Well fuck you too, THRAX!
Moving along... let's go over here to Southern Port City where we find AXEM making his way down the road leading to Dale Gorge.
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AXEM: (narrating as we see him walking): "Greetings. I am Axem the Stone Pillar a/k/a Miah Axem Thorpatrick. What is my life now? A walk off the fucking map!! In a way I've been going through life... endowed if you will. In addition to my skills as a musician, I've been aided and abetted by my mutant pheromones. I thought this was just an extension of myself but apparently, they turned out to be much more than that... a Thorpatrick curse. But, I'm getting ahead of myself...
........
....... After my release from the Tanchi prison a year ago, a part of me didn't feel like I had been totally set free. I felt like there was something else left unresolved. I had this weird feeling that this whole mess wasn't over just yet.....
.....
..... 'Aw man, I hate it when I'm right!'..."
(We pan to see AXEM wandering near the Tanchi prefectural border, then suddenly being apprehended by Tanchi Military Policemen. He is being dragged away in shackles.....)
AXEM (narrating): "Maybe it was a mistake to try to go back to Tanchi and apologize to Ali. I should have taken the hint when she would not give me the chance back at the Mountain Castle, and listened when she told me to stay away. It turns out that, out of pure spite, she had laid a trap for me to put me back in jail.... one she knew I would most-likely walk right into..."
(We pan to see AXEM thrown into a prison cell with Ali standing nearby after the prison door is closed....)
Ali (from outside the holding cell): "I thought I told you to stay away..."
AXEM (narrating): "I almost feel like it was a part of her deep down inside (from a place she didn't want to admit was there) warning me, giving me a chance to stay free... but I wasn't thinking clearly. Perhaps my DNA extraction played a small part in my poor decision skills... But anyway, she had her people keep an eye out along the Tanchi-Sabretooth border, and ordered them to arrest me on-sight should I be found on the 'wrong side' of the line..."
AXEM (to Ali): "What the fuck?! I've been acquitted by Judge Marius! You have no legal right to keep me in prison!"
Ali: "Au contrare, my dear Axem! Even though I am under the jurisdiction of the Grand Court of the United Prefectures, I'm still the Prefect of the Plains of Tanchi... and my Military Police caught you trespassing on my side of the border after you were ordered to stay away! Defying a direct command by a Prefectural Leader is a criminal act, regardless of whether it's inside the U.P. or not."
AXEM (narrating): "And so, I ended up serving an additional sentence: a year in prison for trespassing on Tanchi Prefectural lands. During that time, I thought alot about what got me there. As if I hadn't had enough happen to me, I had more to reflect on. I thought about how I had lost everything in an instant... about how everything Ali, Rishna, and Ella said to me was true back at Mount Sabretooth. I know my extraction had everything to do with it. And that made me feel worse because now I've been reduced to what I really am. What I have been all along..."
(We pan to see AXEM once again making his way down the road leading to Dale Gorge.)
AXEM: (narrating): "...welcome to my new reality. I ended up serving only 9 months for 'good behavior'. If me keeping my mouth shut and following every order only got me 3 months knocked off my new, made-up sentence, then that just goes to show how far that'll go. What have I been doing during this last 3 months? Pretty much setting out to do what I had intended to do in the first damn place. And, am I a better, more enlightened person who has learned his lesson? Yes. Have I found what I've been looking for? No."
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AXEM: "Anyway. I'm just on my way to Dale Gorge. I haven't been there in a very long time, so I'd thought I'd drop by and see what's happening.... if anything is happening there at all these days. I've been keeping in contact with the others as much as possible. I've been sending out letters and post cards to each of them over this past year. Trithal has been the best at staying in touch... in fact I saw him at his and Danika's wedding a few months ago just after my release. That was a sweet party afterwards. I told Trithal about how Ali insists on stabbing me in the back even after the Grand Court of the U.P. acquitted me. He made some deep, mentally-exhausting comment about how silly it is that Ali is full of contempt for me... or something like that. Half the shit he says lately is too complex for me, anyway! As for Thrax, he never seems to stay in the same place long enough to be found, so Trithal couldn't get an invitation to him, nor could I tell him bout my 9 additional months of prison time. Thrax randomly sends me a letter or something whenever he feels like it. As for Chris, well, I'm sorry to say that he has sent me maybe 10 post cards and I've only sent one back to him. That's typical of him to send me so many. In fact, that's part of the reason I'm going to Dale Gorge today...to visit him in person to make up for my non-response action."
_____________
.............
(silence)
Smilin' Bob (in distance): "Oh, is he done? Am I on now?... Ok, hang on a sec..."
(*shuffle*... *crash*... *shatter*... *toilet flushing*... *approaching, hurried footsteps*... *microphone feedback*...)
....Okay. After a 10-minute walk, AXEM arrives in the village of Dale Gorge, in Mount Sabretooth Prefecture. His first stop is Chris's parents' place, where no one was home. AXEM looks in the back yard to see Chris's garden overgrown and full of weeds, which puzzles him. His next stop is his friend, David's house, who lives just across the street. AXEM meets David then goes inside and has a little chat over some Coke Zero.
AXEM: "Hey, David! How's is going, man?"
David: "Okay, considering. There's been alot of fucked-up shit going on here lately."
AXEM: "For real? Like what?"
David: "Well, back on the 17th of Hachigatsu, Chris died."
Not being able to believe what he just heard, AXEM responds, "......Huh?"
David: "Yeah. Apparently he had a brain tumor that had grown so big that it was pushing against his brain. No one ever knew he had it until the day before he died from it."
AXEM (still in disbelief): ".... well.... fuck. That fucking sucks! Why didn't anyone try to get ahold of me?"
David: "Well, his parents did try to get ahold of all of you, including Tsutaru and Thrax. Tsutaru must have changed his legal name because they couldn't find any trace of him when they did a people search. There's never been such a thing as a permanent address for Thrax, since he's never been known to stay in the same place or keep the same phone number for very long. The only lead they had on you was a letter you sent to Chris three months ago from some place you were staying at. When they contacted the people there, they said they had no idea where you were."
AXEM: "Fuck! So then, none of the others know about Chris?"
David: "Not unless they happened across his obituary in a copy of the Dale Gorge Post... which hardly anyone outside of Dale Gorge reads, anyway. If they had, then I'm sure they would have tried to contact someone here by now. It's already been two months since Chris died.
AXEM (thinking aloud): "The 17th of Hachigatsu... that was my birthday! Chris died on my birthday? That makes it suck even more!"
David: "Well, since you're here and you know now, I guess the responsibility is on you to tell everyone else."
AXEM: "Well, damnit! This was the last thing I was expecting to do today!"
AXEM used David's phone and got ahold of TRITHAL and THRAX and did a three-way conference call. After they exchanged greetings and whatnot, AXEM worked up the balls to deliver the news...
AXEM: "Hey guys, bad news... Chris is dead. He died 2 months ago....."
THRAX: "Uh......uh....what?"
TRITHAL: "WHA~? Are you fucking joking with me?"
AXEM: "Trithal, why the hell would I joke about this? (to THRAX): "Thrax, are you still there?"
THRAX: "You guys are lucky I have enough strength to keep the phone held up to my ear."
TRITHAL: "Well, what the hell happened to him?"
AXEM: "That's kind-of a long story... and right now I'm using David's phone to make a 3-way long distance call, so it would be better if you all came up here to Dale Gorge, and I'll explain everything when you get here."
TRITHAL and THRAX agreed to meet AXEM at Dale Gorge the next day. After that conference call was complete, AXEM borrowed David's phone again to make a few more calls. David invited AXEM to stay the night at his place while he awaits the arrival of the other two party members.
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