Lich groaned as he awoke from his forced slumber, and found himself back in the Aurorium, with smashed statues and craters in the mosaic floor.
"He's waking up, Vec," an unfamiliar voice called.
Lich opened his eyes to find himself staring into the face of a five-fingered Yoshi, with its cheeks the colour of a ''white'' human - like those in Kippo. He yelled in a mixture of shock and surprise, and squirmed backwards away from it.
"Well, there's nothing new there," the Yoshi muttered, shaking its head.
"I see you two have met, then," Vector Sprint entered the room from behind Lich.
"Vector?" Lich asked, straining his neck so that he looked backwards. "By Undine, what are you doing here? Don't tell me you're out to punish me for all this," he motioned his arm across the damaged room, "like the others."
"I haven't seen any of the others. It's been pretty lonely here for the past…oooh, how long, Trip?"
"About a week, I'd say," the mutant Yoshi answered.
"Trip?" Lich asked.
"Yes. Tripper Yoshitari," Trip said. "Got a problem with that?"
"Uh…no, no I don't," Lich smiled sheepishly.
"Good, because I don't have a problem with…Vec, what's his name again?"
Lich opened his mouth, to find Vector already answering him with: "Dyluck Thanatos Yoshi von Kippo, or Lich as he prefers."
"Right. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that, nor do I want there to be one."
"So you two know each other?" Lich asked.
"Yeah, we're friends, in the figurative sense of the word," Vector replied, smirking at Trip at the same time.
"Oh, that sort of friends then."
Lich groaned as he stood up.
"So, Tripper, how'd you end up like that?"
"End up? I started as, more properly. Human mother, Yoshi father."
"I didn't know that was possible," Lich said, taken aback.
"Well, I'm the result of that possibility. And how did you end up like that?"
"Like what?"
"Tell him, Vec."
"Stuck in a net dangling from a tree," Vector fulfilled Tripper's request.
Lich found a nearby podium, with the word "Sparkle" telling what the decapitated statue was of, and leaned on it.
"I was making my way back to the base from growing trees…"
"Wait a sec," Tripper interrupted. "What base, and…" he guffawed, "growing trees?!"
"I have Mana power within me."
"Ah yes," Vector said.
Tripper looked at Vector inquisitively.
"It's some sort of implant," Vector replied.
"No," Lich said, turning to him, "It's a method. I should teach you when I have the time. But let me finish first."
"Base?" Tripper reminded.
"There's a large Protoss base somewhere to the…" he paused to detect its presence on the Mana Field, "…south of here. My good friend, Guardian of all Yoshies and God of the Mind, Markior is the Executor of it."
"Markior? Not…the Markior?" Tripper asked, dumbfounded.
"The one and only."
"This is getting too much for me…but anyway, go on…"
"Thank you. I sat down beneath a tree, got out my potosa - it looks like this," he retrieved it momentarily from his Mana Storage, "and was about to play, when I heard something walking through the forest. I had a fireball cast at me, then I decided to chase whoever had done it to me, ran after the person, jumped over a log and into the net. But, before I closed my eyes, I saw who must have been behind it. It was a silhouetted figure, but it was a Yoshi."
"Who'd do such a thing?" Vector asked.
"Well, I know it wasn't Markior, because it had legs. Apart from that, I have no idea."
"Where we found you, we also found this," Tripper said, handing him a ripped portion of a crimson ribbon. "It was snagged on a tree, about head level."
Lich looked at it for a second, before he uttered a scream, dropped it and jumped back.
"Now what?" Vector asked.
Lich's mouth opened and shut a few times, before he pointed at it.
"Yeah, what about it?"
"It…it…it…buh-buh-longs…t-t-t-t-to…"
"Yes?"
"N-n-no…c-can't b-be t-t-true…"
Suddenly, Lich collapsed and lay on the floor, sobbing.
"Something close to the heart, I take it," Tripper whispered to Vector.
"Well, there's only two people who could possibly create that reaction," Vector whispered back. "One of them is his fiancée, the other his…"
Vector picked up the ribbon and examined it. There was a deeper red impression on it.
"Seems to be some sort of character on here, probably Pandoran…and I bet it's the letter A."
Lich uttered a moaning cry, as if it had started in the soles of his thongs.
"Yep. It's his brother's."