Some Things Just Can't Be Understood

"Greedy people," Dalios answered flatly. "People who respect money more than animals."

"Where were you going to take the animals once you freed them?" asked Maple.

"There's this primal world we know of that has lots of forest but not many animals," Dalios explained. "It may not be a perfect fit for all of them, but at least it's better than here. But I'm not sure how we're going to transport them there safely if they don't listen to me."

"Might not appreciate having strings attached to them otherwise."

"Pretty much, though I don't think they'd be that crazy about it anyway."

Pheobie was lost once again. She looked between the speakers hopelessly, trying to understand instead of asking one of them to explain it again.

Maple, upon seeing Pheobie's confusion, took a deep breath in preparation for his explanation.

"Okay, where do I start?" he began. "Dal here is something of an anomoly. I say something because he is not insane and doesn't taint things. Basically he is a...master of an element called fantasy. To keep things short, fantasy can make you believe in something to the point where it becomes real, which means Dal can do just about anything short of making the fantasy permanent. If he wants to pass on fantasy benefits to others, he attaches strings to them like with Falcon and Rolly here. I'm guessing the fantasy here is "I believe I'm not frozen in time" or something like that."

"Close enough," Dalios answered with a shrug.

(don't know if that makes sense. Dalios's powers are so weird :P)

"Ooooooooooooooooooooooh~" Pheobie chirped in awe, nodding like it made perfect sense. And to her, it did. "Okay"

"Can't you just make-believe a ship like you usually do?" Maple asked. "Only, make it bigger."

"Do you realize how much bigger bigger is?" Dalios asked in annoyance. "I've got to fit a zoo of animals on board without having them try to eat each other, then make it last until we get to the other world. It's not happening."

"Fine, I was just asking," Maple growled back.

Pheobie tilted her head in thought. "What if I help?" she asked. "I can put them to sleep, easily, and without hurting them" she stated.

Both Falcon and Dalios turned to Pheobie.

"Can you? It would be a lot of help," said Falcon, casually putting his hands behind his head.

"How do you plan to do it?" asked Dalios.

Maple was also curious. He knew she could make things change colors, but he didn't remember her mentioning any animal-related abilities. Then again, that cat did seem to like her a lot. Maybe she had a natural charm with animals?

"Color therapy." Pheobie replied. "Animals react to certain colors while other colors can produce effects such as sleep or terror." She stated intelligently. "I used to do it to my landlord's dog"

"Kimi here can change the color of things at will," Maple explained proudly. "The ship is much more vibrant now."

"Maybe she can do something about your hair," Falcon suggested, referring to Dalios's colorless hair.

"...I like my hair the way it is."

"I can help calm them, but its probably easier to move them when they're still like this." Pheobie stated.

They glanced around at the frozen animals.

"Good point," said Falcon. "Well, I guess we better get started."

"I didn't know you had a time-freeze option on your GS, Professor Maple," stated Dalios.

"I didn't either," admitted Maple. "Pheobie found it."

"I paniced." Pheobie replied simply.

"That's reassuring," Dalios drawled.

"Be nice Dal," Falcon replied. "So uh, we still don't know how we're gonna transport them though."

"You can use my ship. It's in the parking lot," offered Maple, who had already picked up some escaped purple groundhogs. "Let's get this done and over with so I can have my vacation back."

Pheobie smiled and bent down to pick up a blue monkey. "Okay. Let's do it then"

"Well let me move my ship in closer then," said Maple, running off to fetch his dimension-traveling vehicle. In a few minutes he flew it over and landed it in the square, where most of the animals were. "Okay, put all animals in the bottom part of the ship."

Dalios and Falcon soon came in carrying foxes and monkeys.

"How are we going to get the bigger animals like the giraffes and elephants?" asked Falcon.

"10X Strength, that's how," Maple replied casually.

"I mean, how are we going to fit them through the door," Falcon clarified.

"Walk through walls."

"Oh."

"Maple knows everything" Pheobie chirped happily.

She paused "... Maple? Can you make my GS work? I don't want to really break something."

"Nothing's wrong with it. You just aren't used to using it yet," said Maple. "Just leave it alone for now. We'll have proper training sessions later, which I should have done in the first place, but oh well."

He and the others went outside to collect more animals.

Pheobie followed Maple out. "So should I just stay in there with the animals and be ready to use color therapy?" She asked "Or do I still get to help?"

"Everything's still frozen, so let's get the animals in first," Maple advised. "If we undo the freeze, then everything will start moving again at once anyway. We can help if there's a problem then."

"Okay!" Pheobie chirped. She then proceeded to gather the smaller animals that she could lift.

As Falcon preceded to moving an ocelot and Dalios floated up to pluck some some birds from the sky, Maple came across an elephant. It was slightly more blue than the elephants he was used to, but otherwise it looked like any other elephant. Maple was sure it was just as heavy too. He tapped on his GS and chose the 10X Strength code, paused, and then changed it to the 20X Strength code instead. After he felt the usual hum run across his body, he walked over and picked up the elephant effortlessly, as if it was just a styrofoam model. After a while he started carrying it high over his head with just one arm.

Pheobie stopped to stare. "Whoa." She mumbled in awe.

Maple, noticing the attention, strutted on by to the ship.

"Show off," Dalios mumbled, tempted to trip him with a string. However, being 20X strong did not make Maple crush-proof, so he let it be.

"You're one to talk," countered Falcon, watching as Dalios used strings to rope in flocks of birds. "Why is it that I'm the only one here without superpowers?"

Pheobie skipped over, having run out of small things to carry in. "Anything I can do to help?" She asked cheerfully.

Maple set down the elephant so he so activate the walls through walls code on both him and the elephant.

"Well, you could group the animals by groups that are less likely to eat each other, or will be better hypnotized by a certain color," Maple suggested. "We haven't really properly arranged them yet, just been busy getting them onto the ship."

"We're going to look for Raze now," said Dalios, as he and Falcon brought in more birds. "He's got to be around here somewhere."