Okay, so this is a bit of a late entry. I hope it's good anyway. Barbecue Round Robin Part 12     "What are you doing?" Yuki demanded as she checked on Liu Xi and the barbecue grill.          Liu Xi turned around for a moment and looked at her as if she didn't understand.          "You can't barbecue bacon!" Yuki insisted. "All of the fat drips away and then it's just jerky!" She looked at the other items on the grill. "Chicken? That's for small family barbecues."          The Chinese elementalist stabbed one piece of bacon with one small fork and a piece of the chicken with another, handing both to Yuki. "Try it please."          Yuki frowned but tasted one of each. She passed them both to Hatman, who sniffed at both suspiciously. "It's pretty good," she admitted. "What did you put in these?"          "It's a secret," she replied as she handed a plate of newly grilled burgers to CSFB! to distribute. Dream repeated the annoying habit of gently kissing her hand after taking the plate, which, as overdone as that was becoming, made her smile anyhow. "I had to get creative. We are running out of hamburger."          "This is good," Hatman admitted. He watched in horror when Yuki snatched a couple more pieces right of the grill using the fork she was given and walked away with them.          "More burgers," CSFB! relayed an order as he stopped by momentarily. "They're real popular." As he walked away, he stopped to lick the ice sculpture, but nobody noticed.          "Added something to the burgers too?" Hatman asked.          Liu Xi nodded. "That is a secret too."          "You can't even tell me?" he practically begged.          She looked at him for a moment and smiled, but then she shook her head. "No," she giggled. "Because with that chef hat you won't have a reason for me to feed you any more."     Hatman laughed. He looked behind him and noted that the ice sculpture Liu Xi put there earlier wasn't melting. He shrugged it off, enjoying the cool air flow instead of asking how that was possible.          "You were a little shaken by my question earlier, weren't you?" Liu Xi whispered, without taking her eyes off the grill.          "Maybe a little," Hatman replied as his smile vanished. "I guess I thought I was safe from that around you."          "I'm sorry," she whispered. "You still are. I had to ask because--" She turned around and looked at him seriously. "--if I never did I would have regretted never asking. It would have been a question on my mind forever."          "I can understand that, I guess." Hatman shrugged. "I still don't want you to feel bad about it, though."          "I don't." She shrugged. "I learned a lot from the conversation. How much value you put on love." She smiled slightly as she added, "And how highly you think of me, that you don't want to...damage our friendship."          Hatman took a long gulp of water from a plastic bottle he took from the middle of the ice scuplture.          "Are you okay?" she asked, noticing his large intake of water even though he wasn't doing much. "You look pale. Maybe you should go inside."          "I'm fine," he replied, kind of distantly. "I was working over that hot grill for a little too long, that's all."          Liu Xi stood on her toes and craned her neck to properly read the faded baseball cap Hatman was wearing. It was an older design Coca-Cola cap which said above the logo, 'Ice Cold'. "That's not going to work," Liu Xi started to explain as she reached up and took off the cap.          Hatman didn't hear the rest of her explanation. ---     Jay Boaz woke up with a shudder. He was on top of a bed a cool, dark room that seemed familiar but not quite. He felt his head lying on something cold, and what felt like a damp towel on his face. He removed the towel and sat up slowly.          "Hello." Liu Xi sat cross-legged next to him, looking at a magazine under the light of a small halogen reading lamp on her side of the bed.          "How did I get here?" he asked weakly. He instinctively took the plastic water bottle Liu Xi handed him and drank half of it as she replied.          "Don't ask stupid questions," Liu Xi said with a slight giggle, "You know what I am capable of."          It was then Jay guessed that she simply moved him there with her unusual mastery of Void. Beyond that he didn't really want to know the specifics and was glad he didn't remember.          "You were overcome by heat," Liu Xi explained further as she pointed at the red cap sitting on the bedside table. "You wore that hat to stop it but you forget...the hat uses your own body's energy to work. You were hurting yourself worse."          "I could have made it through the rest of the barbecue just fine."          Liu Xi tilted her head and frowned. "And what kind of shape would you have been later?"          Jay couldn't help but smile at that. "I appreciate you looking after me, Liu Xi. But please ask next time."          "I did," she said with a slight laugh, "But you fainted."          He sighed and frowned as he realized what he'd just done. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have discouraged you like that. You did okay. People don't thank you enough for all you do."          Liu Xi bowed to him slightly. "Thank you." She turned around and tilted her head toward the window. "Why is it suddenly so noisy outside?"          "I don't know." Jay stood and walked over to the window. His mouth hung open as he glanced outside and could see a crowd of people running from a ketchup bottle. "That's odd."          Liu Xi gently placed a hand on his shoulder when she noticed him tense up angrily, intent on stopping whatever was going on. "Let me handle it please," she urged him.          "It looks like someone beat us both to it," Jay noted as he pointed out the window. ---     Kaptain Ketchup quickly found the error in choosing a very accurate representation of a glass ketchup bottle as his costume. Though she didn't mean to, when the Psychic Samurai slammed the reverse end of her sword against the metal bucket covering the top of the bottle, it split wide open, spilling its owner into his own pool of ketchup.          She then hooked the blade under his chin, but he didn't have the strength to resist. To him the world was spinning, his ears still ringing from the sound of the sword hitting the bucket, and he was confused. "Do you yield?" she asked.          "Unnhhh..." he tried to reply coherently and failed completely.          Chiaki pulled back her sword and let him fall to the ground. "One more menace to take care of," she noted as she moved the sword as a blur and struck a large steel pot simmering in front of Trickshot. His special five-alarm chili spilled all over the lawn.          "Hey! What th' hell did you do that for?" he asked angrily.          "People are being made ill," Chiaki explained as she sheathed her sword, "And we don't have enough restrooms to deal with that kind of emergency." She looked down at the stricken Kaptain Ketchup. "Would you please dispose of him?" she asked Tricky. "You may insult him all you wish."          "Anythin' for you babe!" Trickshot took a deep breath and grabbed Kaptain Ketchup by has collar as Chiaki strolled away calmly. "Hah!" he mocked the condiment criminal, "You got beat up by a girl! And she's not even in th' Legion!"           TO BE CONTINUED -- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2005 by Jason Froikin, and may not be -- reprinted without permission. -- Liu Xi Xian, Yuki Shiro, Lara Night, Chiaki Bushido (Psychic Samurai) (C) 2005 by Jason Froikin, all rights reserved -- All other characters property of their respective owners

To the Spirit of the Night, I surrender...