Apparently some people are having problems with decoding the attached 
text files I used to post this the first time.
So I'm reposting the first 3 chapters as inclusions (in 5 parts, 2 of 
the chapters are too big for my mailer)

There arent any changes, so if you could read the attachments you 
dont need to bother with these!

Dave Row

Chapter 1 Part 1

Bubblegum Ragnarok
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A Bubblegum Crisis/Ah! Megamisama/etc crossover, sortof!


This story follows directly on from the end of The Ragnarok Agenda, a
(sort-of) crossover tale set in the Ah! Megamisama universe. If you
haven't read it, then some of this story (especially the early parts)
probably won't make much sense.

Very briefly; after helping Belldandy, Urd and Skuld in stopping Loki
start Ragnarok (the Twilight of the Gods) rather earlier than planned,
both David Smith and Iczer-2 are badly hurt. Unable (for complex
reasons) to heal both of them directly, Urd devises a plan which gets
around the restrictions imposed on them by merging the two, then using
their power to heal one of them (Iczer-2) completely. Unfortunately
both are now sharing one body, Iczer-2's, and she isn't normally the
one in control of it! Also, for political reasons it isn't safe for
them to stay in the Ah! Megamisama universe longer than they have to.

So, the he/she/us/we tenses gets confused, but to keep things 
(reasonably) simple I will refer to the gender of the body whichever
one of the two is currently occupying. Otherwise things are going to
get _far_ too confusing! Also, Iczer refers to Iczer-2's body, usually
with David Smith in control. Clear, isn't it? :)


Our story starts in the Tarikihonganji temple courtyard, soon after
dawn on a chilly November morning, with a still very confused David
Smith in control of Iczer-2's body...

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Bubblegum Ragnarok
------------------


Chapter 1 - Departures & Arrivals
---------------------------------


Iczer looked around the temple courtyard. It was a lovely late autumn
morning, the air crisp and clear, the pale sunlight casting
sharp-edged shadows across the light patina of frost covering the
ground with a crystalline whiteness. She could hear the sweet tones of
birds singing and twittering in the trees surrounding the courtyard,
far more clearly than she had been used to. It was a very pleasant
change from the last time she'd seen the place. Although she wished
she was seeing the scene in her own body, not that of Iczer-2, better
senses or no.

She still wished she could stay. There was something magic about this
place, which perhaps wasn't surprising given three of the 'people' who
lived here, but she couldn't criticise the results. It annoyed her
that she was effectively being kicked out, not just of here but out of
this Universe, for the 'crime' of helping stop Loki from arranging
Ragnarok rather earlier than scheduled.  

At least she'd recovered now from the embarrassment of dressing; it
seemed that whichever body was changed into wore the clothes it was in
the last time it had been 'active', and Iczer-2 had only been wrapped
in a sheet. That time it hadn't really registered, after the shock of
the operation and the change, but this time she noticed everything. It
hadn't helped that Urd had been wearing a broad smile during the
entire  proceedings, she'd suffered through a blush that wouldn't quit
the whole time, especially after some of Urd's more unsubtle comments.
 She'd managed to persuade the goddess that casual clothes 'she' was
familiar with were a much better idea, not just for her but in view of
the fact she didn't really have any idea of where she was going to end
up. It had taken a more forceful response by her to insist that she
was _not_ going to wear a bra, but Urd had relented, and hadn't tried
to force the issue after a token attempt. In any case, Iczer-2's body
didn't need one, not with her muscle tone and hardly-overlarge
measurements. Now she was reasonably comfortable in boots, jeans and a
T-shirt; she refused to think about her underwear right now...

Looking across at the three goddesses, she sighed, settling the bag of
spare clothing Belldandy had been kind enough to give her a little
more comfortably on her shoulder. It still felt odd, she kept trying
to put it where it would have balanced properly on her 'old' body, and
that didn't quite work. With a gesture she knew was nervous, but
couldn't help, she brushed a few errant strands of hair back from her
face.

"I guess we'd better be getting on with it"

Belldandy and Urd smiled, and Skuld grinned.
"Don't worry", said Skuld, "I know what I'm doing"

Iczer thought about that, deciding that pointing out to Skuld that
maybe it would also be helpful to know what was going to _happen_ as
well as what she was doing might be a useful comment, but probably
wouldn't get her anywhere. Well, not anywhere she wanted to be,
anyway!

"I'm in the hands of engineers..." she muttered sotto voce.

It looked like Urd and Skuld had been busy again. Another of their
complex circles was inscribed on the ground, and Skuld's mech was
adding a few more pieces of equipment to an already-impressive pile
next to it. Iczer wondered absently how much hi-tech equipment Skuld
needed just to brush her teeth...

"Do I stand in the circle?"

Urd nodded.
"In a minute, Skuld has to finish setting her gear up."

Iczer nodded, torn between wanting to stay and not submit herself to
all this, even though she knew that would lead to even worse
consequences, and getting it all over with.

"You said yesterday about teaching me to do this under my own power?"

"Well, not you, Iczer-2. We briefed her last night, and Skuld uploaded
all the data on how to do it into Iczer-Sigma. We wanted to let you
sleep, you needed it."

Skuld looked up at that, grinning.
"Yes, and I added our co-ordinates as well, just in case! 
Its a lovely mech, take better care of it next time!"

Iczer smiled back at Skuld. Despite her worries, it was such a lovely
day she couldn't do otherwise. Then she turned to Belldandy, who'd
been standing there looking serene.

"The co-ordinates for here? I thought I was persona non grata 
hereabouts?"

Belldandy smiled.
"Well, not with us! You are welcome to come back and visit us if you
wish, although it would be, well, politic to give things here a while
to recover and for the entities involved to forget. But eventually,
things will happen to attract their attention, and they'll stop
worrying about you"

Iczer hoped she was right. She did want to come here again, but was
still feeling more than a little traumatised by what had happened on
_this_ little visit! And it would be far more pleasant if both of them
could visit in their own bodies.

"Ah, this may be a silly question, but - where are you sending us?"

Urd looked over, thoughtfully.
"Well, as to that, we don't really know!"

Iczer barely restrained herself from facefaulting.
"You DON'T KNOW!!! You mean you're sending us off into another
dimension and you don't even know which one..!!"

Urd grinned, making 'calm down' gestures with her hands.
"Now, don't get so upset. It isn't that bad. The reason we don't know
is that the destination will be selected by you, mostly. You see, a
major component of this type of transportation is the destination in
the mind of the operator. That's you, even though you won't be doing
the actual spell this time. Also, since you don't know exactly where
you need to go, we've thrown in random factor. The end result is you
should end up somewhere reasonably familiar to one of you two, and
somewhere that will prove to be helpful in solving your particular
problems. Clear?"

Iczer nodded, slowly and reluctantly. She wasn't at all happy with
Urd's explanation, it still rather sounded like she'd be shot off like
some sort of unguided missile, but she was hardly in a position to
argue. She trusted them, and just hoped they knew what they were
doing.

Urd smiled, trying to be reassuring.
"Just remember, there are an awful lot of parallel dimensions out
there. Where you end up should be one you are familiar with, but that
doesn't mean it will be identical to your ideas. Don't make any quick
judgements."

Skuld's head popped up from behind her equipment right then, bearing a
momentary uncanny resemblance to a hi-tech gopher. "I'm all set!! Lets
get this thing going."

Iczer licked her suddenly dry lips, and nervously resettled her bag
yet again. Then she turned to Urd and Belldandy. "I guess this is
goodbye... I'll try to come back, if either one of us can..."

Belldandy nodded, and then put her arms around the slender girl,
giving her a long hug. "Take care - both of you."

Iczer nodded, not trusting herself to talk right now, as she walked
quickly over to the inscribed circle, wanting to get inside it before
she completely lost her nerve. Deliberately, she didn't look down at
the circle or the writing surrounding it, as she readied herself in
the centre, taking a deep breath as she tried to calm herself, with
little success. She watched as the three goddesses took up positions
around the circle, starting to chant as the lights on Skuld's
equipment flickered. The air in front of her shimmering, reminding her
of a heat-haze, but one which was centred and radiating from a point,
rather than rising from a hot object, as she heard a faint singing
noise which steadily rose in pitch as it got fainter. The sight was
fascinating, and she concentrated on it, happy for the chance to
distract herself from what was about to happen as the haze grew
thicker and more turbulent, then with an audible *snap* a twisting,
circular tunnel appeared in front of her, as the air forming it
changed into a reflective mirror like a horizontal film of mercury,
leading away _somewhere_.

She cast a last look around, wanting to hold the scene in her memory,
then set her shoulders and stepped forward, trying not to stumble as
she felt gravity twist about her and the wormhole's metrical frame
took hold of her.

The three Norns waited, maintaining the field until Skuld's 
instrumentation *beeped* sharply, then dropped their hands, relaxing.
Belldandy turned to Urd, a small, almost accusatory frown on her face.

"You didn't tell her about that odd factor we found last night, when
we were calculating possible destinations for her. The one that meant
we couldn't seem to set a destination we wanted for her."

Urd half grinned, half grimaced back.
"No, I didn't. I didn't think it would help, she looked scared enough
already; not that I blame her. And I don't think constantly looking
over her shoulder for whoever started her off on this will help, it
may get her killed. Anyway, Skuld loaded a full dataset into their
robot, if they need it."

Belldandy nodded, still looking thoughtful and slightly worried.
"Well, we'll have to wait and see. I do hope that they will be all
right. I'm glad she didn't wonder about all that gear Skuld had
monitoring her, though, I didn't want to evade more questions than I
had to. Thank you for keeping her busy, Urd, you got her flustered
enough she didn't think to ask too many questions."

Urd didn't reply, she just gave her younger sister a slightly quirked
smile.

Skuld beamed at Belldandy as she watched her mech pack her equipment
away, ready to put back in her room. "It's OK, Oneesama, I got it all!
I know just where she went, its all down in the computer. I do hope
they take better care of that mech this time, though."

Belldandy smiled at Skuld in appreciation, then gazed thoughtfully off
into the distance, not really looking at anything, as if she was
seeing past what normal humans know as reality. "I do hope they take
care, there are so many factors still unresolved."

Urd stepped over to her younger sister, resting one hand gently on her
shoulder for a moment in silent support. "I'm sure they will. They
both seemed sensible enough. Anyway, I have a feeling we haven't seen
the last of them yet.

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Mara smiled to herself, the tip of her tongue delicately worrying one
fang as she watched the recording. It had been worth the effort of
slipping that camera-imp in past Belldandy's defences during all the
recent confusion, she decided. Well worth it! She had an advantage
over most demons, of course, in being present in Tokyo when Fenris had
appeared. Most of the traffic on HellNet was from lower-ranking demons
frantically trying to find out what was happening, and there was
nothing but an ominous silence from their seniors. Based on what Mara
had found out, that wasn't surprising. She wondered absently _who_ had
been stupid enough among the demonic hierarchy to actually help Loki
to bring on Ragnarok; that was the last thing the overlords of Hell
wanted! Whichever way Ragnarok was _really_ going to turn out, they
had no intention of giving up their fun before they had to. She
grinned to herself; maybe she should monitor HeavenNet too, see if
anyone was trying for asylum? 

But now she was in the very interesting position of having information
only the most senior demons currently had. That was both a advantage
and a disadvantage. The advantage being that she could make plans to
get ahead using it; the disadvantage that if the Lords of Hell found
out she had knowledge they hadn't authorised her to posses, she'd be
in _big_ trouble. She pouted; some of her seniors hoarded information
as if it was the soul of a Saint. And then they never did anything
_interesting_ with it!!

Still, there had to be a way of using this to her advantage. A mortal,
or two mortals, actually hurting two gods like Fenris and Loki was an
event so rare that it must be usable for something. And she wondered
if indeed she was the only demon to know they'd left this Universe?
Belldandy's shields had been strong enough later; if she hadn't been
close enough to get her imp in during all the troubles she'd never
have got access. There might be certain parties that would pay well
for that information. Or indeed, have an interest in pursuing or
recovering those mortals for their own usage...

Mara smiled again, flipping the cork out of a bottle with her thumb as
she curled herself up in her chair with her Filofax, pouring herself a
glass of a suspiciously dark-red wine as she started to flip through
the address section. So many _fun_, not to say profitable,
possibilities, and all of them likely to upset those so-annoying,
so-righteous Norns...

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Space. The final frontier...

No it wasn't. Iczer had a strong suspicion that the medium 'we' were
travelling through had a far better claim to that, if it had wanted to
pursue it. Although she had to admit, intra-universal transportation
wasn't all the travel guides claim. After the initial exotic views of
planets, stars, galaxies, and other fascinating astronomical phenomena
that she had seen while falling through the wormhole exit to the Ah!
Megamisama universe, sights that would have had astronomers and the
Star Trek special effects team drooling in envy, things had settled
down to a rather, well, boring sight of an off-white curdled
background.

Indeed, the travel was so dull and so uneventful she was tempted to
fall asleep. However when she closed her eyes, the scene she was
'seeing' didn't change in the slightest; she guessed she wasn't really
seeing at all, that whatever medium she was moving through was
affecting her brain directly, and  was merely interpreting it as sight
as the closest sense she could relate it to.

She sighed, thinking that only a short while ago she would have found
the idea of travelling between universes not only incredibly exciting,
but also impossible. Funny how the mind acclimatises to things, now
she was doing it she just found it boring and wanted it to end!

Next time I'll make sure to pack a portable CD player, she thought.

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It was impossible to tell just how long she'd been falling through
this space; without any frame of reference, or landmarks, there was no
real sense of time or duration. Indeed, the experience seemed to put
her into a somnolent state reminiscent of highway hypnosis, but
eventually she noticed something. Not see, exactly, but somehow she
could sense a - well, a _curdling_ of sorts - in the medium a long way
in front of her. She watched it with interest as it grew stronger, and
felt that somehow she was moving faster as she dived into the swirling
tunnel that was opening about her in the fabric of space, hoping that
this was the exit she'd been waiting for. Especially since she didn't
know any way of avoiding it...

As the wormhole finished opening, she fell through it. Fell being the
operative word, as she suddenly realised she was a few feet above a
hard surface and again subject to gravity. Despite the rubbish and
rubble strewn concrete under her, she managed to land with a
reasonable imitation of agility, if not grace. Within herself she
seemed to 'hear' a mental sigh, Iczer-2's opinion of her rather
imperfect control. While she was certain Iczer-2 could have landed her
(us?) with a catlike agility that wouldn't even have disturbed her
hair, she was happy to settle for having missed the pile of bins
filling most of the alleyway. She made a mental note to herself,
though, that some time soon she was going to have to find time to
improve her skills in this body, if she was going to be using it for
any length of time. She had hoped not to have to, but after her
experiences in inter-dimensional travel so far, she was determined to
be pessimistic. Then she could tell herself 'I told you so' after it
all fell apart.

Rising slowly from the crouched position she'd landed in, she reached
for her travel bag with one hand while looking about her. Within her
she could feel Iczer-2's eager curiosity, and mentally grinned at her.
* patience, give us/me a chance! *

Turning, she quickly looked around. After her previous adventures she
wanted to make sure no-one unfriendly was about to attack her. Seeing
nothing but a dingy, cluttered alley, her posture relaxed slightly.

She chuckled aloud, happy to have had made the transition unharmed,
and nearly jumped as she startled herself; she wasn't used yet to the
way she sounded in this body, and for a second had thought there was
someone else here with her (as if Iczer-2 wasn't enough).

The noise of traffic, both a loud hum as of distant, busy streets and
a harsher, occasional noise from the direction of the end of the alley
that suggested local movement of powered vehicles. She wished she had
a better idea of how much more sensitive Iczer's ears were than those
of her natural body; she knew she had better hearing, but would have
liked to have got an idea of the traffic level from its volume, it
sounded like a lot.

Looking upwards she saw that the sky was quite bright, a dirty sodium-
yellow glow reflected off the clouds, the brilliantly (not to say
garishly) lit shapes of skyscrapers and advertising signs seeming to
float in a glittering cascade amongst the darkness. There seemed to be
an awful lot of them, and if she could see them from a restricted
viewpoint like this they had to be pretty tall. There were a lot of
them in Japanese, enough to make her think she was probably still in
Japan. Assuming any sort of parallel with her home world, of course,
for all she knew this could be New York.

She wrinkled her nose as she realised what the alleyway smelt like. It
was definitely less than salubrious, and she wondered if it was
general or just local? She hoped it was only this area, wondering for
a second why people always seemed to appear in deserted alleys like
this? Better than turning up in the centre of Piccadilly Circus, she
supposed.

It was cold, too, much colder than when she had left the temple. There
was a faint rime of ice on some of the cans and her breath puffed
cloudily. She wondered for a moment why she was noticing, not thinking
Iczer-2's body was susceptible to temperature. Maybe she wasn't, it
felt chilly, but not _that_ cold, especially since she was only
wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Just as well it was, she didn't want to
smell this place in the height of summer (unless, of course, this WAS
the height of summer, she had no idea what time of year it was). There
were clearly disadvantages to heightened senses.

She considered briefly trying to put up a forcefield to keep warm, but
discarded that almost immediately. Not only would it probably draw
attention she didn't want, she didn't have any real idea how to go
about it! Now didn't seem like a good time to try experimenting, even
though it would have been nice to have been a little warmer. Instead,
she dug through the bag, pushing aside some spare clothes; not many,
she'd have to buy some when she found out how and where. And when she
got some money. Determinedly not thinking about the sort of clothes
she'd now have to buy, she dug out a padded jacket, shrugging it on.
It fit her with plenty of room, and she guessed Belldandy had intended
it to fit either of 'us' at a pinch.

Closing the bag and settling the strap on her shoulder, she gave a
final look around. She was hoping there might have been a paper or
something similar that she could have had a look at before she left
the alley, to give her a better idea of what they were heading into,
but no such luck. Still, Urd had told her that they should land in a
Universe she was familiar with, hopefully she would recognise
something. So she walked over to the end of the alley, keeping a close
eye on what she could see. 

It isn't paranoia when they _are_ out to get you.

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