily.

"Matt?" he said, keeping his eyes peeled. "Please tell me that I'm just imagining that something's staring at us."