Without waiting for Ryu to catch up to me, I took in the room at a glance. There was a classroom on the far left end of the hall, and a staircase next to it. What caught my attention was to my right. It was a room full of books.

Must be the library. Let's go check it out! I thought.

So I did. I was inside the library just before Ryu reached the doorway.

"Hmm... 'Healing for the mentally challenged', 'A beginner's guide to attack magic', 'Elements for the Experts'..." I looked over the shelves, looking for a good book. Finally I found a book that sounded right, "Battle magic made simple". I looked it over for a moment, confirming that it was what I wanted, and walked out.

"Hey! You can't just leave like that! You should at least sign the list there!" Came a voice from behind me.

"What list?" I asked, spinning around.

"The Check-out list, of course. We need to know who has all of our books. Can't have anyone stealing them!" The owner of the voice came into sight. He was the librarian, apparently. "Say... You're not a student here, what do you want with one of our books anyway?"

"I want to learn how to cast spells!" What else would I want a magic book for?

"There you are!" Ryu said. "I'd thought that you'd go into the class."

"No. I went to the library." I said.

"I'm sorry, but I can't let you take the book if you're not a student." The librarian said. "Please return it."

"Oh. All right then." I handed him the book. "By the way, do you know the girl with black wings that goes to school here?"

"Oh! You mean Nina. I know of her. She's Yoji's student. She's really cute, but not that approachable, I don't think she really wants to talk to people very much."

"Ok. Thanks!" Ryu said as we left the library.

We stopped at the door, and talked for a minute.

"So was she in the classroom?" I asked.

"No, she must be upstairs."

"Well let's go find her then!"

"Ok..."

This time I waited for him, rather than running ahead. But I still got up to the top first.

* * * * *

"I'm very sorry, Master Yoji, but I used my magic today." Came a voice.

Sorry for using magic? Why? What's wrong with that? I wondered.

"Hmm... Why? I trust you weren't showing off or any such nonsense." Came another.

"Yoji..." Ryu muttered. "That's it! This way!" He motioned for me to follow him, and set off down the hall.

"What? I asked.

"There she is!" He replied.

'She' in this case, was Nina, the girl who zapped the Jokers. If Ryu's reaction (a dropped jaw) were any fair indication, the Jokers at least had good taste when they chose to harass someone. Further into the room, on the other side of a desk, sat a short old man, partially bald, but apparently not the dullest knife in the set.

"There's this gang of thugs called the Joker Gang. They have been bothering me recently, and they won't give up. They blew up the gate to get in." She said.

"So they're the ones... We'll have to do something about them next time they come."

"Excuse me!" I said, interrupting. "If you'll teach me some magic, I'll take care of the Jokers for you."

"You want to learn magic?" Yoji asked.

"Yeah! Then I can beat them easily!" I said.

"Well... I would, but there's one minor problem." He said.

"What?"

"Learning magic takes time. I don't think we have any time left." He said, pointing behind me.

I spun around to see a man standing in the doorway. At first this seemed to be ok, but then I saw his red bandanna.

"That's right! We won't give up easily, Nina. You're too cute for us to not have. Your sister, Mina, is cute too. Well... The Boss seems to think so, anyway." He said.

This earned him such a glare from Nina that if she hadn't restrained herself, I suspect he would have burst into flame on the spot. As it was, he merely began to

moke.

"Hey! What did you do that for?" He demanded as he leapt back. "We haven't done anything yet!"

"Yet?" Nina asked.

"Well, the Boss is determined. If you don't come with me... Well, you never know, do you?"

"Very well, I'll come with you." She sighed. They left immediately.

* * * * *

"What was that all about?" I asked, looking from Ryu to Yoji.

"The Jokers have abducted Nina's sister, Mina, and are using her as a hostage." Ryu said.

"Hostage? What's a hostage?" I asked.

"In this case, Mina is. Someone who can be used to force others to do as they're told." Yoji said.

"Cowards. Come on, Ryu!" I said as I headed for the door.

"Where we going?" He asked.

"To the Jokers hideout."

* * * * *

"Excuse me, Miss... Do you have a moment?" Called a voice as we reached the door. I turned to see the Librarian.

"What? We're in a bit of a hurry." I asked as I turned around. Ryu kept going.

"I know. I heard you talking to Yoji. If you're going to be fighting the Jokers, you might want this after all." He held out a book. "Battle Magic made simple, right?"

"Right!" I grabbed the book and ran out after Ryu with a quick "Thanks!" Now I can zap the Jokers too!

As I left, though, I thought for a moment, stopped, and stuffed the book in my pack. No sense in letting Ryu know about it. He might 'borrow' it and never give it back to me.

* * * * *

"No, I'm sorry, I don't know where the Joker's are hiding. That's why it's called a Hideout, isn't it? It's a place nobody knows about!"

"Well, do you know anyone who might?" Ryu asked.

"No. Anyone who might know where they were is probably in their pay, after all."

The person in question was Ryu's Guild Master, at the Rangers Guild. A funny looking old guy, but definitely one of the sharper knives around.

"Well, I guess we'd better get going, then." Ryu said as we left.

"So now what do we do? The only people I know are at Coursair." I muttered.

"It looks like we go to Coursair."

* * * * *

But first, we went to the tavern. That's right, the tavern. Hometown was small, after all.

"All right, what are we here for?" I asked Ryu.

"Horses. If we're going to go back to Coursair, I'd like to try and spare my feet a little work."

"Likewise, but do you really think we can find horses here?"

"Of course. Where else would you expect to find Caravan drivers?" He asked. "And there's the guy I'm looking for, from the looks of it."

"Hello. Am I correct in guessing that you just got here today?" Ryu asked a man. Well, I think he was, anyway. His shirt was red, but not naturally so. Unless shirts naturally come with wine spilling on them, that is. He'd still managed to get enough to drink that I'm surprised he was conscious.

"Yeah. We just got in today." He mumbled.

"Do you think that you'd be willing to part with a few of your horses? Five, perhaps?"

"Ask her..." He gestured to the woman next to him. A short, somewhat round woman who, from the looks of it, wasn't in a terribly good mood.

"Excuse me..." Ryu began.

"Yes, I heard. You want five horses, right? That'll be six thousand gold."

"I'll have to see them first." Ryu said.

"Of course. This way." She led us to the stables. The "horses" were in pitiful shape, most of them wore long scars from having been whipped. All of them seemed to be on the edge of collapse.

"These five here." She said, gesturing to the five on the end, the ones in the worst shape of all.

"For these you want six thousand gold?" Ryu asked. "I could knock any one of them over by breathing on it. Five hundred, and I won't report you to my superiors at the Rangers Guild for mistreating your animals."

"The Rangers don't care about the affairs of the Caravans. But... For a Ranger... Four thousand gold."

"I have friends who care about the ways in which animals are treated, Caravan or not. One thousand." Ryu said.

Back and forth it went. The final price was, of course, three thousand gold for a pack of four run-down horses.

"Why only four?" I asked Ryu, as we left the tavern.

"Would you want to try riding one of these while holding two others by the reins?"

"No. Good point."

"I thought so. Let's get out of here, we've wasted enough time."

* * * * *

That night, after we ate, while Ryu was asleep, I opened my new book, flipping through. Spark, Bomb, Flame, Thunder, Fireball... Fireball! That one grabbed my attention, so I started to read it.

"To cast Fireball, as with any other spell, you must begin by gathering the necessary energy. When you have gathered energy sufficient to cast the spell, focus it on your enemy. This is important, unless you desire to unleash the spell upon yourself as well. To infuse the energy with the element of fire..." I was interrupted by the sound of something sneaking up on me.

I jumped up, ready to fight, and was met by a little imp. It muttered for a moment, and then grinned before dashing off.

I returned to my book in time to see the symbols on the page change shape, then they did it again. Finally, they stopped, but in strange new shapes I'd never seen before.

Finally, I gave up on unscrambling it, and put the book back in my pack, determined to get some sleep.

* * * * *

The next day we found a fork in the road, with a sign.

"The Jokers Hideout is not to the west. If you go there, do not expect to get thumped on the head, mugged, or otherwise harassed by the Jokers. But don't go into the cave."

"Well, it looks like we won't need to go to Corsair to find out where the Jokers are hiding." Ryu said.

"They didn't seem very smart. It looks as if assuming them to be idiots wasn't a mistake after all." I said. Then we turned to follow the path to the left, and went on.

* * * * *

"This is the Jokers Hideout. We don't want any visitors, so scram!" The thug guarding the entrance to the hideout said.

"That's too bad. You've got visitors." I said, bringing my fist up. It hit his chin hard enough to knock him flat on his back.

"Geez... Think you hit him hard enough?" Ryu asked as we stepped over him and moved on.

"Not really. He's a Joker. They're cowards and fool, the whole lot of them."

"True, but I don't know of any religion that encourages its followers to condemn an entire group of people for the actions of a few."

"I'm not very religious. My parents were captured by hunters, and kept in a cage for a circus for years, until they stopped being entertaining. Then they were killed. I know, I followed them and watched. Where was Saint Eva then? What about Namanda? Even the Dragon God could have helped them, but none did."

Since he had no answer, we moved on in silence. I tried not to listen to the Jokers shouting at each other. It was painfully loud, to me. Ryu seemed to be trying to understand what they were saying, though. Then we came to a gate.

"Who goes there?" Came a call.

"We're friends of The Boss. Open up. He'll be angry if you slow us down." Ryu said.

"Friends of The Boss, eh? He's busy right now, with that girl Nina." The guard said.

"I know. He called us in, in case He needs more help. Things get nasty once in a while, you know."

"All right then. I'll let you through if you can answer this. Only a real Joker would know this: What's the name of The Boss's nephew?"

"The Boss's nephew... Pain, wasn't it?"

"Right. Go ahead. Be careful, though, that girl's a wizard!"

The gate opened up, and we went through.

"How did you know that?" I asked.

"Hey! I have ears too!" Ryu said. "I'm allowed to use them from time to time. I heard some guy bellowing about Pain having told "The Boss" about something or other. Another guy claiming that "The Boss" only trusted his Nephew. It was a lucky guess, ok?"

"Well... Ok, I guess, but I should have heard it too."

"You would have, if you'd been paying attention."

We went on only a minute or so longer before we were stopped by another gate, also guarded by a bandanna-wearing thug.

"So... you're friends of The Boss... The switch is in that hole there."

I reached into the hole, and recoiled, as something pierced the back of my hand. Biting down a yell of pain, I pulled my hand out of the hole and stepped on it, crushing the spider that had attached itself to my hand.

"You idiots! If you'd really been friends of The Boss, you would have known that there's a poisonous spider in there." The guard laughed as he opened the gate and came in wielding a pair of knives. He didn't laugh for long. Ryu's sword flew toward him and opened a hole in his chest a few inches below the collar.

When the Joker hit the ground, I fumbled through my pack for an antidote. Of course it was at the bottom. Where could I have put a life-saving potion, other than in the least convenient place for it? After choking down the vile brew (which I suspect was meant more to make you throw up than to make you healthy), I fought down my stomach, and we went on.

* * * * *

"Where is my sister, Mina? I demand that you return her to me!" Nina's voice rang out clearly as we climbed the stairs into the room where she and the Joker were 'talking'.

"It looks like we got here in time." I whispered.

"But not by much..." Ryu pointed out. "Listen!"

"Mina is near here. Very near." The Joker said. "Bring her out, boys!"

From a hallway near the Joker's shabby throne stepped a girl, with her hands tied behind her back. Next came a thug who stood behind her.

"Nina!" She cried. As she ran, the thug grabbed her and held her back.

"Of course we have her here. And she can go home. After we've completed our bargain. A Princess of Windia is worth quite a bit, after all. We must have your oath that you won't come back later to try and harm us as revenge." The Joker said.

"Of course." I muttered. "They cover their butts every step of the way..."

"This is the oath you shall give us: 'I, Nina, do swear that from the moment my sister Mina leaves the caves of the Joker Hideout, I shall use my magic, and all the powers at my disposal only for the Joker, in whatever manner he sees fit.'."

"Ok, this is getting ugly. If we don't interfere now, she'll have to do whatever they want!" I said.

"Right. Let's go free the girl, Mina." Ryu said.

* * * * *

Freeing her, it turned out, was the easy part. It was a simple matter. I had room enough to get a running start, so I dealt a flying kick to the thug guarding her. He landed about three seconds later, as I recall. It was even easy dealing with the four other guards that showed up, since that left us two each to fight.

That, I think, was when Ryu first demonstrated his skill with throwing knives. He only had time to throw one, but it caught the Joker in the throat. After that, it was relatively simple. All I had to do was to kill one (easily done. That indoor cliff wasn't that brilliant an idea on the Joker's part. It worked beautifully for us though.) And then deal with the two that had charged Ryu. Again, that was easy, when they had their backs to me.

The hard part was after that, dealing with the Joker.

* * * * *

"Please, don't hurt me!" The Joker whined. Pitiful, take away his men, and all that's left is a sniveling coward.

"It won't hurt... Much. Your neck will hurt for a little while, but then... It'll all go black." I said as I walked toward him, intent on ripping his head off.

"Katt! Get out of the way!" Ryu shouted at me.

Turning, I saw why. This particular 'why' was a very large fireball that was flying in my general direction. I barely dodged the blasted (or maybe blasting) thing in time, and I still got the fur on my left shoulder burnt off, it was so hot. I got of easily though. The ceiling above the Joker exploded, dropping rubble on him. A lot. I couldn't have dug him up even if I wanted to.

"Why'd you hit the ceiling?" I asked Nina. "You could have hit him!"

"I didn't want to kill you. If you hadn't been in the way, you wouldn't even have that burn on your shoulder. Besides, I've seen people burn to death. Even he doesn't deserve a fate like that." She said.

"You shouldn't have done that, Nina. That hurt. Now I'll have to kill you. Then I'll kill your sister. And your friends." A voice sounded from beneath the rubble. Then rocks came flying at us as the pile exploded, revealing a Demon.

* * * * *

The demon looked like a frog. A very ugly purple frog, and a large one at that. If I hadn't been trying to dodge his attack on me, I would have laughed. This was a much more interesting fight than the one with Augus. This time, I had to defend myself not only from the danger of his fists, but also from being trampled.

I spent quite a long time simply defending myself. Dodge a punch here, a charge there, and so on. Ryu had, on his own, taken it upon himself to protect Nina (and Mina) as she recovered her energy. Finally I grew tired of dodging, though, and I lashed out at him.

It was a cheap attack, I'll admit it. I ducked to the ground and smashed one of his knees with my staff, and leaped up, actually lifting him from the ground as I punched him. Of course I landed wrong. I tripped on a rock and landed flat on my back. I didn't really think it mattered, I thought that the fight was over at that point, since one off his knees bent the wrong way. Somehow, though, he rose to his feet. I didn't see what good this could do, but suddenly, his tongue shot out and grabbed Nina around the ankle. Of course a frog would try to eat something with wings...

Ryu attempted to slice it off, but it didn't work. Finally, as he hacked at the thing while it drew her in, I got to my feet and tried to remembered what I'd read the night before.

"Draw the energy in like this..." I mumbled. "Focus it this way, and... Let it go!"

I knew that it was an incomplete spell, so I was prepared for something strange. That's why I wasn't terribly shocked when a blast of white light shot at the Joker/Demon thing. The Demon seemed to stretch as the light hit it, then it began to expand. We backed up and took cover behind a few of those rocks that grow up out of the ground. Stalagmites, that's what they're called. It did little good, though. While it protected us from the blast, we still got covered in the filth just like everything else.

* * * * *

"Who are you?" Mina asked as she stood up.

"Who are we?" Ryu said. "You mean you don't remember me? I'm the brave Ranger who saved your pet pig! But where on earth did you learn a spell like that, Katt?"

"I'm Katt. I learned that from a book the librarian loaned to me." I said. Best to keep it simple. I never was good at giving speeches.

"Oh. Well I think that answers the question of whether or not you have the necessary talent for magic." He said.

"Anyway, thank you. What're you doing here, though, Nina?" Mina asked.

"Well, I was here to try and rescue you. Why did you come here though?" Nina said.

"I missed you. I haven't seen you for ages."

"You mean months. You came to Hometown just a few months ago."

"Well why don't you ever visit us?"

"Umm... Err... I'll explain later. But for now, let's get out of here. I don't think I'll ever get this gook washed out of my wings."

"Wait a minute!" I said. "If you'll teach me to control my magic better, we'll go with you. It might be a little safer that way."

"It certainly would. All right, I'll feel a little safer having you too around. Even if we can't let you do any of the cooking." She laughed, as we started to leave.

"Oh... I'm cooking, all right." I said, patting my shoulder gently. Even the gentle tap shot pain through my arm. Now that I wasn't busy fighting, I couldn't ignore it anymore.

"Sorry.. I tried to keep the heat focused in, but I guess too much escaped. I guess I don't have my focus tight enough yet."

As we left, the air itself seemed lighter, as if a foul presence had been removed. I couldn't shake the feeling that this was, as the saying goes, only the Tip of the Iceberg, though.