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Disclaimer: L.J. Smith and her publishers own the rights to any material borrowed from her works (although I didn't borrow from her as far as I know). I am making no profit from this work. My characters are my own invention. (Character names are borrowed from a computer game.)

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Once, in another dimension there was a land that was a lot like ours, but in the same way totally different. This place was far beyond our technology in most ways, but certain things we had discovered years ago, these people had never heard of. In this place, everyone used to be happier than you may think possible. That was until the meteor hit. No one took much notice of it. But soon, people started changing. They started being cruel. Little kids started throwing tantrums, throwing their poor innocent toys. They broke their toys, and soon they would wish they had been much more kind to them.

On one fateful night, some parents reported their child, a boy who took joy in breaking and disfiguring his toys was found dead in his bed. The only evidence of murder was the child&rsquos least favorite toy lying next to him grinning devilishly, with a cleaver in its hand. The toy was a puppet, a jester. This was to be called the Baxter case.

Soon, reports of the same category flooded the homicide squad at the local police department. Parents of kids with toys in their rooms became afraid to leave them alone at night. Finally, the leader of this demented world, a king, called in the best two detectives for this sort of killing spree. They had worked on cases that concerned poisoned fogs, disease carrying crilobites (a colorful, large cockroach), killer barbershop quartets, and other demented, seemingly unsolvable cases. They had worked undercover before, not wishing for the careless people to know about the many odd flaws in their so-called perfect world. Their names were Xanthia and Kallak. These are considered to be odd names by the commoners, who had names like 19B or 20A.

Well, anyway, the case was the strangest of all, even weirder than the plant people case. Cases of people disappearing, and where they once stood, there was a plant or tree or shrub of some sort. Later, there would be reports of a plant running around with a huge knife! But in this case, there had been no flaws, that is, except for the gigantic meteor that no one had found out about yet. As the two detectives set off, they had one stop to make. The house had been deserted for months now, and there had been sightings of toys creeping into a room where a young boy once lived. This had been the first ever case of the murdering toys, even before the Baxter case. When they entered, an odd feeling of eyes watching them fell immediately upon them. This had never happened to the fearless detectives before. First, they went to the upstairs bedroom to see if the toys had actually gone there. The place was very, very quiet. It felt different. It looked normal, just a boy's room, a bed, dresser, but all sorts of toys were scattered around the floor. When they entered all the way, the door closed slowly, so slowly they couldn't tell that it was closing until they were locked in. Their spines tingled. Kallak pulled out his cell diminisher and Xanthia her cribobeamer. But in seconds, swarms of toys were on them, biting and scratching, and cutting, as fast as possible. They flailed their weapons helplessly until all was dark.

They awoke in a dark basement. The air smelled musty, like burnt flesh mixed with the obvious stench of the sewer just below them. Their heads stung. Both of them felt extremely disoriented. Xanthia noticed the numerous cuts on her body, and on Kallak, who seemed to be up and looking for means of escape. The door was locked, so that route was out of the question. Their weapons were gone, and they both felt weak, as if they had been drugged. After a brief search, they discovered a box of leftover crackobites (a cracker brand), a bottle of Rock Pop Fizz, two Maglite flashlights, and various other items of no use to them. Just out of a fluke of luck, Kallak, who had begun to pace quickly across the room, slipped on a small rug. The rug had been concealing a sewer manhole. Excitedly, they quickly scanned the room for any other objects that might be of use, and then carefully climbed into the manhole. After switching on their flashlights, they saw a jester's stick in a puddle and various other sheddings from toys. At least now they knew how the toys traveled. As they roamed the stench filled sewer, they began to hear soft chattering. It sounded far off, but coming in their direction. They knew who it was. "The Toys!" Xanthia whispered frantically. It was at he first time in both of their lives that either of them had been this frightened.

They turned around and ran silently in a different direction. The chattering slowly faded into the distance until all they could hear was the dripping of water into the puddles. They walked aimlessly for what seemed like hours. Finally, they reached a ladder that led to a manhole. As Xanthia shined her light on the first rung, she spotted a shimmering object in a puddle of water. She picked it up, and saw that it was a key. Too tired to take much notice of it, she slipped it into her pocket and began to climb the ladder. Once in the room above, they discovered they had returned to the place where they had begun. "A lot of good that did," sighed Kallak. "Well, now we know they frequently come here. And that they travel in the sewers," said Xanthia hopefully. Kallak just nodded. Remembering the key, she tried it in the lock on the door. It fit perfectly. Once outside the basement, they crept out of the house, not believing they could face the toys without better weapons or knowledge of their weaknesses.

The two found their motorcycles and headed back to report to the king. At the palace, they told about their discovery. The king was grateful for the information, but was concerned for them and ordered them to be more careful in the future. Then he sent them out to find more information about the toys.

At home, Xanthia immediately went to her bed and lay down to sleep. Unfortunately, she had horrible nightmares about the toys.

Kallak, on the other hand, filled out a written report about the house they had just explored. Then he ate dinner and tried to think of a way to kill the evil toys. Only becoming more confused, he finally went to bed. He too had horrid dreams about the evil toys.

The next morning, they both awoke early and headed to the Baxter house. The current residents were on vacation, and the house was, surprisingly, unlocked. This time, they had hidden various weapons on their bodies in case another incident might occur. The place looked normal enough at first glance. But further examination of the upstairs bedrooms revealed other evidence. What looked to be a child's bedroom had various knives, and sheddings from toys and dolls scattered ominously about. Kallak was about to enter, but Xanthia stopped him. "Look over there in the corner," whispered Xanthia. A pair of eyes peered at them out of the darkness. If you looked long enough, you could make out the shape of a disfigured doll. After quickly scanning the room, one could see all sorts of cleverly hidden toys. The toys began to swarm together, coming at them in a rush. Kallak, faster than seemed possible, kicked the door closed and put a neurolizer on it. The neurolizer made a permanent lock on the door, unless the person who put it on entered a secret code. "That was a close one!" exclaimed a flustered Xanthia. "I never thought of using a neurolizer."

"Don't get excited. I have an odd feeling that it won't last long. Eventually, they'll figure some way to destroy it.

"You're probably right."

The only other room that served any particular interest was a cleverly concealed attic above the spare room. Inside were thousands of toys, dolls, and stuffed animals. They peeked inside, not daring to enter. They climbed down and put another neurolizer on the entrance. Next, they left and reported to the King.

The two had never been so puzzled about a case. Both had first met in the secret service training school, back in Winchester. Winchester had been a quiet town not at all like this place. Everyone had been happy, but not fake-happy like this place. But soon, the new king came along and conquered the poor, peaceful town. After the battle, nothing had been left. They only lived because they had both been away at school at the time of the attack. They were forced to move away and to enter the service of the king. Their first case had been about a gang of trolls living under a bridge. The bridge was connected to Saniton, a place where everyone went to buy food and other necessities. The trolls would let no one pass. Xanthia and Kallak had figured out that trolls are cousins of goblins, and goblins are allergic to sunlight. Xanthia shot her cribobeamer at the bridge, and it disappeared for ten full minutes. The trolls were exposed to the sun, and were turned to stone. The bridge reappeared shortly after the stone trolls were carted away to the dump. Problem solved. But this evil toy case was beginning to become extremely nerve racking.

Kallak decided that they should go and look up some articles in old newspapers to see if they had bypassed some important evidence. After three hours of searching, they were just about to call it a day when Xanthia exclaimed, "Look, Kallak! Look at this!"

Kallak moved beside her to see what she was pointing at. There were two articles on the screen. One was about all of the first cases of the toys. The date was December 2, 1990. "Why, that's over seven years ago," Said Kallak. As they scanned the pages, they saw that a meteor had hit near a geological dig outside Appleton. It was written in tiny print under the educational news, which no one ever looked at. "How come no one noticed?" questioned Xanthia. "I don't know. We sure didn't notice it, though." Xanthia just shook her head.

"Let's go check it out, " said Xanthia.

"Tonight? It's almost 9pm!" answered Kallak.

"We used to stay out researching 'til 2am!"

"Yeah, but.."

"You're just afraid. I'll go by myself if I have to. I want to solve this case."

"OK, I'll come," sighed Kallak.

"I thought so," said Xanthia."

After driving on some crazy country roads, they finally reached the meteor site at exactly midnight. The crept silently through the forest, trying to be invisible in case there were any evil toys around. They pushed the brush aside, and took a look. The meteor was huge! The biggest one they had ever seen in their long career as detectives. In the very center of the glowing space rock stood the leader, the jester puppet. He had been seen at the scene of each crime, and now he grinned menacingly at the crowd of other evil toys that circled the meteor for miles around.

"It looks as if they are starting some sort of important meeting," whispered Kallak.

"Shhhh, He's speaking. This could be crucial information!" whispered Xanthia. The Jester raised his jester stick as high in the air as his little arm could reach, and there came a roar of shouting and applause. "Fellow toys of the New Order, I welcome you to this joyous event!" Another roar. "As you know, many of our brothers have been split into groups and sent to houses all over the vicinity. At each house where toys were found, we the toys will punish the accused owners for their abuse. But, more importantly, we have gathered here tonight to celebrate a great victory!" This time, a roar three times as loud as before sounded in the air. The Jester's eyes became brighter with every word he spoke. The disgusting green meteor radiated with power. "It has been decided that tonight is the night to go to every place which sells toys. We will bring all the toys to life, and then we will take over the new king!" The loudest roar yet nearly made the horrified detectives' ears bleed.

"The new king?" asked Xanthia.

"I forgot to tell you, in a meeting yesterday we voted to impeach the old king for his unlawful deeds, and to bring in a new one. The new king is called King Brenn."

"Brenn?" asked Xanthia. "My oldest brother is named Brenn. Does he have a pet tiger?"

"Yes, I believe he has," answered Kallak.

"Oh, no!!!" exclaimed Xanthia.

"Wait, listen, the Jester is speaking again," said Kallak.

He was right, for the roar of the crowd had ceased, and the Jester was now speaking once again: "Everyone, newcomers too, come. We must go into the sewers and separate into groups so that we can free the toys jailed in the toy stores! But first, before you leave, each of us must take two meteor pebbles, for it will be a long hard night ahead. But don't take too much. Hurry! There's no time to lose!" With that, the toys swarmed across the meteor. Within minutes, they had gathered their pebbles and disappeared into the sewers. It was easy to see that a tenth of the meteor had been taken.

"That's it! The meteor! They get their energy from it! We must destroy the meteor!" shouted Kallak. "But before that, we must warn people. I'm afraid that the toys will be in shops quick enough, and soon the king, I mean your brother, will be in great danger!"

"But How can we destroy them if they already gotten enough of the meteor to survive all of tonight? They'll have to come back to get some for the new toys. We must warn Brenn, destroy it, and then stop them in person."

"Le's go!"

"Hmmmm, I just can't think of a weapon strong enough. Maybe, if we scattered a couple hundred dynosticks on it, it will help."

"Dynosticks are not exactly that powerful. And, it would take all night to scatter a couple hundred on this thing."

"I give up. Let's go try and help the town out, and tomorrow I'll run some tests at the lab over some samples I have."

"OK."

(At the palace.)

"I don't know. Evil toys?"

"I know it's crazy, but the old king gave us the job, and believe me, it's no joke."

"If you say so, Xanthia. I still can't believe you thought I was dead, though. But, I guess this is no time to reminisce. I'll try and get some guards around the palace, and some officers to go to town."

"Thanks for understanding. In the meantime, we must go and destroy that meteor!"

At the town, in the most popular toy store, Tommy's Toy Tank, inside, both detectives find themselves in a chaotic world of maniac toys trying to kill them. But anyone could see that the leaders had long since left, and that the leftovers that hadn't found their way out yet were pretty clueless. "Now," said Kallak, stepping over a whining babydoll. "If we could only cage them up until tomorrow."

"That's it! We'll load them into the ball bit."

"And we can use crackobites for bait!"

"I remember! At the first house, there were crates of crackobites in the basement!"

Quickly, they raced to a closed convenience store and used Kallak's skeleton key to get in and steal, or borrow, the crackobites. After this, they jogged back to the toy store, and laid paths of them along every aisle and into the enormous ball pit. Inside of the ball pit, they crammed a trough of Rock, Pop, Fizz into the back, and more crackobites in the center. Now all they could do was wait. But Xanthia didn&rsquot even get a chance to look inside her compact, because lines and lines and lines of toys started cramming themselves into the ball pit. Kallak went to check and see if there were any left over toys, but quickly came back shouting, "Close the pit! That's all of 'em!"

Xanthia slammed the clear door shut, and stuck nearly thirty concealers around the pit. Concealers were a brand new device that is five times as strong as any other lock, and guaranteed to keep any thing in its place. Of course, this wouldn't work for the leading toys, but they were pretty sure that the newcomers wouldn't be going anywhere for awhile, especially without any meteor pebbles. All night they visited every toy store and did the same, only concealing them in closets and various other containers instead. By dawn, they walked home and went to bed without even checking on Brenn. Big mistake.

(Earlier that night, immediately after Xanthia and Kallak left Brenn's palace.) Brenn sat at his writing desk and chuckled softly to himself. "Evil toys," he thought. "What will my poor sister and her little friend think of next?" He had gone ahead and put extra guards around the palace, but not called in for reinforcements. But, he had asked that as of that moment that every store or business must have at least one security guard around at all times. He was glad to see his sister, but thought she had gone just a bit off her rocker. Brenn slowly dozed off in his oversized leather desk chair. Too bad, if he&rsquod maybe stayed awake for just five more minutes, he could of heard the creak of the meeting room door as a small army of toys stepped in with nothing but bad intentions in their wicked little heads.

It was all over the papers the next morning. "News flash! The latest king, King Brenn has been reported missing! His room was literally torn to shreds! Pieces of rope and a small switchblade were found on the floor. A small pool of blood was reported beside his favorite armchair. But oddest of all, a red jester stick was found beside the door. If you have any information on his whereabouts or anything about the kidnapping, please phone the homicide department at 244-1534. Thanks for your time!"

"Oh my god, Kallak, have you seen the front page of the paper?"

"No, why?"

"Read it!"

"Dear God!"

"We'd better go get rid of that meteor fast!"

"Let's go!" (At the site of the meteor, 12pm.)

"It's gone! Oh no! Now what will we do?" screeched Xanthia.

Where the meteorite once lay, there was a gigantic crater in the center of the clearing. "Maybe they were already on to us. We'll just have to find it and then destroy it," said Kallak. As they trudged back to the road halfheartedly, Xanthia noticed something odd. "Kallak, ever since we came here, I've never been bitten by fire ants."

"So."

"So, I've never seen a squirrel or other animal or living thing around here before, either.

"You mean that the meteor killed all of the living animals and insects."

"Yeah, but I have noticed the plant growth has nearly tripled."

"You're right. I remember this shrub by the road, it was only a foot tall when we first came here, but now it's over four feet tall!"

"Interesting, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but what is your point?"

"We were never affected, were we?"

"Nope"

"Ever since we came here, I've had horrible nightmares. I've also developed allergies of all sorts. But you can't tell because I'm taking medicine. I think they made it so humans and other organisms, besides them can't survive around here. The plant growth also provides a sort of barrier. They kept this place well concealed. I also believe that they moved it because the newcomers aren't used to traveling so far. I've heard a rumor that there is an underground warehouse beneath Tommy's Toy Tank."

"Wow."

"That all you can say?"

"How'd they move it?"

"There are enough toys to make a large army. It should be an easy lift. But I have no earthly idea how they got it into the warehouse. But I'm not too concerned about it right now. All I want is to find Brenn, and to get rid of the meteor and the toys once and for all."

"Me too. Let's go to Tommy's Toy Tank, and figure out something. I have a kind of a good plan."

Tommy's Toy Tank was closed for remodeling. Breaking in was easy. But staying hidden was another story. It was far from deserted, and in every corner a stuffed wild animal sat ready to ward off enemies. A little look around told you that all the leaders were in the basement, preparing for a so called "meteor ceremony." The two detectives sat for many hours without moving, because if one so much as sneezed, they would be dead meat.

Meanwhile, in a musty basement in the first house where Xanthia and Kallak were first imprisoned, King Brenn lay unconscious for many hours. Until at one o'clock the following day of his kidnapping, he finally awoke with a throbbing headache, and an abrasion on his right knee. This caused him to limp, and he soon discovered an open wound along the side of his left arm. He was not tied up or gagged, nor was anything else used to keep him staying put. But, the door was locked, a large, heavy chest covered the sewer manhole and the one window was licked and covered with towels, and too high for him to reach. Not only this, but he was much too weak to even try at picking the door's lock. But, there was a close by cabinet full of food and drink, and a towel nearby that he managed to tear into strips for bandages for his many cuts and wounds. Now all he could do was wait, or sleep. He chose to sleep. He dreamt of his kidnapping, and woke up from numerous nightmares. He decided to himself to never disbelieve Xanthia again.

(Back at the toy store.)

After a long time of sitting, they figured out what the toys were planning. The meteor ceremony was a time when each toy would get a lifetime supply of the meteor, freeing them from having to visit it every night. After receiving their supply, they would one at a time enter a small chamber, in which they would be filled with its power, making them basically indestructible! Only a few hours remained until all preparations were ready, and the final hours would come. The two detectives were flabbergasted! Quickly, they both went over the facts about the case to see if they could figure something out.

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Onto Part 2!

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