We walked back into the cafe, where Alan "Spirit" Page had remained. We sat down and ordered some more drinks as the bartender brought us the first part of the check. "You know," Alan said, "This pie was expensive as hell man, and it wasn't even that good."

"That was a pie?" I asked. "That thing was small. How much was it?"

"$4.50"

"Damn! It looked like a scoop of whip cream."

"Who picked this place?"

As we got our drinks I asked them how old they were and where they were from. Joe, who was from DC and part philipino, part Hawaiian and part Japanese was 22. Roundtree, 27, hailed from Chesapeke, VA. Spirit, 22, from New Orleans, and Trevor, 23, from Long Island, N.Y. I cursed myself for being the youngest at the table, a fresh 21 year old. And, of course, one of them asked me.

"Aw, you're young as hell," Roundtree said.

"Nah," I retorted, "I've been through a lot. So when did you first come together?"

"About two years ago," Joe said, "And we've been just steadily coming up and I think we're at that point now, you know?"

"No," Roundtree said, "Man, we have-- that's what I was talking about before, we have to start getting our shit together."

"We are," Joe and Trevor threw in, "I mean I agree, it's been slow but, like I said, everything is starting to come about." For awhile they discussed what they needed to do to make the future moves. The Amphibians were intelligent. They knew where they wanted to go in pretty much all aspects of life. And when they disagreed on something, it wasn't an argument, it was a cypher, and they would build upon what needed to be learned. That's the only way any positive action and progress will take place and they definatly had it.

But did they have skillz? "Come to Nyala's." Joe said, "It's gonna be Secret Warz, the mic battle. It's gonna be mad heads, us, E.B.O., and mad other heads."

In fact, one of their crew had one the battle the last time. So I went...