Bubblegum Chakram

                                Chapter Two

	"Display," said the cold voice.

	A map of MegaTokyo displayed itself in the air before her.  There
were clusters marked in red in Nerima ward -- <Still.  After nearly half a
year.> -- and a huge blotch of red surrounding the Central Data Bank.
That one, in particular, made her want to scream in frustration that it
had been allowed to happen.

	She shook her head, in silence, and focused on the situation at
hand.  "Show most recent addition, in focus."

	The area indicated was not far from the hell of Nerima.  It
couldn't be much more than a few city blocks in diameter, but it was her
only hope of finding *her*.  DeGales' last gift to the world.  His
apprentice.

	Her doom.

	"Can't we get any more focused on the source than this?" she asked
aloud.

	"The energy of the summoning was evenly dispersed over this area."

	"That's not possible," she said calmly.  She was very calm.  She
had to be.  "The energy of a summoning must be concentrated in a single
area, or what you summon is a faint mist of organic particles.  In order
to mask the focal point, the summoner would have to be a full magician,
which is *not* within the realm of possibility."

	"Irrespective of this, Mistress, the energy of the summoning was
evenly dispersed --"

	"Voice off," she muttered, and the annoying voice of the speaker
daemon vanished.  Stupid semi-material lifeforms.

	Sometime within the last twenty-four hours, her hidden nemesis had
drawn *something* to this world, from another, distantly removed sphere.
In itself, not impressive.  She did the same on a fairly regular basis.
But this summoning was the first firm clue that she'd found in nearly six
months as to her enemy's whereabouts.

	And Kate Madigan wouldn't have made it anywhere nearly as high as
she had in Genom if she hadn't been ready to seize a chance to destroy an
enemy.

                               *   *   *

	She had to tell her.  It was burning in her heart, making her want
to almost cry with frustration.  Every look, every word, searing into her.
At last, she could take it no more.

	"AAAAAGH!" Gabrielle screamed.  "You are hopeless!  You can't
learn a single word of a civilized language!   I mean, even the ROMANS can
at least learn to speak Greek, and look at them!"

	"Bar bar bar bar bar bar?" the woman who called herself Priss
asked, glaring at her from across the campfire.  From her face, from her
tone, Gabrielle could tell that whatever she'd just said, it had been very
sarcastic.

	Gabrielle held her face in her hands for a few moments.  "Okay.
We've exhausted all *my* resources.  If Xena were here ... she'd probably
say `I have many skills', reveal that she can teach anyone to speak
anything, make me feel utterly inferior, and then ... but she's not here,
and that's the root of the problem.  Urgh."  She thought for a few
seconds more, then nodded decisively.  "Right.  I know what Xena did, when
she was confronted with something that was completely beyond her
capabilities.  And, fortunately, I think I have a better relationship with
the gods than she does.  Of course, my tendency to get into these *silly*
situations ... well, that speaks against that theory, but *still* --"

	On the other side of the campfire, Priss looked up at the strange
girl -- Gabrielle, she'd said her name was -- who was quite energetically
talking to herself.  Not that that was surprising.  The girl seemed to be
talking more or less constantly, and since the only one around here who
understood a damn word of it was her, she was pretty much always talking
to herself.  In any event, she now stood up, and started off into the bush
for some reason.  Probably going to take a leak.  Priss shrugged, and
pulled another roasting potato out of the fire.

	Only a few yards away from the camp, Gabrielle found a perfect
place -- a clearing, affording her a clear view of the moon.  Drawing in a
deep breath, she knelt down.  The words of the hymns were clearly in her
mind --

	And then she realized she had no idea who she was supposed to pray
to in a situation like this.

	She quickly ruled out Zeus, Hades and Poseidon -- especially the
last one, who had no reason to like Xena.  She didn't want to think about
the possibility that Xena was in the Underworld, either ... and *really*
didn't like the thought that Zeus had decided to start chasing around
after attractive mortal females again, and started with Xena.

	Likewise, the elder goddesses were out.  Hestia and Demeter had
very specific interests that had nothing to do with Xena, while Hera was
-- well, there was no other word for it -- a bitch.  She couldn't expect
any help from any of them, especially not Hera.

	So that left the younger set.  She started ticking them off, one
by one.

	Aphrodite ... she would probably still be upset over the little
mess with Joxer a while back.  No help there.

	Ares.  No.

	Artemis.  Gabrielle smiled.  Of course.  Patron of the woods,
guardian of child birth, goddess of the Amazons -- <And I'm the queen of
the Amazons, after all ...> -- and 

	Gabrielle's smile faded.  And the goddess who had turned her into
a giant bird a while back to force Xena into helping out the gods with a
few problems they were having.  Nnnno.  Even if she was inclined to help,
Gabrielle wasn't sure she wanted it, if that was the way she treated the
ruler of her chosen people.

	Athena.

	Gabrielle's frown grew.  Athena didn't figure in a lot of stories.
She was supposedly born full-grown from Zeus' brow, and was a goddess of
cunning in battle, as opposed to Ares, who ruled over savagery and rage.
But she couldn't remember much else about her, beyond the kenning
"grey-eyed".

	The battle part suggested that she might be interested in Xena,
but her opposition to Ares, whom Xena had nominally served, might ...

	Gabrielle sighed.  <What's the worst that could happen?  If she
says no, she says no.>  She drew another deep breath, and began.
"Exquisite soldier --"

	"Well, *finally*," said a familiar voice, behind her.

	Gabrielle let out a short shriek, and whirled around, winding up
on her butt as she stared up into the face of the goddess Athena.  The
simple, certain knowledge that that was exactly who she was looking at was
burned into her mind in the instant that their eyes met.

	Her eyes were, as the kenning stated, slate grey.  They were also
hard, and looking at them gave Gabrielle a feeling of swiftness and motion
that at once terrified and excited.  The legends had not said a word about
her hair, so she was surprised to see that it was silver.  Not the shiny
gray of an old woman, but a metallic silver, a colour impossible in
nature.  It looked good on her.  She was dressed in the typical armor of
an Athenian soldier, holding a silver-pointed spear in her right hand
while an owl as large as her head perched on her left shoulder.  Her face
was not really that remarkable -- *gorgeous*, but not remarkable.
Something about it tugged at Gabrielle's memory, but she couldn't think
clearly.

	Gabrielle realized that her mouth was hanging open, and that she
was in danger of starting to drool.  "Uh ... Athena?"

	"Very good deduction, bard," Athena drawled.  "Styx, I've been
waiting for *hours* for you to work up the nerve to ask for a bit of help.
One or two bad experiences, and you mortals start getting paranoid about
meetings with the divine.  Honestly!"

	"Oh ... sorry about that," Gabrielle said.

	"Right, so, you wanted to be able to understand the person who
appeared when Xena vanished?"

	Gabrielle nodded, quickly.

	"Right," the goddess said, and turned around to march in the
direction of the camp site.  Gabrielle got up off her butt and followed
quickly after.

	Priss looked up with a mildly startled expression as the armored
woman warrior stepped out of the forest and said, "Yo, how you doing?"

	"Finally!" Priss snapped.  "Someone who speaks a civilized
language -- what the hell is your problem?" she asked the warrior, who had
started to chuckle.

	"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she answered.

	"You got her to speak Greek!" Gabrielle enthused as she arrived.

	"Say what?" Priss asked, flatly.

	"In the interests of avoiding a *silly* conflict," Athena
interrupted, "I'll just come out and say it -- I've made it so that when
anyone around you speaks, you hear it as Japanese, and whenever you speak
to anyone, they hear it as Greek.  Are we clear on this?"

	Gabrielle quickly nodded.  "Yes, now, where did you come from, and
how did you get here, and --"

	"Look," Priss said, waving her hands.  "I don't even know where
here is!  For all I know, someone slipped me a *really* interesting mickey
last night, and this is all --"

	"You're not dreaming," Athena interrupted.  She considered for a
few moments, then shook her head.  "No, there is no way you could discover
this for yourselves.  You, Priss Asagiri of MegaTokyo, have been 
dimensionally transposed for a woman of this world, Xena of Amphipolis, by
a powerful, miscast spell."  Athena paused to let that sink in.

	Priss stared at her.  "I like my mickey theory better."

	Athena gritted her teeth.  "I *hate* dimensional travelers.  I
hate their `the universe works this way, and all evidence that a different
universe works another way must be discounted' attitude.  Look, I don't
actually care whether you accept the reality of your senses or not.  But
if you don't, what do you have to go on?"

	Priss considered ... then shrugged.  "You got a point."

	"Who cast the spell on Xena?" Gabrielle pressed.

	"No one cast a spell on Xena," Athena replied.  "Someone from
Priss' world cast a spell on her --"

	"We're headed for the land of disbelief again," Priss said in a
sing-song voice.  "There's no such *thing* as magic --"

	"Yes, there is.  Maybe you don't know as much about your own
reality as you thought, huh?  Chew on *that*," Athena spat at Priss, then
returned to Gabrielle.  "Someone cast a spell on her, which sent her here,
unbalancing the two realities.  The Polyuniversal Equilibrium tried to
compensate by sending Xena to her world."  She paused.  "Emphasis on
*tried*.  It didn't work, for a number of reasons."

	"What does that mean?" Gabrielle asked.

	"Short term, it means that you have a chance to get Xena back,"
Athena answered calmly.  "Long term, it means they're both doomed."

                               *   *   *

	The electronic chirping of the computerized bird yanked Sylia out
of a rather pleasant dream involving her cutting a Quincy-shaped cake into
many pieces and serving one of them to her father.  She reached out, and
shut the alarm off, and settled in to catch a few minutes of extra sleep.

	The phone began to ring just as the bird program started its "Wake
up NOW, you lazy bum," routine, causing Sylia to sit straight up in bed.
She shut the alarm off for real this time, and picked up the audiophone.
"What?" she asked flatly to one of the five people on Earth who had her
private number.

	"Um, good morning, Sylia," Nene chirped.  "I hope I didn't wake
you up --"

	"You didn't, Nene," Sylia replied, regaining a bit of her usual
decorum.  "Did Priss contact you about the meeting you missed?"

	"Well, yes, but --"

	"So why weren't you there?"

	"Um, that's not really important right now," Nene said lamely.

	Sylia's own conception of its importance increased geometrically.
"Oh really.  Why don't you tell me and *I'll* decide if it's important or
not."

	"Um, well ... can I tell you why I called you first?"

	Sylia blinked.  "I presumed that you'd called to tell me about
your reasons for being absent."

	"No ... you see, I've got a bit of a problem ..." Nene replied,
trailing off.  For a few seconds she said nothing.  Then, "You remember a
few months ago?  That guy who hired us?  The one you ... uh, really,
*really* didn't like?"

	Sylia's blood ran colder.  "Yes, I do," she said, remembering
looking at a video monitor, seeing nothing, but *knowing* there was
something to see there ... she shook her head to clear it.  "Are any of
his ... associates giving you trouble?"

	"Uh, not exactly, noooo ... it's more like I've just found out
something rather disturbing about the ... um, the ... the long-term
effects of that mission!  Yeah!"

	Long-term effects?  "I see," she lied.  "Is there anything that I
can do, Nene?"

	"YES!  Ahem, I mean, yes, there is ... could you come over to my
apartment right away?"

	Sylia considered the possibility, however remote, that this was a
trap.  However, if Nene was being forced to try to lure her to her
apartment, she would certainly have made it extremely obvious that Sylia
had to come, immediately, without wasting all the time with the
explanations -- so that Sylia's paranoia would have been activated.

	Unless she'd been turned.

	There was only one thing to do.  "Of course, Nene, I'll be over
there right away."

	"Thanks, Sylia," Nene replied with obvious relief.  "See you
soon."

	Sylia hung up, and immediately dialed Priss' number.  Priss'
answering machine picked up and said, "This is Priss, you know the drill.
And Leon?  Be sure and tell Daley thanks so much for introducing me to
those two `friends' of his.  I'm sure the three of us will have many
laughs ... and other things."

	Sylia contained herself.  "Wake up," she barked.  "Erase this
message, then get down to the usual place at once."  She then dialed
Linna and delivered a similar terse message, although Linna actually
responded, although groggily.  Sylia then headed down to the armory to
start warming the hardsuits up.

	Linna arrived ten minutes later, and Sylia decided that she
couldn't afford to wait any longer for Priss.  Irritated and regretful,
she gave Linna a quick explanation of the situation, and told her to take
up a sniper position on the roof of the building across from Nene's
apartment.  Linna quickly suited up, and headed out on the new Motorslave
that Sylia had finally built for her, only a few days earlier.  Sylia
spent a fragment of a a moment worrying whether or not the new mecha had
received enough testing, then headed out herself.

	Roughly half an hour after she'd hung up the phone with Nene,
Sylia stepped out of the elevator on the eighteenth floor of the girl's
apartment, and casually walked to the door.  She rapped at it with her
knuckles.

	Nene flung open the door, her face in a blind panic.  Her 
bathrobe, Sylia noted calmly, was loose.  For a half-second, she 
entertained a scenario in which Nene had brought someone back to her
place, things had gone further than planned, and she'd wound up killing
her attempted rapist.  A closer examination of Nene's face -- the absence
of tear tracks -- caused her to reject the scenario.

	Nene quickly yet silently ushered Sylia in, closing the door
behind her.  She then clasped her hands together, and smiled at Sylia.

	"Well?" Sylia asked.  "Explanation?"

	Nene's smile turned into a grimace rather quickly.  "Ummmm ... I'm
not really sure where to start."

	Sylia closed her eyes.  "The beginning, *perhaps*?"

	"Right."  The grimace showed no signs of getting any better.
"Well ... this is gonna be really hard to explain ..."

	A door slammed open behind Sylia, and she whirled.

	"Are you this young wizard's master or what?" the fictional
character who had stepped into the room asked.

	Sylia blinked.  For her, it was stupefaction.  Her mother had left
behind a small cache of the original "Xena" television series when she had
vanished, and Sylia had devoured them all.

	"Um ... this is Xena.  The Warrior Princess," Nene added,
unnecessarily.

	"Well, are you or aren't you?" `Xena' asked.

	Sylia shook her head, angrily.  "Dammit.  I knew that there were
still some people in Genom making boomers that looked like anime
characters -- like that one Lum-clone that was involved in the Evers case
-- but I had no idea that --"

	Nene stared.  "Uh, Sylia?"

	"-- they'd moved on to actual, *live* action -- what?"

	"She's not a boomer," Nene said, miserably.  "She's the real
article."

	"Of *course* I am," `Xena' snapped.  "What the hell is a boomer?"

	"START EXPLAINING," Sylia said in what she liked to call her
"voice of doom" voice.

	Nene, now thoroughly intimidated, started to do just that.

                               *   *   *

	"Doomed?" Gabrielle shrieked.  "What do you *mean*, doomed?  You
can't just say, `They're doomed,' and then not give any explanations!  I
don't care how tasty the tubers are, stop noshing and explain to me why
this weirdo being here means that Xena is doomed!"

	"I'm rather curious about that myself," Priss asked, deadpan.

	Athena wiped her lips clean, and let out a sigh.  "Okay.  There
are a couple ways that people can travel through the dimensions, but being
*sent*, involuntarily, is not one of the more interesting or fun ways to
go.  It doesn't help that all this was an accident.  The Polyuniversal
Equilibrium *hates* accidents.  So, in about a week --"

	"This is what you think of as long-term?!?" Gabrielle gaped.

	Athena ignored her.  "-- the two `exchanged parties' are going to
start to die in a slow, agonizing manner, to prevent further dimensional
contamination, unless you can get the two of them back where they belong."
She smiled.  "Look at it as incentive."

	"I feel inspired, how 'bout you?" Priss asked Gabrielle.

	Gabrielle ignored her.  "Can you get them back?  Will you help
us?"

	Athena frowned, and seemed to be thinking rather deeply for a
moment.  She nodded then.  "Yes, I could *probably* set things right --
but I'm not going to."

	Gabrielle gaped.  "Why NOT?"

	Athena smiled.

	Before Gabrielle could do anything, she was seeing that smile at a
considerably closer range than she wanted, as Athena had somehow grabbed
her by her halter and yanked her across the campsite without the bard even
realizing that she was in motion.  She was also close enough to see that
the smile didn't reach Athena's eyes.

	"Now listen to me *very* carefully, because I will only explain
this once," Athena began.  "That -- *doing* things for you people -- is
*not* how I do business.  You want success in battle?  I'll advise, I'll
guide, I'll inspire -- but do not *ever* ask me to fight for you.  That's
how Ares does his little scam.  He gets you dependant on his little bits
of aid, and by the time he's done with you, you don't have a single 
solitary thought in your head; you let him do all your thinking for you.
You want that kind of help, you should have asked for him.  Oh, he'd have
gone along with it.  He'd do bloody well anything to get his favorite play
toy back.  There probably wouldn't have been any price to pay ... at least
not *this* time.  But I don't work like that.  I have more respect for 
your species as a developing intelligence than that.  If you want to 
succeed, you succeed on your own strength, or you don't.  That's how it
is.  Cope."

	Athena released Gabrielle, and in some way that she didn't
understand, the bard found herself right back where she'd started.  She
took a moment to steady herself.  "Okay ... okay, I-I get it.  So there's
a way that we can get Xena back without your help?"

	Athena blinked.  "Sort of.  There's a way ... but it's not here.
You're going to have to wait, and hope that the people where you're from,"
she said, looking at Priss, "figure out how to save you in time."

	"Okay," Priss shrugged.  "Hell, I still think someone switched one
of my smokes for some kind of hallucinatory shit."

	Athena glared.  "You know, I'm not surprised that the gods of your
reality are such *wimps*, with such a bunch of hardened cynics running
around on your planet."

	Priss frowned.  "Lady, as far as I know, the only god there was
blew it big time when I was twelve.  If he doesn't care enough to stop an
earthquake that kills a million people, I don't care if he's real or not.
So just go --"  She proceeded to suggest that Athena use her spear for
something that would be *very* painful.  Gabrielle stared at her in sheer
horror.

	Athena said nothing.  She only looked at Priss long enough to make
the dimensionally displaced person *slightly* uncomfortable -- what would
in someone with a proper degree of respect for one's own life and limb be
called mortal fear.

	And then, slowly, a smile crossed her face.  "Thanks.  You just
gave me a bit of hope for that one's species," she said, nodding her head
at Gabrielle.  She stood then, and vanished in the traditional flash of
light and odd noise.

	Gabrielle collapsed to a seated position.  "I don't believe it,"
she muttered.  "You just effectively impugned Athena's maidenhead, and
we're both still breathing."

	"All in a day's work," Priss replied.  "I think we may have a
potato left ..."

                               *   *   *

	Xena only half-listened to the explanation that the red-haired
wizard gave her purply-haired superior.  Parts of it involved an
explanation that there *was* magic, a brief demonstration of it (the
fireballs that Nene juggled were rather small, and so it only took a bit
of effort to stamp them out when, inevitably, she fumbled a catch and
dropped them all) and repeated statements by Sylia to the effect that this
wasn't actually happening.  This didn't really interest Xena, and she'd
already had the account of how she'd come to this place from Nene,
earlier.  Most of it had been somewhat beyond her, but so it went.  She
had never claimed that she had *all* skills, and magic was obviously
beyond her.  So be it.

	She was staring out the window, examining the city.  Gods, it was
*huge*.  Babylon and Troy hadn't been as large ... and the towers
stretched higher than anything she had even imagined.  They challenged the
clouds for supremacy.

	Xena blinked.  <That was damn near poetic.  Gabrielle would find
that ah shit ...>  She had, for a matter of moments, forgotten how her
companion would probably be feeling ... separated from her as surely as
she had been when either of them had been dead.  And at the same time
having to put up with a probably outraged denizen of this dimension.

	Beside her, there was the sound of a throat clearing.  She turned
to look at Sylia Stingray.  An interesting woman.  From what she'd
overheard, magic was as beyond her as it was beyond Xena herself ... but
the wizard still deferred to her.  There was authority in those eyes.

	"Satisfied I'm real, and not one of those ... what did you call
'em?  Buumaas?" she asked, testing that authority.

	Sylia let out a long sigh.  "I find myself with very few options
*beyond* accepting your reality.  My opponents could probably create an
android that would fool anything short of vivisection, but I don't want to
believe that they could condition Nene with such a ... complex set of
beliefs and memories as she has related."

	"So now what?"

	"Now, Nene starts trying to figure out how to send you back, and
retrieve Priss.  She has an idea where to begin, at least --"

	"I mean, now what do *I* do?"

	Sylia was silent.  "I don't know.  Wait, I suppose."

	Xena turned to look out the window.  "I hate waiting.  I hate not
knowing what's going to happen next."

	"Doesn't that describe your life under normal circumstances?"
Sylia asked calmly, politely.

	<A touch, I do confess it,> Xena thought wryly.  "True enough."

	Sylia nodded.  "I think I can see *why* you were exchanged for
Priss.  You and she ... have a great deal in common, I think."

	"Why doesn't that make me feel better?"

                               *   *   *

	Priss slowly became aware of something on her chest as she rose
out of unconsciousness.  Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she looked
down her chest to see an arm flopped limply across it.  Her eyes followed
the arm up to the shoulder pressing against her side, and then she slowly
turned her head to see Gabrielle's face only a few inches away.

	The young bard's eyes were closed, but she was close enough that
Priss could see her eyes moving rapidly beneath their lids.  Dreaming,
then, and from the look on her face, in the grip of a nightmare.

	It didn't take a great deal to figure out what the nightmare was
probably about, since Priss was more or less the cause of it.  Well, it
was *mostly* Nene's fault, but ...

	<Okay.  Gotta get her arm off of me or I'm never gonna get to
sleep ... but if I move her, she'll probably wake up right now.  So ...
okay, this is *never* gonna work, but -->

	"Gabrielle," she whispered.  "Gabrielle, it's me.  It's Xena."

	"Xna?" Gabrielle muttered out of the depths of her dream.

	"Yeah, Gabrielle, everything's okay.  Everything's just fine."

	"Xna ..." the bard said, smiling sweetly, and pressing herself
even closer to Priss' side.

	<... well, *that* backfired.>

	A few seconds passed, and her breathing was once again even.  But
the smile lingered.

	<Y'know, she's pretty casual about this.>

	<Dirty-minded wench,> Priss told the reptile grinning in her mind.
<It's probably just that she's used to curling up with Xena whenever she
gets cold at night.  It's probably just that.>

	<Yeah, right.>

	Priss spent a few more moments gazing at Gabrielle's face.  She
was sweet, innocent, gentle, naive, brave, kind ... cute ...

	<It'd be like fucking Nene.  *Forget* it.>

	Priss lay back and closed her eyes, trying to get some sleep
despite the arm at her stomach.

	It was surprisingly easy.

				To Be Continued

Author's Notes

	Certain bits of Athena's character were inspired by a manga-style
comic entitled "Athena", by Dean Hsieh.  It was pretty good.

	The boomer that looks like Lum comes from the adventure in David
Pulver's "Bubblegum Crisis:  Before and After" game supplement.  Just a
little nod of the hat to a guy who has achieved every BGC fan's dream.

	The incident involving Artemis turning Gabrielle into a giant bird
happened in the Hercules/Xena animated video.  (It was okay.  Not *great*,
but okay.)

	Interesting cool note:  If I read the map of MegaTokyo in the the
Bubblegum Crisis role-playing game correctly, Nene's apartment is located
in the northwest of the city, not far from the contemporary location of
the Nerima ward.  I was *not* aware of this when writing "Apotheosis", in
which Nene and Aethan go on foot from her digs to the Nekohanten in a
fairly short period of time.

	"Bubblegum Crisis" was created by Toshimichi Suzuki and others,
and brought to North America by AnimEigo.  "Xena:  Warrior Princess" was
created by Robert Tapert and Sam Raimi, and distributed worldwide by
Universal/MCA.  This story, while incorporating elements of motion
pictures held under copyright by others, is copyright 1998 of Chris
Davies.

	Nobody sue me, okay?

Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light.
"WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?" 
-- Death, in "Reaper Man", by Terry Pratchett.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~cdavies/hmpage.html