The continuation of the maladjusted adventuring of Beansprout and Flibbage her faery chum. You may recall, avid reader, that we left the intrepid duo in the hall of Flibbage's mother, the Faerie Queen after they had run away from the fast collapsing Buffy Towers with the mysterious Sword of Slayskull, an alien artifact. Whilst Beansprout went to see her mother in a slightly hysterical state, Flibbage learned the disconcerting news that the two token male characters of the plot, Yakky the yak boy (son of the deceased Buffy) and 'J' (Buffy's killer), had to be found at any rate or the carefully arranged narrative of Ally and Em would be destroyed along with probably the whole InubuYAKasha universe. This is bad because both men are in exceptionally foul tempers about one thing or another, and no one knows where they are…

Episode #25 "A Clockwork Beansprout" (I don't know why! That's just the title!) By Ally.

"Ow!" Beansprout said for the fifth time that hour as another comical object fell on her.
"Cow, anvil or bowling ball?" Flib said without much real interest.
"Birdcage. Flib, why is this happening?"
"It was your idea fool. Go to London, find some NGSPIB agent, and get them to tell us where their HQ is…"
"No no no. Why does stuff keep falling on us? And why are you in such a crap mood? And why did your mum look so upset? And…"
"LOOK will you SHUT UP for one MINUTE!!!" yelled Flib, lapsing into her overgrown faerie screech, "I am trying to THINK of a PLAN to save our goddamn LIVES, and I CAN'T because of stupid YAKKY and stupid J and the stupid bloody LAWS of GENERICS!"
Passers-by, who were worried by the sight of a large screaming faerie, were even more surprised to see her burst into floods of tears.
Beansprout sat her down on the pavement and gave her a hug. "Flib?"
"Wh't?" Flib sniffed.
"Let's get a doughnut."
***
After four or so doughnuts, Flibbage began to feel a little better, although she still couldn't think of a plan, and Sprout had several more falling object induced bruises.
"Right," Beansprout said, dodging a falling puppet, and struck a heroic pose, or rather tried- and failed. "What the folk is going on?"
"Not a faerie. Wouldn't get it."
"Try me."
Flibbage took a deep breath. "Yakky and J aren't here so we've lost our politically correct status, breaking the laws of modern fiction, and unbalancing everything. Now I can't think of any plans, and random things are falling on you, the primary protagonist."
"What?"
"The heroine. I told you so. Being ultra-smart, you'd think this stuff would make sense to you.Besides, I think the rapidly unraveling narrative is making you stupid, nothing implausible works anymore."
"Falling cows are plausible?"
"No it's…" Flibbage focused on the hazy, rapidly fading memories of Faerie "Some kind of side effect, a kind of whirlpool of dying fiction."
Beansprout sucked a milkshake confusedly. "What do you mean fiction? Why should we worry about fiction when we've got reality to wrshcrrrrrrkkkkkkwwwwwsssssssshwarrroooooooh shit what was that?"
"Soundtrack failing." Flibbage said morosely, "You see, what we perceive as reality is what people in other parallel universes would describe as fiction. Yakky and J leaving has upset the primary purpose of our universe and now its all falling to pieces in an expanding sphere around us. We're the centre of a crack in the fabric of existence, and if we can't close it, it will suck us all through into a fiction where we make more sense."
Most of this went straight over Beansprout's head, "Nasty." she observed, getting the gist of it.
"That's not the worst of it. In a 'normal' world, you'd just lose a few IQ points and that sword. I wouldn't exist."
"Bloody hell."
"So you see why we have to retrieve the guys?"
"Easy" Said Sprout, making a disgusting noise with a straw and the remains of her milkshake, "you know those dogs you can get, tracker dogs? We'll get a tracker dog and give it something Yakky or J wore and then-"
"Shut up, Sprout."
"Well there's got to be a way-"
"Oh but there is," cut in a mysterious figure on the next table. The two girls looked over as a cloak-shrouded person holding a diet lemonade leaned across to them.
"Who're you?" said Beansprout squinting at the shadowy face.
The woman pulled back the hood to reveal vast amounts of ginger hair, way more than Flibbage's.
"Wow! It's Oddball!" shrieked Beansprout in the way of one suddenly presented with a blast from the past. Flibbage pushed her to one side as a horse landed dangerously close by.
"Indeed," said Oddball, dragging her chair over to join them.
"And she's making sense, which is quite worrying in the circumstances." Sprout added as the horse spontaneously morphed into a television.
Flibbage shivered as her wings began to look decidedly transparent. "What's the plan?" she said nervously.
Oddball jerked her head forward like a moorhen like fashion and whispered, "Well it's risky-"
"We don't care." Beansprout cut in.
"Well, you have to do this properly, if you don't want shit to happen anyway, and if you act like damsels in distress you'll end up with a very clichéd world to come back to."
"We'll do anything."
Oddball waved her hands around absently. "Well in that case, you need to be cunning. You can't go to them, so they'll have to come to get you."
"But they don't know where we are either. Not that they seem to care."
"Oh, but they will if you've been KIDNAPPED BY THE NGSPIB!!!" yelled Oddball as everyone else in the café pulled out handguns and aimed them at our heroines.
"Dammit!" said Sprout and put her hands on her head.
***
Yakky sat in the seedy motel room and flicked through the channels, too depressed even to watch the hardcore porn that was showing on most of them.
… and on the we love the NGSPIB network we have news of another brilliantly fiendish action by our enigmatic but praiseworthy overlords…Yes, they've captured two of our planets most wanted rebels, Beansprout Jones and her accessory Flibbage of Faerie !...
Yakky dropped his cup of coffee, adding to the suspicious stains on the carpet and leaned forward in abject horror as the silhouette of the NGSPIB chairman appeared on the screen next to the caffeine addled reporter.
…"So, anonymous NGSPIB head, nice to have a satellite image of you in the studio. Exactly what plans do you have in store for these two irritating young international terrorists?"…
…"Our plans are none of your concern, small annoying man and they are so clever you wouldn't be able to understand them anyway, moose," … the figure said in an accented, stilted evil villain voice…"However there are certain ultimatums I can broadcast… A Rogue agent and another member of the terrorist faction, the rebel son of the late Empress Buffy-the-space-pirate, a boy known as Yakky, are still at large. This is not a situation we are comfortable as the agent J has knowledge of the inner workings of our institution, and Yakky is considered dangerous for… other reasons. If these two deviants do not turn themselves in within three days, Miss Jones and the faerie princess will be horribly and publicly executed. That is all."…
…"Well let's hear it for our anonymous yet undeniably superior leader!"…
As the audience burst into near hysterical applause Yakky turned off the TV, and slammed the remote onto the bedside table.
"How the hell did they know that?!" He cursed, clenching his fists. "How could she get herself caught, she's too smart, and Flibbage has magical powers for God's sake! This is so typical!!" He got up and began packing his belongings (toothbrush, hair gel, Chelsea F.C scarf, small replica of the Holy Grail) into a tatty backpack. Doing up the straps he noticed the palms of his hands had dark crescent-like marks on them from his fingernails where he'd clenched his fists. Shrugging his shoulders he started to mutter again. "Great. Not only do I have to stage some stupid rescue attempt, but I'll need J's help, to find the secret HQ…"

WHAT IS YAKKY'S DARK AND NOT TO METION DANGEROUS SECRET?
WHERE IS THE NGSPIB HQ?
WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITHOUT THE USUAL HEROIC DOSE OF UNCANNY GOOD FORTUNE?
FIND OUT IN INUBUYAKASHA 4.2!!!