By Nicholas Eckert vidstudent Welcome one, welcome all... Disclaimer: The following is a fanfiction, which is a work made by someone with a lot of time on their hands to daydream. These daydreams usually consist of thoughts related to different cultural influences of our era. Specifically, anime/manga, video games, television, and comic books. The writers of these are so fascinated by the works that they will write about them, regardless of legalities such as getting their creator or creators' permission to do so. Their only defense is that most of them, like me, are in college, and can rather efficiently declare bankruptcy upon being sued for any amount of money deemed worth fighting over in court. Luckily, creators don't sue often - they like the attention. Of course, fanfic writers are still obligated to mention that this is not their stuff, and I myself will attempt to go one step further by attempting to name the creators involved with the characters as said characters are introduced, which, though a task destined to bring about insanity, is a worthy one indeed. Fanfic writers also have a distinct territorial instinct, meaning that they usually wish a good amount of control over their personal writing, or at least want their name affixed to the document in perpetuity. I have but two requests due to this ownership complex: that I am informed of any use or copying of the document, and that the credits page included at the end of this work, listing myself and any suckers, er, kind souls who were generous enough to give me ideas or editing assistance be included with the rest of the many, many words making up this monstrosity. Besides, they're not there just to waste bandwidth...I think... With that out the way, let me introduce our first chapter's characters: We have a lady named Lilith Aensland, who first appeared in Vampire Savior, which was manufactured by Capcom; We have this bright, cheery girl named Ellis from a game known as Battle Arena Toshinden, a creation of Playmates Interactive Entertainment; And we have our heroine, known for her role in Street Fighter Alpha 2, by Capcom...(and her fellow Street Fighter, Ryu, gets mentioned...) Oh, before we start, we have two further credits: We mention Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter and one of its bosses, Apocalypse; the game's by Capcom, and the boss is by Wimps 'R Us; also, we mention the Ultimate Video Rumble, which is a fanfic involving random destruction, gratuitous punking, and a BIG trophy - for the mailing list, contact the happy main writer, Wanderer [wanderer@mvfc.gamedemo.com]. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sakura was bored. She'd faced everyone in the Street Fighter tournament, and had actually done quite well, but, having the normal attention span for her age, had hit upon the phenomenon known as "been there, done that" syndrome. Of course, being the schoolgirl that she was, she could only think of (or, more precisely, want enough to forget about everything else) one thing to do: Hold a slumber party. The idea of the slumber party is simple. A small group of girls get together (or a large group, depending on how the parents involved felt about these things) and, during the time period when most sane inviduals are, well, slumbering, try to stay awake by talking, watching movies, playing games, and consuming large quantites of edibles. It is very popular among teenagers to do this sort of thing, because it means having a better chance of hearing gossip about boys, who, while embarassing girls, seem to be the only interesting thing they can find in school. Of course, Sakura needed people to invite to such an event, which would be other girls, usually ones that are at least a good acquaintance. The problem was, except for her best friend, who I wish I knew the name of, she didn't know anyone well enough to invite them - usually, her socializing consisted of knocking heads in via the World Warrior tournament. And, of course, the occasional crossover tourney, such as when they whipped on some pathetic loser named Apocalypse or events such as the Ultimate Video Rumble popped up. Then, an idea that pretty much is where this fanfic starts going bonkers hit her: why not invite some fellow fighting girls? We can brush up on our techniques, watch some workout videos, talk about our favorite hunks in the tournaments (like Ryu...), and have a fun time. So, she decided to call a couple of them and invite them over. It then hit her that it might be difficult to invite girls over for a slumber party from other...what was that word they used? Oh, yeah, nodes...it might be hard to get people from different nodes over for a party. No matter, this was a fanfic, so all she had to do was beg the author to slip them into the same universe. She begged nicely, promising a couple of Sho-o-kens. Not if I cooperated, mind you. I thought hard. For one second. With that problem out of the way, the next obstacle was to figure out who to call. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, who to call? Well, let's see...there's Lilith, who'd be great if we played "Truth or Dare", Ellis, who's always fun to have around as well as good for training; that'd do for a start. Have them invite some people they know, say five each, and we'll have twenty-one people show up, including herself. (That's correct party math, folks...everybody invites extras, and, eventually, even the police get invited - by the neighbors that can't sleep - around 4:00 A.M.) Next, she needed to get her parent's permission before she called. After that was settled, and dialing the WWF hotline by mistake, she called Lilith's house. "Hello, this is Morrigan, what can I do for you?" After realizing she hadn't dialed the Hot Girls Hotline by mistake, Sakura spoke. "Uh, hello, this is Sakura. Can I speak to Lily-chan, please?" "Of course, hold on a minute," said a voice on the other end that would have made a man blush instantly. A few seconds later, a new voice spoke through the headset. "Hello, Sakura-chan, what's up?" "Well, I was wondering, if you're not busy Friday night, want to come over for a sleepover party?" The word "party" perked Lilith's bat-wings up, and evoked the typical response of "Let me check," followed by the sound of a receiver being dropped and running back and forth, followed by a screamed "YES!" and more scurrying, until the phone was apparently picked back up. "I'd be glad to. What time?" "Come over about 8:00. Do you need directions?" "Uh, yeah." "Hold on. Where do you live?" Sakura had to write out directions herself to figure out how to get her there, then, once that information was passed on... "I'll see you there, Lily-chan. Oh, and invite some of your friends." "How many?" "Oh, about five." "Great. I'll see you there." "Cool. Bye, Lily-chan." "Bye, Sakura-chan." Next, Sakura called Ellis, with virtually the same dialogue. Just substitute Ellis-chan for Lily-chan, think ears instead of bat-wings, and consider a remarakble amount of bandwidth saved. With that out of the way, it was time to get supplies. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, what do you get for a slumber party made up of fighters? Sakura started by getting the normal prerequisites for such a party, though adapting some for the crowd she was expecting to handle. A quick stop at the grocery store procured enough food to feed an army, which would have to do. At the video store, she rented a couple of movies, some workout and training videos, and a few video games just to make this all surreal. A few board games, just because people talk more during them...especially when the board games are Pictionary, Scruples, and Taboo. She then went around town, picking up odds and ends that we won't describe yet...let's just say that the Truth-or-Dare competition oughta be good. Now, for the rooming arrangements. Sakura picked four rooms that looked large enough to fit five people, and moved some of the furniture around to get just a bit extra space. She also made sure that a few small rooms were available, just because she now realized that she hadn't said anything about not inviting boys over. Oh well, she thought, it'll make for a more interesting Truth or Dare session. Which reminded her - she needed makeup. Back to shopping; and, while she was at it, she checked with her best friend, who I still can't remember the name of, to make sure she could come. After more screaming, begging of parents, louder and more jubilant screaming, and a running about that was thought impossible considering the maneuvering area of the house, she accepted and started packing her stuff. Sakura had to calm her down somewhat, seeing as it was only Wednesday, and that they had a couple of school days before the event. That settled, Sakura now went home to *blech* study. After boring herself with geometry, which took the better part of five minutes to do, she began staring out the window. And this is where we start twisting the plot so everyone doesn't think this sort of thing just a rather sarcastic description of the females' overnight party. As I was saying, Sakura looked up into the sky, and, out of the blue, she caught a glimpse of a shooting star. She made a wish (it involed Ryu, Paris, and a hotel with training facilities) and then saw a big flash of light. Now, it wouldn't have worried Sakura so much if the flash of light hadn't come from her backyard, which, by the by, had now been transformed from a collage of grass, flowers, and a tree swing into a gaping, smoking hole in the ground. And this is one of those great moments to induce suspense by ending Chapter One, and I don't want to miss the chance, so... --- Well, with the first chapter out of the way, let's see how insane we can go. Quick recap (like it's necessary at this point, but, for those induhviduals so suited for management that they'd rather skip ahead): Sakura's bored of street fighting at the moment, so she's having a slumber party; We know that she's personally invited Lilith, Ellis, and her best friend that I don't know the name of; The party's scheduled for Friday, and it's Wednesday (it's useless info I'm best at ^_^); And, once Sakura had everything, tried studying, and looked out the window, a shooting star almost bulls-eyed Sakura's house. That's the short, lack-of-commentary version. For a more descriptive depiction of events than normally given by the AP Newswire, go back to Chapter 1 and actually try reading the thing. You'll be glad you did (I hope). Anyway, it's time for our next mess. Let's introduce this new group of characters we have coming into play: From the game Dead or Alive, lovingly made by Tecmo, we introduce for the first time ever into fanficdom (I think) a young lady by the name of Kasumi (not that Kasumi, at least not yet...); >From Street Fighter III, a game lovingly made by Capcom, we have a lady by the name of Elena; >From Marvel Vs. Capcom, a game doomed to scrubby tactics and block damage by Capcom, we have a little robot by the name of Roll; And, since that'll adequately describe how quickly the guest list was growing, we'll just add one, no, make that two more...courtesy of Anime International Company and Pioneer Entertainment, from Tenchi Muyo... --------------------------------------------------------------- "Can't you land a spaceship without crashing?" "Oh, but the bumpy ride was so fun, Washu! And, besides, it's the writer who did this, not me..." "Mihoshi, the bumpy ride was NOT fun. As for the writer, well..." The next few minutes hurt, and I had to drop the resulting evil twin into Dragonball Z. Don't ask what happened in that timeframe. Anyway, Washu opened the door to the craft, found herself at the bottom of a rather large hole, and got out the repulsorlift she had developed watching the Special Edition on video one night. Reluctantly grabbing Mihoshi while she was at it (she figured the ship was still salvagable, especially her various inventions onboard; she couldn't imagine anything worse happening to them, and didn't want to leave Mihoshi to the imagination), she floated herself, a few knick-knacks, her clothes, and the living proof that brains and luck are not mutually dependent up to what is normally considered the ground. Sakura was gaping while all of this was taking place. "Hello...you must be Sakura," said the female evil scientist. "I'm Washu, and this is Mihoshi. Lilith said you were having a slumber party, and had given her permission to invite some friends; we go way back." Sakura remembered that Lily-chan was a succubus, and that said beings were immortal; hence, she decided not to think too hard about when exactly "way back" was in this instance, and simply invited them in for hot chocolate. "Um, you know, Washu, you're a bit early," noted Sakura in between sips. "Yeah, I know - I wanted to test my time-travel invention," said Washu. "You didn't tell me you had a time-travel invention," said Mihoshi, pouting. "I wanted to keep it intact," deadpanned Washu. "But I could go do things, like meet Cleopatra, or see what I'll be like in a few years, or go eat anytime I want instead of waiting for the store to open, or..." "No, you're not touching it, Mihoshi." "Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top?" "No." The word "no" resulted in a wail audible in Russia. Somehow, Washu was able to make Mihoshi hear, "All right, all right, I'll see about letting you use it sometime. Now, stop crying." To the delight of Tokyo, Mihoshi went to a soft sniffle. "You really mean it?" In an obviously reluctant tone, Washu replied, "Yes, I really mean it." "Yay! I get to go time-travelling!" "Ok now let go of my neck please you're choking me -" "Oh, gomen nasai." Sakura started to worry. ---------------------------------------------------------------- "Now, Mihoshi, I want you to listen carefully, and write this down," Washu said as she stepped into the time travel device. "Okay, let me find a pad and paper...ooh, I know it's around someplace - oh, I know, I left it back on the ship!" "Then here, borrow mine. First thing - you don't go near that ship until I return." "Okay..." "Second, you see the tent I just set up? You're to sleep there - it has all the food you'll need for the next few days." "Yes..." "Finally, *try* to stay out of trouble. I know it's hard, but we've already ruined the lawn...no need to make more problems." "Um-hmm...first...thing...don't...go..." "Gimme that!" Washu decided to take the writing into her own hands, instead of leave it with the female equivalent of Agent 86. That done, she powered up the time portal. "Goodbye, everybody! Try to stay clear of this area until 8:00 P.M. Friday." Sakura, who was just standing there watching this, nodded and waved. She didn't want to know. Mihoshi wailed again. This time, it made it to Hawaii. "There, there," Sakura said, reassuring Mihoshi and saving the collective eardrums of Japan at the same time. "She'll be back, and, in the meantime, you can talk to me." "I can?" Mihoshi said weakly. Sakura barely managed to get out the words, "Of course," before being throroughly strangled to death with happiness. She wondered for a second if it wasn't Washu taking Mihoshi to the party, instead of the other way around. Nah, Mihoshi's too old. ------------------------------------------------------------ While all this mess was going on, the invitations were going out. Lilith decided to get ahold of a fighter she had just met in this new tournament she'd been signed up for between her creators and some comic book company. "Hello, is this the residence of Dr. Light?" "Yes, Roll speaking. Can I help you?" "Hiya, Roll, it's me, Lilith - remember?" "Of course! You were that secret character with the cute bat-wings! How are you?" "Doing fine. Say, wanna go to a party on Friday, work on some fighting moves, hang out, you know?" The by-now-overused scene of scurrying, asking permission, screaming, and scurrying again took place, and Roll came back and said, "Great! When and where do I meet you to go over?" "Come over around 7:30, and we'll go from there." "Cool! I'll have Rush take me there. Bye, Lilith!" "See ya then, Roll. Bye!" She almost forgot - Roll had her own transportation. Not that she had a license, mind you, but the dog/car/board/sub/jetpack armor/quarterback/running back/punter was sentinent, and hence no license was necessary. Next on the list, a foreign exchange student from Africa. "Hello, this is Lilith. Is Elena there?" (Note that Lilith's hand never left the phone.) The voice on the other end said, "Just a minute. ELENA? SOMEONE ON THE PHONE WANTS TO TALK TO YOU..." Luckily, the voice on the other end didn't shout into the phone - just down the steps, where the only Street Fighter to attempt fighting solely with their feet (and hence, bring about a bad unintended pun) was playing with Narumi in the bright Tokyo sunshine. Elena walked up the stairs and took the phone from her exchange mother's hand. "Hello?" "Hi, it's me, Lilith. I was wondering if your busy on Friday night." "If your busy Friday night...what? What did my busy Friday night do? Do I have a busy Friday night, for that..." "Huh? Hold on for a second." She looked at the script. "WHERE'S THE AUTHOR?" I replied quickly - sure, many of her attacks were, um, nice, but I wanted to live until tomorrow, and she sounded like she was quite prepared to prevent my life's continuation. "Hold on..." A quick dash of white-out and typing later, the conversation continued. "Hi, it's me, Lilith. I was wondering if you're busy on Friday night." "I think I'm free. Why?" "Are you interested in coming to a slumber party?" "Can Narumi come along?" "Sure. It's a bit fighting-related, but I'm sure she'll have fun too." After the quick check with her host family, which luckily didn't involve scurrying, she accepted; a phone call later, Narumi was also signed up. A few more phone calls, and Lilith was done...Ellis was just getting started. Currently, she was talking with Kasumi. "Do I want to go out tonight? Of course!" You could hear the bouncing over the phone. (For that matter, you could hear the fanfic author getting slapped silly while writing.) "Actually, it's Friday night." "Oh, yeah. That's cool. Where is it? I'll meet you there." A quick description of the location for ninja teleportation purposes, and another signed on. Ellis was on a roll. Of course, she wasn't keeping track of who she was inviting precisely...she was, instead, just asking people she called that night on the phone. Perhaps twenty-one was a small estimate... --- Well, now on to Chapter 3. We've made it to Thursday, and, folks, it can only get loonier from here. Quick recap, for those of you who have missed the first two chapters and don't want to look: Sakura's having a sleepover party on Friday, and the guest list is growing by the minute (according to Sprint); So far, we have Sakura (obviously), her friend that screams and runs off in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (I'd say the name if I knew it), Lilith, Ellis, Washu, Roll, Elena, Narumi, and Kasumi (the Dead or Alive one); Mihoshi's stuck herself into the guest list elegantly by crashing the ship into Sakura's backyard - luckily, none of Washu's onboard experiments were hurt; the writer has an evil twin courtesy of Washu that hopefully by now has met Vegita from Dragonball personally; and Washu has taken this opportunity to test her new time-travel machine, hence leaving Mihoshi with Sakura for a day, with strict instructions not to touch the ship. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank some of the readers responsible for keeping my insanity and choice of background colors in check. Thanks to Anthony Woo and Damien Roc for their comments and catching slip-ups I didn't make on purpose, and a big thank you to the kind and gentle souls that make up the regulars of the MVFC and the UVR, who have done some mild reading of their own coupled with explaining the good idea of putting dark letters on light backgrounds or light letters on dark backgrounds, hence making it possible for you to read this. And, one thank you and humble bowing to Aldrich Bautista, who has offered to place my small testament to insanity in his Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction Archive before I've even finished, and hence brought me to write this up as a temporary listing of credits. I'd also like to take this opportunity to remind you that there are two other chapters to read, and, if you're wondering about the nitty-gritty details on how some of the things above could have conceivably happened in my disturbed mind, go back and read them. It won't hurt that badly... Not too many new characters this time around - in fact, there's only one mentioned - primarily due to the fact that, except for Washu and Mihoshi, people shouldn't be arriving this early. It also allows me the chance to foreshadow just about anything I can think to slip in later. Not that the story has more of a plot yet than the sleepover, but it helps to have a few weird things that can happen as I go along. The one we do have, however, is probably the second-most popular character to put into a fanfiction. Created by the One who is Rumiko Takahashi (all bow and create fanfiction ^_^) and owned by the company known as Viz Communications, from her masterpiece of creativity and martial arts we know as Ranma 1/2...eh, I'll make you wait to the end of the chapter on this one. I'm nasty that way. ^_^ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "WAAAAAAAHHH!!!" "Look, it's not my fault I have to go to school," said one exasperated Sakura. "In fact, if I had my way -" "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!" That was Mihoshi, for those of you in Hong Kong wondering where that infernal racket was originating. "Will you quit crying? It's not like I'm going to leave forever, just for a few hours (and am I ever grateful school only lasts *that* long). I'll be back, I promise." "You really mean it?" "Yes, I -" "YAAAY! We'll go shopping together, and out to eat, and -" "We'll see. In the meantime, try to follow what Washu said, and one additional thing -" "Anything!" "Please leave the house intact. My mom's already griping about the new backyard decor." "I will! You won't have anything to worry about from me, I promise! You'll see!" With that, Sakura left, leaving Mihoshi alone - Sakura's dad was working, her kid brother was heading off to school himself, and her mother was out talking to a landscaper. If that doesn't scare you, folks, I'd love to know what does. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- After Sakura left, she waited for a few minutes, thinking of what to do. Then, her stomach kicked in. Yes, she'd had a pretty good breakfast, managing to finish off about three-quarters of the fridge's contents by herself, so all she needed was a light snack. Trouble was, there wasn't anything left that she really wanted to snack on. For that matter, there wasn't much left. So, she tried searching the rest of the house. She hit the Slumber Party Food Jackpot. A couple of hours later, Mihoshi saw the note to Sakura's mom on the last bag of potato chips: "Mom - This food's for the slumber party - don't put it with the food in the kitchen. - Sakura Mihoshi went into conclusion-jumping mode: She ate all the food for the slumber party that Sakura had bought. Sakura wouldn't have any food for the party. Her party guests would be unhappy. Sakura would be unhappy. Sakura would hate Mihoshi. Furthermore, Washu, who was going to be one of the guests at the party, would be unhappy. Washu would hate Mihoshi. Sakura could swear she heard Mihoshi cry. Nah, must be my ears ringing from this morning. There's no way you could hear her all the way from home inside a classroom in the middle of the building. Could you? Meanwhile, Mihoshi wondered where she could get more food. The Galaxy Police had trimmed her credit use for expenditures considerably since the last time she went to the Intergalactic House of Pancakes. Not that the credits would do her any good on Earth, anyway. Her Earth currency was on the ship - The ship! It had food to spare, plus it had that weird thingy Washu made for cloning - perhaps it could even make more food! Having forgot completely about Washu's specific instructions not to go near the ship, she took the floatation device Washu had used to get them out of the crater where their ship was parked and went down to get some more food. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mihoshi quickly deduced that there wasn't enough food to make up for what she'd eaten. No surprise, since she'd eaten most of the food on the way to Sakura's house. So, she was just going to have to clone some. She gathered what food she could find, set it down on a little pad in front of the cloning machine, hit a few buttons, and paused for a second. The pause was Mihoshi's memory trying to kick in. Doesn't Washu always tell you not to touch any of her experiments and stuff? Eh, she won't mind. Rationalization, ladies and gentlemen, accounts for many of the world's problems today. But it alone often does not bring about the strife we have; instead, a combination of factors come into play. Like the fact that cloning makes replicas of the cells involved, creating a living being (and thus the creation of new potato chips directly through such a method is impossible, although it would allow for the cloning of the potatoes and most ingredients except minerals such as salt necessary to make them). Or, the fact that Mihoshi had instead placed the food on the platform Washu opened to dump genetic waste into a holding cylinder for later disposal. For that matter, it might have even helped if Mihoshi actually knew how to use the controls to the cloning machine. But, perhaps most importantly, there was the issue of using the controls for the correct device, instead of the portable dimensional gateway that was on the opposite side of the ship's laboratory. A voice from a transporter pad on the other side of the room blurted, "What the - how'd we end up here?" Mihoshi didn't quite know how to explain, so she decided to blame me instead. "Um, I don't know, the writer wrote this, and suddenly you're here, and I don't know how I'm going to get food for Sakura's party, and she'll be mad at me because I ate it all, and she won't like me, and -" The next few seconds involved the following: Mihoshi screaming; Sakura blinking again, wondering if Mihoshi had followed her to school or something; the writer running for dear life; and some person stepping out of the portal swinging a hammer and somehow yelling over Mihoshi "WRITER NO BAKA!" Well, she had to arrive sometime, didn't she? Okay, now, no need to be upset, don't you guys start throwing hammers, ow, ooh, watch it... --- Well, that chapter went quick. Hope those of you who've been following along liked it (and the other two, for that matter). Shall we summarize, for those who'd rather not go back and read the mess we've created? Sakura's having a sleepover, and just about everyone that ever fought and looks to be under the age of eighteen is invited by now. And it's still a day away. Mihoshi, who is more stuck rather than invited, was left home alone for the day while Sakura attended (blech) school. The blond policewoman mangaged to eat all the food for the party (and everything else in the house), and then tried to clone more in reparations using Washu's shipboard lab. She instead managed to open a dimensional portal, and out stumbled a group of people led by none other than Akane Tendo. One guess where that group's from, kids. Anyway, if it isn't obvious, we're getting a whole slew of new characters this time around (to ostensibly make up for the lack of fresh blood last time). >From the work of Takahashi Rumiko known affectionately as Ranma 1/2, distributed by Viz Communications, we have, in no particular order: Saotome Ranma, Ryoga, Shampoo, Ukyo, Tendo Nabiki, and the other Kasumi. (I'd add more, but my premium was raised enough when I let Rumiko's name slip in a conversation with my insurance salesman.) And, just to make things not so predictable, we have a character from Escaflowne, a creation of Sunrise, by the name of... Eh, you'll find out later. Make you drool a bit first. ^_^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sakura returned from school carrying enough groceries to feed the entire homeless population of New York City for a day. She'd been told by her mother to fill the refridgerator for her guest, as it appeared she'd eaten the entire contents of her tent the night before. She'd also been warned by Ellis in school that their might be a "few extra" coming. Hence, the owner of the supermarket was able to close shop early for the week and go off to London. When she got there, she noticed the new holes in the walls and roof. She wondered how such a thing could have happened - she could only think of her one guest, Mihoshi, and she seemed to lack the strength to break through wood absentmindedly. She looked at the family dog, playing with a small pig in the yard. The pig had to be someone's pet - there was no way it got that yellow polka-dot bandana on its own. Ironically, it seemed to be avoiding any water, looking at her as if she would see something. Her kid brother was inside, playing video games. Once every so often, a hammer or spatula would fly over his head, but he was concentrating so hard on the game that he didn't notice the projectiles overhead. Sakura then hit her mental rewind button and thought, for a fleeting second, the reasons why there might be projectiles flying over her brother's head. And, for that matter, why there were so many hammers and spatulas in the vicinity. Every fanfic author has dreams of meeting the character he or she writes about. That's what often gets them into this sort of thing, as I stated earlier in the Chapter 1 disclaimer. Their imaginations become stories, and those stories become stuff like what you're reading right now. Sakura had read manga about hammers and spatulas. She had no such dreams. Sure, it'd be interesting and funny, and she might even perhaps meet a good opponent to spar with (though not as good as Ryu). To be quite frank, this sort of thing worried her. She went inside in hopes of it being just an illusion, or something weird going on. It was the something weird going on, yes, but she'd been hoping for one not involving these guys in her house all of a sudden. Sakura wasn't all too ladylike in the first place, so what came out of her mouth next was not surprising. However, that did not make it any more printable. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sakura stood up. "So, all of these guys are here because they came through some weird portal on Mihoshi's ship." I nodded affirmative. I would have spoken, but there was this yellow polka-dot bandana in my mouth that appeared to be rather effective at preventing sound from passing effectively. Said cloth in my mouth was considered necessary, lest I take after Mihoshi and scream, drawing attention to the fact that I was currently tied to the back of a chair with various projectiles and martial artists surrounding me with the intent to viciously harm. "Weren't we going to keep this to game fighters only? These guys are anime! Worse, the backyard's already got a hole in it - now the house has to have twenty or so of its own!" "M mver sid i wooden ooze nnmay..." "Someone give him something to write with, please." I wrote, "I never said I wouldn't use anime. In fact Washu and Mihoshi are anime characters, though perhaps not here for reasons of continuity. And, besides, these guys here are fighting game characters - a Super Famicom fighting game was based on the Ranmaverse." Sakura looked at the pad and read it aloud. "Ok, then, I guess we can have them along for the ride. But, weren't we going to have everybody just exist in the universe? I mean, it's a weak explanation, but it's consistent, and, besides, we now have to get everybody back through the portal somehow!" I took the pad, and wrote again. "Washu can get them back through the portal - don't worry about that." Washu's pets, who she'd left inside the house and were standing right behind me, chimed in gleefully on cue with their "Washu is the greatest scientist in the universe" bit. I continued, "As for the portal, we'll just say that the predominately-fighting game characters happen to live nearby, and the predominately-anime characters get warped in through the portal. We can even explain how Washu and Mihoshi got here that way - if I remember the Darkstalkers storyline, Lilith and Morrigan's house is in two dimensions simultaneously anyway, so, even if Washu hadn't left a device for interdimensional communication (which she probably did), Lilith would still be able to go talk to Washu by crossing the dimensional plane herself, theoretically." Sakura sighed, regretting being wrote into this mess. "Okay, I guess we can let you off this time. Let him go." Akane, Ukyo, Ryoga, and Shampoo began untying me and dragging me out of the various contraptions set up around my comparitively frail body. Unfortunately, Mihoshi walked in, and, after hearing I was truly to blame for the mess instead of her, and that there was no problem involving getting food for the party, she bounded up and hugged Sakura around the neck. This resulted in Sakura being knocked off balance, which ran her into Ranma, which caused Ranma to bump into Ryoga, who knocked Ranma into Akane in a direction a man shouldn't be facing, which gave Akane ample reason to bring out the mallet and attempt to flatten Ranma's head, which hit a charging Ryoga accusing Ranma of violating Akane instead of its intended target, which caused him to stumble into Ukyo, which knocked off the spatula on her back, which finally ended the domino effect with a resounding thunk on my head. I don't know what happened for the next five minutes after that, but I think I ought to tell you a little bit about something that had happened before all this. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, after most of the gang had left the spaceship, three others came through the portal that no one had tried to turn off. (Mihoshi was too afraid; the others were already at each others' throats for ending up there, and were therefore too busy to notice.) The first one, Nabiki, took one glance and had dollar signs in her eyes. She grabbed a few things she thought would sell well (finders, keepers, and all that), and then left. The other person, Kasumi, came later and came to the conclusion that the room she was now in looked like a wreck. Ignoring the possibility that it actually was, and the signs hanging prominently around the room saying "DONT TOUCH!", she casually cleaned up stuff, dusted, and dropped the waste into some weird-looking flip-top garbage cans. She wondered for a second as to why the garbage in them seemed to be moving of its own volition, but guessed that it was just some new way of trash compaction, in the manner that a toilet flushes and gets rid of those types of solid waste, and let it be. She also tried pushing a couple of buttons in an effort to turn off the machine that seemed to be running, but, to no avail. She then tried to walk out via the portal (something that everyone else except Nabiki didn't think of doing, due to either being busy wailing and worrying or chasing and excessive damage) and tidy up the rest of the house, not noticing that the spaceship wasn't her house. Or, for that matter, not noticing that where she ended up wasn't her house either. Oh well, she said, as she tidied up rooms of the castle she was in one by one. While Kasumi was dusting the big white robot (at least, she thought the thing was a robot), another member of the castle saw the weird glowing portal in the room Kasumi had just cleaned. She looked around, listened, and, still wondering what it was, stepped through and found herself in the middle of a now-immaculate science lab on a wrecked spaceship. She also saw some weird buttons, and played around with a few before giving up on figuring out what they do. She then crept out of the ship and looked around at the big hole she was sitting in with no way out of. Then, worried as to how to get back, she tried going back through the portal, and returned quickly before a beam whizzing past fried her instead of my clone beside her. Then, even more concerned, she looked back at the buttons, not remembering how they were pushed when she got there. She tried some others, hopped in at different times, hoping to find the right dimension, but no luck - she was apparently stuck here. Sighing, she curled up and went to sleep, cursing her stupid inborn curiosity factor and leaving the machine on. Which means, next chapter, we can bring in more people if we want, just before the party starts and Washu has me on her experiment table for writing half of this stuff into happening. --------------19F4A1B6B88 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name="WOWACh5.txt" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="WOWACh5.txt" And here we are at Chapter 5. About time for the guests to arrive (or rearrive, if your name is Washu). We have the food, we have a few extra guests, and I foresee more of both. (One will be necesary, the other's just because I'm in charge. ^_^) Of course, we still have Friday morning to get through, and Sakura's gonna hate me for not forgetting about it. Anyway, for those of you who'd rather not see what my demented mind did in the last four chapters, we'll go over it briefly: Sakura's having a slumber party, and most fighting game girls and quite a few anime characters are scheduled to appear. Washu arrived via spaceship, and Mihoshi stuck herself there by crashing said spaceship. Mihoshi ate all the food for the party while stuck at Sakura's house, and tried to make up for it by cloning some more in Washu's lab on the ship. Instead, she fired up the still-running dimensional gateway, and hence has brought most of the regular characters from Ranma 1/2 into the picture. Furthermore, since no one who had an idea of how to turn the thing off (or operate it at all, for that matter) has tried to close the gateway, it's allowed for some lab equipment to be stolen and Kasumi (the one from Ranma 1/2, not the one Lilith's invited) to walk into The Vision of Escaflowne. And, while Kasumi went to Gaia, Merle decided to walk through and see what was behind the gate and what buttons she could push. And she's even left the thing on. We won't specifically mention any new people in this chapter, though we will have a few hop through the gate for reasons of partycrashing or worse. So, having one section of the opening we're able to skip over, we can get straight to the fanfic... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The cat-girl looked up and realized that she had a bit of a task ahead of her. Washu had used a repulsorlift when she wanted out; the others had used the same thing to leave when they entered the dimension, as Mihoshi had brought it back down when she opened the dimensional gateway instead of cloning food. This time, it was still stuck up at the top of the hole, and the spaceship Merle was standing on was on the deep bottom. The spaceship, on its landing, had in fact made sure to redefine the word "deep", barely managing to stay out of the magma layer on its landing. This phenomenon also explained why it didn't seem all that cold down in the hole, despite the fact that very little light was currently reaching the place. (It also meant that it might get a little too hot later on, but, eh, so what?) Anyway, Merle was stuck down in the hole, and she didn't quite have anything to get out of it with. So, she tried the only thing she could think of - screaming for help at high octaves, which would have worked if everyone wasn't currently deaf due to Mihoshi crying at the same time. Of course, this meant that there was virtually no way out. I say virtually, because the anime world defies physics, and all it took for stimulus for Merle to climb out faster than grease from a frying pan was a stirring from the ship. We won't say what, just because we're saving that for later chapters. But, with her being part cat and all, the noise where there should have been none was ample to make her tear out of the hole rapidly. After panting heavily, looking down at what she'd climbed out of, and fainting, Merle woke up inside the house and looked up at the faces hovering over her resting place that had changed to the couch. She decided to force me to use a thesaurus by having another sudden loss of blood flow to the brain. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile, Mihoshi was trying to help Sakura out by setting up all the decorations. In reality, she was looking more and more like a cat that had been playing with a ball of yarn just a bit too long, hence the crying. Ranma was trying to untangle Mihoshi without messing up the decorations terribly or putting himself in Mihoshi's place. Akane was nearby, hammering Ranma when he started stalling around the, er, midsection. Ryoga was off trying to get some more food for the party, also known as a Bad Thing (tm, The Jihad to Kill Barney). Ukyo was cooking lunch with Shampoo, and killing each other over whether the main course would be ramen or okonomiyaki. Sakura was, of course, at school attempting to stomach the combination gruel/spinach juice concoction the cafeteria workers tried to pass off as edible food. Now, this is all fine, normal behavior for all parties involved, but it lacks development of the plot. Hence, something had to happen, and that came in the form of a cat-girl from The Vision of Escaflowne climbing out of a hole at a speed that suggested a slug creature that happened to find such a species to be the equivalent of a gourmet meal was not all that far behind. Of course, slug creatures don't like heat - they prefer containment tanks for genetic material filled with food. But that's for later on. A few lapses of consciousness later, all of the crew save Sakura was getting the brief explanation of how she got here. A few Homer-like expressions of alarm at their own stupidity after that, and the crew realized they were obligated to go down to the ship and shut the stupid thing off before things got worse. Of course, if all it took was a simple trip down and a lever flip to fix the situation, it'd get boring, and I wouldn't have much to write about. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- By the time they reached the spaceship, they could hear the chaos. Swords, explosions, electricity and fire travelling in unnatural directions, and other unpleasant sounds indicating several types of pain that generally isn't experienced without death coming along for the ride. Hence, a very important and life-impacting decision had to be made. "Okay, who wants to go in there and hit that lever?" Ironically, for all the noise and mayhem the group had been known for so far, you could have dropped a pin and heard it after that was said, if it weren't for the ship's apparent residents handling the situation themselves. Finally, Ranma's brave voice spoke up. "I ain't goin' in there." This was followed by a series of dumb looks, prior committments, vehement refusals, and enthusiastic appointments of other parties. After the ensuing fight above the ship subsided, the group going in was narrowed down to three unhappy individuals - Ranma, Akane, and Mihoshi. The first two were chosen for their fighting ability, courage, and their aversion to being hit with mallets, projectiles, or bonbori. The third was chosen because she had the most knowledge of the equipment involved. (Not that that was much, mind you, but it was more than the rest of the crew had.) Meanwhile, Sakura arrived to an empty and quiet house, decorated somewhat for the slumber party to begin later that night. She noted the lack of sound and destruction, and grew understandably worried. Just then, a pig walked in the door with a briefcase on his back. Luckily, as noted earlier, Sakura had read up on her manga, and heated some water for P-Chan while noting the groceries the pig had carried with him. He'd actually made good time, considering who it was and that the groceries were from a town near Tokyo...near the other side of Tokyo, to be precise. Which scared her even further. The only way the pig got lucky enough to make it back in time to do anything was when the author was going to use him real soon, whether the author be named Rumiko or Nick. Further scaring her was the fact that the pig wandered right into the hole while the water was heating up. I'd foreshadow further, but it's getting ridiculous.