As always, C&C would be very much appreciated.

Dark Chronicles:
Chapter 3.

        The first thing of which Johnathan became aware as he opened his eyes
was the fact that he was shivering violently with cold. Then there was light,
a diffuse, gloomy greyness that seemed little more than a diminution of
blackness. Then the pain hit him, not a savage agony, but the dull relentless
ache of almost numbing cold and the hard black something upon which he was
sprawled, half on his back, half on his left side. Johnathan moaned and began
to move, every muscle aching with the chill that seemed to have become a part
of his very soul. Slowly and painfully he scrambled to his hands and knees,
then, with every muscle screaming, he began to struggle to his feet.
        "What--! Where!--!" He gasped.
        HE was standing on a flat featureless greyness that seemed to stretch
as far as the eye could see in every direction. Not that that meant very much.
A thick, soul-numbing fog, defined only by its swirling whiteness, hung to the
ground about him and he could make out nothing only a few inches beyond his
outstretched hand. In any direction he turned the sight that met his staring
eyes was exactly the same. Above him, the diffuse grey light seemed to fill
all the sky, coming from no source that he could see.
        Johnathan stood still, shivering, staring about him.
        "Am I dead?" He muttered softly to himself.
        His voice, curiously, seemed to echo and reverberate in the heavy
whiteness rather than falling dead as it should have done and abruptly, he was
reminded of the surroundings in the night's dream.
        "There's no chance I'm dreaming now." He continued, talking to make
some sound other than the barely heard sigh of the slowly swirling fog. "If I
am dreaming--."
        With that, he fixed his eyes on his hand, willing some detail to
change. Nothing happened. Johnathan slapped himself, then concentrated on his
own breathing and heartbeat. His body felt solid and absolutely corporeal as
did the frozen, rough hardness beneath his fingers when he bent down to test
the ground or whatever it was upon which he was standing.
        "Not a dream then, or the most real I've ever had." He muttered.
"Alright, let's take this one step at a time."
        Lowering himself carefully, Johnathan settled himself, his knees drawn
up to him, but almost immediately the chill began to gnaw at him and he rose
again to his feet. This was insane. He couldn't just stand here until he
collapsed from cold. Grimacing, he turned, thinking suddenly, absurdly, that
falling through a spar into oblivion wasn't exactly the entrance to another
world he'd been looking for when he'd imagined such adventures.
        "Hello?" He called softly, then with more force: "Hello? Blast it, if
this is someone's idea of a joke it's not funny!"
        He turned, staring about him once more, but even had there been no
fog, he'd have had trouble with his deteriorated sight. He'd left his hated
glasses on his bed-side table and with the fog also to hinder him, his short-
sightedness meant that he was all but blind.
        "Damn it, damn it!" He continued in a furious mutter, the closest he
would come to swearing. "Hello?"
        He hesitated for a moment, then began to move forwards. "Hello damn
you!"
        With sudden explosive fury, he lashed out with a foot, and impacted
something soft.
        "Aagghh!" Something, or rather someone, screamed.
        In the next instant, Johnathan's foot was wrenched from the ground and
something shot at him and slammed him down.
        "Oof!" Was all he could manage.
        Then he was flipped over on his back and a figure, barely seen in the
greyness, was astride him, pinning his arms and legs.
        "Alright whoever you are, just where are we and who are you, and
waddya mean by doing that?"
        "Wha! Leggo!" Johnathan gasped, wheezing as he tried to force air back
into his lungs.
        The voice that had addressed him was undoubtedly female and Johnathan
was suddenly very aware of how close the unknown girl was. Immediately he
began to panic in his usual fashion, all ability to form coherent speech
leaving him.
        "I don't--, I mean if you could--, when you--, that is--, um I--!"
        "Jees, what an idiot!" He heard the girl mutter. "Listen, is all this
your fault?" She demanded, reaching to slap him on the face.
        The blow, apparently casual, made stars dance before his eyes and he
was certain he could taste blood.
        "Ahgh! Hey, what in God's name do you think you're doing!" He cried,
the pain shocking some sense back into him.
        "Well, you can talk properly then!" The girl demanded. Then: "Well?"
She continued.
        "Of course it's not, damn it! L-l-let me up for crying out loud."
        With a: "Hmph!" The girl released him and Johnathan scrambled to his
knees, then slowly struggled again to his feet.
        He turned, peering at the girl, trying desperately to make sense in
the fog of what he saw.
        "Hey, what're you staring at, hentai!" She demanded.
        "Wha!" Johnathan replied. "Are you Japanese by chance!"
        "You got a problem with that or something?" The other answered.
"Course I'm not Japanese. That's why I talk Japanese, because I'm Chinese. You
didn't know that?"
        "If you're talking Japanese then so am I." Johnathan retorted.
        "Well what do you think you're talking, German? Jees, what kind of
baka thing to say is that?"
        "Oh Lord I really can't deal with this now!" Johnathan muttered. "I'm
talking English, exactly as you, you idiot."
        Anger was making him coherent, that and the fact that the girl was no
longer so close.
        "Who're you calling an idiot you hentai?" The other shouted.
        A faint glow seemed to emanate from around her.
        "And who do you think you're calling a hentai?"
        "And if you're talking English how'd you know what that meant?"
        "Alright, alright!" Johnathan returned, putting a furious hold on his
rising temper. "This is just crazy. Shouting at one another isn't going to
solve anything. You say you're talking Japanese, right?"
        "Wa'd I just tell you!" The other said, still shouting.
        "Will you just shut up for a minute!" Johnathan said, his own small
voice raised again. "If you're talking Japanese and I'm talking English, then
it either means we've both suddenly learned each other's language perfectly
and don't know it, something's translating what each of us is saying for the
other, or we're not really talking at all. Or I'm dead or mad." He ended to
himself. "So let's just slow down for a moment. Ok, say something, slowly."
        "Something slowly!" The girl parodied with a smirk that Johnathan
couldn't see.
        "Oh very funny!" He said, his own temper near breaking again. "Still,
I think we might be getting somewhere. Whatever that was, it certainly wasn't
English, although I understood it. Now, if I say, hmm, you're a crazy baka!"
        "Hey!" The other shouted. "At least I'm not a little hentai like you."
        "What did you hear blast it?" Johnathan cried.
        "I heard--." The girl was silent for a moment, then exclaimed softly.
"You're right you know. I can't repeat what I heard, but I do know it wasn't
Japanese, apart from baka that is, and you didn't pronounce that properly."
        "Seems that, assuming we are speaking, we can understand one another's
language but not speak them, at least, not yet." Johnathan mused. "Although it
probably wouldn't take very long to learn, probably just a matter of getting
the mouth used to forming appropriate sounds."
        "Hey you know the more I concentrate, the more I can *hear* that
you're not speaking Japanese." The girl said.
        "Same with me." Johnathan answered. "That could mean either that we're
just waking up properly, becoming more aware of our own consciousness, or
because, being so impossibly unexpected and the copying or whatever it was of
each other's language each to the other being so perfect, it took us time to
realise consciously what had happened. Anyway, there's no point in trying to
speculate on that now. The question is, where are we? Oh, I'm Johnathan by the
way, oh and that's not John or Johnny; Johnathan O'Reilly."
        "Saotome Ranma, heir to the Saotome school of indescriminate
grappling." Said the girl, seizing and almost crushing a suddenly lifeless
hand.
        "Wha!" Was all Johnathan could gasp.
        "Hey, you still in there?" Ranma-chan demanded, peering at the
suddenly frozen boy.
        "You--, I mean I--, no! This is just--! It's just absolutely crazy!"
        Johnathan proceeded to pinch himself viciously, then slap himself
savagely across the face, then bite his finger, hard.
        Ranma-chan simply rolled her eyes and waited.
        "I'm not dreaming! Tell me I'm not dreaming this!" Johnathan gasped at
last.
        "Not unless I am too." Ranma-chan answered. "What's the matter with
you all of a sudden? I thought you were weird but--."
        "Oh Lord. I don't believe this, I *really* don't believe it."
Johnathan exclaimed. "Alright." He continued. "Assuming I'm not dreaming, dead
or mad. You're Ranma Saotome right, son of Genma and Nodoka, engaged to Akane
Tendo, one of three daughters of Soun Tendo, the others being Kasumi and
Nabiki?"
        "Hey, how'd you know all that?" Ranma-chan demanded. "Just who are you
anyway? Oh, and it's *Saotome Ranma* by the way; baka gaijin! And your
pronunciation is *really* terrible."
        "Just tell me if I'm making any mistakes." Johnathan was suddenly
almost babbling, nearly incoherent with growing excitement. "You're also
engaged to Ukyou Kuonji; your father did that for food; and Shampoo thinks
you're married to her because you defeated her, and Kodachi Kuno is after you,
and Tatewaki Kuno is after you're cursed form, and--."
        "Hey!"
        In the next moment, Johnathan found himself flat on his back with the
enraged Ranma-chan astride him again. This time though it wasn't so bad.
        "She's not really a girl." His mind told him.
        Then he saw the fist cocked to send him back into the land of very
deep sleep and decided that it was as bad after all.
        "Ok, start talking." Growled Ranma-chan softly. "Just how do you know
all this?"
        "I don't believe it, I really donoof!"
        This last as Ranma-chan's knee met his midriff.
        "Back to earth yet?" She demanded.
        "You-- didn't-- have-- to do-- that--!" Johnathan wheezed, all the air
driven out of his lungs for the second time in nearly as many minutes. "It's
quite simple. In my reality, you don't exist. That is to say, you're a manga
and Anime creation of Rumiko Takahashi."
        This time it was Ranma-chan's turn to gape.
        "Nani!" She gasped at last. "No way. As in Urusei Yatsura? You're
crazy."
        She hand-sprung off his stomach, causing another: "oof!" and landed on
her feet. "You can stay as another weird part of this weird place for all I
care. I'm outa here."
        "Wait! Listen to me!" Johnathan tried to shout, managing only a croak.
"I'm telling you the truth. How else could I know so much about you?"
        "Who knows? Perhaps you're something Happosai called up. Perhaps I'm
dead or perhaps that kawaikunee tomboy hit me again and I'm still unconscious.
I dunno, but this is all too weird for me."
        "Please Ranma, for once don't just go crashing through everything. It
won't work this time. This is different. We shouldn't, we *can't* be in the
same reality. Something's horribly, *desperately* wrong, can't you see that!
Our only chance is to try to find out why we're here, and how, if that's
possible."
        "No way." Ranma-chan repeated. "I'm getting outa here now."
        "And how exactly do you plan on doing that?" Johnathan demanded.
"Look, we don't know where we are. We don't know how we got here or whether it
was by accident or design. We don't even know what here is. Our only hope is
to stay together and try to find out what's going on."
        "You mean you don't want to be on your own. You're more scared than
anything else."
        "Alright, what about it!" Johnathan flared. "Don't tell me you're
not."
        "You wanna try and prove that?" Ranma-chan shouted, cracking her
knuckles.
        Johnathan bit back his retort before it got him a fist in the mouth.
        "I don't want to fight you Ranma. I couldn't in any case. I wouldn't
stand a chance. I'm only trying to make you understand. Our only hope is to
keep together. We've no chance alone, can't you see that? For God's sake,
can't you see how wrong all this is? Can't you--"
        "Hey!"
        At the shout, both whirled. In the next instant, someone came racing
towards them out of the fog.
        "Baka!" A female voice shrieked. "There I was wasting my time worrying
about you and you've been just standing here."
        In the next instant, Johnathan winced as he heard a dull thud, then
Ranma-chan groaning as she collapsed in a heap on the hard ground.
        "BAKABAKABAKABAKABAKA!" The girl he assumed impossibly to be Akane
Tendo wept as she pounded her fiance again and again. "I thought you were dead
you jerk! I thought that baka curse of your's had finally killed you!"
        "Hmm, if you keep hitting him like that you might well be right."
Johnathan ventured, wincing at each successive thud.
        As if noticing him for the first time, Akane stopped pounding on
Ranma-chan and turned to face him. Beside her, Ranma-chan groaned again, then
began to stir.
        "Kawaikunee!" She muttered, then slumped back into unconsciousness.
        "Who are you?" Akane demanded, glaring at Johnathan with the mallet
already raised.
        Johnathan shuddered. Ranma, and perhaps everyone in his reality, might
inherently be able to take punishment like that, but he was certain that a
single blow from that thing would split his skull like an eggshell.
        "Wait, for heaven's sake!" He cried, raising both hands. "My name is
Johnathan O'Reilly and I'm from a reality where that thing would be considered
a deadly weapon."
        And with that, he began to explain.
                                     * * *
        They were going to suffer for this, that she swore. She would hunt
down Gema Renae's soul and tear it to screaming quivering ribbons, her's and
every last piece of slime who'd been in her pay. To be killed by something so
idiotic. She was dead, she had no doubt of that, although the frigid,
featureless greyness all about her was not exactly her idea of the afterlife.
Had she been so irredeemable? For a moment an all-too-familiar bitterness
engulfed her. It was what she might have expected from the filthy travesty of
a universe into which she'd had the misfortune to be born. What else should
she have expected? God, as well as Gema, was going to get a piece of her mind
and hatred if she ever found her way out of this place. God, Satan; if they
wanted a fight, they would have one, and with interest.
        She continued to walk, something she had been doing for nearly an hour
now. There was no point in remaining where she was until she froze. She had
laughed at that thought. Could you die twice?
        The terrain was, of course, identical in all directions, but whatever
filth had landed her here had reckoned without either her determination or a
certain intuitive ability when it came to direction, amongst other things. She
*knew* herself to be going in a dead straight line. She could also see better
than most in this pea-soup. Just let anything try to touch her and she'd tear
it apart or go down with her blades, and then her nails and teeth, in its
throat when nothing else was left. Curious how her clothes and tiny blades had
followed her to the afterlife. But then, why not. Perhaps they were a
projection of her own soul. That was fine with her.
        She shivered. The cold was beginning to seep into her again. With a
snarl, she yanked her loosening coat tighter to her and refastened the buttons
yet again. At least her soul could have fixed the worn button-holes back to
their original size. She had tried concentrating on changing her clothes, the
fog and various other things regarding her situation but to no avail. Whoever
was playing this game with her obviously intended their domain and her
situation to remain static.
        "Fine then you bastards!" She had snarled. "We'll play it your way
until I find you. Then you can start to scream."
        She shivered again. The top button simply wouldn't stay done up and
she wasn't dressed for this in any case. She'd only put the coat on that
morning because it had been raining when she'd left for school.
        "God when I find you you'll be so damned sorry!" She snarled softly.
"Do you hear me?" She screamed suddenly at the very top of her lungs. "I'll
tear out your throat, and as for you you little bitch," She ended, picturing
Gema in her mind. "I'll have you pleading and screaming for death before I've
properly started on you this time. Do you hear?"
        Her only answer were the impossible echoes of her own voice, dying at
last to silence. Then suddenly there was another sound, the faintest
suggestion of a whimper.
        Immediately she halted, whirling in the direction of the sound, pin-
pointing it relative to her position so that she could retrace her steps and
continue in the direction in which she'd been walking if it turned out to be
yet another trick. Then she began, moving more quickly, her trained instincts
poised and alert for possible attack as she drew nearer. It was, as she'd
expected, very suddenly that the figure came into view through the blanketing
fog. A moment later she was standing before a small shape curled up tight into
a ball in a single fluffy blanket, a head of blonde hair virtually all that
could be seen.
        "Who are you?" She demanded, none too gently, moving effortlessly into
a fighting stance, ready for any sudden reaction.
        Whomever it was, it certainly wasn't the little bitch she would have
been more than happy to find. She needed something on which to vent her
growing rage.
        Slowly the figure uncurled herself, lifting her head and turning a
tear-streaked face towards her.
        She stared in return, almost certain she had seen that face somewhere
before but unable to make any connection.
        "A-ko?" The figure whimpered, a hopeful smile beginning to touch her
mouth.
        Then her face fell once more. "You're not A-ko. Where's A-ko. I want
A-ko!"
        Immediately, she fell into full-fledged crying, her face screwed up
and her eyes streaming tears.
        "What!"
        The other simply gaped at her, for several moments too stunned and
thunderstruck to do anything else.
        "This is not happening." She said at last.
        Then her face grew hard.
        "If this is some perverse joke," She said, her tone very quiet and
very murderous. "I promise you you'll regret ever being born to play it."
        For answer, the huddled figure whom she now recognised impossibly as
being what the Anime Kotobuki C-ko would look like were she brought to life,
simply cringed down in the big fluffy blanket and began to wail all the
harder.
        "Oh for God's sake!" She exploded, suddenly at the end of her
patience. "Will you just shut up for a moment?"
        The last was screamed at the crying girl, with the result that the
crying grew even more intense, mingled with: "A-ko! A-ko help! She's going to
do something *horrible* to me. A-ko *pleeeeeeeease*!"
        "That wasn't a good idea." The other thought furiously to herself.
Then: "If this really isn't a joke, how the hell does A-ko stand this?"
        It was at about this time that she realised the impossibility,
disregarding everything else, that she could be talking to and understanding
this girl, and listening more closely to her wails, she leapt quickly to the
obvious conclusion.
        "I wonder how long it will take me to speak it?" She muttered.
        Try as she might, she couldn't think in the Japanese in which C-ko was
whimpering, only understand what she said and translate it to herself. She
supposed it must be the same for C-ko.
        "Let's worry about that later. First I've got to stop her from
screaming before something else hears her, if there's anything else here to
hear her!"
        With a sigh she shifted closer to the girl whilst slipping a blade
into her other hand, ready to kill her at the slightest sign of threat. C-ko
however simply continued to wail and cry for A-ko until at last, she reached
down and laid a hand gently on the girl's head.
        "I can't help you if you don't stop crying like that." She said
quietly.
        There was a catch in C-ko's sobbing, then the head lifted slowly and
large tear-filled eyes fixed on her face.
        "Y-y-you're not g-g-going t-t-t-to h-hurt me?" C-ko sniffled.
        "Not if you're whom you say you are, and if you promise to stop that
racket." She answered, trying to sound as comforting as she could.
        "And; and you'll h-help me find A-a-ko?" C-ko whimpered.
        "If I can." She answered, feeling that she would regret the promise
but not up to putting up with the girl's screaming by telling her just yet
that she was dead. Best to find out what had happened to her before she broke
that particular piece of news.
        Pulling her coat closer about her she coaxed C-ko up from her curled
huddle and had her stand, just to be certain she was safe. The girl was
certainly not dressed for this, in fact she was dressed only in a thin shift
with a pair of fluffy slippers, and after seeing that there was nothing
concealed in the shift, she let her settle once more beside her, although she
wouldn't let her huddle against her, nor would she share the girl's blanket.
Regardless of anything else, close physical contact was not something she
allowed even her closest friends, let alone a stranger.
        C-ko was obviously unhappy about not being allowed this extra sense of
security, nevertheless, she'd stopped crying and was gazing at the girl she
was already beginning to regard as her new friend (for promising to help her
find A-ko) with relief and even the beginnings of a smile. She had been so
frightened here alone, and so cold.
        "I--, I was asleep." She began in answer to the obvious question.
"Then suddenly there was a sound and my window opened and B-ko was there. She
wanted me to go with her but I wanted A-ko. Then she picked me up and wrapped
me in a big fluffy blanket and then we flew out the window and i wasn't so
frightened any more, but then something was there on the ground, something big
and dark and B-ko screamed and there was a bright flash and I was falling and
B-ko was screaming and fighting the dark thing and then I fell through the
ground and then I was cold and then I woke up and it was colder and I was
here."
        By the time she'd finished she was crying again.
        "I think something happened to B-ko." She sniffled. "Maybe something
happened to A-ko too and so B-ko came and then--."
        And with that, she was wailing all the more.
        "Oh please not again!
        "Alright." The other soothed, trying to reassure her if only to shut
her up. "We'll find her if we can. But now we have to be moving. We can't just
sit here; do you understand?"
        "Y-yes." Sniffled C-ko, making a surprising effort to stop whimpering.
"Can we go now?"
        "Now." She said, rising quickly to her feet.
        C-ko stood up, then tripped on her blanket and would have fallen if
the other girl hadn't caught her.
        "Here," She said in exasperation. "Stand still while I fix this.
There," She ended as she finished wrapping the blanket around her. "and keep
it held tight. And stop skipping about all over the place!" She added in
growing anger as C-ko began to bound up and down, beaming now with the
certainty that she would soon find A-ko again. "We've no idea what the
surrounding terrain is like. Do you want to end up breaking your silly fool of
a neck?"
        Immediately, C-ko sobered, moving close to her.
        "I'm cold." She said, her tone suddenly very soft and very afraid.
        "Come on." Said the other briskly, ignoring the sudden imploring look.
"We'd best get started."
        And with that, she began to move. C-ko took two steps and tripped on
the blanket again.
        "God almighty, what's the matter with you?" The other exploded, again
catching her just before she hit the ground. "Look, just hold the damned thing
tight alright? That's all you have to do. Just hold it exactly like that."
        With that, she slipped an arm reluctantly around the smaller girl,
shuddering and almost recoiling at the close hated contact, took too steps
forwards and plunged into oblivion again. There was no warning, no indication
to any senses that the ground before them was pure illusion.
        C-ko's scream of terror shrilled wildly around her, her own bitten
viciously back despite her terror and changed into a snarl of rage. Then in
the next instant they crashed into someone.
        "Hey! Waddya think you're doing!" An outraged female voice yelled.
        "Baka, it wasn't me!" Another shouted back.
        Then everything was tumbling and shouting until abruptly light
exploded around them and they tumbled out of the sudden brightness into cold
water.
        "Aagghh! Cold!" Someone shrieked.
        "A-ko! *A-ko*!" C-ko screamed.
        "Baka! Hentai! Let go of me!" Came another, followed by a thud.
        "Kawaikunee! Waddya do that for? I was only trying to help. Stupid
macho chick!"
        "Would someone mind? I can't exactly swim." Johnathan spluttered as he
was dunked several times in as many seconds.
        Struggling at last with a ferocity born of his fear of water from the
tangled mass of bodies, he splashed and thrashed about until a sudden fierce
grip caught his wrist. In the next moment he was scooped up as though he
weighed nothing and dumped unceremoniously face-down on soft grass.
        "Satisfied?" A new female voice demanded, its tone laced with
contempt. "How pathetic. The thing was only a pond, not the middle of the
Irish sea."
        A moment later, Johnathan was flipped on to his back and found himself
staring up at his rescuer. Her long flaming red hair, tumbling in a wild
cascade below her waist, gleamed in the light of the newly risen sun and
emerald green eyes blazed with a savage, almost feral gleam as they looked
down into his own.
        For a moment, all Johnathan could do was stare in stunned, open-
mouthed amazement at the face that had filled almost his every waking moment
for years. Then faintly he gasped: "Joanna?"