TOYLAND

[Kayde]

Everyone was glad to land. Now, if only the baby would stay gone while they were here they would have no trouble. Well......, what was Kay thinking. Trouble was their middle name. Sighing, she put the leash on the pup to go potty before securing it into the cage while they were on shore. She was mentally finishing the last of the presents she needed to purchase.

"Wait for me guys." she said, quickly taking the puppy for a walk while the others got together what they wanted to take off the boat with them and securing what they were leaving on deck.

When she got back with the puppy, Patch she had decided to name him, Rae looked thoughtfully for a moment at him and then said,
"Kay, why don't you just let him run loose on the deck. I'll do a charm to make him appear older and meaner and another charm to keep him from being able to leave the boundaries of the deck. That way he's safe and he appears to be guarding the boat."

"Sure." Kay agreed.

"No" Ragnar said emphatically. "It may look like a grown dog to strangers, but it is just a puppy and I don't want to step in anything when we get back."

"No worry's mate!" Rae said grinning, and patting him on the cheak as she walked by him. "He will behave as a grown border collie too, and you won't have to be surprised by anything when we get back."

"Guard!" she said loud enough for onlookers to hear as the Scoobs walked off the ship.

Kay looked at Jila who looked back sympathetically to what looked like a grown border collie growling. "He's not growling, he's whimpering." Jila said. "I told him not to worry, that we would be back soon and bring him a nice bone to chew on."

As they walked past nets and pelicans towards the entrance to the port, Ragnar ducked his head and turned abruptly saying."Lets go this way."
Kay looked over her shoulder at the rough looking woman and two goons walking towards them. Actually they looked like they were walking towards the longboat. Why didn't Ragnar want them to see him?

[KaraS]

Kara stood on the deck of the longboat and watched her friends walk off. She really had nothng to buy in Toyland so she had stayed to keep the puppy company.

And to watch for the baby plesiasaur in case it decided to follow them into the harbour. It was certainly large enough to be seen as a threat by people who didn't know it was a lost baby, and people from the other boats might hurt it if they thought it was attacking them.

So she grabbed a deck chair and positioned herself in the winter sun with her novel and a glass of ice tea. The puppy climbed up on the foot of the chair and curled up with his chin resting on her feet. Very cute.

Kara read her book for a few minutes before becoming uncomfortable. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a woman and two men lurking and watching the boat. They were obviously a surevilance team. Hmmm...

Kara pretended to read her book and watched the people watching the boat to see what they would do. The puppy slept on undisturbed.

[Sandworm]

Sandworm was in the arcades.

And Toyland had ARCADES. Most arcades are large, especially american ones, but... well, imagine a mall-sized arcade and you're getting there.

They even had games that could challenge his superhuman reflexes. Which he liked. It had been so long since he had had a challenging computer game.

As he settled down to the accelerated version of Time Crisis 3, he noticed something else out of the corner of his eye, smelt people... scared... fast heartbeats entered his ears.

He risked a look around, and saw a man in dark clothes, and two women with him. How odd.

He went back to killing enemies, but kept an ear on them.

Meanwhile...

[Emram]

Emram, while wanting to look in various different shops, decided to take a walk first. He didn't need anything particularly unusual, so would have plenty of time later.

He wandered through the bustling streets of Toytown, his Force-enhanced senses taking in every sight, sound and smell. He adjusted his sense of smell back down to near normal - the streets in this particular quarter of Toytown were non too fragrant.

As he walked, his danger-sense kept twitching, although not in such a fashion as to alarm him. Less an alarm, more a gentle prod. He feigned dropping something, turned, pretended to pick up the item, and continued on his way. He had only looked at the street behind him for a second, if that, but it would be enough. He continued to sneak brief, occasional glances behind him for the next 15 minutes or so, and then retired to a pleasant-looking café for a drink.

As he sat, waiting for his drink, he replayed his short term memory slowly, looking for anything out of place. The only thing that really leapt out at him from his first backwards glance was the man and two women, all dressed in black, who bore a remarkable resemblance to the three they had "avoided" while leaving the ship. They cropped up in every part of his memory from the previous quarter hour. He sat back in his chair, and thought deeply, hoping to find some idea of their intentions.

But as he reached out with the Force, he could find no one with any thoughts on their mind other than those that were to be fully expected - couriers and delivery people rushing, some shoppers idly meandering their way between windows, other shoppers trying to get from shop to shop as quickly as possible, sudden realisations of ovens left on...

He looked around, but could see nothing of the three who had been following him. Finishing his coffee, wincing as the hot liquid slightly scalded the roof of his mouth, he set off back towards the centre of Toytown, looking for the others.

He kept his Jedi senses focused on a fairly tight area to avoid the sheer number of people in Toytown from rendering them next to useless. As he strode past an amusement arcade, he picked up Sandworm's familiar mind, moving at phenomenal speed, a few dozen metres away. He ducked into the immense building, searching for his friend.

[Kayde]

The rest of the Scoobs were wandering through Toyland, and looking for shops to spend the rest of their Christmas budgets in. Everyone seemed to be seeing the three people who seemed to be everywhere at once.

The tension was rising. There was trouble here. It looked innocent enough though. Toys everywhere. Live ones, miniature ones, toys for all ages in all shapes and sizes. And toy robots everywhere. They were more sophisticated than Kay had ever imagined. They turned towards the Scoobs constantly. Chryse and Jila noticed that they seemed to follow them as well.

"Time to leave. Now." Ray said talking into her com to call the others to head for the ship.

Almost relieved, the Scoobs headed back to the boat.

"What's up? Emram said meeting them. He too, had felt something not right.

There was a huge explosion. Then another. Coming from different directions. The Scoobs took off running. "The boat!" Ragnar yelled, running faster, as an explosion came from the dock area.

The boat was safe. Kara was allready pulling in the anchor. Ragnar ran to start the engine. It wouldn't start! He tried again, cursing as nothing happened. Explosions were coming closer.

"Ragnar! I need a rope!" Jila yelled. Grabbling the first one she found she tied one end down and threw the other end over the front of the boat. With a jerk the boat moved, and started turning. Then it started gliding out of port. Jila grinned. Our own baby plesiasaur agreed to pull us to safety. Pretty handy isn't it?" she grinned up at Ragnar who was still trying to get the engine started.

"Uh oh..." Kay said pointed to the docks they had just left. 3 speedboats were headed after them. It looked like just robots aboard. What in the world?

[Sandworm]

"Time out, guys," said Sandworm, who was up on deck, quite a raity.
"What was that explosion, and why are those... whatever they are... chasing us?"

[Emram]

"I don't know," Emram replied dryly, as shots begin to zip past them, "but I think we can assume they're hostile!" He deflected a couple of shots, his purple blade humming. "I suggest we all do what we can to prevent them holing the hull." He turned to the others, his lightsaber reaching behind his back to send another shot into the chest of one of the robots pursuing them.

The other, more martial Scoobs all agreed, and began to prepare themselves. The magic users began to ready their protection spells, and even Sandworm stood ready with a thick blanket in case of fire.

Emram backflipped off the deck, and landed in one of the pursuit boats. Allowing the Force to tell him how to move, he deflected a desperate flurry of shots and then cut the barrel from the large gun mounted at the back of the boat. A quick twitch of the Force, and the droid piloting the small craft was just a momentary ripple in the water.

He reached out with his mind and manoeuvered the boat up behind another one, all the while deflecting the occasional shots that came his way, including one from Rae, which happened to glance off an armoured robot head. He detected her flash of chagrin, but was too busy controlling the boat and defending himself to reassure her just then.

He had to admit, even though the Force was with him, he would probably not still be unharmed were it not for the fusilade of shots coming from Ragnar's ship. As it was, he was sweating and gritting his teeth with concentration.

He leapt, and landed in the nearby pursuit craft. With one less thing to concentrate on, he was able to more effectively deal with the occupants of the boat. Once they were all overboard, he slowed down a little, to give himself a brief chance to catch his breath. Looking around, his heart sank.

While he had managed to reduce the attacking craft by two, five others had joined the chase. Rae alone had done more to save the Scoobs than he had. Mustering his thoughts, he determined to do whatever was necessary to prevent harm coming to his friends - and himself, if possible.

He saw one of the Scoobs beckoning to him - Rae, he thought, although he wasn't sure - and he suddenly, feeling extremely foolish, activated his com-link, gunning the engine to catch up somewhat.

"-into the boat! That tail-gun will take out an enemy vessel in ine shot!" he heard. "Just lift me into the frelling boat!"

He Force-lifted Rae - for it had been she who had spoken - into the boat, and while she settled herself at it's controls, he made for the other pursuing craft.

[Sandworm]

Just then, he heard a loud sizzling noise, and smelled the unmistakable odour of ozone...

The kind of thing you smell when...

Another Lasbeam shot past him, glowing purple, vapourising the water in from of the pursuing boats, giving Rae a clear, easy shot as the boats fell

Sandworm saluted from the deck of the longboat, where he had put his weapon to good use.

Emram wasn't sure, but he thought he saw, rather than heard, Sandworm shout "Now sort them!"

He turned back to Rae, who was just taking the shot.

[JilaCosa]

"Baby's getting tired!" Jila yelled as the boat started to slow. "Don't know how much farther we'll get." She could feel the Plesiasaur's flippers tiring.

"What's going on with the engines Rag?" Kara yelled from her station on deck.

"Frellin'.........." Ragnar growled into the engines as he twisted the wrench one more time. What did they expect anyway?? "I was right in the middle of a tune up when you two showed up. "

"Don't mean to rush you Rag...." Jila could see the rope to the Plesiasaur taking on more slack with every yard the longboat went, "but the baby's had it and Emram and Rae are still butt deep in alligators!"

"It's going to take a little more time!" Why do I put up with these people.

"Isn't there anything you or Chyse can do Jila?" Sandworm stomped the corner of the blanket when another ricochet shot sparked a small fire.

"Flute magic is spiritual and calming, or for helping to re-energize." Chryse fired Rae's pulse pistol a couple more times at a boat that tried to get close. "Not good for fighting. Jila, what about those plasma blasts that you were shooting at Rae when we went to Philadelpia Land?"

"Never did figure out how I did that." Jila hurried to pull the rope in after the baby Plesiasaur stopped.

"What about him?" Kay pointed at the Plesiasaur.

"Way too tired." Jila tried to think. She could try to call to other sea creatures but she didn't think they'd understand. Dragons and dinosaurs were one thing, fish and sea creatures totally another. Chryse could maybe call them with her flute but they might get injured in the process. Would she want that? Probably not. What can we do?

For now Jila thought that the best thing to do was to spell up some more pulse pistols and give one to everybody to keep the goons away.

"Gettin' any closer to being done Rag?" After the words were out of her mouth Jila wished she hadn't asked. Jila could almost feel his growled answer vibrate through the wood of the longboat. Jila handed out the pulse pistols and kept one for herself. She hoped they could hold off the Goons long enough for Rag to get the engines going again.

[Kayde]

The shooting and the fireworks weren't stopping. But the boat was. Jila was trying to figure out how to get weapons to all the Scoobs when a spot in the distance looked like it was coming toward them.

"Uh Oh".....Kay said in alarm......"What now?"

"Wait!" Jila said as the object grew larger. "Do you see what I see?"

"Well, I'll be..." Kara started,

"The Major?!" Chryse said starting to smile in surprise.

As the comical dragon took shape in front of them and tried to skid to a stop, he managed to spray water all over them and rammed into the longboat.

Almost in unison the Scoobs yelled "Major! What are you doing here!"

"Excuse me? What is this?" Sandworm asked with a little irritation. Emram had his weapon airmed. He was ready.

"This is a friend of ours. Sort of." Kay said with a smile. "We met him in Kaldorre in one of our adventures."

Looking at Emram and Sandworm, the Major harrumphed and ahemed and bowed eloquently, hitting his nose into the deck and straightening back up to issue his introduction.
"Allow me.." he said..""My name is Major Blackstone Cherry, of her royal highness, the Empress Chateleinne III, Queen of all WInged Dragons and other assorted various wing-ed creatures. You've heard of me?"

"Ummm....can't say as I have..." Emram said clearing his throat.

"We can use some help here!" yelled Rae as the exploding and gunfire grew more rapid and loud.

"Help us Major!" Jila cried, throwing the rope to the dragon who caught it with his head and turning, started flying up, and up, and up, with the longboat and all it's inhabitants with it.

"Well, that's one way to get away from the trouble," Ragnar said, with what looked like the beginning of a smile on his face. "Where to now?"

[Rivyn]

Rae gasped as the boat lurched, not as a result of the Major's assistance but of some other force. Crawling to the edge of the deck, Raegun craddled tightly under her arm, she peered over the railing.

It was the frelling Pleisaur baby, diving out of the water, belly-flopping on the surface, and generally making a worse racket than he had on their first encounter...

"Jila!" she howled, gesturing to the sorceress. "What's its problem?"

"I think it finally figured out that the longboat's not its mother!" Jila shouted over the noise, her expression half-amused, half-horrified.

"What the frell are you talking about?"

Jila wordlessly pointed to the Major, hovering above the longboat and staring down at the dino with a bemused expression.

It thought the Major was its Mama? That Pleisaur had issues...

"Okay, new plan!" she shouted. "Major, I think we have it from here. Can you just hover and produce a solid downdraft?"

"Is that wise, Rae?" Jila asked uneasily.

"Between his downdraft and those mini-tsunami's the baby's making... It may not swamp them, but they'll be forced to turn back, at least for a time."

"But, the baby..."

"Safe in the Major's claws, I'm sure. Come on. Cut us free!"

"We still don't have engines!" Ragnar protested.

Rae rolled her eyes and stomped to the wheel-room. (Neat trick the way the boat was heaving.)

"How many frelling magic users and Force nudgers do you honestly think it takes to move a tub this size? Frell, if you want, I can open a wormhole right there!"

She pointed to a point a few meters in front of the figurehead. There was already a singularity in the subspace there. She could feel the space there ebbign and rippling, waiting. Wormhole, plot hole, which was it? Did it even matter when they were being chased by the gods only knew who? And, in spite of what some of the others suspected, these particular thugs were not 'friends' of hers.

"No! No wormholes!" Ragnar shouted, shaking his head.

Well, he had a point about how much luck the Scoobs had always failed to have with those in the past.

Emram! Get your Jedi eema up here! she sent as loudly as she could.

She could have sworn he was in the wheelhouse before she finished the thought. An obedient male. Such a lovely change from what she was used to. Grinning, she conjured a 3-D image of the surrounding area.

"We have hostiled coming at us from here, here, and here," she told him, gesturing. She sent a mental image to Jila as well, willing her to join them. As the sorceress arrived, she continued. "That leaves us two safe egresses. Here, and... there."

"No wormholes," Ragnar repeated.

"Then this is our way out. I think between the three of us we can... nudge the ship in that direction. Don't you?"

"Once we're outside the wake being created by the baby, the current and prevailing winds can carry us this far," Ragnar offered, gesturing to Rae's magical map. "It's open water, not frequented except by the occassional Pirate of the Carribean."

"Victorian pirates and undead curses. Nothing we haven't handled in the past before," Rae agreed, grinning at him. "And once we're on the open sea, not being harrassed, Rag here should have plenty of time to get the engine back up and running."

"What about your friends?" Ragnar asked.

"Not mine and it'll be awhile before the turbulence settles enough for them to get through," Rae answered, raising an eyebrow. "What do you say, people?"

A moment's silence in the cabin, overshadowed by the sounds of the firefight outside.

"Let's do it," Jila said, nodding.

"Okay. On three. One, two, push!"

The boat took off with a lurch, knocking all four of them to the ground as it merrily accelerated past the range of the enemy's weapons.

Will it work? Jila asked quietly.

Well, it'll at least buy us some time...

[Kayde]

Kay felt a lurching feeling in the pit of her stomach. Grabbing hold of something for support she held on.

[RagnarRB]

Ragnar would never really know, not for sure anyway. That was the nature of these things.

Did someone loose their concentration?

Push a little hard?

Maybe in the wrong direction?

Unknown.

Maybe they were just lucky this way. Then again...

...Sometimes you just have to accept the time honored axium that 'stuff happens'.

The Longboat outdistanced their pursuers with ease. The gang had some real gusto when they put their minds to it. Maybe a little too much.

He wasn't sure what really triggered it but another cry of " NO WORMHOLES!' slipped from his lips as he struggled not to go sliding too far across the deck. Too late. Kind of funny if it WAS indeed a wormhole though.

The sky seemed to shift for a moment, almost a shimmer. The scoobs around him flickered as if he was seeing them in a different place, a different time, even a different dress. Constantly changing and shifting glimpses. They ran the gambit from the mundane, to the inactive, the passive, the unexpected and even the suprising. The image of Rae pole dancing especially caught his eye, but it, like the others, was gone in a flash. One of her secret missions maybe? A bet she lost? Were the glimpses even real?

And then everything was normal again. Well as normal as it gets.

[RagnarRB]

He lay there blinking for a moment then, with one hand gently probing the new tender spot on the side of his head, firmly decided that yep, he'd smacked into something when he fell. Half rolling ,half sitting, he turned to check the others.

Everyone seemed accounted for and best of all no one was shooting at them. The gang looked exhausted.

"I thought I said no wormholes." he grumbled, poking at his head again and grimacing.

Rae stood and looked around. She smiled. "Worked like a charm guys, we're right where we should be."

Ragnar rolled to his knees. "Isn't that new? A wormhole that takes you exactly where you want to go."

Kara reached down to give him a hand. "No wormholes this time Rag, just magic."

"And a little Force."Emram added, gaining his feet as well.

"What do you mean no wormhole. I saw it." Ragnar chiding, accepting Kara's help. She looked at him and so did a couple of the others. Then each other.

"Um, nothing happened Rag." Jila offered. "There was no wormhole. Just us pushing the longboat."

Ragnar's eyes narrowed a bit looking at the others. Surely one of them..."None of you saw a worm hole? a distortion maybe?"

Hegative comments or head shakes all around..

He pursed his lips. Come on now...."No shifting sceens, changing cloths , shifting location?"

Nope

"Are you alright Rag?" Rae stepped over and held her hand before his face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

He poked at the bruise on his head. Nobody saw anything? Not even Sand who didn't miss much?

He looked at them a moment longer, ignoring the fingers , then shook himself . "Nothing, Must have hit my head. No wormholes. Forget I mentioned it. After all since no one saw anything out of the ordinary but him it couldn't have been real.

"How many fingers?" Rae insisted.

[Sandworm]

"if you weren't one of the magic users and likely to take revenge on me, I'd suggest to someone that they change the number of fingers to 12 or something," said Sandworm, laughing.

He walked over and helped the viking to his feet.

"You don't look so hot," he said. "maybe you should, I dunno, lie down or something? I'm not much of a doctor, but... well, you don't look so great..."

That was when the longboat capsized, and they were all thrown into the sea.