PHINALI

Chapter Two: Vegetarian

"Urgh... What.. Just happened?" Kei asked himself once he finally woke up, rubbing his head.

"I remember... I remember talking to Toma..." He stood up, still woozy. Then amber sun shone directly into his pupils.

He turned around by instinct and therefore did not have much time to stare into the sun, but it nevertheless seemed different. And he was sure that there weren't any huge piles of rocks or an ocean near his home. This wasn't where he came from. This wasn't even a few miles away. He snapped his finger, "Ah! I remember a flash of light... But that doesn't explain how I'm here..."

He was willing to believe anything if he'd feel certain about the situation, but nothing was apparent. Humans don't like ambiguity, one reason behind the jokes about Batman and Robin.

He decided to leave that subject for the moment, and just focus on getting home from wherever he was.

He heard a chirp from behind him and quickly turned around. It came from a tiny little bird, whose feathers were so rough and brown that it looked a lot like a kiwi with a beak. As Kei looked, he noticed that a way behind the bird and past some rather large rocks was what he would best describe as the sort of market Indiana Jones would hang around in.

The rocks, at least, were normal. Kei sat down on the nearest large one.

Kei decided the best course of action would be to talk to any people he could find in the market. This was mainly reasoned by a) the rocks might come to life and eat him, b) there were people in the market, and c) who knows, it might help.

Now, it's not very often one finds oneself in a situation with no idea how they got there. We have enough trouble with Congress getting drunk and moving continents a few inches to the left. In any event, Kei considered himself lucky he didn't wake up at the bottom of the Hudson River with a pair of concrete shoes and a hefty receipt from Payless (you thought the weight was from the concrete?)

That considered, Kei was doing a marvelous job of survival, due to the fact that he hadn't yet died.

"Hey!" A voice yelled, interrupting Kei's train of thought (although the engine was so wimpy a butterfly could stop this particular train).

Kei turned.

The speaker was approximately Kei's height, wearing a bright green robe (as best as Kei could describe it). He had messy white hair, mostly concealed beneath a blue and green santa hat. His face, green eyes and all, was affixed in the grin of a child with a new toy. Actually, as Kei looked, if the speaker had combed blue hair and more normal clothing (as well as a more refined facial expression), he and Kei would be identical.

Evidently he noticed this as well. "Gnome looks like Not-Gnome!" He pointed to Kei, then began rooting through the dirt. "Mirror!" The guy produced a large piece of glass. Kei looked into it and saw, on the other side, the guy trying to mimic Kei's semi-serious expression. Trying and failing, I should point out.

Kei looked through the glass, before looking down for a moment and finding a real mirror, one slightly scratched from being kept among rocks. He took a good look at himself.

He pulled his hair out of his eyes and glanced between himself and the odd man. He wished he had worn something warmer that day. He lived in a pretty cold area, and Kei liked the style, so he was wearing a black sweater and jeans. A t-shirt and shorts, though not his favorite form of outfit, would have helped, he was sweating under the hot, hot sun.

Kei froze. His necklace was missing. Five straight years of never taking it off, and he lost it when he didn't even have the chance to apologize for losing it. It was a shuriken with the kanji for wind on it. Toma had given it to him years ago. She had been on vacation and when she came back, first thing she did was force him to wear it for good luck. Of course, they were only kids, but she made him promise not to lose it.

He began digging around in the rubble.

"What is Not-Gnome looking for?" The man asked, not realizing how Kei was focused on finding the shuriken (poor emotion reading skills were evidently another similarity between the two).

"Something very important to me," Kei paused, then looked up, "And call me Kei."

"No!" The guy shook his head, "Gnome is Gnome, and Not-Gnome is Not-Gnome!"

Kei decided that even if the guy weren't named Gnome, he'd call him that out of spite. "Gnome? Have you seen my necklace?" Given no signs of understanding, Kei began frantically gesturing around his neck, "This?"

"Huh?" Gnome grinned, then pulled from around his own neck the chain. No shuriken, I should add.

"Hey, give me that!" Kei reached out and snatched it from Gnome's hands.

Gnome frowned. Just because Kei had the shiny, he shouldn't have been so rude about getting it. Maybe if Gnome is super-nice, he thought, Not-Gnome will be nice too!

Gnome posed, standing on one foot. "Food!" He pointed to the bazaar Kei was wondering about before and ran off, jumping between the rocks, stopping, then waving for Kei to come.

Kei stood for a moment, and shared a moment of silence, watching the sun's reflection over the glimmering water in the bay.

"What are you waiting for?" It said to him, burning red in the light.

Kei turned and followed Gnome.

-

The market (which, Kei noticed, seemed rather cheerful and lively considering the ruination around it) was going to cause more harm than good to Kei as it, after all, was so for largely anybody else who went there looking for something. Few of the merchants could be trusted more than they could be bet on to win a marathon, and considering most were at least three hundred pounds, that is saying quite a lot.

In terms of aesthetic appeal, however, if Kei were 200% stupider and as much more fat, not to mention wearing a cheap Hawaiian shirt and carrying a camera, Kei would definitely describe it as "quaint".

The stalls were a marvel of humanity's desire to receive cash. Everything imaginable (and possibly more, although probably less) was being sold by someone or other.

There was a man selling the skinned corpses of the same sort of birds that Kei had seen previously. There was a woman the size of a fully grown maple tree selling, coincidentally, tree saplings. There was even a man in a parka (how he survived in the sun is beyond most people's comprehension) offering candles to people.

Maybe someone knew where he was and how he could get home, or at least how he got there, but before that came getting the shuriken back.

Kei's stomach growled.

And before that came food.

Gnome had already walked (skipped) to a person standing under a purple awning dressed in white. Kei could not see the face to ascertain the person's gender. They spoke to each other for a few seconds, then the person in white reached into a large cupboard he or she stood next to and produced from it a purple bag, which he gave to Gnome, who himself bowed in gratitude and ran back to Gnome.

He opened it. "Cookies!"

Gnome was right. It was filled with cookies. There were at least fifty of them in it, to the best of Kei's reckoning. Given that Gnome seemed to be motioning for Kei to take one, Kei took one.

Gnome took one afterwards, and they both ate.

Two things occurred to Kei after about his third cookie. The first was that he was beginning to feel queasy and yearn for the frozen vegetables he survived on at home whenever his parents were out. The second was the realization that the heat, coupled with the fact that he hadn't eaten or drunken anything since last night (or possibly the night before that) was making him thirsty.

He told Gnome this, and Gnome obediently ran back to the white-clothed person, who, after a moment of discussion he/she reluctantly gave Gnome a large jug filled with (presumably) water.

Gnome began to run back to Kei, but unfortunately fell from an intense amount of surprise, which was in turn a result of a three-meter tall kiwi-bird landing less than two meters away from Gnome and roaring.

Yes, roaring, not chirping.

It rampaged around the center of the bazaar for a bit, causing a majority of the people in it to hide in the rocks, Kei included. The man selling kiwi birds had hidden as well. "What is that thing?" Kei asked the kiwi man.

"It's probably the mother..." came his response, "I kind of stole my birds from their nest. Could you tell your friend there to keep my merchandise safe?"

Kei looked at him momentarily, disgusted, then yelled to Gnome, "Give her the birds!"

Sparing no effort, Gnome set the jug on the ground near the rocks and leapt over to the kiwi stand. He rolled as he landed and grabbed a cage filled with the hatchlings. He held them out in his hand and looked at the giant avine beast before him. Gnome was going to calm the rampaging animal.

He walked over to it, arms out to show that he meant no harm. Then, in his best talking-to-animals voice, he said, "Gnome will give birdy back the little birdies..." He began to lower them in front of the bird, now staring at Gnome coldly.

There was a soft thud as Gnome set the cage fully on the ground, followed by a slightly louder thud as Gnome was knocked to the ground a few feet away by the bird's left foot.

This was subsequently followed by a craw from the bird, which seemed to have deduced Gnome to be the thief and wanted revenge.

It lowered its huge foot once more, intending it for Gnome's body, but instead hitting solid ground. Gnome had seen the strike, anticipated, and rolled out of the trajectory of his assailant's stomp.

Gnome pulled himself to his feet, slightly woozily, and held his arms out in a sort of 'come and get it' formation akin to what Kei saw in many kung fu movies.

The bird crowed again and ran over to Gnome, pecking madly towards his face. Gnome, instead of crying out in pain "Auh! My eye!" as Kei expected, but merely sidestepped each and every blow.

The bird stopped momentarily to catch its breath from the preceding frenzy, giving Gnome just enough time to duck under the bird's hunched position and run over to Kei. Shortly before he arrived, something rather painful occurred.

It gazed directly at Gnome, opened its mouth wider than most people can stretch when they yawn, and let out an ear-splitting shriek. Everyone around a half-mile radius recoiled in agony from the intensity of the bird's wail. Gnome himself was shocked out of his dash and, instead of jumping and taking cover behind a large rock, slammed into the rock, causing himself and the rock to collapse onto the ground.

The large organism of flying destruction walked to Gnome, steadily. Gnome had been able to twist onto his back instead of obtaining a face plant, but he was more or less immobile, his head, forearms, and hands being the only visible portions to his body underneath the rocks. He started pushing the rocks off of himself, and had gotten his entire upper body free, when the bird stood directly before him.

It crew a jubilant shriek of victory, and stomped.

There was no splat, no crunch, no scream of pain, just a sort of BONK noise. It raised its foot and saw why there was no satisfying quantity of torture. Gnome had managed to hold off the foot with a large stick.

Kei, in the time that Gnome had been under the rocks, had formulated a slight plan. He took the largest tree available from the maple woman (who didn't mind, it should be noted, as she had accidentally uprooted it that morning and couldn't have sold it anyway).

The plan, a simple one, was for Gnome to use the tree to beat up the bird. At the last moment before getting stomped, Kei threw it, Gnome caught it, giving us the state of affairs we have now.

Gnome utilized his moment of peace to kick off the rest of the rocks. He stood up and extended the tree to the avine organism of evil.

"The time for forgiveness is over, birdy!" Gnome smirked. His entire body began emanating white light, and the stick left his hand, hovering in front of his face. Gnome held his arms far to his sides, and the entire world appeared to stand still.

Gnome's eyes, although the only being capable of seeing this was the bird, lost their pupils. He yelled in an eerily loud voice, as the white light intensified until all anybody in the immediate vicinity could see was bright white light.

"GNOME FORCE!"

The shine began to subside. The bird was gone.

Gnome, tree in hand again, faced the crowd of people, slowly coming out from behind the rocks. They cheered, but Gnome ad one more thing to do.

He walked to one of the few market stalls remaining. It was covered with lit candles. Gnome took one and laid it on the ground ceremoniously. He tooled the stick, crouched, and, in a movement so fast it was invisible to the naked eye, slashed at the flame and doused it.

Gnome bowed.

Kei, watching from afar, felt a nudge. It came from the white-robed man, or as the case turned out thanks to the hood being off, woman. Apart from the robe, she had excessively long blonde hair. Kei was speechless.

Not because of the surprise from the man not being such, but because save the hair, she looked exactly like Toma did.

He was pondering the possibility that it was a very realistic dream and the appearance of Gnome and the woman were just representations of his mind.

"Who are you?" They both asked simultaneously. Evidently she recognized Gnome as well.

"I'm Kei," Kei chuckled slightly, half expecting someone to yell 'Jinx!' as he held out his hand.

"I'm Tobe," The girl shook his hand.

They walked over the rocks and into the damaged, but still bustling, bazaar to Gnome, still bowing. He stood up and turned to them.

"Soul is fine now!" He took the bag and the jug from their spots. Kei noticed, once more, that he was thirsty.

"So, can any of you tell me where we are? I'm sort of lost," Kei finally took the chance to ask.

"Hm?" Tobe looked at him, right eyebrow raised quizzically, "Oh, we're on the continent Harmon!"

"Oh..." Kei couldn't remember any continents named Harmon. Maybe that's what natives of South Africa called Africa. "Hey, have you seen a little shuriken?" He motioned a sort of star shape to Tobe.

"No, can't say I have. But if you want to find anything, you should go to the capitol city," Tobe advised, "I should probably take you there myself. As a master entrepreneur, I am well known there. It's not exactly the friendliest city."

"Gnome wants to come too!" Gnome pleaded.

"Well, I guess that means we're all going together. Does the capitol have an airport or something?" Kei asked.

Tobe looked at him blankly. "It has a harbor... Biggest one I've seen in my travels."

"So we're heading out?"

"Yes." Tobe turned around and walked off.

Gnome immediately followed. Kei watched for a while.

He didn't know for sure where he was or how to get home, but he was going to try.

FINI PHINALI TWO