I'm keeping it simple for now. ;)
Those  involved free to add. ;)
-----------------------------------------

     *KnockKnock!*
     "I'll get it!"  Sylvie, the sexaroid from the BubbleGun
Crisis, sang out as she walked by the slumped from of the room's
owner.
     "Sure, go ahead," Bert muttered, still feeling dispair and
PAIN! from recent events. Anime characters from HIS fanfic had
appeared, given him his fondest wish(a SkyKnight hardsuit), and had
proceeded to merrily pound him senseless while he wore it. To add
insult to injury, the OTHER Bert had been in on it! I mean, if you
couldn't trust yourself, who COULD you trust? He winced at one
particularly NASTY bruse flaring in pain. Owowowowow...
     Then Sylvie, his watchdog, came back into the room, smiling
broadly. Uh oh. "Guess what, Bert? You've got another visitor."
     "What??" Bert demanded.
     Another female figure walked into the room, shorter, red-
headed with a pig-tail, and wore a baggy red and black Chinese
outfit that showed off her figure nicely dispite the ill-fit.
Unfortunately, when she saw Bert, who had stared for a moment then
slapped both hands over his head to moan loudly, she frowned.
     "Ranma," Bert sighed. "Why me?"
     "This him??" Ranma-chan demanded and Sylvie nodded, eyes
twinkling. "Huh! Looks kinda different, even without the tinfoil
suit."
     "Hey!" he protested heatedly, looking up from his hands, but
shut up when the red-head glared at him. Double uh oh.
     "I wanted to get here ahead of time so I could... 'talk' to
you before the others." Bert gulped.
     "Others?"
     "Yeah. I think Kuno and Kodachi's got a big grudge with you,"
she grinned wickedly as he paled. "Y'know why, don'cha?" Bert
swallowed, he did.
     "Oooohhhhhh shhhhiiitttt....." he moaned. Kuno he might
survive, but if Kodachi came later he wasn't sure if he wanted to.
     Sylvie frowned. "They better not kill him," Bert looked at her
thankfully, "Priss and the others still have a long time to pay him
back for." The big red-head grimaced. Figures.
     Ranma-chan walked up to Sylvie. "If you want, we'll only maim
him a little. Kodachi's stuff won't leave visible marks."
     "He needs to be at least STANDING," Sylvie countered.
     "Well... that's true."
     Don't mind me, Bert mentally grumped as he crossed his arms,
wisely keeping silent, I'm just the slab of beef you're talking
about torturing here.
     "But there is one thing I want to say," Ranma-chan added.
     "What's that?" Sylive asked curiously.
     The red-head breathed in deeply. "Freeze please!" she cried
suddenly, pointing at the startled sexaroid. Bert's brown-haired
captor started for her attacker, who looked dismayed, but her
movements were much slower than a sexaroid could actually do.
Panicked, the new arrival stumbled backwards, shouting, "Stun fun!"
     This time a small, silver bolt of energy flew from a pointing
finger and slowed as she was, Sylvie was unable to dodge it. She
jerked as the bolt hit her in the stomach and appeared dazed. Her
red-headed opponent, who was panting with the effort of the second
spell, said, "Deep sleep!" This time, the sexaroid closed her eyes
as she collapsed to the ground. The Ranma-chan look-alike, for
Ranma didn't do spells, collapsed herself to all fours as she
gasped for breath, sweat dripping from her brow.
     Through all this, Bert had numbly watched from his chair as
his imprisoner was knocked out. There was only one person he knew
who did that sort of spell-casting. "Darlene?" he croaked,
wondering if he was safe or not.
     The red-head looked up, and flashed a weary smile at him.
"Close, but no cigar, Bert. Haven't you paid attention to the
mailing list?"
     Bert blinked, then his eyes widened. "Darren?!?!" he
exclaimed. She sighed and nodded.
     "Greetings, fellow knight," Bert's fellow fanfic author said,
currently transformed into the likeness of his... her own alter-
ego.
     Whadda know, Bert wondered, I may live longer than I thought.

                AUTHORS STRIKE BACK! - PRELUDE 1

                 TITLE: KANUCKS - THE GATHERING 

                   WRITTEN BY: DARREN STEFFLER

            CHARACTERS: <TOP SECRET-FOR GOOD REASON>

     After running around quite a bit, Bert finally returned with
some HEFTY cords of rope, plus some chains, and the two authors
quickly tied up the still form of Sylvie. When they were satisfied,
Bert and Darren placed her chair facing one of the corners.
     "Whew!" Darren said, relieved. "I'm glad she didn't wake up.
Those freaking spells are HARD for me to do."
     "Yeah, I sorta noticed that," Bert offered, he had seen how
much it had taken out of her. "But I'm amazed you can do them at
all. How DID you get here, and why like that??"
     Darren sighed and sat on the couch, Bert on the chair when she
waved at him to do so. "One word: Twister," she said.
     "Huh?"
     "This Twister has a lot of millennia under his belt, Bert, and
the older he is the more powerful he gets. He teleported me here
before he left. But he also whipped up this costume so I could fool
Sylvie and rescue you."
     "All right, I can accept that," Bert admitted. "And the
spells...?" Darren grimaced, although, Bert noted, it looked kinda
cute on her at the moment.
     "That's where it gets confusing."
     "'Gets' confusing? Excuse me, I think we've already passed
that stage."
     "True," Darren admitted. "All right... This is what Twister
told me, and I'll have to tell you it all so you understand." She
took a deep breath before she began.
     "OUR universe is a real universe, but we create other semi-
real universes when we dream, think up, or write stories using our
creativity."
     "Like Hitomi says," Bert added.
     "Unfortunately for us, yes," Darren confirmed. "Twister said
there are other kinds where this doesn't happen but we're 'lucky'."
     "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Bert interrupted. "How would HE know?!
He's YOUR creation and from one of those 'other' places!"
     "Yes, and no."
     "Bwah?"
     "In an omniverse of infinite possibilities IT ACTUALLY
HAPPENED, Bert! When this whole mess started, he found out and
entered this universe to see what was going on and sort of...merged
with my other self." Bert stared. "And he's one of the few people
who had the power and ability to do it. That's why he didn't take
revenge on me; I hadn't really done anything different to my
character.
     "Then why...?" Bert waved at Darren's chest.
     "Twister's theory," Darren sighed. "He felt that the merge
went too well, too seamlessly. Like there was something that helped
it along. He came up with a action/reaction theory that makes a
kind of sense."
     "And that is...?" he prompted.
     "Because of the nature of the Event and the raw potential
Twister has, plus his own nature, there is some sort of 'recoil' or
'backlash' happening. It will slowly afflict all our other 'selves'
who know Twister's history, and mine was accelerated by the mess
that's been going on lately. He was afraid it would be painful
without this," she waved at herself, "change, and that's why he
allowed it to happen. And he seems to be right; I've been able to
cast very weak spells since then and I'm very, very slowly, getting
stronger."
     "That's... interesting," Bert managed.
     Darren's eyes hardened. "And the 'helping' he's been doing is
for the purpose of controlling things so they don't go totally out
of control. Reality is so mucked up he's having a hard time keeping
it managable, so we can't count much on my super-powerful self."
     "How could things have been worse?" Bery demanded.
     "Hollister, the HeadHunter 9000, Largo, Kuno..."
     "All right, all right!" Bert cried, sweating at the thought of
it. "I get the picture!" Darren grinned a little.
     "Good. Here's the current situation: something, or someone,
basically 'hit' the fanfic ML with something that's been allowing
fanfic characters to cross over to our world. If you've been
reading, you'll see that can go both ways."
     "Who's been typing these stories up anyway?" Bert demanded. "I
know I haven't!"
     "I said the same thing, and Twister said, 'History isn't just
repeating itself anymore for you guys, now it's writing down.'
Weird, but that's the norm right now."
     "Ooookay."
     "In addition, ML author's personal realities are a little
warped right now(or even more warped than usual for some), some are
handling the situation better than others, even winning in some
cases." Darren snapped her fingers as she remembered something. "Oh
yeah! Whatever you do, DON'T WRITE ANYTHING NEW!! Even if all your
characters get nuked, they'll just come back really, really pissed
off."
     Scratch one previously perfect plan, Bert lamented privately.
     "Until the cause of the problem is removed or destroyed, this
is going to continue. It's going to be hard to fight this."
     "How?!?! In case you haven't noticed, they KNOW what we
think!"
     "That's because of our link with them, that's unbreakable,
but," Darren held up an odd item, "we CAN block the mind reading
and they can't really read the ML stuff anyway. Feedback loop or
something."
     Bert blinked. Darren was holding up a spinning cube that spun
on her hand effortlessly. It was made of a transparent, crystal-
like material that flashed random colors of light from within.
     "What's that?" he asked hesitantly.
     "This is Matrix V or 5," Darren informed him. "I've stayed
female so I could remain in contact with it. Twister left it with
me so I could teleport back home after I rescued you. It's mostly
a extra-dimentional memory storage device, think of a supercharged
tricorder, but it has a few other features that might be useful.
Blocking mental intrusion was a quick addition before Twister
left."
     Bert glanced nervously at a stirring Sylvie. "Can that thing
handle more than one? I don't think it's safe here and I'd prefer
a teleport over another bashing any day."
     "I was just about to suggest it," Darren said with a smile.
"And the hardsuit?"
     "Oh! Right!" Bert's eyes gained a gleam. "It might prove...
useful."
     His smile wasn't a pleasant one to see.


| Twister (also known as Darren Steffler ;)
| 	e-mail at twister@tendo-dojo.ranma.net
| 		Home Page at http://www.winnipeg.freenet.mb.ca/~fmw675/
| Big Heapum Fan of: Ranma 1/2, Bubblegum Crisis, Dirty Pair, Gundam, and
| 		     the rest of the known anime universe.