Sorry, Bert! I'm getting impatient with TP4 and this part could use some C+C.
^_^ 
(Bert's been busy with his job and exploded mail program so pity our 
valient(sp) knight :)

Twister.
(p.s. Bug Bert loads and loads if you want the rest of TP4. I know I 
have.  ^_^)

Part Five - Between the hammer and the anvil
--------------------------------------------

     "Professor," Twister yawned, belatedly covering his mouth with
a hand, "just why are we on the Athletics field at 3:00 AM?" He
yawned mightily again, a gesture that was echoed by Bert, who was
off to his left. His red-haired friend was unhappy to say the
least; it was bloody early in the morning when he'd have preferred
to be in bed, especially given what had happened earlier in the
day. He hadn't had any breakfast, and he desperately needed a cup
of tea, preferably many more than just one. The professor was
unsympathetic to both of them.
     "This is the only time we can do this without worrying about
stray people," she told them briskly, brushing her black hair back
over her shoulders. She appeared to be unaffected by the lateness,
or earliness, of the hour, depending on the viewpoint, and was
striding across the cool, dew-damp field with undiminished vigour.
"Given what happened before, I'd rather not conduct this particular
test inside my house."
     "Hold on a second," Bert interrupted, looking worried. "Just
what are you planning to do?!"
     "I've worked up a spell that SHOULD determine just how you and
your suit have been affected by the Wild magic that hit you;
because the link appears to be so powerful, I'd rather do this out
in the open where there's no buildings nearby. I presume I don't
have to explain why."
     "Nope," Twister agreed, remembering the carnage, and the
headaches, literal and figurative, that had developed as a result
of the last test. Bert nodded wordlessly, evidently trying to
remain calm at the prospect of facing magic again.
     They reached the center of the football field, and Professor
Miyabi stopped suddenly. The two young men following her looked
around; they were standing at the center of the fifty-yard line.
     "Somebody going to toss a coin?" Bert asked grumpily. "Heads,
I go home to bed; Tails, I go home to bed." Here it was blasted
early in the morning, and he was standing in the middle of a cold,
and very empty football field. Life was so unfair at times.
     "Quit griping," Miyabi retorted irritably. "This shouldn't
take long, and then you can go back to bed." She waved a hand,
muttering something; a haze they hadn't even seen seemed to lift,
and there was suddenly a small stack of equipment nearby. Standing
in the middle of the pile was the familiar silver-and-blue
SkyKnight armour. Bert brightened a little at seeing his suit.
     "Uh, professor," Twister asked, noting that there were thermos
bottles in the equipment pile, "what's in the bottles?"
     "Hot and cold water," she replied, arching an eyebrow
quizzically. "What did you think they'd be?"
     "Never mind," he sighed tiredly. "You want me to change form
and use my magic for this too, right?" It was the only logical
explanation there could be.
     "I see my classes are fine-tuning your perception," she
replied dryly. "I also want someone around who isn't affected by
magic, just in case; you fill both those bills, quite nicely.
Twister didn't reply, but walked over to the cold water jug. He
opened the lid, and splashed some of the chilly liquid on himself.
Darlene shivered as the cold night air gleefully attacked her wet
skin.
     "All right," she sighed. "Let's get this over with."
     "Hey, that's my line," Bert said. "I'm the one about to get
fried here." Darlene noticed his hands were shaking slightly as he
stood watching the Professor lay out a pair of circles of intricate
design on the ground. His suit was already at the center of one of
them, and it didn't take a huge leap of logic to know what the
other circle was for. Bert clenched his hands into fists and stuck
them in his pockets when he noticed the red-headed girl watching
him. The Professor had overheard his remark, however.
     "This is perfectly safe," she assured him. "Don't worry,
nothing will happen."
     "I've heard that before," the tall red-head sighed. "All
right; I stand over there, right?"
                              *****
     "Perfect," a smoothly smiling, red-skinned being stated as he
calmly watched a shimmering disk of energy floating in midair
before him. The strangely silvery, mirrored surface of the disk
showed an overhead view of a grassy field, and the darkness of the
scene indicated it was nighttime. In the center of the image, three
people were visible. One was a young, red-haired girl with blue
eyes, the second was a much older woman with long black hair, and
the third individual was a tall, broad-shouldered young man with
unruly red hair.
     It was the third person in the party that held Malkon's
attention. He'd felt the arrival of this `SkyKnight' when it had
happened, mostly because it had been accompanied by a magical
disturbance with a very familiar feel to it. Malkon had immediately
recognized Twister's `signature' in the magic field that had
brought SkyKnight to his current location, and curiosity had led
him to investigate further the new arrival.
     It had been pure luck that he had detected the mortal's
arrival, really. The magical construct that had been formed of Wild
Magic and had caused such destruction in his domain in Hell hadn't
initially led him to believe it was Twister's doing; an arch-demon
had many enemies in Hell and the power of the thing had been far
beyond the younger human. But those same enemies wouldn't take such
a risk to use Wild Magic; it was just too unpredictable and easily
turned on the caster. Finally, he had been forced to believe it WAS
Twister's doing; the power DID have his female side's `flavor' to
it, he reluctantly concluded.
     Despite the damage, there was a more pleasant aspect to
Malkon's situation. Those same enemies in Hell, who had been likely
to attack him since he was Masterless still and thus without
protection of a higher level demon, seemed to have stopped their
plans to attempt to destroy him. Apparently, they were either
fearful of getting caught up in a battle with a being who wielded
Wild Magic of such strength, or else they were interested in what
Malkon would do next, such entertainment being rare in Hell. The
arch-demon did not have many options now: either defeat Twister and
gain control over his magic, or be destroyed by bored rivals.
     Malkon had started cautiously spying on Twister, using
sophisticated spells to avoid detection of any sort, while using
divination spells to find out why Twister had attacked him; it
hadn't seemed like his style.
     What he'd found was a situation ripe for taking advantage of:
a dimensionally displaced person, totally unfamiliar with his new
surroundings, who also appeared to have acquired a smaller measure
of power from the Event. Malkon had heard every word of Darlene's
explanation of what had happened in Mega-Tokyo, leaving the
arch-demon satisfied and intrigued over that event. Malkon had
studied the situation a bit, and finally decided that, somehow,
SkyKnight had become a magic sink, and the power he appeared to be
storing and occasionally accessing, had once belonged to Twister.
     Which meant that Twister might have been weakened somehow, a
thought Malkon found immensely satisfying because of the
destruction the psionist had caused him personally. The Arch-Demon
grinned at the image of Bert in his viewing portal. Since the
mortal's precipitous arrival, Malkon had carefully and covertly
probed into SkyKnight's psyche, and he believed he now knew all he
needed to now about him: he was dealing with a headstrong young man
who was absolutely terrified at the thought of having been affected
by magic, even though he wouldn't admit it out loud.
     "So you don't want the magic you have acquired?" he mused to
himself. "Then I shall help relieve you of it. A burden such as
that should not be borne by one so ....inexperienced at dealing
with power." Malkon's eyes glowed redly. The information he'd
gleaned on SkyKnight would make it easy to trick him into releasing
his accidentally acquired power.
     And when released, Malkon would take possession of it.
     It was absurdly simple.
     So why was there this nagging feeling that he'd missed
something bothering him?
                              *****
     His guts feeling as tightly strung as piano wire, Bert stood
at the center of the rune-inscribed circle, watching as Miyabi
conferred with Darlene in low tones a few feet away. Part of his
mind was frantically wishing this was some way out of this. He'd
never been comfortable around magic, especially since he'd found
out what it had done ... was doing to him; he just wanted to get
rid of it somehow, and go back to being his normal self. Fat
chance, his mind noted sourly, you're just not that lucky. He took
a deep breath, trying to control his racing heart as the two female
magic users turned towards him.
     "Relax," the Professor tried soothing him again. "Nothing will
happen, I promise." He nodded, not fully trusting his voice at the
moment. His hands were still in his pockets, tightly clenched into
fists.
     The Professor nodded to Darlene; raising their hands, the two
women started spell-casting. Miyabi chanted a very complex-sounding
spell, while the younger Darlene cast one of her rhyme spells that
the Professor must have instructed her to use. He couldn't
understand half of what the Professor was saying, and wasn't really
sure he wanted to know. Darlene, from what he could tell, was
apparently doing something simpler for the shielding circles,
lessening Miyabi's burden, although the thought of how she was
doing this, he shied away from. Bert clenched his jaw tightly,
taking large breaths and trying to keep from fidgeting nervously.
     A softly-glowing purple light sprang up from the rune-marked
circles surrounding his suit and himself, and he suddenly found
that he couldn't move. He stopped himself just short of dropping
off the edge into panicking and summoning his suit at that
realization. He had to trust them and try and relax; calling on
anything even remotely connected to his `power' right now would
horribly warp and distort anything magical near him. He really
didn't want to be inside of another explosion like that last time;
given the implied scale of magic involved this time around, it
would probably be like sitting in the middle of a small nuclear
reactor if it became disrupted.
     The glow from the circles intensified, and stretched upwards,
enveloping the red-haired Knight Saber and his hardsuit in
translucent columns of light. Beyond the purple photonic haze, he
could still see the Professor and Darlene gesturing. So far,
everything appeared to be going okay.
     Abruptly, a bright white light flared in his vision, obscuring
everything.
                              *****
     "And....now," Malkon breathed, a smug smile of
self-satisfaction flitting across his demonic features. A brilliant
shaft of magical energy lashed out from his taloned hand, and
vanished into the silvery viewing field that hovered in front of
him. The disk turned a murky white. His smile vanishing, the
Arch-Demon concentrated on adding to his power base.
                              *****
     Bert groggily shook his head, trying to clear the flashing
sparks from his mind and eyes. Whatever that spell effect had been,
it had been blinding, and he still felt a little...strange? He
opened his eyes, suddenly realizing that something wasn't quite
right. When he looked down at himself, fear sliced through him with
the keenness of razor blades.
     He was sitting in a wooden chair, and very tightly lashed to
it, with his arms tied behind him. Swallowing against a suddenly
very dry mouth, he strained at the ropes binding him. It couldn't
be, not again! Good God, PLEASE not that again!!!!!! his mind
shrieked. The ropes held, and he slumped back against the chair,
his breathing harsh with stomach-wrenching fear.
     "So you're awake again at last, huh?" a smooth,
cultured-sounding voice inquired, the voice he usually only heard
in his worst nightmares. "Good. Now maybe we can get back to where
we stopped our discussion," Hollister remarked conversationally,
sitting on the edge of a table. His icy blue eyes glittered
sadistically, a sly, taunting smirk on his face. The grey-suited,
blond-haired man was sitting next to an awfully familiar-looking
amplifier unit, and SkyKnight could see the wires running from it.
     Attached to electrodes that were stuck on him.
     "No," he breathed hoarsely, sweating as he pulled frantically
at the ropes again. "This isn't happening! I escaped!!!" Hollister
snorted derisively, shaking his head in mockery.
     "You tried, you mean," he corrected. "A valiant effort, but
pointless really. No one gets away from me." Hollister reached out
and patted him insultingly on the head. "You might have made it, if
you hadn't insisted on trying to rescue the sexaroids."
     "You're lying!!" the tall red-head snarled, shaking his head
in violent denial and straining to break free again. "This isn't
happening!!!"
     "Still a bit delusional, I see. Well, that's to be expected;
most people are dead after three days of what you've been through.
Stubborn, aren't you?" Hollister smiled in what was supposed to be
a genial way; however, all the teeth he was showing made it
resemble the bared fangs of a rabid wolf for a moment. "Let's
resume where we left off, shall we?" SkyKnight writhed helplessly,
howling in agony as his tormentor flicked the switch on the
electrical amplifier.
     "Go .... to .... HELL!!!" he hissed through his teeth, shaking
from the pain that coursed through him. He didn't know what was
happening to him, but it was impossible that this was happening
now. He'd escaped Hollister, and succeeded in rescuing his friends.
There was no way that he'd just hallucinated everything that had
happened to him in a brief period of unconsciousness, especially
not the inter-dimensional landing in Twister's universe. His
subconscious wasn't THAT weird.... he hoped, anyway.
     "I'll need a better answer than that," Hollister said suavely.
He tabbed the switch again.
     "AAAAAAARRRRGHH!!!" SkyKnight convulsed again, almost crying
from the pain. This couldn't be happening, damn it!! Anger suddenly
ripped through him, overpowering everything else. Without even
realizing he was doing it, he reached inside of himself for what
he'd briefly had access to earlier.
     It was there, faint and pulsing, a warm glow that promised
power, the power to free himself and strike back at his foe, but it
was tenuous at best. Something was interfering with his access to
it. He squirmed frantically in his bonds, trying to establish a
firmer hold on it.
                              *****
     "AAAAAAAAARRRRRGH!!!!!!!!"
     Accompanying the pained scream, a flaring explosion of bright
white and purple light burst from the twin circles inscribed on the
turf of the athletic field, completely obscuring the red-headed
Knight Saber and his silver-enamelled armour. Darlene and Miyabi
were flung backwards by the blast, and both mages lay stunned on
the grass for a moment, their magical senses momentarily blinded
and dazed by the eruption. The nimbus of light concealing SkyKnight
throbbed and pulsed angrily, seeming running through the entire
spectrum of colours as it hummed like a high-voltage wire.
                              *****
     All over the city, anyone with even the slightest trace of
magic sensitivity was rudely jarred out of a sound sleep by a
violent blast of noise that transcended normal hearing. Harsh and
brutal, the noise was terrifying in its intensity, like being next
to a volcano when it erupted.
     With a strangled shriek, Natsumi sat bolt upright in her bed,
her green eyes wide with fear. Shivering uncontrollably, she lay
back, gathering the blankets around her again, trying to seek the
solace of sleep again. Whatever had caused the massive disturbance
was still out there somewhere; there was the sense of an oppressive
magical field, like the low pressure region of a thunderstorm, but
it was muted now with distance.
     She closed her eyes trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling
and relax enough to fall asleep again. She started dreamily
thinking of `her' knight-in-shining-armour, trying to soothe
herself with thoughts of the tall, red-haired young man, and how
handsome he'd been.... Her eyes abruptly flew open again as she
suddenly recognized the `feel' of the magic disturbance that had
woken her.
     Sleep forgotten, Natsumi leaped out of bed, and started
throwing on whatever clothes she could find.
                              *****
     Groggily, Darlene rolled over and painfully crawled towards
the Thermos bottles laying nearby. The emanations from the magical
field a few metres away clawed at her, trying to drive her back
into unconsciousness. She grimly fought back against it, finally
reaching the bottles. She shakily uncorked the hot water bottle and
slopped the hot water on herself. Twister sighed in relief as his
reversion to his magic-immune form silenced the magical shockwaves
crashing around in his head.
     Professor Miyabi didn't have the luxury of magic immunity
however, and was on her knees clutching at her temples in severe
pain, just barely hanging on. Twister immediately sprinted over to
her, and tried to project a shield that would screen out the wild
magical emanations from SkyKnight.
     "What....what's happening?!" she gasped, clutching at him as
he tried to help her to her feet. "The spell wasn't supposed to
produce anything even like this! What went wrong?!"
     "I don't know," the young psionist replied helplessly, "but
we'd better come up with a way to shut if off, and fast. I don't
know what's going on in there, but it didn't sound pleasant."
     "THIS IS NOT WHAT WAS INTENDED!" a powerful voice boomed from
the depths of the magic field, startling them both. Harsh and
resonant, it rattled the teeth of any nearby listeners with its
unquestionable authority. "AND IT WILL END. NOW."
                              *****
     Malkon smiled to himself; everything was working perfectly.
He'd managed to slide his little spell into Miyabi's, unnoticed by
anyone. She and Twister might be powerful mages, but the Arch-Demon
had centuries, millennia even, more of experience at being devious;
it had been childishly easy to magically link his mind to
SkyKnight's, and start extracting what he wanted.
     He glanced down at the form he was `wearing' at the moment. It
was interesting how someone as vicious and evil as Hollister seemed
to be could look so harmless on the exterior. He'd almost forgotten
how treacherous mortals could be. He'd have to look up this
`Hollister' fellow if he ever got the chance; the man had
potential.
     The Arch-demon returned his attention to his prey, watching
the magically trapped Knight Saber writhe as he tried to access the
power he'd been imbued with. Like Malkon had figured, resurrecting
the spectre of his interrogation ordeal had driven him almost
frantic with fear. As a result, he'd instinctively tried drawing on
the power, wanting to free himself and get away.
     Malkon smiled again, raising a hand before his eyes, watching
the growing purple aura surrounding him become brighter yet; what
SkyKnight didn't realize was that in reaching for the source of his
new-found powers, he'd allowed Malkon access to it as well, making
it easy for the Arch-demon to start diverting it to himself. As a
result, despite his tortured straining, SkyKnight was helpless to
do anything while Malkon gained in strength. The demonic being
resisted the urge to start laughing triumphantly; it wasn't in
keeping with his image at the moment, and it could disrupt his
spell.
     The power flow suddenly ebbed, and actually began to reverse
itself. Frowning, Malkon traced the power flow back to its
red-haired source, wondering what the problem was; it was
impossible that the mortal he was draining could do that. He was
untutored, and hadn't even the barest amount of control necessary
to control his energy like that.  The head of the uncontrollably
shaking young man suddenly snapped up to regard the disguised
Arch-Demon. With something akin to a shock, Malkon realized that
SkyKnight's eyes were glowing incandescently purple.
     "YOU OVERSTEP YOURSELF," a voice thundered, apparently coming
from his captive. "INTERFERENCE IN THIS MATTER WILL NOT BE
TOLERATED."
     There was a loud, echoing thunderclap that smashed the
Arch-demon backwards, reeling in pain. Before his amazed sight, a
towering, silver armour suit coalesced into existence around the
red-headed young man as the chair and ropes that had been binding
him disintegrated.
     "And now, thou lowest of life forms," SkyKnight snarled,
advancing menacingly on what he thought was Hollister. "Thou shalt
taste the fires of vengeance!"
     Malkon immediately cut off his linking spell and retreated,
vanishing a split second before a crimson and purple energy bolt
spat through where he'd been standing. There would always be other
opportunities....
     And obviously more mysteries and secrets to discover than he
had originally thought.
                              *****
     Twister winced, squeezing watering eyes shut as he threw an
arm over his face to shield it from the solar-intensity light that
erupted anew from the area of the magic spell, accompanied by a
sound reminiscent of a sonic boom. Professor Miyabi did the same,
stifling an agonized groan as the magical interference again
pounded at her; even shielded by Twister, she was still feeling the
shocks from the stray Wild Magic in the area.
     The brown-haired young psionist lowered his arm cautiously,
watching disbelievingly as the energy field suddenly shrank,
sinking in on itself like an implosion of space-time. The seething
energy dimmed as it retreated, vanishing into the armoured figure
standing at the middle of the energy disturbance. SkyKnight's
silver-armoured form was shaking violently, as if he'd been
directly connected to a high-voltage line.
     "SkyKnight?! Bert?! Are you okay?!" Twister shouted, sprinting
towards his friend. The glowing eyeslot in the silver helmet
lifted, looking at him.
     " `Nothing will happen.' Right," his voice came faintly. The
knees on the silver suit buckled, and he pitched over on his face
with a loud clang before Twister could catch him. Just as the
psionist reached the fallen suit, jagged white cracks of light
raced across the armoured form. Just as he skidded to a stop, the
silver armour sizzled, then burst asunder in a spinning spray of
redly-glowing pieces, leaving an unconscious red-haired young man
laying unharmed on the grass. Twister's stomach dropped lower than
his shoes as he watched the hardsuit disintegrate, the pieces
vanishing before they could hit the grass.
     "Somehow, I don't think this is a good sign," he understated
as Miyabi unsteadily came up beside him. "Do you think it's all
right to move him?"
     "At this point I don't think things could get worse," Miyabi
sighed.
     "Bert! BEEERRTTT!!!" a female voice that sounded like it was
getting closer cried out. Natsumi.
     "Of course I have been wrong before," she added wryly, then
weaved unsteadily on her feet. Twister caught her, concern in his
hazel eyes.
     "Maybe I should Heal you; we were both pretty close to the
`blast' of energy." Miyabi hesitated for a moment then nodded her
acquiescence. Blue energy shone where his hands supported her and
a few seconds later the magic teacher's face wore an expression of
bliss as the pain disappeared.
     "Thank you, Twister," she said gratefully, and, able to
support herself, removed his hands. "I must have one of the few
students in the world who can both cause or remove headaches." Both
chuckled a bit at her statement, then, more seriously, turned to
Bert, who still lay silent.
     Just then Natsumi came running up to the pair, and took in the
still figure of the tall red-head on the ground. Whirling to
Miyabi, she began, "He's not..." Her teacher shook her head.
     "No, just unconscious." The younger magic-user relaxed even as
Miyabi frowned at the silent form. "I just can't understand what
went wrong to create such a disaster like this. I suppose every
magic-user in the city must have felt the blast of magical
energies." She sighed. "I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do
over the next week. You'd better take him home, Twister, I suspect
he's going to be weakened after this so he'll need rest."
     After picking up the big red-head, Twister sighed. "It's going
to be interesting explaining what happened to his suit. See you
later, Professor, Natsumi." And silently, he vanished with his
unconscious passenger.
     "I hope he'll be all right," Natsumi said, worried,
unconsciously wringing her hands.
     "He should be," Miyabi replied distractedly as she walked into
the circle where Bert had lain, studying the ground intently to she
if she could find anything wrong.
     Wait...
     Miyabi straightened, thinking she had imagined smelling the
extremely faint odour. She tried inhaling deeper, and again it was
there.
     Brimstone?
     Unnoticed by anyone, a shadowy shape that was lurking at the
edge of the athletic field sighed wearily, then vanished.
                              *****
     Out of darkness blissfully free of dream or nightmare, Bert
registered that he had woken up without opening his eyes. Where am
I? he thought, confused and disoriented for a moment. Then memory
painfully returned and he snapped his eyes open in shock, closing
them immediately when the bright light seared his optics.
     "Oh God, turn off that damn sun already," he groaned weakly.
"I've got enough on my mind now."
     "Kinda hard to turn off a fusion reaction on the spur of the
moment, Bert, even for early morning risers."
     Twister's familiar voice directed Bert into an ugly frame of
mind, even for his usual morning self. "What the HELL happened last
nig... Oh, so sorry, god damn it, this MORNING?!?" He squinted his
eyes open and could see the brown-haired psionist looking at him in
concern.
     "You probably know more than we do."
     Not wanting to remember the unpleasant details of THAT
episode, Bert started feeling the state of his body registering at
last and it didn't improve his mood in the least. "Dammit! I can
barely lift my own arm!" And it was true, the feeble attempt under
the cover that had been placed on him only showed a shaking attempt
to raise his limb. Concerned, Twister frowned.
     "That's not good. Whatever happened must have really wiped you
out."
     "Brilliant observation, Sherlock," the prone red-head snarled,
making Twister shake his head.
     "You'd better go down and get something to eat, and lots of
tea for you."
     "And just how, oh wise one, do you propose I do that if I
can't even lift my own bloody arm?!?" Bert snapped.
     Twister tried some humour. "Ve hav vays ov makink you valk."
he said in a phony Russian accent. It failed miserably.
     "Oh, bloody perfect," was the growled response.
                              *****
     After the third LARGE tankard of steaming tea, Bert's mood
improved remarkably. He just wished that whatever had caused him to
wake hadn't been so bloody eager to jump the gun. Christ, Ranma and
Genma had just started sparring and Akane hadn't returned from her
early morning jog yet. Kasumi was preparing breakfast, after making
some tea for Bert, in her usual cheerful manner. The only ones at
the table were him, Twister, and Soun. Nabiki was doing what more
sane people did at this time: sleeping.
     God, he felt lousy. Even drinking was an effort. It wasn't
helping Bert any either to have Twister watching him like a bloody
hawk all the time. He shivered at the image the predator metaphor
brought to mind. Hollister.
     "You okay, Bert?"
     Bert looked at the psionist. Twister couldn't touch him
directly with his powers, but he had made the way downstairs ten
times easier by using air held in place to support the red-head. It
had been eerie, being supported by thin air, literally. Rock-hard
at the onset, but almost like a cushion when Twister had loosened
his hold on the air molecules. The end result was that it had
looked like Bert had walked down on his own, if barely, rather than
his real jello-like condition.
     "Yes, Twister, I'm fine. Other than feeling like a run-over
moose that had the semi that did it back up over me and do it one
more time to make sure it got the job done. Sure. I'm juuust fine."
     Twister snorted, amused. "I thought caffeine IMPROVED your
mood in the morning."
     "Har har har, hardy har-har," was Bert's sour reply. "And how
come YOU look so awake? You must've been watching me all night."
Twister shrugged helplessly.
     "Haven't a clue. I just wasn't tired."
     Bert sighed, disgusted. "Perfect."
     Nabiki made her semi-awake appearance and sat down at the
table. "Glumphorning," she grunted out.
     "I'll save my `good morning' until I'm sure it'd register,"
Twister said with a smile. Nabiki turned to Bert, eyes half-open
and filled with early-morning grumpiness.
     "Should I do something horrible to him later to pay him back
for that remark?" Bert grinned, cheered for the first time that
day.
     "Go ahead."
     Twister sighed theatrically at the unfairness of being
outnumbered, Soun not being counted of course. Akane, flushed from
the exhilaration of her jog, arrived then.
     "Hi, Bert, are you okay? I heard that this morning didn't go
too well."
     "That's putting it mildly. I can barely move, but yeah, I'm
okay."
     "HEY, LET GO, OLD MAN!!" Ranma's voice volleyed through the
back door of the dojo. A moment later there was a thundering
explosion of water in the backyard pond, followed by the sounds of
someone hacking and coughing. "Dammit!" Ranma-chan's voice angry
voice came to them. A low, threatening growl was Genma's response.
     "Oh good, Ranma and Mr. Saotome are done," Kasumi observed
brightly. "I'll bring breakfast out."
     Bert's stomach grumbled loudly, reminding him that he hadn't
eaten for a while and that he had been through a lot lately. "Thank
God," he mumbled, taking another large gulp of tea. Then Ranma-chan
stepped into view and he choked on said gulp.
     "Damn it, old man, I HATE getting wet!" she protested,
wringing her top again in her hands to get the water out. It being
in her hands, there was nothing on her torso which was the cause of
Bert's intense startlement and subsequent coughing fit.
     "Hey, are ya alright, Bert?" she queried and stepped beside
him to pound on his back. For some reason, this only made things
worse as Bert's face turned crimson, being level with Ranma-chan's
breasts.
     "Ranma, turn around already before you make him die from
embarrassment," Twister said, trying not to laugh. Nabiki had a
smirk on her face, while Akane looked angry.
     "Huh?" Ranma-chan blinked in confusion, then comprehension
dawned at last. Red-faced, she stepped back and turned around to
put her wet top back on. It dried quickly when Twister used his TK
to blow hot air through the material.
     "Recovered, Bert?" Twister asked when the red-head finally
calmed down.
     Coughing one last time, flushing redly, Bert said, "Ye...Yeah.
The breast...uh," he reddened more when he realized what he just
said, "...um...TEA went down wrong tube! Yeah, that's it. That's
all." God, could the day get any worse? he thought angrily to
himself, trying to drive away the mental image of the half-naked
Ranma-chan as it was STILL making him blush.
     "Couldn't you have left your shirt ON, Ranma? We DO have a
guest, you know!" Akane told Ranma-chan angrily.
     "Hey, I'm a guy, remember!"
     "Not right now, you stupid pervert!"
     "Why you...."
     Thankfully, Kasumi put the food on the table just then,
forcing the two to limit their insults as they ate.
     Bert was still bright red when Twister helped him back
upstairs, having failed to rid himself of images of the half-naked
Ranma-chan. Unfortunately, the sight had prompted him to remember
the time he'd accidentally stepped in on Nene when she had been
showering.
     Just bloody perfect.
                              *****
     "Doesn't she, HE I mean, know how bloody distracting that is
to any red-blooded male?!?" Bert exclaimed from the bed, putting a
hand on his forehead tiredly.
     "Not really," Twister admitted. Bert peered suspiciously at
him.
     "YOU weren't embarrassed."
     "Normally I am rather body-shy, but not with Ranma," the
psionist said. "The fact that it feels like I'm looking at a mirror
whenever he is a she helps quite a lot," he admitted.
     Bert smacked his head, and said, "Doh!" remembering that
Twister and Ranma shared the same cursed form and... He mentally
groaned when double-images of Ranma-chan sprang up, then Nene too.
     This isn't working, he thought, frustrated at his inability to
clear his mind. "What happened outside during that so-called
`harmless' spell, anyhow?" he quickly asked the brown-haired
psionist, who furrowed his brows in remembrance.
     "Everything seemed to be under control till you screamed, then
me and the professor were flung backwards. No, we landed okay," he
said, seeing Bert's look of concern, "but the usual magical
shockwave that always accompanies one of your magical blasts
resulted, and kept on going continuously. I managed to reach a hot
water thermos before I was knocked unconscious, and Professor
Miyabi wasn't far behind me. We couldn't do much but wait and hope
you were okay. When the light stopped," Twister hesitated and
looked at Bert for a moment before continuing, "you were in the
SkyKnight armour."
     "Yeah, I think I remember wanting it, vaguely," Bert
interrupted. He stopped when he noticed Twister's uncertain look
and felt the other shoe was about to drop.
     "You fell unconscious, started to fall, and..." the psionist
took a deep breath, "...and the armour cracked open, flying apart
into pieces which disappeared. Miyabi contacted me while you were
out and she can't find it anywhere." He paused, letting it sink in.
     "I think it's destroyed, Bert."
     Bert stared at him with wide-eyed shock. "Des...troyed?" he
said in a stunned manner. How could his armour have been
destroyed?? It was the toughest hardsuit he and Sylia had created
yet; that it could crumble like tinfoil in the way Twister
described was just plain IMPOSSIBLE!
     And just WHAT since he had come to this crazy place HADN'T
been impossible?! he snarled in his thoughts, anger easily surging
to the fore. The only thing that he had of home TOTALLED, with
absolutely NOTHING left of it because of the insane magic that had
been dogging him since getting here!!!
     Twister noticed the almost instant change in his mood. "Are
you okay?" he asked, plainly concerned.
     "Leave," the red-head said flatly.
     "What?"
     "I said LEAVE damn it! Get OUT!!" Bert shouted, causing the
psionist to recoil. Bert didn't really give a damn what the other
thought at the moment, since all he represented was another
reminder of what had happened. Twister seemed to sense this, or
didn't know what to say. In either case, Twister left the room with
an unreadable expression.
     Good.
     He slammed his fist down on the bed as hard as he could, given
his current state.
     "DAMN IT, WHY!?!?!?"
                              *****
     Outside the door, Twister winced from the guilt he felt when
he heard Bert's shout. He could imagine how much the suit had meant
to his new friend, especially now being so far from home. It was
also a symbol for Bert, and for it to be destroyed without any
means of building another at the moment...
     "Damn."
     "What happened?" Nabiki's question startled Twister, who then
gave a long sigh.
     "His armour was essentially disintegrated because of what
happened this morning," he informed her. That widened her eyes.
     "I guess he's upset."
     "Since nothing like that was supposed to happen, yeah, big
time." He sighed. "I'm not sure what to do right now."
     "Let it lie for a day," Nabiki waved her hand. "Right now it's
a big shock to him, later he'll be more rational."
     "You sure?"
     "Works with Akane."
     He sighed. "Well, I have nothing better off hand so I'll wait
for tomorrow. I'll ask Kasumi to take a lot of food up since he's
still recovering; I suppose it wasn't a good idea to take him down
for breakfast in the first place." He raised an eyebrow at Nabiki's
amused face.
     "Not after seeing Ranma anyway," she noted.
     They exchanged a grin.
                              *****
     Twister returned to his apartment and, as Yasuro was not
there, worked on a few things to take his mind off Bert's problem.
There was plenty to do: finish a bit more of that optical computer;
create a small, magical base for it's future power needs; practice
low-power psionic effects with the tricks he'd seen Madagan do and
duplicated; try mental discipline damping his aura when trying
something above-normal psi; and so on. It kept him busy and didn't
tire him as all of it was mostly easy practice. Still, Twister
worried about Bert.
     As it turned out, he had a right to be.

THE NEXT DAY.....

     Sunlight slashed through the slats in the blinds on the
windows, relentlessly penetrating the gloom of the darkened room.
The stray light streams gently fell across the closed eyes of the
lightly-snoring red-headed young man sprawled untidily in the bed.
The warmth of the sunlight was what initially roused him from
slumber, and when he unwisely opened his eyes, the photons
assaulting his retinas completed the job. Bert gave a pained yelp,
and threw an arm over his sight, as his eyes watered from the
brilliant haze that appeared to be floating in his eyeballs now.
     Rolling over onto his side so that he wasn't being blinded
anymore, he carefully opened his eyes and looked around. The clock
on the wall indicated that it was about 6:00 AM. Perfect; he'd
woken up again at a hellishly early hour. Normally, he wouldn't
have minded, except for the fact that here he had nothing,
absolutely nothing to do.
     He sat up on the bed, or tried to; an incredible weakness
rushed up and seized him in its talons, making anything other than
rolling over almost out of the question. Instantly, irrational
anger surged from the depths of his mind; bad enough his suit was
destroyed, he could still barely move!!!!
     As he lay there seething mentally over his bed-ridden
condition, the restless desire to move washed over him again. Once
again, he tried to move...and promptly fell of the bed. It wasn't
a long drop, but it still hurt to land in a sprawled heap on the
floor. It looked goddamn undignified to boot.
     Frustrated almost to the point of crying over his incapacity,
Bert gritted his teeth as he tried to shove himself off the floor.
Damn it, with everything that had been done to him, why couldn't he
have been given a power that was USEFUL?!?! Healing would have been
a nice one to have for example....
     SkyKnight stiffened as he was suddenly enveloped by a racing
red aura for a split-second. Gasping for air, he slumped back to
the floor, raising a trembling hand and wiping away the sweat from
his forehead. For a moment, it had felt like he'd been baking in a
kiln. Sitting up, he winced and stretched, then froze abruptly. He
was moving normally again! How in the...?!
     Mind whirling in confusion, he staggered to his feet, and over
to the bedroom door. After listening for a moment, he cautiously
made his way to the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind
him. Running the sink full of cold water, he splashed it all over
his face, trying to clear his mind and refresh himself. He stared
into the mirror as he took a deep breath. Think logically....one
minute he'd been unable to move, the next he'd been back to normal.
Had he healed himself?
     In the back of his mind was the hazy memory of doing so once
before, but he couldn't remember how he'd done it. Just like a few
minutes ago, his mind was blank when it came to the question of how
he'd done it. Magic was undoubtedly the cause, but he couldn't even
begin to explain how he'd done what he'd done.
     Slamming his hand down on the edge of the sink as he leaned on
it, Bert continued to stare at his reflection in the mirror. Why,
why, WHY couldn't he remember what had happened when he'd been
inadvertently using his `power'?!?! Was it affecting his mind? His
temper, easily roused lately, began to flare again.  WHY had this
been done to him?!?!
     As he raised clenched fists in frustration, intending to bang
them on the bathroom counter again, he caught sight of his
reflection.
     And saw RED balefully glowing eyes staring back at him from
the reflective glass.
     "NO!!!" He was across the bathroom, his back plastered to the
far wall before he even realized it, cold sweat breaking out all
over him. Unable to tear his gaze away from the mirror, he watched
as the red glow faded from the eyes of his panicked reflection.
     The minute the glow disappeared, he was out the door and down
the hallway. A few scant minutes later he was dressed, and walking
rapidly down the hallway as quietly as he could. The calm facade he
was trying to maintain cracked when he reached the top of the
stairs, and he was down them in three long-legged bounds. As he
sprinted for the front door of the dojo, cutting through the dining
room, Ranma stepped into the room, adjusting his gi in preparation
for his usual morning practice session.
     "Hey Bert, what's the rush? Where are you going?" The young
martial artist looked surprised to see him up, and moving, but his
tone sounded friendly enough. Bert, however, wasn't in a frame of
mind suited for talking, and didn't stop.
     "OUT!!! Leave me alone!!" he snarled as he blindly shot past
the young Saotome.
     Ranma watched the agitated red-headed young man run from the
dojo as if being pursued by a pack of demonic fiends, a slightly
puzzled frown on his face. After a moment, he shrugged and went to
meet his father for practice.
                              *****
     Somewhere else in the city, a shadowy, insubstantial figure
stiffened and lifted its head as if scenting something disturbing.
It cocked its head in a listening posture, then sighed deeply,
sounding old and tired for some reason.
     "Begun now it has," the figure muttered to itself quietly.
"And unforeseen the results."
                              *****
     "Just leave the pot," Bert told the waitress, his voice
hoarse. "I may need another one in a few minutes." The young
waitress nodded dubiously, giving him a look that plainly said she
thought he was nuts. Shrugging to herself, she turned to serving
the other patrons of the campus donut shop, leaving the nearly full
coffee pot sitting on the table next to him.
     Bert was unaware of her leaving; his gaze was fixed on the mug
of coffee he was holding a white-knuckled grip around. The wrappers
from half-a-dozen donuts sat in a crumpled wad nearby. With iron
control, he lifted the mug and took a drink, trying desperately to
keep his hands from shaking.
     He'd spent the last two hours trying to convince himself using
a combination of caffeine and sugar that he'd been dreaming about
what he'd seen when he'd looked into the mirror, but it hadn't
worked. Instead, all he'd done was terrify himself further at what
was happening to him. It seemed to him as if the magic he'd been
`given' was not content to merely strip him of his hardsuit, but
now it was working on changing him inside somehow. He didn't want
that.
     In the back of his mind, there was a shrieking, raging
defiance that was railing against what had been done to him, but
with no real outlet for it, he felt helpless. How could you fight
against something invisible and intangible? Especially when it was
something inside yourself? He took another draught of coffee,
emptying his mug. He refilled it and resumed drinking as his mind
ran in screaming circles.
     "So, knave, we meet again!" The pompous voice was
unmistakable; Bert didn't have to look over to know that there was
a tall young man with a wooden sword, wearing a purple kendo outfit
standing next to his table: Tatewaki Kuno. He didn't reply, and
kept his gaze on his mug, hoping that he'd take the hint and leave.
     No such luck.
     "Are you afraid to face me, you rogue?! Stand, for I would
look you in the eyes when I challenge you!" Kuno commanded. "The
vengeance of heaven is slow but sure: I intend to demand
satisfaction for my honour, and for the honour of my poor sister,
whom you assaulted unjustly the other day!"
     "Unjustly?!" Bert was unable to keep the derisive snort from
escaping, as he spared the angry kendo practitioner a sideways
glance. "Defending yourself against a lunatic with explosives is
unjust now, is it?" He turned his attention back to his drink,
topping off his mug with the last portion of coffee in the pot. As
he added cream and sugar, stirring them in, it he became dimly
aware that the coffee shop had become curiously vacant all of a
sudden.
     "And you add slander to your list of crimes as well!" Kuno
proclaimed in a disbelieving tone. "Stand, you villain!"
     "Kuno, don't make me angry," SkyKnight warned in a suddenly
glacial voice. "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." In the back
of his mind was a dim sense of alarm; it was almost like someone
else had spoken. He clamped down on the rising irritation within
him; he couldn't afford to lose his temper, especially since he
wasn't sure what the consequences would be. He raised his mug to
take another swig.
     And ended up with half a mug of hot coffee spilling into his
lap as Kuno's wooden sword sliced through the mug before he could
get it to his mouth.
     Bert stoically bore the painful burning from the coffee
soaking into his jeans as he very slowly stood and dropped enough
change to cover his tab on the table. He was just barely holding
himself in check as he turned away from Kuno, intending to just
walk away. He didn't want a fight; all he wanted was some time to
be alone so he could think some more. He started walking towards
the door of the coffee shop.
     "Don't you walk away from me, you coward!! Stand and fight!!"
Some vague sixth sense warned SkyKnight, and he started to spin
back towards the irate swordsman when there was a loud thwack, and
pain exploded in his side, just below the ribs. The force of the
strike hurled him sideways, sending him smashing into a cluster of
large planters near the counter. The tall red-head went down in a
tangle of slender tree trunks, leaves and dirt, and lay very still.
Kuno regarded the prone form for a minute, then lowered his sword,
nodding to himself in satisfaction.
     "Thus is justice served," he proclaimed, "and honour
satisfied."
     He was more than a little surprised when Bert's eyes snapped
open, revealing an incandescent red glow. The glow quickly suffused
his body, and he stood easily, with no apparent injury from Kuno's
blow. The glow remained, however, and began to intensify.
     "I warned you," the cold voice came from the red-head. "Reap
now the fruits of your heedlessness." SkyKnight was absolutely
coldly furious; he'd tried to avoid it, but the thickheaded
numbskull had pushed the issue beyond the point of reason. No
longer resisting, he embraced the thrumming power he'd tapped into
again somehow, drawing it into him.
     Kuno backed away, his face a study in dumbfounded surprise, as
red lightning began to crackle in the air around his opponent. The
air in the coffee shop turned hot and stifling as the energy haze
became more and more intense. Anything electrical within twenty
feet of the enraged Knight Saber suddenly overloaded and exploded.
     In the center of the developing energy storm, Bert was lost in
an almost indescribable feeling of euphoria. It felt.....awesome!!!
Why the hell had he been resisting it?! His anger snarled in savage
exultation at the back of his mind, released from its usual
constraints and glorying in the heady feelings of the power he now
seemed to be wielding. Now he could extract some measure of revenge
for everything that had been done to him, starting with the pompous
jerk with the sword. The only thing detracting from his moment of
triumph was the absence of his suit.
     Glowing red eyes abruptly widened in surprise, and a huge grin
spread across his face as a thought that had never occurred to him
before cropped up. Magic had destroyed his suit, so wouldn't it
follow that magic could rebuild it? He had nearly limitless energy
at his disposal now, so why not make use of it?! SkyKnight's fists
clenched as he bent his will to modulating the raging magical
energies within him. He delved back into his memory of two nights
ago, when the professor's spell had backfired, trying to see the
instant when his suit had been disintegrated.
     And within seconds, he knew how to do what he had to do;
instant understanding of the spells and processes that had taken
place that night was in his mind as soon as he concentrated on it.
     "YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!" The exultant shout, and the
brilliant red-lit thunderclap that followed it blasted the glass
from the windows of the coffee shop, showering the street outside
with jagged fragments. Kuno staggered out the gaping doorway a
moment later, shaking his head dazedly and trying to clear his
thoughts.
     A towering robotic shape, covered in brilliant silver armour
plating shouldered through the door a moment later, wrenching the
door frame from the brickwork at the same time. The recreated
hardsuit stretched luxuriantly for a moment. SkyKnight's glowing
red eyeslot flashed, a bright red energy aura still humming
gleefully around him as he looked at the flabbergasted Kuno.
     "What was that you were saying about wanting a fight?"
SkyKnight chuckled malevolently.
                              *****
     "Well, I don't know where the heck he could have gone,"
Twister sighed, glancing around the empty bedroom. Beside and
behind him, Ranma and the three Tendo sisters crowded the hallway,
looking anxiously into the deserted room. The place was a little
disorderly looking, like someone had left in a hurry.
     "Well, the few things he did have are still here," Kasumi
noted quietly. "Maybe he'll be coming back."
     "I dunno about that," Ranma said dubiously. "You didn't see
the look on his face when he left. He was ... upset."
     Twister didn't mention the obvious: for Bert to have had his
hardsuit, the only really tangible link to his home universe that
he'd had, destroyed by supposedly harmless magical testing was
bound to have been upsetting. Although `upsetting' was perhaps too
mild a term for his probable emotional state.
     "What I don't get," Nabiki spoke up, "is just how did he
suddenly walk out of here? You saw him yesterday morning: he barely
had the strength to crawl, let alone walk. It's impossible that he
could have recovered that quickly....isn't it?" Twister started at
her comment, as a sudden idea struck him.
     "Wait a minute," the brown-haired young man said slowly. "His
suit was destroyed, but we never did determine what effect the
magic had on him, or even if it was still there. Maybe it cured
him, and he just needed some time to recover a bit..."
     "Is that possible?" Akane asked, wide-eyed. "I thought you
could only Heal psionically?" Twister shook his head.
     "We're talking about Wild Magic, Akane," he reminded her.
"So-called `regular' magic can do almost anything, and Wild Magic
doesn't operate under the same `rules', if you can call them that.
No one's ever studied that area of magic because of its
unpredictability; it makes it a very dangerous area to study." He
hesitated a moment. "And we have seen him do it before, so I think
that's what may have happened."
     He was about to search the room further, to see if perhaps
Bert had left behind some clue as to where he might have gone, when
a woman's voice called urgently from the downstairs portion of the
Tendo home.
     "TWISTER!!!!" Professor Miyabi's voice shouted, sounding
panicked. "Get down here!! Hurry!!" The urgency in her voice was
such that he didn't even walk, but teleported instantly to the
dining room. The black-haired professor whirled as he materialized,
and he could see something he'd never seen in her green eyes
before: fear. She was wild-eyed, and her clothing and hair was in
complete disarray.
     "What's up, professor?" he inquired, noting her expression.
She lunged forwards, grabbing his shirtfront, and he blinked in
surprise.
     "You've got to stop him!!!" Miyabi blurted. "Hurry, before he
levels the entire university!!"
     "Before who levels the university?" he asked, a queasy
suspicion forming.
     "SkyKnight!!!!" she half-shrieked, hands clenching
unconsciously. She abruptly seemed to remember who she was, since
she released Twister's sweater, and tried to present a calm facade
again. Her hands were visibly shaking as she smoothed out her hair
and clothing. Twister was trying to reclaim his stomach from the
abyss it had dropped into at her words, and it took him a moment to
get together enough wits to speak again.
     "Bert?!" he asked incredulously. "That's impossible! The only
way he could do something like that was if he had his suit, and it
got destroyed, remember?" On the tail end of his sentence, the rest
of the Tendo clan and Ranma ran into the room, everyone shouting
variations of "What's going on?!"
     "He's got it back somehow!" the professor informed him,
ignoring the questions and pacing in her agitation. "I don't quite
know all the details, but Kunou appears to have been the triggering
cause. Whatever happened, he's in his suit, and he's blasting
whatever happens to annoy him right now, and that's turning out to
be anything that moves." Silence fell for a moment.
     "Couldn't you stop him?" Akane asked finally. "He's not all
that powerful, is he? I mean, it's just his suit, right? Couldn't
you freeze it like Twister did once?"
     "He may not have been that strong before," Miyabi replied
darkly, "but he is now. My spells went awry when I tried to subdue
him. It's not quite wild magic anymore that is coming from him, but
it's something else....and given his current frame of mind, I
couldn't break through the magical aura that's surrounding him."
     "Aura?!" Twister repeated in surprise. Miyabi nodded
impatiently.
     "Yes, I said aura!" she snapped. "We don't have time to
chatter about it!! Come with me now, before it's too late! You can
analyze him at the scene!" Her hands lifted, preparatory to casting
a teleportation spell.
     "We're coming too," Ranma spoke up before Miyabi could cast
it. "Maybe we can help." The dark-haired magic teacher looked
thoughtfully at the young Saotome for a moment, then nodded.
     "Agreed," was all she said, before a white glow swept everyone
save Twister in the room away.
     In the next instant, he vanished too.
                              *****
     "Come on, Mr. High-and-Mighty!!" SkyKnight snarled, a
metal-clad fist again smashing a stumbling and bleeding Kunou
backwards with a contemptuous backhand slap. "Let's see you run me
through!! Come ON, you bastard!!! TRY IT!!!"
     The battered kendo champion gathered his reserves, and tried
again to leap forwards. His wooden sword blurred through the
air....and was caught neatly by SkyKnight, the wooden blade meeting
the metal gauntlet with a loud thwack.
     "Not so hot when the odds are even, are you?" the modulated
voice gloated. SkyKnight's grip clenched, and the practice sword
shattered into flying splinters. Kunou staggered backwards, his
only thought now to escape.
     The remorseless, silver-clad gladiator stalked after him, grim
intent in every line of his posture. A punishing crimson glow
limned his armoured form, but he remained oblivious to it as
defiant, uncontrollable rage continued to roar deafeningly in his
ears. The noise numbed everything else in his mind except for the
need to strike back, to somehow retaliate against what had been
done to him.
     "Sorcery..." Kunou gasped again, as the silver-blue hardsuit
stepped up to him, and grasped him by the front of his clothes. A
derisive snort escaped the silver helmet.
     "Try Science, fleabrain," SkyKnight retorted, grip tightening.
"Have a nice flight."
     "Flight?! Wha...AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!" Kunou's scream faded into
the distance as the silver battlesuit easily hurled him off into
the horizon, like a helpless rag doll.
     "Don't bother to write!!" Bert called mockingly after the
departing figure, then he began to laugh. He held up an armoured
arm in front of his eyes, clenching his gauntlet into a fist,
laughing exultantly as he felt his suit hum and throb with power.
It felt fantastic! He felt refreshed, energized and revitalized
somehow. His suit was performing better than it ever had, and
wasn't straining at all from some of the energy demands he'd made
of it. Gone were the ephemeral worries about what was happening to
him, washed away in the bright glow of the energy enveloping him.
     YES!!! POWER!!! something shrieked in the back of his mind. No
more did he have to worry about being singled out as the punching
bag for somebody's crazy plans of conquest, or being number one on
someone's hit list. If they bothered him now, he had the means
to...
     "BERT!!! For God's sake get a grip on yourself!!!" a horrified
voice intruded on his thoughts. SkyKnight whirled swiftly.
     "YOU!!!!!!!!!!"
                              *****
     Twister stared disbelievingly at the smoking wreckage
scattered around what used to be the small park that had been in
front of the university coffee shop. The trees were now smoking
stumps, and the park benches were twisted, blasted lumps of metal
and charred concrete. The nearby buildings hadn't fared much
better, sporting huge holes in their brickwork. Twister was also
willing to bet that there wasn't an intact window within a mile of
him right now; the sound and shockwaves that had been rolling
through the air had been loud and devastating.
     Further compounding his shock was the sight of a familiar,
blue-and-silver hardsuit standing triumphantly in the middle of the
disaster area, laughing evilly. What was unfamiliar about SkyKnight
at the moment was the blazing red aura of light that was pulsing
brightly around him. Electric humming throbbed in time with the
fluctuations of the coruscating energy sheathing the hardsuited
figure, and the physical ionizing effects of the raw, unrestrained
magic in the air made the young psionist's hair start to stand on
end.
     It was SkyKnight's behaviour that was the real worry right
now; never had Twister seen Bert display the casual disregard for
someone else's welfare that he just had in sending Kunou into
orbit. Luckily, he'd been able to catch the hurtling Kendo champ
with his TK before he'd actually hit escape velocity, and had
lowered him to the ground, well out of sight of the rampaging
Knight Saber. Sure, he could understand why Bert didn't like Kunou,
but he didn't know why his red-headed friend had tried to kill him;
it was a side of him he'd never seen before.
     And uncomfortably similar to one of his own.
     "My God, he's gone insane!" Ranma whispered in a strangled
voice, his stunned gaze raking the destruction around them. Akane
and Nabiki were equally speechless. Kasumi had uttered a quiet "Oh
dear..." then also fallen silent.
     "Now you know what I was talking about," Miyabi spoke up
quietly, directing her comment mostly towards Twister. "Whatever
happened the other night, it's affected him more deeply than we
realized. We have to get him back under control; if this goes on
for much longer, it will create problems that no amount of magic or
explanations will ever solve."
     Even for THIS town. "All right," Twister sighed, squaring his
shoulders. "This is my job; everyone else, stay back. This is going
to be ugly." Before he could step forwards, Nabiki suddenly grabbed
him, and gave him a long kiss. Twister gasped a bit for breath as
she pulled back, worry written all over her face.
     "Be careful," she admonished him. He nodded wordlessly. While
normally no one would have worried, given his own power level, what
they were seeing went beyond what they'd thought SkyKnight capable
of. He didn't want to hurt the displaced Knight Saber, but right
now, he didn't see how it could be avoided. He waved everyone else
back further, then turned towards the armour-clad figure that was
laughing maniacally in the center of the ruined park.
     As he walked slowly towards the silver-garbed hardsuit,
Twister began boosting himself with his TK; he wanted all the speed
and strength he could get right now, since getting tagged with a
particle beam would not be fun, not even for him. As an added
precaution, he even raised a shield. The fact that he wasn't
glowing blue would've pleased him before. Not now, though. Taking
a deep breath, he got ready.
     "Bert!! For God's sake, get a hold of yourself!" he called.
With surprising speed, the silver armour suit spun towards his
voice. Twister noted uneasily that the glow from SkyKnight's helmet
eyeslot matched exactly the pulsing magical aura around him, which
might imply that the suit was no longer merely just enchanted
technology. Not good.
     "YOU!!!" SkyKnight's electronic voice snarled, suddenly
sounding white-hot for some reason. "This is YOUR fault!!! You and
your goddamn magic!!!" The silver suit blurred forwards in a motion
that Twister didn't need prescience to see coming; he ducked the
blistering, roundhouse right that Bert launched at him, then
flattened him with his own powered-up punch.
     The silver battlesuit skidded backwards along the asphalt,
sparks flying from his suit. He hit a nearby wall and crashed
through it. The building decided that it had suffered enough
renovation, and collapsed inwards with a roar. Dust and bricks flew
through the air, as the walls came cascading down in a crashing,
rumbling shower of shattered masonry.
     Silence fell for a moment, as Twister cautiously approached
the crumbled building, gingerly feeling his knuckles. Belting
SkyKnight's suit had hurt, a lot; evidently, it had been enhanced
a bit by the magic field surrounding it and while magic couldn't
affect him, it could certainly reinforce things enough to make
things tough. There was still no movement from the rock pile, and
he began to wonder if perhaps he'd won after all.
     Not.
     "AAAAAARRRGHH!!! I'm going to -KILL- you!!" SkyKnight's
muffled voice bellowed, as the entire rock pile turned cherry-red,
and exploded outwards, showering hot chunks of stone everywhere.
Twister backpedaled frantically, but wasn't able to dodge the
charging silver form that blasted from the smoldering building
wreckage; he was body checked into a flying fall, and he rolled
smoothly to his feet twenty feet from his previous position,
dropping again into a defensive stance. SkyKnight advanced on the
young, brown-haired man menacingly.
     "Bert, snap out of it!!" Twister pleaded. "Come on, you're not
solving anything this way! I...."
     "This is all your fault," the silver suit snarled venomously,
ignoring his entreating tone. "First you drag me from home against
my will, altering me magically at the same time, and then get one
of your cronies to finish the job! I'm going to take it out of your
hide, one piece at a time." Twister's prescience screamed at him
urgently, and he dropped flat as SkyKnight's arms snapped up to
point at him. Four crackling particle laser beams lashed out,
singeing the dodging young man.
     "All right!" Twister spat, leaping to his feet again. "That's
ENOUGH!! Stop it right now or I'll.....ARRRRGHH!!!" He convulsed as
another withering barrage of laser energy hammered into him,
clawing at his shield. Some of the ravening energy leaked through
his shield, burning him. He gritted his teeth and squinted against
the pain for a moment; seconds later, a blue flash bathed him, and
he sighed in relief as he Healed himself.
     The moment it had taken him to Heal himself had cost him,
though. There was a jarring impact, and he felt himself get knocked
through the air again. Spinning in midair, he landed on his feet,
and tried to get his bearings.
     Another battering storm of punches lashed out at him, and his
sight cleared enough to see that SkyKnight was looming right in
front of him, trying to pound through his force barrier through
sheer power alone. Good luck trying, he grimly thought. Setting his
teeth together, Twister reached out with his mind, trying to shut
down Bert's suit so he could at least reason with him, while
keeping his shield up at the same time.
     The shock came when he found that, according to his
psi-senses, SkyKnight's hardsuit wasn't there.
     *Now how the hell can that be?!* he wondered in surprise. *I
can see the bloody thing right in front of me! How come I can't
detect it?!* All he could sense was one young man in the grip of a
blind, unreasoning fury. *Oh no. Please don't let it be...* he
suddenly prayed, hoping he was wrong, but knowing now that he
wasn't.
     SkyKnight and his hardsuit had fused magically somehow, there
was no real boundary between the two anymore. It was the only
logical explanation; before, Bert and his suit had been magically
linked only, with Bert able to exercise very limited control in
summoning it to him when necessary. Now, it seemed as if the
process had gone to completion, the hardsuit becoming a magical
construct, and an extension of SkyKnight's will.
     "So how the hell do I stop him without killing him?!" he
muttered to himself. He tried using a TK barrier to hold the raging
hardsuit in check, but encountered the same problem he'd had when
he'd tried Healing Bert; his TK couldn't seem to `lock on' to him.
He could sense perfectly his enraged friend (although he really
didn't need psionics right now for THAT), but he couldn't get his
TK to directly affect him. Well, there WAS one power that had
worked before...
     There was a bright flash coupled with a loud bang, and
SkyKnight disappeared abruptly. Across the park, a whooshing
explosion surged through the air as water fountained out of a
small, decorative pond. A moment later, a dripping, silver hardsuit
rose from the water, but he didn't appear to have been cooled off
any by the sudden bath. Twister nodded to himself; he still could
teleport him, but that appeared to be it.
     "Resorting to cheap tricks, are we?" SkyKnight snarled. "Suits
me just fine." Another crimson laser beam lanced through the air.
Twister dodged easily sideways...and got clobbered by the falling
lamppost that SkyKnight had just shot off.
     "NOT good," Twister groaned, shaking his head to clear it of
the ringing bells the impact had jarred into existence. He shoved
the lamppost aside, and ducked the murderous sword swipe that
whistled through the air, almost giving him a very short brush cut.
He hit SkyKnight in the helmet with everything he could throw into
a rapid punch, and tried frantically to think of a way to down
SkyKnight for good, and preferably non-lethally. Just battering at
him wasn't going to work; his hardsuit made him incredibly
resistant to any physical force that he had access to right now.
     SkyKnight rolled upright again, a little slower than the last
time. Twister didn't believe for a minute that he was hurt; it
couldn't be that easy.
                              *****
     "Oh, this is rich!!" Malkon grinned to himself.  "This is
turning out better than I'd have believed possible!"
     The scarlet-skinned Arch-Demon sat back in his chair,
chuckling quietly as he watched Twister duck under another attack
from SkyKnight. Malkon grinned at the image hovering in midair
before him, savouring the chaos that passed before his eyes.
     Originally, he'd been utterly furious about his failure to
siphon off the stray magic that had attached itself to SkyKnight.
Imagine, a pathetic mortal actually being able to thwart him! If it
had been Twister, at least he'd have been able to say it was a
being of comparable power that had foiled him, but that hadn't been
the case. He'd been stymied in his quest for power by a mere human
who didn't even belong to the dimension he'd found himself in.
     Disgusting.
     The Arch-Demon had probed the red-haired Knight Saber after
his abortive attempt to wrest the Wild Magic from him, trying to
find the cause of his failure. Instead, he found a situation that
promised to be vastly amusing.
     It had become apparent to Malkon almost immediately that
SkyKnight and the Wild magic were now inseparably fused; because he
was more experienced with magic-related phenomena, he'd realized
that much almost immediately after a simple scan. Based on his
knowledge of SkyKnight's emotional makeup, he'd also realized that
it was only a matter of time before the burden of suddenly having
power would snap his tentative grip on his sanity. When that
happened, the potential for an out-of-control rampage became a
certainty.
     Which meant that Twister would be forced to fight his friend,
and there was a very good chance that SkyKnight wouldn't survive
the encounter.
     Malkon laughed again; if Twister won by killing SkyKnight,
then the young psionist would be miserable for days, plagued with
intense guilt. If he didn't kill SkyKnight, but still won anyway,
then both of them would be wallowing in assorted varieties of guilt
for a while. If SkyKnight won, somehow, then he'd be despised by
almost everyone, especially the few friends he'd managed to make,
and he'd still be sunk in guilt. That would probably destroy what
was left of the silver Knight Saber's will to keep going.
     Whatever the results were, it promised to be a very amusing
afternoon. Malkon grinned to himself and sat back to watch the
show.
                              *****
     He'd been right: easy it hadn't been.
     The two combatants were apart at the moment, catching their
breath. It was a strange change for Twister; usually he held back
a lot in a fight but this time was different. Granted, he wasn't on
the offensive a lot for fear of killing Bert but in defense he had
to keep on his toes. The surrounding area was even more torn up,
fortunately Ranma and the others had retreated further away for
safety. Still, nothing had changed; Bert was madder than ever and
Twister was at a loss. That damned SkyKnight hardsuit was...
     Waitaminutehere.
     SKY-Knight.
     It wasn't a total solution, but at least it would get them
away from people until he got an idea. He sighed mentally; the only
thing wrong with his `plan' was that he wasn't fond of heights.
     Oh, well.
     "Well, SkyKnight," he finally said, addressing the angrily
glowing figure in front of him, "you fight well. Now, shall we see
how a sky knight deals with a twister in the wild blue yonder?" He
started rising into the air and heard a growl from the silver
hardsuit.
     "Fine by me, you ASSHOLE!!" SkyKnight shouted, and wings
snapped out from the back of the hardsuit as jet turbines started
roaring. Twister took that as his cue and rapidly accelerated
skyward. Bert shouted his rage as his jets echoed him, rocketing
him up to pursue his foe as they climbed into the stratosphere.
     It was an odd battle they fought in the sky; Twister was more
manoeuvrable with his levitation but he lacked the air combat
experience SkyKnight had, and the misplaced Knight Saber used that
advantage relentlessly. However, having an opponent who could stop
on a dime, do ninety degree turns, and other aerodynamically
impossible things made targeting frustrating to the silver-clad
warrior. He kept on relentlessly though, and managed to tag
Twister's shields a few times. The psionist knew he couldn't keep
this up forever, but he still didn't know what to do.
     Perhaps boosting my mind would help, he thought as he dodged
another volley of particle-laser fire and proceeded to access his
power to increase his intellectual capacities. Despite his control,
his eyes began to glow blue. As a result of his expanded mental
acuity, his dodging began improving exponentially.
     Correlating the data on his problem became simple, and one
conclusion quickly came to be the most predominant.
     Fact: Darlene form had lost rational control when infused with
Wild Magic; it would take centuries, if not millennia to gain the
required experience and control to be able to handle the power,
even with her instinctive talent to wield magic.
     Fact: Bert now had the same problem, despite the fact that he
had a much lesser amount of Wild Magic in his system, and had
finally gone amuck like Darlene.
     Fact: Without Darlene's abilities, Bert would not be able to
return to his senses on his own, which presented a conundrum.
     Fact: Twister/Darlene had opposite powers of mind and magic.
A balance between the two, for which reasons were still unknown,
was apparently essential to remain stable.
     Fact: Opposites implied that Twister could access higher Mind
abilities, but likely in a different manner. However, those
energies would likely be a stronger version of Mindfire, and
results of that accessing were unknown. Possibly the result could
be a total loss of emotion.
     Fact: Bert needed a counter, a balance to the wild power
raging inside him. It was an imbalance that needed to be corrected.
     Conclusion: Inject Mindfire into Bert's system.
     Results: Either Bert would be cured and rid of his powers, or
else the two forces would combine. Either case gave increased odds
of sanity returning.
     Implement.
     Whether the process would destroy Bert or not was uncertain,
but it was the best option. There was some mild hesitation at
first, but as Twister summoned Mindfire, it vanished. The process
needed to be done, and it was the best course to take.
     If SkyKnight knew that his fate was being dispassionately
decided, he wouldn't have cared. All he knew was the burning rage
towards his enemy as he tried to vaporize his foe with his
particle-lasers. But even in his current state he became wary when
he saw the change in the psionist's expression. His eyes were
burning an intense blue, but the face was an expressionless mask,
something SkyKnight had not seen on Twister's face before.
     Even in his rage he knew something was very wrong when Twister
made a sudden course correction, aiming straight for SkyKnight as
his outstretched hands began to burn with blue flame. Let him come
and try, he snarled to himself; all the better to rip his head off.
He fired at the accelerating form, and every shot was avoided with
milliseconds to spare each time. Then Twister collided with him
with all the force of a locomotive, palms first. Despite his
armour, there was a whoosh of breath being forced out of
SkyKnight's lungs.
     "Implementing Mindfire infusion," the psionist said in a
passionless tone, his hands flaring blue where they pressed against
the silver hardsuit.
     "What?!?!" SkyKnight snarled, winded but getting ready to
crush his adversary's skull. Then, where his world had seemed red,
it abruptly turned bright blue. Something that felt like liquid
nitrogen poured in through his chest. I thought he couldn't affect
me with his psionics?! Bert thought in confusion, not realizing
that the rage that had been powering him had fled in his
observations of what was happening to him.
     The cold energy flow went straight into the core of his being,
altering its course to circle around what had come before, an
intense purple and red energy field permeating Bert's soul. The
blue force circled closer and closer to Bert's soul with
exponential speed, attracted to the flickering corona of energy and
driven by it's master's will, until....
     Contact!
     Bert screamed from the clash within himself; it felt like he
was being torn apart from the inside! Coherent thought vanished in
the maelstrom of seething energy that was now boiling within him.
     "THIS IS UNEXPECTED," he heard a sepulchral voice from within,
almost musing to itself as he cried out in agony, "BUT PLEASING.
WHAT WAS INTENDED IS COMPLETE AT LAST." The voice paused, and now
Bert felt he was being directly addressed. "NO LONGER WILL YOU HEAR
FROM ME."
     Oh yeah?! Well good riddance, you bastard!! was Bert's
spiteful farewell as the agony ebbed, the energies now seething
within him reaching their equilibrium.
     Then he noticed two things.
     Twister was apparently unconscious, the effort of bringing
Bert back from the edge having exhausted him. He was limply flopped
in SkyKnight's arms, having been trapped there by SkyKnight's
involuntary, Mindfire-induced convulsions.
     The second item of more than passing interest was that they
had been falling for some time and the ground was coming
uncomfortably close for a panicky Bert's liking. His jets had cut
off for some reason, but they started up again with no problem,
just in time to prevent the hardsuit and the psionist from becoming
messy splotches on the ground.
     As he gained altitude, the memory of what he had done came and
hit him over the head like a ten ton boulder; flashes of
explosions, and the dim memory of going after the young man he was
now carrying with a homicidal bloodlust churned through his mind.
Good God, had he really done all that?! He'd tried to kill Twister
for crying out loud! And it was damned fortunate that his friend
had been able to defend himself; given the chance, he'd probably
have done it without a second thought.
     Hey....
     Bert frowned inside his helmet; normally he would be filled
with remorse, damning himself for losing control like this. And he
was only feeling a little depressed?!? What the hell? He looked at
the unconscious psionist in his arms and wondered what the heck his
friend had done to get him rational again. Actually, he thought
with a brief flash of amusement, if it makes me less likely to
become moody I'm all for it.
     He sighed, turning sombre again. Somehow he doubted it would
last. For now, the important thing was to get somewhere safe.
     High above the city, a flickering silver flash banked through
the air and disappeared into the clouds, vanishing from the sight
of the watchers on the ground.
                              *****
     Professor Miyabi wearily mopped the sweat from her forehead as
she watched one of the ruined buildings slowly re-build itself. She
was almost out on her feet, but she had to repair the damage caused
by the super-powered combat that had taken place; if it wasn't
fixed before the inevitable arrival of the fire and police
departments, there'd be far too much publicity, and questions that
could probably never be answered.
     "That's good enough, Natsumi," she noted hoarsely. "We don't
want to make the buildings better than they were." Her student
nodded, unusually quiet and subdued. Miyabi was grateful beyond
words that the younger enchantress had shown up, attracted by the
magical turmoil that had been seething up until a short time ago.
Without her help, Miyabi doubted that she'd have been able to fix
everything in time by herself.
     "I think that's all we've got time for, Professor," the
raven-haired young woman volunteered timidly; she'd been extremely
quiet and troubled-looking, especially since she'd been told the
reasons for the destruction. "There's a few windows still missing
here and there, but we're not going to be able to get them all
before the authorities get here." The sirens drawing closer
emphasized her words. Miyabi nodded, brushing her snarled hair out
of her eyes, looking around. The small plaza was completely
restored; except for some missing panes of glass, it looked
untouched by the day's events.
     "Let's get out of here then," she directed, forcing herself to
stand straight.
     "Uh, pardon the dumb question," Ranma spoke up, "but where are
we going to go? And what happened to Twister?" He and the Tendo
sisters were still standing awkwardly nearby, all of them feeling
way out of their depth. Nabiki's face was worried looking, and she
kept glancing at the sky as if expecting Twister to swoop down from
the clouds.
     "We'll go back to my house," the professor answered. "I need
a short rest before I can do too much more. And it'll be the best
place to start looking for Twister and SkyKnight from."
                              *****
     Bert slowly pulled off his helmet, dropping it to the floor as
he crashed to his knees. Across the spacious living room, Twister
dozed quietly on the couch where Bert had dropped him. The psionist
still was out cold, a state Bert was beginning to feel he might
soon be entering into himself.
     It had hit suddenly, and without warning, a wave of
unbelievable weakness, accompanied by an almost giddy feeling of
light-headedness. It had nearly knocked him out of the air a few
short minutes after Twister had blasted his sensibilities back into
where they belonged, but he'd held on long enough to get them to a
place of relative safety: the professor's house. There'd been the
faint worry that she'd have some kind of protective spells in
place, but he hadn't sensed any electromagnetic disturbances in the
area of her house, so he'd gambled that it was okay to enter.
     He wasn't entirely happy with the destination he'd been forced
to land at; Miyabi would not be happy with what he'd done, and he
was horribly ashamed of what had happened. Right now, he didn't
want to see anybody, but he was in no shape to avoid a
confrontation. Eventually, he was going to have to face the music.
     Sweating with the effort, SkyKnight stood up and deactivated
his hardsuit, stepping out of the armour with relief. He grabbed
the back of a chair to keep his knees from buckling a moment later.
Food, that was what he needed right now. He'd been overextended
before, and his crazed rampage had only depleted himself further;
if he didn't get something to eat, and soon, there was a very good
possibility that he'd collapse and expire. There was only so far
that his power could carry him on his own reserves.
     As he staggered towards the kitchen, it suddenly occurred to
him to wonder how he'd suddenly known that he could sense
electromagnetic disturbances that indicated spells. He'd certainly
never possessed that kind of knowledge before.
     Such trivia vanished from his mind the instant he passed the
kitchen door. The first thing that met his gaze was a loaf of bread
on the counter. He just barely managed to find a jar of peanut
butter before wolfing down a few sandwiches in rapid succession.
His stomach roared defiantly a few moments later, but at least he
had enough energy to stand now. Ransacking the rest of the
cupboards, he found several cans of condensed soup, and began
whipping up a huge potful, although one can disappeared into his
innards before it could get to the pot.
     As he impatiently waited for the soup to heat, valiantly
resisting the urge to gnaw on the countertops in the interim, it
slowly dawned on him that he felt a lot different than he had
earlier in the week. It wasn't all that much different from when
he'd first arrived here, but there was a subtle change, like...
     Memory slammed home hard again, as flashes of his journey to
reach Twister's dimension bubbled up, momentarily freezing him with
remembered pain. Within minutes, some of the gaping holes that had
been in his knowledge were filled, but a great many questions were
left unanswered. He knew now just what had been done to him.
     And he also knew now that it was irrevocably permanent.
     Hunger overrode his depressed ruminations, and he quickly
began swallowing soup as fast as he could spoon it up. He broke off
momentarily to find a box of soda crackers to supplement his meal,
then resumed eating, his expression brooding and sombre. He was so
absorbed in stuffing himself that he never heard the front door
open and close.
                              *****
     "Twister!!" Nabiki shot past a startled Professor Miyabi
before she could say anything, throwing herself onto the couch next
to the comatose brown-haired young man. He didn't respond to her
shoves, and the middle Tendo daughter looked worriedly at the
professor. "Is he all right?! Is he....?"
     "He's fine," Miyabi assured her after stepping over to him and
peeling back an eyelid to see if anyone was home. "He appears to be
completely tired out at the moment." As if in verification of her
statement, faint snores began to come from the unconscious
psionist. Nabiki rapidly changed expressions from worry to
exasperation, but didn't leave her seat by him.
     "Um, Professor?" Akane spoke up tentatively, pointing to the
far side of the living room. Everyone's eyes swung to follow her
gesture, and saw an empty silver-blue hardsuit standing by a chair.
SkyKnight's antenna-winged helmet lay upended on the floor.
     "Be careful," Miyabi warned crisply, shooting a hawklike
glance around the room. "If he's out of his suit, he might have
regained his senses again, but don't take any chances."
     "Where's Ranma?" Kasumi asked suddenly. The quietest of the
Tendo sisters looked just a bit nonplussed; everything she'd seen
today was just a little beyond her usual experience.
     "I think he went that way," Nabiki pointed to a short corridor
leading from the room to another section of the house. "He said
something about needing a drink of water."
     Before anyone could say anything, there was a sudden yell of
surprise. Some rapid-fire thwacks sounded from the room down the
hall; a moment later, Ranma pelted hard from the room, hurdling the
chair in front of the doorway before skidding to a halt near the
startled Miyabi.
     "He's in the kitchen!!" Ranma blurted, looking panicked.
"Quick! Get him before he wakes up!!"
     "What do you mean, `before he wakes up'?" Akane asked, looking
puzzled. "If he's in the kitchen, isn't he awake?"
     "Well, I, uh, sort of overreacted," Ranma confessed.
     "Sort of? How can one `sort of' overreact?" Miyabi asked,
raising an eyebrow.
     "He, uh, startled me," Ranma muttered sheepishly. "I was
nervous enough that I hit first and then ran."
     "You knocked him out?!" Akane said disbelievingly.
     "He tried," a voice corrected dryly. Everyone's gaze swung to
the tall red-head standing in the doorway to the kitchen corridor.
A very black eye, and a lump on his jaw indicated that the younger
Saotome had indeed tried to knock Bert out.
     A split-second later, a shimmering, translucent energy field
appeared, holding the displaced Knight Saber immobile.
     "Whoa! Hold it!! Peace! Don't shoot!! I'm friendly!" Bert
managed to squawk despite his frozen limbs.
     "Forgive me if I decide that for myself," Miyabi countered
warily.
     "And how are you going to do that?" There was a growl from
Bert's stomach, and he added, "Whatever you do, can you hurry? I'm
on the edge of starvation here."
     "What did you do to Twister?!" Nabiki demanded, pinning him
with a hot glare.
     "Nothing, I swear! He did something to me that cleared my head
and from what I can tell it knocked him out when he finished."
Intestinal noises came from Bert again. "He'll probably be as
hungry as I am when he wakes up."
     "He looks okay, Professor; I think it's okay to let him go,"
Akane offered, dividing an anxious glance between her magic
professor and the immobile red-head. The raven-haired mage eyed
Bert for a moment, then sighed and waved a hand. The field vanished
and the red-haired man wavered a bit as he got his balance back.
     "Thanks," he muttered as he gingerly probed his sore face.
"Just a second, I think I know how to wake sleeping beauty up," he
added, and disappeared into the kitchen. The rest of the group
waited, listening to the his activities; a few minutes later he
emerged with a pot, two bowls, and two spoons. Filling one bowl
with soup he positioned it close to Twister's face and waved a hand
to waft the smell of the soup towards the nose.
     The brown-haired young man's nose inhaled the smell of fresh
soup. A few seconds later, Twister's eyes blinked slowly opened and
he groaned as he slowly sat up on the couch. A smug Bert was firmly
pushed out of the way as Nabiki wrapped her arms around the
startled Twister and kissed him.
     Bert took a big swig of the soup as stood up and backed away
from the couple. "Gets 'em every time," he commented, grinning and
much happier now that there was something filling his stomach.
     Miyabi, observing his reactions, slowly relaxed; the
red-headed Knight Saber appeared quite stable now. "Perhaps now we
could get some answers about what happened?" she suggested.
     Detaching himself from a smiling Nabiki, Twister replied, "I
used my Mindfire on Bert, hoping it would counter the effects of
the Wild Magic that he got blasted with and shock him out of that
rage he was in. It took more energy than I thought," he looked at
the calm Bert, "but it appears to have worked. How are you, Bert?"
     "More relaxed than I ought to be, after trying to kill you,"
Bert started bitterly, but sighed and ran a hand through his unruly
hair. "But I can't seem to get worked up over that right now."
     Twister nodded. "Probably the effect of the Mindfire."
     "I suppose, but it didn't cancel out the energy in me; it ..."
He paused, and a distracted look came over him, as if he was
looking at something beyond their immediate sight. "It's ... merged
somehow with the stuff that dragged me here in the first place."
Bert's face darkened. "And I also finally remembered how THAT
occurred." Twister blinked as Nabiki sat beside him.
     "Pardon?"
     "I met some...being in the Void. I wasn't infused with that
purple magic of yours yet; it had dragged me into the Void but
hadn't done much else. However," Bert's hands tightened on his soup
bowl, "along the way this voice tells me it was going to alter me
and forced your Wild Magic into me. I didn't have much say in the
matter, none in fact." he growled. Everyone else in the room was
considerably surprised at this information. "I heard that voice
again when you did whatever you did with that Mindfire, and the
bastard sounded pleased. THEN he says I'd never hear from him
again, the sonofabitch!" Bert remembered all the females in the
room and reddened. "Sorry for the language."
     "I think you've got a right to be mad," Twister said slowly.
"I wonder who it was though."
     "It could be any number of beings," Miyabi said, shaking her
head. "And probably a very powerful one if it met you in the Void."
     Bert snorted. "Frankly, I don't care as long as he's out of my
life for good." His expression became one of despair as he
remembered what had happened a mere hour ago. "Geez, I did a lot of
damage, didn't I?"
     "Fixed," Miyabi said dismissively. "Well, mostly fixed."
     Bert slowly smiled. "All right, I'll admit magic can be
useful, however nuts it seems to me. But," now he looked worried,
"what do you call this bloody weird mix of energies I have NOW?"
     "The Force..." something whispered, so softly it was almost
unheard by Bert.
     "The Force?!?" Bert blurted out, startled. Twister eyed him
oddly.
     "While I think you've watched Star Wars one too many times, we
might as well call it that," the psionist admitted before surging
to his feet, Nabiki echoing his movements. "I don't know about you
all but I know I'M tired." He turned to Miyabi. "Sorry for the
trouble, Professor."
     "Hey, that's MY line," Bert complained. He was ignored.
     "Hmm... Oh, well." Miyabi shrugged. "That's a mage's life. And
Natsumi, you'd best stay here for the moment seeing as you must be
tired, and no arguments," she said, stopping her student's protests
that she was exaggerating handily with the authority that she could
command at will. Bert couldn't quite hide the relieved expression
that flickered across his face, but Natsumi didn't notice. Instead,
she sat down disconsolately, a slightly pouting expression on her
lovely face as she watched the tall, red-headed young man.
     "Ah... We'd best walk back," Twister advised, missing the
by-play completely. "I'm not too strong right now."
     "I'm not complaining," Bert said, grinning.
     "You wouldn't."
     As the group left Miyabi's house, a small, green-skinned
creature with large ears watched them walk away from where it was
concealed in the shadows.
     And nodded knowingly to itself before vanishing.

     Much later, everyone had gathered at the Tendo dojo for
dinner. Wisely, Twister had asked Kasumi to make more than usual
due to his own and Bert's somewhat ravenous state. He'd even
offered to help, but the eldest Tendo daughter had merely smiled
and said she'd be fine. As hungry as he was, Bert forced himself to
slow down and eat at a normal rate, well, normal compared to Ranma
and his father.
     "Well," Nabiki remarked wryly, glancing sidelong at Twister,
"looks like everything is back to normal again."
     Bert almost choked on his next mouthful. "Normal??" he
croaked. "You call what happened today `normal'?!?"
     "Nabiki, that's not nice," Twister chided, grinning at the
red-head's dismay. Her smirk was her only reply as Bert glared
balefully at the brown-haired girl. "I think she really meant right
now, Bert. Although," he added thoughtfully, "I'm surprised none of
the others have shown up yet."
     "Others? What others?" Bert wondered aloud, puzzled why Ranma
looked panicked all of a sudden.
     ***TOOM!!***
     The sound of an amazon bashing though a wall has its own
distinctive sound so everyone who heard knew that Shampoo had
arrived, except Bert, who jumped away from the direction of the
collapsed wall.
     "What the hell was that?!?" he exclaimed.
     "Nihao!" Shampoo said, smiling at everyone in the room, then
locked on a resigned Ranma. "Ranma! So happy to see husband!"
Zooming faster than the eye could follow, the purple-haired amazon
kneeled beside Ranma and leaned VERY close to the now-nervous
martial artist. "Want go on date?"
     "Whatever happened to people around here using doors?" Bert
muttered, still staring at the wall wreckage. Nobody bothered to
answer him.
     "Uh... Shampoo... I'm eating right now. Could we talk later?"
Ranma stalled.
     Mistake.
     "So will go on date?" Shampoo asked eagerly.
     "I didn't SAY that!" Ranma protested. "I..."
     "RAAAANNNMMMAAA NO BAKA!!" Akane screamed, finally fed up with
her hentai fiancee's actions. She swung her Ranma-basher mallet
high in the air. Ranma cringed as it started to descend...but never
hit the mark. Everyone stared as Akane struggled to move her
suddenly immobile hammer seemingly anchored in mid-air.
     "Now there's something you don't see every day," Bert said,
bemused, feeling his sense of reality rapidly slipping away.
Twister looked at him sympathetically, knowing that the antics in
Nermia were more than a little strange, then he realized someone
was softly... singing? The tune stopped and Akane's hammer was free
once more, unbalancing the mallet wielder for a second.
     "Why are you trying to hurt my cousin's future husband?" the
voice of a young female with a Chinese accent asked curiously.
     Everyone except Twister and Shampoo looked at the hole Shampoo
had created for that was where the owner of the voice was. It was
a very attractive young woman with brown hair as long as Shampoo's
and one whom the family resemblance was evident. Her green eyes
were fixed on Akane as she lightly held a long wooden staff.
     "Your... cousin? Who are you?" Akane demanded as the
brown-haired girl stepped out of the hole and towards the table.
     "My name is Lotion."
     Bert's head snapped towards Twister. Uh oh, he thought, this
could be trouble. The psionist was pale and his gaze was fixed
directly ahead of himself, not even trying to look at the new
arrival. Why bother? He already KNEW what she looked like.
     "So you're Shampoo's cousin, huh?" Nabiki said, looking
curiously at the new arrival, and potential new source of income
(though she hadn't done many personal `favors' for a while, it was
good to keep in practice). "What brings you to Japan?" Bert started
to speak, trying to avoid incipient disaster, but he was far too
late for that.
     "MY future husband!" Lotion responded happily, and turned to
look at...
     BOOOOM!!!
     The blinding flash and sudden crack of thunder surprised
everyone. When the afterimage of the flash faded, they saw that
Twister had vanished.
     Lotion thumped the floor with her staff, frustrated. "I'd
forgotten that he could do that! I TOLD you this wouldn't work,
cousin." She sighed, seeing Shampoo's eyes were only on Ranma. "I'm
going back to the restaurant." She gave the floor another thump
before turning around and walking out the hole she had come in.
     Bert watched as Nabiki's face went though several phases:
astonishment, suspicion, realization, and finally, fury. He'd seen
that `glow' around Akane but to see it around the middle Tendo
sister was somehow more frightening. Nabiki kept her eyes aimed
downwards, too angry to look anywhere else. Everyone else in the
room, except Kasumi, edged nervously away from the furious girl.
     "I'll kill him," she finally grated out.
     This is not good, Bert thought apprehensively.

THAT EVENING...

     "So you have an amazon sorceress wanting to marry you and
Nabiki found out without you telling her?" Yasuro shook his head,
glad he wasn't in Twister's shoes right now. "It's hard to get in
more trouble than that."
     "I can always try. NOT!!" the brown-haired psionist replied
without turning his head around, determined to keep his attention
on finishing the crystalline box in front of him and not dwell on
the current and very unpleasant matter with Nabiki and Lotion. The
results were a little mixed at the moment.
     He had teleported instinctively to the apartment but had
immediately vacated the area, knowing a certain loan shark he loved
would be acting like Jaws now. The fact that he was hungry was also
a consideration and he went to various restaurants to alleviate
that problem, never staying for long in one place. He was positive
he knew what it felt like to be a hunted fugitive now...he
certainly had the paranoia of being found down pat.
     "Are you SURE that's a computer?" Yasuro asked, looking at the
strange device Twister was making.
     "Yes, it is. And... done!" the psionist cried. "Now we just
have to plug in the peripherals and we'll own the most powerful
computer around!"
     "You're kidding, right?"
     "No, not really. The system software I've already downloaded
so it should be running fine. The AI for user interface is also
ready, I think." Yasuro blinked when he said `AI.'
     "How about OUR `interfacing,' Twister?" an ominous-sounding
and tightly controlled female voice asked, making Twister sit bolt
upright in panic. "And you had better not disappear or I'll never
talk to you again. Come out into the main room, and let's talk."
     He slumped, defeated, and stood up. Turning he saw a guilty
looking Yasuro, who began saying "I'm sorry, Twister, but she..."
     "I know," Twister interrupted with a sigh, wondering what
she'd used to threaten his roommate with. "Don't worry about it, I
know Nabiki." Slowly he walked out of his bedroom and into the
living room. Bert was standing by the closed door, trying his best
to look like part of the furniture, and failing miserably. Nabiki
sat down on the chair that Yasuro used for his computer, legs
crossed, arms crossed, and generally looking cross but doing an
admirable job of restraining herself.
     "Maybe you'd better help Yasuro get the computer running,
Bert?" the resigned psionist sighed.
     "You built it already? It's operational?!" Bert asked
incredulously, then looked at the immobile, stone-faced figure of
Nabiki. "Um...right. I'd... ah... better go check it out." He
vacated the area and Twister heard the bedroom door close behind
him. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.
     "Nabiki..." he began, but she stopped him with a raised hand.
     "Just tell me how it happened," she said neutrally, anger
visibly lurking underneath the surface. Twister let out a deep
breath and told her the reason why he had gone to the village, the
reason why he was in female form at the time, the fight and
Masque's involvement with it, and his revealing his male form to
the tribe.
     "Why did you do that?" Nabiki demanded.
     "Lotion seemed so sad that she had to give me the Kiss of
Death, I just got angry with Masque and... er... knocked her out
with my sword. Lotion's not like Shampoo, she's not as aggressive,
nice really, and much more friendly from what I saw of her."
     "And are you going to marry her?"
     "NO!! Definitely not!" Twister shouted, slightly panicked..
Nabiki recoiled in surprise at his reaction, anger disappearing
momentarily.
     "That's rather emphatic after your description of her." Nabiki
frowned, honestly puzzled. "Not that I'm defending her position,
but what don't you like about her?"
     "She... has some... different tastes that make me very
nervous." Twister told her reluctantly. "Nothing really. I...
*glub!*" A bucket of water, now emptied onto Darlene, appeared
above the surprised red-head, along with the young woman who
dropped the bucket now that its purpose was over. The new
appearance tackled her victim with a hug that sent them both to the
floor in front of the blinking and confused Nabiki.
     Lotion smiled down at the dripping wet, and very shocked,
Darlene. "That's not much of a problem, husband, if that is the
only thing bothering you," she purred. Then, without caring about
how wet the red-headed mage was, she hugged the frightened young
woman tighter and locked their lips together with a passionate
kiss.
     Nabiki didn't miss her `boyfriend's' reaction to it. The color
drained from Darlene's face and her eyes opened wide in panic
before rolling up into her head, the rest of her body going limp as
she fainted. It didn't take a deductive genius to realize what
Twister had been so nervous about: Lotion liked women, not men.
Probably not a problem in an amazon village, but to the normally
body-shy Twister, who had been male most of his life and now faced
with a woman desiring his female form, something of a major
quandary.
     "Different tastes. Right," she muttered, disgusted with events
as she watched Lotion withdraw from her kiss and blink in confusion
at the unconscious Darlene in her arms. "Excuse me," she spoke up,
and the amazon looked at her, "I don't think you're going to get
anywhere with Twister at this rate; fainting puts such a crimp on
things."
     "Who are you?" Lotion demanded.
     "The girl who's been with him for over half a year. Name's
Nabiki Tendo."
     Lotion wasn't dumb; she could see the anger this strange girl
was holding back, and also saw the sharp intelligence behind the
attractive face as well. Her instincts told her that a challenge of
wits with this girl, her rival she sensed, would not be a battle in
her favor. She also knew Shampoo's rough and forceful methods would
be well known with this one, but Lotion wasn't Shampoo. Being rough
and forceful for a mage was a bad thing.
     She stood up, and Nabiki followed suit. "I apologize," she
said. "I did not know another loved him before me."
     Nabiki flushed slightly, but reminded herself she was not her
younger sister. "Apology accepted." At least the amazon was being
civilized about the whole thing.
     "But she... he did defeat me," Lotion went on, "and I must
obey my village law." She looked torn, and her expression softened
when she looked down at Darlene's still form.
     Nabiki sighed. Twister was right, she did look like a nice
girl, but Lotion, like Shampoo with Ranma, had fallen in love with
her boyfriend. The bad part about the whole thing was that Nabiki
loved him too, it was pointless denying it. Well, she thought, if
you're uncertain as to what to do, buy some time. "Could you come
back to my place in a week so we can discuss this mess? I believe
we both could use some time to think about this."
     Lotion considered Nabiki for a few second before nodding. "All
right." She went to the window and opened it. Before the amazon
jumped out, her eyes trailed over Darlene's unconscious form then
to Nabiki's determined look. Sighing, she hopped out the window.
Nabiki came over and closed it, her expression dubious about
solutions to the matter.
     Bert edged cautiously into the room at that moment. "Are the
fireworks over?" Then he saw Darlene sprawled on the floor in a
pool of water. "What the hell?!"
     "Lotion paid a visit after he told me what happened in her
village," Nabiki explained. "Apparently, my idiot boyfriend
defeated her." Bert nodded, his unkempt red hair bouncing a little.
     "Miyabi told me; that's a problem I suppose," he understated.
     "Did she tell you Lotion likes Twister's female form better?"
     Bert froze, and his face turned pale. "Uh, no," he admitted,
swallowing. "That would definitely be a bigger problem." He managed
to hide his own inner revulsion at THAT particular development.
     "I'm so glad you understand," she said sarcastically. "Finding
out how to FIX this mess is MY worry."
     "Maybe I should put her... er, him on his bed?" the tall
red-head suggested hesitantly. When she nodded, he stooped and
carefully picked up the red-headed girl. He was about to head for
Twister's room when Nabiki spoke up again.
     "Tell his roommate to tell Twister when he wakes up that I'll
be waiting for him to call me tomorrow." He nodded and left to
deposit his burden. Nabiki sighed and put a hand on her face,
thinking about recent events.
     "This is just perfect."
                              *****
     A knocking on the door caught Kasumi's attention.
     "Oh my. Who could it be at this hour?" she wondered aloud and
hastened to the front door of the dojo. Opening it, her curious
gaze fell on three strange young men. "Yes?" she asked politely.
     Two of the boys gaped at her. "Look! It's a girl!" the one in
a furred cap said to a much larger and muscular young man in a
tiger-striped outfit.
     "What should we do?" that one whispered back.
     "Shouldn't we let Lord Herb handle it?"
     "Well, yes, but it doesn't hurt to practice for when we do it
ourselves."
     "True!"
     The front young man with long white hair streaked with blue
stripes had grown slowly angrier as the exchange continued. "Will
you two SHUT UP?!" he yelled and a powerful ball of ki energy from
his hand blasted the pair out of the yard.
     "Oh my!" Kasumi said, startled. "Didn't that hurt them?"
     The remaining stranger didn't say anything but turned at the
sound of Akane and Ranma arriving behind the eldest Tendo daughter.
     "Herb??" Ranma exclaimed, wide-eyed, recognizing the visitor.
"What the heck are you doing back in Japan??"
     The prince of the Musk Dynasty gave the martial artist a level
look. "I have come to challenge someone and was told to come here
to find him." He paused, then narrowed his eyes. Akane and Ranma
suddenly felt nervous.
     "Where is this... Twister?"

THE NEXT DAY...

     Bert woke up on an unfamiliar surface, then remembered what
had happened the previous night and sighed. After putting Darlene
to bed, Nabiki taking the wet clothing off first in exchange for a
drier set, he had decided to stay in the apartment to ask his
unconscious host some things about the optical computer system.
when she ... er, he regained consciousness.
     Brrr. He shuddered as he also recalled what Nabiki had told
him. I don't envy Twister's position, he thought.. I'm not sure how
I would react myself but it's a sure bet it wouldn't be far off
from his reaction: sudden unconsciousness. Or would that be running
for the hills? He's tried both, I think.
     The sound of dishes clattering told Bert what had woken him
up. He groaned as he got up, the previous day's aches and pains
still remained with him and he was hungry to boot. His jaw and eye
were still tender from where Ranma had belted him.
     Walking towards the apartment's small kitchen, he saw a
mightily distracted Darlene fixing breakfast. She looked up, saw
him, and continued her preparations.
     "Just a moment, Bert," she greeted him, obviously still
unsettled by something, "coffee's brewing; it'll be a minute or
two." The displaced Knight Saber nodded dubiously and leaned on the
dining table as he watched her.
     "No problem, and good morning yourself," he replied. Darlene
blinked, stopping what she was doing as she stared at him.
     "What happened to Mr. Bear the caffeine addict? Or is he still
hibernating on the couch?" she asked him. Bert started, realizing
that he felt awfully damn alert for having risen only minutes ago.
     "Er..." He rubbed the back of his head. "I guess I'm still
feeling the after effects of that jolt you gave me."
     "Oh, then they won't last long; a cheerful Bert in the morning
is too good to have for long," she said impishly. It got a dark
look from him and she stuck her tongue out in response.
     "Humph," he grumped, pulling out a chair and sitting on it.
Darlene went back to fixing breakfast while he sat there, humming
absently to himself and drumming the fingers of one hand on the
tabletop. A twinge from his bruised jaw made him wince irritably,
but he couldn't quite recall offhand how he'd healed himself
earlier.
     He concentrated instead on the fact that he felt remarkably
... alert. Before, he'd always required a couple of litres of tea
or other caffeine-laden beverages before he'd felt this lively. As
he concentrated, it was as if he could suddenly hear someone in the
back of his mind, whispering vaguely heard instructions. Without
realizing it, he relaxed, his breathing evening out, and a moment
later, he could somehow ... somehow sense the source of his aches
and pains; it was as if he could see the damaged nerves and cells.
It was child's play to simply reach inwards and nudge them into
rebuilding themselves, banishing the discomfort from them.
     "Uh, Bert?" Darlene's voice cut through his concentration.
"Why are you glowing ?!" He became aware of her wide-eyed gaze
suddenly as she stared at him, frozen in mid-motion of setting a
plate on the table.
     "Why am I what?" he asked, then noticed the faint glow of
purple energy sheathing him. Instantly, panic started to knife
through him, and it seemed to him as if the energy began to swirl
ominously. "I don't know!! I don't know what I'm doing!! I..."
     "CONCENTRATE!!! Calm you must be!!" a voice thundered in his
mind, unquestionable authority in its tone.
     "What the ...? Who said that?" Despite his confusion, the
order worked; the panic disappeared, and the swirling stopped. The
dim thought that he'd heard that voice somewhere before nudged at
the edges of his mind. As he tried vainly to remember what it was
that was so familiar, the energy and the voice disappeared back
into the hidden recesses of his psyche.
     "Are you all right?! Want me to call the professor?!" He
became aware that Darlene was already halfway to the apartment
door, and waved her back.
     "No, I'm...okay now, I guess," he replied. At her somewhat
dubious look, he felt a flicker of irritation. "I'm not relapsing,"
he amplified crossly. "My jaw hurt from where Ranma slugged me, I
was thinking about healing it...and it....just sort of happened."
His voice trailed off as he shrugged helplessly. "It was really
strange; it was like there was someone whispering instructions in
the back of my mind."
     "I think you'd better see the professor again today," Darlene
advised him seriously. "Maybe she can help you control your power,
whatever you want to call it."
     "A damned nuisance, that's what I call it," he grumbled
sourly, his good cheer evaporating as he leaned on the table. "So
much for being able to go back to being normal." Darlene decided a
change of subject was in order.
     "I've got classes all morning," she informed the gloomy Knight
Saber. "You can check out that computer I made while I'm away and
tell me what you think."
     "When did you make that computer anyway?" he inquired, his
expression becoming curious. Technology of any kind was one way to
get his mind off his problems, the young mage noted wryly.
     "Well... It wasn't a new idea; I was planning on making one
before you came, but then you did and it got put on hold. When your
suit... um... got destroyed, I started building it to cheer you up.
I remember everything in my male form and I've scanned enough
hardsuits and Boomers, as well as looking at Sylia's systems a few
times, to have a good idea of what you'd need. I even made a simple
AI for it. Didn't you look at it last night?" she inquired.
     "Yeah, briefly. For all it's just a box the size of a normal
desktop computer, that thing packs more than enough punch to do
material stress simulations and everything else. Just how the hell
did you manage that??"
     "Very precise telekinetic manipulation on a very small scale
to make an optically based computer system and powered by magic.
I've done it before, just on a larger scale." She grinned wickedly.
"THAT version did a nice job breaking into the GENOM main core."
Darlene snickered at Bert's jaw dropping. "Think about it, Bert. A
fully dedicated supercomputer programmed by someone taught by Nene,
hacker supreme, and I built on her teachings. I broke into nearly
every computer on the Net to get all the knowledge I needed,
cheating in some cases. I remember EVERYTHING, Bert, and I can
correlate that data as Twister. I made an AI hacking program that
Genom would've killed for just to get into their core. Then I
copied it all and they never even knew." The red-headed Knight
Saber couldn't believe it.
     "Wha-what did you do with it?" he stammered. She laughed.
     "Sent it to Reika, aka Vision, anonymously. Heehee! Over a 100
terabytes of info sent anonymously! I didn't tell Sylia about that
bit." She started giggling helplessly. "Quincy would've had a heart
attack if he found out!" Bert started laughing with her for a
moment or so, then finally decided to ask the question that had
been nagging at the back of his mind.
     "So what are you going to do about Lotion?" he queried.
Darlene choked and turned white. Uh oh; apparently some things were
better left unasked.
     "Look, I just don't know, alright?!" she said forcefully, but
still pale. "Just drop it for now, okay?!" Bert held up his hands
in a placating manner.
     "Okay, okay!" he soothed, then snapped his fingers suddenly.
"Hey, that reminds me: Nabiki told me she's expecting you to call
her today," Bert told the agitated mage, who looked even more
despondent when she heard that.
     "That's another fine way to start the morning," she moaned,
slumping on one of the kitchen walls. Sighing after a moment,
Darlene straightened and shook her head. "Let's just finish
breakfast, all right?"
     Bert wisely kept quiet.
                              *****
     Yuriko watched Itazuka...no, she remembered after hearing out
an upset Nabiki last night, _Darlene_ enter. The hopeful
engineering/magic student noticed with some concern that her
red-headed friend looked slightly pale as she sat at her desk. The
young magic-user flushed as she remembered the problem concerning
Darlene her roommate Nabiki had mentioned.
     "Are you all right?" Yuriko asked her. Seeing Darlene
hesitate, she quickly added, "Nabiki told me about... um... IT."
The red-head moaned, rubbing a hand over her face.
     "I don't know, Yuriko," Darlene sighed. "Thinking about it
just makes me panic and unable to think properly about the
problem." She shivered at the memory. "I'm going to go over and
talk to Nabiki after classes. Hopefully, we can... do..." she
trailed off as she stared at the front of the room. Yuriko followed
her gaze and gulped.
     Professor Miyabi had arrived, but with a brown-haired girl
with long hair and Chinese clothing. The raven-haired teacher
turned to the class with a wry smile. "Students, this is Lotion, a
student of a friend of mine in China who will be with us for a
little while."
     "Hi," Lotion shyly said with a smile and the males of the
class felt their hearts beat faster as a result.
     "I hope you will make her feel right at home. I..."
     Yuriko wasn't listening as she worriedly watched the nervously
twitching form of Darlene, who had facefaulted onto her desk. She
didn't think Nabiki was going to like this at all.
                              *****
     "Pull up the previous design," Bert asked, and a hardsuit
schematic immediately popped up on the screen in full 3-D
holographic glory. He smiled with satisfaction as he admired the
plans.
     Fully exploring what the capabilities of Twister's computer
was proving to be very interesting. The utilities were obviously
Sylia's, or at least the Sylia Twister knew, but he noted there
were some differences. Not worse, just different. Twister had
thrown in a few programs of his own, and they were as tightly coded
and as efficient as Nene's.
     After getting used to the rather unemotional AI, Bert threw
himself into getting used to the system; there were a few things he
wanted to try and as he had nothing else to do at the moment it
seemed the perfect time for it. Sure he was still uneasy about the
further changes after the battle with Twister but at least he felt
more at ease.
     Bert started as the truth of that thought jolted him. Had his
magic-only change been responsible for him being so jittery in this
universe? It was possible, he mused, he was still calmer than
normal but he was feeling more like his old self more and more;
likely the forces inside himself were reaching an equilibrium.
     "Correct, my student."
     The Knight Saber leaped about a foot into the air, knocking
his chair over as he spun around at the strange, yet oddly
familiar, voice's assessment. It had sounded like it had come from
a corner of the room, but there was no one there. He scanned the
room visually: nothing.
     "Great, now I'm hearing things," Bert told himself
disgustedly. "Hope they've got rubber rooms handy; at this rate,
I'm going to need one in a few hours."
     "Hear me you do, imagination I am not," the odd voice said in
answer to his statement.
     "All right," Bert said warily, wondering what new weirdness
was happening to him now, "then where are you?" He couldn't believe
he was talking to himself in this way; wasn't that supposed to be
the first stage of insanity or something?
     "Tell you later, visitors now you have," the voice said.
     "Visitors?! What do you mean by THAT?!" Bert demanded, but
there was no reply. This was getting really strange....
     CRASHSNAP!!!!
     Bert put the mystery voice on the back burner as he ran from
the room and into the main living area. He was greeted with the
strange sight of a clenched fist poking through the door.
     "Idiot! I said KNOCK on his door, not punch through it!"
     "Sorry, Herb-sama!"
     " `Herb-sama'? Who the hell's this now?" Bert muttered to
himself. Hesitating only briefly, he opened the door to the
apartment, and found himself confronted by three young men. One was
extremely muscular and wearing a tiger-striped costume that almost
made him look like he was part tiger himself; it was his fist that
had met with Twister's front door. The second guy was wearing
relatively normal clothes with a fur hat, but it was the third
member of the trio that held Bert's attention: a fairly tall,
arrogant-seeming young man with long hair that sported an unlikely
combination of blue and white stripes. Whatever it was about the
third man, attitude or appearance, he felt himself bristling in
response to the cool appraisal he was receiving from the
unusual-looking figure.
     "Can I be of some assistance, gentlemen?" the tall red-head
asked them courteously enough, his eyes flickering intently over
them. He couldn't pin it down, but there was a definite aura of a
threat here. "I...."
     "That's not him," the tiger-striped one stated positively.
     "Are there any girls in there?" the smaller man in the cap
asked interestedly, peering around the doorjamb. His comrade
developed a similarly interested look, and started forward into the
room, oblivious to the person standing in the doorway.
     "Now wait just a minute here, buddy," Bert started, a flicker
of irritation crossing his face. "I don't know who you think you
are, but...." That was all he had a chance to say, as the
tiger-striped individual almost negligently shoved him backwards
with the flat of his hand, sending him sailing across the room.
Bert crashed into the couch, knocking it over backwards. He lay
there for a moment, staring stonily at the ceiling, then stood up,
his greenish-brown eyes smoldering.
     "I did try being reasonable," he said mildly, his glance
spearing the muscle-bound one as a flickering purple aura began to
grow around him.
                              *****
     Darlene felt it first, the vaguely uncomfortable feeling that
preceded the wild magic surges she'd experienced lately. It wasn't
a painful feeling, just disturbing. It felt a lot like the feelings
that preceded the flu, and she'd never enjoyed feeling like she was
going to be sick.
     This time, it was different however; the emanations were more
tightly focused, as if under better control than before. And they
were definitely stronger than they had been.
     The young mage glanced furtively around at the class, trying
to determine if anyone else had noticed the strange feelings. Her
classmates appeared unperturbed, and were concentrating on
Professor Miyabi's last minute instructions to the student at the
front of the class, who was about to demonstrate a minor
conjuration spell.
     Darlene very carefully kept from looking at Lotion as she
stood shyly in front of the class. It was bad enough that the young
amazon had somehow found a seat close to her, but that look that
she got in her eyes whenever they made eye contact
was....terrifying to the young red-headed mage.
     A second wave of wild magic made her glance at the Professor
as she stepped back to let Lotion cast her spell; her stomach sank
at the rather grim look she received in reply. Miyabi could feel it
as well if that glance was any indication. She quickly prayed that
nothing disastrous would happen
     The young amazon made a slight gesture and started singing in
a strangely hypnotic way; Darlene tried concentrating on the words
themselves and their meanings rather than the fact that Lotion had
a very musical voice. In response to the sung spell, a shimmering
field of energy appeared in mid-air, above a desktop at the front
of the classroom, and what looked like a bunch of flowers began to
appear. Darlene wished she could hide under the desk as she
realized it was a bunch of red roses. From the slightly amused
glance the brown-haired amazon was giving her, she knew exactly
what she was doing.
     The glow faded, and a large bundle of luridly red roses sat on
the table, looking like they'd been freshly picked.
     "Very good, Lotion," Miyabi complimented her, before turning
towards the class. "now then...."
     A slithering noise from where the flowers had been sitting
made the elder mage turn back towards the conjured flowers, and she
suddenly found herself confronting a twisting mass of vines, topped
off with what looked like several Venus Flytrap heads, all of which
started chanting `Feed me!! Feed me!!!' as they snapped hungrily at
the air around them. Lotion was staring in stunned horror at the
plants, while all the students within immediate reach of the
mutated flowers dove for cover.
     Professor Miyabi sighed wearily as she closed her eyes and
massaged her temples.
                              *****
     "Let's try this again," SkyKnight told the strange trio in
front of him. "Just who the hell are you, and what the hell do you
want?" The silver-blue battlesuit bulked ominously in the rather
battered doorframe to Twister's room. The quiet hum of his suit
systems filled the dusty hallway as the smoke cleared, and the red
eyeslot in his helmet glowered threateningly.
     The muscular tiger-striped man groggily picked himself up off
the floor of the hallway as his hat-wearing compatriot tried to do
the same. Only the blue-white haired young man was unaffected,
standing calmly in the hallway with his arms folded over his chest.
As he hadn't tried to enter the room himself, SkyKnight had opted
for restricting his eviction notice to the two who had barged into
the room.
     "Interesting technique," the young man finally said, his gaze
travelling up and down the silver battlesuit. "My name is Herb; I
am the last prince of the Musk Dynasty."
     "Fine. Pleased to meet you," SkyKnight replied, watching the
other two warily. "Now why were you breaking down the door?"
     "My servants can be a little over-zealous," Herb admitted,
giving the two of them an irritated glance. His gaze became intent
as it returned to the silver Knight Saber. "We are looking for
someone named Twister. You are not him, I presume?"
     "You presume correctly. I'm SkyKnight....it's a long story.
Anyhow, what did you want with Twister? I can pass on the message
it you'd like."
     "That would be acceptable," Herb nodded. "You can tell him
that I am challenging him to a duel in one week."
     "Oh brother, not another one!" SkyKnight looked at the
ceiling. "Don't you people ever get tired of this? Is life really
that boring that you've got to go pick fights with everybody?!"
     "You will speak to Lord Herb with respect!!" the tiger-striped
young man spat, lashing out with a punch. The silver hardsuit
easily caught the young man's fist with a gauntleted hand, and then
pitched him down the hallway. There was a crash as the flying body
impacted with the wall at the end of the hallway facefirst, and
remained stuck there as cracks spread outwards in the paint on the
wall.
     "Go home and dry behind your ears first, kid," SkyKnight
called after him, turning back to Herb. "I'll pass on the message,"
he informed the irritated Musk prince, "but I think you're wasting
your time."
     "We will see." The blue-white haired prince was unruffled.
"But from his taste in servants I do not believe he will be much of
an opponent." Inside his armour, Bert growled angrily: he didn't
need this sort of arrogant bullshit.
     "Now just wait ONE minute here, wiseass," he began, pointing
an armoured finger in the Musk prince's direction. "I am NOT a
servant, I don't care much for YOUR taste in attendant idiots
seeing as they could both use some manners, and I don't think YOU
are much of anything."
     White eyebrows narrowed in annoyance.
     And Herb raised one hand...
                              *****
     Twister sighed as he reappeared near the apartment. Maybe I
shouldn't have overreacted QUITE so much, he thought, shaking his
head. But then, he'd been climbing toward critical stress levels
all during the class and those crazy plants had been just too much.
     "Shouldn't have used that Visionaries' rhyme," he muttered as
he recalled what had happened with that spell.....

     <<<"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" Darlene had screamed,
frustrated at the ridiculousness of the talking plants, then stood
up and shouted,

     "By nature's hand, by crafts, by Art,
      What once was one, now fly apart!"

     Hands crackling with purple energy, she shot twin beams of
fiery energy from her palms, which had struck the vocal vegetable
mass dead center. There had been an instant where a matrix of
flashing light raced through the green of the plants, then the
whole thing exploded with a crash of thunder, splattering the whole
room with destroyed plant matter. No pod or seed was untouched;
nothing had been left intact.
     Eyes wide, Darlene stood panting and stared at the slightly
charred table, forgetting to drop her arms. Everyone else in the
room stood up and warily looked at her as she still looked a little
wild. The professor coughed politely and Darlene jumped, quickly
lowering her arms.
     "Thank you for your... ahem... assistance, student." Darlene
flushed at Miyabi's wry tone. "You look stressed. Perhaps you
should take the rest of the class off," she had hinted.
     Darlene had glanced at Lotion, who gave her a smoldering look
back, and nodded stiffly. "Sure. I... Sorry for the mess," she said
hurriedly, collected her stuff, and practically flew from the
room.>>>

     "Yeah, that could've gone better," Twister sighed again to
himself as he spotted his building.
     THOOOOOOMMMM!!!!
     The psionist was jolted from his reminiscences by the
unmistakable sound of a hardsuit being blown through the front wall
of an apartment building. He instantly recognized SkyKnight and
swiftly reacted with his telekinesis to slow the stunned Knight
Saber down, not on the psi-immune figure but on the air below the
silver suit, creating a soft `air bag' to cushion his fall. The
hardsuit's automatic jets helped too by kicking in about thirty
feet from the ground, and the limp figure landed softly on the
ground. Twister ran up to SkyKnight, who was groggily trying to sit
up, wondering what could have blown his hardsuited friend out of a
building like that.
     "Bert! You okay?!" he asked anxiously as Bert shook his head
dazedly.
     "Lemme tell you that next week when I can see straight again.
God DAMN that hurt!" Bert swore, unsteadily rising to his feet as
he recovered. "When I get a hold of that so-called `prince' I'm
gonna fricassee the bastard!" he growled. The visor eyeslot on his
helmet glowed an angry red.
     "What `prince' are you talking about, Bert?" Twister asked
him, face displaying his puzzlement. In reply, Bert savagely
pointed at the hole his form had just made.
     "THAT one!"
     Twister looked up and saw the partly-armoured and
unusual-looking person calmly watching them from the opening, two
others just as odd behind him. Then the long-haired personage
jumped the several-story drop effortlessly, the other two belatedly
following, and imperiously strode over to them with his entourage.
Suddenly, Twister experienced a sinking feeling as he came up with
a name to match this stranger with.
     "Herb. Oh, just perfect," he said quietly. SkyKnight's helmet
swung around to look incredulously at him as the Saber jerked a
thumb towards the advancing party.
     "You KNOW that jackass?!"
     "Only by reputation," the psionist managed to say before the
Musk Dynasty trio came up to them. Herb stopped, ignoring the
seething Bert completely as he looked Twister up and down, finally
settling on his face. The psionist returned the favor, keeping a
firm hand on Bert's armoured arm, ending up meeting haughty stare
with his curious one.
     "Are you Twister?" Herb demanded.
     "And if I am?"
     "Then I challenge you," Herb stated. This only confused
Twister further.
     "Why do you want to do that?" he queried, puzzled.
     "That will only be answered at the challenge site, which is
outside of this city. Our fight will cause less of an... uproar
there."
     Rubbing his face with a hand, the brown-haired psionist
scowled. He really didn't need this, of all things, to complicate
things further than they already were. The reason for Herb's
challenge was a mystery to him, but refusing to fight might make
the Musk prince do something drastic to force him into it anyway.
He sighed.
     "When?" he said finally.
     "You're not SERIOUS, Twister," SkyKnight protested vehemently.
"This idiot..."
     "BERT!" Twister hissed angrily, startling the red-head into
silence; seeing Twister angry was damn rare.
     "I was going to give you one week, but now make it three days.
There is a lake with a large stone and many broken trees: that is
where we will fight. It is..."
     "I know where it is," Twister interrupted, recognizing the
area where he had first appeared in the Ranmaverse he knew. "I
broke the trees."
     Herb raised his eyebrows, interested at that fact. "Indeed?
You may be a worthy fighter, but then, I suspected as much. I will
await you there." With a whirl of his cape, he imperiously walked
off, Mint and Lime hurrying to keep up behind him. Twister released
SkyKnight, who whirled on him.
     "Could you tell me what the hell THAT was all about??" he
demanded. All he got was a perplexed and concerned shrug from the
psionist, making him snort.
     "Just another thing to complete my day," SkyKnight grumbled.
                              *****
     Bert wandered aimlessly across the university campus, his
hands stuck into his pockets as he directed an absentminded
greenish-brown eyed gaze at his surroundings. His general
appearance made him blend in with the throng of students swarming
all over the campus, a fact he would have been appreciative of if
he'd been aware of it. Despite his heroic leanings, notoriety
bugged him, and he was beginning to see just how far the
complications of being well-known could extend, Twister being the
prime example.
     Well, at least he'd been able to fix the door somewhat before
he'd left the apartment; after his run-in with that self-proclaimed
prince and his cronies, he'd felt the need to get outdoors for some
fresh air. He paced along for a few more minutes, unable to
concentrate on any one subject for long, but feeling oddly relaxed
just the same. He glanced at the lengthening shadows on the ground,
and concluded finally that it was late enough that he'd better head
back to Twister's apartment.

<end chap 5>

=================
Twister(aka Darren Steffler) e-mail at:
twister@tendo-dojo.ranma.net | fmw675@freenet.mb.ca
Homepage at: http://www.winnipeg.freenet.mb.ca/~fmw675/
Anime Fan!!! Must watch BGC and Ranma 1/2 to the infinite!