-Chapter 5

 

            “So, you’re saying that three unknown Yoshies somehow knew the code to the safe where you kept your keys, stole your car, and drove off with it while you were taking a bath?” 

            A black police Yoshi was questioning Older Joey.  Once he had gotten dried off, he ran over to the police immediately to report what had happened.  Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like the police Yoshi believed him.  “Okay,” the black Yoshi continued, “and do you know the license plate code that was on the car?”

            “Well, duh, it is my car!”

            The black police Yoshi raised an eyebrow. 

            “Um…sorry about that.  The code is ‘JYBLYSHI.’”

            “Wait…could you repeat that?”

            “It’s ‘JYBLYSHI.’”

            “Oh my gosh.  That’s the same code on the car the attackers used!  Do you own the blue Model 3 SkyCar?”

            “Yes!  Who stole it?”

            “Some people recognized them as one dark blue female Yoshi armed with various weapons, another female, this one sky blue with goofy-looking blonde hair, and a third one, male, that looks similar to the dark blue—don’t touch those donuts!”  The police Yoshi slapped Joey’s hand, making him withdraw it.

            “Sorry.” 

            “Yes…well, now we know that the attack at the Grapevine Gate Mall, the theft of your car, and the recent attack at the supermarket in Southeast Orange Cataract City are all connected.  Let’s just hope that we find out who they are soon…and I just told you, get your hands off those donuts!”

 

            Joey, Yoshata, and Tiffany had decided to get out of the car for a short time and take a walk.  They had been on the road for two hours now, and it took Joey and Yoshata’s best pleading to get Tiffany to stop.  Tiffany had decided to park the SkyCar behind several trees to avoid anyone, especially Olivia, finding them there.  They were walking along the small walkway of the park.  There were many different trees around them turning to the colors of autumn, and since the sky had become cloudy over the two hours they were in the car, a nice breeze had begun to blow.  Tiffany was slightly nicer, although she would still occasionally snap at Joey’s persistent talking. 

            Joey’s talking had slowly led to question neither he nor Yoshata had ever thought of asking before.  “Hey, Tiff,” he began.  “What happens to Yoshata in twenty years?”

            “Hm?” Tiffany asked.

            “Yeah…” said Yoshata.  “What will I be in twenty years?”

            Tiffany shrugged.  “You never told me,” she said.  Yoshata and Joey could tell that she wasn’t lying.  Yoshata sighed.

            They continued walking for a short time without talking much.  Soon they reached a rather large grassy space, surrounded by various trees, each one also having autumn colors.  Tiffany was about to take a seat on a bench, but Joey held her up.  He pointed at something at the other end of where they were standing, at the very edge of the grassy space.  Tiffany threw Joey’s hand off her arm and tried to get a closer look at the object.  “I think it’s a shuttlecraft,” she said, with a puzzled look on her face identical to Joey’s.

            “Oooh!  Let’s get a closer look!” said Yoshata excitedly.  Joey grinned and ran over into the grassy space.  Tiffany halfheartedly ran after them.  After running for about a minute, she caught up with them. 

            “Be careful!” she hissed.  “You don’t know who could be in that!”

            “Hopefully no one like you—” began Joey, but was interrupted by Tiffany’s fist.  He ducked and kept quiet.  Then Yoshata spotted something.  Well, actually, someone.

            “Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed as she saw who was standing outside the shuttlecraft. 

            Joey gasped; he was equally amazed.  Whoa, he thought.  Sky blue skin, bluish eyes, blue spikes, that pretty poof of yellow hair…it could only be—

            “You do know we can hear you say all that?” asked Tiffany.  Joey realized that she was right; he must have been saying his thoughts.  “You have got to be the only person I know who likes that poof of hair….”

            “You be quiet and let me think!” snapped Joey.  He looked back at the future Yoshata and noticed some differences.  She wore the same blue saddle and blue boots, but now she wore a golden Starfleet uniform.  The Yoshata standing next to him had a big grin on her face; she must have noticed this too.  It seemed that Older Yoshata had a tiny bit more hair than the Yoshata he knew.  She also appeared to be slightly taller, although this was hardly noticeable. 

            Then they saw something that made Yoshata squeal for joy (Fortunately, Tiffany had pulled them behind a group of trees so they couldn’t be heard or seen).   Lieutenant Commander Data had walked into their view.  Data also wore a Starfleet uniform, and was wearing a silver saddle and boots of the same color.  This Yoshi had slightly faded yellow skin and silver-ish spikes, and his eyes were a sort of dark yellow-ish green color.  He began speaking with Older Yoshata, but Joey, Tiffany, and Younger Yoshata couldn’t hear what they were saying from the distance they were at.  Yoshata leaned forward to try to hear, but she wasn’t successful.  After the two Yoshies at the shuttlecraft finished talking, Older Yoshata looked absolutely amazed.  Yoshata couldn’t help herself.  She rushed around the trees and towards her future self.  Tiffany reacted quickly and grabbed Yoshata by the tail and dragged her back.  “Are you crazy?” she hissed.

            “OW!  What was that for?” Yoshata asked angrily, rubbing her hurt tail. 

            “That was to make sure nothing crazy would happen!  If your future saw you, there was no telling what could happen!”

            “Oh, come on, what’s the worst that could happen?”

            “I don’t know, but in the time we’re in, cloning is more possible than it was before, so the future you may try to kill you.  If that doesn’t happen, the future you could possibly go insane.  Joey has never experimented much with that kind of thing, so it’s hard to tell what will happen.  That’s why I had to make sure Joey didn’t get seen earlier.  Now please, do me a favor, and don’t ever do that again.”

            Yoshata understood, but was still angry.  She didn’t look at or talk to Tiffany.  Tiffany rolled her eyes again.  “You know what?  Let’s just go!  Argh!” She stomped off onto the dirt park in the park until Older Yoshata couldn’t see her.  Yoshata, who was equally annoyed, followed with the same stomping movements, and Joey shrugged and ran after them.

 

            The Orange Cataract police had been chasing Olivia Norton Yoshi for about one and a half hours, but, unfortunately, she escaped them.  But on the bright side, they were able to get the license plate number of her car.  Right now they had stopped at a park nearby and were taking a while to try to figure out more about this strange case.  What was the connection between Olivia and the three Yoshies that stole Joey’s SkyCar?  Two times they were in the same area, and it seemed that at both times Olivia was committing acts of violence and the others would be stealing something.  They couldn’t have been working together; it seemed that Olivia’s intent was on killing the other group.  So then perhaps this other group of three was only trying to get away from Olivia…but then why were they against the police too?  And why where they driving out of the park in the stolen SkyCar at that same moment?

            “Oh my gosh!” shouted another black police Yoshi.  “That’s them!  License plate code ‘JYBLYSHI’!  Get them!”

            Several other police Yoshies rushed into their cars and others just rushed after the SkyCar with their de-neuron guns out.   It looked like this time they had them…then they would figure this all out…

 

            “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” moaned Tiffany as she looked out her window and saw several black police Yoshies and police cars behind them.  She opened up her window and turned to Yoshata, who was sitting next to her.  “Yoshata, attack them with a solar beam, now!”

            Yoshata looked back at her with her arms crossed.  “No!” she said firmly.

            “Oh, come on!”

            “No!”

            “NOW!”

            Yoshata nervously opened her window.  She looked out and saw her target: Black, heated asphalt.  She concentrated hard.  Her mouth started glowing red.  Quickly, she opened her mouth and unleashed an intense solar beam.  The beam hit the black area of road and instantly made it melt, making it gooey and sticky. 

            It worked just as Tiffany had planned.  The cars and Yoshies behind them got stuck in the melted road.  “Good job, Yoshata,” she said.

            Yoshata just turned the other way with her arms crossed again.

            “Oh yeah?  Well, fine!”  Tiffany continued driving angrily.

 

            “How?” shouted the black police Yoshi he struggled to get out of the sticky goop.  “How do they do that every time?”

            “Perhaps it’s just dumb luck,” said a brown police Yoshi near him. 

            “…Just shut up and call for help.”

 

            Three more long, boring hours passed.  Tiffany was getting more and more irritable and restless, and Yoshata had continued not to speak to her, although she seemed to not be as angry as before.  Joey lay on the entire set of back seats miserably.  He wanted donuts.  He was bored.  And he missed his mom and dad.  He sighed as he remembered that in the year he was in, in their universe he must have been gone for years.  Will I ever get back home?  He asked himself in his mind. 

            By this time, the sky had turned to darkened evening colors.  The highway below them was busier than ever, and this may have been because they were getting into the popular central area of the city.  The skyscrapers seemed taller than before, and no longer reflected the sun’s rays.  Joey looked around, but could not find a hotel anywhere in sight.  It seemed like she read his mind when Tiffany looked back and answered, “It’s about one minute away.”

            Joey and Yoshata grinned.  “Well, where is it?” Yoshata asked Tiffany excitedly.

            Tiffany was shocked at Yoshata’s sudden change in mood.  She looked at her and answered, “It’s right there.”  She pointed at a tall white skyscraper getting closer and closer to them.

            “Wow,” Joey uttered softly. 

            The building was very bright, even though the three of them saw it at its shaded side.  There were hundreds of windows from top to bottom.  On the roof, there was a pool and small patch of artificial grass, both surrounded by a tall fence.  The floor below that seemed to be a landing pad, and in between that and the giant parking lot on the ground were all the rooms.  On all four sides of the skyscraper were the words, “Orange Springs Hotel.”

            “They named it that because it’s built right near the famous Orange Springs,” said Tiffany, answering Joey’s question before he asked it.  “It also has an actual orange soda fountain in the juice bar.  It’s so cool!”

            “How l—”

            “It took about six years for them to complete it,” said Tiffany before Joey could ask.

            “Would you stop reading my mind?”

            “What are you talking about?” asked Tiffany.  “Now be quiet; we have to land.” 

            The SkyCar slowly approached the landing pad below the roof.  They reached it, and slowly Tiffany moved the SkyCar into the parking lot, found a spot, and landed the car.  The three of them got out of the car and began to walk through the dark lot. 

            The reached a concrete wall with two elevators in front of them.  One read, “Registration Lobby.”  The other had no title, which Joey guessed was the main elevator to all of the floors.

            Tiffany pushed the single button near the elevator to the lobby.  The doors opened almost immediately, and the three of them walked in.  When they got inside the elevator, Tiffany pushed a circular button reading, “Lobby.”  The button lit up, and the three of them felt a small jolt as the elevator rushed downwards.  “…This is really weird elevator music,” Joey said as he listened to the music coming from the wall.  “It seems kind of familiar….”

            “Yeah,” said Tiffany.  “It’s the Yoshi’s Island National Anthem tune.” 

            “Oh yeah….” 

            Then the elevator stopped abruptly, and the doors opened.  What was outside was a marvelous sight. 

            The lobby alone had shining white marble tiles on the floor.  On the roof was a bright chandelier.  The glass doors to the outside were directly across from them.  And waiting at the glossy front desk was an orange Yoshi with dyed purple hair.  He took a good look at the three of them until both he and Tiffany grinned.  Tiffany ran around several groups of people until she almost jumped over the desk and hugged the orange Yoshi.  “Rian!” she cried gleefully.

            The orange Yoshi named Rian looked happily surprised.  “Tiff!” he said happily.  “What’re you doing here?”

            Tiffany’s smile disappeared.  “Er…I can’t tell you.  It’s sort of a secret, but I really need your help again.  We need to get a room on the highest fl—”

            “Wait a sec,” the orange Yoshi said, speaking a bit more softly.  “We?  Who’s with you?”

            Tiffany motioned for Joey and Yoshata to come over to where she was standing.  They did.  Tiffany stepped out of the way to let Rian see them. 

            “So, these are either a brother and sister I never knew about—which would be kind of surprising—or friends of yours?”

            Tiffany sighed.  “Yeah.  They’re really good friends of mine,” she said, not even trying to sound convincing. 

            “Okay…” said Rian, knowing that Tiffany was obviously lying.  “Well, what are their names?”

            “Jeff and Elmira,” Tiffany said hastily, looking warningly at Joey and Yoshata, who then both had bewildered looks on their faces.

            “Okay…” repeated Rian.  He pulled a key off a shelf and handed it to Tiffany, whispering something like, “You know what to do.”  Then he returned to his normal stance and winked at Tiffany, who smiled and led Jeff and Elmira—er, Joey and Yoshata—out of the lobby and into the main hallway. 

            The main hallway was equally elegant.  The floor was made of the same white marble used in the lobby.  The walls were white and in between every two doors was a wall-mounted lamp.  The hallway went in two directions from where they stood, and in front of them was the breakfast room, which was empty at this time.  Tiffany took Joey and Yoshata down the left hallway. 

            “…Who was that?” asked Joey after they walked down the hallway.

            “Who?” asked Tiffany.

            “You know who….” said Joey.

            “Oh, him?  His name’s Rian.  I met him a long time ago when you took Mom and me on a trip to O.C. City.  While you were out at some stupid fancy restaurant, he and I bumped into each other in the hallway.  We talked for a while, and became friends.

            “Every year since then you took me and mom to this hotel, and very year I would meet him while you were gone.  He’s a really nice guy.  When me and some other friends of mine had gone on our own trip, we stopped at this hotel and he gave us this very same key for free.  He told me not to tell anyone because he might lose his job if someone found out.”

            “Hmph,” said Joey.  “Friends?  That’s a bit of an understatement…”

            “What?  Are you trying to say—”

            “Well, gosh, it’s enough that you go and meet him whenever I’m gone!  I’m not gonna forget this in twenty years!”

            “He is just my friend!  Do you hear me?”

            Joey didn’t care; he was sticking his tongue out at Tiffany. 

            “WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME—NO!  STOP!  I’M WARNING YOU!  JOEY, DON’T MAKE ME HURT YOU!”

            Joey continued mocking his daughter.  Yoshata was laughing. 

            Tiffany’s face was changing to a dark purple color.  “I—ARRRGH!”  She walked away angrily, leaving Joey and Yoshata to roll on the floor, laughing. 

 

             They reached their room in a matter of minutes and spent over an hour there, with only Tiffany leaving and entering the room.  It was now 9:00 P.M., and the three of them took turns using the shower in the small bathroom in their room.  Yoshata had finished first and was now wearing her new purple saddle and neon orange boots that she bought—or, technically…stole.  And much to Tiffany’s anger, Joey was spending an eternity in the shower (he did, of course, only do this for that very reason…).  Tiffany began to get impatient and knocked hard on the bathroom door.  “Any day now?  I do exist, you know!”

            “Just a minute!” Joey sang gleefully.   

            Tiffany rolled her eyes.  She waited another minute and then banged on the door again.  “Come on!  If you don’t come out, I’m going to break this door open!”

            “Okay, okay!” came Joey’s voice from the bathroom.  The sound of the water shooting from the shower stopped.  Another two or so minutes later, Joey walked out of the bathroom wearing his new black saddle and yellow boots.  He pushed Tiffany into the bathroom and yelled, “Happy?”

            Tiffany paid no attention to him and closed the bathroom door.  Joey and Yoshata sat on the two beds in the room.  After a moment of silence, Yoshata spoke up.  “Okay, what did you do?” she asked when she saw Joey’s devious grin. 

            “I used up all the hot water,” he replied with a smirk.  Then a loud shriek from the bathroom filled the room.  “JOEY!” screamed the voice.  “When I come out of this bathroom, I am gonna—” 

            And while Tiffany was going on and on using many graphic terms unsuitable for many young Yoshies, a thought came into Joey mind.  It seemed like neither he nor Tiffany had asked Yoshata what her last name was.  He decided he’d ask now.  “Hey, Yoshata,” he said.

            Yoshata, shocked at Tiffany’s anger, turned over to Joey.  “Yeah?”

            “Yeah,” began Joey.  “Um…well, I never thought of asking you this before, but what—”

            Just then, the bathroom door was pushed open hard and out came Tiffany, dripping and wearing her new (and now soaked) see-through boots and yellow saddle.  She glared at Joey, making him stop his question.  “I have had it up to here with you!” she hissed.

            Joey looked back at her, not exactly worried.  “Oh, now look what you’ve done!” he said angrily.  “You made me forget what I was going to ask Yoshata!”

            Tiffany’s eye twitched.  She clenched her teeth as well as her fists.  Then she yelled and jumped at Joey, knocking him to the floor and then pummeling him.  Yoshata, looking even more shocked than before, jumped over to them and pulled the two apart.  Fortunately, she had amazing strength as well as special powers, because Tiffany was violently tossing her fists toward Joey, who was trying to protect himself as best he could.  “Gosh!” he said.  “This is like, child abuse…the other way around…or something!”

            “I am going to kill you!” screamed Tiffany through her still clenched teeth.  “I am going to—”

            Then there was another interruption.  Three knocks came at the door.  The three of them looked toward the door.  Yoshata loosened her grip on Joey and Tiffany a bit, and Tiffany, instead of charging at Joey again, slowly walked to the door.  Joey and Yoshata both followed her until she reached the door.  Tiffany opened the door.

            “Hi, did someone in Room 243 order a dozen donuts?” asked the blue room service delivery Yoshi standing at the door. 

            Joey grinned.  “Oh!  I did!”

            “Okaaaay, that’ll be ten dollars, please!”

            Tiffany gave Joey an ugly look and pulled out a ten-dollar bill.  She gave it to the delivery Yoshi and slammed the door in his face.  Then she turned back to Joey looking her usual “angry”.  “So now you’re telling me you ordered a dozen donuts by room service?  For ten dollars?”

            “Not exactly,” whimpered Joey, afraid his daughter would pounce at him again, “because we haven’t said anything yet…”

            “Oh,” said Tiffany, getting angry again, “so…you want these donuts?”

            “Oh, do I!” shouted Joey gleefully.

            Then Tiffany ate every one of the donuts with an evil grin on her face.

            Joey started open-mouthed.  “That was cold,” he said.  “That was just cruel!”

            “I know!” sneered Tiffany happily.  Then, under her breath, she said, “Hm…those donuts aren’t half bad….”

 

            A car pulled off a busy highway and into the colossal parking lot of the Orange Springs Hotel.  It was late into the night, 9:10 P.M. at the least, and the many small lights on the side of the great building were lit up, as well as the headlights on the top of the roof and in the parking lot.  There were eight floors, thirty-two rooms on each, and several different other rooms scattered among these floors.  This made the Yoshi in the car’s job even harder.  Wishing herself luck, she parked the car and ran across the lot and toward the front doors.

            It was a busy night.  A long line of Yoshies was in the lobby, going to the main desk and getting their rooms and the keys to them.  At the desk was an orange Yoshi with purple hair.  The periwinkle Yoshi that had just entered the building walked over to him.  She pushed several other Yoshies away and stood face-to-face with the orange Yoshi, eyeing him.  “Sir,” she began, “do you know of three Yoshies that came here earlier?  One was a blue boy, another was a sky blue female with eccentric blonde hair, and the last was a dark blue Yoshi similar in appearance to the blue one.”

            Rian looked back at her nervously.  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ma’am,” he said nervously.

            Olivia got closer to Rian.  “I’m sure you know perfectly well what I’m talking about, young man.  Now tell me, where did the group I just mention go?”

            “I—I’m afraid I can’t tell you that with—without proper reason and identification, Ma’am,” replied Rian, edging farther away from the periwinkle Yoshi. 

            “Well then,” said Olivia, backing up this time, “How is this for identification?”  She pulled out a de-neuron gun and shot Rian with it.  Just as expected, her target fell to the ground, alive but unable to move.  She climbed over the desk and checked the guest book.  Unfortunately for her, there was nothing under what she wanted.  With nothing else to look to, she picked up the orange Yoshi by the skin of his neck (Yoshies have very stretchy skin, you know…).  “Now, tell me,” she said.  “What room are they in?”

            “Okay, I’ll tell you!” said Rian, although because his tongue was unable to move, he sounded a bit difficult to understand.  “They’re in Room 243 on Floor 8!  Now please let me go!”

            “Gladly,” said Olivia.  She dropped the orange Yoshi on his face and ran to the elevator.  Many Yoshies were staring at her wide-eyed, but Olivia seemed to be paying no attention.  She pushed a button on the wall near an elevator.  Almost immediately, the doors opened and she stepped into the elevator.  Looking down the list of buttons, she finally found the one she wanted: Floor 8.  She pushed it in hard.

 

            Tiffany had decided to take her shower again after she had tormented Joey.  She was rubbing soap over her face and humming a tune similar to the one Joey had heard his future self hum the day before.  Once she had rinsed all the soap off of her face, she reached for a shiny body wash on a small shelf near her.  But as she grabbed the bottle, it slipped out of her hand and hit her head, after which she dropped the soap from her other hand and slipped on it, making her fall backwards and hit her head again on the back of the shower.

            In the other room, Joey and Yoshata heard Tiffany’s screams of frustration.  They both sighed. 

            “…Hey, wanna play one of those video game systems?” Joey asked out of nowhere.

            “…Yeah, okay.”  Yoshata and Joey walked over to the corner of the room in front of the second bed.  They turned on the game console, and, paying no attention to the cost of playing the games, chose a video game and began to play.

            “Wow,” said Joey as they continued playing.  “PlayStation XXI…if it’s name actually means that it’s the twenty-first PlayStation model, then I must say that it’s gone far—”

            Three more knocks on the door interrupted Joey.  He and Yoshata looked over to the door.  Then they looked at each other nervously.  They hadn’t remembered ordering any more food behind Tiffany’s back, and this time Tiffany couldn’t answer the door for them.  Yoshata decided to go forward since she was more powerful.  Slowly, she turned the doorknob and opened the door.  Before she could say anything, she was stunned and unable to move again.  A very, very familiar periwinkle Yoshi stepped into the room. 

            Joey jumped backwards onto the bed behind him and began to edge back.  In front of him stood a tall periwinkle Yoshi, bruised and dirty on one side, wet and cold-looking in the front, with burnt skin on one arm, and holding a de-neuron gun with that same arm.  Joey tried to continue backing up, but there was nowhere else to go.  The periwinkle Yoshi grabbed him by the back of his neck and carried him away.  Joey kicked and screamed for help, but Yoshata couldn’t get up and help him, and Tiffany probably couldn’t hear him over the shower she was in.  It was no use.  His assassin carried him out of the room and into the long hall.

            “What are you doing?” screamed Joey as he was carried out to edge of the hall.  However, Joey seemed to know already what his unfortunate fate would be.  At the edge of every hall on each floor was a circular balcony.  He was going to be dropped off a balcony on the eighth floor and fall hundreds of yards down to his death!  He started to scream louder, which was getting some attention from the other rooms, so Olivia began to run. 

 

            At the same time, Rian, having gotten his movement back, was running up the sixth set of stairs nervously.  Whoever this was, he would have to stop her before she hurt Tiffany or either of her two friends.  “It’s a good thing those guns wear off,” he said in between his panting.  “I’ve got to get to the eighth floor before she does…but I can’t!  By now she’s probably running out of the room with Tiffany!  Wait…there’s gotta be a easier way to save her…But I need to know how that periwinkle lady’s gonna kill her…if I were insane, how would I conveniently kill someone?”  He began to run down the hall on the seventh floor.  “Hm…eighth floor…oh my gosh!  She’s going to drop Tiffany off the eighth floor balcony!”  He stopped for a moment and began to run down the hall in the opposite direction.  

 

            Yoshata had just regained her movement.  She pushed herself up and rushed to the bathroom door. Not taking much time to think, she kicked the door open.  Because of her amazing strength, the door flew into the corner of the bathroom and broke into two pieces.  This, of course, caught Tiffany’s attention.  “AHHH!” she screamed.  “What are you doing in here?”

            “No time!” said Yoshata hastily.  “Olivia’s got Joey and she’s taking him down the hallway!  We’ve got to stop her!”

            Tiffany’s eyes widened.  She turned off the shower, grabbed her new saddle and boots, pulled them into the shower and put them on.  “Now hurry, let’s go!” 

            The two of them rushed out of their room and into the hallway, Tiffany leaving trails of water and bubbles behind them.  Tiffany pulled out her magnet gun.  “Which way did they go?” she asked as they turned around a corner and reached the main hallway.

            “I don’t know,” replied Yoshata nervously.  “I think they went this way, though!”

            “Oh no,” said Tiffany, her eyes widening even more.

            “What?”

            “I think—no, I know that Olivia’s planning to drop him off the eighth floor balcony.  We’ve got to get there first and stop her!”  They continued running until they saw it.  Olivia held Joey tightly over the edge of the balcony.  And before they could stop her, she dropped him. 

            “NOOOOOOOOO!” screamed Yoshata.  She looked very nervously at Tiffany.  And even Tiffany looked devastated.

            Olivia, on the other hand, was laughing madly.  But before her insane laughing continued, she noticed that Yoshata’s eyes had begun glowing an intense red, and Tiffany was aiming her magnet gun straight at her.  Now it was Olivia’s turn to be speechless.  Yoshata shot crimson heat beams at the balcony’s edge, melting the stone border, and Tiffany pulled the trigger of her magnet gun.

            Olivia screamed as she was forced backwards off the balcony in what seemed like slow-motion.  Tiffany and Yoshata ran over to the balcony and looked down.  They saw Olivia falling off the building, just passing the seventh floor balcony.  But, to their surprise, Olivia survived again.  She landed on the front of a passing SkyCar with a loud, “thump”.  And unfortunately, they never saw what the car looked like.  If Olivia survived (and judging by what had happened every other time, she probably would), then they wouldn’t be able to recognize her…and whoever was in that car was in danger. 

            Then their thoughts turned to Joey.  Neither of them were able to save him in time.  He was dead.  Olivia had won.  They were both beginning to cry when they realized something.  If Joey was dead, Tiffany would disappear from existence.  So why was she still standing before Yoshata, and why were they both still standing in a hotel in the year 2023?

            “Hi, did you lose something?” came a familiar voice.  Tiffany and Yoshata turned around to see Rian walking up to them with a relieved smile on his face.  He was holding Joey.

 

            After a wave of relief, Joey, Tiffany, and Yoshata had returned to Room 243.  Tiffany had done her best to ignore Joey’s returned taunting of being wet and covered in bubbles, and had dried herself off.  They began to get ready to sleep.

            “Okay,” said Tiffany, “Yoshata—you get the bed in the corner of the room near the window.

            Yoshata nodded happily and jumped onto her bed. 

            “Where do I sleep?” asked Joey.

            “You?” asked Tiffany.  “You get the floor.”

            Joey looked at her disbelievingly.  “I’m not sleeping on the floor!” he protested.

            “Only two beds,” Tiffany replied simply. 

            “Well, I’m not sleeping on the floor!  You are!”

            “No, I’m not!”

            “Fine then, I’m sleeping on the bed with you!”

            “You most certainly are not!”

            “Oh, yes I am!  As your father, I command you to either sleep on the floor or on the same bed as me!”

            “How many times do I have to tell you?  You’re not my dad yet!”

            “Oh yeah?  Well, like it or not, I’m going to have the bed anyway!”

            “Arrgh!  No!  I hate you!  You are so annoying to me!  What kind of father—”

            Yoshata sighed amongst Tiffany’s complaining, wondering how Joey’s daughter could go from utterly missing him to hating him again in a matter of twenty minutes.  She decided to forget about it and went to sleep.

 

-End of Chapter 5