With some encouraging response (read:one person asked
for a copy of whatever chapters she'd been missing, and
was patient while I tried to make a text file that her comp
wouldn't mind), we shall get going with Chapter Six.
Somehow, I'm going to get these guys to 8:00 P.M.
Friday. I must. It is inevitable. (It is becoming harder to
convince myself.) Anyway, here's the rundown for those
just joining us and scared to look at the earlier chapters.

Sakura is having a sleepover, and it appears that just
about anyone that I'm willing to risk copyright
infringement over is showing up somehow.
One of those who has arrived already is Mihoshi, who is
invited due to her arrival via crash landing.
Others have arrived from various anime series, and are
invited due to not having the slightest idea how to get
back through the portal Mihoshi opened in her feeble
attempt to clone food.
The number increased steadily as everyone managed to
forget closing the dimensional gateway up to about now.
We have a group standing on the ship preparing to enter
the ship and a pig about to land on said ship about, oh...

*splat*

...now, I'd say. And, his luck being what it is, he landed in
hot water (literally, due to the water spilling out of the
spaceship's radiator being heated by ground so close to
the magma layer). Just thought I'd mention that, if only to
give meaning to these inane openings and all.

*gets whapped severely*

Hey, just wait. I have worse planned.

As for who's showing up this time around, we have:

>From Urusei Yatsura, another of the masterpieces of
Rumiko Takahashi and Viz, we have the bikini alien
herself, Lum;
>From Sailor Moon, another one of the "We Had To
Sometime" entries and a copyright of Toei Animation,
comes Sailor Jupiter;
>From Slayers, another one of the oddball choices we're
selecting because we can and wish to flagrantly exercise
our rights, we have two characters owned by Software
Sculptors named Lina Inverse and Gourry;
>From Final Fantasy III, another type of media altogether,
known as a role-playing video game, and the property of
Square Co. Ltd, we introduce Celes and Locke;
And, from Kimagure Orange Road, another bad idea,
and the property of AnimEigo, we have...two people you
should recognize if you've ever seen the thing. You'll find
out later - it'd ruin the surprise.

-------------------------------------------------------------

The three draftees walked into the ship, armed with
whatever martial arts they knew, a hammer that appeared
to have uses other than the normal function due to its size
being well over the specifications for car body work, and
a small Galactic Police-issue laser. They would have gone
farther, but it just didn't look safe for some odd reason.
Perhaps it was the electricity in the air...literally. Or,
maybe it could be attributed to the whistling and clanging
swords swinging all around the ship. It could also
possibly be due to the assorted explosions that just went
off, blowing a large hole in a genetic waste tube. It could
even be a combination of some of the aforementioned
idiosyncrasies, which may or may not have been
combined with a good dose of common sense. At any
rate, something kept them from immediately going inside.

The draftors decided therefore that a friendly nudge was
in order, and a moderately oversized spatula offered the
propulsion necessary to get the trio far enough into the
ship to close the door and wait for success.

After Ranma extricated himself from the confinement of a
dented wall, Akane, and Mihoshi, he made a mental note
to ask Ukyo why she used more than the necessary
propulsion, and looked at the surrounding mayhem.

Sailor Jupiter was apparently convinced that Lum was a
"youma", and the battle betweem the two would have
been sufficient to power a small village. Some blond guy
in the corner was having a pleasant conversation with a
lady with long blond hair over a swordfight. A lady with
red hair nearby was shouting something about stealing her
food and a fireball at some guy with a beard and old
clothes.

Akane decided to try sticking her wooden mallet into the
swordfight, while Ranma chose to see what could be
done about getting the two fire-slinging spellcasters away
from each other. That left Mihoshi alone to go for the
lever and the electric catfight well enough alone - the
equipment around them was shorted out by now, and
hence no need to do something completely stupid. 

Akane dodged a slash nimbly and realized the problem of
dealing with metal weapons without metal to protect
oneself with. With the mallet obviously useless, she threw
it away, which happened to be a direction towards the
dueling duo and, in fact, right between their clashing
swords. This caused both swords to be instantly
imbedded in the block of wood that was the head of the
mallet, proving to be the perfect method in getting the two
to quit fighting and that the old saying, "Don't argue with
success," has applications even today. 

As for Locke and Lina, it appeared that Locke was
trying to avoid Lina more than fight the lady. He
probably has the same honor I do, Ranma thought. He
doesn't want to fight the lady. Of course, I don't want
to hit her...so now what? Then, Ranma noticed the pile
of food. Now, we could have Ranma be smart and
announce that there's a ton of food in the house topside if
she'd just stop pounding on Locke. But, what happened
instead was Ranma showing that he had learned nothing
from the last time he just started eating a pile of food that
happened to be sitting there. As it was, it worked. Locke
was let go as Lina turned her attention to the new idiot
who appeared to be just begging for a fireball. A few
moments of running around and dodging flames later, and
Akane preserved Ranma's cowardly self with a swing of
a leaking genetic waste disposal unit. 

While this mess was going on, Mihoshi headed over to
the proper lever (she got lucky) and attempted to turn the
machine off. After Ranma and Akane had finished
calming down the natives, she notified the two that she
was having a slight bit of trouble with the lever.
Apparently, that spot of the ship, combined with a nasty
amount of electric current, was slightly magnetized, and
the resulting field was holding the lever towards the on
position.

Ranma and Akane looked at the mess left from the other
four, looked at Sailor Jupiter and Lum still sending
lightning bolts in all directions, and then looked at each
other. Managing the feat of simultaneous speech, they
gave a terse, two-word answer: "We'll wait."

-------------------------------------------------------------

About an hour or so later, the group managed to turn off
the portal and subsequently took Washu's homemade
repulsorlift back to the surface, where Sakura was
currently looking down and worrying about Ryoga getting
caught. Of course, Akane would just think it's a black pig
similar to P-Chan, but one would think the clues would
add up to four sometime before rigor mortis. As it was,
she saw a slightly bruised Ryoga exit the chasm, along
with the rest of the stranded anime characters. She then
saw that there were more of them.

Sakura was getting used to this, but was still having
problems with liking uninvited guests appearing at the
author's whim. But, as it wasn't the character's fault, she
greeted them warmly. "Hi, I'm Sakura, this is my house,
make yourselves comforatble. Um, we're having a party
in a bit - would you like to help set up, or punk the idiot
who brought you here?"

The chorus of Deion Sanders resonated throughout
Tokyo.

A short while later, the real guests that were expected to
come finally started showing up. After meeting the
unfortunate and unwitting houseguests and gaping at the
drop five steps past the opening to the backyard, the
early arrivals began helping with the decorations in order
to leave the houseguests free to attempt pain and torture
upon my fragile and *ow* pathetically weak body. After
discovering that the power used by the Delorean's
time-travel module from Back to the Future can really
hurt when sent through your body every five seconds for
about fifteen minutes, I found a good hiding place,
ditched this completely mindless train of thought, and
continued with the story.

The author long gone and well done, the rest of the
decorations were put up, the food was set out (and, five
minutes later, more was ordered), and some more of the
invited guests arrived. Kasumi from Dead or Alive was
happily chatting, bouncing, eating, bouncing, showing off
a few of her ninja moves, and bouncing some more. As
Sakura set out to find the author and cleanse his dirty
mind with blue fireballs, Roll arrived via Beat Plane along
with Lilith, Elena, and Narumi. After the bird gently
touched down, opened up, and flew off, promising to
pick them up tomorrow morning as soon as they called,
the trio joined the veritable mayhem that could only be a
sleepover party. As more guests began to arrive, the
clock struck 8:00, and, in a roped-off area of what
remained of the backyard, a complicated device
containing one super-genius scientist as cargo appeared
out of nowhere. Upon arrival, she looked around, saw
the crowd, and gave her frank opinion: "Let's party!"

However, the author was not lucky enough to get off
without a double-take. And, at that point, Washu noted
that a large number of people from dimensions she knew
of that were in no way related to the one she was
standing in just happened to be around. Her instinct
proved to save the poor writer, however, as Washu
instead started looking for Mihoshi with the intent of
doing serious harm. Of course, everybody else went after
him when they saw the bus pull up to the house.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Compared to the last time, where he was tied to a chair
and gagged, this seemed less threatening. That is, if you
didn't know where the water in the bucket that the author
was precariously hanging above had been taken from.
They were at least nice enough not to gag him this time,
perhaps - they just said that he'd be dropped in
immediately if he so much as peeped for help, and hence
would choke while discovering personally the exact
spring the water had been drawn from. With that thought
drifting through his mind, he decided to remain silent until
they began the screaming.

Sakura, being the person who would likely be held
responsible by her mother for this mess, began the
inquisition gently. "WHY THE #*@( DO YOU NEED
SO MANY )@%^ ANIME CHARACTERS IN A
FANFIC FOR FIGHTING CHARACTERS?!"

Perhaps gentle wasn't quite the correct term, but the
contrast worked for humor value. "I don't know," the
author pleaded. "Perhaps, it's because one of the main
intended audiences of this fanfiction is anime fans."

"Then why bother with fighting characters at all?" said
Akane, twirling her mallet idly. She'd already threatened
to make water to be considered the Spring of Drowned
Fanfic Writer in what some people hanging from a rope
upside down considered to be a rather crude and messy
fashion.

"Well," the author reasoned, "I also have quite a few
readers who are more into fighting games than cartoons.
They still appreciate anime, and some are in fact avid
followers themselves; however, they know the fighting
genre more, and in fact are probably the closest thing to
what I can call prereaders. I also must add that many
anime productions have been made concerning video
games, and that I myself am a video game fanatic."

"Did you have to bring in so many characters, period?"
asked Merle, playing with the rope above my head and
waiting for a good reason to check her nails. "I mean, it's
gotta be hard to manage and all."

"It might get that way, yes." The author collected himself.
"However, I'm trying to use that as a bit of a running gag,
perhaps - despite Sakura's intentions, the small,
twenty-person party she planned for the evening is going
to grow beyond expectations, but, in the end, she'll
perhaps be glad it did."

Mihoshi, surprisingly, noted the unspoken calamity in my
sentence. "You mean, Washu won't be able to get you
guys home right away?"

Mihoshi managed to time this phrase at the exact moment
that Washu entered the remains of her lab. Looking at the
controls, she began to press the combination of keys
required to open the gateway to the dimension where
Ranma had come from. "Assuming the equipment hasn't
fallen out of calibration due to the crash, which, since
their was no large energy displacement involved, should
not have happened, this will work." A hum signified the
opening of the gateway, and Washu peered in.

"Ushiko-san, Ushiko-san, wherefore art thou
Ushiko-san?"

"Umao-san, Umao-san, wherefore art thou Umao-san?"

Speaking of running gags...