Where we last left off, the Turtle Ninja was having something of a mental breakdown, when confronted with the reality of a "Turtle Ninja Pizza Shop", such as what appeared in his strange dream. Dr. Yuri was trying to calm Turtle Ninja, and Scars was confused by the whole mess. Fireman, meanwhile, went to the top of a nearby building to try to talk down a strange "mime" at the roof's edge - a large fellow in a blue body suit, his costume covered with white smiling masks.

Where we now pick up, Turtle Ninja has eventually calmed down. He goes back to Dr. Yuri, asking him, "What was I screaming about?" Meanwhile, a patrol car pulls up, and a couple of officers get out - Officer Duke and Officer New - responding to reports of a public disturbance. Duke pulls out a megaphone and tries to calm down the strange blue mime, making it up as she goes, all the while prodding Officer New to get on the radio to request backup.

A strange little car drives up next to Dr. Yuri's hoverbike. It looks like a cartoonish parody of a Lamborghini, and it bounces while a sound of a circus calliope can be heard from inside. The door pops open, and out comes a clown. Then another one. And another. One of the clowns pulls out a bomb and tries to toss it at Scars, but the clown blows himself up in the process. Another clown tosses exploding "present" to Turtle Ninja. Another throws a cream pie at Scars. Turtle Ninja takes out the present-throwing clown, and Scars makes short work of the other clown by grabbing the clown car and smashing the clown with it. A harlequin manages to escape that particular mess, but then Dr. Yuri launches into action: he pulls out a card and swipes it through a device on his belt. A holographic "card" image appears in front of his hoverbike. He drives through it, and immediately he is transformed, wearing an armored bodysuit, and carrying an oversized mechanical sword. He spins about, then runs down the harlequin, clothes-lining it with his sword. (Or, as Fireman quips from above, he "clothes-mimes" the harlequin.) When each of the clowns are defeated, there are explosions - flashes of light, puffs of smoke, and explosions of glitter and confetti - but no sign of any clowns, knocked-out or worse, left to evidence their presence.

The cops are flabbergasted by the goings-on. One of them focused on Scars: "Put ... the car ... down!"

Back up on the rooftop, Fireman takes a rope and ties himself off to a chimney, then tries to force the strange mime away from the roof's edge. The mime seems immovable despite Fireman's best efforts. Then, the mime, in a very cartoonish fashion, reaches into a pocket, pulls out a large anvil, and ties it to the midpoint of the rope, letting it fall off the side. Fireman takes a moment's hesitation to resolve just how this could have happened ... and then the line goes taut. Fireman goes over the edge - but he grabs onto the mime's legs.

The blue "mime" falls off, Fireman going down with him. Turtle Ninja springs into action, leaping up to the building, and cutting the rope ... but unfortunately, he cuts the wrong half (the side that is tied to the chimney). Amazingly, the mime and Fireman take a while to get to the bottom - perhaps due to the mime's diligent flapping of arms as he goes down. In the time that Fireman and the mime are going down, Turtle Ninja is able to leap back down from the building to the ground. Dr. Yuri (AKA "Masked Blade") springs into action, swinging his bike over to the base of the building (just as the anvil crashes into the pavement). Masked Blade whips out another card, swipes it through a reader on his sword, and a holographic image appears in the air around him: a card with a dragonfly-like creature on it. He flies up into the air, grabs the mime and Fireman, then, in a dazzling display, spins about and drives his sword into the side of the building, slowing their descent. He blasts open a window and hurls them inside - flying in after them. Turtle Ninja bounds up into the window to follow them ... and the police are somewhat dumbfounded below. (Meanwhile, their backup finally arrives - another car with another couple of police officers.)

Scars and the police officers rush over the building. Officer Duke, Officer New and one of the assisting officers take the stairs, while Scars and the other officer make their way up the fire escape. Soon, everyone converges on a very long interior hallway, with doors ranging along both ends. There is a short chase between the blue mime and the heroes pursuing him; every time someone heads in one door, they pop out some other door, randomly. Then, things get especially crowded, as several doors open at once, and a flood of clowns spills into the hallway! The clowns start shooting with "toy" guns, throwing acidic cream pies and exploding party favors. The police officers and heroes fight clown after clown - each clown "exploding" when defeated, sending confetti and sparkles and candy flying, only to be replaced by more reinforcements coming through the doors.

Turtle Ninja is knocked through a door by a blast, only to come out another door ... as an ordinary, tiny little turtle. The little turtle tries to make a noise, but fails to be heard over the mayhem. The turtle slowly turns about and treads back out the door, disappearing from the hallway. Scars, who had also been knocked through a door, comes out looking a bit different: he wears a plain white tank top, he doesn't have his trademark brass knuckles or gold chain belt - and his body is free of distinctive scars. He doesn't care for this particular change, so he ducks through a doorway. When Scars and Turtle Ninja pop back out into the hall (through different doors), they are back to their normal selves. Meanwhile, Fireman discovers that his nifty portable fire-hose device has somehow been replaced ... with an ordinary, limp, chopped-off fire hose that drags behind him, minus a fire hydrant to provide a steady supply of water. He resorts to punching clowns the old-fashioned way.

Finally, enough of the clowns have been defeated that the police and the heroes make a concentrated effort on the mime - who, by now, they had figure out is using some sort of mental abilities to assault them all. While the other officers clear the hall of homicidal clowns, and Fireman smacks a couple more, Officer Duke lines up a shot on the evil mime and fires away. Turtle Ninja joins in with his shuriken, and Masked Blade makes a devastating sweep of his blade. The mime's body suddenly starts swelling up like a balloon, prompting several of the heroes to dive for cover. Turtle Ninja throws a single star to "pop" it - causing a leak to appear in the side, and then the "balloon" sputters all around, before finally shooting out the window.

And then ... Turtle Ninja, Fireman, Scars and Dr. Yuri "snap out of it".

Turtle Ninja and Fireman find themselves on top of the building. Fireman is tied off to a chimney, but there is no evidence of any anvil - or any evil blue mime. Down below, a foursome of police officers (including Officer Duke and Officer New) are trying to talk down Scars, who they claim had been running about, ranting and raving about clowns and mimes. There is no evidence to be seen of any crater or any wreckage from a clown car, nor are there streams of confetti or other such detritus of exploding clowns. Was it all just an illusion?

Scars takes a breather, and then claims that he had gone to the Turtle Ninja Pizza Place and that he must have eaten something that caused him to hallucinate - but he is better now. The officers accept that he's sounding a bit more in control of himself, but Officer New asks him if he could please walk along a straight line. Scars does so, but while he does, he starts singing a ballad - backwards - and generally behaving in such a strange fashion that the officers exchange looks and consider that Scars might be in danger of harming himself. Officer New asks Scars if he could tell him what the current date is (which Scars obliges to), and then asks him his name and address. Scars balks at this, refusing to give his name or address, and it looks as if things might get out of hand; Scars might be in danger of being taken in. (Or being put into the position of resisting arrest, at least, and becoming a fugitive!) Fireman comes down the stairs to try to help the situation, but it seems that things aren't getting much better. (At least Fireman is relieved to find that his portable extinguisher pack is back the way it is supposed to be.)

Just then, Turtle Ninja decides to do something about it. It seems that the officers show no sign of noticing the green Turtle Ninja atop the roof , so he take advantage of the element of surprise ... by dropping a smoke grenade down into the midst of the officers. Smoke engulfs the whole scene. "Run!" Turtle Ninja shouts. Scars runs, Dr. Yuri drives off, and Fireman responds to the smoke by hosing everything down.

A bit later, Fireman makes his apologies to several wet officers.

Meanwhile, Scars flags down a taxi cab. He and Turtle Ninja (once more disguised in a trenchcoat and fedora) take the taxi cab, calling up Fireman on the cell phone and picking him up along the way.

So, finally, Scars, Turtle Ninja and Fireman get to Scars's house, after hailing a taxi. Scars is a bit put off to notice that the garage door is open - and it seems that somebody is inside. In no mood to handle gratuitous ninja battles, he storms over to the garage to see what's going on. He discovers Voltage and Rose (the Little Goth Girl) are in his garage ... along with some fallow in a tattered white uniform, and a large fuzzy yellow fox-thing wearing a white lab coat and safety helmet. His lawnmower looks ... different. Voltage announces that she's fixed Scars's car - and, in fact, even made it better than before.

After a bit of negotiation, and resigned surrender on Scars's part (as he desperately wants to get some sleep), Scars unlocks the door to his house and disarms the security, as everyone files in. Scars retires to his room, Fireman crashes in one of the guest rooms, and Turtle Ninja claims the couch in the living room (while the holo-TV is still blaring).

Voltage occupies herself by going back out to the garage, and rearranging everything to her preferences. Rose wanders around, investigating Scars's medicine cabinet (finding the usual stuff - toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, shaving cream - but finding nothing in the way of medicines aside from a bottle of aspirin), nosing around his house, looking at his old photographs, and spending a while staring at sleepers. She then messes with Scars's bathroom: she fills up the tub, sets several flowers to float on the water, and grabs every candle in the house. She arranges the candles around the bathtub, lighting every one of them.

Kathmandu uses Scars's sewing machine to try to salvage what he can of his tattered outfit. He takes the baggy trousers of his uniform, patches them up, and makes himself a pair of baggy trousers, binding them up under the knees, and securing them with a sash. He then goes out to the back porch, next to the pool, and practices his kata movements - at one point calling out Vixa to do some practice sparring with him.

Finally, around lunch time, Voltage comes back in and starts cooking waffles. This attracts most everyone in the building (except for Fireman, who sleeps in). Voltage serves waffles as heroes line up for them, and then they file into the dining room.

Over a very late breakfast, the heroes exchange tales of their particular misadventures. Voltage shares the story about how she lost her garage at Fire Station 36, and Kathmandu describes the strange purple-haired woman in green that he had seen. Turtle Ninja reveals that he has seen a woman matching that description, too - that he had actually talked with her, and she had said something about how she was trying to maintain the space-time continuum or something obscure like that. Voltage asks Turtle Ninja about whether he is at all familiar with "Megamon" - a video game. Turtle Ninja recalls some vague familiarity with the name, and with the names of "Vixa" and "Kathmandu", but he can't place it. Only when Vixa removes her safety helmet does Turtle Ninja finally register that he is sharing the table with a giant fox-like creature who merely happens to be wearing a lab coat (and a safety helmet). He responds with the "revelation" that he is, in fact, a giant mutant turtle wearing a bulky trenchcoat. (Vixa does not seem to be terribly surprised by this "revelation".)

Voltage brings up Kathmandu's "amazing power", and after some prodding, gets him to turn into a small white cat ... and then, after that, into a large white sabertooth that leaps onto the table (stepping on Vixa's waffles, to her consternation). Scars starts scolding Kathmandu ("Bad cat! Down off the table!") until he returns to his normal, human form. In the midst of the resulting confusion, Kathmandu quickly sticks his pants back on before anyone can make any comments about his new "Jungle Lord" (tm) loincloth. This prompts more discussion, as Kathmandu mentions that he has a magical necklace. Turtle Ninja wonders aloud whether this is what lets Kathmandu turn into a human. Kathmandu explains that he's no cat - he's a human, who traveled to India to learn the martial arts. There, he discovered a magical necklace that gives him his power to change forms ... and, as far as he knows, he's unable to remove it.

After all the talk of video games and alien worlds, Vixa develops a strong headache; she heads into Scars's bathroom to get some aspirin. She screams when she sees all the candles and the flowers in the bathtub, prompting most everyone to investigate (except for Scars, who uses the distraction to finish off his waffles in relative peace and quiet).

Once it is clear that there is not some sort of satanic ritual taking place in Scars's bathroom, Vixa gets her aspirin, and they all go back to finishing off waffles. Voltage shares some of the information she'd discovered while hunting around on her internet connection. Turtle Ninja declares that they could use Scars's computer to do some hunting around - and he gets up to do so. This prompts several alarmed cries from Voltage and Kathmandu that they shouldn't, or else they might draw the attention of the Guardians - and Scars's house might be "reset". They aren't entirely clear just what that means, except that Voltage is pretty sure that Scars would end up losing his house.

With all the talk that Voltage is making about areas "resetting" and being in some sort of "time warp" - and all the "video game character" talk - Kathmandu and Vixa get headaches and end up fighting over the aspirin. To cool off, they head out to the front porch and talk about ... waffles. ("Mmm. Waffles. Yep. I like waffles!" Or, that is, talking about anything other than the current topic at hand, until their headaches go away.)

In the end, Voltage proposes that they go on a "field trip" so she can provide some proof of the phenomenon. She plans on heading to the park where "Crash, Smash and Bash" had gone on a rampage, but Turtle Ninja is watching the holo-TV, and he finds a news report with Darla Dazzle at the opening of a new bank downtown. Voltage figures that something bad is going to happen there, so she gets everyone to go along. Scars, Turtle Ninja, Vixa and Fireman (who finally got up) pile into Scars's car. Kathmandu turns into a small white cat, and hops onto the Hovermower with Voltage. Rose isn't particularly interested in a "field trip", so she stays behind.

So, our heroes travel across town to find the National Bank ... whereupon they find a very familiar scene. There is a crowd of hooligans congregating across the street from the bank, a red pickup truck parked next to it, with Darla Dazzle reporting from nearby. The front of the bank explodes, to the cheers of the crowd, as heavy metal music pours out of speakers located atop the buildings. Mad Molly and her band make their way to the getaway truck, while her agent takes the wheel.

Wasting no time, our heroes spring into action. Fireman hoses down the rowdy crowd as it spills into the street. Scars picks up his own car and throws it into the crowd, taking out some of Molly's thugs. (He figures that Voltage can fix it later.) Turtle Ninja leaps his way over the crowd, landing on the hood of the truck; he breaks the windshield and starts pummeling the driver and a band-mate who's perched on top of the truck. Kathmandu, still in little cat form, dashes through the crowd, and dives underneath the truck. Vixa, uncertain what to do, pursues him, though she stops in front of the truck, peering curiously underneath after the cat.

Darla Dazzle rushes over to Fireman to try to get an interview, but he is a bit too busy at the moment. The agent calls out orders to his henchmen, getting them to concentrate their fire on Scars. Mad Molly belts out a "special song" for Voltage, momentarily mesmerizing her into using her electrical field - instantly knocking out Darla Dazzle and her cameraman, and zapping Fireman a bit as well. Voltage, a bit annoyed that she's been forced again to take out the News Channel 99 news crew, grabs Darla onto the back of her Hovermower, and speeds away from the scene.

Turtle Ninja knocks out the driver and one of Molly's band-members. The truck suddenly lurches into the air, as the little white cat becomes a big white cat - which subsequently tosses the truck onto more of Molly's henchmen. Molly goes sprawling. Turtle Ninja retreats to the roof of the bank, where he finds, strangely enough, a box with a red cross on it. When he opens it, he finds some sort of high-technology "first aid kit", which heals his injuries in short order. From his high vantage point, he finds he can easily pick out individual targets from the crowd to tag with his shuriken.

Punches and throwing stars fly all around (and the truck gets re-used as a makeshift projectile). Even Vixa gets in a few slashes. In short order, those hooligans and henchmen still standing are bolting for safety. Voltage returned after carrying Darla Dazzle to safety. Fireman picks up the newsman's camera and confiscates the tape from it. Turtle Ninja hops into the getaway truck, and manages to get the engine started. It jerks and rolls away on four flat tires with a broken suspension, broken glass, and a crushed cab, but Turtle Ninja is hooting in glee that he is able to drive a real truck. Scars picks up his car and sets it upright again, sweeps out some of the broken glass, and manages to get it to start rolling, picking up Fireman to head away from the scene before the police arrive. Voltage takes off on her Hovermower (after returning Kathmandu's pants). So, Scars, Fireman, Turtle Ninja and Voltage head back to Scars's place, to begin the lengthy process of trying to get his car back into something resembling working order.

Meanwhile, Kathmandu heads for the monorail station, with Vixa in tow, intent upon doing some research of his own, while the rest are otherwise occupied....

Kathmandu and Vixa hop aboard the monorail, riding the circuit on their way to the central library. As they've come to take for granted now, no one pays any particular attention to a conspicuously fuzzy humanoid alien riding the car; it seems that her white lab coat and safety helmet provide sufficient disguise. A few individuals get on and get off, though the bulk of the passengers sit in their seats, reading the day's paper, bound for some destination further down the line. Kathmandu and Vixa get off the monorail and head into the library. Fortunately, Kathmandu has no plans to check anything out, so he has no need for a library card.

He starts his research by finding an encyclopedia. It turns out that, rather than having a set of books on a shelf, yearly replaced, the library has put its encyclopedia online, accessible through computer terminals. Kathmandu looks up information on India, and finds a wealth of information - some of which he was already aware of from his travels, and some more obscure information in areas he never held any particular interest in. He finds evidence of the places he visited during his travels to India, though he is unable to find anything out about the magical necklace that he wears. (Given that the necklace he wears is a magical and presumably unique item, however, this is not particularly surprising.)

He then roams through the library and finds a large illustrated book with information on the "Megamon" alien species. He finds entries for each species, with a picture of the alien in question, a picture of the homeworld, and some short information on basic statistics for the species (average height, average weight, litter size, speed, strength, etc.) and very brief notes on the planet the species is found on. Under the information for "Kathmandu", there's a picture of a male of the species, and some rough details about its jungle habitat. Under the page for "Vixa", there is a picture of a female of the species, and rough details about the forest world that the Vixa dwells on.

It strikes Kathmandu as odd that, for "Kathmandu", the representative picture would be male, and then the representative picture for "Vixa" would be female. He's also concerned about the sparse nature of the information provided for a species that apparently has been captured, used as a pet, and held in captivity. For comparative purposes, he does some research through the electronic encyclopedia on various animals - weasels, for instance - and he finds an exhaustive wealth of information about weasels, their observed behaviors, their lifespans, their diet, their distribution and habitat, and so on. Nothing even remotely like this level of detail is to be found in the library's books on Vixa. (And, in fact, all of the information he finds on these alien species is in the library, in books; there are no entries on them in the electronic encyclopedia.)

Kathmandu decides to look through the library to see what information is available on Superior City. He finds no mention of it in the encyclopedia - odd, considering the number of extraordinary things to be found here, such as automated factories, Park Island, the Center for Xenozoological Studies, a Spaceport, and so forth. He does, however, find a section of the library devoted to books of "local interest". There, he can find maps of the city, he can find guidebooks on places to visit, he can find some historical information, some books on "urban legends" about "superheroes" and "supervillains", and other such things - but most of it is fairly short reading. For comparison, he looks up information on other cities, such as New York City, and he can find far more detailed and expansive information about any major city, whereas the information available for Superior City seems to just "get to the point", without much in the way of extraneous details on the side.

He starts to think over odd things he's noticed. For instance, most of the entries on various cities hint at an awful lot of bustle and activity - crowded streets, lots of people walking the sidewalks, standing in line, and so forth. It's a Saturday, and the library is rather quiet. He can find someone to assist him when he needs to find something, and occasionally there's someone wandering the aisles, or sitting at a desk and flipping through something, but the place still feels oddly empty. He recalls that the traffic he's seen so far in the city has been nearly nonexistent: repeatedly, the heroes have duked it out in the streets, hardly ever having to be concerned with random passing traffic (getaway cars and homicidal clown cars not included). He reads up on public monorail systems, and he finds that, yes, there are monorail systems in several cities, but in many of them, it's been something less than a success: many people, despite the availability of free (or cheap) public transit nonetheless insist upon using cars. Or, despite usage of the monorail, it seems that traffic has been very little impacted, for reasons not quite understood. In any case, the utopian accomplishment of Superior City's monorail system - resulting in nearly empty streets - seems to be an utter anamoly ... and one not referenced in any of these encyclopedia entries about urban monorails.

Vixa, meanwhile, is a bit bored, since she doesn't quite follow everything that Kathmandu has to comment on what he's found. Furthermore, when it seems she is catching on, she typically develops a headache, which seems to be a strong incentive for her to switch to other topics. Kathmandu, for his part, has to wrestle with several headaches he picks up during his research, frequently having to take breaks and think about something else, to let them pass away. Kathmandu directs Vixa to the children's book section, suggesting that she find some books about foxes. "Am I a fox, then?" Vixa wonders aloud, but Kathmandu just suggests that since she looks like a fox, maybe she'd find books about foxes interesting. He finds a book from a series called "Redwall", which he is sure he's heard of before, and lets her read it.

Some time later, when she checks back, she declares that she does not like Redwall. (All the foxes are evil, and they end up dying horrible deaths.) Instead, she ends up checking out some children's picture books, including some Aesop's fables, among others.

So, Kathmandu returns to his research, checking on newspapers. He finds a collection of older newspapers in the periodicals section. After going through several newspapers, he comes to a certain revelation: if he were to take any one of these newspapers, they might make sense. He would be left with the impression that the world is a fairly mundane place, albeit for certain remarkable technologies, but that new and strange things are happening in Superior City - and there's a hint that there might be mysterious people, "superheroes", here to save the day. But as he looks through multiple newspapers, over a span of time, it seems as if the picture never changes. Sure, the particular events from day to day change, but there are many that sound similar to each other. He finds multiple instances of a giant cyborg war machine rampaging through the downtown area, and being fought off by different bands of superheroes, and more than once by a mysterious superhero (one who seems to prefer to work alone), known as "Iron Fist". He finds multiple instances of Mad Molly raiding a bank somewhere in the downtown, with rioting fans. Sometimes she gets away. Sometimes she's caught. It's the same Mad Molly, the same crowd, but different heroes that come to save the day - if any show up at all. The Center for Xenozoological Studies appears to have suffered several break-outs if one reads through the papers.

On the one hand, there seems to be a sort of collective amnesia - that superheroic goings-on are forgotten - but yet in other places, there's an evidence of continuity. The Turtle Ninja Pizza Parlor is mentioned as opening, and it looks as if it's a genuinely new addition, with no precedent. Now and then, there are new attractions at Park Island added, with no sign of some sort of amnesia and "reset" involved. There are occasional disasters or superheroic incidents that seem to stand out as unique, generally noted by a large crowd of superheroic costumed individuals responding to save the day ... but, once again, subsequent articles hint at no memory of such remarkable strangeness, and life just goes back to normal again amazingly quickly.

Kathmandu goes back to the matter of vehicles. He wonders just how much traffic there is in Superior City. He can't find much evidence of any. He starts to note that, during some of his research, where he goes back to look for more information after noticing oddities about the scarcity of information ... it seems like he finds a bit more than he did before, when he's sure he was fairly diligent about it. He starts to harbor the notion that, somehow, details are filling themselves in when he convinces himself that the details should be there. Partly to test this theory, he tries to find information on where to find a place to get his driver's license. He finds it rather frustrating to find any such information through the computer terminals. In fact, one of the computer terminals ends up crashing after a particularly diligent search.

A few headaches and breaks later, Kathmandu goes to check on Vixa. She happily shows him a few books she found where the fox isn't evil, and doesn't get killed. He tries to share some of what he's discovered, though the overall message that Vixa is able to get from this is, "Things don't make sense." She has no theories on what might actually be going on. She does, however, wonder that Kathmandu can't find out more about himself. "After all, you're a real person. I'm just ..." She frowns, fighting off another headache. "You did a lot of traveling, right? Don't you have any sort of ID? Wouldn't that tell you who you are?"

As it is, Kathmandu doesn't have any ID, but it occurs to him that if he had gone to India, then at some point he'd have to get a passport. He goes back to trying to find a driver's registration office, and to find any place where he might find a passport. Only later, after several frustrating attempts, does he manage to find that there is, indeed, an office that handles passports and driver's licenses, down in the port area. He mentally compares that location to some of the maps of the area he'd studied later. He starts to get a headache, and he can't prove anything, but he comes away from the incident nearly certain that this office wasn't there before.

They hop onto the monorail. As Kathmandu is riding along, he notes some of the people sitting in the chairs, reading their newspapers, and he's struck by a bit of deja vu. When they finally get off the monorail, rather than leaving the station, he stays there - Vixa nearby - waiting for the next monorail. When it comes to a stop, he peeks inside. He sees an assortment of people, maybe not absolutely perfectly like those in the previous car, but the similarity is uncanny. Maybe there's a different colored shirt, or a different logo on a baseball cap, or a different color of hair or different tone of skin, but the people look remarkably the same, in the same positions, doing the same things. This prompts a massive headache - and when he alerts Vixa to his findings, she reveals that she was struck by the sensation that everybody smelled the same. More headaches ensue. They flee the monorail station and head down to find that office.

They find a "strip mall", with a public building with a driver's license registration, and where they can file for passports. Nearby, there's an employment assistance office, a Chinese restaurant, a Mr. Coffee corner cafe, a "Copy-Quick" office, a fashion accessories store, and other typical store-fronts. Kathmandu steps inside, while Vixa hangs around outside, trying to look inconspicuous.

Inside, Kathmandu is somewhat surprised to see a long line of people in line to apply for driver's licenses and for vehicle registration, given how empty things have been ... but even more surprising is that a disproportionate number of the people in line are dressed in garish multi-colored costumes, "disguised" sloppily with a trenchcoat or other accessories. The line to apply for a passport, conversely, is empty.

Kathmandu goes up to the bored attendant at the passport desk. She puts down a book she was looking at, and Kathmandu is struck by a distinct sense of deja vu. Finally he places her - he mentally compares her to the secretary at Fire Station #36 ... and to one of the assistants at the library. Same pose, same sitting and reading a novel, same general build and face, though the hair color, the eye color, the color of articles of clothing is a bit different here and there. She could very well be the twin sister of either of those other women.

Shaking that out of his head, Kathmandu explains that he was in an accident - a fire - and lost his personal identification. He has no driver's license, no passport, no nothing, and he needs to find out what he has to do to replace all that. It seems to take the woman to sort through this, and then she points out a hand-scanner to one side of the counter. (Kathmandu is reasonably sure that it wasn't there before, but he doesn't challenge it hard enough in his mind to warrant a headache just yet.) She indicates that all of his information would be on the "Zeus database", so if he can just put his hand on the scanner, she should be able to verify his identification, and then start the process to issue him a new passport.

He puts his hand on the scanner. An error comes up. She fiddles with it, then insists that she hasn't used it in a while, so it may need to be "recalibrated" - and that he should come back in a few minutes. He suggests that he'll just stop by some other time, as his time is short and he has a prior engagement.

On his way out, though, he listens in on some of the folks standing in line at the vehicle counter. He hears some buzz along the lines of, "I can't wait to get my own supervehicle. It's going to be like the Batmobile!" - and "I just met this chick who says she can build super-vehicles. She had this hovering mower thing." All in all, it seems like there's some excitement among the curiously-attired people in line. Kathmandu checks with one of the people toward the back of the line, to see what's up.

"Oh, I can get a car now," the fellow says.

"Is this where you go to register to be a pilot, too?" Kathmandu asks.

"No, they don't have airplanes yet - or boats. But then, who wants to get a boat, anyway? There's nothing out there on the water," the fellow responds.

"Of course not. All those inlets, bays, harbors," Kathmandu says, trailing off.

The fellow gives Kathmandu an odd look, and then seems to be looking at something over Kathmandu's head. Immediately after that, he seems to completely lose interest in talking to Kathmandu, without so much as a "Have a nice day," or "Later, dude."

Kathmandu heads outside, where he finds Vixa hunched up next to a wall. "Hey, do you see anything floating over my head?" he asks. She looks, but reports that she doesn't see anything - and he doesn't see anything floating over her head, either. She's obviously distressed, though, so he asks her what's up.

"They can see me," she says. "They were looking at me ... whispering."

"They?"

"The ... the costumed people. The 'superheroes'," Vixa elaborates. "They were glancing at me, whispering to each other. They weren't ignoring me like everyone else does, even with the lab coat."

Kathmandu frowns at this, and leads Vixa away, occasionally looking behind to see if they're being followed. On the spur of the moment, though, he decides to do a little more research. On a whim, as he's passing a supermarket, "Mega-Mart", he decides to head on in, taking Vixa with him.

"When I was reading through that information about Vixas," Kathmandu explains, "I looked to see what Vixas eat. Kathmandus eat, well, meat. But Vixas like 'honeyberries'. Do you like honeyberries? Can you remember what they taste like?"

Vixa frowns, straining in thought. "No," she says. "I can't, really. I should remember. I should. But ... I can't."

As they step inside, Kathmandu is struck by a curious sensation. He sees the cash registers, he sees the aisles, he has a vague impression of fruits displays, vegetable displays, the meat section, and so forth ... but for a fleeting moment, he has a curious sensation, something like "deja vu", or like when one is trying to remember something that's "just on the tip of the tongue". It seems somehow cold and empty here ... and then, the moment passes. He can hear the beeps of the registers, as items are scanned, he can see the shoppers more-or-less patiently standing in line with their carts, he can see the bag boys at the end, he can see a display of canned peas stacked up, "Buy one, get one free," he can see specific fruits and vegetables.

Vixa seems a bit unnerved, when Kathmandu looks at her. "Did you feel that? Did it feel cold to you when you came in?"

"I don't know," Vixa stammers. "Maybe it's because it's air-conditioned in here, and we stepped in from outside."

"That's just you trying to find an explanation," Kathmandu says, prompting a puzzled look. Then, he changes the topic. "We're going to go through the vegetables and fruits and see if we can find a honey-berry."

They go into the fruits and vegetables section, and Vixa seems to positively go wild, compared to her usual sedate and quiet manner. She grabs produce and holds it up, sniffing at it - and, if there weren't people watching suspiciously at her antics, she might even risk taking a bite. Nonetheless, she finds nothing that she would call a "honey-berry". They roam about, finding various products in the aisles. It seems that there is a high number of products that are endorsed by one celebrity or another, or co-branded in some fashion. Advertisements abound. The cereal section is full of cereals with pictures of athletes, costumed heroes, and cartoon characters. One of them, "Honey-Berries", has a cartoon picture of Vixa on it. Aside from being a cartoon, it seems to be a fairly good representation, even down to the arm-bands. Kathmandu grabs it and checks out; it turns out cost exactly $1.00, tax included.

Outside, Vixa has some trouble opening the box, what with her oversized paws, so Kathmandu helps her out. She dumps the sugary cereal into her mouth and crunches on it for a while. She declares, "I don't remember what a honey-berry tastes like ... but I'm pretty sure this isn't it." Nonetheless, she seems more or less inclined to consume more of the sugary cereal, since she's hungry, though she lets Kathmandu have some.

"I don't understand," she says. "If I'm some sort of dangerous alien, why is my picture on a cereal box?"

Kathmandu has no particular answer for that. Instead, he decides to head back to the library. (On the way, Vixa declares that she now knows why people wear clothes: because pockets are very, very useful. After fruitless attempts to figure out where to stash the box, she just carries it under one arm.)

Back at the library, Vixa goes back to the children's section to read more books, while Kathmandu does some research. Vixa idly wonders whether she's especially tall or short for her species, after Kathmandu mentions that he read that the average height for her species was six feet tall. So, in the children's section, they find a "growth" ruler on a doorpost, and use it to measure her height. She's exactly six feet tall. When Kathmandu reports this, Vixa asks, "Exactly? That's odd, isn't it?" More headaches. They talk about waffles for a while, until the headaches go away.

A while later, Kathmandu goes to researching alien races again. While he's in there, though, he notices how sparse the library seems. He notices this one fellow in robes with a tall pointed collar, heading into a section he visited briefly earlier, with several books dealing with the supernatural. He casually follows the fellow, observing him taking a book from a shelf, and then noting the position of the gap where it was. Much later, the mysterious fellow leaves, and Kathmandu goes to find that, yes, the book has been returned. He checks it, and finds it to be titled, "The Book of Dark Portals". He takes it to a desk to study it, and finds that it's full of arcane rituals and incantations ... but as he takes the time to read through it, he's left with the distinct impression that this book is merely a portion of a larger work - as if someone had meticulously hand-copied the contents of a magician's grimoire, without really understanding what he was copying, and arbitrarily divided it up into multiple portions, or just copied a portion of it in the middle. The content of the verse seems to refer to the idea of "portals" to "other worlds", though there's no convenient narrative to explain how it all is supposed to work.

Kathmandu goes back out to check on Vixa. She is over at a drinking fountain, getting some water, but seems to be taking an awfully long time there. He looks around, and sees a fellow that he identifies as a superhero in a trenchcoat - who seems to be watching Vixa furtively (or, that is, holding up a book in such a way that if he were looking through the book, he'd be watching Vixa). Kathmandu goes down an aisle and comes back another route to spy on the stranger, and he finds the fellow plainly watching Vixa. (Vixa is still there at the water fountain, splashing water on her face.) Kathmandu studies the man, and finds himself wondering just what made him think it was a "superhero". He's wearing a trenchcoat, yes, but there's no obvious indication of a "super-suit" underneath or unusual features ... save for a pair of red gloves, and some red boots. He is struck by the feeling that somehow he just instinctively knew that this fellow was different somehow.

In any case, after a while, the fellow seems to be growing impatient, as if he were waiting for Vixa to do something. At last, he frowns, slaps the book shut, sets it aside, and leaves. Kathmandu goes over to Vixa. She whispers, "Is he gone yet?" Kathmandu reports that he is, and she relaxes. Evidently, she was aware that she was being watched - and she was afraid to move, as if moving might prompt him to do something.

Kathmandu tries to change the topic, by going back to the book that had an entry on Vixa. He ponders the phenomenon he had considered before - that, sometimes, when he goes back, there's more information available. So, he decides to test that. He revisits the Vixa page. No, it is the same as before, a two page spread with lots of graphics, and surprisingly little text. But then, on a whim, he turns the page.

There is another two-page spread about the Vixa species. This time, the second page shows a male version of the species. And there are a few little blurbs about Vixa behavior, and some of the other creatures on their planet. One creature looks like a firebird of myth. Vixa peeks at it, and lets out a squeal of delight.

She explains that she read a book that was about some mythical creatures from China. There was a fox in it, and a phoenix, and a white tiger, and a turtle-snake thing, and a dragon. She thought that if she could ever have a pet of her own, she would want a phoenix ... and then, lo and behold, here's one on her home planet!

Kathmandu's mind races at the implications of this. Has Vixa just wished something into existence? His head begins to ache mightily, a terrible ache that makes him feel like his eyes are going to thrust out of his skull, despite his attempts to think about something else. Suddenly, Vixa's smile vanishes, and her ears perk up. They can both detect a ringing in their ears, and they instinctively know ... that a Guardian was coming.

Kathmandu immediately drops the book, grabs Vixa by the arm, and bolts for the exit. They barrel outside, dashing down the steps, making a rush for the monorail terminal, even as they see the floating blue images and the distinctive purple hair and green suit of the Guardian. They hop onto the next monorail; Vixa looks as if she was about to point something out, perhaps about the very familiar-looking fellow passengers on the monorail, but Kathmandu hushes her. They try to calm their thoughts, making idle, forced talk about their favorite syrup for waffles, as the monorail races away - leaving the library and the Guardian far behind....

Tune in next time, for the continuing adventures of our heroes in ... Superior City!