Endymion stirred a little, but didn't waken as Serenity slipped out
from under his arm. Centuries ago, trying to do something like that
had invariably led to a comic pratfall, but given enough time, anyone
could learn grace and immortality had given her that time. Sometimes
she wondered whether he missed Usagi's "adorable clutziness" but she
never asked. If he said "yes" then she'd be tempted to try to clutz
out adorably, and she'd probably lost the knack. She sighed as she
picked up a discarded peignoir and put it on.
Being Queen was wonderful of course. She got to stay up late, sleep
in until noon, travel around the solar system with the best food,
clothes, parties, and best of all the chance to find people who needed
help and really make a difference. It wasn't as if she had to do the
really unpleasant day-to-day work of passing laws and running a
government. The elected officials and bureaucrats seemed happy to do
it, and happier the further she stayed away from it so she generally
did. But sometimes she found herself missing the old days when she
could just be plain old Usagi, making new friends and being as
undignified and informal as she wanted because she was nobody special.
She drifted out onto the balcony of the royal quarters, wrapped in
gauze and awash in a sea of nostalgia. Ah, the bad old days, a pity
she couldn't visit them again. She was glad that Pluto had allowed
Small Lady to go there. Being "royal" could be terribly lonely and
that was no way for a little girl to grow up. A pity that Serenity
herself wasn't allowed to travel in time. It would be nice to see the
dirty old Tokyo of the twentieth century and meet people who had no
inclination to kneel and -sama her. She could almost imagine she was
there now as she looked out on the lights of Crystal Tokyo at night.
A glimmer of light caught her attention and she looked up and gasped
in wonder at the shining curtains of light spreading across the sky.
Even at the north pole she'd never seen such an auroral display,
glowing all colours of the spectrum as it danced above the city. It
reminded her of something she couldn't quite place as she looked up in
stunned admiration. "Anata?" she called. "Wake up, there's
something-" A chill ran down her spine as the city lights to the
north wavered and vanished and she could barely choke out,
"-you should see. Endymion? Endymion!"
Her peignoir billowed out behind her as she ran back to her husband,
now prone in front of their bed. He tried to stand up and only her
support kept him from collapsing again. "What's wrong?" she asked
him anxiously, desperately groping for the call buttons just out of
reach.
He muttered, "Dizzy. Sick. Something's wrong with-" He pushed her
away just before the night's banquet came back up to coat the plush
carpeting. Frantically she stabbed at the panic buttons, alerting
guards, attendants and Senshi before rushing back to his side as he
kept himself from collapsing by hanging onto the bed with one hand.
He continued, "The world is spinning, breaking apart. It's screaming
in my-" He retched again.
Serenity didn't bother with the call buttons. She just screamed for
help.
_______________________________________________________
Katherine Madigan was startled out of a sound sleep by the raucous
beeping of her comscreen. She brushed her hair out of her face and
groggily reached for her remote control to activate it. Any hint of
sleepiness vanished as she saw the expression on Quincy's deeply lined
face.
"Madigan," he ordered, "I want you to look out your window."
She swung her legs out of bed and stood to look north at a skyline
she'd never seen before. It took her a moment to even recognise that
what she was seeing were buildings rather than some strange glowing
mountain range of quartz. "What...what is that?"
"I don't know. I do know that half of Megatokyo has been replaced in
only a few seconds, and all communication has been cut off between us
and the outside. I want you to identify the top-ranking military,
police and city administration officials in what's left of the city
and get them to my office in one hour."
"What about cabinet ministers?"
"Oh, I suppose you might as well find one if you can," Quincy answered
impatiently. "Get on it." His face vanished from the screen.
_______________________________________________________
Kasumi stretched luxuriously. The sun was shining brightly through
her window in a clear blue sky. She felt thoroughly refreshed. There
was nothing like a really good night's sleep to remove tension. In
fact, as she looked down at her clock-radio, she noted it was blank.
That meant her alarm hadn't gone off, and she had probably...
"Oh no!" she gasped. "I must have slept in! Everyone will want
breakfast!" She grabbed her housecoat and rushed downstairs,
heaving a sigh of relief as she noted that Ranma and Genma were still
outside and still respectively human and male. She must not have
slept in that late. She stopped, puzzled. Why weren't they sparring?
Instead they were just standing there...staring out beyond the wall.
Curiosity got the better of her, and she slowly walked out to see what
they were looking at.
The familiar skyline was mutated, the ranks of gleaming Shinjuku
skyscrapers now strangely disordered and blackened as if by a
soundless explosion during the night. She shut her eyes tight and
opened them again. No change. Blankly, she turned and walked back
inside. No matter what had happened, people still needed to eat.
_____________________________________________________
"I fear you've gotten us lost m'dear," Edwin Fothergill chided as his
horseless carriage jounced and jostled over the paving stones of a
road not designed for automotive traffic.
"I most certainly did not." Grandis tossed her red mane indignantly
at the suggestion. "The map says that this is the shortest road to
Paris."
"I regret to differ, but the road to Paris has been fully Macadamised.
This road, as I'm sure you can feel, is nothing of the kind."
"I am hardly responsible for the vagaries of French highway
construction." Grandis stabbed a finger at the map. "This says that
we are almost there. If we aren't, then I shall file suit against the
cartographer in question for losing the race for us."
"All is not lost," the dashing Englishman assured his Spanish
companion. "After all we are by far the speediest competitor, thanks
to that funny little inventor fellow of yours and even if we have
somehow strayed off the path all the roads in France eventually lead
to Paris, you know. As long as our petrol holds out we can afford a
little "
"Ah!" Grandis called out. "Look, a peasant. We can ask for
directions! Pull over."
"Ask for directions?" Edwin sounded as shocked as if she'd suggested
he strip down to his underwear. "That chap doesn't look like he knows
what's over the next hill. Fellow doesn't have a tractor. Let's just
see if we can't find a road sign. Ow! Stop that!"
"Pull over you idiot!" Grandis hit him once more for good measure.
"Oh very well, but it's a waste of time." Edwin pulled up alongside
what certainly looked like a slack-jawed yokel as he stared fearfully
at the horseless carriage. "You there! Monsewer,
which...way...to...Paris?"
"English idiots," complained Grandis. "You all think everyone can
understand your stupid language if you just speak slowly and loudly
enough. Let me handle this." She switched to French as she said to
the farmer, "Excuse me, but could you tell us how far it is to Paris
from here?"
"Eight...eight miles, milady," the befuddled peasant answered,
pointing down the road.
"Hah! He says we're headed in the right direction and almost there.
Andale!" The horseless carriage left a cloud of smoke behind it as it
accelerated. No need to conserve fuel now that they were almost
there.
Pierre crossed himself as the infernal chariot departed and said a
quick prayer for King and Queen, for surely the Devil himself was
coming to Paris, accompanied by a demoness with hair as red as the
pits of Hell. God save them for the musketeers would surely not.
_______________________________________________________
Sana took another sip of her tea and sighed. She'd never seen a Tarot
layout like this one. The Hanged Man, The Devil, The Tower, Death,
The Knight of Swords, a combined message of massive changes,
confusion, and danger. Crystal-gazing had already given her a
terrible image of great war-machines from the east. She was almost
desperate enough to try haruspication, but killing something to read
entrails was so messy, and unlikely to give her any better news.
Still... She poured out the dregs, concentrating on her question.
"What is our most immediate danger?" she said aloud to the powers that
will be.
Her witches gift reached out in response and shaped the tea leaves
into meaningful patterns. She leaned over the saucer and peered at
the remains.
"Hilter? What's a Hilter?" she muttered to herself. Tea leaf augury
was just so eighteenth century. She didn't know why she'd bothered.
She heaved a more exasperated sigh. Sana hated to admit it, but this
was too big to be handled by any single witch. The Grand Coven would
have to be invoked. She reached for her telephone and began to dial.
____________________________________________________________
The God-Phoenix shuddered as another bolt of lightning struck it from
out of a clear sky. Five "Science Ninja" dressed like birds
desperately held on to their controls.
"Fire!" Ken, also known as "Eagle" or "Gatchaman" had a frown on his
classically handsome features as he gave the order. This wasn't going
to work. He just couldn't think of anything better to do.
Joe grimaced as he squeezed the trigger. Normally he was delighted
by any opportunity to open fire, but that was when he was doing more
than just guessing at the location of an invisible opponent based on
where the shots were coming from. He swore bitterly as more
lightning lanced from multiple directions and the missile vanished in
a cloud of fire.
"There's more than one?" Ryu wondered, desperately wrenching on the
joystick in a futile attempt at evasive action.
"No!" Jun answered as the lone female Science Ninja put it together
from her sensor reading. "It's some kind of electrostatic energy
field-"
Another bolt struck the G-P before she could finish her explanation
and Ryu called, "We've just lost engines three and four! We're going
down!"
Off in the distance, a tribe of the Nameless looked up in wonder at
the mysterious thing falling from the sky. A younger one made a
whistling sound in imitation of it. Another one nodded and made a
similar sound while gesturing expressively. They were on their way to
re-inventing the languages that had been stolen from them.
___________________________________________________________
A few years back, mosaic novels were a minor fantasy novel trend, the
two most successful being the "Sanctuary" series and the "Wild Cards"
series. The idea was that you created a common setting for multiple
authors to cut loose. A fanfic variation on this idea, the Sailor
Moon Expanded project, has been a fairly spectacular success. I don't
remember who suggested this approach to the idea but it caught my
imagination.
Essentially the premise is that the possibility bomb from "Orguss" has
been detonated, bringing a myriad of alternate realities together on
one planet, but now it is being used to unite multiple, previously
incompatible fictional series. What happens when the Tokyo area is
divided into Crystal Tokyo, Ranma's Nerima, Shinjuku from "Demon City
Shinjuku", and BGC's Megatokyo? When Grandis drives from "The Secret
of Blue Water" into the Paris of the Anime Three Musketeers?
When the witches from Kiki's Delivery Service must deal with the
Hitler of multiple series set in World War II? Or when the
fictionalised North America of "Gatchaman" finds itself sharing space
with "Batman Forever", "Gunsmith Cats" and "A Wind Named Amnesia"?
Anyone can write a story against this background freely and the
suggestions for zone placement are just that. They are primarily
intended for inspiration at this point. Writers may add zones
where-ever they need them, as long they do not conflict with previous
writers and do not radically conflict with canonical placement of
these locations if any.. For example if a writer has already decided
to place Steam City in Eastern China, a later author can't put it in
Japan, and you are not allowed to move the Chicago of Gunsmith Cats
into Canada. Although in many places, the world's physical geography
remains the much the same as ours, new land areas have appeared where
once there was only water.
As per "Orguss", the world is now surrounded by an invisible energy
barrier that zaps any aircraft which flies too high. In the daytime
it is fully invisible. At night it looks like the aurora borealis.
However it has been moved to a higher altitude to accomodate anyone
wanting to use series like Gatchman, Airbats or Area 88, and has been
given the added feature of absorbing radio signals. All radio
communication is now limited by the horizon.
_____________________________________________________________
Suggested Zones
In Japan at large: (Japan is one of the more fragmented areas with
Tokyo unusual for the number of microzones in close proximity)
Kansai area: Rurouni Kenshin (19th Century Japan)
Unspecified rural area: My Neighbour Totoro (1950s Japan)
Somewhere to the south: Ninja Scroll (Shogunate era)
Unspecified rural area: Zeguy (Alien dimension)
Central Japan/Tokai area: Evangelion
Hiroshima region: Barefoot Gen?/Grave of the Fireflies? (1946)
?: Graviton City (21st Century)
?: Steam City
In Tokyo:
Central Tokyo: Sailor Moon-Crystal Tokyo
Shinjuko: Demon City Shinjuko
South Tokyo/Yokohama: Bubblegum Crisis/MegaTokyo
Northeast Tokyo: Ranma 1/2 (Also Airbats)
Asia
Korea: Rail of the Star (Post WWII)
Eastern China: Konan from Fushigi Yuugi
Central China: Giant Robo
India: RG Veda
Iran/Persia: Heroic Legend of Arislan
Turkey: Star of the Kurds (Roughly modern day Turkey)
Moscow region: Space Battleship Yamato (A futuristic underground
Moscow surrounded by a huge radioactive wasteland)
Ukraine: Gundam (Occupied by the Zeons)
Arctic Circle: Dark Kingdom from Sailor Moon.
Pacific Ocean:
Australia: Gall Force: Earth Chapter
New island in the ocean: Lodoss Wars
Hawaii: Pokemon [Strictly speaking they should probably be in the
islands trailing to the south of Japan but I wanted to keep the
Pokemon well away from the 8 Devils]
The islands that form the southern part of Alaska: Spirit of
Wonder. (19th Century with odd inventions)
The Americas:
Illinois: Gunsmith Cats
Michigan: Superman, the Animated Series [Metropolis instead of
Detroit]
New York City: Mad Bull
Patlabor
Batman Forever
California: Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, New Tranic City.
Unspecified: A Wind Named Amnesia
Prince Edward Island: Anne of Green Gables (19th Century)
Unspecified: Nausicaa
South America: Orguss (The Mu)
Europe:
England: Famous Detective Holmes/Sherlock Hound (19th century with
anthropomorphic dogs)
Central France: San Jushi (The Anime version of the Three
Musketeers/Man in the Iron Mask. Aramis is a disguised woman.]
Southern France, Northern Spain: The Secret of Blue Water (19th
century with odd inventions)
Southern Spain: Streetfighter (Vega]
The Low Countries, Part of Western Germany: Kiki's Delivery Service
(Alternate 1980s with technological anachronisms and magical witches)
Rest of Germany, most of Poland: Adolf (1938 Germany)
Italy, Eastern Meditereanian filled in with land: Slayers
The Adriatic and the Balkans: Porco Rosso [1920s with some weird
inventions and some form of magic]
Romania: Vampire Hunter D,
Africa:
Northern Africa: Orguss (The Emaan)
Area 88 [The nation of Asran]
Central Africa: Gatchaman OAV [The nation of Hontworl]
Talking Animals [Lion King or Jungle
Emperor Leo, dealers choice]