AN: Basically, this is story is what happens when you end up stumbling on a random reference to a childhood videogame while surfing the web, then spend the subsequent afternoon listening to its OST and watching random videos. To make things clear, the naming system I chose for this fic is 'everybody except Spike retains the Japanese names'. It's partially based on the EU versions of the games: in Europe AE2 and AE3 retained the original Japanese names for their characters, while AE1 used its own variation of the western names.

Castle of Whispers

'Known popularly in Japan as the 'Trick Castle' due to the traditional local festival that takes place inside every year, the stronghold you can admire here is one of the few monuments in the region that continue to withstand the test of time. The castle was built around the Middle Ages, but the exact year the foundations were laid is still up to debate. Archaeologists and researchers are, in fact, trying to evaluate a plausible date to this day: the castle has, unfortunately, been used by various dynasties, noble families and clans throughout history, and the search for reliable evidence concerning its creation has been difficult.'

'Bizarre and convulse stories have been merged with actual historical facts over the centuries, while the real origins of the castle remain unclear: a fort that boasts a fairly peculiar design with more than a shared aspect with the fortifications found in Europe—an aspect that furtherly complicates the research. One of the most wide-spread accepted theories places the construction date in the—'

"Boooring! Seriously, Spike, what's the big idea with your sudden interest in history?"

Spike sighed, trying his best to not leap at his cousin and do something he'd later regret. He simply limited himself to push his face away from his view… He had to thank he had no Stun Club at hand right now.

"Don't you know it's… a little rude to jump right in front of people, Hikaru? Especially while they're reading or watching something intently," Spike reprimanded, avoiding the question. "I was reading the info card here, thank you."

"Oh, come on! I know you've already been there with the Professor once. You even told us about it weeks ago! Prof spent the full day talking about how 'incredible' it was that there were no pieces of evidence left… about that first incident with the monkeys, I guess. Anyway, if that was true, you should already know every conceivable piece of trivia about this place!"

Spike frowned. "I already told you we're not here simply as tourists. It's more than a few funny quirks, Hikaru. I… I need you guys to help me with something about this castle."

"And that would be…?"

The kid turned his face towards the one who had asked the question. Judging by the expressions over their faces, Spike didn't hope to find much more excitement in them about the trip than Hikaru had at the moment.

At least, they weren't being as vocal about it as his cousin was.

"I… I don't know. I've had… thoughts, I'm not sure how to describe them, Satoru. They've been bothering me for a while, and when the other day I remembered about this castle I thought it would be the key to understand why these memories are not leaving me alone. I-I need to get inside that thing one more time to do this. And… I feel like you three are the only people who can really help me out with that."

Satoru didn't hide his puzzlement as he raised an eyebrow. "I am no nearer to understand what you mean, Spike. You know, we didn't tell you before, but me and Sayaka have already been here once in the past."

Sayaka nodded. "Aki must've talked with the Professor after your own trip, because she talked non-stop for the full visit as well. I almost dreamed of getting myself lost in that castle the night after… which wouldn't have been bad by itself if I didn't keep hearing her infinite explanations during the entire dream." The girl shivered as the memory played out in her mind. "I'm not exactly keen on setting foot into that castle again, to be honest."

Spike looked down shamefully, since he had no idea about the girl's not-so-good experience with the place, nor did he know the siblings had already visited the place. Even so, he felt someone putting a hand over his shoulder.

"Hey, don't worry about that," Satoru said, smiling. "It's true, me and my sister have already checked out most of the stuff inside, but even if I'm a little confused I believe you. If you feel like we can give you a hand with your problem, I'll be happy to go follow you and see what we can do. I'm sure Sayaka would do the same… isn't that right?"

"Uh, of course, certainly! That dream was a past story after all, it'd be really, very, utterly stupid of me to be scared of that silly dream that is definitely not filling my mind at the moment with dread and fear and—"

"Sayaka?"

The girl stopped her rant and breathed quickly for a few moments to calm herself down. "Oh, all right, I may have a tiny nightmare problem, but you don't have to worry about it. I'll be okay." She smiled warmly, albeit a little forcefully. Yet, Spike felt she was sincere. "We'll be by your side."

"Thanks…" Spike replied, smiling at the two siblings. He then looked back at the looming castle that stood in the distance. While it had been modified and renovated multiple times over the course of years, it had kept its original shape… one that Spike could never fully forget, even if he had wanted to. He mustered all the will he could find in himself, then he made the first step towards the building that once had been Specter's first lair.

"Wait! I thought you guys agreed with me!" Hikaru cried out in dismay. "Are you telling me we're still going in?!"

"Sooo... I said I already know some stuff about this place, but I've never heard about it from you, Spike," Satoru said while they were walking over the drawbridge.

"Yeah, you told us about dinosaurs, mysterious ruins, giant sharks and even your little trip on a monkey-made Great Wall wannabee, but nothing about this specific castle," Sayaka added.

Spike hummed, confirming their impressions. He had just cited the one trip with the Professor to Hikaru, but he had never shared his experience inside it back when he was hunting for Specter, with neither him nor the siblings.

"That time machine fiasco was a whole adventure to live through, but there were some parts I don't like that much to recall… and what happened here is an example. It was the moment Specter first began to show that he was dead serious with his plans. He… he really managed to make me mad and scared at the same time, back then. You know, with Hiroki being brainwashed and everything…"

"Uh… sorry, I didn't want to have you remember that," Sayaka quickly said, but Spike waved it off.

"It's nothing. I knew this was going to be the case when I decided to ask you about coming along, anyway."

"Sooo, then, what happened here exactly?" Hikaru questioned, his tone failing to hide both his boredom and his pitiful attempt at fighting it.

"Not much. This place is a still a maze even today, but when I was here in the past to face Specter, it was a complete nightmare to navigate through. The monkeys weren't even the biggest problem… the place was full of traps, bottomless pits and creatures created by Specter himself, and most of the time I was just walking around hoping to be on the right track. I still wonder how the heck I managed to get to monkey himself to this day… and how I kept my cool when he left after all that time I spent to find him."

"That's something Specter would do for sure. The guy likes a bit too much to have some fun at our expenses," Satoru commented.

They were already in the main lobby, and Spike noticed how the inside was fairly different from his memories of his adventures, just like the exterior was. The walls were pristine, and in place of the gigantic wooden doors that were glued into his memory there were giant portals with no obstruction whatsoever, with rugs dispersed on the floor to protect the ancient tiles below from the sneakers of the tourists. A good number of people was inside walking around and reading the various info panels dispersed on the walls, and there was even a souvenir stand right to the side of the portal that led to the throne room.

"It doesn't look that eerie to me," Hikaru said, barely paying attention. "It does look boring, though. Thank goodness I left Pipotchi napping at home; poor thing would have gone mad with boredom if he was here."

He turned around to look at Sayaka, but instead of sympathy he found the stern glare of a disapproving girl that silenced him.

"It's very different from what I remember of the original, though." Spike had already been there once, so this was no surprise for him. "Come on. Let's get to the throne room first… I want to see if there's anything new since last time I've been here."

The four walked beyond the portal and entered the chamber where a large throne was placed up to display. Spike looked at the object, wondering what the rulers that held the castle would've thought about the fact that the first being who sat on the throne was an ape with black shorts, sunglasses and an Uzi.

When he gave a glance to the other parts of the room, he saw that newly made stairs had been built to let the tourists reach the upper parts of the room. On one side he could see the hallway that led a balcony, while on the other side there was another path.

"So, anything you want to share about this one in particular, Spike?" Hikaru said, thinking that, since he was there, he may as well try to get his cousin to solve that problem of his faster.

"No…" Spike said while looking around. "This wasn't the first chamber I went in first back then, actually. I had to go to the bells' room to deal with most of the monkeys… but still, this was the first part of the castle where I expected to find Specter… and of course, he wasn't here."

Sayaka was visibly disturbed by the view. Satoru was keeping an eye on her, but once the girl noticed him she tried to force a smile on her face to show him she could handle it. To distract herself, she said, "So, a-after that… what did you do, Spike?"

"Most of the doors you see here either didn't exist yet or they were barricaded, so I went with the first one I found that was a viable route, up there on the right side. That led me to the execution chamber."

"Execution… chamber?" Sayaka could see Aki right in front of her, describing in detail many types of death penalties that existed in the Middle Ages with her biggest and most innocent smile.

"I do remember that one," Satoru said. "What was after that?"

"I went through an underground water canal hidden in the lower part of the castle, then I found a room with a watermill contraption of sorts. That was the place where I found a way to get to Specter, by opening the tower that you saw on the outside high above the roof."

"I… don't remember Aki talking about that," Satoru said, scratching his head.

"That's the thing. The underground river and the watermill do not exist according to what's currently known about the castle, while the tower has been closed to visitors due to its precarious state… I talked with the Professor about it and he told me it was either a sub-effect of the monkeys' time travel as well as mine or simple history making its course. Maybe one of the previous owners had found the secret chambers and decided to fill them or close them forever… fact is, the entrance is no more where it was."

"Sounds like there's not much for us to see here, then, right?" Hikaru wondered out-loud with hope.

"Yet… I still think that they cannot have just disappeared out of nowhere. I gotta try to see if those sections still exist today," Spike said instead, much to Hikaru's dismay.

"Well then, we might as well pay a visit to the execution room then and see if there's anything interesting there!" Satoru said, much to Sayaka's dismay.

Despite the reluctant red-headed girl and boy, the two eventually followed Spike along with Satoru as he guided them towards the next chamber.

Once they were inside the execution chamber, Spike concluded that it had mostly remained the same since his last visit. However, this was one of the most heavily modified rooms compared to the original castle he had stormed while time-travelling.

In place of the slides there were various levels of stairs that connected the floors, and the single rooms had been replaced by entire sub-sections built into the walls, full of antique apparatuses that looked elegant and deadly at the same time. After a quick scan, Spike walked down the first stair level, followed by his three friends. The four of them only glanced at the objects in the displays every now and then though, and Spike did not stop moving as they progressed towards the bottom.

The last floor was filled with relics and ancient findings from the past, put in a display akin to the one of a state museum. Spike, Hikaru, Satoru and Sayaka walked between the counters, evading the only people currently there—an elderly couple—while giving little attention to the showcase.

Finally, they stopped. Spike observed an area that seemed to put him on the edge, while Satoru, Sayaka and Hikaru weren't exactly sure what was going on, since to them Spike was looking at a bare wall.

"Uuh… Spike? Why are you looking at a wall?" Hikaru asked, tilting his head. "Are you okay?"

"Here… there used to be another part of this room, right here," Spike explained slowly. "I remember it clearly because I had to fight one of Specter's animated armours to keep going, and it happened here."

"Well, it's definitely not there anymore," Sayaka said.

"But maybe it's still there, though… just, not visible," Satoru suddenly had an idea. He walked past Spike and started to put his hands on the stone bricks at seemingly random positions.

Sayaka, momentarily forgetting about her bad memories, put her hands on her hips and glared at her brother. "Satoru, this is not one of those weird TV series you like to watch at home. You're not going to find a secret passage, if that's what you're doing."

"Well… Specter liked those, though, at least from what I remember…" Spike said.

"I know, right? You had to see what kind of secrets the monkey had put in that ninja hideout!" Hikaru exclaimed.

Both redheads cowered as Sayaka turned her eyes towards them and gave them her most threatening glare. "Guys… you're not helping!"

Something clicked behind her. When Sayaka, Hikaru and Spike looked at Satoru, one of his arms had disappeared inside the wall.

"I think this is way less complex than a secret passage… there's nothing on the other side," he said, moving his arm a little before retracting it.

Spike couldn't help rushing to Satoru's side to touch the nearby bricks and see if they could be removed as well. When he saw it was so, together with Satoru he started to take them out one by one.

"Hey… hey! What do you think are you doing?!" Sayaka said worriedly. "I'm positive that you're doing something forbidden. You'll get us all in trouble!"

Satoru simply made a thumbs-up at her, grinning, before returning to his task.

"Ugh! Hikaru, help me out here! You know what I'm saying is true, right?"

"Well, it is true, but what can I say? Maybe today's not going to be that boring, and I'll take everything. Wait for me, guys! I wanna do my part too!"

Sayaka could only gape as Hikaru joined Satoru and Spike and the three boys continued to dig their way into the wall. She hastily turned around, seeing that thankfully the elderly man and woman had already left, though that helped easing her worries just a little.

Eventually, the girl sighed in defeat and went to help them out as well. "You guys are a bunch of dorks, you know that?"

"Maybe…" Satoru winked at her sister, who wasn't amused in the slightest. Eventually they managed to create a gap large enough to let them through, and the four found themselves in a completely new chamber.

"So… is this the one, Spike?" Satoru said.

Spike nodded. "Yes, this is it. If I'm not mistaken… if we follow that hallway, we should end up in the room of the watermill."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Hikaru affirmed before running forward, followed by Spike and Satoru.

Sayaka didn't immediately move, as a realization made her halt.

"Wait, does that mean we're going through the underground river as well?!"

Luckily for Sayaka, who wasn't looking forward for a cold swim in the waters of an ancient channel with her current clothes, the kids discovered that the 'river' Spike remembered was no more there. The bed of the waterway had been dry for a long time, and instead of freshwater they saw dust, spider webs and a few invasive plants who had managed to sneak their way into the terrain below, alive thanks to a few fractures in the walls that let in a feeble light. It was barely enough for the four kids to know where they were going, but they all kept going forward nonetheless.

Spike talked with his friends, describing the contraption that had been set up to slow him down over the channel, and he showed them the cell where a monkey made fun of him a long time ago from behind the metal bars that once separated them. A monkey that had been quite surprised when the kid had found the underwater passage to the cell. But now, all that remained was a dusty empty room with a hole on the floor.

Eventually, the kids reached the watermill, which wasn't in a much better state. The place had to have been abandoned for a long time, as the gearworks that once worked fine were now lying on the floors, out of their proper places. Only the smaller gears were still in place.

"Whoa… I feel like they'd need more than a fast clean-up here," Hikaru noted.

"Yep, it doesn't look like whatever Specter wanted to do here with those gearwheels will work again today," Satoru said, inspecting one of the fallen gear rotors. "What did this thing even do, Spike?"

Spike did not answer, and Satoru realized that the boy was no more among them.

"Spike?" Sayaka repeated his name. For some reason, Spike had silently taken the initiative, climbing upwards to reach the upper level of the room, a hazardous-looking wooden platform.

"Spike, watch out!" Sayaka called out, while Satoru and Hikaru looked on uneasily, but Spike didn't stop.

"I know what I am doing! Give me a sec!"

In a few seconds he was standing on the creaking platform. Carefully, the boy moved along the edge until he was on the other side of the chamber, near the metallic shaft that was once part of the watermill's main mechanism.

"Hey, I don't want to sound like I don't trust what you're doing, man… but what the heck are you doing?" Hikaru said from below.

"I-I'm looking for something. It should be somewhere up here," Spike said. He started to clean off the dust from the nearest wall until he could see the surface below… and then he saw it: one of the switches Specter and the monkeys used to make their creations work in the past. "And… I think I've just found it."

Spike looked behind himself: the gearworks nearer to him were still fixed to their respective positions around the shafts. The energy provided by the water wasn't there anymore of course, but maybe…

Before any of his friends could suggest thinking it through, Spike activated the switch. Immediately, the mechanisms hidden around them started to grind with an extremely loud noise, as a system that had been left alone for centuries returned to life. Hikaru, Sayaka and Satoru looked in awe as one of the gearwheels moved into the vertical shaft, dust falling off all around it, until it was connected with the rest of the gearworks. Once it was in position, the noises stopped, and the chamber fell back into silence.

"Uuuh… what?!" Hikaru was dumbfounded.

"Spike, I hope you know what that did…" Satoru looked to the second redheaded boy with an interrogative gaze. Spike was already making his way down towards them.

"I have an idea about that… guys, there may be a way to get into the upper tower of the castle."

"Wha—oh, no, no, no! We've done enough dangerous and illegal stuff for one day!" Sayaka complained.

"Oh, come on, Sayaka, don't you want to give it a shot? Besides, there may be an even better view there compared to the roof," Satoru said, but he only managed to make her pout.

"Well, we may as well get to the bottom of this," Hikaru simply shrugged his shoulders. He gave a glance to Spike. "At least, we'll see where you met Specter for the first time, right?"

"Yes, exactly," Spike said, lowering his head. The idea didn't really bother him up until that moment, but now that he had the time to ponder over it, he wasn't sure what to think of going back there.

Maybe that was the reason behind all these thoughts, and maybe to understand what had been bothering him he needed to get there.

At least, he needed to try.

"Let's get going."

The kids had to go all the way back from where they came to reach the tower. They accurately hid the gap to the abandoned section of the castle before they could be caught red-handed, then they moved upwards, went back to the throne room and then left to enter the bell's chamber. There, they spent even more time climbing upwards again, following the staircase that led to the roof.

When they finally arrived at their destination, Hikaru was basically crawling on the floor, gasping for air. "I… d-didn't know… it was going to be that far!"

"Oh, come on! Laaa-zy!" Sayaka gave a playful nudge to the poor boy. "How did you even capture those three-hundred monkeys or so if you can't even make it through a couple of steps?"

"I used my wits, of course! Not everything can be won by brute force!" Hikaru said offendedly before forcing himself to stand up.

Sayaka looked at Hikaru for a few seconds without a word, then she burst out laughing. "Hey! What's so funny?!"

As Hikaru continued to try and get the hysterical Sayaka to tell him what she found so amusing, Satoru and Spike were looking to the main tower of the stronghold. The building loomed over the rest of the castle with its height, and that wasn't exactly helping Spike with his problem.

"So, what now?" Satoru asked. He gave another glance to the tower and the wooden pathways that ran around it. "The way to the towers' peak is locked, and with good reason. Those platforms look even less solid than the watermill ones…"

"It's true. I was thinking of another way, Satoru. Listen, there was an automatic door once that worked as an entrance to the tower," Spike said, pointing at the base of the building in front of them. "It was right there, and it was powered by the watermill itself."

"Well, we've already seen that people liked to hide parts of the castle, so maybe the entrance is still there… but the watermill has been off for a long time."

"Yeah, but you saw what I did. Maybe the door won't open by itself… but with the mechanism below activated, it may be unlocked."

Satoru didn't spend too much time putting two and two together. "I guess it's another session of wall inspecting, then."

Spike scratched his head. "Yep. I… I need to give it a try, Satoru. We're close."

"Don't worry, I kind of find all of this fun to be honest."

Nodding to each other, the two boys moved to the wall and once again tried to push random spots on it, trying to see if there was a way in. Once Sayaka's laughter finally died out and Hikaru accepted her evasive 'I'll tell you when you're older', the two of them realized that Satoru and Spike were at it again.

"Aren't you two tired of demolishing parts of the castle?" Sayaka said, not even trying to reprimand them. Hikaru, who was still sweating from fatigue, nodded vigorously.

"If my theory is true, we won't have to dig our way in this time," Spike said while continuing to put pressure on the wall.

Hikaru was relieved by the news, but he was still unwilling to help out after the long trip to the roof. "Are you sure? This one looks pretty solid to me, it's not ruined or anything like that. I don't think—"

The boy was silenced as Satoru suddenly felt the wall move away, almost making him lose balance and fall forward. He gave a look to the other three kids, and a moment later the four of them were pushing together, and slowly the door behind moved.

It took them half a minute to open the door wide enough to let them in. Spike looked around, thanking heavens that today wasn't a busy one and there weren't many tourists around, before directing his attention to the other three kids. "It worked! Turning on the switch at the watermill has unlocked the door behind this wall, so we just needed to get it to move."

"At this point, after all the hassle I went through to get here, I'm going in first!" Hikaru said. He marched into the entrance, taking long steps and with an apparently courageous attitude. Satoru and Sayaka rolled their eyes at the scene while Spike chuckled, and the three of them followed him into the structure.

The inside of the main tower had been another victim of the various modifications made by the previous owners of the castle. Spike could immediately see that the almost empty building of the past was now filled with arrow slits, catwalks and platforms for archers above him. The abyss below was also not there anymore, covered by a new stone floor. It was actually hard to recognize it.

The main part of the room was still there, though: the central platform and the wooden bridge that led to it. It took them a few minutes to reach the centre of the room, since the bridge wasn't exactly safe, with the creaking and the sudden movements they felt under their feet. Eventually, they finally arrived there.

"Uuh… why isn't there anything interesting?" Hikaru asked. "I only see a few abandoned boxes and things from the builder guys."

"I take you didn't pull us into all of this just for a few boxes, Spike," Sayaka said, giving him an interrogative glance.

"No, no. On this exact spot I met Specter and confronted him for the first time, face to face," Spike told her. "Here… he was exactly here, hovering on his floating chair, with his time-traveling battlecruiser behind him… and Hiroki by his side."

"Oh, right…" Sayaka said, looking down. "I forgot about him. Sorry."

"It's not a problem. You know, I actually asked if he could come, too, but he said he was too busy with something about racing or whatever," Spike shrugged. "I don't blame him, but maybe that was for the best. I'm sure he doesn't like to remember about it as well."

Satoru passed a hand over one of the boxes. "Was there anything in particular about this room that you can remember?"

Spike didn't answer. He kneeled and narrowed his eyes, his interest suddenly caught by something below him. He started to brush off the dirt that had been accumulating during the years on the floor on a specific spot. He continued to do so until he reached the stone below.

And he saw colours below it.

When Hikaru, Satoru and Sayaka noticed what Spike had just revealed, they looked around and saw similar small patches of colour all around themselves that they had first missed. Curiosity guiding them, Satoru and Hikaru moved a few of the boxes out of the way while Sayaka kept pointing out the points where the colour could be seen the most to Spike, who continued to work to reveal most of the coloured pattern hidden under the dust.

When they were all done, the kids found themselves at the centre of an image that was not fully visible, but their imagination was enough to mentally fill the parts that were still covered or had been lost. It was Specter's logo: his stylized face, pictured on the platform's floor and filling it up to the edge.

"Well, at least now I know Specter had always been full of himself even before me and my sister met him," Satoru put both hands behind his head while looking at the image.

"I gotta hand it to him though—he has style," Hikaru nodded to himself.

Sayaka spent a few more seconds watching the image before turning her attention back to Spike. "So… this is where you finally talked with him. What happened afterwards?"

"Well, as you already know, this was not the last time we met. He left the castle before I could do anything along with Hiroki, and he unleashed another electrically-powered animated armour against me. That was a hard fight…"

"Not as hard as fighting a giant version of Yellow Monkey," Hikaru half-jokingly commented, effectively making Sayaka give him a jab with her elbow. "Ow! I mean, I mean… it must still have been hard."

"It wasn't easy… but that was not the bad part," Spike sighed. "You know, after I beat what I thought was his best creation, I was convinced that Specter was left without options, and that it was only a matter of time before I managed to catch him. His plans had to have been foiled, I had caught most of the monkeys in the various eras of the past… but I was wrong. I was dead wrong…

"When I returned back from the Middle Ages, I found myself in roads filled with monkey UFOs flying around. The monkeys were everywhere… Specter had taken over the entire city in the present while I was busy looking for him in this castle… Charu later showed me exactly how this happened, and she also told me that the monkeys had kidnapped the Professor and Natsumi as well. That… that was not a good experience. In that moment, I felt alone… like, everything around me had just gone crazy and I could not do anything to stop it before it happened."

Hikaru, Satoru and Sayaka had never been told the details of Spike's adventure, so they were all surprised by his take on the story. "I never knew… I mean, Aki told us most of it, but not this. Gosh… Specter must have been threatening back then," Sayaka said, putting her palms together and crossing her fingers.

"He was still a cocky white ape, Sayaka, but yeah… it was all part of his plan. That was the first time I realized that Specter wasn't just a rebellious monkey with a few oddities in his personality: he was an evil genius as well and he was going to do anything to reach his goals. I can't say how I managed to keep going after all of that… all I had for support was Charu, and she did everything she could to help me… but she was still just a computer program back then, and we were lucky the monkeys didn't realize she even existed. It was… hard."

"You figured it out in the end, though," Satoru said. "You got Specter a second time and you single-handedly destroyed his battlecruiser, and when he escaped again you chased him into his theme park, saved the Professor and Natsumi as well as freed Hiroki from his influence. And when he made an entire castle float in space, you followed him in for the final showdown."

Spike smiled weakly. He had to admit, that was pretty awesome for him. Yet…

"You know… sometimes, I happen to think about what happened after I left this specific castle," he said while looking up towards the tower's ceiling. "And I wonder… I wonder what would happen if Specter returned once again, but decided to do something bad… as if, like he did here, but in a well-thought out plan with no flaws. I can't help wondering what would happen if… if no one were there to stop him, this time."

Hikaru shook his head. "Why wouldn't there be anyone? There are four of us. We beat that white monkey three times in a row, what's a fourth time going to be?"

"Yeah, but what if Specter manages to get us, all of us, before we can do anything? What if he hypnotizes Satoru and Sayaka like he did with me and you, Hikaru? Who would stop him, then? And even if someone else stood up to face him… what if this time, he or she wouldn't be enough?"

Hikaru couldn't find anything to argue back, and Spike turned around. "That's not even what worries me the most. I-I'm scared of what he might do if he started taking things seriously. Of what kind of things he could do if he stopped fooling around and tried to get rid of us. We don't really know him that well… and the thought of what he might be capable of…"

He wasn't able to finish the sentence, and for a few seconds, no one of them spoke. He continued to look away, somewhat fearful of looking back and see in their faces what they thought about the matter. For all he knew, they were considering whether their friend had lost it or not… or worse, they shared his doubts.

Instead, Sayaka walked by his side. Spike looked up to see her smiling. "I understand you. Specter has been quite a silly boy since you met him, but he's still showed us he could be a threat when he wanted. But even so, we all managed to get him and all of his monkeys twice, Freaky Monkey Five included."

"That means one thing, Spike. Specter can be a threat, be he isn't invincible," Satoru specified, appearing opposite of his sister. "He's smart, but not as smart as he thinks he is, and he'll always make an error, sooner or later."

Hikaru suddenly jumped in front of all of them. "And that's when we jump in and—BOOM! Specter is once again a tiny white monkey."

That last remark managed to get a chuckle out of him. He smiled, and suddenly felt a bit more relieved than before. "Thanks. I just… I don't know, I've always kinda had this in my mind, though I didn't know how to explain it… and I can't really get this out of mind, either."

Sayaka smiled as well. "It's not a bad thing. It means you care. Just, maybe it's not worth to let it bother you that much, eh?"

"Besides, who says you'd need to go and face him by yourself again?" Satoru said before making a gesture towards himself, Spike and the other two kids. "Hikaru has already said it, are four of us now. And in addition, as far as I know the Professor and Aki made sure to have Specter be under constant control after the last few incidents. If he ever manages to get his hands on a pipo helmet again and escape with a new monkey army, we will know it before he can have any funny ideas about taking us aback, and by the time he decides to execute his next plan, he'll have to deal with four ape-catchers."

Spike considered their words before nodding. "I… I got it, you're right. I'll try to not think about it that much anymore… Thank you for listening."

Satoru and Sayaka patted Spike's shoulders in perfect synchronization, but Hikaru wasn't particularly touched by the scene. "Great. Now that you two have manged to free my cousin from his internal turmoil, I will be the one to cheer him up! …before this castle ends up smothering me with boredom, anyway."

Satoru and Sayaka were not convinced. "And how would you do that?" they asked, talking at the same time.

Hikaru grinned. "The simplest, yet effective method: lunch!" He grabbed Spike and started to pull him away, "C'mon Spike, I've been thinking about that kiosk in the booths outside this ancient wreck the entire time!"

At first Spike tried to rebel, but eventually Hikaru's absurd requests had the better of him and he started to laugh. Satoru and Sayaka laughed as well with them and the four, soon, left the tower, which returned to its previous silence. The only clue about the presence of the kids was Specter's image on the floor, now mostly visible even for a distracted viewer.

The image acted as a sort of symbol, a warning of the power the white monkey was capable of when he wanted, and that he would never be fully defeated. But as impressive as it was, not even the Crumbling Castle Specter had built had managed to stop Spike, and neither of the puzzle-filled locations he had created around the world and inside various movie sets had succeeded in beating Hikaru, Satoru and Sayaka.

Yes, Specter may return once again in the future… but indeed, there would always be a hero ready to face him and stop his evil plans. And in case he found himself fighting with more than one of them at the same time…

Yep, he was definitely going to have a hard time.

THE END