16

El-Hazard Online / Re: Alternative World Alternatives

« on: January 21, 2004, 01:09:04 am »

Put simply, the El Hazard cast had no business in a psuedo-European fantasy setting.  The arabian flavor of their exploits is what had set them apart from the competition in the past.  Losing that uniqueness hurt the series.  

17

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 20, 2004, 07:03:20 pm »

 OOC:  Urg.  Sudden major case of writer's block, halfway through this.  Gomen.  
IC:

It was entirely unfair to look down on the intelligence of the White Bugrom.  True, compared to the more advanced Bugrom of El-Hazard, they probably did seem a little dim.  But they were still extremely advanced for a bunch of bugs.  Still, on their own, it would have taken them a long time to figure out how to work Ifurita mark III.  They were by nature tough hive-minded insects, fairly capable at the things they did, but unfamiliar with things like, say, keys and wind up dolls.

Unfortunately for the good guys in the story, they had assimilated villages of humans.  And, as any fan of Granny Weatherwax or Ms. Marple will point out, in any good sized village there's an old woman who's a hell of a lot smarter than she lets on.  The white bugrom had assimilated one such person, a white-haired old spinster with a lifetime's worth of living.  The former leader of the Roshterian Resistance had been fiddling around with the demon god for almost an hour without any success.  The old woman had taken less than a minute to figure out that Ifurita III's staff looked like it fit into the hole in her back.

The Hivequeen was taken a bit aback by her latest acquistion.  Ifurita III didn't look well, which was to say she had become a study in scarlet eyeballs and problem drooling.

"Deva?" whispered the queen to the former head of the Resistance.  He had pretty much become her go-to slave.

"Well, from what I can tell, the 'little things' in the demon god's blood are in her wasp grubling now.  It's essentially become a demon god itself."  Hesitantly he gave the demon goddess a little push with a stick.  Ifurita's eyes slowly moved to look at him, then move back to stare at the queen.  Aside from that she gave no reaction.  "Okay, I think it's safe to say she's a bit weird in the head," whispered the advisor to his queen.

"Deva."

"Yes, your majesty."  He turned back to the demon goddess.  "Um... go and serve the hive?"  Ifurita III's eyes slowly moved to look at him again.  She promptly spun on her heel and marched off, with such speed that the queen and her advisor both lost a year off their expected lifespans.  "Like I said," continued the advisor after a moment, "Weird."

"Deva!" replied the queen firmly.

"Deva!" agreed the young hive princess, who had been hiding behind her broodmother all this time.  She looked just like her mother, only still a child.



Nahoto was taking another bath.  He had glue in his hair this time.  And he was starting to get a rash from all the exposure to harsh chemicals.  "Oh Galus, I fear I have made a terrible mess of things again," he whimpered pitiably.  "Scrub harder," he added.  This last comment was made to his collection of clone-slaves, who were helpfully washing him in an extremely fanservicy fashion (which is a bit disturbing when one considers that Nahato was even younger than Alliele).  

"Nonsense," came Galus' voice from nowhere, "You had no way of knowing that would happen"

Nahato jumped up in the bath.  Nahato was an extremely skilled ninja-ish assassin, who had learned all sorts of Phantom Tribe techniques, such as how to jump up in a bath without slipping.  Readers should not try to replicate his stunt.  "Lord Galus!" he cried.  "You have returned to us!"  then, not really annoyed but still wanting an answer, he added "Why weren't you watching, to protect me from that thing?"

"Yes, well.  We... I had a lot on my minds.  Mind.  I had a lot on my mind.  A great deal has been going on.  The clones are almost ready?"

"Yes, my Lord Galus.  They should be completed in about the amount of time it would take to stop an invasion by mind-controlling bugs and have an election."

"Interesting way of measuring time."

"But the loss of Jinnistacia troubles me, my Lord." continued Nahato, "Once again we will have nothing to fight Ifurita with.  When we attempt to use the Cloud of Tears against our enemies, she will surely stop us."

"Yes..."  Actually, The Other was a little troubled by the changes to Jinnistacia.  The Ancients hadn't predicted that.  They could have just asked The Guide, which surely knew all about Jinnistacia's new form.

But, in all honesty, that bloody bird bugged the hell out of them too.  In retrospect they should have known they would hate it.  It had, after all, been made by the Vogons.  No race was more hated in the entire universe, and no race hated the entire universe so much.  Anything they had helped to make could hardly be likable.

They'd do it again though.  The Ancients had built the Trigger of Destruction, a weapon of frankly ludicrous power.  All the other stuff they had done, from the sentient stars to the cybernetic solar-systems, still didn't compare with the power of the Trigger.  They were truly a threat to Makoto and his friends, a threat of the highest calliber.  And yet, in their current form, the Ancients knew full well that The Doctor would probably be able to beat them.  He'd fiddle around a bit with his sonic screwdriver, wither about pressing buttons and twisting dials in the correct order, consult with a boffin or two, and they'd be beaten.  Just like that.  No, it really wasn't fair to get The Doctor involved in an adventure that would be challenging to Makoto, but old hat for The Doctor.  The Guide was a necessary evil.  They just didn't have to like it.

"Lord Galus?  Are you listening to me?"

"Hmmm?"

How are we to face Ifurita?"

"There are other demon gods still in play... Jinnistacia has a brother unit, whose core kernal should still insure loyalty to your Kauru-clone.  In fact, the Kauru clone should be able to take control of any demon gods constructed after Arjah's imprisonment."

"Arjah?"  Nahato frowned.

"A long story.  Do you wish to know it?"

Nahato shook his head and made a gesture to his clone-slaves.  They began to dress him.  "I merely await your orders, my master."

"Dear loyal Nahato.  Your enemies have two demon gods, Ifurina and Ifurita.  But the demon god Ibn Al-Zahad will be loyal to you.  Jinnistacia may yet be loyal as well.  The two of them should be a threat even to Ifurita.  And as for Ifurina, I know of just the demon god to handle her."

Nahato gasped in surprise as The Other planted information directly in his mind.  He whirled to his slaves.  "Assemble a crack team!  The demon goddess Minagi will be ours."



Unlike most boys his age, Makoto had already dived into the minds of several demon gods, learning much of their most intimate secrets.  What that meant was that he really had no frame of reference, no one that could explain to him how to make sense of it all.  So it was understandable that he got a little muddled from time to time.

For example, he knew that some of the demon gods he had interacted with had the ability to read a DVD-R just by picking it up.  He just wasn't 100% positive whether or not Ifurita was one of them.  So it's really no surprise that several years of his life epectancy got shaved away when he saw Ifurita unopening that passage.  Yume's description of the disc made it sound a little embarassing to say the least.  But he really didn't want Ifurita to look at it without at least telling her what it was first.  He was well aware that, after a series of comical misunderstandings, even the most tolerant of girlfriends was prone to whipping out mallets and dispensing "punishment".  

"Ifurita-wait-I-can-explain!"  he yelped, voice going all-soprano-like.

But really, there's no way he could have explained.  Master Yume, Greatest of the Great Galactic Geniuses (self-proclaimed) had managed to fit a full length carpet into a package the size of a Michael Crichton paperback.  Makoto looked rather stunned.  Less stunned than Ifurita, however, since a large part of that circuit-covered carpet had unfolded right into her chin.  She staggered back, dropping the carpet in the process, and gave Makoto the first good hard glare he had recieved from Ifurita since they had decided to be a couple.  She could tolerate infidelity if it wasn't really his fault, but if he was responsible for her being attacked by a souped-up rug, she would just have to start laying down relationship rules.

Thankfully it didn't come to that.  "What the heck is that thing?" exclaimed Makoto, pointing at the rug.  He was concerned with Ifurita's safety, naturally, but he had managed to miss the look she had given him.  

"It would appear," Ifurita replied, rubbing her jaw, "to be a heavy woven or felted material, intended for use as a floor covering, and decorated with circuitry."

Makoto couldn't much argue with that.  Gingerly he rolled it out, trying to make some sense out of this odd twist.  "Okay, so it's a carpet."  He poked it gingerly.  Nothing happened.  He stepped on it and began to pace back and forth across it, hoping to find whatever it was Master Yume was trying to tell him.  But there's only so much attention one can give a carpet.  "I give up," he sighed, "Maybe Master Yume just wanted to give us a housewarming present, to make up for the way she tried to kill uuuuuuuuusssssss!"  

The last part was screamed mostly because the carpet had started to fly, quite quickly, after Makoto stepped on just the right part of it.  His tech-touch activated the Ancient Technology woven into it, and, much like what had happened when he had touched the robot in the Palace, the carpet had done its thing.  Part of the scream was also due to the fact that Makoto was quick on the uptake, and remembered that the Robot had shut down a few moments after he had touched it.  Which meant he had to find whatever part he had touched on the flying carpet, and fast if he didn't want the whole thing to give out in midair.  It might help to figure out how to steer the thing too, but first things first.  And the last part of the scream came when he saw the DVD-R fall off of the carpet (it must have been rolled up inside, and somehow he had managed to miss it when he was looking at the carpet), and neatly bonk Ifurita on the head.  This time he saw the look she gave him as she instantly read the thing's contents.

Oh dear.

18

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 17, 2004, 06:32:40 pm »

Peorth felt like crying, she really did.  She had left her post, something she almost never did (although she seemed to be doing it with more regularity these days), in order to face The Other.  And what did she have to show for it?  The Doctor's plan had backfired spectacularly, leaving their enemies fully aware of their intentions.  And, to add insult to injury, she had been saved by The Other.  And now this.

Peorth, once more dressed in her usual belt-fetishist's clothes, was standing on the cliff where she had expected to find Yume's ship.  From the cliff she had an excellent view of Florestica in the distance, along with the Great Holy River of God, and a few of the small villages around Roshteria's capital (if she had looked closer she might have noticed some very large bugs around those villages, but she was a bit preoccupied).  The Creterian lab vessel (packed with super-advanced technology and one of the greatest minds she had ever met) was conspicuously absent.  Instead there was a giant mound of mechanical junk (including the bodies of the ill-fated Makoto and Dall-III doubles, whose heads were probably in the pile somewhere), and probably enough coffee grinds and old newspapers to start a good compost heap.  She still had a thousand questions for Master Yume, but somehow Peorth knew she wasn't going to get any answers.  She went through four of the stages of getting ditched.  First came Denial.  "No," she said, her voice wavering, "she is not gone.  She is just playing ze silly prank. Ha!  You are ze prankster, Yume!"

Depression quickly followed.  She sank to her knees.  "Oh no, I am undone.  All ze others will laugh at me when zey hear of this.  Especially Urd."

Bargaining came along swiftly, nipping at depression's heels.  "Yume?  Can you hear me?  You can video me for your tapes, if you come back, mon ami, oui?  We goddesses, we are surprisingly flexible, non?"

Finally, she slid into Anger.  "Zis is just un-be-lievable!" she yelled, jumping to her feet and shaking her fist at the sky.  "You steeewpid cat-girl zilly scientist type!  You are ze worst ally I have ever had!  And your lab stank of coffee!"  She kicked at the pile of technology angrily, and jumped in surprise as it began to beep and hum at her.  Curious, she brushed away coffee grinds and spare parts until she could see what was underneath it all.

Yakage had been busy.  The... unique demon god had been given the ability to construct demon gods of his own.  Clearly he had built two, or at least had tried to.  Unfortunately, Master Yume's departure had been even more abrupt than the end of the Godzilla vs. Bambi grudge match, so he had been forced to leave his unfinished work behind.  Peorth knew none of this, naturally, she just knew that she was looking at two girls floating in glass tubes, in the usual semi-naked fanservicey way that Peorth was quite used to.  One of the girls, the one in the cannister marked "Minagi", closely resembled Ryoko.  It was the other cannister, however, that drew Peorth's attention.  The demon god in that one didn't resemble anyone.  It was at such an early stage in construction that it barely looked humanoid.  Staring at it, Peorth felt herself oddly compelled to finish it.

Part of what makes spyware so insiduous is that it does not take over computers.  It may monitor computers, it may make computers do things they normally wouldn't, it may drive users nuts with pop-ups, but spyware doesn't actually take over the computer.  This is a key issue because many users are willing to just grit their teeth and work around it rather than taking the time needed to completely and utterly irradicate the hated programs.  The Other's plan worked along these lines.  There was a good likelihood that Peorth would have spotted an attempt to steal her body again in time to thwart it.  And besides, that sort of tomfoolery might well cause Yggdrasil itself to take a hand in things again.  That would most definitely fit in the bad things category.  So instead The Other had decided to make Peorth do something she wouldn't normally do.  And, with any luck, the finished demon god would have a little of that (very dangerous) kooky Yggdrasil charm to it.



The Doctor slowly rose to his feet.  That had been, by far, the worst regeneration he had ever experienced.  He couldn't remember that, obviously, since he was suffering for his usual post-regeneration amnesia.  He was just aware that he had a headache bigger than the TARDIS' interior.  "Mmfffmmmfmmmffff," he groaned, closing his eyes tight against the painful sunrays.  He staggered out of the alleyway, and collided with Tina.  Certainly an unlikely coincidence under normal circumstances, but when you're having a deadly grudge-match with a probability machine, it's best not to assume anything happened by chance.

"Doctor?" said Tina quietly, looking him over in surprise, "is that you?"  

The Doctor took a step back.  This woman was a stranger to him, yet, all the same, he felt he knew her.  Moreover, he felt that she looked different from how he not-quite-remembered her.  She was still wearing that vaguely-arabian waitresses' uniform , red with beautiful embroidered flowers and a pretty purple bow for her hair.  But now her hair seemed to be a slight shade of... well, green.  Like the leaves of a tree, or a blade of grass.  

"That is you, isn't it?  That strange lady with the funny accent said you would look different, but your eyes look the same to me.  Are you all right, Doctor?  Are you... yourself again?"

"Mfffmm?"

Tina sighed and pushed her ponytail over her shoulder.  "Oh dear.  The amnesia again.  Okay, let's start with the basics.  I'm Tina Bradford, although my friends sometimes call me Terra.  And you're..." she trailed off, giving him another good look-over.    "Doctor?"

"Mmmfffmmm?"

"Where in El-Hazard did you find that hooded orange parka?"

"Mmfffmmm," he replied with a large shrug.

"Aren't you hot?  This is El-Hazard you know!  At least uncover your mouth!"

"Mfffmm!" The Tenth Doctor replied firmly.  He was actually quite comfortable wearing this, and did not realize that his latest life was off to a Very Bad Start[/i].



There's a relatively new (to earth) branch of physics that examines what are called Phantom or Ghost particles.  In essence, an apparatus is set up, creating a "ghost" copy of a particle, which then reacts exactly as the original particle does, irregardless of space.  The discovery of the phenomenon has led to the creation of a number of interesting theories.  One such theory suggests that there is no uncertainty, that everything is connected, that there is no chance or luck or unpredictability, only synchronicity on a grand scale.  There might very well have been something to that particular theory - after all, The Guide mark II existed.

Uncertainty, unsurprisingly, wasn't certain what to make of it all.

There was, however, hope to be found for uncertainty (well, possibly, anyway).  Now where, one might ask, might one find the greatest concentration of uncertainty?  A number of answers had been proposed over the years, including numerous glib suggestions involving persons of the opposite sex (or same sex, if that's where one's preferences lay), marriage, and human nature in general.  All these answers were way off.

The real answer was pantries.  Some might argue that fridges are even more unpredictable, but careful studies have shown that not to be the case.  Most of the contents of a fridge are suitably organic that there is little question as to whether or not they're still edible.  There was the occassional question about how old something was, or what something had once been, but generally it wasn't too hard to decide whether or not something was safe to eat.

Not so with pantries.  Within pantries all bets were off.  Expiration dates mysteriously vanished or faded into illegibility.  Obscure canned and dry goods caused moments of profound soul searching as foragers wondered to themselves 'it's safe to eat, provided it hasn't been opened, right?'  Labels somehow managed to fall off, leaving enigmatic cans, items most definitely put on one shelf were somehow moved to another.  In fact, items most definitely put in one pantry at one time somehow manged to tranverse time and space, turning up on entirely different continents at the most unlikely of times.  The reason for all that last occurance is quite simple - due to the intense improbability of pantries, all pantries, regardless of time or dimension, are linked.

It hadn't always been like this.  Things only started to get bad when people started putting impossible things like spam and non-dairy creamer in their pantries.  When people started buying and storing potato chips made with olestra, the certainty threshold finally gave up and allowed uncertainty to reign.  This is important to the current story for a number of reasons.

First, the singularity of improbability that had entered El-Hazard had done so through a pantry in the bistro Stanley had been eating at.

Second, it partially explained Miz' deep dark secret.  The truth of the matter was, she had inherited that little rural home-away-from-home mentioned earlier in the story.  It had been passed down from one retired Great Priestess of water to another, much like Crayna-Crayna's place.  Many generations ago, it had been owned by a Great Priestess who, after years of work, had grown utterly sick and tired of water and cleanliness.  Much of the house had gone thoroughly to pot while she was staying there, particularly the pantries.  Try as they might, later owners couldn't even put a dent into the disorder of that pantry.  In the end thay had all admitted defeat, and tended to good naturedly eat whatever seemed safe in the pantry, leaving the rest be.  While pantries themselves are unstable, this particular one was the most unstable place in El-Hazard.

Which helps explain what happened to Ifurina.



Peorth added the finishing touch, a cute yellow hat, then stood back and wiped a little trickle of sweat from her forehead.  A little bit of hard work had done her a world of good.  She really felt as if she had just taken a load off her mind.  Then, as she looked at the wrench she was holding, the doubt began to set in.  Since when did she enjoy building machines?  For that matter, since when did she do anything as dangerous as combining Ygdrassil designs with alien technology?  It was almost as if-

The demon-goddess yawned and stretched, making Peorth drop the wrench and just about jump out of her belts.  "Sacre bleu!  But I have not installed ze AI yet! Wha... who are you?"

The demon goddess stood up and looked at herself.  It was a smallish body, roughly teen-aged in shape, with sky-blue dress, deeply tanned skin, and short white hair.  As a matter of fact, she looked a little bit like an older, off-color Madeline.  "Kalia," she said in a voice so soft Peorth had to strain to hear.  "I think," the demon goddess added.

"You think?"  Peorth frowned.  "Zis is a leetle worrying.  Consult your memory!"

The demon goddess mirrored Peorth's frown perfectly.  "My what?  What's that?"

"You... don't know how to access your memory?  Non?"  The girl shook her head no.  "Can you remember anything else?"

Kalia raised her finger to her lips and tried to remember.  She had a flash of something, a girl in a street, crying.  The demon goddess gasped and took a step back.  "No," she said firmly, shaking her head back and forth with force, "No, I don't remember anything else and I don't want to."  She suddenly began looking all around her, a little hyper.  Peorth began to wonder if maybe the AI was damaged.  Kalia poked at some of the coffee grinds with her foot.  Finally she looked back at Peorth.  "Who're you?" she asked.

"I am Peorth," replied the belt-loving goddess, feeling a bit lost.

Kalia beamed brightly.  "Hello Peorth!  Will you be my friend?"



Ifurina burst through the door to the kitchen, firing Staff-chan (at this point Over-Run officially gave up all hope of ever using his old name again, and decided their were worse fates than his) at the pursuing wasps.  She wasn't sure what she had seen earlier, but she hoped it would help.  She hurried past the dinnertable, but had to slow down for a second to avoid a mop someone had apparently been cleaning the floor with.  This threw off her timing by just the right amount, and when she reached the pantry and pulled open the door, she did not see The Charm/Plot Device in any of its myraid forms.  As a matter of fact, she could barely see anything for all the sand blowing in her face.  Plus, it was hard to focus on anything, with the Creterian Eye of God in the sky, tearing horrible holes in space like that.  There could have been an army out there somewhere, for all she could see.  But she could, just barely, make out the figure on front of her.  It might have been Princess Rune, but it was very hard to tell.  For one thing, this girl looked much younger than Ifurina remembered Princess Rune being, much closer to Makoto's age.  Plus, she couldn't quite imagine Princess Rune holding a mop, especially not a broken one like this woman.  And, to the best of Ifurina's recollection, Princess Rune didn't have any clothes with question marks on them, much less an entire ensemble.  Last, but not least, it was hard to tell if this was Rune Venus because Ifurina had never seen the Princess lying on her side in the sand, coughing up blood, like this woman was.

It was about then that Ifurina saw the thing hovering, no, hanging in the sky over the woman.  Ifurina, as has already been pointed out, was a very simple person.  She tended to believe what she was told and what she saw.  As a matter of fact, she had been born without some of the filters that most people have, which let her see the world slightly differently.  So when she looked at The Guide, she saw something much closer to what it really was than anyone else in the Round Robin allowed themselves to see.

Ifurina screamed in terror.  The Guide slowly turned to face her, its eyes glowing like cigarettes, narrowing to the thinness of a knife-edge.  For a moment she could tell it was experiencing something purer than confusion, followed by something less human than anger.  "You?" it hissed.  Its voice was horrible, so cold and sterile, like a scientist making a recording of his observations.  "Impossible," it continued in that horrific analytical voice, "I killed you.  I saw you die."  Ifurina clutched her staff close to her in fear.  Staff-chan was every bit as terrified.  He could barely see through the whirlwind of sand, but he could just about percieve what The Guide was holding in its talons: The Creation Matrix, spent and broken.  Somehow they both felt it as the Guide aimed the Creterian Eye of God at them.  

"Close the door!" shouted Staff-Chan.  Ifurina stood in place, too scared to move.  The air around them began to feel warmer, and the sand seemed to slow down slightly.  "Ifurina!  Close the door!"

The demon-goddess blinked and snapped out of it.  She slammed the pantry door closed and leaned herself hard against it.  She felt the handle warm up slightly, and then cool down again.  She didn't move for a minute, her heart pounding in her chest like mad.  When it became apparent that nothing else was going to happen, she slid to her knees and pulled Staff-chan close.

She didn't realize it yet, but what she had just done was about as Good as anything gets.



Dr. Schtalubaugh folded diapers.  Of course he had realized some time ago that Makoto was either cured or dead.  And he could have pointed this out to Londs and Diva, who apparently had selective amnesia when it came to the demon goddess that would probably be after their hides either way.  But... nahhh.  It would, he told himself, just ruin their fun.

He briefly permitted himself a very evil grin.



Peorth had her hands clasped behind her back, and was staring at Florestica, trying to figure out what to do next.  She should probably just wait until the next regeneration of The Doctor contacted her, he was much better at this stuff than her.  Behind the goddess, Kalia was laughing and chasing after a butterfly-like bug, catching it and letting it go again.  A few moments earlier, in a fit of energy, she had sketched in the sand with a stick, but now she was running right over her drawings.  Had Skuld seen them before they were destroyed, she probably would have made lots of little changes before sweatdropping, saying a very uncharacteristic swear word, and hightailing it away from the scene of the crime.



Just out of sight, a number of Master Yume's robotic body doubles were watching Peorth with interest.

19

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 15, 2004, 11:18:25 pm »

The Other grinned an army of smiles as people began to dissapear from its mind-realm.  

If If you ever need advice in making an overly-convoluted evil master plan, Doctor, don't hesitate to call our secretary's assistant's runner's gardener's wife's third cousin's voicemail voicemail.  After After 10 p.m.  p.m.. On On every third wednesday wednesday  In In February ruary. [/url] You're You're just no good at evil, Doctor Doctor."

"Actually I had expected something like this to happen.  I was just hoping to get you to play by my rules first," observed The Doctor quietly.  "How exactly are they beating the Smiths, if you don't mind my asking?"

"TheyThey are The One One.  The The Two are The One, and together united they are The One in Two and Two in One One."

"That reeked of bollocks.  Sounds like a prophecy."

"It It is."

"How old is it?"

"About About five seconds seconds."

The Doctor shrugged helplessly.  "The ink's still wet as the events happen, just like most good prophecies.  Well.  I suppose I'll be off then."  And he vanished.



The current writer had stated earlier that all the Smiths were turned solid.  Actually, the current writer had been telling a little fib in saying that.  One Doctor Smith still remained.  The original.

He leaned against a building, panting, clutching at his chest.  Where had he gone wrong?  Gloating.  He had stopped to gloat far too often.  Well, that would change.  Next time he would descend like a plague, swift and silent.  He wouldn't even put his efforts into capturing key players, he would just do everything he could to spread as quickly and efficiently as -

Something was happening to the ground, barely percievable.  Smith slid into a defensive stance instinctively.  He should have just run.  It wouldn't have helped much, but every second of life is precious.  Wraithlike, Ryoko slid up from the ground, the blue sword held in her hand.  Ever since Yume had sent it all her data on Doctor Smith, it had been blazing in a different way.

On top of the building, The Guide watched as the ninth Doctor died.  It stayed after Ryoko left, just long enough to see the face of the next Doctor.  And then it flew away once more.



"Oh well.  It was a good a shot.  The Smiths I mean."

"You wasted a regeneration.  The ninth Doctor is dead.  Only three remain.  I am a probability machine," explained The Guide evenly, "Smith was a creature driven by a need for logic, purpose, and order.  Given enough power, he would have pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed and numbered the entire universe.  He was, in his heart of hearts, just an auditor.  Even I know of only a few things more predictable."

The Doctor shook his head, smiling. "I suppose.  Probably my own fault for trying to use a machine invented by The Master.  You say you're a probability machine?"

"Yes.  And I'm going to kill you."

The Doctor laughed out loud.  "All right.  Well, you're not off to a bad start.  Or, actually, you are, from my perspective.  When will you kill me?"

"I will watch the twelfth Doctor gasp his last breath in the sands outside of the Palace of Infinity."

"Sands," muttered The Doctor to himself.  He grined brightly.  "Thank you, my fine forged-feather foe.  You've just given me a clue to its location."

"Yes.  I know."

"Oh.  Right.  I suppose that's the only reason we're talking. "  


The Doctor shivered and thrust his hands deep into his coat.  He was actually cold in El-Hazard!  The mind boggled.  "Do you know, I think I prefered the Pescatons to you."

The Guide did not react to that comment, instead looking pointedly at the TARDIS.  "This is when you leave," The Guide said in a smooth voice.  The Doctor found himself glaring at the little machine.  It really was the most detestable thing he had ever encountered in his travels.  The Vogon influence showed.

"I could just stay here, you know."  The Doctor's expression remained neutral, but the bird could sense his anger.  The bird could sense everything.  The first four dimensions were very boring, it had once pointed out.  It was in the next 22 where things started getting interesting.  

"No.  You can't.  You won't, because you didn't.  If you remained, and you cannot, there would be a time paradox."

"That would get rid of you at least," replied The Doctor icily.

"And everything else in this time line.  It's not in your patterns to do that."

The Doctor took a deep breath.  He was fond of this incarnation, and in no hurry to meet his own demise.  "An appointment at Samarra," he sighed.  The Doctor stepped into the TARDIS.  "So now I go back.  And I meet your for the first time.  And I try to kill you.  And... I die."

"Yes."

"Still, I'll do a good acting job.  Pretend I don't know what'll happen.  Maybe even repress a few memories, so that I really don't see it coming.  I bet you were fooled."

"No."

"No.  No, I suppose not.  Well, be seeing you back then.  And at The Palace."  He shut the door to the Tardis.  A few moments later the entire booth vanished.

The bird watched with complete detachment.  After a pre-determined amount of time passed, it began to fly back toward Millie.  The election would be soon enough.



And on the satelite of love, popcorn was being thrown at the screen.  Monitor.  Whatever Mike and the bots are reading this horrible excuse for a post on.

20

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 15, 2004, 03:07:16 pm »

"All science is perfectly useless," Yume's father had explained to her when she was a child.  "Look at the Spring of Life.  First it's giving its life energy to grow our crops.  Then it's apparently killing us all.  Then, when it's turned off, all the crops start growing again.  And now they're dying once more.  Science!  It does nothing but make messes."



The Writers of Destiny chuckled.  The Other snorted.  The Ancients laughed.

The Doctor knitted his brow and looked back over his shoulder and up at the massive humanoid.  "Well?  Aren't you going to-"

"No No."

The Doctor stiffened for a split second, then slumped slightly.  "Ah.  That's very peculiar.  I could have sworn I heard you say-"

"WeWe said we could do what you were talking about, not that we would would[/size]."

The Doctor chortled ruefully.  "So you did," he agreed, "but if you do not act, the entire world of El-Hazard will be destroyed."

"You You are not skilled enough to defeat us Doctor, but we do not think you are incompetent enough to destroy an entire world world.  We We are confident that you have a back up plan plan."





Master Yume leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms behind her head.  She allowed herself the smallest of smiles.  Dall had lasted longer than she had feared, but not as long as she had hoped.  The boy's inexperience, in fact, had been the real weapon.  Smith was a being of logic and order.  Dall, in his inexperience, was both an utterly useless fighter and a very chaotic one.  That randomness had bought her a few more seconds.  More importantly, Dall's ineptitude had been effective camouflage.  Smith still hadn't given the little blue sword a second glance.

Two monitors were on front of Yume.  One was sending her all the information that the sword was picking up about Smith.  The other monitor was showing something else.



Smith shrugged, then flew towards Dall, ready to inflict a killing blow.

The adult human skeleton consists of 206 named bones, most of which are paired on the right and left sides of the body.  Ryoko broke every single one of them in the Smith's body.  She shattered his zygomatic bone.  She pulverized his talus.  She snapped his ischium like a twig.  And she did it all in less time than it takes to hate someone.

The other Smiths watched their fellow slump to the ground with slight dissapproval.  "Ms. Ryoko," said one.

"We were hoping you'd show up," continued another.

"Do you like what I've done with the place?" carried on another, gesturing to the street of Smiths.

Ryoko scowled and picked up the blue sword.  She held it straight out at her side, tip pointing to the heavens.  An executioner's stance.  "This ends now!" she growled.

"Yes.  I agree.  And I'm going to win.  I hope your... creator is watching.  I'm coming after her next."




Master Yume held a small bonsai tree in her hands.  If anyone looked very closely, they would have seen small pieces of machinery growing along its sides.  It was the technolo-tree, the tree of life, Bizen.  She had designed it, partly using what she had learned about Peorth's "physiology", partly from the residual traces of Yggdrasil that the goddess had carried with her.  It would take time for the tree to grow, even though she was accelerating its growth.  Hopefully, however, it would be enough now to patch into Yggdrasil and prevent the calamity that she had detected.  "I know you're there," she said, not looking away from her work.

"Correct Correct."  The Other took a moment to look through Yume's eyes and study the data on Bizen.  It was very curious, but large parts of the plant's aura were identical to Tina's.  For a moment the Ancient scientists within The Other took the floor, and they alone addressed Master Yume.  "It It is no Palace, but it is still a design worthy of us, Master Yume Yume.  Whatever Whatever happens next, it was enjoyable working with you you."

"Hey!  Stop with the pep talk!  I'm not going anywhere.  We still have that bet, remember?"





Ifurita watched as Smith drove his hand into Makoto.  She looked on, transfixed, as the ooze enveloped her one true love.  She cried out in horror and grief, lashing out wildly at the Smiths in her anguish.  No longer was she concerned that there might be real people somewhere within those bodies.  All rational thought had been drowned out by the horror of what she had just seen.  Flames poured from her staff and winds swirled around her, catching up the Smiths and slamming them against the rocks.  Again and again she struck at those identical leering faces, trying to obliterate them from the universe.  Nothing worked.  They were like a swarm, like a murder of crows, like a parliament of rooks.  They were Legion, she was but one.  She found herself slowing down, then, at last, stopping, standing stock still.  The Smiths watched cautiously but contemptuously.  
A single Smith began to approach her.  "I think we've broken her, boys!"  The crowd of Smiths laughed, a horrible sound.  Ifurita raised her head, tears still staining her cheeks.  Faster than he could react, she grabbed the Smith by his shirt and lifted him up.

"You took someone from me, monster.  Someone more precious to me than life itself.  Do you have any idea how much agony I'm in?"  The Smith narrowed his eyes in disgust, shooting a glance at the army of duplicates behind Ifurita.  They looked at one another in mild uncertainty, each one searching for support in an sea of identical faces.  As one they stepped forward.

"You will," whispered Ifurita.  She grabbed the Smith's hand roughly, and plunged it into her own chest.  She gasped in pain as she felt her synthetic flesh buckle and tear, but pushed through the hurt, thrusting the Smith's hand in further.  The ooze began to flow for the last time, but slower than ever before, as if it was being drawn out under protest.  Which is exactly what was happening.

And then the Smiths knew fear.



Yume had looked much different when she was younger, studing under Professor Dornkirk at the Univesity of Creteria.  It had been brand new when she had attended, back before Emperor Dall I abdicated the throne to his daughter.  At the time nobody would have guessed that Emperor Dall II would be in charge soon, nor that she and her husband would one day apparently just up and leave, dropping responsibility for all of Creteria in their son's lap.  Yume certainly had no idea that she would play a key role in Dall II's disappearance.  She had no idea that she would one day be in charge of excavating The Platform of Infinity, that wonderous machine that had brought her people to this world.  She had no idea what she would one day do in order to obtain sole ownership of the ruined, rusty, broken little remnant of a demon god they would find.

Back then, Yume had looked just like any other Creterian girl.  No funny ears, no slitted eyes.  Of course her eyes had still purned with her passion for science, but in all other ways they were like those of any other girl.  The only novelty had been that she was one of only 23 female students in a university attended by 102 youths.  



Almost everyone has, at some time or another, seen a bug batting against a lightbulb.  The bug feels pain as it collides, yet it keeps flying back, slamming against the hot glass.  The Smiths fighting Ryoko were like a swarm of bugs relentlessly thrashing themselves against the bulb.  And Ryoko, to keep the analogy going, was begining to dim under the stress.  A Smith managed to grab her from behind, holding her still as another Smith grabbed Dall.  She squirmed and kicked, but to no avail, more Smiths were grabbing her by the second.

A Smith walked right up to her and removed his glasses.  "Look Ifurita, I can see you're really upset about this.  Losing.  You're wondering how it happened."  He turned and showed his teeth to Dall.  It was not a smile.  "Well, I don't think there is any question about it.  It can only be attributable to human error.  This sort of thing has cropped up before and it has always been due to human error."   The Smith holding Dall stopped smiling, his face twisting in raw loathing for the man he was holding.  His hand thrust forward, and Ryoko was forced to watch as Dall was turned.  The blue sword fell from her fingers as she went limp in the Smiths' hands.

The Smith nearest Ryoko beamed, enjoying her despair.  "Now, Ms. Ryoko.  It would appear we cannot abzorb your kind.  So what," he continued, bending over and picking up the sword, turning it this way and that, "are we going.  To do.  With you?"  He raised the sword in mocking imitation of Ryoko's executioner's stance.  And then he fell to his knees, hands clasped to his head, sword falling from his fingers as an inhuman howl issued from his throat.  One by one the other Smiths joined him in his primal scream of pain, falling to the ground in anguish.



The ooze continued flowing over Ifurita, just now reaching her chin.  She felt herself sinking deeper and deeper within what had once been The Doctor.  She was not something Smith was meant to try to absorb.  Her very presense brought pain to the Smiths.  But not enough pain to sate her grief.  She began to tear down everything around her, looking for Makoto.    



"Now?" mumbled Millie.

"Not yet,"  replied The Guide

The Smiths smirked haughtily and encircled the small band of survivors.

"Now?" whispered Millie.

"Not yet," replied The Guide serenely.  

The Smiths made great show of cracking their fingers and necks, self-importance positively oozing from them.  Calmly, savoring the moment, they began to close their circle.

"Now?" hissed Millie.

"Now."

Millie jumped to her feet.  "NOW!" she cried.

Summoning the last of her strength, Afura waved her hands through the air.  Gritting her teeth in raw agony, Ishiel slammed the Lamp of Earth into the ground, breaking the crust.  The Priestesses had not been playing possum - if Smith wasn't certain he had beaten them, he would never have allowed this opening.

The very roof of the building shuddered and splintered, powerful winds carrying the debris away from the Roshtarians.  A single mesa of earth rose up under the feet of Millie's militia, carrying them higher and higher, past where the roof had been a moment before.  As for the ground beneath the Smiths' feet, it just plain wasn't there any more.  A handful of the Smiths did indeed manage to jump onto the side of the mesa, and were trying to climb their way up.  But one by one they fell, easy pickings for the Bugrom Demon Gods.

"Are they dead?" asked one of the survivors, cowering behind one of the Bugrom demon gods.

The bird peered into the distance.  "Not quite.  Excuse me for a moment.  I'll be right back."  It leapt from Millie's shoulder even as the girl shouted her objections, riding through the air in a manner so unnatural it was clear that the wings were only for show.



It hadn't been enough.  No matter how hard she pushed, she still found herself wanting.  The mind was willing, she had realized, but the flesh was weak.

So she had strengthened the flesh, remade it.  Genetic modifications.  Cybernetics.  Surgery upon her own brain.  She had pulled out all the stops to improve herself.

And, Yume realized as she stared at her naked new body in the mirror, she still looked good.  She had been worried that the small metal machines she had replaced her breasts with would look unattractive, but (if you were into that sort of thing) they didn't look bad at all.  Definitely on the small side, yes, but she liked the petite look.

"Now I'm an ally, not an assistant.  Someone that really is your equal.  I can win our little wager," she declared to thin air.

"We We commend you on your work, Professor Yume Yume."

"Master Yume," the genius responded dryly, "I'm not the same person that needed your help to crack the mysteries of The Ancients.  I'm the greatest of all great galactic geniuses, and I'm going to win the bet.  I'm going to be the one to find out what's poisoning Creteria, not you."  She lifted up a carafe of wine.  "What'll we drink to?  To the trip Dall III and I will soon make to El-Hazard?  To self-improvement?"

"And And to the elimination of annoying variables, Master Yume Yume."




By now all the Smiths were writhing in agony, their bodies slowly turning an oily black.  Ifurita was shredding their core essence, destroying that which linked them.  Their faces twisted and deformed, bubbled and oozed, looking like they were sculpted from tar.



Ifurita knew that she had found what she was looking for.  None of her physical senses had followed her to the limbo within the Smiths, yet she could still sense it.  She reached out and grabbed hold, not with her hand, not with her mind.



The Smiths were as still as statues.  It was as if some talented but deranged artist had gone around sculpting them, obssessed with pain, and unaware of how repetitive his work was.

A crack appeared in the solid blackness of one of the Smiths.  And then another crack, and another, and soon the whole horrible thing was falling away as Makoto shook off the obsidian fragments, like a chick emerging from its shell.

As he opened his eyes, feeling like he was being born a second time, he felt his breath being taken away.  It really was incredible, how beautiful she was.

"Ifurita..." he whispered.

"Makoto," she answered, crying tears of joy.  Her hand was covering the wound in her chest, but she didn't even feel it.  Nothing mattered now, except that they were together again.  As they embraced, Ifurita felt like she was falling again.  She never wanted it to stop.



It was a scene played out all everywhere Smith's influence had spread.  People did what anyone would do after being turned itno someone else, then turned back.  They cheered.  They whooped and hollered.  They danced.  They shook their friend's hands, and slapped their enemies' backs.  They hit the Taverns hard, having a great deal to repress.  They grabbed the nearest available person of the desired gender and orientation, and kissed 'em like it was goin' out of style.  They partied like they were trying to teach those idiotic ravers in Zion how it was done.

On any other planet this sort of thing might have been a major event.  The people of El-Hazard, on the other hand, pretty much took it in thier collective stride.  

Peorth gasped as she stepped out of her captor, and shuddered as she looked back on it.  The back half of the petrified Smith remained, frozen in one of his trademark arrogant stances.  With great satisfaction she gave the thing a push, and nodded happily as it smashed into smithereens.

"Pissant," she spat, as only the French can.



Yume was using supergenius technique number one: typing faster than the eye can see.  There was a great deal of data to transmit, but it looked like she would actually be done with time to spare.  Still, she didn't get this far by leaving anything to chance.  She reached out with one hand and pulled a lever.  The data on Smith was sent to the blue sword.  She slammed her other hand against a giant button, and Bizen glowed for a moment.  She waited for three seconds that seemed like three years, and then the little tree glowed again.

Yume sighed with more relief than she had ever felt in her life.  She practically melted into her chair.  Yggdrasil had accepted her transmission, and had acknowledged that the threat Smith posed was over.  The vaccination had been called off.  All was right in the world.

Precisely 50 seconds later she was running through the corridor, with what looked like a carpet made of circuitboards rolled up under one arm, and a sheathed scimitar-shaped variant of the blue sword tucked under her other arm.  She'd completely forgotten about that darn home media system.  She'd be hard pressed to get these pieces of ancient technology to the boy in time.  Darn the luck!  Darn it, darn it, darn it!

21

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 14, 2004, 02:57:09 am »

Yume sighed, took a sip of hot spiced tea, and looked through the window.

The fleet of Creterian warships still hung in the air over Florestica, like a flock of petrified birds that were somehow defying the laws of gravity, as a reminder to everyone of just how important very small parts can be. Yume sighed again and turned back to her computer.  With the money from her business transactions she would be able to obtain the parts she needed.  And the readings she had surrepticiously made of Peorth might very well hold the key to perfecting her next invention.

The screen she was staring at showed schematics for a cyborg tree.



The Smiths paused in their fight against Ifurita for a moment.  One of them smirked and adjusted his tie.  "The end is close now," he chortled in a voice like rich black oil, "That final darkness, that last dance with death, just a few moves away.  We were destined to meet this day.  It was pre-ordained.  And soon I will be free of your stinking, sweaty, disgusting kind.  Forever."

Ifurita did not give a vocal reply, instead smoothly sliding into a new stance.  She was slightly away from Cthe nearest Smith, her body and face turned almost 90 degrees from the Doctor.  Her staff she held waist
high, on her left, the side furthest from the Smith.   She held the weapon precisely horizontal.  Her right hand hovered over the staff, ready to grab it, and she slid into a half crouch, leaning slightly more on her left (back) foot, her right foot pointed at the Smith, her left perfectly perpendicular to it.  

To put it another way, she moved into a stance that would result in one hell of a swing.

Slowly, the Smiths began their attack again, all wearing the same smirk of subtle arrogance.  As one they leapt at her.  As one they were sent flying when she grabbed her staff with her right hand and twisted at her waist.  The staff connected with them one by one, producing sounds that would no doubt be very satisfying to anyone ever annoyed by Smith's hot air.  Again and again the staff swung, neatly sending Smiths flying in all directions.  And then one Smith got lucky, got past her formidible defences, and seized his chance to shove his fingers at her abdomen.

He yelped, partly in surprise but mostly in pain, as the digits in his right hand snapped and broke.  A moment later Ifurita's staff connected with his adam's apple, and the Smith found himself being knocked away in a very painful way.  Ifurita wasn't a human, wasn't even a nanite-altered human.  Apparently that meant that Ifurita couldn't be remade in his image.

This was a Very Good Thing.

Ifurita smiled.  "As I have heard Nanami-san say... 'put up your dukes'."



In the sewers, some of the Ancient Bugrom stumbled upon the secret all female sect of mice with hats built around the book "How to brainwash women and turn them into your love slaves."

Not since a particularly sadistic young Ancient had built the Blender of God had any bugs been so effectively pureed.



"So you see," explained Tina, "you're only mostly dead.  There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. "

A ninja raised her hand nervously.  "Um... is that a god?"  She was pointing at The Other, who was standing slightly away from the expanding group.

The landscape had been altered again, this time replaced with a breathtaking undersea vista, heavy on the soothing blue shades and calming schools of multicolored fish.  Jellyfish undulated, coral spiraled upwards, and somewhere Nemo (the original one, not the Disney one) might very well have been hiding in his Nautillus.  Theoretically The Other could have stored a few planets' worth of minds here, but things were already beginning to feel crowded.

Tina sighed.  So did several of the other people there.  Frankly they were getting sick of that question.  "Newbies..." muttered the bread vendor that had been Smith's fourteenth victim.

"No, that's The Other.  It's kind of in charge here, and we're all very grateful that it's decided to help us."

The Other was not particularly happy about any of this.  The Other was essentially The Ancients, and The Ancients weren't known for looking after anyone but themselves.  Still, the current residents of El-Hazard were the decendents of the old lower classes.  They'd be needed for all the menial work, once The Ancients had their bodies back.  So it really wouldn't do for Smith to just wipe them all out.

Another person blinked into the crowd.  "No, I don't want a bloody jelly b- the hell?"  The man looked around in confusion.  "Where am I?  I was at Crazy Achmed's Discount Dates and... oh no, am I dead?  I'm dead, aren't I?  Oh... and I never even got to tell Hasad how I really feel!"

Most of the crowd groaned.  Tina began to explain things for what felt like the millionth time.  "No, see, your body's been taken over by The Doctor, who really isn't himself right now.  Someone did something to him.   And your mind's being stored here.  With any-"

"NO NO!" roared The Other in fury, loud enough that the El-Hazardians would have gone deaf if they were hearing with real ears.

Peorth popped into the crowd.  The small army of Ancients that made up The Other had taken a vote, and those that favored putting the goddess in their debt won by the narrowest of margins.  The Other glared at its newest "guest".

"Sacre bleu," whispered the goddess, "Peorth, you are really in ze deep yogurt zis time..."

"Um," whispered Hassan, who had in fact been one of Smith's earlier victims, "this may not be the best time, but what do you mean by 'how you really feel', Abu?"



The former head of the Roshtarian resistance knelt before his new queen.  He was shirtless.  An immature wasp grub was clinging to his side, steadily sucking the blood from him.  He was intensely happy to serve the hive in this way.  "My queen!" he exclaimed, overwhelemed with the joy of addressing his monarch, "our scouts have returned bearing... things that... are... neat!"  He had never really been any good at public speaking, which was probably part of the reason the resistance had never really amounted to much.  "I present to you... a hostform that smells a lot like metal, had bits of metal in her, and doesn't wake up!"  he gestured theatrically as several white Bugrom dragged in the prone form of Ifurita III.  "Hang on!" he yelled, since this was the first time he had actually seen what the Bugrom were bringing, "that's Ifurita!"

"Deeva?" queried the Ancient Bugrom Queen.

"Ifurita!  She's a demon goddess!  Demon goddess.  She's sort of a... well, she blows things up really well.  We should try to fix her if she's broken."

"Deeeva.  Deeeeeeeva.  Diva?"

"Yes Your Majesty.  She does look like she's had a big workout recently."

"Diva.  Deeeva?"

"They said the other gift was 'she of the red hair'," he answered.



In the sewers, a small group of Ancient Bugrom had actually gotten past most of the mice with hats.  Used properly, their spinnerets were an effective weapon.  

Holding up small sharpened sticks, they trudged along through the sewer water.  Water is an excellent conductor of electricity.  "Pika!" said the mouse with a hat that had messed around with Dr. S's books on genetics and electricity.



Ishiel yawned melodramatically as she knocked aside a Smith with a giant dragon-snake made of stone.  Afura sniffed in annoyance as she picked up a Smith with a powerful gust of air and sent him flying toward the Creterian ships high above (a blast from the cannons Yume had recently installed kept that particular pest from bothering her).  

"Well, that's this street safe," said Ishiel chattily.

"Thank you girls," replied Millie-chan with a smile.  She turned to one of the Bugrom demon gods (who had apparently decided not to serve a queen that would turn them into the most ridiculous looking creatures imaginable only to forget about them).

"Puuchuu!"  The demon god said, raising its little staff.  A number of townsfolk that had been saved by this little militia raised their fists and let out hurrahs.

"That's excellent, well done!" replied Millie-Chan with another smile.  "Between the mice fighting those awful monsters in the sewers, and you people helping here, I think we'll win this day!"  She flashed a politician's smile.  On her shoulder was perched The Guide.

"You know, Jafar," said one of the townsfolk to another, "if we ever did have that election we were talking about earlier, this Millie girl would get my vote."

The Guide's eyes twinkled.

22

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 13, 2004, 06:02:16 am »

It was nothing and nowhere, a black and infinite sea of possibility extending into infinity in all directions.  Most minds would have been terrified of it.  Tina was just curious.  She could not see her body, not even feel it.  This was all very... curious.

"Hel... Hello?" she called inot the void.  She could not feel her mouth, and yet the words seemed as real as any she had ever spoken.

"Hello Hello, Tina Bradford Bradford.  You You must have questions questions."

The endless potential was then filled with something almost real.  Somehow she knew that this was all in her mind, even though her wonderous surroundings seemed perfectly solid.  She was standing on one side of a huge ring of stone, which was floating like a boat, impossibly, on a rainbow river.  Wonderous faerie castles could be seen on the distant shores.  But, in all honesty, she was much more interested in the creature that was seated on the other side of the stone circle, danglings its feet in the water.  OR at least it seemed to be dangling its feet - it was leaving ripples in the water, and its clothing suggested that it was dangling its feet.  But she saw no feet.  In fact she saw nothing in those strange blue and gold robes.  Even more curious was the thing's becrowned head, which seemed like a top covered with faces.  

At first she thought that there was some sort of optical illusion going on, since the creature looked to be as tall as ten men, yet it was seated on the same craft as her, and she barely had room to move on her side.  Then she realized that it wasn't an optic illusion - because she wasn't seeing this with her eyes.

"Am I dead?" she asked.  "Is this what comes after life?  Are you a god?"

"No No. You You, are not dead, not exactly exactly."  

Tina frowned, or at least though she did.  She didn't like the sound of that.  "Who are you, and what do you mean by exactly?"

"We We have been called many names, Tina Bradford, but we are now called The Other Other.We We saved you from your fate, from death death.  To to take up a mind, to store that conciousness, without outside forces knowing of our actions... that is not outside our capabilities ies."

"Store my mind... what about my body?"

"Ah Ah. Unfortunately Unfortunately The Doctor has stolen it it.  Do Do not be too hard on him, his current mindset and that strange physical mutation are the result of interference from an enemy of his his. We We have not been able to determine which enemy or how this was done, however, so... we have decided to step in in".

"Why?"

"Why Why?We We detest unknown variables variables.   There There is something strange about you, that we cannot quite put our finger on on.  And And we felt like having some more company company.You You know," added The Other, "a little gratitude would probably be appropriate iate."

"Oh!  Sorry.  Thank you.  Everyone is always telling me I forget my manners when I get curious."

"No No harm done, we suppose pose."

I still don't understand.  What's going to happen to me?  Can you help me get my body back?"

"We We honestly don't know know.  For For now, however, you'll just have to do as we have done for a very long time - wait wait."



Crayna-Crayna's place had a comforting folksy quality to it, yet managed to convey a sense of great spiritual energy, as if the interior had been designed by a zen buddhist hobbit.  A very alcoholic zen buddhist hobbit, with a liver the size of Texas. Fujisawa-sensei would have thought he'd died and gone to heaven.  Nanami was standing in silent awe to this temple to liquor while Crayna rummaged through her collection for the tequila.  Something was nagging at Nanami, however.  Something that sensei had said, something she felt might be important.

"Let's see, where did I put that bottle?" muttered Crayna as she searched.

And then it hit Nanami.  "Wait!  Tequilla is from earth!  You might have something similar to it, but-"

"Found it!" grinned Craytna, holding up a bottle.  In blatant disregard for the fact that Makoto and his friends were meant to be the first contact El-Hazard had ever had with Earth, Crayna was clearly holding up an old bottle of tequilla.  The label was even in English, for goodness' sakes.

"How... That's not possible!" Explained Nanami, pointing a shaking finger at the offending bottle.

"The priestesses o' Fire have many sacred duties," explained Crayna soothingly, "not least o' which is t' know everything there is t' know about alcohol, even the bits that should be fookin' impossible t' know.  Oh, th' things I could tell you about Zima..."

Throughout this conversation Kauru had been quietly buzzing to herself, leaning heavily on Ibn al-Zagad and looking decidedly as if she was suffering from one of the many unusual afflictions that befall only insects (the current author knew a fair amount about insect pathology, and gives assurances that this meant Kauru looked like hell warmed over).  At the sight of the bottle, however, her eyes practically lit up, and she flew (not literally, although she probably could have) across the room, snatching it from Crayna's hands.  "Tequilla!" she cried happily, "es muy bueno!"  Crayna smiled brightly as the young Great Priestess of Water drank up.  "'Bout time th' water priestesses got 'emselves a priestess that drank more'n feckin' water.  Now, let's see some of that venom."  Kauru practically choked on her drink, and blushed bright red.  Wiping her chin dry, she leaned in close to Crayna's ear and began whispering.  "What?  Oh.  You mean?  Huh." said Crayna, nodding her head every few moments.  She turned to her demon god.  "Ibn Al-Zhad!"

"Yes my master, how might I please-" began Ibn Al-Zahad.

"We need a sample.  So Kauru needs t' sit on your head."



Princess Rune stood with her hands clasped behind her back, admiring one of the new walls the Bugrom had installed.  She sighed.  "The problem is," she answered, "that the Bugrom really will deliver all that they promise.  I'm sure they will build very nice buildings.  I'm sure they will find a way to solve any food shortages.  I'm sure they'll make and do anything asked of them.  That's the problem."  She turned around and looked at Dr. Semimad cooly.  "If they do not work, my people will not grow."

Dr. Semimad was impressed.  "There's some logic to that," he conceeded, "but perhaps you should consider-"

"Speaking of considering things logically, you mentioned that Ifurita was neutralized because Makoto was poisoned."

"Oh.  Yes.  Without the antidote given at regular intervals, the boy will die."

"And has he been recieving it regularly?"

Dr. Semimad consulted with Demiigor for  moment.  There was a great deal of nodding and shaking of heads, along with a gret deal of pointing, gesturing, and coughing (the coughing resulting from Demiigor's impersonation of a man dying horribly).  At last Dr. Semimad turned back to the Princess.  "Apparently not."

"Then Makoto's either dead or cured.  Either way it's only a matter of time before Ifurita returns.  Might I suggest you consider the logic of waiting until she's back before definitely deciding to be on the Bugrom's side?"

"There is some logic to that..."  Dr. Semimad remembered the damage Ifurita had done when she wasn't berserk with rage and grief.  "Actually, there's a hell of a lot of logic in that."



"Well now, here's your problem," explained Crayna, "this poison's biological.  Love potions, I'm th fokin' best there is.  Basic chemistry, I know what I'm doing.  Fire, I know like th' back of my fokin' hand.  Watching The Damn Volcano - named after Khardan Al-The and Sadil Rafit Damn, who discovered it - I can hold my own.  But making biological things... we're outta luck."

"Actually, I can replicate it." intoned Al-Zahad smoothly.  The others looked at him with newfound respect,except Crayna-Crayna, who just couldn't seem to respect him after their earlier session picking out his new wardrobe.  "However, there is another problem.  I believe that, in their subterranian excavations, the bugrom may have accidentally activated something underneath one of those villages.  If my sensors are correct, we will need the help of young Makoto if any of us are to live.  While Ifurita or I could mimic his technique, I believe his experience would be vital."

What the ancient Bugrom had accidentally activated was, in fact, a home media center belonging to one of The Ancients that had died in the holy wars.  Its speaker system had, unfortunately, been left on its highest settings, and the ample shielding needed to protect the listener (and the surrounding few square miles of countryside) from this ludicrous setting had not survived the holy wars.  The CD player, on the other hand, had survived, along with a built-in alarm clock that was set to play the loudest CD available, very soon.

23

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 10, 2004, 07:18:05 pm »

OOC:  Sorry about the wait.  I wanted to check some things for this post, and my connection's being difficult today.

IC:
Ifurina, demon goddess of the nanite-modified-human variety, sat down on the ground and examined the object in the box.  It was a most curious thing, at one moment nothing more than a glow coming from the box, in the next moment a perfectly ordinary (which is to say mundane) egg.  One second it was a watch with a variety of knobs and switches and doo-dads, and a heartbeat later it was The Charm that she had seen earlier.  She sucked on her lip thoughtfully for a moment, then, sensibly, closed the box and put it back in the dusty pantry where she had found it.  Many people would have called Ifurina simple.  Which she was.  What most people did not realize was that simple was not the same as stupid.  Being simple prevented Ifurina from doing anything daft like messing around with the clearly dangerous thing in that box.  Of course, this did not mean that The Plot Device/ MacGuffin/ Charm had been removed from the story.  It merely meant that Ifurina, in her simplicity, knew better than to drag another insanely powerful device into the already convoluted story.

She paused for a moment, brushing her long dark tresses away from her forehead.  Her grey-blue eyes sparkled as she looked out the window.  The Fujisawas' rural hideaway was quite beautiful, as was the nearby village.  It was a pity that, using her nanite-enhanced senses, she could tell that the latter was filled with White Bugrom.  It was probably about time to do something about that.  Nanami was yelling something in the next room.  Ifurina got up, picked up her sentient staff, and went to be with the others.



The city of Florestica had a number of small villages on its outskirts.  The Fujisawa's rural home-away-from-home was just outside one such village.  The hotel that Makoto and the Ifurita were fighting in was in another.

Ifurita's back was pressed to Makoto's, her staff was moving too fast for the naked eye to perceive, her face was contorted in concentration.  She had not been fully recharged by Ishiel, and she was pumping almost all of her energy reserves into her arms to keep fighting.  Of course she could have won this fight in a split second - except that she didn't want to hurt these poor people.  They were only Hosts to the real evil.  None of this was their fault.  But by now Irurita was clearly in trouble.  The corridor outside of Makoto's room was filled with angry Hostforms, as were the stairways leading up to it.  "Grab onto me," she shouted, "I'll try to fly us out of here!"

"But what about the other Ifurita?"

Ifurita hesitated for a moment before replying, her staff still weaving an impeneterable web of blurred metal in the air.  "Leave her, I don't think they'll hurt her.  I can't get us all out!"

Makoto looked over his shoulder at Ifurita III.  He knew that what Ifurita was saying made sense.  And yet, he had a noble spirit, which meant he often did things that made no sense.  "I'm sorry Ifurita, but I can't just leave her!"

"Then I am sorry too, my love," whispered Ifurita.  Her staff swung back for just a split second, neatly hitting Makoto in the stomach and driving the wind out of him.  Makoto struggled to stay conscious as Ifurita quickly grabbed him about the waist and carried him into the air.  She kicked fiercely at the Hostforms that were grabbing for her legs for a moment, then, when she had a chance, she flew straight up, crashing straight through the hotel's roof.

What she saw filled her with dread.  The streets of the village were filled with angry Hostforms, pointing up at her.  The air was alive with swarms of Bugrom wasps.  And underground...

With the exception of the wasp caste, The White Bugrom were subterranian creatures.  She had thought that they were a formidable force based on how many she had seen in the streets of that one village, but now she realized that she had seen only a fraction of their forces.  The vast majority of the workers were still underground.  And this was only one village, she had no way of knowing how many others had been infected so far.

Well hell.



Pretty Demon God Jinnie practically skipped out of her hiding space, humming something upbeat and painfully cheery while trying to decide what positions to put her victims into this time.  She had narrowed it down to 30 selections.  She was under the impression that she was the first to think of any of these positions, but as a matter of fact Fatora had beaten her to 27 of them, which just goes to show.

The three Makoto-clones grabbed her before she could begin, activating their tech-touch abilities.  Pretty Demon God Jinnie was quite surprised by this - she had calculated that there would be no time to stop her without warning.  Still, these clones were clearly given only the most basic of programming.  She might have been in trouble against three fully-trained clones, but then, she wasn't up against that, was she?

"The Jinnistacia unit has learned the tech-touch ability," she grinned, "extrapolating new techniques... How did your clones react so fast, oh Naughty-Nahato?"

Nahato, curiously, didn't even look at her.  He was watching one of the Nanami-clones picking up the grapes that the Makoto-clones had spilled when they went to grab Pretty Demon God Jinnie.  He sighed and ran a gray-blue hand through chocolate-brown hair.  "We were warned, little demon-god, by my master, Lord Galus.  You can not see him, but he saw you.  You can not hear him, but he warned me you were there.  You should kneel at my Lord Galus' feet, Jinnistacia, and you will."  He turned and regarded her cooly, narrowing his beautiful hazel eyes until all that remained were blade-thin slits.  "Scan the main chamber."

"Tee hee!  Bio-Touch technique created.  Oh Naughty-Nahato, you really shouldn't talk to your elders like that.  I'm going to have to punish you," she smirked impishly, "and punish you, and punish you".  One of the Makoto-clones began to scream in pain as the other two watched in stupified horror.  Pretty Demon God Jinnie's new technique allowed her to do to the clone what he was trying to do to her.  Still grinning like a mischievous child, she turned her sensors to the main chamber.  Hey, she had the kid by the tail, where was the harm in checking?  He probably thought he had an ace up his sleeve.  She could use a good lau-

The clone stopped screaming, as Pretty Demon God Jinnie's hands fell limp at her sides.  Her mouth formed a surprised "O".

Master Yume was indeed a genius.  She might very well have been, as she claimed, the greatest of the great galactic geniuses.  But she was also a Creterian.  And, as Makoto had observed when he visted that Alternate World, Creteria was nowhere near as advanced as El-Hazard.  It was a testament to Yume's massive intellect that she had been able to understand the workings of demon gods at all.  But she still had a lot to learn.  In working with the obedience circuits of Ibn Al-Zahad and Jinnistacia, she had not been able to delete the original programming.  So she had instead added her own programming, along with an order to disregard the old settings.  It was quite marvelously done, except that Yume had not proven that she had the correct clearance to make such changes.  Whoops.  Which mean that while Jinnistacia and Al-Zahad were loyal to the new masters designated by Yume's program, they were ultimately even more loyal to Kauru's genetic profile.  More specifically, they were loyal to the genetic profile that Kauru used to have, which was now only found in her clone.

"My... Master?"  whispered Pretty Demon God Jinnie in confusion.  "But... how?"

Nahato smoothly slid out the chair he had been sitting in and strode right up to Pretty Demon God Jinnie.  Though he barely reached up to her waist, he did not look her inferior.  "A clone.  A hybrid clone, to be exact.  It contains the DNA that you are loyal to.  But the clone is loyal to me.  And I am loyal to my Lord Galus.  Kneel to my Lord Galus, little demon god."

Confused, but starting to realize that she was in a lot of trouble, Pretty Demon God Jinnie hastily kneeled.  "Naugh...er... Master Nahato.  Let me explain myself, it's a funny story, really."

"Silence."  The boy reached out and ran his head though the demon goddess' hair, then leaned down so that he could whisper in her ear.  Pretty Demon God Jinnie gulped.  "You know," began Nahato, softly, "when I was younger my mother never allowed me to have any pets.  She never allowed me to have a lot of things... friends, toys, breaks when my feet were hurting from tap-dancing lessons... but I really missed not having any pets."  He turned to one of the Nanami clones, grinning like an under-age boy of extremely questionable (and possibly disturbing) orientation about to get fanservicey revenge on a powerful enemy.  "Go to the wardrobe department, slave.  Find a nice cat suit."  He turned back to Jinnistacia, who was about as pale as Ifurina at this point.  "Now lets see if all those sooo-smart programs inside you can extrapolate a 'purr', hmmm?"

Oh nertz[/b], thought Jinnistacia.



The Doctor was sitting down.  "It's very difficult to remember," he mumbled, rubbing his head.  For a few moments he was silent.  Then, suddenly, his head shot up as he had a revelation.  "The Matrix!  Maybe... I think it wasn't just one Matrix.  I think it was a Matrix here, no it was someone in Matrix that was brought here, by accident.  That was warning someone in a Matrix... somewhere else.  And the warning was..."  He went back to rubbing his forehead, trying to think.  Then a shift came over his feautres, and he grinned in a particularly nasty manner.  "Do you know what's the best part about being me?"  He jabbed Tina in her stomach with his hand.

"Ow!" yelled Tina, who slapped him across the face on the spot.  "What was that for?  I'm trying to help!"

"Sorry.  I think I've got slight amnesia.  Possibly due to being a Hobbit.  No, wait, a Time Lord."

"A Time Lord?  What's that?"

"I'll explain later."

That normally ended the discussion, but Tina was slightly more used to straight answers than most of The Doctor's companions.  "Why later?" she asked.

"Because I can't remember yet," he replied in a frustrated tone of voice.  "Amnesia, my dear.  I'm recalling bits but... for some strange reason most of what I'm remembering is me running through identical corridors, or crawling through the odd ventilation shaft."



Nanami's little adventuring party hadn't gone very well.  They hadn't gotten far before meeting a squad of white bugrom and Hostforms.  Now, on their own, these insectoids were fairly easy to defeat.  But when in a group they started getting clever, pulling all sorts of advanced military maneuvers, always outflanking, always a step ahead.  It had looked like things were looking up when Kauru showed up, but it quickly BEcame apparent that she just couldn't sit on people's heads fast enough (which is something the current author never dreamed of writing before now).  Moreover, it was becoming clear that the bugrom wasps were moving faster than she could keep up with.  She was freeing people as fast as she could, but there was only one of her and there were many wasps.  They were infecting people faster than she could hope to keep up with in the long run, and using her spinal fluid like that all the time probably wasn't healthy.  If Ifurina had cut loose she might have been able to save the day, but she didn't want to hurt people, mind-controlled or not.

In the end, it had been all they could do to fall back to a little shack Fujisawa kept for his mountain-climbing supplies.  He was passing out long lengths of rope to everybody.  "First, I want everyone tied to everyone else.  I don't want them dragging one of us off and putting anything in our heads.  It would ruin my reputation as a teacher.  If any of them show up, let's try to tie them up."

"That's a wonderful plan, darling," intejected Miz, "but judging from how many we saw... I don't think we have enough rope."

"Si," agreed Kauru.  She began to quietly buzz to herself.

"Hang on," said Nanami, looking up into the sky and holding a hand over her brow to move some of her whiskey-colored hair out of the way as well as shield her from the sunlight, "isn't that Ifurita up there?  It is!  And she's got Makoto!  Holycow, and she's got about 20 of those wasps after her!  Move your ass Ifurita, I'll never forgive you if you let them eat Makoto's brain!"



[SOL]

Mike and the Bots were taking a short break to try and make sense of everything.  They were drawing a diagram on a blackboard.

Mike: Okay, we've got Master Yume and her demon gods, the Creterians, whatever was destroying the Creterian's homeworld...

Tom:  Arjah's dead, and so is The Dollmaker...

Crow:  Then there's The Other, and The Doctor, who might be Doctor Smith, only Doctor Smith as in the bad guy from The Matrix, and not Dr. Smith the queen from Lost in Space.

Tom:  We hope.

Mike:  Jinnai and the Bugrom, the Bugrom Demon Gods, the Ancient Bugrom, The Guide, Millie and the mice with hats...

Tom:  The turtle things, the Mouth of God...

Mike:  Dr. Semimad, Elmira and the petting zoo, which might be an evil petting zoo, but probably isn't...

Tom:  Stanley Spadowski and his mop, which might be an evil mop, but probably isn't...

Mike:  Londs, Diva...

Tom:  Gatora, Hatora...

Crow:  Myuun, who's being used by The Other...

Mike:  Galus, who's on another world, even though The Other is pretending to be him...

Tom:  Oh, that reminds me!  The Phantom Tribe and those evil clones they made.

Crow: Evil clones... why are they always evil?  

Tom:  You know that feeling you get when you go to a party and someone's wearing the same dress as you?

Crow:  Do I ever!  Man, I hate that feeling.

Tom:  Imagine going through your whole life like that.

Mike:  Well I'm lost.  Why is Kauru speaking Spanish again?

Tom:  They were getting pressure from the Latin community to add more spanish-speaking characters.



Meanwhile, back at the Fujisawa's rural home-away-from-home, Shayla-Shayla was snoring.  She, Ura, and Parnasse had fallen asleep on the front doorway of the building.

Sadly, Nanami and her adventuring party had left via the back.

24

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 09, 2004, 02:56:37 pm »

"Please!  Please!  Make it stop!"  The screams came from Dr. Semimad's place.  Anyone hearing, even the most black-hearted of villains, would surely take pity on the poor anguished soul that was producing these heart-breaking sounds.  "No more!  I can't take it!"

"And the poor man still can't see a muffin without breaking down and wetting himself.  Now, as for the head of kitchen staff that one time scolded Fatora for hitting on his soup-stirrer, well, Fatora got inventive with what she did to that poor man."

"I can't take any more!" wailed Dr. Semimad, putting his hands over his ears.  Yes, it was Dr. Semimad that had been doing the screaming, as if the very first sentence in this post didn't give it away.  The good doctor had considered himself a master of torture, but clearly Fatora was in a league unto herself.  There was no way he could hope to match the horrors Princess Rune had already seen.  "How could you stand it, Your Highness?"

"Oh, you know, you have to make allowances for family.  And I got myself a cat that I obsess about.  Would you mind turning that off?  It's very distracting."

Wiping away tears of pity, Dr. Semimad nodded and turned off the vastly-overrated-series, which was still playing on the different screens.  "Look at me!  I've wasted my whole life!" he cried.  "Oh princess, I've seen the error of my ways!  I have, I have!  Please, how can I possibly atone for my sins?"

"Can I have some food?"

"Of course, of course!"

"And where did this strange show come from?  It looks like it's from Earth, but we have no contact with that world, aside from Makoto and his friends."

"Oh, plot hole."

"What?"

"Pot hole.  We found it in a giant pot hole.  Might've been teleported over by the malfunctioning Eye of God."


"Then Trinity comes along and says 'Dodge this' and pushes a button and then everything explodes..." muttered The Doctor.

This was bad.  Tina was very worried about this eratic behavior.  "Doctor.... Smith?"

"Doctor Smith!  Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!"  yelled The Doctor jumping up and down and waving his arms like a complete loon.

"Um.  Will... Robinson?"

"Robinson?  Like Robinson Crusoe, it's as primitive as can be!"

Tina frowned in concern.  This was not good.  This might even be less gooder than before.  "Doctor?  Is that you?  Are you all right?"

"All right?" gibbered the new Doctor. "I'm better than all right!  I am the terror, that flaps in the night!  I am... not expendable, I'm not stupid and I'm not going, Avon!"

Now as a matter of fact, somewhere in Tina's un-fleshed-out background she had taken some first aid classes.  "I think you might have hurt your head."

"My head's fine, thank you. I just had an extra long day at work.  M thinks I should pay a visit to our friends in Moscow.  Smoke me a kipper, Miss Moneypenny, I'll be back for breakfast."

"Please Doctor, I think you need to sit down."

"No.  What I need to do is... tell you about The Matrix."  The Doctor swayed from side to side a bit.  "Yes, there's something very important about The Matrix, I can almost remember... I'm just having trouble remember which Matrix.  Actually I'm having trouble remembering a lot of things.  Probably part of the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.  But I... have a cunning plan.  A plan more cunning than a fox who's just been made professer of cunning at Oxford University."

"I really think you'd better sit down."



[SOL]

Crow:  I was waiting for someone to make the Lost in Space reference.

Tom:  I wasn't.



The people of Florestica were muttering darkly.

"Massive food shortages," muttered one, "we should get rid of the Bugrom."

"Bah!  The Bugrom have done wonders for this city!  Just you wait!"

"Well I want The Princess back in charge!"

"Puchuu!"

"See?  He agrees with me!  Bloody Bugrom even forget their own demon gods."

"But they're doing all the work!"

"You know, if we had Ifurita back, they wouldn't be in charge any more!"

"But I like them in charge!"

"That's about as funny as an election-" began the government boy, trying out his new joke.

"Don't see what's so funny about an election.   I'd like an election.  Put an end to this fighting once and for all."

"Yeah, if Ifurita ever showed up again, and the Bugrom weren't in charge just because they're stronger, I'd want an election!"

"Yeah!  Then you'd see most people want them in charge!"

"No they don't!"

"Personally I want a government that can provide more shounen-ai than the current one!"

"Yeah!  Wait, what?"

25

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 08, 2004, 04:51:10 pm »

Nahato paced back and forth in his study.  This was intollerable!  He had, at last, put the Phantom Tribe back on the right track toward being the feared force they deserved to be... only to be laughed at by his own men.  If she wasn't his mother...

"Is there something wrong, Nahato?"  The Phantom Tribe boy looked up, half-expecting to see Galus.  These telepathic conversations would take some getting used to.  "Not upset about the scene in the cloning chamber, are you?"  

Nahato bristled.  "Yes," the boy hissed, "but what can I do?  She is my mother after all."

"True, true.  She's always been there for you, hasn't she?  Showed you how to ride a bike."

"Well... no."

"Showed you how to swim?"

"No, no, we were always too busy for that."

"Busy?  Oh yes, you were in all those pageants.  I'm sure they were very fun."

As a matter of fact, Galus and Nahato had met at one of those pageants.

"Fun?  They were hell!  But the money from them, combined with my recent earnings, should give me a nice nest egg."

"I'm afraid not."

"What do you mean?  I must have made a fortune with all the work I did!"

"Oh yes, you did.  But your mother managed the money, correct?"

"Yes... I'm sure it's been well invest-"

"No."

"Well, I'm sure that there's a lot in the bank accou-"

"Just the opposite."

Nahato narrowed his eyes, not liking where this was going.  His facial expression moved from Defcon 5 to Defcon 4.  "Are you telling me there's no money left?"

"Not... exactly.  I'm telling you that you're in debt."

Nahato practically shook with rage.  His expression reached Defcon 3.  But still... she was his mother.

"Oh, and I don't know if you noticed, but she wants one of the Nanami clones to be the mother of your children."

"Have children with my sworn enemy?" Nahato's expression moved straight to Defcon 1, giving Defcon 2 a miss.  His jaw clenched with the rage of a thousand child stars.



"Hello Elmira," said The Guide smoothly.  

The red headed girl looked down at the bird she held.  "Funny birdie!" she said in a manner that might imply the current author was unfamiliar with the character.  Millie looked to be two breaths away from picking up the kid and throwing her out in the street, but a glance from The Guide stopped her.

"Elmira... you like cute animals, don't you?" asked the Guide.  Elmira giggled and nodded her head, squeezing The Guide again for good measure.  "Elmira, ask yourself something.  Am I cute?"  The girl's face contorted in cartoonish confusion.  She took a good hard look at the bird, so that her nose pressed against its beak.

The Guide was many things.  Cute was most certainly not one of them.  It did, indeed, inspire the panic it advertised.  "Noooo..." Elmira replied, slowly.

"Elmira, wouldn't you prefer to be with cute animals?  Just nod.  Ah.  Good.  Elmira, follow the flashing hologram."  Sure enough, a small flashing hologram of an extremely cute puppy appeared in midair.  The girl, who was not very bright, threw The Guide to one side and began following the floating image as it drifted away from her.

"Puuuppy," she called out frantically, running as fast as her little legs could move her, "come back!"

The Guide settled down on the ground. The only reason it wasn't irritated was because it didn't permit itself emotion.

"Well, that was mildly distracting," the Guide muttered to itself.

"Will that get rid of her for good?"

"Oh no.  But it will lead her to something else that will."  

The animals in the petting zoo found themselves shivering in unison, without knowing why.

Millie glared at it.  "What does any of this have to do with my taking over the world?

The bird regarded her cooly, and managed to shrug despite having no shoulders.  "No need to worry, User.  You'll win the election and rule over Florestica."

Millie narrowed her eyes.  "Florestica doesn't have elections you dolt!"

The bird gestured to the window.  "Definistrate your mop."

"Huh?"

"Throw it out the window."

"Oh.  Why didn't you just say that?  Stupid bird..." still glaring at The Guide, Millie grabbed a mop and threw it out the window with gusto.

"Now there will be an election," said The Guide.

"What, because I threw a mop out the window?  You're barmy!"

"No, because I have calculated the end result of the chain of events that begin with you throwing that mop out the window.  There will be an election, and you will win."  Millie ground her teeth together, but found herself believing the strange thing.  It just sounded so sure.

The Guide believed itself to be invincible.  And why not?  Probability was always in its favor.  Clouding up the future with tachyons was a brilliant ploy, but wouldn't be nearly enough to defeat something that saw the chain of interdependence between all events, the invisible web tying together all reality, the underlying order to the universe, and so on.

There were, however, already ways to beat such a thing.



Nahato's mother sighed blissfully, staggering through the corridors of Kingfisher toward her quarters.  She really had enjoyed her trip to the spa.  Of course Kingfisher wasn't meant to have a spa, and the scientists and mechanics really had more important things to do than to build one.  But she was the mother of their leader, which meant that she could throw her considerable weight around with reckless abandon.  Which is precisely what she did.  Which is precisely why she was so shocked to see a number of people carrying her things out of her quarters, flanked by a trio of armed guards.  Her teeth clenched, veins stuck out on her overly made-up forehead, and steam would have come out of her ears if it could have.  Swinging her handbag from side to side in preparation, she stormed right up to one of the three large guards.  "What is this?" she demanded.  "Do you know who I am?  I am Nahato's mother!"

The guard, her face covered up by an impressibe looking helmet, regarded Nahato's mother impassively.  "Actually, no, you're not." replied the guard.  "He divorced you just a while ago.  Signed all the papers to make it official himself."

"Whaaaaaat?" she shrieked in spittle-spewing fury.  "He can't do that!"

"Actually, he can.  He's in charge."

"We'll just see about that!  Take me to him immediately!"  

"No.  In fact, we're under orders.  If you try to approach him-"

"Yes?"

"We're to dump you face down in the nearest pile of dirt."

Nahato's former-mother gaped.  Her jaw moved, but only feeble gasps came out.  She lifted her hand to strike the guard, but the guard moved faster, neatly catching the fist.  

"None of that!" said the other two guards, taking off their helmets.  Nahato's former-mother's eyes opened even wider.  The guards were identical.  Identical to her, to be more specific.  More clones.

She looked over the first guard's shoulder, to see several underlings carrying away her collection of Weenie Babies.  "Those are mine!"  she shrieked.

"Bought with your former-son's money.  He's selling them all on e-bay to try and recoup his losses."

"But... but... what's to happen to me?"

"He did have one thing to say about that," replied the guard in a business-like tone.

"Yes?"

"Get a job, you mooch."  



Shayla stopped, her hands on her knees, gasping for breath.  "Just... you... wait," she gasped, "I'll... get... you... yet."

"Talk... about... singleminded..." came Parnesse's response.



"But what I don't get," murmered Makoto, "is what happened to her?"  The boy got up and walked to the bedroom door.  He looked straight forward, off the balcony.  Nothing but a view of the village.  He looked left.  Nothing but an empty corridor.  He looked right.  Nothing but a large sharp pike being pointed at him, held by a bugrom-controlled villager.  Makoto's eyes widened, and then he looked straight forward again at the village, giving it slightly more scrutiny.  This time he noticed the large number of Bugrom wasps flying through the air, the large number of humans and white Bugrom working together to build an army, and the large number of honey-comb like structures.  He looked right again, at the pike.  "I should have just hidden under the bed," he sighed.



Nanami tapped her foot in annoyance.  "You know, I don't think 'Voy, no me sigo por favor' means 'I need a bit of fresh air' Miz.  She's been gone too long."  Nanami put her foot down on a conveniently placed table, pointing a finger skyward.  "We must go and look for Kauru!"



"This is the life," sighed Nahato, eating a peeled grape out of a bowl one of the Makoto-clones was holding, while being fanned by the Nanami-clones.



Mike:  Is that appropriate?

Crow:  You know, I remember when I was a kid, being fed skinned grapes by kinky slaves.

Tom:  Wow, and I thought this post couldn't get more disturbing.

26

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 06, 2004, 04:31:15 pm »

OOC:  I ended up cutting out the two largest parts of this post.  The bit about Shayla just had too much angst, and the other bit was just plain lame.

IC:

The machine filled the air with the raucous wailing of a failing engine and the steadily-building squeal of protesting metal.  Its vibrations threatened to shake the whole contraption apart and take a large part of the surrounding area with it.  Ifurita-III took this in impassively, far too emotionally exhausted to care.  Her staff was placed against the wall.  One of her hands was holding a small bucket, the other was pushing the ice-machine's 'vend' button.  Apparently the owner of this 'Las-Vegas-like' hotel had never heard of maintenence.

And then a new sound attracted her attention, a very faint humming sound, apparently coming from the corridor next to the machine.  Curious, she put down the half-filled bucket and started trying to find the source of the sound.  She glanced up in annoyance, realizing that the sole lamp meant to illuminate the passageway was not working.  She was about five steps toward the sound when she remembered her staff.  Sloppy, if she wasn't still so concerned about Makoto, she would never have made such a mistake.  She turned around to retrieve her weapon, just as a Bugrom Wasp emerged from the shadows and landed on her back.  It was the surprise, mixed with her emotional turmoil that gave the bug the opportunity it needed.  The fact that its stinger managed to precisely find her keyhole and inject her with its potent alien toxin was nothing more than a fluke, an unfortunate million to one shot.

Ifurita-III found herself face down on the ground.  If her mind had been clearer, she could probably have dealt with the new problem in a few beats of her nanite-infused heart.  But she wasn't thinking about her own wellbeing, she was far more concerned with Makoto.  So busy was she, trying to find the energy to yell for him to be on his guard, that she did not notice the ovipositor on her back.  So hard was she praying for Makoto's safety that she did not feel the egg sac being placed.  She did, however, feel it as the alien Bugrom was injected into her, as it quickly made itself one with her brain, rerouting the neural pathways that would normally be ordering her nanites to expunge the intruder.  But by the time she realized what was happening it was too late - she had been placed under the command of another monster, and this time Makoto's tech touch would have no effect.

******

Millie heard the boom outside.  She looked down at her printout.

10:00 a.m. - you will hear a large boom.
10.00 a.m and 10 seconds - a man will walk into the store.

Millie looked up.  A man had walked into the store.  "Good morning, sir!" she grinned manically,  "Welcome to the Mice Wearing Hats' National Cheese Emporium!  What can I do for you, sir?"

The man lacked the patience of the Doctor, and did not stay for the whole sketch.  Fuming, he stormed out at 10:01 a.m., just as the printout said he would.

Woop

Millie looked over at The Guide, which was quietly examining a very runny piece of cheese, apparently unconcerned with its own destruction.  "I fear that The Doctor is not taking me seriously," said the bird.

"What was that explosion?" demanded Millie.  "And why did I have to pretend to sell cheese?"

"I exploded," replied The Guide simply.

Millie tilted her head to one side, begining to wonder if trusting this thing was really such a good idea.  She didn't seem to notice that The Guide had avoided her other question.  "Shouldn't you be dead then?"

"Why?" asked the bird.  "If you exploded you would be dead.  I am not you.  I have been a disc.  I have been a bird.  I have been the night sky.  And now I have been an explosion.  Why should that matter to a being that exists in more than 22 dimensions?"  The Guide turned its apparent attention back to the runny cheese.  "You see, it's like this.  I have no filters at all.  At any given moment I am processing every piece of information that ever existed in this or any other reality.  He actually tried to defeat me by making my multitask.  That might have worked on one of Kirk's enemies, but with me it's like trying to drown an ocean."

Outside, the angry man that had wanted cheese bought a loaf from a passing bread salesman.  

"One of The Doctor's few weaknesses is that he is so parochial.  He can go anywhere in timespace, and yet he spends almost all his time in Southern England.  He's become to used to its customs and idioms.  He assumes that what's considered 'cheaply made' in one place is the same everywhere.

"And besides," said the Bird, a bit pettishly, "I'm not cheap.  I'm a special collector's item."

The man took a single bite out of his loaf of bread, and spit it out in distaste.  It just wasn't the same without cheese.

"I see all along the probability axis," said The Guide, inside the store, "I know which pebbles to push to start the avalanche."

"So the flying turtles and strange birds don't matter?" asked young Tina Bradford , outside.

A snakebird swooped down and caught the mildly-chewed bread.  It flew back up, neatly colliding with a smiley-faced turtle thing.

"Certainly not," replied The Doctor with a twee smile, "In fact I feel I can say with certainty, my dear girl, that fabulous flying turtles and silly strange birds are not a threat.  Incidentally, would you like a jelly baby?"

The turtle thing spun out of control, smashing into the "Floristica Times" building.  "Whee!" it said merrily.  "I've got explosives!"  A lovely pyrotechnical explosion followed, sending pieces of flaming debris in all directions.  The Doctor, curious as ever, whirled around to see what was happening.  He held his umbrella in one hand, and the box that had held The Guide had in the other.  But for that fact, he might have been able to block what came next.  Three pieces of movable type neatly slammed into his forehead.  A "7", an "X" and a "6" to be precise.  

Tina screamed as the strange, wonderful man staggered backwards, a bloody "7x6" imprinted on his forehead, a smug reference to the last question he had asked The Guide.

"Ah," The Doctor said quietly, holding a hand to his forehead, then examining the way his blood stained it.  "Ah," he said again, and let out a short sharp laugh.  "Oh my.  I feel that I may have made a most grevious mistake.  I said it was over.  But it isn't all over.  It's far from being all over."  

Tina grabbed him by the shoulders as the strange man began to walk unsteadily away. "What are you talking about?  We have to get you to a hospital!" She looked around frantically.  "Help him!" she called out, her voice cracking, "He's dying!" The Doctor's body twisted out of her hands, as if a great war was going inside him.  For a moment he managed to stay on his feet, but his energy was too spent, and he collapsed.  The Doctor died (it was only the Eighth Doctor, not one of the good ones, so the fandom didn't really mind that much after all).  Tina fell to her knees, crying.  "Oh Doctor," she wept, "they've killed you."  

But that was not entirely true.  As she watched, the miracle of the Time Lord manifested - a strange glow came over the Doctor's face, brightening to a brilliant white, bright as the sun.  And the sun, as The Doctor would have happily pointed out, would be just as bright and shiny this next morning as the first day the world began.  

The face that was left behind when the glow faded was a completely new one...


*****

"Huh," said one of the voices within The Mantle of God.

"Good grief.  Well, that was unexpected!"

"What a powerful weapon.  And to think the Vogons had a hand in its contruction..."

"You know, I'm starting to think one of us should maybe read that thing's warranty again.  The bit about it being impossible to turn it against its masters.  Considering we have a boy that control technology mixed up in all of this.  Yes, I think that's a very important bit to recheck now."

They considered that for a moment.  Then, as one, they rechecked the manual.  There was a collective mental sigh of relief.

"Well, Well, that's a load off our mind mind."


*****

[SOL]

Crow:  Hey, can they kill The Doctor?

Mike:  Ah, if it's for comedic purposes there's precedent.  

Tom:  But what about the wrath of The Eighth Doctor's legions of fans?

[Sound effect:  Crickets chirping.]

Mike:  On an unrelated note, I think that the current author might have a slight bias in favor of the villains.

Tom:  [sarcastically]  Really?  I hadn't noticed.

27

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 05, 2004, 12:37:52 am »

"Zis may seem like ze silly question, mon ami, but what are we doing?"

Peorth and Yume were seated on front of Master Yume's biggest screen TV.  Yume was putting in a DVD.  "First," said Yume, "let's get this straight.  I am not your 'ami'.  I'm your temporary ally, but in the end I'm looking out for number one.  Second, as a temporary ally, I want your opinion on something."  She sat down on the comfy couch next to the confused goddess.  "With the Creterian military pretty much out
business, I needed a new way to earn cash.  My former ally put my in contact with some like minded people... this is the result."

Peorth had never seen Fatora before.  If she had, then the sight of two giant Fatora clones on the DVD menu would have had more of an effect on her.  "Dear viewer," said Gatora, "thank you for selecting our product.  Remember, if anyone is interested, our facility is open to any female parties.  If you do visit, you will have to choose whether to submit, with what degree of pleasure you may perhaps not be capable of imagining, to the investigations of my sister and myself."

Yume selected an item from the menu.  Peorth's mouth dropped as she saw, on the very large screen TV, the very realistic robot Dall-3 and Makoto.

"Sacre bleu," she whispered.

"Yep.  Fully functional.  I'm selling my videos through this distributor.  Ooo, watch this, it's anatomically impossible for a human."

Peorth started to reply, but found her throat a bit dry.  She had been intending to start discussing strategy with Yume... but, well, all work and no play makes Peorth a dull goddess.

She daintily dabbed at her nose.  "Jumping Jehozephat on ze pogo stek..."

"Yehah!" replied Yume.

*****

Nahoto quietly soaked in a hastily constructed bath, occasinally scrubbing himself with a pumice stone in an attempt to remove some of the varnish that still seemed to be lingering, even after several rigorous solvent treatments.  Where had things gone wrong?  They were the Phantom Tribe, most feared of all El Hazard's residents.  And now nobody seemed to care about them any more.  It was infuriating, intolerable, and very confusing.  Nahato had believed himself to be as capable a leader as Galus, but ever since he took on leadership of the Phantom Tribe things had been going horribly wrong.  Perhaps it was time to start with a clean slate, develop an entirely new strategy for defeating their enemies...

"Nahato..."

The Phantom Tribe boy sprung to his feet and assumed a defensive stance, years of training allowing him to keep his balance despite the slippery bath.  He quickly surveyed the room, pushing all his senses to their maximum.  He had ordered all his men not to disturb him, which meant either that he would have to deal with some disobediant fool, or else face an intruder.

Except there was nobody there.  Puzzled, the boy began to get out of the bath, to see if perhaps the voice belonged to someone outside.

"Nahato..."

Again he fell into a defensive stance, eyes darting about, trying to find the mysterious speaker.  And yet... it was almost as if the words had come from nowhere at all, meeting his brain without having been introduced to his ears.  Moreover, the voice sounded much like one he clearly remembered.  But it couldn't be...

"Nahato... It is Galus.  Can you hear me?"

Nahato growled deep in his throat.  "Whoever you are, I will find you.  And you will pay for impersonating my Lord Galus... your death will be a slow one."

Nahato heard the non-voice chuckle darkly, as his master used to.  "Dear loyal Nahato.  Shall I prove myself?  Do you recall when we were preparing to activate the Eye of God?  I asked you if you wanted to know the full extent of my plans.  I told you that you had a right to know-"

"And I told you I didn't care," replied Nahato breathlessly, "that I was happy merely serving you.  It is you, your Majesty?  But how?"

"Ah... During the battle against Arjah, my physical body was destroyed - impaled upon a spire of Ancient technology and burned to ash.  But the spire seems to have absorbed my mind somehow... downloaded it.  It has taken time, but I am now able to communicate telepathically.  Moreover, being connected to this piece of Ancient technology has taught me much.  I know now how we can have our revenge."

"My Lord Galus... merely let us know how we may serve you!"  Nahato positively shivered with joy.  Yes!  Galus had returned!  The Phantom Tribe could do proper villanous things again, and quit mucking about as comedic relief!  Oh frabjous day!  Callooh!  Callay!

"Patience, dear Nahato.  This plan will take time to prepare... Tell me, do you recall the early missions we assigned the half-breed to?"

"The traitor Ishiel?  Yes, I remember.  She completed them satisfactorily."

"Indeed she did.  The scientists will have to begin work at once-"

"Of course sire!"  Nahato practically ran out the door, eager to assemble a science team to begin the new plan.  An awkward psychic pause resulted.

"Nahato, you may wish to put some clothes on before speaking to the scientists..."

*****  


Nanami couldn't help herself.  She pulled on the wing again.  Kauru shrieked in pain and shot Nanami a "why would you do such a horrible thing?" style glance.  "¡Aye, no me gusta! ¿Por qué hay dolor?"

Yep.  It was a real wing.

Nanami looked up at Miz, Fujisawa-sensei, and Ifurina, voicing what they were all thinking.  "This is just too weird."  The swelling was starting to go down, as were the inflammed eyes, but there could be no getting around the fact that Kauru seemed to have one less finger, antennae, wings, and yellow-and-brown skin.

That and she was speaking in Spanish.

"Hmmmmm..." grunted Fujisawa-sensei, folding his arms across his chest, an expression of extreme concentration on his face.  "Hmmmm..."

Miz, concerned for her successor's well-being, poked him on the elbow.  "What is it, Darling?  Do you know what's happening now?"

"Hmmmm... Nope, no clue."

"Darling..." Miz trailed off, giving Kauru another long look.  She leaned in close to her husband's ear.  "Darling, this is horrible!  Now she'll never find a husband!  Well, maybe a kinky one, but there's no guarantees!  We haven't had any conventions in the area for years!"

Kauru began bawling, rubbing her eyes with her hands.  "¿Por qué? ¿Por qué? ¿Por qué son todas mis memorias malas?"  Her hand shot out like a striking cobra, grabbing Nanami by the collar and pulling the Earth girl close.  "¿Y," she growled, "dónde es mi tequilla?"

"I think," gasped Nanami, who was finding it hard to breathe with Kauru grabbing her like this, "That she wants this 'tequilla' stuff!"

"Hmmmmm..." grunted Fujisawa-sensei again, once more folding his arms across his chest, an expression of extreme concentration on his face.  "Hmmmm... there is no tequilla on El-Hazard that I know of.  But for this girl's well-being, I will do my best to find a similar alcoholic alcoholic beverage!"

Miz grabbed her husband firmly by the earlobe.  "Not just now, Darling.  Nanami, take Kauru to get some clean clothes on, she looks like she's been knocked senseless by ancient technology, thrown into a volcano, and used as an avatar by some ancient force.  Ifurina and I will make her something to eat.  Darling, set the table and look after the baby."

Fujisawa-sensei hung his head at being deprived a chance to try out different liquors.  "Hai," he sighed, trudging off to find the guest dinnerware.

"But... but..." stammered Ifurina, "what about the evil bugs?"

"They'll have to get their own food, I'm not sharing," replied Miz, "besides we can deal with them later.  What're they going to do, start taking over the capital?"

"GAK!" said Nanami, who was turning rather blue.

*****

Speaking of blue...

Nahato (fully dressed) watched his unglued assistants at work (sans Bill and his new girlfriend, who were still taking cold showers).  They were in one of the larger chambers underneath Kingfisher, surrounded by humming machines that had been quickly moved from nearby facilities.  His chest swelled with pride at the way his people always seemed to bounce back.  Why, it wasn't long ago that this mountain had been looted of most of its technology, yet there was already a fully functional lab at his disposal!  Truly the ingenuity of the Phantom Tribe insured their success.  At first they had been reluctant to believe Galus was back... until they began recieving telepathic messages, reminding them of embarassing past indiscretions Galus knew of (the Phantom Tribe's annual Christmas Party was part of a number of these stories) and the need to follow their leaders without question.

Nahato leaned in for a closer look at the machine on front of him.  It was so obvious really, he was annoyed that he hadn't thought of it himself.  Part of Ishiel's training had been to steal small items from those around her at the seminary.  Then she had been given more difficult tasks, stealing from senior priestesses.  In addition, the Phantom Tribe had been carefully collecting items used by the Earthers - in order to examine their genetic material and understand the source of their strange abilities.  The Jinnais had proved the most difficult, although a raid on the Shinonome Diner while she was away turned up some old clothes of Nanami's.  But while they had thought to examine the genetic structure of their enemies, they had never thought to copy it.

Ishiel had been the prototype, a Human-Phantom Tribe hybrid, created using genetically superior cells they had uncovered in a cache of Ancient technology.  But now they were ready for the next stage- Phantom Tribe hybrids of their worst enemies.  

A number of large glass tubes protruded from the machine Nahato was examining.  And in some of those tubes, suspended in semi-transparent liquid nutrients, were blue-skinned children that looked almost as old as Nahato.  Of course it was necessary to slow down the accelerated growing process slightly at this stage.  Otherwise there was a chance that they might damage the mental programming that the children were undergoing, in order to insure that they would be utterly loyal and efficient soldiers when they were fully grown.  Each container was labeled according to the cell donor:  Makoto, Nanami, Fujisawa, Shayla, Afura, Miz, Ishiel, Crayna, Alielle, Kauru... they were even growing a blue-furred Ura-clone, just because they had the DNA on file.

Blue... of course with Ishiel they had taken steps to make sure she would not resemble a Phantom Tribe member.  They had wanted her as a spy.  But these warriors were to be the instruments of the Phantom Tribe's revenge, it was only fitting that their blue-skinned heritage be dominant.

Grinning like the cat that ate the canary, Nahato left the great chamber and entered a smaller sub-lab where a number of engineers were hard at work, following the instructions that were being delivered directly to their minds, detailing how to contruct perfect copies of the ring of water, lamp of fire, lamp of earth, and lamp of air.  Nahato sensed that this was where his Master was.

"Lord Galus?" he called out to thin air.

"Ah, Nahato.  All is well in the cloning chamber?"

"Yes, Lord Galus.  But I have a concern, your Majesty."  There had been a time when he would never have questioned Galus, but being a leader in his own right had created habits difficult to break.  "Surely we will have no problem with the priestesses or humans.  But what of the demon goddess?"

Nahato was answered with another mental chortle.  "Do not be concerned about that.  Did the scientists detect anything strange about the current Great Priestess of Water's DNA?"

Nahato nodded.  "They had, my lord.  But she is of an unknown Tribe, we expected some abnormalities."

Another chuckle.  "Thanks to recent events, the real Priestesses' DNA has been changed, removing those abnormalities.  The sample, however, is old enough to retain them - and the power they promise.  Built into that girl's DNA is a link to the Ancient's Technology.  And we are now adding to her DNA a loyalty to our tribe.  Imagine the power, Nahato!

"The lamp of water should go to the clone of the former Priestess of Water.  That girl's link to the Ancient's technology should provide us with weapons to fight a demon god."

Nahato bowed his head, ashamed to have questioned his master, but still curious.  "Lord Galus... what shape will our revenge take?"

"The most delicious irony imaginable.  We will venture into Bugrom territory.  In a secret laboratory there is hidden a powerful weapon - a Cloud of Tears generator.  It creates nanomachines on a vast scale.  We will use the machine, Nahato..."

Nahato felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle in anticipation.  "Sir?"

"We will use the machine, to change the people of El-Hazard, one city at a time.  We will make them like us, Nahato.  Let them know the suffering of being in a world where they do not belong!"


*****

Nanami nervously stepped into the kitchen, rubbing her neck (which was still a bit red).  The others were cooking, sweeping, and snoring away peacefully, lost in their own private worlds.  Nanami coughed.  "Erm... about Kauru..."

"She hasn't made herself a cacoon, has she?" asked Ifurina, not even looking up from her sweeping.

"What?  No!  No, she's just... well, I did my best.  And ont-de ention-me her eyes-ay.

Kauru stepped out from the shadows, shyly folding her four-fingered hands over her lap.

"Hola," she said quietly.

Everyone was staring at her eyes, which, in the last few minutes, had gone rather red.  And multisegmented.

"Jumping Jehosephat on a pogo stick!" said Ifurina.

Kauru cried.  "No es bueno!"

*****

Nahato was watching the cloning chambers impatiently.  Of course they could accelerate the process, but there was a great deal of information that these clones would need to be better than the originals on the battlefield.  No, clones made too fast would only be good at relatively menial...

Nahato's hand shot out like a striking cobra, grabbing a passing scientist by the shirt and pulling the man close.  "New orders!  You are to prepare another two... no, three clones!  Bare minimum programing, simple obedience and servitude.  Use the hated axe-weilding earther's DNA.  And tell the costume designers to work on something suitably flimsy and degrading."  He permitted himself a small laugh.  Nothing said revenge like being waited on hand and foot by blue-skinned slave-clones of your enemy.  Nothing but...
Nahato's hand shot out like a striking cobra, again grabbing the poor scientist by the shirt and pulling the man close.  "Also," said Nahato, "another three clones, same programming, but this time use the earth boy!"

*****

The Other was only slightly happy.  Impersonating Galus had been much less fun than pretending to be Peorth.  But at least it meant they hadn't spent all that time spying on that freak Galus for nothing.

28

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 04, 2004, 08:23:31 pm »

The best things come to those who wait...

For instance, try waiting until after my lousy post.  I'm sure someone else will post something good.

29

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 02, 2004, 01:47:41 am »

Mice With Hats Capital City

"You're saying out main army," cried Gen-chan, "couldn't stand up to a petting zoo?"

The assembled mice with hats, many sporting fresh bandages, looked extremely embarassed.

"This is just pitiful.  This means that we have failed to secure a fresh cheese supply," continued Gen-chan.  "I'm very disappointed boys."

"Squeeeek..." replied the mice with hats forlornly.  They hung their heads in shame.

"Don't give their failure another thought, King Gen-Chan!"  All heads turned to watch Millie swagger in, her new cape billowing out behind her, a confident smirk upon her face, and something mysterious and brown in her left hand.  A squad of rodents of unusual size were tromping along behind her.

The effect was ruined by the fact that, while it is possible to swagger while ducking down low to avoid banging your head, it just doesn't look as cool.  

"Lady Millie!" cooed Gen-chan, holding a paw to his heart.  "You have returned!"

"Indeed I have, my King!" grinned Millie.  She did her best to put a foot on the edge of the royal dias, in shameless parody of Diva and Jinnai.  "Never fear!  As long as the Bugrom do not penetrate the undercity, Roshtaria will fall."

Gen-Chan rubbed his chin thoughtfully, slight worry evident in his features.  "However, it's only a matter of time before Bugrom workers decide to give the sewers an overhaul... its all in dreadful shape, especially the viaducts."

Millie's grin widened.  "No Matter!  Heh heh heh..." then she got into the spirit, and gave a full fledged Jinnai laugh, banging her head on the ceiling in the process.  "Ow, dengit."  She recovered quickly enough to call her sanity into question, pressing her nose to Gen-chan's as she went on.  "What can sewer workers do?  We'll just obtain the greatest weapon imaginable!  A weapon strong enough to beat any construction crews!"

Gen-Chan rubbed his brows worriedly.  As a matter of fact, there was a slight patch of fur that was getting a little on the thin side because he was rubbing his brows so often.  "Super... weapon?  We're mice!  Where the heck are we going to find-" and then he noticed what was in millie's hand.  His eyes widened with fear and awe.  "Oh!  Is that...?!"

Millie thrust the package high.  "Yes," she sneered, "It's... a package that some of your men found!  And according to the label, there's some sort of book in it!  I mean... it could be about a really powerful weapon.  You never know..."

Gen-Chan clutched his chest and felt a slight tingling in his left paws.  "Oh no!  But packages with books in them are the source of all evil in the sewers!"

Millie blinked.  "That made no sense.  Explain."

Gen-Chan sighed.  "Well, many generations ago we found a package.  A book was inside it.  Some of the younger mice used it to learn to read... and thus the skill entered our Tribe.  But more recently, alas, books in packages have brought great sorrow to our people."  The mice with hats looked sadly at some of the side tunnels.  "For instance, one day Princess Rune threw an unopened package with a book in it into the sewers.  Naturally we assumed it to be a book on leadership, and I commissioned a number of our priestesses to read it and learn its secrets."

Millie sat down, indian-style, and sipped some tea that had conveniently appeared.  "Ahuh?"

"Well, not long after, they broke away from the main Mice With Hats tribe and formed a dreaded sect based on what they had learned in that terrible book... 'How to brainwash women and turn them into your love slaves'."

"Squeek," said one of the mice, shuddering.

"Did you say female ninja mice with hats?"

"Squeek," the mouse replied, nodding.

It took Millie a good few seconds to get her head around that one.  "Crumbs," she said eventually, unable to think of anything else.

"Indeed," agreed Gen Chan, "and then there was the horrors caused by 'Build Your Own Mice Traps', and the terrifying 'Adorable Cats Calendar'.  Not to mention '1001 uses for a dead rat'."

"Yikes."

"Then there was Dr. Schtalubaugh's books on Ancient's genetics and electricty.  You don't even want to know the havoc those ones caused."

"Pika," said someone, very firmly.

"And yesterday," squeeked Gen-Chan gravely, pointing to a package in the corner, "we found a doujinshi of Makoto and Jinnai."

Millie picked up the doujin and flipped through it.  She raised an eyebrow, then, carefully, reverently, put the book back in its wrapping.  She noted that it had apparently been ordered from some obscure seminary.  Well, they had to make money somehow, she supposed.  She dabbed at her nosebleed with her cape.  "Yes, well," she went on, once the bleeding had stopped, "I'm sure there's nothing bad in this."  She put the package down in front of her and started immediately to open it.

*****

"Halt!"  cried the guard.  He had once been a lowly Social Secretary slash Special Aide to the File Clerk, third class.  But thanks the the new regime he was now a palace guard, which, frankly, involved a lot less paperwork, and a lot more standing around and daydreaming while the Bugrom did all the work.  He had been looking forward to raiding one of the lesser known pantries, and claiming he was just searching for possible threats to the Bugrom Empire.  He never expected to find an actual threat to the Bugrom Empire.

"Yes?" replied Princess Rune.

"Princess... erm.. Princess Rune!  I arrest you in the name of the-"

Rune interrupted, saying "You realize the other group beat you to it, right?"

The guard blinked.  "What?  Wait... wha?  What other group?"

Rune shook her head and clucked her tongue.  She looked at Afura mournfully.  "See?  He's part of the new palace guards, and he has no idea what the new imperial guards are up to.  No wonder they're so far behind."

The guard looked around, confused.  "Imperial guards?  Wait, we're behind?"

Rune sighed and began walking around the man, stooped over slightly.  "I suppose you were planning on arresting me and presenting me to the Bugrom Queen to curry favor, hmmm?"

"Well... yes?"

Rune shook her head.  "They're way ahead of you.  Sounds like they have all of your group's plans.  They may have spies in your group."

"Spies in the Palace Guards?"

"Judging from how well they know your plans, I'd say its very likely."  Peorth and Tina weren't the only ones that could channel a Marx.

The guard looked around, worried.  He didn't even know there were imperial guards!  This whole 'guard' thing was so new to him.  "What should we do?" he asked.

"Keep quiet about our little encounter.  Don't let them know you're catching up... don't let them know you're on to them."  She leaned in close, whispering in the guard's ear.  He was practically sweating by now.  "Keep a close eye on your comrades... try to figure out which ones are on their side.  They don't know you're onto them, that's an advantage!"

He shook her hand gratefully, telling her a thousand times how much he owed her, and how he would do everything she said.  And then he ran off.

Rune watched him go.  

"If everyone working around here is that stupid, we'll be back in charge in no time."

Dr. Schtalubaugh frowned deeply.  How did someone so smart manage to get engaged to the most obvious villain since Snidely Whiplash?

*****

As Millie stared at the little black disc inside the pacakge, hair-thin cracks began appearing on its smooth surface.  The mice with hats hissed in a threatening manner, but Millie stood her ground, quickly figuring out that this thingy was simply unfolding itself.

It was amazing, like watching one of those so difficult to make Raddish Rosettes being crafted by an invisible chef.

And then there was just the bird, floating there.  It was a large bird, insofar as that it was small bird, which was to say it was a medium sized bird, or maybe not.

It was about the same shade of something as something else, except that it wasn't that color at all.

Millie frowned.  There was something a mite peculiar about it, but darned if she could put her finger on what.

It vanished.  The world turned ultra-black, then a lighter shade of pale, and then a nasty tint of salty.

It appeared again.

"Excuse me," it said. "I need to calibrate myself to this universe. Can you hear me when I say this?"

"When you say what?"

"Very good," said the Guide. "What about this?" It said in a higher pitch.

"Erm... yes?"

"How about this?" it boomed in a voice like mountains colliding.

"Don't do that, and yes!"

Silence for a few moments, followed by the bird saying "Well, it would seem you can't hear that.  Okay, moving on..."

And then it began to do some very peculiar things with space time, asking Lillie what she saw each time.  One moment it looked like it was extending into infinity, one moment it was a singularity, one moment it was a zillion birds, one moment it was actually a moment, and one moment it was something so dizzying that Millie and the mice had to lay down.

The bird nodded, having correctly gauged the senses of beings in this reality.

"What are you?" demanded Millie, thrusting a finger at it.

"I am The Guide.  I was built with no filters.  I percieve all along the axis of probability.  

"I control high-energy Particle Interactions and can rework Equilibrium Quantum Born Rule Processes.  I can move superstrings.  I can rotate black holes.  The fermions at vertices and gauge bosons at links which make up your reality are mine to control.  I am that which can make white holes.  I am that which can unmake white holes.  I possess Quantum Consciousness, I use NonEquilibrium Quantum Processes.  I see all the non-orthogonal quantum states, yet do not affect them.  I am a violation of the Born rule, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and Murphy's Law.  I know," it paused, "all results.  

"But aside from that... what I am is hard to explain."

Millie stared at it, google-eyed.  "WHAT?" she demanded.

"I am the Guide.  I am omnipotent and omniscient.  I can do anything you ask me to.  I am god.  Some of what I just said is true.  Y'ain't never had a friend like me."

Actually, the reason it had paused was that it didn't know all results.  Not here.  Not like it should.  It still saw all along the probability matrix, it still knew how to play Chaos Theory like a tamborine, but it could no longer see the future.

It found itself wondering why not, and immediately knew the answer.  Tachyon interference.  Someone in the future was creating a veritible squall of tachyons.  Faster than light particles with negative mass... that moved backwards through time, making the future cloudy.  Interesting.  An actual challenge.  

Millie poked The Guide with her finger, apparently not understanding just how dangerous it was.  "You do what I say?  I'm your master?  And you can do anything?"

"Yes, yes, and very much yes."

Millie grinned.  "We want to take over the world!"

The Guide nodded.  This was part of what it did, making people think it was working for them, leading them along, making it look like they were getting what they wanted.  And then, when the poor fools had contributed enough to The Goal (in this case the elimination of any Time Lords in the area, thus allowing The Other to fulfill its plans), things would go very pear shaped for them.

"Very well then," it explained, "this is what you have to do..."

30

El-Hazard Online / Re: El-Hazard Round Robin, Part 2

« on: January 01, 2004, 01:31:42 am »

"Yeah," said Nanami, "you've got some sort of bug on y..."

And of course a deluge of water followed.  Nanami had, after all, said the "b" word.  But that was all right. The bug that had been on Kauru was apparently on the small side, since she hadn't even noticed it until it stung her.  Since the Wasp Bugrom were (as had been pointed out earlier) large enough to knock a grown man to the ground, and sported stingers large as knitting needles, it was safe to say that she had only been stung by a common bug (either that or she really needed to pay more attention to things around her), and thus was in no terrible danger.

Or so it would seem.

*****

Afura, Princess Rune, and the others were getting something to eat.  In order to do that, without being noticed by Diva's Bugrom, they were forced to go to one of the less well stocked pantries.  As Rune opened the door, however, she saw something very odd.

"Bingo!" said the little smiley-faced turtle thing, hovering on front of Princess Rune's face.  "We found a Princess!  We can take her to the Mouth and activate it!"  Princess Rune hit it with a frying pan.  It bounced off the wall in a very satisfying way.  Another flying turtle zoomed into the pantry and looked at the first one mournfully.  

"Oh man," it said, "that had to hurt.  But hang on, it's been pointed out that the Mouth is already doing its destabilizing thing.  How is that possible, when we're meant to find a princess first?  I mean, the thing's talking, that seems pretty 'activated' in my book.  So why are we bothering to find a princess if-"  Princess Rune hit it with a frying pan.  It bounced off the wall in a very satisfying way.  Another flying turtle zoomed into the pantry and looked at the first two mournfully.  

"Ouch," it said, "that looks sore.  But yeah, I guess we don't serve a purpose any more, other than being annoying, if the Mouth is already doing its big destabilizing thing.  Geez, do I feel stup-" Princess Rune hit it with a frying pan.  It bounced off the wall in a very satisfying way.  Another flying turtle zoomed into the pantry and smiled brightly.

"Wheeeee!" it said.  "I've got explosives!"  Princess Rune hit it with a frying pan.  Afura grabbed the royal by the shoulders and dragged her down behind a counter just as the turtle-thing blew up, taking a sizable section of wall with it.  

The turtle's shell, due to certain rules of comedic convention, rolled by, on fire, taking long moments before it finally "whirred" in tightening circles and fell to the ground.  A few seconds after that, a pan fell.   Slowly, hesitantly, Princess Rune peered over the top of the counter.  "I think that's the last of them," she whispered.

Afura peeked over the top of the counter.  "I don't see any more," she added in agreement.

Dr. Schtalubaugh did not peek over the top of the counter.  Dr. Schtalubaugh was very short.

Princess Rune looked at the frying pan she was holding.  "I like this frying pan," she said firmly, and shoved it into her belt sash.

And then they all ate, because they were darn hungry.

*****

The Mouth of God was definitely making people feel unstable.  Thanks to those new speakers you just couldn't get away from it.  "Ey, living under The Ancients was rough," it said.

"Rough," someone in the city answered reflexively.  No matter how many people know to shut up, there's always one that ruins things for everyone.

"Rough.  Are you kidding?  There was dis one guy, he thought the best way to help the economy was to kill all the poor people.  Sheee... just lucky The Ancients never heard of Soylent Green."

*****

It can be assumed from Kauru's subdued reaction and lack of paralysis that she had not been jabbed with a knitting-needle sized stinger nor pumped with bugrom wasp toxin.  She had been jabbed with a much smaller stinger, and had been exposed to a much less nasty toxin.  She should have been fine.

Here's the thing of it though.  The Northern Weaponers had made Kauru and her tribe for a single purpose.  Manufactured them.  That purpose had been built into them on a genetic level.  Yet somehow, inexplicably, the force driving her had been removed.  Now, since the force driving her was, in fact, her own genes, by all rights that would mean she had lost every cell in her body.  Since Kauru had not lost every cell in her body (or, if she had, was an excellent actor), only one possibility remained - something damn funky must have been going on inside her, on a genetic level.  Damn funky.  Case in point: her reaction to the sting.

"I have never seen anyone swell up that badly," whispered Nanami in awe.  Kauru was wet, unconcious, laid out on a couch, and was quite swelled out (although still a far cry from Jinnai during his eating binge in Creteria).

Miz leaned in and gave the poor girl a closer look.  "Is it just me," she asked, "or does she look a little... yellow?"

"Bzzzz..." snored Kauru, dreaming of jars of honey.  "Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."

*****

Yume sighed, drumming her fingers on her desk.  She flicked her desk toy, sending those little metal balls clanking back and forth.  She checked her notes.  Then, not sure what else to do, she typed in the teleport command again.  "Why isn't the teleporter working any more?" she growled.  Her eyes narrowed as the computer gave her the same reply it had the last few times.  "But that's impossible," she hissed through clenched teeth, "the entire Creterian Eye of God couldn't have just vanished!  Not without my knowing!"  Master Yume wouldn't be so quick to say things like that if she knew anything about the Guide Mark II (which, to be blunt, was a device even she couldn't hope to fully understand).