So, I ran over, jumped, and landed with both heels on the BombastMonster's tail. It (he?) roared in pain and stood up, seemingly even taller. And lashed its (his?) tail around in pain. I wasn't quite quick enough, caught the tail across my back when I was ducking. Whatever they make those paths out of, it's rather hard, 'specially when a big lizard's tail smacks you into it. On the plus side, though, Julia managed to use the use the distraction to cut pretty well across the BombastMonster's chest. He (it?) let out another scream of pain, then dissipated into a cloud of stinky smoke, which revealed Bombast, with a sliced shirt and shallow cut across his chest. "Do you have any idea how much that stings?" he yelled.

Barbarians aren't ever ones to give up on something that works, so Julia tried the direct problem solving route again. But this time, Bombast had remembered he was a wizard, and waved a hand at her. She ended up suspended about three inches above the ground, flailing about, and no way to move.

"Now," Bombast said, turning to me and dropping his voice into a "ominous tone," "You will return that you have stolen from me!"

With the disappearance of the monster, and the gently twisting barbarian, evidently our little show had attracted back its audience. This time, though, I noticed little shimmers in the air around many of them, evidently they didn't want a stray magic bolt to turn them into "Innocent Bystander #4."

"Who, me?" I asked, in my best "innocent cute fuzzy harmless little cure ferret who, did I mention, is cute?" look.

There were several "awww"s from the audience, but I didn't have time to bow for them right now. I dusted off the front of my shirt and acted relaxed. Julia was cartwheeling gently, having missed while trying to cleave Bombast in twain while floating. "Well," I said, "I'd be glad to help you if I could, really I would. It's I don't know anything about any of yours that might have been stolen. Sorry. Wish I could be of help."

Bombast glared at me. I smiled back, since that''d annoy him to no end. "She," Bombast said, waving in Julia's general direction, "Was here before, making baseless accusations and issuing threats. She made it quite clear she would return, and attempt to take my property. Do not insult me by lying to me."

"Now now, there's no need to be rude," I said, "Clearly nothing I said was intended to be of the slightest insult. Were I to insult you, I would begin by explaining how the overall impression you offer is that of an addlepated overbearing fool, with the manners, tact, and brains, of a diseased ox that knows no better than to ooze pus on the good china. Your complete lack of intelligence, skill, or wit is perfect evidence that the only way you achieved and maintain your position at this University is through plagiarism, blackmail, petty backstabbing, and ass-kissing on a truly heroic scale.

"But, I'm not interested in insulting you, so I won't. I'll simply point out that if I had a choice between believing a Barbarian Heroine, and a sputtering lamprey such as yourself, I would believe her, even were you arguing that the sky were blue on a sunny day."

This, as you can imagine, upset Bombast a great deal. In fact, the entire time, he had been bristling. By the time I was finished, his ears had turned bright red. He fumed for a second, then pointed his finger at me. ZAP! A blast of magic shot from his fingertip and then I wasn't standing there any more. Bombast looked down at the scorched spot where I had been standing, and smirked.

"You certainly showed that cobblestone who's boss," I agreed from my perch on his shoulder.. I'd been preparing while talking, and the instant he moved, I had dropped one of my flashy things and made use of the distraction. He jumped, and spun around, trying to see where my voice was coming from. Twice. I grabbed his pointy hat to keep from falling off. Then he thought to look the other way, and banged his nose on my knees. "Now can we discuss this like reasonable gentlemen?" I asked.

He screamed and swatted at me, knocking me backwards off his shoulder. I hung on to his hat and grabbed his robe with my free hand, managing to land on my feet. "Well then, fine. I've got your haaaaaat!" I taunted, ducking around Julia. Bombast chased me, to the amusement and laughter of the onlookers (which I think annoyed him as much as anything else). Julia was still rotating gently in the air. He charged around her, so I jumped forward and grabbed her leg, swinging away from him.

He growled and swiped at me, but Julia came back around, with the sword. "Take that!" it yelled, as Julia swung it at him.

Then she swung down past, and Bombast tried and grab me. So, I climbed (albeit, technically, downward, at the moment). "What do you think you're doing?" Julia asked, when were face to face, "And what are you holding on to?"

I looked down (up). "Sorry. Keeping away from Bombast."

"And so what's to prevent him from frying both of us with a fireball?"

"Because then he'd never find out where the manuscript was? 'Scuse me," I replied, climbing over her shoulder as we came back up toward Bombast. After two times around, Bombast must have gotten tired of the chase, and cut the spell holding Julia in the air. At that point I was lucky enough to be around to the front, so when we landed, I was padded. Unfortunately, this knocked the manuscript loose, and it fell out of it's padded hiding spot and onto the ground. "Ah HAH!" Bombast yelled, lunging for it.

Even after the drop, I was faster than him, so got to it first. "Give that back, you thief! You stole that manuscript from my office!"

"What makes you think this is yours," I asked, "There's lotsa manuscripts in a University."

"Ah, so you admit you did steal it!"

"Why would we steal something that's not yours from your office?"

"Why you little..."

"ENOUGH!" someone yelled, interrupting our little argument. Just when I was winning.

The someone turned out to be the wizard who had been accompanying Bombast. "This ridiculous show has gone on for quite long enough. Such disgraceful behavior for a Dean. I'm surprised that even you could run your university this badly, Hubert."

"Now hold on a second here!" Bombast came back, "Just why do you think you are, Thomas? I am the head of this university..."

"And doing very poorly at that. Why, I'm certain this incident would be very amusing to the representatives of 'Frontiers of Magic' if they found out. Why, they're on their way here, aren't they? You'd mentioned inviting them to show them some 'breakthrough', I believe you said..." Thomas (Bombast's companion's name, since he'd called him that), said.

Bombast muttered under his breath, but didn't say anything else. "Now, Sir ferret, bring me the manuscript in question." Thomas said.

It sounded like an order, almost, so I thought about not doing it. But what the hey. I pulled the fake cover off, then took it over. After all, I'd been telling the truth. I handed it to him, and he started reading the cover. "Theoretical Implications of Imaginary Mathematics, by Hubert T. Bombast... Well, for once, Hubert seems to be correct..."

It said that, eh? Somebody was playing silly buggers, then, and I could guess who. I looked over at Bombast.. He had his arms crossed, and was facing halfway away from us. But his fingers on one hand were wiggling, and he was muttering something under his breath. "Hold on one second," I said, and walked over to Bombast.

One quick kick to the shins later, and Bombast had other things besides illusions to concentrate on. "Read it again," I suggested.

Thomas glared and Bombast and read the title again "Theoretical Implications of Imaginary Mathematics, by Julia... indecipherable scribble and Brightbringer. Brightbringer?"

"The sword," I said, pointing over my shoulder with my thumb.

"You said not to tell..." Julia started.

"The sword can talk?" he asked, "Do you think we could examine..."

"NO!" the three of us said at once.

"Oh, well, it was worth a shot. Well, this certainly is your paper. What would it be doing in your office, Hubert?"

"As Dean, I am required to look over papers many times. Most are simply not worthy of publication, a sad fact I must inform the writers of."

"Then why wouldn't you give it back," Julia demanded, evidently recovered.

Thomas looked at the paper some more and flipped through some of it. "Yes, this definitely isn't your style, Hubert. This is written by someone who knows what they were talking about."

Bombast harrumphed, and glared at Thomas. "If you're QUITE done attempting to embarrass me in front of my students..."

"Hmm? You do that quite well enough on your own. Actually, this sounds rather like some of the things you had been mentioning you were going to show 'Frontiers of Magic'..."

Bombast looked around. He looked nervous. "Umm..."

"HEY! He did that to my paper too!" somebody in the crowd yelled.

"So that's what happened to my thesis on Relative Imaginery!" somebody else yelled.

I grabbed the manuscript back from Thomas, while the crowd closed in on Bombast. Looks like he'd been claiming credit for lots of things.. No wonder he'd had a folder just for them.

"I'd thought he'd gotten over that bad habit," Thomas said, shaking his head and waving an arm in a wide circle.

Bombast tried to snap his fingers and vanish, but didn't. Didn't vanish anyway, he snapped his fingers fine. He looked at his hand in surprise and tried again. Then he decided to run. I hopped up on Julia's shoulder, so I wouldn't get trampled, and we worked out way out of the crowd and rapidly growing violent pile in the middle. I looked back just as Bombast squeaked out from the bottom of the pile and took off. The crowd spotted him and gave chase. Then "Das Boot" came around a corner, stomping our way, and "encouraged" the rest of the crowd to follow.

We stepped out of the way and watched. "So," I asked Julia, "What're you going to do with that thing now?"

She was still watching the departing chase scene. The boot hunters ran past us, anxious to join the fun. "I don't know," she said, "The hunk of metal will probably still want it published. It's either that or a book of limericks, and I am NOT writing those down."

"But they're great! I've got a new one! There was a young lady from Lenis..."

"Oh, shut up!" Julia snapped at it, "And get off my shoulder, you pervert!"

The last was directed at me, not the sword. Don't know why she called me a pervert, though, the sword made up the limericks, I just enjoyed the view... But, I hopped down. Thomas was still standing there, looking after the chase with an odd expression on his face. "Who are you, anyway?" I asked him.

"Hmm? Oh, Hubert and I were classmates. I'd heard he'd become the head of IOU, and had hoped he'd changed. Evidently not. Though, now I imagine they'll need a new dean," he said, brightening up.

"So why didn't he just telepoof away? He did before? Something you did?."

"Oh, that? Actually, it wasn't even blocked, he just had it set up to trigger with a little spell. I only blocked that. Hubert never did do very well when forced to improvise. After all, all those people have things they'd like to discuss with him."

He was watching the chase, and Julia and the sword were arguing (relatively) quietly with each other. I looked back at the chase, which had given up on sticking to paths now.. Then I looked around. Nobody was paying any attention to me. And when I caught sight of the colored smoke pouring from the windows of the alchemists' building, I didn't think anybody would be for a while. So I slipped off. Julia would find me later, feeling guilty about not paying probably. No worries, though. She'd probably find a little bit, and then I could turn it down and make her think better of me. I knew a couple people who would pay well for ninja spheres. And well, if Julia hadn't thought it odd that Bombast had no money in his desk, who was I to correct her?