© 2005 Mike Blake (Monisawa),  Jeremy Blake (www.jerbl.com);  All rights and privileges reserved.
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-------------EPISODE IV  : part 1-------------

           Cleaning up the mess of equipment, that still lay strewn about the floor like a junkyard, Nemo, Yoru and Tsuki worked busily alongside the human Rebecca.  Peacefully content, Nemo began the conversation, "So what is this all about?"  He tilted his head up in her direction while still keeping his mind at the task at hand. 

            "About what," asked Rebecca, "There is a whole lot that you don't know and I could spend hours telling you about it."  She turned and picked up pieces alongside Nemo and placed them next to the underground closet opening.

            "First of all, how come you know Viktor?  I know that he is obviously known worldwide among the animals, but why is he after you?"

            She turned from Nemo and worked harder, while trying to think on how to say it.  "To answer that Nemo, I would have to explain where you are from and why we are here..."

            "Thats right,” Said Tsuki, who was bent over into the hole, dropping the equipment that was placed next to her by Nemo and Rebecca, to Yoru.  "Nemo is an Alien."

            Nemo glared at her as she smiled sheepishly, though obviously ignoring his glares.

            "Actually Nemo and I belong to Earth, but we are from an ancient forgotten fold in reality.  This fold is known as The Animal Paradise.  Built and established eons and eons ago, this place was a sanctuary for animals of the world to flee from the threat and harmful actions of mankind."

            "A fold," asked Nemo slightly confused? "You mean like a rift?"

            "Yes," Rebeeca stated, "but the problem is that where the crack should be, or other words the way to get to the Paradise has been sealed up for the past ten years."

            "That is how long you said that you had been looking for me.  How can that be considering that I know that I am not that old."  Duchess was barely over ten years old and she had a hard time getting around.

            Rebecca did not know how to answer that question.  If what she was saying was true, how old did that make himself, Nemo thought to himself? 

            Rebecca continued her explanation, "Back to explaining about Paradise, as I was saying, it is a place of utmost beauty and peace.  Though it has been ten years since I last saw it, and I can't actually remember anything about it because I was so young, I know it is an awesome place to be in."

            "So how do Viktor and Tenalt fit into the picture?” Asked Nemo.

            "Somehow Tenalt discovered the gateway and so the High Council, the people that are over The animal Paradise, decided it was time to seal the door.  They could not endanger the lives and the peacefulness of their ways to some power sadistic psycho...even if that meant closing the doors to all the animals that wanted sanctuary.  On the day they were blasting the gate; Tenalt stormed the palace wall and broke into the palace.  All of the Royal Family that was given charge to watch the gate on the human side, had made it through the gate except for one boy."  She turned her head in the direction of the child that she had brought with her.  Sitting on the couch, he looked contently around the room, though not speaking, or moving from place.      

            "He...” said Nemo?

            "Yes, he is a Prince by birth.  He had been given charge to stay behind, though just an infant, but to be in our hands and to be protected.  He was supposed to bring up the rear of the exodus into the gateway.  But...."

            Nemo figured he knew the rest of the story.  Obviously seeing that the boy was still on the human part of Earth and seeing that Rebecca was also here, meant that something had gone wrong.

            "So Tenalt and Viktor...how come they did not capture the prince," Asked Nemo?

            Though Rebecca looked and acted like a strong character she seemed to be emotionally kept up inside, as the moment she struggled to remember brought back bad memories.

            "...After that," She continued, "I was left alone.  You and Amy left me and told me to teleport away if they did not return....you never returned and the palace began to blow up and I had to leave.  That is all I will tell about mine and your past..."

            Nemo wanted to know who Amy was, but decided not to press the issue.  "So you have been on the run and hiding for the past ten years," Nemo asked?

            "That is a long time," Exclaimed Tsuki.

            Yoru was propped at the top of the hole listening to the story.  Seeing as to the fact that no one had been bringing him things to sort and place in the tunnel, he was content and listening.

            Rebecca sighed and pulled all of her emotions together.  "Yes it was a long time, but now that I found you, we might stand a chance."

            "A chance against what,” asked Nemo, "when they blew up the palace, didn't that destroy the gate?"

            "No...the gate is still intact, but can only be opened by the presence of a member of the Royal Family."

            "Which is why Viktor wants you and the boy," Nemo concluded.

            "So why don't you just go to the gate and teleport through," asked Tsuki?

            "Yah," put in Yoru, "Nemo is doing fine with the humans.  He doesn't need any paradise."

            "Unfortunately," Rebecca stated, "Tenalt and Viktor stationed their Headquarters on the entire mountain that contains what was left of the palace and the gate."

            Yoru and Tsuki looked wide eyed at her.  "The entire MOUNTAIN," asked Tsuki?! 

            "That is amazing, that fortess must be HUGE and filled with thousands of Viktor's henchmen." Yoru stated.

            "Yes, this is exactly why I have been looking for Nemo.  I knew that he was powerful, and I knew that if he was still alive, he could get into that fortress with no problem at all."

            Nemo looked hesitantly at Rebecca, "I can't defeat an entire fortress full of men bent on trying to kill me!"         

            “But what about the legend of Nemo defeating an entire army…”Rebecca stated in question.

            Nemo smirked; he knew that he was not remembering that much information.  He could definitely NOT defeat even one of the robots from his dream.  Getting his mind off of the issue he went back to work.  Not worrying about the rest of the junk on the floor, Nemo began to shove it back down into the hole.  It was close to morning and they had to get it back in the hole.  Jumping out of the way, Yoru called out in surprise, “Watch it!”

            Rebecca and Tsuki and Yoru, stood back and watched as Nemo shoved the last of the junk into the hole.  Sighing, he pressed the button and stepped away as it closed.

            “I hope that you didn’t need anything else from the chamber, because I buried it.”

            Rebecca shook her head, “I got everything that was important.  It seemed that you had quite a collection of artifacts from our part of the Earth.”

            Nemo tilted his head, “Actually I stole them from Viktor and Tenalt.  They were considered a danger by the former HQ, so I was to relieve them from their grasps.”

            Rebecca looked questiongly at Nemo, “You mean that they       were from their labs?”

            “Yes, HQ had received tips from unknown sources that Viktor and Tenalt possessed dangerous artifacts.”

            She smiled, “So you’re saying that you stole your own sword back?”

            Nemo glanced at the sword that he had placed against the corner of the wall, so that he could work on cleaning the room.  “It sure seems that way.”

            Rebecca stopped and thought momentarily, “I wonder if Viktor and Tenalt gave HQ those tips so that you would get your things back, so that you might remember something and lead them to me and the prince.”

            Nemo rolled his eyes, “that sounds like a likely story, but a little far-fetched.”

            “Even so, we are talking about Viktor,” Tsuki added in.

            Nemo smiled, but wanted to change the subject, “So where have you been staying, or in other words, living at for the past ten years.”

            Rebecca carefully walked over to the couch opposite to the one that was facing her, which had the prince on it, and sat down.  Stretching out, she reached far with her hands and legs and they relaxed limp.  “We have actually never had any place to live before.  Viktor and Tenalt has always been tracking us and trying to find out where we were.  We have never had a stationary place to live.”  She looked over at the prince and sighed once more.

            Nemo turned to look at Tsuki and Yoru.  Keeping the equipment a secret from the humans was a burden, but trying to keep two humans, was different.  Nemo could not even think of trying to hide them at his house.  He wasn’t about to go to the palace, or whatever it was, and take on Viktor’s Worldwide Headquarters of evil, so they needed some place to stay.

            Suddenly Tsuki exclaimed out, “Nemo, I forgot to mention something to you!  The other day, when I was bored, I put together pieces of some equipment that I had found in one of the other closets in the house and I invented a sonar device.”

            Nemo, who was unsure where Tsuki was going, looked over to her, “I don’t see how your crazy inventions, of which I told you NOT to build, will help us find a place for them to live.”

            “Wait,” she called, “just listen for a sec’.  As I was saying, I built a sonar device that Pings a wave of sound through the air and bounces it off of other objects.  When the unit I hold takes the incoming wave of energy, it creates a schematic map of everything in the room.”

            Nemo was still unsure of where she was going.  She was wasting his time and the time that the whole group had to figure out what to do with the two new humans.  “Tsuki…” he began to add in, but was cut off.

            “…So I decided to test it on the ENTIRE HOUSE,” When she said that, she expressionately swung her arms in a big circle.  “And what I found when I did that, was that twenty feet below this house was a very very large object, of which was hollow.”

            Nemo was doubtful that it was anything important, “It was probably just a false reading.”

            “Nope,” she defiantly exclaimed.

            “Alright then,” Nemo decided, “It is a layer of rock that was put there millions of years ago.”

            Tsuki glared at Nemo, “My inventions are not crazy.”

            Yoru laughed and coyly walked over to the single seated sofa that was next to the prince and sat comfortably down.  “This could go on awhile,” he said directing his comment towards Rebecca.  “Nemo and Tsuki always fight about her inventions.”

            “Inventions,” Rebecca said in question, “what kind of inventions?”

            “Well,” Yoru pondered for a second, “Though she hasn’t done it for awhile, she takes the equipment that HQ would send us, or pieces of old ones that lay scattered throughout the secret compartments and would either modify them, or create something totally new.  Most of the time, they would malfunction, or explode.”

            “They do not,” exclaimed Tsuki, who had pulled from her conversation with Nemo to yell at Yoru.  She was getting angry.

            Suddenly everyone stopped talking when they heard a beeping noise.

            Nemo’s ears perked around, trying to identify the noise.  “What is that?”  He asked out loud.

            Rebecca listened for a moment, but then gasped, “Oh no!”  She reached for her pocket and hurriedly brushed the overcoat aside to grasp at something in her pocket.  “I forgot to check my Communication Receiver.”  Pulling out a small square, but shiny object, she tapped on the screen and brought the urgent noise to a stop.”  Quickly reading something on the screen, Tsuki dashed up behind her on the couch and peered over her shoulder.

            “Looks like an e-mail,” commented Tsuki.

            Half in thought in what she was reading Rebecca nodded her head in agreement to Tsuki’s comment.  But then suddenly she called out, “Great!  They got the information I wanted.”

            Everyone in the room was looking in question at Rebecca, except for the Prince.

            She smiled and put the object back into her pocket.  “I have to go and pick up something from the post office.”

            “The post office,” asked Yoru?

            “Yah, what is a post office?” asked Tsuki.

            Nemo turned from Rebecca to the young cats, “What do you mean, what is a post office?  It is where all of the humans’ mail gets sent to!”

            Tsuki sheepishly looked in surprise and felt rather foolish.  “Oh,” she finally said.

            “What do you need there,” asked Nemo?

            Rebecca stood up and was securing her hooded overcoat.  Drawing the strings together at the neck, she hurriedly tied them and turned to Nemo.  “I can’t explain everything, but during my many wanderings I found an underground network of highly special information specialists.  If they don’t know what you want, they can find it out for a certain price.  I already paid them, and they just sent me an e-mail that they have my information that I requested.”

            “What…”started Yoru.

            “…Information is that,” Finished Tsuki?

            “It has taken almost a year for them to gather the information, but this package has everything that we will need.  The schematic of the entire fortress, the information of duty of guards….EVERYTHING.”

            Nemo groaned.  For some reason, the thought of such an impossible mission made him feel nauseous…

END PART I

CLICK HERE TO GO TO PART 2

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