Children from all over the internets, gather 'round and let me tell you a tale. It is a tale of grand proportions, a tale upon an epic scale, a tale so amazing that few can read it without being physically AND emotionally moved. It is a tale of a young lad, a lad named Keith.
This young lad had a very peculiar problem - he was love struck. He had eyes for one and no other, and he believed whole heartedly that they were meant for each other. However, it seemed, at least to him, that the universe was dead-set on preventing him from being with his love. This is not his story, but rather the story of Spirited Away with Keith superimposed upon the main character!
Just kidding.
Here we go.

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Ep. 6, Arc 1 (Psychic City Arc), Ep. 1: Smoking Gun
o*o*o*o

In the morning, while Derrek was still asleep, Keith told Ben what he had dreamed. "What do you think it means? Are those really the angels?"
"I would assume so," Ben responded. "It seems likely, since you saw me and Derrek. Could you pick out Lance or anyone else we know?"
"Lance may have been one of them, but it was really hard to tell...sorry I don't have more info..."
"Don't worry about it. This is more info than we got from the manatees, and it seems we now have an idea what to look for..."
"Do we tell him?" Keith looked at Derrek's tent, where snoring could still be heard.
"Your choice. He'll have to learn sometime, but I suppose not right now. He obviously doesn't have wings yet...and we don't know why. It may be best to wait until we figure out how he'll develop wings."
"Ok, sounds good to me."

All of a sudden, there was a loud explosion that sounded as if it came from below. Derrek awoke as Ben and Keith ran to the edge of the cliff to look down...and they saw a city. This city small, but they could see that the explosion had destroyed a small part on the edge of the city.
"Shall we investigate?" Ben asked.
"Is Kermit awake yet?"
"Yeah..." groaned Derrek, "Kermit's awake..."
"Then let's go!" Ben led the charge off the cliff side.

Down it the city (populated completely by humans who had no knowledge of the monsters plaguing the world), there was a large commotion. Smoke was everywhere, and fire had started to spread. Teams of firefighters had begun to put it out, but the smoke was holding them back. People were running and panicking due to the explosion, even though it happened in a long abandoned part of their city. Many were afraid that their little children were playing with something they shouldn't have, while others thought it was an attack on the city by someone who didn't have proper intelligence on the city's population.

The smoke started to disperse, which would have amazed the villagers had they not been in a panic, for the fires were only growing. However, with the smoke disappearing quickly, firefighters were able to go in and douse the flames. As those flames died down, so did the panic. When they were almost all gone (the smoke seemed as if it was unchanging, as if there was no new smoke from the few flames still occurring). A young woman stepped up to a podium that had been placed for her so that she could address the citizens. She was about medium height, and had very dark skin. Anyone could tell that she was of African-American decent, yet she seemed as if she had never noticed. She spoke in an articulate and intelligent tone, despite the frequent coughs. "People of Psychic City, this was just an isolated incident that was caused by electrical trouble. We have nothing to fear. I can sense that you are afraid and worried, but our safety patrol and our firefighters saved the few people in the long abandoned part of town. We have every reason to believe that you are perfectly safe."

Just as she said this, three strange beings fell onto the pavement in front of her podium. Two were humans, and the other was some tall green creature. Panic arose again thanks to the landing of Keith, Ben and Derrek.
All of a sudden, smoke started to erupt from the few remaining flames and began to overwhelm the people. Many dropped to the ground while others stopped moving. Ben quickly grabbed a couple of swords and started spinning them to create a fan of sorts, and used it to direct all the smoke to Derrek, who began ingesting it. Soon the smoke was gone, quicker than anyone had expected. Keith turned to Derrek.

"I didn't know you could ingest smoke."
"Well, sphinxes can...I guess. Look, don't question the plot device."
Ben turned to the woman at the podium as he began speaking. "Looks like you spoke too soon...Essence[interrobang]"
"Ben, what the heck are you doing in my city?" Her voice was questioning, but with a tad of surprise and disdain.
"Saving it from deadly smoke inhalation. You're welcome, by the way."
At this point, Keith turned to look, and he recognized her as well. "Hey Essence, how're you doing, besides running a city and all."
"Keith? You're here too? Who's that thing?" she said, motioning to Derrek.
"I am Derrek, the small green sphinx. Well, small comparatively to other sphinxes."
"Ok...well..." she began to cough again. "I think I inhaled some smoke."
"So did I," Derrek said.
"Wait...those coughs don't seem like they're from smoke inhalation, per say."

A fog began to move across the area of the city. Essence seemed to disappear, saying only, "I have to leave now, and so should you." When the fog had cleared, they could see that medical squads were taking people to the hospital. It seemed no one had even noticed the fog.

"That was odd," Keith said, turning to Ben. "Still, nice to see a familiar face and a village uncorrupted by monsters."
"I'm not so sure about that," Ben said. "I'm a tad skeptical about how the smoke all of a sudden picked up, and about that fog...I think something is going on here."
"Ben, that nice lady you two know told us to leave," said Derrek. "Don't you think we should?"
"Leave if you want, I want to take a look at something. Keith, did you hear the beginning of her speech?"
"Yep. And I know what you're going to ask. She called it 'Psychic City.'"
"That's what I thought. Hmmm..." Ben walked off toward the city. Keith looked at Derrek.

"I don't think we should follow. This is one of the few civilizations, if not the only ones that doesn't know about monsters. Ben has a point, as soon as a monster appeared, smoke and then fog covered it. I don't think we should push it."
"Yeah, you have a point. I guess we could head back to camp and wait for Ben..."
"That would be the best idea. Besides, I think this may be personal to him. It's best to let him do what he needs to." They turned around and walked out of the city unnoticed by the medics and their patients.

TO BE CONTINUED...