Chapter 3:  Goat Wrasslin' and Tessie Watchin'

Jeff barely managed to pull the Bubble Monkey and himself away before the goat crashed through the log the monkey had been sitting on seconds before.  Landing hard in the snow he turned around, only to see the goat preparing for another charge.

He stood up shakily, staring the goat down.  'Maybe I'm just in the wrong place.  Are goats territorial?  Maybe if I just kinda back off . . .'  He began to walk backwards, making comforting motions with his hands.

No luck.  The goat charged again, and with a stifled sob Jeff found himself dodging again.  He ran behind a nearby tree and dug frantically inside his bag for something -- ANYTHING -- he could use as a weapon.

'Clothes, ruler, broken spray can . . . come on, COME ON!' he thought, panicked.  He managed to find the pop gun just before the tree suddenly gave an almighty shudder, indicating that the goat had just rammed it.

'Why's he doing this?  What did I do?!'  He readied the pop gun, knowing all too well that the soft cork wouldn't be nearly enough to stop a very angry billy goat.

The tree shook again, even more violently than before.  Realizing that the tree wouldn't be able to take that kind of abuse much longer, he waited until the goat rammed the tree again, then moved quickly from behind it and fired the pop gun at the goat.

The goat turned to look at him just as the gun went off, and the cork flew out and connected with its nose.  Startled, the goat drew back and pushed the snow with its stinging nose to try and alleviate the pain.

Jeff drew back. This was his chance to get out of there.  He pulled his bag over his shoulder and began to run.  He didn't get far, however, as a sudden force suddenly connected with him from behind and knocked him forward.

His bag flew over him, scattering the contents.  As Jeff pushed himself up, he saw something he hadn't uncovered before -- a bottle rocket, made for a science experiment intended for the next day.  Nearby was a portable launcher he had created on a whim.

Perfect.

He crawled to the bottle and launcher and rolled out of the way just as the goat attempted to trample him underfoot.  Once he was a short distance away, he set up the rocket and launcher and aimed carefully.  He'd only have one chance at this.

His palms began to sweat as he increased the interior pressure of the bottle.  The goat had turned and was preparing for one final charge.

'Dear lord, let this work,' he prayed fervently.  He waited for just the right moment.

The goat charged.  Jeff fired.

The bottle flew at an incredible speed, connecting with the goat's forehead point blank.  It collapsed, knocked unconscious.

Jeff fell backwards into the snow, trembling.  He'd never been so scared in his life.  The tears were threatening to come to his eyes, but he forced them back.  There was no point in crying, and he didn't want to be there when the goat woke up.

He checked the condition of his stuff.  The ruler and protractor had been utterly destroyed, but somehow the egg and the broken spray can had made it out in-tact.  He also found his hat, which he hadn't been aware of losing, lying near the bag slightly trampled upon.  He adjusted it and put it back on his head, then stuffed his remaining goods in the bag.

The monkey appeared from behind a rock, looking at him blankly.  Jeff scowled at it.  "Well YOU were a big help."

"Kya!  Kiki uki ka kyo kia kuka ki?"

"No, I did NOT see you throw some snow at it.  I was kinda preoccupied, in case you didn't notice."

"Phhpppt!"

It was around three or four in the morning that Jeff arrived cold, tired and sore at the shores of Loch Tess.  The trip had not gone much more smoothly since the incident with what Jeff had termed in his mind as the "Gruff Goat."  There were several crows that also seemed to be in on the act of stopping Jeff's journey prematurely. On top of that the monkey had been just as easily distracted as ever, and didn't seem to notice whenever the crows came attempting to peck at Jeff's eyes.  Thankfully, there had been no more goats since the first one, and the crows were easily taken down by the pop gun.

Through Jeff's bleary mind, he somehow managed to notice that there were a large number of tents pitched on the bank of the lake.  Relief seemed in sight at last, and Jeff began to stumble gratefully towards the small camp.

He didn't get far, though.  Something bumped into him from the right.  Turning, he prepared to growl at the monkey, but was instead greeted by the site of some alien creature, with huge protruding eyes.

The creature screamed.  Jeff fainted.

"Cripes, Terry, I think you blooming well scared 'im to death!"

"Well I didn't mean to!  I mean, 'ow woz I supposed to know the little blighter would walk right behind me!  And I'll bet the creature popped out of the woods right at that moment!"

"Oh, you and your ruddy stupid ideas about the woods.  It's a bloomin' sea creature, for Cripes sake!"

"'Ere, it's a possibility!  Expect the unexpected, as me mum used to tell me."

"Wot the bloomin' 'eck ever."

The words floated through Jeff's mind as he slowly made his way back into consciousness.

"And wouldn't you know, there woz a monkey followin' 'im as well.  A MONKEY, of all things!  Blimey!"

"I've 'eard stranger things.  Why, I once 'eard that Lucky of the Runaway Five 'ad a potbelly pig as a groupie!"

"You read too many o' them bloomin' tabloids, Sebastian.  Why would anyone 'ave a potbelly pig as a groupie?"

"Well, one of the 'eads of that weird cult in 'Appy 'Appy Village woz a pig . . ."

"No, 'e woz a kid."

"Really?  Blimey!  The pictures sure 'ad 'im pegged as a pig . . ."

Jeff stirred slightly.  "Mmm . . ."

"Eh?  Oh, 'e's awake!  'Ow you feelin', lad?" asked one of the voices.

Jeff opened his eyes slightly.  A group of men in pith helmets and safari clothing surrounded him, looking down at him with concerned expressions on their faces.

"Um, I guess I'm fine," he replied at last.  "Where am I ?"

"This 'ere's Sebastian's tent.  A might messy, but it wouldn't be Sebastian without a bit o' mess, eh?"  One of the men, a mustachioed fellow, nudged another, younger man to his right.

"Oy!  You should talk.  A snowplow couldn't make it through your rubbish," retorted the younger man, identified as Sebastian.

Jeff blinked.  These had to be the strangest looking men he'd ever seen in his life.  "Who are you guys, anyway?"

"Who, us?  'Ey lads!  'E don't know 'oo we are!" shouted one of the men.  The group stood up and began a very odd salute.

"WE!" *bu-bump*

". . . ARE MEN!"  *bu-bump*

". . . OF THE TESSIE WATCHIN' CLUB!"  *ta-da!*

Jeff stared in disbelief.  "Uh, right . . . well, thanks for saving me, at any rate," he said.

"Oh, 'tweren't nothing, my boy!  Wouldn't be proper of us to leave a lil' boy an' 'is pet out in th' cold like that!  But it looks like you've been in a few scraps there!  Animals been givin' you an 'ard time?" asked one of the men.

Jeff blinked.  "Yeah, actually.  How'd you know?"

"Bloomin' things 'ave been actin' up something fierce lately.   Why, ol' Michael 'ere nearly lost an eye to one o' them crows!" replied Sebastian, patting a bespectacled man next to him.

"Yeh! That's why I done switched back to glasses!" added Michael cheerfully.

The young inventor frowned.  "That's unusual," he commented thoughtfully.

"Indeed!  But it doesn't phase us much!  We 'ave more important things to think about than some ol' crow anyway," said Sebastian.

"Like what?" asked Jeff.

"Like what?  LIKE WHAT?"  The men all gaped.  "Why, spottin' the most important discovery o' the Twentieth Century, of course!  The king of lizards, the most majestic beastie ever to be found in a lil' loch out in the middle o' nowhere!" exclaimed Sebastian.

"And gettin' me fifteen minutes of fame while I'm at it!" piped up a smaller man.

Jeff blinked.  "You mean Tessie?  But that's just a myth!"

"Ah, but that's wot they WANT you to think!  Trust me, me lad, 'e's out there, sleepin' in the waters and waitin' for someone to suss 'im out!" said Sebastian.

"I still reckon 'e's in the woods."

"Shut it, Terry."

It was making Jeff's head spin.  These men had to be the weirdest group of people he'd ever met in his life.  He felt himself growing tired . . .

"Whoa!  Watch it, lad, don't overdo it or anything!"  One of the men caught Jeff as he fell backwards.  "Criminy, wot's a boy like you doin' out in the middle of th' woods in the middle of th' night anyway?

The boy hesitated.  "I . . . I can't tell you.  I'm sorry."

"'Ere, there's a school near 'ere, in't there?  Don't tell me yer leggin' it!" said Michael worriedly.

"No, it's not that . . . it's just a hunch about something, you know?" Jeff explained to the best of his abilities.

"Ah, a 'unch!  Always follow up on an 'unch, I say," exclaimed Terry.

"Yeh, but you always were a bloomin' looney, wern't you Terry?" said one of the men.

"That's not fair an' you know it, John," growled Terry.

Jeff interrupted.  "Um, I don't suppose any of you know how to get across the Loch, do you?" he asked.

The Tessie-watchers looked at him.  "Other than scalin' th' cliffs?  Sorry lad.  None of us bothered packin' a boat, y' see.  Too bloomin' dangerous.  I mean, wot if we 'it Tessie, or somethin'?  We'd ne'er live it down!  'Tessie Watchers Bruise Ancient Creature of the Loch,' I can jiss see it now," said the publicity-minded man.

Jeff's hopes fell.  "Oh."

"But 'ere!  It's th' middle o' the night!  Sit back, relax, take a snooze!  Want some stew?  Graham's 'Warm-Y'-Up' stew's world famous, y'know!"

For a moment Jeff considered turning them down.  Then his stomach growled and he realized he reallly didn't want to keep going on an empty stomach and a battered body.  "That would be nice . . ."

"Right!  Graham, get a-cookin'!" shouted Sebastian.

"Oy!  Don't go gettin' all 'igh and mighty on us now, Sebastian!" Graham shouted back jokingly.

Jeff sat back, watched the men, and wondered whether this had been such a bright idea after all.

As it turned out, for all their odd eccentricities and obsessions, the Tessie Watchers were pretty nice people.  The monkey had shown up the second the stew had finished cooking, and had rather greedily downed two bowls worth before falling into a deep sleep in the corner of the tent where Jeff was staying.

Jeff wished he could sleep.  The truth of the matter was, however, that he was just too anxious.  The tension had been present prior to his bout of insomnia, but had been helped along by another night message from the mysterious girl.

"Go south," the girl had said.  He'd figured that much out -- Threed, as he recalled correctly, was somewhere in Eagleland, which was more or less south of the country of Winters.  However, to simply say "south" was something of an understatement, from what Jeff understood -- just the northern border of the country was several miles away from where Jeff was at the moment.  Add to that the consideration that Threed could be anywhere in Eagleland, and the odds of Jeff reaching the two strangers before anything bad happened was extremely slim.

So he was doing what he always did when he couldn't sleep -- he was fixing.

In particular, his attentions were devoted to the broken air gun found in the locker back at Snow Wood.  The trigger had been broken, and a few parts were loose here and there.  It would be an easy job to fix it.

Of course, for Jeff it was never enough merely to "fix" an item -- he always had to improve upon it.  He'd never fully understood the need to do this; in fact, often times the improvements were done subconsciously.  It disturbed him on occasion how he could make these drastic changes to an item and not be aware of having done so, but it was easily shrugged off when it was taken into consideration the fact that he usually DID improve upon the broken item.

There were, of course, exceptions.  One time, he'd attempted to fix a broken phone in the common room and somehow managed to convert it into an odd sort of portable x-ray scanner, much to the chagrin of the few people who attempted to use it later.  Another time, a broken toy car had turned into a miniature tank which was capable of firing a small missile through a two-inch thick wall.  (The other boys, of course, had found this intensely fascinating until the teachers had confiscated the car as a safety risk.)

Still, it never hurt to try, and Jeff figured that if he was going to be forced to put up with more psychotic animals as the Tessie Watchers had suggested, he'd better attempt to make a better weapon.

After three hours or so, he managed to whip up something which looked quite promising.  Its shape resembled an old Magnum-style gun more than it had prior to renovation; the question was whether it worked.

To test, he looked outside, aimed at a rock some fifty feet away, and fired.  He was surprised (and in a way, delighted) to see the stone shatter into pieces.  One thing that none of the boys at Snow Wood could ever deny was the fact that Jeff was quite a sharpshooter for his age.

He marveled at this new weapon for a moment before it occurred to him that an odd wind seemed to fill the air.  All the Tessie Watchers were out by the lochside waiting for something.

Jeff popped back into the tent and nudged the Bubble Monkey.  "Come on, you lazy ape," he muttered.

"Ki kyaaaaa . . ." mumbled the monkey in response.

"No, I can't let you sleep in, we have to get going if we're going to have to scale the cliffs," Jeff said.

"Phbbt."  Grumpily, the monkey stood and scratched itself a bit.  "Ki kya uki kikiki . . ."

"Well good for you.  Try dreaming it again some other time.  Something's happening out there."  Jeff grabbed his coat, hat and bag (which the Tessie Watchers had kindly set aside for him) and exited the tent, a sleepy monkey close behind.

The Watchers were out in full force, each with their binoculars to their face.  If anything, they looked even more ecstatic than they had the previous night.   Jeff looked towards the direction of the loch, but could see nothing but a few leaves blowing on the wind and the morning sun peeking over the horizon.

The Tessie Watcher nearest him looked towards Jeff suddenly with his binoculars and leapt back startled.  "GAH!  Oh, it's you lad.  Feelin' better after a good night's sleep?" asked Sebastian.

"Much," Jeff lied.  "What's going on out here?"

"Well, y' see this wind?  Legend 'as it that when it's blowin' like this, Tessie 'imself emerges from the waves.  This is our big opportunity, lad!" exclaimed Sebastian.  "Care t' watch with us?"

"Can't, I'm afraid, I've got to get going," replied Jeff.

Sebastian's face fell, then brightened again.  "Well, at least 'ave a look through the binoculars.  Lovely morning, innit?"

The Tessie-Watcher looked at Jeff eagerly.  Jeff sighed and gave in.  "Only a quick peek, though."

He aimed the binoculars towards the horizon . . . and nearly dropped them when a man popped out of nowhere.  "What the?!"

The man, standing on the rock, sported a top hat and suit.  His face was primarily hidden behind thick spectacles and a beard, and he had a camera set up.  He was also grinning at Jeff, much to the boy's discomfort.

Jeff stared in disbelief.  "Who are --"

"Photos taken instantaneously!" the man interrupted.  "I'm a photographic genius, if I do say so myself."

Jeff, the monkey, and even Sebastian were somewhat unsettled by the man's appearance.  "An' photographic geniuses jus' bloomin' well fall out o' nowhere, then?" asked Sebastian.

"Of course!  Some of the best pictures are taken this way!  Besides, it'll be a great momento for when the adventure's over," replied the photographer.

Jeff was startled by this comment.  "How'd you know I was on an adven--" he began.

"No time for that now, gotta get the photo while the light's just right.  Now everybody altogether . . . that's it.  Now say, 'Fuzzy Pickles!'"

Not wishing to disturb this potentially psychotic man, the trio stood together and smiled nervously.  "Fuzzy . . . pickles?"

*SNAP*

As Jeff and the others stood dazed by the flash, the man put the camera back into seemingly nowhere.  "Perfect!  This'll bring back the best of memories!"

He disappeared into nowhere.

Jeff stood dumbfounded for a moment, then shook it off.  'Weird,' he thought.

Sebastian was back to staring at the water.  Jeff, realizing he was about as likely to get the Watcher's attention as finding an eskimo in Summers, decided he'd best be off.

The monkey, however, had other plans, and was making its way out to a small peninsula on the shore.  It took a moment for it to sink in for Jeff before he began following after the small simian.

It stood on the peninsula, staring expectantly at a small eddy in the water.  "Hey, what --"

"Kya kyi kya kyoo."

"A stick of gum?  Why?"

"Ko ky ka, kyo kyu!"

The monkey, for once, looked serious.  Jeff decided it was best not to press the issue and handed a stick of gum to him.  The monkey popped the gum in his mouth, chewed, and then blew an even bigger bubble than the one he'd made in the store.  The bubble soon began to lift him off the ground, where the wind began to blow the monkey out towards the lake.

Jeff's heart lurched.  "Hey!" he shouted, afraid for the monkey.  "Are you nuts?  Get back . . . here . . ."

He trailed off as the eddy began to expand under the monkey.  A large form was beginning to rise from beneath the lake -- very large.

The monkey began to descend just as a large head emerged from the calm waters of the Loch.

And Tessie, in all his beauty and majesty, stood before an awestruck Jeff with a look of pure benevolence in his eyes.

Author's Notes:

Profuse, PROFUSE apologies to the makers of Xenogears, goat lovers, the cast of Monty Python and the entire population of Britain.  I have no idea why I thought it'd be a good idea to give the Tessie Watchers British accents.  I guess it's because the general setting of Winters seems to suggest it's somewhere in Scotland or England, and I figured it couldn't hurt.  I suck at Scottish accents, though, so I did British.  It's silly, it's stupid, it's slightly offensive, and frankly I couldn't care less.

Besides, it just FITS, for goodness sake.

Interestingly enough, the photo man seems to break the plot just as much in fanfics as he does in the game.  So I guess I pretty much nailed him down pat.  Where DOES he drop from, anyway?

(For FF.net readers: Chapter 1 was changed so that the proper item was found in the lockers -- it was an air gun, not a spray can.  I didn't realize that till after I posted, though, so . . .  It's been changed, incidentally, so those who read the old versions can see the corrections in the new ones.)

I'm amazed how quickly I'm pounding this out.  I really need to get more of Somewhere in Time and Space out though . . .