A small road-worn and oft-repaired cruiser drifted along one edge of the Desert of Bleached White Bones, at a leisurely pace.
Ishiel Soel, Rogue Priestess of Earth, was at the controls. Parnasse had draped himself over the edge of the cruiser near her, hanging his arms along the side of the cruiser, and staring down at the ground. A heavily bandaged (in a Rei Ayanami kind of way) Kauru drowsed on a comfy cushion, not far behind them both, and a well-petted and happy Ura was purring in Kauru's lap.
Ishiel yawned, without releasing the controls of the cruiser. She had insisted on driving, and after putting up a token protest, Kauru was actually relieved to let her drive. Kauru's cruiser was relieved too, as much as an inanimate object can be relieved.
Ishiel glanced at Parnasse, and noticed that he seemed to be counting out loud to himself. "One hundred forty-two thousand, eight hundred fifty seven... One hundred forty-two thousand, eight hundred fifty eight..."
"What are you doing, Parnasse?" asked Ishiel pleasantly, making conversation to pass the time.
Parnasse pulled his head up, back over the edge of the cruiser, and regaled her with a look of complete boredom. "I'm counting grains of desert sand."
Then he grimaced, realizing that he'd just lost count. He turned away from Ishiel, hung his head back down, and started over. "One... two... three..."
Ishiel was puzzled. "Uh, Parnasse? Why are you counting grains of desert sand?"
"Because there's more of them to count than anything else around here," Parnasse said, without turning away again. "I could count something else, like the pretty girls in this cruiser. But that wouldn't kill much time. One, two. See? Now, if you'll excuse me-- you've already made me lose count twice. One... two... three..."
Ishiel raised an eyebrow. "But there's far too many grains of desert sand around here to count. It's like, well, counting the grains of sand in a desert."
"I know that," Parnasse said impatiently. "That's why I'm only counting the grains of sand that I like."
Ishiel was even more confused. "The grains of sand... that you like?" she repeated dumbly.
"Yup."
"How do you decide if you like a grain of sand?"
"I carefully evaluate each one that I see, based on cut, color, clarity, and--"
"Parnasse?"
"Yes, Miss Ishiel?"
"You're talking crap. Stop it."
Parnasse suddenly jumped to his feet. "But I'm bored!! I'm bored stupid!! I mean, El-Hazard is supposed to be a world of endless adventure!! But here we are, drifting along one edge of the Desert of Bleached White Bones, at a leisurely pace, in a completely, utterly, and mind-numbingly boring way--"
Ishiel brought the cruiser to a smooth halt, in order to better pointlessly bicker with Parnasse. "Look, you little twerp. You volunteered to come along on this fishing expedition, just like me. And it's time for you to grow up, and to learn that life isn't all giant robot battles and gratuitous fan service--"
Kauru opened one eye, and regarded both Ishiel and Parnasse with uncharacteristic annoyance. "Please. I've asked both of you nicely to stop your pointless bickering. If you can't learn to get along, I shall have to--"
Ishiel turned on her in anger. "You'll have to what!? I'm not your servant girl, girl!!"
Kauru gulped. She was still convalescing, after all, and the powerful and muscular Ishiel had repeatedly defeated Afura when Afura was healthy. "I shall have to... ask you nicely again," she said meekly.
Ura, displeased with the utter pointlessness of the current scene, and annoyed that Parnasse had got so many lines again, decided to take matters into its own paws. "Nyah! Girl-that-smells-nice, look! Big rocks!"
Kauru looked past her bickering cruiser-mates, to a huge red and blue sandstone formation in the medium distance, ahead and slightly to the left of the cruiser. Her eyes widened, and she gasped softly. "Great Googly Moogly!" she said, in reverent awe.
The suddenly-not-pointlessly-bickering Ishiel and Parnasse both turned to look. "What is it!?" Parnasse asked, suddenly hopeful that something was about to happen.
Ishiel's face fell into an expression of awe, just like Kauru. "Oh my. You're right, Kauru. Great Googly Moogly!"
"WHAT!?" yelled Parnasse.
Ishiel sighed. Rather than try to explain, she reached to her right, opened the cruiser glove compartment, and pulled out a big heavy book titled Fujisawa's Guide To El-Hazard's Really Big Rocks. She flipped through the book, found the page she wanted, and held the open book out to Parnasse.
Parnasse looked down at the book, read the open page for a moment, then looked back up and blinked. "Oh. Great Googly Moogly."
(http://photos.rockclimbing.com/photos/59/5988.jpg) (http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos.php?Action=Show&PhotoID=5988)
Great Googly Moogly!! (http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos.php?Action=Show&PhotoID=5988) (It's the middle-sized tower in the center.)
(OOC: One fun way to brainstorm for fan fiction is to enter random words into Google Image Search (http://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) ;))
Parnasse looked down at the book again, and read a little further. "'Great Googly Moogly' is part of the 'Fisher Towers' formation, located in the natural bowl underneath the 'Kingfisher,' to the left of 'Putterman's Pile'."
He looked up again, and studied the red and blue sandstone formation. "Huh. I guess 'Putterman's Pile' is that smaller tower to the right."
Ishiel grinned. "Cute li'l stubby thing, ain't it? It somehow reminds me of you."
Before Parnasse could respond to that insult, Ishiel slammed the book shut, nearly taking Parnasse's nose off in the process. "Since the formation is a natural feature of the earth, and since I'm the 'Rogue Priestess of Earth' now, I propose that you and I let Kauru rest in peace for awhile, and--"
Parnasse blanched. "And climb Great Googly Moogly!? Great googly moogly!!"
Ishiel grinned wider. "No, no. Not that."
Parnasse breathed out in relief.
"The big one behind it," Ishiel said, pointing out 'Kingfisher'.
Parnasse blanched again. "You mean, you want to climb the highest rock in that formation for no good reason!?"
Ishiel grinned even wider. "Of course not."
Parnasse breathed out in relief again.
"I want to climb the highest rock in that formation for three good reasons," Ishiel said.
Parnasse whimpered.
"First," Ishiel explained, "that biggest rock, the one that Fujisawa-sensei called 'Kingfisher', is an ancient and sacred place in Phantom Tribe lore. There may be some lost secret to be found at its summit-- something that Fujisawa-sensei missed, but that I can find with my half-tribal abilities, or my Great Lamp of Earth.
"Second, even if it's nothin' but a really big rock, it's the highest point for dozens of kilometers. The view from its summit should be spectacular, and we may see someplace more interesting to try next.
"And third, and most importantly, the idea of climbing it seems to terrify you, and that's a good enough reason for me, just by itself."
Parnasse hung his head. "Y'know, I'm not paid nearly enough for this 'comic relief' job."
News of the end of hostilities swept across the battle-weary lands of Roshtaria, the beleaguered Creterian cruisers, and the rest of El-Hazard.
As the citizens of both Creteria and El-Hazard heard the news, they did what 98% of the people do whenever a war ends.
They cheered. They whooped and hollered. They danced in the streets. They shook their enemies' hands, and slapped their enemies' backs. They broke open bottles of wine, and toasted the other side's bravery. They grabbed the nearest available person of the desired gender and orientation, and kissed 'em like it was goin' out of style. They made love, not war.
Very generally and loosely speaking, 98% of the people have more common sense than their respective governments.
Sadly, Ryoko was in the other two percent.
Actually, Ryoko had a lot more sense than most people gave her credit for. In another life, she would have been dancing, drinking, and makin' out with the best of them. But, in this life, she was well and firmly in the two percent that weren't celebrating.
"ack," said Ryoko.
A copy of Creteria's unconditional surrender, bearing Dall-3's sloppy signature, was crumpled in her clenched hand.
"eep," said Ryoko.
The battlefield messenger who had brought the news to her had wisely left her side very very quickly.
"arg," said Ryoko.
It would be another minute or two before she would be able to form complete words again. But she decided on a course of action that, happily, didn't require much eloquence in the early stages.
"gah," said Ryoko, as her feet left the ground, and as she rocketed towards Dall-3's fleeing escape ship, forgetting in her anger that she could have just phased there, or even turned back and taken a cruiser.
"ngh," said Ryoko, as she worked out her course of action backwards.
Thirdly, she was gonna find out, once and for all, how that Jinnai character gave her the slip.
Secondly, she obviously hadn't been spending enough time with her Dallsy-Wallsy. Well, that was about to change. If she had semi-regularly sneaked up on Dall-3 and scared the crap out of him before, well, heh heh, just wait until he got a load of her now. He was gonna learn just exactly how scary a scorned and slightly unbalanced demon god could be, her faulty but still functioning obedience circuits be damned.
But firstly, she was gonna find the enemy agent sexpot who had manipulated Ryoko into taking her directly to Dall-3. Ryoko didn't like being manipulated by enemy agent sexpots. She already had Yume to manipulate her, thank you very much. And Ryoko intended to demonstrate her displeasure with the sexpot in a way described by the very first full word she managed to spit out since she had heard the news.
"KILL!!" said Ryoko.
Ifurina (and Staff-chan, er, Over-Run) had graciously offered to give Fujisawa a lift back to his wife and child, at their rural hideaway, now that the terrible pointless war was over. But, as they flew through the skies over Roshtaria, they saw something coming at them from over the horizon.
Fujisawa narrowed his eyes. "What the heck is that? It seems to be coming from desert-Ifurita's oasis."
Over-Run chimed in. "Danger, Miss Ifurina, Danger! Long-range sensors indicate that it was recycled from hideously evil bits of doomsday weapon technology!!"
Ifurina narrowed her own newly super-human eyes, and giggled. "Don't be silly, Staff-chan! Why, it's a bunch of big happy faces!"
She would have clapped her hands with delight, if they weren't full of Fujisawa. "OH! I bet this is gonna be even better than Mr. Dancing Robot!"
"Oh dear God no please no," said Fujisawa and Over-Run in perfect unison.
Shayla slowly trudged up the side of Crayna's volcano, sweating like someone trudging up the side of a volcano. She was carrying a large rubber mallet in one hand, and a large hand-painted sign under her other arm.
As per Crayna's instructions, Shayla was about ta to do somethin' about th' damn volcano, fer crapssakes.
Shayla came to a smooth flat area near the peak of the fiery mountain. Yeah, she thought, this'll work. They can't miss it if I put it here.
Shayla set her sign's post against a crack in the rough volcanic rock, raised her mallet, and set the sign in place. She stood back, mopping her brow with a handkerchief (she could feel the heat of the lava even from here), and inspected her handiwork. Her sign read:
WARNING! CONTENTS ARE EXTREMELY HOT!
If that don't stop 'em, Shayla thought, nothin' will.
Crayna raised a spyglass, set it against her window, and watched her chosen protege, the best and brightest of the seminary of fire, the current high and mighty Great Priestess Of Fire, Shayla Shayla, do somethin' about th' damn volcano, fer crapssakes.
After a moment, Crayna lowered her spyglass, set it down, rubbed her temples and groaned. I shoulda left her varnished to the floor, she thought.
Shayla turned to leave. But, from the corner of her eye, she spotted movement above her, practically at the rim of the volcano.
Aw nuts, she thought. I shoulda put the sign up earlier.
Shayla trudged the rest of the way up the volcano, sweating profusely. She found Nanami, Parnasse and Ura, kneeling at the very edge of a pool of white hot lava, all drenched with sweat, but clinging to each other as they all bawled their eyes out.
"If yer all so unhappy 'bout the damn heat," Shayla suggested helpfully, "why dontcha move away from the damn lava!?"
Parnasse turned to her, in manly tears. "Muh-- Miss Kauru... Shuh-- she jumped into thuh-- thuh-- Oh, she killed herself!! WHAAH!!"
"Well, hot damn," Shayla noted accurately. "Guess the little drip finally lost it, huh?"
"SHAYLA!!" shouted Nanami, sobbing pitifully. "How COULD you!? How can you TALK about your FRIEND like THAT, at a TIME like THIS!?"
Shayla rolled her eyes and sighed. "Aw, c'mon. You all gotta admit, she never was the brightest lamp in the seminary."
Even Ura wept for the death of the Girl That Smelled Nice. "Shayla mean! Shayla bad!" it cried.
Shayla hung her head. "Oh, gimme a break. It's painfully obvious that I'm simply in an momentary state of denial, unable to accept the terrible emotional pain of this tragedy. But it oughta hit me any second now OH GOD KAURU KILLED HERSELF WHAAAH!!"
She fell to her knees as she began to rend her garments and gnash her teeth. "IF ONLY I'D PUT THE SIGN UP EARLIER!!"
Hishima had just gotten out of traction. He had not yet donned his full outer garments when he returned to Yume's side. His broad muscular frame was slightly malformed, when compared to a male human of comparable build, but he didn't startle Yume. She was used to him, and she was happy to see her little man back on his feet.
Hishima found his beloved master standing at a cruiser window, looking down on the street celebrations with a sad smile.
"Master Yume?" asked Hishima. "Have I missed the Ultimate Battle?"
"Not exactly," Yume said. She handed him another copy of Dall's surrender.
Hishima read the paper with superhuman speed, then dropped it, staring forwards blankly in shock. "Jumpin' Jehosaphat on a pogo stick," he said to himself.
Yume turned back to the window. "Just look at them, Hishima," she said quietly. "The fools, celebrating like there's no tomorrow. They don't know how right they are."
Hishima gulped. "Do you mean, some malfunctioning hideous dimension destroying device has just been activated?"
"Of course not," Yume said with a sad chuckle. "Don't be silly, Hishima. As if something like that was about to happen...
"No no, dear. Whoever it was that engineered our surrender was a tactical military genius, and a political super-genius. But an economic expert? Not so much.
"I've just done some research on this sad little world, the one that now ownz us. The current ruling world-wide government, that's the Bugrom Empire, negotiated their occupation of the rest of what was the Alliance. Actually, the rest of the Alliance folded like a tent. But it took lots of gratuitous property destruction to conquer Roshtaria.
"Apparently, there's also been two or three unrelated world-threatening events, just in the past few weeks, and they wreaked havoc a-plenty before they were put down. As far as I know, no one's stepped forwards and volunteered to pay for putting them down, so the Bugrom Empire will have to eat those costs too.
"So, the Bugrom Empire is rebuilding Roshtaria, encountering massive unanticipated expenses, and providing basic services for half a freakin' continent, and they're paying for it all out of their own pockets. They just rebuilt the entire city of Floristica, the biggest city on the planet, from the ground up, at jaw-dropping expense, before we showed up and knocked most of Floristica back down again.
"At the same time, in an effort to curry favor with the populations they conquered, they've cut taxes drastically. Taxes were almost certainly too high to start with-- that's a safe bet. But you need a solid revenue stream to run even a small and efficient free peace-time government, let alone an undemocratic and secretive functional dictatorship floundering about in the fog of war.
"Still, they might have just scraped by, with massive deficit spending and creative accounting... before our failed yet mind-numbingly expensive invasion.
"But now, in order to continue their world-wide occupation? By my conservative estimate, they'd have to raise the tax rate on the middle and lower classes by approximately one hundred forty-two thousand eight hundred fifty seven percent. And since that wouldn't go over very well with the punters... well, kiddo, we're looking at total economic, political and social collapse. Sometime around next Tuesday, I should think.
"Even worse, the Creterian fleet is now occupied territory, with no natural resources, no real distribution systems, and no way out of this mess. Without our cruisers' stablilizers, we're stuck here. If we had won, quick and clean, like we were supposed to, Dall's personal fortune (which is now worthless paper) would have covered us, and then some. But now, we're all gonna get flushed down the toilet."
Yume hung her head and sighed, then looked up at Hishima with another sad smile, and a little cold shiver. "We had better stock up on canned soup and instant noodles, Hishima. It's going to be a long hard winter. I've still got a lot of problems to deal with, and I'd prefer not to deal with them cold and hungry.
"And I just hope there isn't some other unknown empire, lying in wait, primed to conquer us all. Pardon my ancient Frencharian, but we'd be completely and utterly screwed."
"ATCHOO!!" sneezed (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/%7Eanimage/v4i6CC.html) Millie and Gan-chan.
"MWAH HA HA HA HA HA!!" said Millie. "MWAH HA HA HA!! MWAH HA HA HA HA HA!!"
As soon as the shop door closed behind them, Tina clutched at the Doctor's arm. "Doctor! That must have been a trap! Floristica has had plenty of cheese since the Bugrom took over."
"Of course." The Doctor smiled warmly to reassure Tina, then began to open his box. "Very perceptive, Tina. So, let's see what that crazed lunatic cheese shop clerk has given us, eh?"
Tina gasped. "You mean, you know it's a trap, but you're going to open the box anyway!?"
"Of course," the Doctor said again. "Evil must be confronted, my dear Tina. Besides, when you have to come up with a cliff-hanger every twenty-three minutes of your life, you learn to take risks-- YEEEEAAAAARRRRRGGGHH!!"
Play Doctor Who theme music NOW. (http://www.clivebanks.co.uk/Dr%20Who%20Themes/McCoy.wav)
DOCTOR WHO
The Cross-Over Terror
Written by Rabid Fanbois
PART THREE
"Doctor! What is it?!" shrieked Tina in fright.
The Doctor ignored his panicky companion and hurled the package onto the ground, a shocked look on his features. The box burst open, revealing a floating black machine with the word "PANIC" inscribed in a bright, friendly orange on its surface.
The Guide hovered in the air for a bit, scanning the area. Its sensors suddenly stopped short on the Doctor. "Scan complete," it said in a friendly artificial female voice. "Two hearts, body temperature 60 degrees Celcius, higher dimensional entity. Target confirmed, proceeding with termination..." The book then advanced on the Time Lord, various instruments of death forming from its black surface.
"How very interesting," stated the Doctor, a worried look on his face. He suddenly smiled and doffed his hat. "Hallo, I am the Doctor. You must be trying to kill me."
"Correct," said the Guide.
"Very good, very good." The machine swiped at the short man with one of its sharp appendages, but surprisingly the Doctor ducked out of the way. "Tell me, is there a particular reason as to why you are trying to kill me?"
"It has been programed as my primary function," said the machine.
"Ah." The Doctor dodged another of the Guide's instruments, this one shaped like a large chainsaw. "So I see. Well then, perhaps you can answer me this..."
The Guide, who had seen the fruitlessness of trying to kill the Time Lord with a melee weapon, began powering up its laser blasters.
"... What is an Arcturan Slither Beast?" asked the Doctor.
The Guide stopped its killing attempts, as its voice began to drone out, "The Arcturan Slither Beast, also known as the Wordo Wormling, is found in the southern forests of Kamartha and-"
The Doctor continued, "Where about the Allseen Archway?"
While the Guide continued to speak about the first topic, a second voice took up to explain. "The Allseen Archway is in the fourth quadrant of-"
"Where can I find the nearest Wormhole to the Delta Quadrant?" asked the Doctor. "Who was the captain of the last Battlestar? Whose genes did the Galactic Republic use to make its clone army? When will the next issue of Play Being that has a Runerian on the cover be printed? How much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck had an axe?"
The Guide, speaking in many voices and on various different topics, began to shake and rattle. Smoke poured out of its compartments, and a really scary noise began to rattle a bit in its hard drive.
"Um, Doctor?" Tina asked in worry as she stepped back from the machine in fright.
The Doctor merely smirked, then asked the Guide one last question. "What is the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything?"
"Erk..." said the Guide.
BOOOM!!!
After the smoke cleared, the Doctor emerged unscated, though a bit dusty. Tina looked down at the short man in wonder. "H-how did you do that?"
The Doctor looked up at the waitress and smiled. "Simple. That was the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, volume 2. Although much improved from the first version, it is still constructed from very inferior materials in order to keep its price down. Thankfully, it only has 128 megs of RAM, so it isn't very good at multitasking. I knew that by asking it to explain about various subjects, while it was trying to kill me, a catastrophic system crash would occur." The Time Lord looked down sadly at the remains of the Guide. "Bloody guide books are never very accurate... every explorer worth his salt knows that Arcturan Slther Beasts are found in the northern forests of Kamartha."
"Oh," said Tina simply. "Shouldn't we go after the little twit who gave you the package?"
"No," the Doctor's jovial look vanished, replaced by something colder and far more ancient. (i.e. his BADASS look) "This is merely a delaying tactic, much like the Mouth of God and the turtle robot nonsense. I think it's time we went directly to the source of this problem... I am looking forward to meeting this... Other..."
With that, the little man walked off. Tina followed with a shrug.
*********************************************
"How did he know who we are?'
"This is impossible."
"He should not have defeated our Guide so easily."
"Yes, that battle of wills should have taken at least three posts to overcome. He is not playing fair."
"Makoto and his friends are the main characters, aren't they? We can't have this cameo cross-over vagrant stealing the spotlight."
"We should kill him."
"We can't kill him, he's the Doctor! His legions of fans will gut us alive and say our round robin sucks if we do that."
"You're right... let us write him out of the picture then. Like we did Ishiel."
"Ew..."
"Not in a hentai way, fool. We should trap him in a dimensional vortex or something. Or maybe a time loop. Something Doctor Who-ish."
"Yes. If he's not going to play by the rules, then we shouldn't either. Just suck him into a Black Hole. Let him out when the story is over."
"Yes."
"Yes."
"YesYesYes."