Skrili and Deon journeyed along an eastbound path. Deon could barely keep up, as Skrili had been practically fast walking through the woods for an hour, eager to hunt down Pang and Phillip.

Deon jogged for a moment to catch back up. “So…do you think we’ll have time at some point to wash up?” he asked gaspingly. Or even just to breathe? he added in his thoughts.

“No, I don’t,” answered Skrili. She sped up her pace.

“Why? There’s no river or something nearby?”

“There is, but the more we sit around, the less progress we make,” Skrili explained, obviously starting to get annoyed.

“True, but I feel like cleaning up is kind of necessary,” stated Deon. “I mean, especially considering we just fought—”

“We fought? All you did was play googley-eyes with Ashley while I took care of everything,” Skrili reminded him.

“Okay fair...but even still, that means you were running around enough for both of us,” Deon pointed out. “So I would say you need to bathe more badly than I do, right?”

Skrili stopped with a slight jolt and whirled around to face him. Deon expected her to look irritated, but instead she looked at him with her usual blank expression—though her cheeks and nose were glowing pinkish red. “I don’t have time for your idiocy,” she said flatly.

Deon tried not to smirk. He knew saying something more would be going too far, but at the same time he was starting to feel a sense of accomplishment whenever he got a reaction out of Skrili. Besides, she was still letting him stick around—she couldn’t hate him that much yet. This tempted him to test her further: “What? Where I’m from, girls actually care about personal hygiene.”

He didn’t even realize Skrili punched him in the jaw until his face skidded against the coarse dirt. He came to a stop flat on his stomach, and lifted his head slowly to spit out a few pebbles.

“Now that I think of it, you do look like you might need a dip in the river,” Skrili commented unemotionally.

“Well played…” mumbled Deon.

~

Skrili didn’t say a word as she led Deon to the nearest stream. They headed a few minutes off the path, before she sat down against a tree. “The stream’s right down the hill,” she finally said. “You can go first.”

Deon nodded with a sheepish, dirt-covered grin. He continued past Skrili, and a hill began just beyond her. It was relatively steep, but not enough to make walking a challenge.

The stream at the bottom wasn’t very wide, but it was deep enough for the water to come up to Deon’s stomach. The water rushed hurriedly but silently, aside from the occasional trickling of tiny waves.

I hope I didn’t upset Skrili too bad, Deon thought as he took off his backpack and opened it. It’s hard to tell, since she never seems to show emotion—other than being annoyed. He pulled out his containers of soap and shampoo, both of which were formulas made by an old couple in Tailpiece.

After washing up in the particularly cold water and drying off with a towel he imagined into existence, Deon imagined clothes onto himself, which were almost identical to what he had been wearing before. While he certainly felt ill-prepared for all this traveling, he was glad he had at least memorized how to imagine his outfit.

While un-imagining the towel and packing up his bathing supplies, something occurred to him: Skrili had nothing more than the clothes on her back, since that girl Pang took her bag. He took the soap and shampoo back out and imagined another towel into his hand.

Next he attempted to imagine clothes for her. Hmm…she has that blue shirt thing…he thought with closed eyes. And those pants are kind of like this…after combining the necessary elements and shaping them into the clothes, he opened his eyes and brought his imagined product into existence. The clothes flopped into his hands. That should be good enough, he decided.

Deon made his way back up the hill and met Skrili under the tree. He tossed the towel, clothes, and soaps onto her lap wordlessly.

Skrili glanced at what she was given and looked up at him. “What’s all this?”

“Nothing; just some stuff I imagined for you to use,” he said.

“Oh,” said Skrili. She took it all in her arms and stood up. “Thanks.” With that, she headed to the stream.

Unsure of whether Skrili was actually grateful, annoyed, or whatever else, Deon took Skrili’s seat next to the tree and began waiting.

A couple minutes passed until he started hearing footsteps—but they were coming from ahead of him, and it was more than one person. Soon two individuals came into view: one tall, dark, and brawny, and the other short, pale, and bony. Deon heard the short one rambling energetically about something. His voice was loud and squeaky. These guys seem like characters, Deon told himself.

“Hey you!” the scrawny guy exclaimed. It took Deon a moment to realize the person was talking to him. Deon waited for them to come closer so he could communicate without having to shout.

When they drew near, he saw the short one was wearing an large red cloak with the hood down. He had awkwardly long, unnaturally yellow hair that was tied back in a ponytail and didn’t fit his uneven patches of brown facial hair. He also wore circular black glasses, dark pants, and black boots that looked too heavy for him.

The tall, muscular man next to him wore a simple button-down gray shirt, with matching gray pants and shoes. His rectangular glasses were shaded purple. This man appeared to be in his thirties. He seemed uncomfortable and hesitant about approaching Deon, while the short man was more than eager to.

“Hi. What’s up?” Deon greeted.

“‘Hi,’ you say? ‘What’s up,’ you say?!” the short man repeated in his cracking voice. “You clearly don’t know who you’re addressing, pal!”

“Nope, not a clue,” said Deon.

“EH?!!!” the man practically screamed. “It is I, the greatest Imaginer…the one and only…” He clenched his fists and dramatically looked to the sky as if a spotlight shone down on him. “…FULLMETAL CONSCIOUSNESST!!!!”

“The what?”

“The FULLMETAL CONSCIOUSNESST!!!”

Deon looked at the tall dark man, whose hand was slapped against his face in embarrassment. “So this dude’s from Normal Country,” the man began, “and he’s obsessed with this show from there called Fullmetal Alc—”

“Quiet, Al!” the Fullmetal Consciousnesst snapped. “My identity has nothing to do with the greatest anime of all time!”

“Okay; for the last time, my name’s not Al—it’s Xavier. How does that even remotely sound like Al???” Xavier asked angrily.

Deon sat in silence, too freaked out to speak.

“Anyway,” continued the Fullmetal Consciousnesst, “Me and my little brother here are looking for a rare type of mineral. It’s called the Imaginer’s Rock. We were wondering if you have any clue of how to obtain one?”

“First of all,” interrupted Xavier, “I’m obviously not his brother. I just wanted to clarify that. And by saying ‘we,’ he means just him, because I don’t give a crap about some random rock that probably doesn’t exist—”

“IT EXISTS, BROTHER!!!”

“I’M NOT YOUR FREAKING BROTHER!!!” Xavier retorted.

Deon hesitated, and then deemed it safe to respond. “Sorry, but I’ve never heard of an Imaginer’s Rock.”

The Fullmetal Consciousnesst lowered his head in apparent sadness. Then he lifted it slowly, with an oddly concerned expression on his face. “Wait…are you an Imaginer?” he asked curiously.

“Uh…yeah, actually.”

“AHA!” the Fullmetal Consciousnesst exclaimed. “Then you must have heard of it! You probably know something about it that you’re not telling me!”

“Not really,” Deon assured him. “But hey, have you seen a girl named Pang with red—uh—cherry red hair walking around with some tall guy named Phillip?” He figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“Don’t try to change the subject!!” cried Fullmetal.

“Actually yeah, we have,” Xavier said. “We were—”

“No! Don’t tell him! Not until he spills what he knows about the Imaginer’s Rock!”

“YOU JUST MADE THAT UP—you know what, I give up,” said Xavier.

An idea dawned on Deon. “Wait a second,” he said. “Maybe I do know a little something about this Imaginer’s Rock…how about we make a little deal. When my teammate comes back, let’s have a fight. If we win, you tell us about Pang and Phillip. If you win, I tell you about the Imaginer’s Rock.”

Deon knew he could’ve presented a deal that avoided having to fight, but he didn’t want to pass up this opportunity.

“Deal!” the Fullmetal Consciousnesst agreed.

Xavier just sighed. “Whatever…” he said.

Someone walked up beside Deon and faced him. At first he didn’t recognize her, but it was Skrili. Her hair wasn’t tied up like usual—it was down and still damp from the water. Most notably, though, was that she was wearing the clothes Deon imagined for her…and they looked downright ridiculous.

The blue shirt was obnoxiously big on her: its width was almost too large for her small shoulders to hold up, and it flowed like a huge robe down to her knees. On top of that, he accidentally made it long sleeved instead of sleeveless. Her pants weren’t as bad, but they were too long and covered the back halves of her shoes.

Skrili stood there uncomfortably, blushing once again. She handed Deon his supplies silently with her sleeve-covered hand. The other sleeve held her other clothes, which were wet from being washed in the stream. “I appreciate the effort,” Skrili told him monotonously.

Deon couldn’t help it. He fell over in a fit of laughter. Nothing was funnier than seeing the most serious person he ever met dressed in the most absurd clothing.

WHAM!!!

The laughing ceased immediately, now that Deon’s head was jammed against the dirt under Skrili’s foot. Skrili crossed her arms, the excess of her sleeves waving in the air.

“Sorry…” Deon mumbled through twisted cheeks. He was starting to grow familiar with the ground’s taste.

“Good—you’re oddly-dressed teammate is here,” the Consciousnesst announced. “Let’s begin the fight!”

“The fight?” Skrili repeated. Her purple eyes looked down at Deon ragingly and she pressed her foot on his head even harder. “We don’t have time to fight again, you dope!”

“Bt…Thnbpnfp!” Deon struggle to say, wincing from the pain. Skrili released her foot from his head. Relieved, he sat back up. “I said: they saw Pang and Phillip, so if we beat them they’ll tell us what they know!”

He intentionally left out the fact that it was he who challenged them.

Skrili sighed. “This again…fine.”

“Though I should probably warn you,” the Fullmetal Consciousnesst said, “You two have no idea what you’re getting yourselves into. For I am…” he looked to the sky dramatically again. “…THE FULLMETAL CONSCIOUSNESST!!!”

“I’m pretty sure there’s no ‘T’ in ‘Consciousness’, right?” Deon wondered as he stood to his feet and placed his bathing items to the side.

“I tried to tell him,” Xavier sighed.

Skrili hung her wet clothes up on a branch and turned to her opponents. “What are your specifications?” she asked.

“Let’s do teams,” decided Xavier. “No boundaries.”

“Sounds good!” exclaimed Deon. Then he leaned close to Skrili. “What does that mean?” he whispered.

Skrili closed her eyes as she tried to maintain her patience. “We’re fighting two-on-two—we’re not assigned to specific opponents like last time. And we don’t have to worry about going too far and leaving the boundaries, which would mean disqualification. ‘No boundaries’ is usually a default rule.”

“Oh. Sounds good!” Deon exclaimed again.

“If you two kids are done whispering to each other,” Fullmetal began impatiently, “let the battle BEGIN!!!”

Skrili stood in place, waiting, so Deon did the same.

“Al, what’s your reading on them?” the Fullmetal Consciousnesst asked his teammate.

Xavier adjusted his purple sunglasses and observed Deon and Skrili silently for a moment. “Hmm…the kid wasn’t lying about being an Imaginer…he’s just a noob, though. And I’m having a hard time figuring out the girl, but she definitely has more experience than him.”

“Analyzer,” Skrili whispered to Deon.

“Does that mean he can figure out what types we are?” he murmured back.

Skrili nodded. “And more.”

“Okay; Attack Three!” the Fullmetal Consciousnesst shouted. Before Deon had the chance to wonder why he yelled a number, Xavier and Fullmetal charged at him and Skrili.

Skrili shifted into a defensive fighting stance and Deon watched the oncoming attackers closely. When they neared, two things happened at once: Xavier grabbed Skrili’s loose sleeve and pulled it away from her center, opening up her guard. Immediately he sent his massive palm into where her neck met her chest and shoved Skrili backward, pinning her hard against the tree. Simultaneously, Deon noticed Fullmetal’s right hand turning into bright, silvery metal, and he was pulling it back in preparation to punch him. Alarmed, Deon quickly imagined a rock wall in front of himself. It appeared just in time, and with a thud, the Fullmetal Consciousnesst crashed into it.

Meanwhile Skrili was trapped up against the tree trunk as Xavier’s muscular arm held her firmly in place. Skrili struggled, grabbing his wrist with both hands and jerking in all directions, but to no avail.

Xavier analyzed her further with attentive eyes. “You’re a tricky one to read,” he told her. “You must be one of those rare Consciousnesses.”

Deon imagined the wall out of existence to see the Consciousnesst rubbing his cheek in pain, and then Deon kicked him in the chest, sending Fullmetal flying back and tumbling to the ground with a clumsy yelp. Remembering that he could also fight Xavier, he turned around to see Skrili’s predicament.

“Pick on someone your own size!” he bellowed, and he imagined his plank-of-wood attack behind Xavier’s head. It whacked Xavier full-force and dead-on. Xavier turned his head to look at Deon and smiled—he was completely unaffected.

“WHAT?!?!” screamed Deon. “Skrili, this guy’s tough!”

Xavier looked back at Skrili and let out a laugh. “Your teammate’s lacking in experience,” he said.

“He’s not my teammate,” Skrili managed to respond in a constricted voice.

Xavier chuckled again. “That’s what I keep telling myself about Mr. Consciousnesst over there.”

“Hey! Don’t just ignore me!” demanded Deon. He swung the plank of wood at Xavier’s head once more, which also had no effect. Angered, Deon tried a third time—but just as it was about to hit him, Xavier cocked his head to the side to dodge it. It went past him and whacked Skrili right in the forehead. Her head banged against the tree and dropped forward as she grabbed it, wincing with pain.

“…Oops…” Deon uttered, quickly de-imagining the plank. “Sorry, Skrili!”

“You pea-brain,” Skrili groaned.

Xavier shrugged. “Rookie mistakes; you gotta love ‘em.”

“In a sense, you’re right,” said Skrili, suddenly lifting her head and looking at him, completely alert. Then, she put one sleeve-covered hand on Xavier’s hand and effortlessly removed it from her. Now free, she leaped forward with bullet speed and kneed Xavier in his core. He stumbled back several steps, grasping his stomach with surprise. “There’s a hint to my type,” Skrili told him.

“Ha!” cheered Deon. I ended up giving her a Power Rebound by accident! Nice! he realized. Skrili and Xavier engaged each other in more combat, and Deon was eager to jump in.

“That was a cheap-shot!” whined a crackly voice. “And I’m not done yet!” Deon turned and saw the Fullmetal Consciousnesst standing to his feet.

“I would hope not; that wasn’t even too hard of a kick,” Deon pointed out.

“Shut it! I was gonna save the best for last, but now I’ll show you why they call me the FULLMETAL CONSCIOUSNESST!!!”

“No one calls you that!” Xavier shouted as he struggled against Skrili’s Power-Rebound-induced speed and strength.

The Consciousnesst ignored him and spread his arms out to the sides. With a menacing smirk, he began his transformation: the same silvery metal from before started forming around him, taking the shape of his body until he was completely encompassed in it. He was now fully covered in metal armor.

The Fullmetal Consciousnesst pointed at Deon and said something confidently, but his metal exterior muffled the words.

“Oh man—this transformation looks really strong,” Deon said to himself. “But at least now I don’t have to hear his annoying voice.”

The now truly Fullmetal Consciousnesst pounced at Deon, but Deon sidestepped it and quickly imagined two large rocks into his hands. He chucked these rocks at Fullmetal, who eluded one and caught the other with a clank! To Deon’s alarm, the rock reformed into silver metal before his eyes.

The Fullmetal Consciousnesst held his hand out and launched the block of steel back at Deon. With little option to avoid it, Deon jumped and twisted himself. Luckily, the metallic ball only grazed his shoulder—but it was enough to throw him off-balance and onto the ground. Deon grabbed his sore shoulder and watched Fullmetal.

Clever…re-imagining my rock into his own metal, he thought.

The Fullmetal Consciousnesst seemed to taunt Deon, but again his words were incomprehensible. Then abruptly, Xavier was sent soaring at Fullmetal, colliding with him and sending them both to the ground. Deon looked over to Skrili, who had apparently managed to throw Xavier at the Consciousnesst. She glanced back at Deon impassively.

“Whoa, nice job,” Deon told her, but then Skrili began to waver as if about to faint. She collapsed into a sitting position, breathing heavily.

“That was the last of my Power Rebound,” Skrili said to Deon airily. “I overdid it a bit.” Across from her, Fullmetal was standing back up, followed slowly by the injured Xavier.

Crap, thought Deon. Now they’ll be able to take out Skrili easily and gang up on me! He stood up and jogged over to Skrili, standing directly in front of her.

“Stall for a little while,” he heard Skrili whisper between breaths. “I used too much Rebound energy at once, but I’ll get my normal strength back in a couple minutes.”

Deon agreed silently. “So how about that weather?” he asked his opponents.

“That’s not what I meant!” Skrili murmured, struggling to stay quiet.

The Fullmetal Consciousnesst and Xavier seemed to take no notice of their talking. “Fullmetal,” began Xavier. “The girl’s a Power Rebound…and from the looks of it, her Power Rebound is used up. She’ll go down easy.”

The metal around the Consciousnesst’s face opened up. “Good,” he said. “It’s time we end this and learn a little something about that Imaginer’s Rock.” He closed the metal armor back up.

But all of the sudden, the metal surrounding his body jerked inward with countless dents. Even through the metal barrier, everyone could hear Fullmetal’s blood-curdling scream.

“Stop! You’re going to kill him!” Skrili demanded Deon urgently.

“It—it’s not me!” Deon assured her. He had just considered using imagining to influence the Fullmetal Consciousnesst’s armor, but he would never try to crush him. Something else was causing this.

The Fullmetal Consciousnesst managed to get it together enough to imagine his metal armor out of existence. He looked quite shaken up; his glasses were smashed and blood gushed out of his swollen nose, but no deadly injuries were evident. Fullmetal dropped to his knees, and then fell forward wordlessly.

“Fullmetal!” Xavier cried—but then he looked ahead in confusion. “What? NO!” he shouted, pressing his hands against his head and closing his eyes. Xavier leaned forward, yelling with pain as sweat tricked down his face.

“What’s happening?!” Deon asked worriedly.

“STOP! AHHHH!!!!” He screamed. “STOP ANALYZING!!!!!” Then the large man’s hollering stopped, and he keeled over on his side. His eyes were open with shock as he stared unthinkingly.

Deon and Skrili watched in silent uncertainty and fear as their former opponents lay incapacitated before them. A wind blew passed them softly.

“How annoying,” someone said. “There’s no one down the other way, so we come back and the first people we see are the two pieces of trash we just beat a few days ago.”

The voice had come from the far right, and it was getting closer.

“At least these two kids look like new faces. If that’s the case, I say we’re the ones who deserve to fight them,” the same voice said. “Not two veteran has-beens who don’t even get along.”

Nervous, Deon backed away from the two injured consciousnesses slightly and stood beside Skrili. He watched the area the voice had come from, and through the trees he could depict two figures…

…one with cherry-red hair and the other in black and white.

Deon’s heart skipped a beat.

Pang and Phillip walked into the area. Ashley and Miranda’s descriptions of them were spot-on, and Pang did in fact have two bags on her shoulder—but Deon noticed something unsettling: Pang’s clothing was the exact same outfit as Skrili’s usual clothes, only in blood red. Also, he knew they said Pang had a confident demeanor, but her eyes…those large, golden eyes gave off the disturbing implication that she believed the world around her was hers.

The uncomfortably quiet and rather tall Phillip loomed behind her like her ghostly shadow as the two of them observed the fighting scene they had carelessly paused.

“Hey,” Pang said to Deon in her oddly mature voice. “Sorry to interrupt, but trust me: these two aren’t worth anyone’s time.” Her eyes fell to Skrili and widened with surprise. “No way—is that you, Skrili?”

Skrili sat mutely and averted her eyes.

“Wow!” exclaimed Pang. “Phillip, that’s my old friend Skrili I told you about. We go way back…” she returned her attention to Skrili, noticing her oversized clothes. “Sweetheart, I don’t know what happened to your sense of fashion, but look!” She gestured at Deon. “Good for you! You went along and managed to find your socially awkward little self a new teammate! And you did good; this one’s a cutie.”

Finally one of the girls out here realizes my obvious hotness! Deon thought. But of course, it has to be the one girl I’m supposed to dislike…

Skrili remained silent. It was strange—she didn’t seem intense like Deon had known her to be, and particularly expected her to be, now that she saw Pang. Instead, she appeared timid…intimidated…She hesitantly glanced at her blue bag, which rested at Pang’s side.

Pang seemed to notice. “Oh! Look what I found for you, Skrili.” She unstrapped the bag from her shoulder and held it in front of her on display. “I swiped it off some old fat guys a couple days ago. I figured you must miss it dearly. Well, here you go; come and get it,” she said with an unexpectedly sincere smile.

Deon had to hold up his jaw to keep it from dropping with disbelief. She was just going to give it to Skrili without issue? Did I misunderstand the situation or something?

Skrili sat still for a while, but right when Deon was convinced she wasn’t going to get it, she began to stand up. He could tell she was still somewhat weakened from earlier, but she stood and took a few steps forward.

“Wait—oh, how awkward,” Pang suddenly recalled. Deon couldn’t tell if she was being serious or toying with Skrili. “I just remembered: I can’t give this to you. There’s something in it that I need. Oh, well.” Pang lightheartedly strapped the bag back around her shoulder.

Skrili gently stopped walking and stood in place. Deon couldn’t see her eyes because her loose hair now blocked them, but somehow he sensed her anger. He could feel the tension.

“Give me my bag,” Skrili demanded so softly, yet so threateningly.

The smile on Pang’s face morphed into one that entertained the thought of impending violence. “Make me,” she said.