[Notes from the Editor: This is a somewhat revised copy of chapter
one of Pencils. There are no major changes, aside from the insertion
of location and date tags in scene breaks, and the addition of our
newest member to the title credits. Mainly, I have gone through,
cleaned up whatever typos were left...I hope...and made a few minor
changes in some of the narrative to make things flow more smoothly.

Chapter two is currently under production. I estimate it will be in
rough to final beta stages by some time tomorrow. The introduction of
the authors continues in chapter two, as two of the three that did
not appear in the first chapter finally show up. Our remaining member
will be making his first appearance in chapter three.

I'd like to thank everyone who provided comments and criticism the
first time around, and encourage those who didn't respond (or didn't
read) this a week ago to give it a shot now. Reply addresses are
provided at the end of the story.

Expect chapter two very soon. For now, please enjoy this encore
presentation...]






[Editor's Preface: Welcome! You are about to experience the insanity
which results when nine fanfiction authors put their heads together
and decide to get a little crazy. Because there are multiple anime,
manga, and other miscellaneous fictional universes involved in this
project, a disclaimer list would take forever to compile, so we came
up with: The Disclaimer! All characters not created by the authors of
this project are property of their respective creators and owners and
are being used without permission.]

=======================================================

[Bridgewater, New Jersey - 98.10.07]

"God dammit...  I hate these damn things..." Jon yelled in disgust as
he threw away another inkless pen.  "Always having the damn ink dry
up.... now I need something to write with..."  Jon looked around the
atrium frantically, having only five minutes to finish the calculus
problem before class.  With no implement in sight, Jon walked head
first into Destiny.

"Oh, excuse me, miss.  Terribly sorry about that."

Having apologized to Ms. Destiny, Jon walked into the college store
to pick up a new pen.  "Oooooh... Look at the pretty selection..."

Blue pens with black ink, black pens with red ink, silver pens with
some form of chromatic blue-grey ink, and many other kinds littered
the shelves.

"May I help you?" inquired one of the coeds that seemed to populate
college stores.

"Trust me, better people than you have tried, and they all failed.
But I could use some assistance..." Jon trailed off, smiling gamely
at the attractive brunette.

She laughed politely, and smiled back at him, batting her green eyes
seductively.  "What are you looking for?"

"Someone to hold, and share intimate things with.  Barring that, I
need a pen."  Jon winked at the nubile young girl, and leaned against
the counter rogueishly.

"I wish my boyfriend were as sensitive as you."

Ouch.

"And about that pen...  We have a wide selection of them...anything
in particular?"

Relegated back to college nobody in a Ghost in the Shell t-shirt, Jon
simply replied, with no flirtation whatsoever, "Something that
writes, and..." Jon rooted through his wallet and pockets for some
form of money.  "Under sixty cents... errr...."

"Well, I do have this mechanical pencil for fifty cents, plus tax,
but..." the salesgirl leaned forward, lowering her voice to a
whisper, and showing an unhealthy amount of cleavage.

"But?" Jon asked, leaning forward and lowering his voice.  He
pointedly tried not to stare down her shirt.  He failed miserably.

"But it's a magical pencil, and will bring you nothing but doom and
hardship." she concluded in a whisper.

As he was already suffering from a hardship, Jon announced, "Feh...I
hold no such superstitions.  And besides, I'm late for calc.  So that
comes to... what?  Fifty three cents?"

The salesgirl nodded, and Jon dropped sixty cents into her hand,
grabbing the sparkling red pencil.  "Keep the change, I gotta run."

And with that, Jon ran out of the store and off to his Calculus
class, and another enjoyable session of "Show the Prof. an easier way
of doing it."


Hours Later...


"Geez... I'm not even artistically inclined... took me three doses of
Rit to keep from tracing stuff in my class...oh well...."  Jon
threw his book bag on the computer room bed, and flicked on the
monitor.  "Now lets see... anything interesting happen while I was
away?"  With a doubleclick of his mouse, Jon was off and downloading
his mail.

"Aw nerts... 436 messages?  This is gonna be a while..."

As he sat there, waiting for Netscape to download his mail, the urge
to trace overtook Jon, and he grabbed some paper and a couple of art
books, and went at it.

A few minutes later, "Hey, that's a pretty damn good copy of Nabiki!"

Then, "Wow...that's AMAZING!!! I can't believe I got Mars right!"

And, "God...did my name change to Xerox and nobody told me?  I even
managed to get that crazed look in Kenshin's eye."

After tracing Lina Inverse, John Constantine, and Death, Jon noted
that his mail had finally downloaded.  Turning his attention to it,
he failed to see the small red glow form on the tracings.

"Hrm... this looks interesting.... Thank you for purchasing a Magic
Tracer!  Here is all the information you need to use it.  Hrm..."

As was his habit, Jon started fidgeting.

Click click click click click to advance the lead.  Stab the pencil
down to retract it.

Click click click click click to advance, then stab to retract.

First, Jon did this against the heel of his palm, but then, as he got
more into reading the letter, he grabbed a few of the various game
strategy guides that were laying around, and started stabbing them.

"Yadda yadda yadda whatever I trace comes to life... yadda yadda
eraser... yadda yadda yadda Why couldn't I have gotten a green one?
Yadda yadda Never under any circumstances stab a red pencil on a
picture to retract the lead.  Bad things happen."

Jon looked at his left hand, where he was about to stab down a third
time, and stopped himself.  Looking down at what he had stabbed on.
"Ehh...  Resident Evil 2 and Final Fantasy VII...  Only pictures on
the cover are Claire and Cloud...  And besides, none of the tracings
I've done have come to life."

Jon felt a tap on his shoulder.  "Yeah?  What do you want mom?"

"Look 'ere, mate.  I don't think I'm your mum." a man that looked
vaguely like Sting said, right before Jon fainted.

=======================================================

 		  Pencil Trace Productions presents....


	          P        E        N        C        I        L        S


		             Written by and Starring:

     	   	   The Eternal Lost Lurker     JD Farber
		   Rob Barba     Libby Thomas        Zen
		   Ukyou Kuonji     Flashman    Mercutio
 			       and Jorge Pratt

=======================================================

			   CHAPTER ONE

[Southeast Texas - 98.10.07]

Central Mall in Port Arthur, Texas is not a large mall by any means.
It's a community mall, complete with quarter-mile markers along the
walls for the morning exercise crowd, the usual larger stores, a few
well-known specialty stores, a food court, a defunct cinema which
seems to have fallen out of use, and a wide scattering of lesser
merchants and freestanding kiosks selling everything from budget
jewelry to ear piercing to cellular telephone service. Merchants
aren't exactly clamoring to populate Central Mall; therefore, walking
around the mall, one will notice several empty storefronts. The
repeat visitor to the mall becomes accustomed to the sight of
vacancies.

Which is why, in Port Arthur, it takes less than a week for everyone
in town to find out about a new store at Central Mall. 

Robert Morrison, better known to most of his friends and the Internet
anime fandom community as The Eternal Lost Lurker, stretched,
expressing back discomfort like a grizzly expressing hunger as he
lumbered into his bedroom, pausing to set his purchases down on top
of the still-largely-unpacked gym bag he'd taken as luggage on his
last trip. There was the usual fare from Sam Goody, consisting of the
latest anime releases from Pioneer, a new Ranma tape, the standard
probably-should-have-rented-it-instead movie purchase, and a couple
of CD singles. 

Next to that was the bag from Traces of Art, the new art supply shop.
Most of the supplies sold there were novelties, as opposed to the
standard fare...'antique'-textured parchment for calligraphers (with
warnings to avoid folding or bending the paper), quill pens with a
wide selection of  nibs (and modern refillable ink cartridges), South
Park erasers, and various other things, including a display featuring
"special pencils for tracing", which by all appearances were just
normal mechanical pencils with shiny, brightly colored metal barrels,
and sold for 50 cents each. There had been some warning in small
print on the display box about not stubbing down the lead against
your drawings for some reason or other...the kind of warning you
usually see and ignore, like "do not remove tag under penalty of
law", "smoking can be hazardous to your health", and "keep out of
reach of children". Whatever it was that was supposed to be special
about these pencils, they were pretty and they were cheap, so they
were selling well. 

Settling down in his half-broken easy chair, Lurker switched on his
computer, taking a moment to empty the contents of his standard
fast-food lunch...today, Gorditas from Taco Bell...onto the desk next
to his computer, settling in for the customary practice of eating
lunch while reading his e-mail. 

Gordita number one died a quick death while Lurker waited for the
afternoon's mail queue to download. "Let's see," he mused to himself,
"mail from Wilson and Mary Ethel...gotta remember to let Mamaw know
about it when she gets back...spam, spam, spam...ugh, more
spam...Ranma fic...nag mail...nag mail...spam...nag mail...hmm?"
Lurker paused in his self-dialogue, unwrapping and nibbling on the
second taco as he read over a fic idea JD Farber had asked for advice
on, something to do with pencils and tracing. Hitting reply, he gave
his opinion on the idea, and returned to scanning the rest of his
e-mail, finishing off lunch as he fired off his replies to several
messages. 

E-mail done, and no stories queued he really wanted to read right
away, Lurker pondered what to do next. He didn't really feel like
writing...maybe a video, after he checked the latest weather update.
Shutting down his computer and turning on Weather Channel, he thought
back to that one message, the fic idea about the pencils. "Hmm...eh,
why not. It's something different to do," he said to himself as he
grabbed the bag from the art shop and withdrew a package of tracing
paper and the shiny green pencil he'd bought. Taking out a sheet of
paper, he fetched about for something good to trace. There was an
issue of Animerica lying on his desk with a nice picture of Ayanami
Rei on the cover. Opting for that, he clicked out a decent bit of
lead, and began tracing. He was surprised at how quickly and easily
he was able to trace the drawing, from the general shape of Rei's
body and face, to the minor details of her plugsuit. He even got her
hair and eyes right, something which usually eluded him. Considering
he hadn't done any serious drawing in at least three years, this was
turning out to be a surprise. 

Not as much of a surprise, however, as what happened when he finished
the last pencil stroke of the tracing. As he laid down the pencil and
sat back to admire his handiwork, a faint green sparkle of light
winked at him from that last detail line. He blinked, and dismissed
it as a 'flasher', something he'd learned to put up with since his
first eye surgery nearly two years ago. 

The blindingly bright green fire racing along the lines of the
tracing, he had considerably more difficulty dismissing.

For a long moment, his perfect pencil tracing of Ayanami Rei was
bathed in emerald green flames, rising from the page in two
dimensions, the flames never straying from the pencil strokes on the
paper. Slowly, the strange flames faded, leaving the paper unharmed.
The lines of the tracing had changed color from pencil-lead grey to
map-pencil green. 

Lurker blinked. "Okay, *that* was interesting," he said. "I always
knew I'd start seeing things someday..." He stared at the tracing,
daring it to do something else it couldn't possibly do.

"doko desu ka...?"

Lurker's eyes widened. 

"kono heya wa doko desu ka...?" The soft voice came from behind him,
an impossibility since he was alone in the apartment, and facing both
doors into the room. He also didn't know anyone in the area who spoke
Japanese. Lurker spun his chair around to survey the room...

....and practically jumped out of his skin. 

Sitting on Lurker's futon, staring at him and blinking in confusion,
was a girl. Not just any girl, a very pretty girl, probably somewhere
in her mid-teens. Her skin, what little of it Lurker could see, was
chalk white. Her eyes were clear with a vague pinkish tinge, and had
an Oriental shape...Japanese, probably, from what Lurker could tell
by looking at her. Her short hair was more or less white, although it
looked as though someone had poured diluted chlorine through it,
resulting in faint cyan highlights, and she wore some kind of hair
ornament that looked like a pair of small white cat ears, or maybe
horns. She was dressed in a skintight, one-piece black and white
garment which covered everything but her head. Seated as she was,
with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around
them, Lurker couldn't determine her height, although the tightness of
her clothing allowed him to determine certain...other measurements
fairly accurately. There was something *very* familiar about her.

Realizing someone else was in the room, the girl backed up into a
more defensive position, evidencing some form of self-defense
training. "dare ka? doko desu ka?" the girl asked in the same soft
tones as before. 

*Okay, don't panic. You knew someday Weird Shit was bound to happen
to you. Hell, you've been waiting for it. Well, here it is,
man...Weird Shit, and she's asking you who you are and where she is.
Okay, we can deal with this...* Coughing once, Lurker took a moment
to compose himself and think about his response before replying,
"Aa...boku no namae wa Ro..." *No...if I'm going to deal with 
something unreal, I'm damned well going to do it with my pseudonym.* 
"...Raakaa desu. Koko wa Amerika desu."

"amerika...?" the girl said, blinking. 

"Aa...hai," Lurker affirmed. *I hope she doesn't start asking
anything more complicated than that...I can't do this on the fly
yet...* He watched her, waiting for another question, or some action.
She continued to look around the rather messy room, taking in her
surroundings, possibly looking for any hidden dangers...or perhaps a
weapon. *Boy, does she ever look familiar,* Lurker thought. *Where
have I seen...her...before...* His gaze drifted from the girl on the
futon, to the wall scroll hanging just out of her field of vision
behind her. He glanced at the girl, then the scroll, then back to the
piece of paper on his desk. *No way...*


=======================================================

[Somewhere - 98.10.07]

Death came suddenly to the Ucchan.  At least, it seemed like death.

One moment, Ukyou Kuonji was putting on her usual show, flipping
okonomiyaki in her usual manner, to the admiration of the patrons.
The next, she was enveloped in a swirling blue tunnel of light,
floating rapidly to God-knew-where.  She could barely hear Konatsu's
distant cry "Ukyou-sama!" as hues of blue opened up on her as through
an iris, the shades growing deeper and deeper.

A pinprick of brilliant white appeared on the tunnel's horizon, and
Ukyou stared at it, transfixed, as it hovered in the distance.  It
was plain that whatever that pinprick was, that was where she was
going.

Oddly enough, all things considered, her life wasn't flashing before
her eyes.  She'd heard that it was supposed to when you died; but
even trying to concentrate on whether she had any regrets was
difficult. Each iris that opened up a new shade of blue did so with
such a rushing noise as to render it nearly impossible to think. 
Maybe this was death's way of telling you it was too late to even
bother...

There was a deafening roar, and the little pinprick that Ukyou had
seen at the far horizon suddenly shot at her, growing at a
spectacular rate of speed.  It devoured the colors of the tunnel
before engulfing her with blinding white light.  Ukyou cringed
against the light's brilliance.  <Kami-sama... this is it...>

Then, everything went silent, and Ukyou found herself sprawled on
carpeting.  Well-worn, beige carpeting.  Somehow, she'd expected
better from heaven...

There was a crashing noise, and she turned around to discover its
source.  A chair lay on its side next to a dining-room table where it
had fallen, perhaps when she had been flung into this room.  She
walked over to the chair, stepping over a battery-powered spaceship
and several Dr. Seuss books to get there.  She picked it up; it was
just an ordinary folding chair.  She brought it over to its place at
the table.

On the table, along with several stacks of children's crafts and a
few newspapers, was a baseball cap.  The writing on it was a
semi-legible amalgam of hiragana and kanji: "Okonomiyaki Ucchan." 
She gaped; it was the logo from her shop curtain!  

Who lived here, and how did they know about her?  This couldn't be
Japan, after all... She looked around the large L-shaped room (or was
it two rooms without a wall between them?)  This... house, it
appeared to be... was of peculiarly American design.  No tatami, for
one thing, and lots of ground-level floor space.  She could see cuts
in the wall; evidently marks of an extension or an addition built
later on.  <This deserves further investigation...>

She set the hat down on the table where she found it.  It brushed
against a book of manga, and she decided to postpone the search. This
might hold clues.  Imagine her surprise to see a drawing of the
Ucchan interior on the page the book was open to.  The illustration
showed Konatsu staring at where she had presumably been moments
before, while the customers' attention was drawn to three people
sitting in the middle of the restaurant, almost as if they'd been
dropped there. The man looked rather like Dr. Tofu might, after a bit
too much food and a bit too little exercise.  The woman, as Ukyou
considered this, bore a very vague resemblance to Kasumi, but shorter
and with wavy hair.  The little boy looked like no one she'd ever
seen, not even resembling the couple who were evidently his parents.
Had she switched places with these three?  And how?

While she considered this, a voice came from upstairs: "What's going
on down there?"  Whoever it was, he was speaking Japanese, much to
her surprise and comfort.  Even more comforting was that it sounded
like...

"Ran-chan?  Is that you?"  She walked around the table and into the
adjoining room, in the direction of the voice. 

"Ucchan?"  There was a rumble of feet running downstairs, and into
the open room charged... Ranma, himself.  So, she *was* in heaven!

She leapt at him with a passion born of relief and love.  He squirmed
a bit, trying to free himself from his grasp.  "Uh... Ucchan... a
little air?"

"Oh."  She released him, a bit crestfallen.  Okay, maybe it wasn't
heaven.  But, in that case... "Where are we, Ran-chan?  How'd you get
here?"

"Well, we're in these folks' house."  He gave her a quizzical look.
"You haven't met 'em?"

"No.  There's no one down here."

"Oh.  Well, the guy just ran downstairs with this pencil of his,
yelling something to his wife... I guess he wanted to show her what
it could do.  I was just up here playing a video game on their
computer, and I heard this sort of whoosh!  That's when I yelled."

"Well, they're not here anymore..."  

It was at that moment that the doorbell rang.  Ranma looked at Ukyou.
 
Ukyou looked at Ranma.

"I guess we'd better answer that."

"Guess so."

"Hey, it could be them!  They mighta just stepped outside and locked
the door.  They're expecting me to get it or something!"

Something in the back of Ukyou's mind doubted this, but it was worth
a chance.  "Well, whaddya say I cross 'em up and answer the door
instead?  That oughta freak 'em out."

Ranma grinned.  "You go, girl."  Ukyou walked through the hall to the
door, and opened it... and found herself staring at her double.


=======================================================

[New Jersey]

"Finally, he got back to me!" Jon sighed.

-----
To: sabreb@erols.com
From: eternallostlurker@worldnet.att.net
RE: A Hypothetical

Hey there, Lurk!  Mind if I bounce something off of you?

Not at all. ^_^

Okay, here's the general deal.  I got this great idea for a fic,
but I'm not really too sure how to deal... handle some of the 
situations.  Simply, Joe Average Otaku finds this magic pencil that 
brings to life whatever he traces.  Due to habit as he's reading the
directions, Joe stabs the lead back into the pencil twice.

Hmm...the reverse of the typical self-insert? Interesting...

Here's the fun part.

Having stabbed the lead back in, he has unwittingly unleashed
Sephiroth from FF7, and both the Tyrant and the G-Virus from

Resident 

Evil 2 on the world.

Gah. I like it.

I've already gotten an idea for some animates that are involved.  A
half crazed Kenshin that keeps muttering something about 'Katsu...' 
then breaking into hysterical laughter, your typical Lina Inverse,

Hino

Rei, and Death (Not the Prachett, the Gaiman...), John Constantine, 
and, of course, Nabiki.  What would I write that I wouldn't include

her 

in?

Quite a crowd, there...O_o

Anyway, any ideas on how to help?

Well, for starters, try not to piss off Lina, and you might want to
keep Constantine and Rei away from each other...that could get
ugly...as for Death, I have no idea...same with Kenshin...just try to
keep him away from mirrors or pointy objects...and Nabiki, well...get
the terms of purchase in writing before you bonk her. ^_-

Dunno what to say about the other stuff...probably just try to
explain the situation to the folks that are sane, and see if they're
willing to help out...

And by the way, I know for a fact there isn't a serial killer on
the loose in New Jersey, so you don't have to worry yourself about
me...

I always worry about you, Jon. You scare me. ^_^

-------

"Gee....  Thanks for nothing, Lurk-chan..." Jon snapped
sarcastically.

"Oi.  Look 'ere, Mate.  Seems ta me, you got yourself a bit of a
bind..." Constantine trailed off, pulling out one of his silk cuts
and readying a match to light it.

"And what do you plan on doing about it, Conjob?" Jon snapped at him.
The unshaven blonde English Magus smirked a bit, and swiped the match
along the striking strip.  "And one other thing, John.  You light
that fag, and I bring a few more friends in to play. Elle, First of
the Fallen... you know, Special Friends."  Jon accentuated his point
with a stiff poke in the chest with the pencil he was currently
holding.

"Wha the fuck?" John exclaimed as he looked down at the hole in his
chest from where the pencil touched him.  As the disintegration
spread, Constantine looked up, cigarette hanging limply from his
slack mouth. "Well I'll be buggered..." was the last thing that could
be heard before the mage vanished from sight.

"What just happened to him?" Death asked quickly, looking at the spot
where John was standing.

Nabiki shouted something unintelligible, while Mars and Lina both
began gathering flames into their hands.  For the first time, Jon
found that he could actually understand what they were saying.

"FIRE..........  SOUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"FIRE..........  BALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

That didn't mean that he liked it.

"Chotto!  Matte yo!" Jon yelled in his best Japanese.

"Aishiteru-kedo kekkon-wa dekinai..." the red haired samurai shouted
as he threw himself from the top of the door to Lina Inverse's feet,
breaking the sorceress's concentration long enough for the fireball
to dissipate harmlessly.

However, that didn't stop Sailor Mars from firing off her attack at
Jon.

<This is the end of me...  I'm going to die to a fictional
character... Wow, she's cute... But I'm dead anyway, so what does it
matter?> Jon raised his hands before him in a vain attempt to ward
off flaming death.

Suddenly, the flaming death was gone, and Jon was unharmed.  <Okay,
system check.  Breathing?  Check.  Pulse?  Pounding and racing, but
otherwise alright.  Was structural integrity maintained?  Seems so.>
Jon cracked an eye to take another look at the outside world he
thought he would never see again.

The pencil was glowing red, and there seemed to be a faint outline
hanging in the air.

"Na... Nani?" Sailor Mars whispered.

At some point during this entire three minute exchange, Nabiki had
fainted.  Big surprise there.

"Chotto matte... chotto matte.... chotto matte...." Jon just kept
repeating over and over and over, as he ran out of the computer room,
around the corner into his bed room, rifling through the closet until
he found a rather large book with a glistening foil cover.

"Paper.. need paper...."

Grabbing some blank sheets, Jon flipped through the book until he
found a picture of a rather small yellow fish.  Slamming a piece of
paper over it, Jon raced through five quick traces, and waited,
somewhat impatiently, for the fish to appear.

Actually watching the process this time, Jon was fascinated watching
a wire frame of red light form in the air.  Light flooded to fill in
the space in the frame, then lightened, taking on a pale yellow
shade. Finally, with an inaudible pop, a little fish fell into Jon's
hand, and he quickly pushed it into his ear.

"That felt... strange." Jon commented to no one in particular.

Grabbing the other four as they appeared, Jon raced over to Nabiki's
prone form, and gently slid one of the fish into her ear.  Bending
over, he pushed one into Kenshin's ear.  Then, Jon walked calmly up
to the two remaining conscious people that needed fish, holding one
in each hand.

Mars and Lina looked at one another, and started backing away from
Jon. Jon just advanced faster, and pushed the two of them against a
wall.

Cupping his hands to their ears, Jon did something that felt very
good, but didn't endear him to anyone.

He clonked Sailor Mars and Lina Inverse's heads together.

"I don't know about you, Kenshin, but I feel better." Jon said as the
young ladies rubbed the bumps on thier heads.

"Boiled Pork.  Boiled Pork and Soap." Kenshin said as he nodded
sagely, before doubling over in a fit of hysterical laughter.

"Okay... Somehow, I got trapped in the land of the wonkos..." Death
muttered to herself.


=======================================================

[Honolulu, Hawaii - 98.10.03]

A nice quiet day in the 50th state, Hawaii was idyllic and sunny
today, not a care in the world.  The world was at relative peace,
scandals in Washington notwithstanding, as though it was a time of
joy, a time of bliss...that time that usually is the calm just before
the storm.

In a suburb of Honolulu, known as Aiea, there sat a new apartment
complex, perhaps no older than a year or two.  Officially known as
the Pearlridge Heights, it was colloquially known by its residents as
BOQ CIV.  This was due to the number of military personnel and
families that lived inside, mainly from nearby Pearl Harbor and
Hickam AFB. Particularly in apartment 403, that was certainly the
case.

******

"Oniichan!  Libby-san!  Lunch's ready!" a sweet, melodic voice called
out.

"We'll be there in a second, Ai-chan," a pleasant voice called back.
A young man in his late twenties hovered over the corpse of a Mac
Quadra.  Although not eligible for the Adonais award any time soon,
his mane of dark brown hair and sharp, expressive brown eyes (usually
seen from behind the lenses of eyeglasses) could catch a woman's
attention. Taking a second to swig from a bottle of Evian, Rob Barba,
average everyday sailor and sometime computer whiz, looked up from
the remains of the computer, currently in bits and pieces in the
spare bedroom/home office.  Wiping a bit of sweat from his forehead,
he commented, "I swear, Libby, what makes you constantly send this
damn computer to the shop?  Why don't you just buy a new one?  You're
an attorney, f'r chrissakes.  It's not like you can't afford it."

Sitting at Rob's desk, a young woman tapped on the keyboard, fingers
moving along at a relatively fast pace.  Her extremely long hair was
done up in a relatively puffy sort of topknot, and her sparkling blue
eyes were absolutely killer.  Her well-tanned and toned body spoke
pure Hawaii Beach Bunny, but the mind that lay behind the eyes spoke
of a hard intellect that didn't jive with the view.  Libby Thomas,
average everyday attorney and woman most likely to be drooled over,
looked up from Rob's computer, where she was currently typing the
latest chapter in one of her fanfics.  "Yeah, but then I don't get a
chance to come over as often, then, right?"

"You're over nearly every day.  Some of my neighbors think you're my
girlfriend," he pointed out.  "Mike next door especially wants me to
give him your phone number should we ever break up.  He just doesn't
get the clue that we're just friends."  He sighed, then went back to
reinstalling the replacement CD-ROM unit.  "Y'know, I'm glad that
Kimiko's not the jealous type."

"Yeah, I s'pose," the blonde replied nonchalantly, "or else you'd
have to start dating again.  Oh, the horror."  Saving the file, she
turned around just in time to see a teenaged Japanese girl walking
into the room.  The girl was about five feet even, with natural
"tea-hair" tied in a long ponytail and soft brown eyes.  She was
currently wearing a "Date Kyoko Virtual Tour 1997" T-shirt and a pair
of 501 cutoffs. This was Ai Mizuyo, Rob's legal ward and primary
responsibility since moving from Japan a month back.  Ai was carrying
a tray with three bento lunches on it.  On the tray was also a stack
of mail.  "Thanks, Ai," Libby replied, flashing a smile at the
too-kawaii-for-her-own-good teenager.

Ai then sat a bento down by Rob, then plunked down the mail.  "A
FedEx carrier just dropped off the package."

"Thanks, Ai.  You're a dear."  The teen beamed brightly at that, then
noted that one of her chopsticks was broken.  "I guess I should go
get another," she said, scampering off back towards the kitchen.

"You know," Libby called out to the girl, "that could be an omen."

"Libby, you've been watching WAAAAAAAAAAY too much 'Ranma �'," Rob
replied, looking at the small pile of mail in front of him. Sorting
through the pile, "Hmm...let's see...letter from one of my friends in
Hong Kong.  Phone bill.  Ai's cel phone bill.  My subscription to
'Animerica'."  One by one, he sorted through the pile, finally
arriving at the small package.

"Hey it's addressed to me and you," Libby said, looking over his
shoulder.

"Toldja you were over here all the time," he replied, with a sly
grin. Opening the package, he pulled out a letter, a small pamphlet,
and what looked like two mechanical pencils, one green, the other
colored red.  Taking a look at the letter, he said, "It's from
Bachiatari Stationary.  That name ring a bell?"

"No," the blonde said.  "Bachiatari--name sounds Italian, though.
Could explain the odd styling of the pencils."  Reaching for the red
pencil, she held it, looking at it.  The pencil appeared at first to
be nothing more than your average run-of-the-mill writing utensil.
Made of metal, with bands of gold around it, there was a marbled-
style pattern on the barrel; by the design and materials, the
pencil appeared fairly expensive.  Another thing about it was when
held up to the light, the instrument seemed to throb with inner
light, but that was probably due to an optical illusion.

"Well, oniichan," Ai said, having returned and dived into her food.
"Bachiatari means 'cursed' in Japanese."

"Yes, but there's no real way of telling.  There's no address on the
box or the letter.  But since those pencils have that kind of
European styling to them...."  He shrugged his shoulders in further
clarification, then focused on the letter, reading.  "'Dear Petty
Officer Barba and Ms. Thomas.  We have the honor to inform you that
you two have been selected to be recipients of our special Parallax
brand mechanical art pencils. We hope will enjoy our product.'  D'you
know what?  There's no signature on this."

Libby grabbed the letter.  "No name on it either, except for the
company letterhead, which doesn't have an address."  Setting the
letter down she stared at her new possession for a second then
commented,  "Art pencils?"  Shoving a bite of teri chicken in her
mouth, she worked her words around it and asked, "Why would we get
them?  I know you're a half-way decent artist, but I'm NOT, and
Sakura's usually our Studio artist."

"Maybe they're mailing one to her as we speak.  It's no biggie.  It's
just a free pencil, and since it looks expensive," he replied,
reaching for the green, jade-like pencil, "I'm not planning to turn
it down."  The pencil momentarily forgotten, he turned to the rest of
the mail.

"Oh, look at the time!" Libby said, glancing at her watch.  "We're
late for our hairstyling appointment, Ai!"  Both ladies leapt to
their feet, and as Libby shoved the red pencil into her pocket, she 
told Rob, "Don't make any plans tonight.  Dinner at the Hard Rock for

all of us, on me.  Let's roll, Ai."  

Rob nodded as he killed off the rest of his bento, taking a final
swig out of his bottle of water before turning back to the
computer...and deciding he had better things to do.  Like work on
those pictures that one of the people at work asked him for, while
designing their webpage for them.  Clearing off the desk, he decided
to work on the skiing webpage that one of the guys down in Port Ops
was paying him 50 bucks for.  A fair artist, Rob usually had ideas on
what to draw, but for once was stumped.  Completely lost for ideas,
he decided to surf a little to see what he could come up with. A
couple of minutes later, he had it.  Admittedly, someone with the
knowledge of what the image was would be confused, but since
anime--especially this one--was not mainstream, he was pretty much
covered.

Downloading a picture of Lime from 'Sabre Marionette J', he looked at
it, then began to sketch it on the paper, using the new pencil he
had. The pencil felt alive in his hand in an odd sort of way, like it
belonged there.  The drawing, however, was coming out, well...flat.
It didn't have the quality that he did in his usual works, as though
mere drawing wasn't enough to express the full ability of graphite
being scraped against paper.  Into the trash can went the paper.  As
did the next attempt.  And the next.  And number four. Finally,
frustrated at not being able to correctly draw the damn thing, he
decided to do something that he usually didn't do: he was going to
trace.

Printing the image of Lime, he broke out some tracing paper 
(never hurt to have any, just in case) and began his endeavor.
Clicking the button on the side of the barrel a couple of times, a
small amount of lead came out of the tip, and with that, he began
tracing. Despite a preference not to, he was able to trace the
drawing with a detail he hadn't reached before, from the general
shape of her bodyframe and face, to the long, flowing, violet mane of
hair that the character had, even down to the pattern of the biosuit
she wore in the picture.   Usually, his drawings didn't reach this
level of detail (he was an okay artist but not great), and the
picture seemed very life-like. 

The phone in the other room began to ring.  Hating to be interrupted,
he completed the final strokes on the image, then got up and walked
to the living room, and the offending equipment.  As he stepped out
of the room, he didn't see a sparkle of light flare from the tracing
paper, nor did he hear the staccato sound of a thousand pencils
snapping in order. Out of Rob's line-of-sight, the paper burst into
jade
flame, following the path of the pencilmarks as those lines changed
from
iron-gray to a pulsing, neon green.


=======================================================

[Long Island, New York - 98.10.07]

It was a normal evening for what was going to be the start of
not-so-normal events in Stoney Brook, Long Island, New York.

It was Fall.  College had started again, and besides the return of
lectures and homework, that meant only one thing for a man whose
Internet nickname was "The Flashman."

The anime clubs were back in session.

Christian Rogers, a young man with a build that was unsure if it was
turning into fat or muscle (but leaning towards fat), laughed along
with the rest of the audience who came every Tuesday night to watch a
solid hour and a half of anime.  Tonight they had started with a
Dragon Ball Z movie (the only one he hadn't seen now was number four)
and were currently showing one of the dubbed episodes of Slayers
volume 5.

Next to him, a girl with full lips, flashing brown eyes, long,
stringy brown hair dyed a dark green, and who looked five years
more...developed, than her thirteen years of age (as Christian had
found out to his embarassment when he'd asked her out) looked at him
and commented, "I didn't think it was THAT funny."

Christian whispered back, "That's because you're too busy recovering
from your gushing over Trunks and Piccolo, Robin."

"Trunks... Piccolo... KAWAIIII!!!!" Robin exclaimed, earning a
shushing sound from the audience.

Chris sighed; if it had been possible in the real world, a sweatdrop
would have formed on the back of his head as he went back to watching
more of the Slayers episode where Amelia, Lina and Gourry had to
dress in disguise to get a boat... and it was right up to the GOOD
part.

First, there was Lina in her Washuu parody costume...

Then, there was Amelia in her Akane parody costume...

Finally...

Last and not least...

The moment that was guaranteed to bring the house down every time...

Gourry, in his Usagi parody costume.
	
Naturally, everyone began laughing so hard that the sound of Gourry's
whining was drowned out.

Except for one person.

"Hate... da bunny..." Robin growled softly, but with the hinted
promise of louder and louder repetitions.

Christian sighed again and whispered quickly, "Usagi-sama!"

Robin could have easily hurt Christian, since she was a blue belt in
Kempo and Christian... wasn't.  However, she settled for grabbing one
of her pencils out of her pencil case and flinging it at him.

The pencil bounced off his chest sideways and landed on his lap.

After the end of the episode and after Robin had left with her
mother, Christian stood, and heard a clattering as the pencil Robin
had thrown at him fell out of his lap and landed on the floor. 
Curious, he adjusted his glasses and picked it up.  He took one look
at it and chuckled, "I should have known."

It was a RED pencil.

Robin was vindictive like that, and since she knew what his opinion
on a certain red clad Sailor Senshi was, she'd somewhat literally
thrown it in his face.

However, with a sigh and an "Oh well", he put the pencil in his
pocket and exited the building, heading for home.


An hour later...


Christian was reading his e-mail.  With his parents in Mexico for a
vacation, he didn't have much else to do.  He finished reading one of
the Eternal Lost Lurker's stories, gave it some C&C and signed off.

He twirled the red pencil between the fingers of his right hand. Ever
since he had gotten home, he hadn't been able to put it down and had
developed an urge to... trace?

Walking into the living room, he picked up an old, blue folder
sitting on one of the two couches/love seats and began leafing
through it.

In it were pictures he had managed to convince his friend Robin to
draw for him in an attempt to visualize certain scenes in his works.
A picture of Ranma, Sailor Moon and young Goku (she hadn't known how
to draw Gohan, so she had improvised).  A picture of Ranma in his Yin
Yang costume.  Ranma and Usagi kissing.  Ranma and Usagi sleeping in
the same bed (fully clothed and not touching)...

Finally, he decided on the picture of a seven year old Princess 
Serenity.  He also grabbed the video case of Mothra 2, to
trace the image of Neo Mothra, and moved into the kitchen.

Taking out a piece of blank paper from the back of the folder,
Christian sat down at the table and, clicking out the lead of the
pencil, he began to trace the child Serenity. It took a good thirty
minutes to finish, making sure that the lines that ran through the
"odango" were perfect, that the dress looked just right and that the
eyes were expressive enough.

Finally, he put the pencil down and twitched his fingers, working the
kinks out of them.  He went to reach for the Mothra 2 cover, to copy
Mothra and trace her so that it appeared as if the Kaiju was flying
behind the younger Serenity.

Or at least... that's what he WOULD have done, if his little Shih Tzu
dog, Cujo, hadn't started barking.

Turning around to ask the dog if she had to go out, he stopped and
gawked at what he saw.

There, petting the small dog in curiosity and being licked heavily on
the face in reply, was a young girl with long blonde hair in twin
buns and pony tails.  Her eyes weren't as big as they had been in the
drawing and her nose and mouth were more defined...

But there was no denying it.

There, just now looking up at him, her eyes widening in equal
surprise, was a seven-year-old Princess Serenity.


=======================================================

[Hawaii]

"Well, another glorious day of shopping complete," Libby told Ai as
the pair wandered into her cozy little place near Kuhio.  As always
whenever she came home, her pet cat, Pumpernickel, got in the way of
her feet, rubbing first against her, then Ai in a flagrant demand of
attention.  Noticing that the answering machine had messages waiting,
she instructed the younger girl, "We have a few hours before Rob
expects us, so pick out a movie and I'll get the popcorn and sodas,
'kay?"  Pumpernickel mewed a demand to be coddled, but Libby ignored
him, allowing the younger girl to tend to the rather spoiled cat.  As
Ai nodded agreement, Libby went to the phone and tapped on the
receive button.

//Elizabeth,// the recorded voice said.  Libby sighed; people only
called her by her full name when something was about to go wrong. 
//This is Tom Matthews.//  Libby instantly felt less at ease.  Tom
Matthews was the lead attorney on the newest case, and he was an
insufferable bastard.  Libby felt that if someone were to strangle
him, there wouldn't be a jury in the universe foolish enough to
convict the killer.  //I know it's the weekend, but I have to get
something from you.  The stats on the Williamson & Bennett contract. 
I need you to complete it and have it to me by tomorrow.  You're
beautiful, babe.  Ciao.//  Libby fought the urge to retch.  She'd
have to finish the file, then go into work tomorrow and drop off the
case.

Pausing momentarily to tell Ai to start the movie without her-and it
just happened to be the first 'KOR' movie--Libby trudged over to her
little home office.  A cozy thing, she'd decorated it in the same
fashion that she had when she was back in college. The only
difference was  the anime cels framed and hung on the walls,and a 
life-size Mihoshi cut-out that a friend in Seattle had mailed
her.  Setting pad to paper, and willing to try out her new pencil,
she set to work.

An hour and half later, she was halfway through and bored silly.  Her
yellow legal pad had all sorts of arcane legal scribblings over it,
and her eyes were growing bleary from reading all the BS in the
contract.  Taking a break for a second, she jaunted over to the
kitchen, taking a second to peek at the teenager, now asleep, on the
couch.  A small smile formed on her face.  She needed to get her
mind off the contract, and she knew just how to do it.

Stepping back into her office, she simply decided to do some drawing.
Okay, maybe tracing would be the better word, since she was never
much of an artist.  So, as she sat there with some paper and her new
pencil, the next question arose: what to do about the subject?  That
was a thought that she wasn't quite sure of.  Then it came to her.  
Her favorite character, hands down, was Mihoshi.  Not simply because
the GP operative and the attorney looked alike, but more truthfully
because in a sense, Mihoshi lived in a state of bliss.  Like Libby's
email tag implied, Mihoshi was "beautiful, blonde, and braindead." 
But more important that that, she seemed to be a very earthy person,
the type that just lived from moment to moment, and enjoyed every
minute of that kind of existence.  Libby only wished she could live
like that, or like Rob, who at times seemed to have a Tenchi-esque
social life.   But Libby was not that kind of person.

So, as she picked up a copy of a Mihoshi picture, she drew the
picture and, for a second or two, wished she could meet this
imaginary character who looked just like her, and find out what made
her so happy, and Elizabeth so unhappy.  Sweeping the storm-gray of
the lead over white virginal paper seemed to have a calming effect on
her. So much so, that she really did not pay attention to the fact
that her tracing ability, normally near bad, was coming out at near
manga-artist levels.  A few minutes later, she completed her task,
and took a look at her handiwork.

((Not bad, I have to admit,)) she thought.  ((Think this is the best
I've ever done.))  Setting both paper and pencil down, she looked at 
the clock and noted that they still had about ninety minutes. 
((Hell, this is my weekend.  Why am I doing this?))  She closed her
legal tablet, then decided on a course of action.  ((I'll just pull
an all-nighter, and sleep in for the rest of the day after I drop
this damn file off at work.))  Or, maybe she and Lisa Igashira could
hit the beach tomorrow.  Lisa was always complaining that she spent
too much time with her other friends.  Then again, unlike Libby, Lisa
had a steady boyfriend, so she really didn't have too much room to
complain.

Yup, she told herself, that's exactly what she'd do.  Setting the
pencil down, she left the room.  Walking back into the living room,
Libby woke up Ai and asked if she wanted to go to the Fun Factory for
a little while.  That caught Ai's attention; the Fun Factory was the
largest arcade on the island, and they also had laser tag.  Grabbing
Ai's stuff, the pair swung by the kitchen to grab some sodas for the
road, not noticing the ruby sparks of electricity that were dancing
around in the office, nor the sound of a choir of pencils scratching
against rough paper. 


A minute later, they were back on the road, headed for the H1 freeway
and eventually Pearl Kai Mall.  Had they stuck around for a second
more, the would have heard a voice call out in Japanese, sounding
much like Libby's own:

"Hello?  Is anyone home?  Tenchi?  Kiyone?"  The voice paused before
saying, "Are we playing hide and go seek?  And when did Washu change
the inside of the house?"


=======================================================

[Somewhere in the central US]

It is said that in this world, every one of us have doubles walking
the earth; Japanese legend, in fact, states that there are as many as
five copies for each form.  Here, in what appeared to be America,
Ukyou Kuonji found herself face to face with her own double.

Then again... perhaps not.  True, the girl's hair was dark and long,
about waist length, but not tied back with a bow.  She was a bit
shorter in the legs, and stocky.  She wore glasses.  And of course,
she was decidedly Caucasian; pale skinned, almost abnormally pale
(although that could be just the effect of the contrast with her
hair).  Maybe she could pass for a slightly older Ukyou, but only if
you didn't look *too* closely.

Surprisingly, the girl didn't seem all that fazed by Ukyou's
presence. Indeed, she managed to place her, spot on.  "So... you must
be Ukyou Kuonji."  She stepped over the threshold and walked inside
as if she belonged in the house.  And she probably did... certainly
more so than Ukyou or Ranma did.

Ukyou was glad she'd managed to keep up with her English studies.  Of
course, there were other pieces of this puzzle to deal with.
"You...know me?"

"Oh, sure.  Rachel and Randy have told me about you before.  I've
even seen some of those cartoons with you and Ranma.  Uh..." she
looked around, perplexed, "...where *are* they, anyway?"

Ukyou turned those names over in her mind a couple of times. 
Ran...di?  Crazy little brother?  What a name to saddle a child with.
Of course, maybe it means something else, something better, in
English. And Rei-cha... what kind of name was that?  These Americans
sure had funny things to call their kids.

It was Ranma who shook her from her contemplations.  "[Hey, Ucchan,
who's this girl and what's she saying?]"

The girl set her backpack down next to the dining room table, and sat
herself down insouciantly onto an old green couch next to the
backpack, narrowly missing an enormous gooseneck lamp that arched
from the floor over the entire length of the couch.  "If you don't
mind, could you ask Ranma there to speak English?  Randy dumps
Japanese at random in his speech all the time; it gets really
annoying, if you ask me."

Ukyou gave a sideways glance at Ranma before sitting down next to
this girl.  Giving her a conspiratorial wink, she told her, "I'm
sorry, but Ran-chan's English is not very good.  He does not pay good
attention in class, with Hinako-sensei..."

Understanding came to the girl's eyes.  "Ah... the one with the
five-yen thingy, right?  Okay, I can understand that.  Glad *you* pay
attention, though."

Ukyou was aware that her answers were careful and deliberate, and
that her accent was quite palpable, but smiled at the compliment. 
"Thank you.  So am I."

"Oi!"  Ranma had his hands on his hips, looking a little put out at
this girl-talk.  "[I heard that!  Cut it out, willya?]"  He may not
have understood much of what Ucchan was saying, but mention of
'Ran-chan' and 'Hinako-sensei,' combined with the looks in the two
girls' eyes, made it pretty clear that whatever they were saying
about him, it was not particularly complimentary.

Ukyou stood up again.  "Gomen nasai, Ran-chan.  [I didn't mean to be
insulting.  But she doesn't know Japanese and you don't know English,
so I've got to bridge the gap here, okay, sugar?  Maybe she'll be
able to explain things to us.  Anyway, she wants to know where the
folks who live here are.  You didn't see them leave, right?]"

"[Right.  Just a whoosh noise, and when I came down, you were there,
and they weren't.]"

Ukyou turned and explained to the girl that neither of them knew what
had become of the couple.  The girl grimaced.  "Hm.  Well, it
probably doesn't matter, after all.  I was going to tell them about
something that happened to me with this pencil..." and she pulled a
mechanical drafting pencil from her backpack and offered it to Ukyou
to examine, "but I see they've already discovered its properties."

"Properties?"  Ukyou carefully looked the pencil over.  It wasn't
particularly fancy, although the barrel of the instrument was a
fascinating swirl of shades of blue, growing deeper and darker down
to the eraser.  Its pattern was vaguely familiar...

"Yeah.  I'd found these at our supplier's the other day, and was told
that it could improve your drawing ability considerably."  The girl
grinned.  "When you work at a sign shop, even though so much of our
artwork it computerized these days, every little improvement still
helps.  So I got one - 'only one to a customer,' they said - and
found that their claim was true.  So I told Randy about it, as he
used to draw cartoons back in college.  Thought he might be
interested.

"Anyhow, I'd been using it for a couple of days, but today was really
strange.  I was tracing over a customer's logo - one of these local
kindergarten day care places - and it had a couple of cartoon kids in
it.  As soon as I'd completed the logo, the lines on the paper gave
off this icy blue glow, and when it died down, I was up to my
kneecaps in cartoon children.  Just like the kids on the logo.

"Now, I love kids as much as anyone, but I couldn't deal with this.
When I was done with the sign, I took the kids over with me, and
dropped them all off with our customer.  'They're all yours,' I told
him, 'don't ask where they came from.'  I figured it had to be the
pencil, too - anything that improves your drawing skill like *that*
had to have a catch - so I came over to warn the two of 'em... but it
looks like they've figured it out on their own."  She gave Ukyou and
Ranma a careful look.  "Looks like they had more fun with it, too."

The girl stood up, and motioned for Ukyou to return the pencil. "It's
really kinda strange... when I bought this thing, I was warned not to
stab the lead down on a picture."  By now, she had walked over to the
dining room table, and had picked up the manga.  "Was this what they
were tracing?"  Ukyou shrugged helplessly, and the girl began
rifling through the pages.  "Hm.  Well, there's you, and Konatsu,
and..." her voice trailed off as she turned a page.  She dropped the
manga as if it were burning.

"Good grief..."  It was the picture of the three sudden arrivals to
the Ucchan.  The look on her face told Ukyou and Ranma that she had
found them... in the manga.  "So that's what happens..."  She sat
down, contemplating the page momentarily, before stabbing her own
pencil onto the picture.

There was a roar of thunder, and a vortex of swirling blue appeared
behind the girl.  With a yell of surprise, she dropped the pencil as
she was sucked in.  The pencil hovered in mid-air for a moment as the
vortex continued to howl.  It was now or never, Ukyou thought, and
she stepped over a few toys to get to the table, then reached
carefully over to snatch the floating pencil.  As soon as she grabbed
for it, the vortex closed with a dreadful slurp.

At the same time, another vortex opened up just next to Ranma, who
backed away with a yelp.  And none too soon, as he narrowly missed
getting bowled over by the Ucchan's kunoichi waitress, Konatsu, who
tumbled out.


=======================================================

[Long Island]

There are many things in life that can shock you.

One of the biggest, as Christian had just discovered, was finding
that the image of a picture you had just traced was now standing in
front of you, looking back with equal surprise.

He couldn't believe it... but it was true.

Somehow... some way... a small, seven year old Princess Serenity was
standing there.

His brown and white Shih Tzu dog, Cujo, pranced around the unexpected
guest, barking happily; occasionally she licked, sniffed and
sneezed at the young Moon Princess.

The sound of crickets chirping was shattered when Chibi-Serenity
shrieked, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK!!!  BLACK MAGE!"

That brought about a crying routine that was more Usagi-like (which
Christian would have thought impossible because there was no Usagi
influence in her yet) than Serenity-like.

"Hold it," the young man said, trying to sound soothing, yet loud
enough to be heard over the little girl's wailing, as he covered his
ears, "Please... I don't know how you got here.  I didn't bring you.
Please... I'm your friend."

Chibi-Serenity sniffed a few more times and said, her voice still
wavery, "I'm not a dummy!  Mamma and Auntie Mothra told me Black
Mages say they're gonna be my friends and then hurt me, 'cause I'm a
Serenity.  Auntie Mothra told me what to do if they took me."

"Auntie... Mothra?" the man sometimes known as Flashman thought, "Oh
yeah... that was the reason I asked Robin to draw that picture in the
first pla... uh oh."

Holding up her right hand, Chibi-Serenity cried, "SOUL SHINE!"

Christian yelped in fear and covered up.

Nothing happened.

"SOUL SHINE!"

Cujo sneezed.

"Soul Shine?"

The crickets returned.

Christian looked out from behind his arms and breathed a sigh of
relief.  He'd forgotten that the Soul Shine only worked on those who
were truly evil, and while Chris did have his bad points, he was far
from that.  "Does that convince you?" he asked, joy at his sustained
health clearly evident in his tone.

"Auntie Mothra said it would wooork," Chibi-Serenity moaned, "What
did I do wroooong?"

"Nothing," Christian replied, unconsciously switching into his
She's-A-Little-Kid-So-Be-Nice mode, "It just didn't work because I'm
not a bad guy."

The young Moon Princess' face scrunched into a cute look of
confusion, then she asked, "How'd you know?  Auntie Mothra said I was
the first one to learn it."

"Well..." Christian said, unsure of how to put it, as he crouched
down to Chibi-Serenity's level, "I guess you could say I'm the guy
who developed the attack and the other ones your... Aunt was going to
teach you."

After an hour of explaining what Christian had meant by that comment,
occasionally slowing down to give extra detail of the more
complicated bits so a girl as young as Serenity could understand,
they had come back to where they had started.

"So how'd I get here?" Chibi-Serenity asked.

"I don't know," Christian replied, "What were you doing right before
you got here?"

"I was with Auntie Mothra," Chibi-Serenity said, "She was teaching me
the Star Prayer when... POOF!" Chibi-Serenity added a grand gesture
of her arms before asking, "What were you doing?"

Chris frowned.  The Star Prayer had no teleportation elements to it,
so that couldn't have been the cause.  "I," the young man replied,
"was sketching you from this pic..."

He stopped as he got another look at his tracing.

The pencil lead had changed from its normal flat black color to a
deep, blood red.  "The he...ck," Christian said, remembering that
there were now little ears in the room, "How the..."

"Where'd you get that?" Chibi-Serenity asked from next to him, "It
feels like magic."

Looking down, Christian saw that Chibi-Serenity was holding the red
pencil that he had used to trace with, her blue eyes sparkling with
curiosity.  "Magic?" he asked, "What kind of magic?"

Chibi-Serenity shrugged, "I dunno.  Auntie Mothra just told me how to
feel magic."

"Hmmm... mind if I take this back for a sec?"

The young Moon Princess nodded once and held up the pencil.

As he twirled the pencil around the fingers of his right hand, Chris
said, "Time for me to test a theory.  I'll be right back."

Walking into the living room and reaching for a CD rack hidden behind
the sofa/love seat, Christian pulled out the CD case for one of his
favorite Playstation games, Mega Man Legends.

Taking out the manual and flipping to page 17 as he walked back into
the kitchen, Christian zeroed in on the picture labeled, <Servebots>.

Placing the manual, still turned to the desired page, down on the
table, he reached into the back of the folder again and drew out
another blank piece of paper.  After ten minutes of tracing that was
more skilled than any that Christian had ever done in his life, the
Servebot was completed.

For a few seconds, nothing happened.  Then, the traced image of the
Servebot glowed red and a tight beam shot from the paper to the
doorway of the kitchen.  When both Chibi-Serenity and Christian
looked, they saw a two foot tall, blue bodied robot with yellow
pincers for hands, a yellow, circular head with large black eyes and
a large brown micro chip on top that imitated a circular flat top.
"Servebot #3," the little robot said in a high pitched voice, "ready
to... Hey! Where's Miss Tron?"

"You were right." Chibi-Serenity said softly, wide-eyed at what she
had just seen.

"Who're you?" Servebot #3 asked, trying to sound threatening, but its
voice made it impossible.

Having thought out a plan before drawing the Servebot, Christian
said, "I... have had you reassigned.  You work for me now."

The Servebot put its pincer hands on its hips as it replied, "Yeah,
right.  You don't look like a Bonne to me!"

"Here's hoping I haven't lost all my acting skills," Christian
thought as he got ready to unleash a tirade. "How DARE you question
me!" Christian roared, trying to replicate the mannerisms of Teasel
Bonne, while imitating the volume level of Tron Bonne and trying to
use the physical menacing abilities of Bomb Bonne.

"*I* am the great... Car Bonne!  You will do what *I* say, or,
despite what my darling fifth niece will say, I'LL USE YOUR HEAD FOR
AN ASH TRAY!  DO I MAKE MYSELF *CLEAR*?!"

Servebot #3 muttered under its breath, "Yep.  He's a Bonne... he's
got the same temper."

Aloud, the robot asked, "What do you want me to do, Master Car?"

"For now," Christian said, dropping the Bonne act, "just stand there
and wait for me to bring in a few more."

******

Another hour later, ten more Servebots had joined the first one and
Chibi-Serenity finally asked, "Why are you drawing so many of those
things?"

Christian replied, "Well, I don't have any pictures of your friends
at your age and I don't know how to send you home, I'm trying to get
you some people your size you can talk to.  They are being nice to
you, right?"

Chibi-Serenity nodded, said, "Yeah... but do we need so many?"

"Well... you see," Christian said, "If they're gonna do whatever I
say, I may as well have as many of them as possible."

Chibi-Serenity frowned as she growled, "That's wrong.  I thought you
weren't a bad guy!"

"I'm not!  Really!"

"Then why are you bringing in slaves?"

"SLAVES?!"  Christian exclaimed before thinking, "What do they teach
their children in the Silver Millennium?  Although... I guess she IS
right.  But a guy can still dream..."

While he was thinking, Christian's hand unconsciously stabbed the
pencil tip down on one of the tracings of the Servebots.

The effect was much more dramatic this time.

A pillar of red light exploded from the paper, knocking Christian out
of his chair and onto his back.  Chibi-Serenity asked, "Are you
okay?"

Christian nodded as he rubbed his sore back and joined the young girl
and the Servebots in staring at what emerged from the light beam.

It was another robot.  Much different from the Servebots.

It had a cylindrical body, with large arms that hung several inches
away from the body due to some kind of antigravity technology. The
body and arms were silver, with red runes running all across them. 
The robot's face was angular... it would have been considered
handsome in a way, if it hadn't been for the fact that the skin
looked like rubber and the shoulder length hair, which was colored
pink, looked like a cheap wig.

The robot had its eyes closed and a serene smile rested on its lips. 
Christian's Adam's apple grew several sizes as he whispered in fear,
"J... J... Juno."


=======================================================

[Texas]

The girl was now watching him again, her gaze unblinking. Attempting
to compose himself...with greater difficulty this time...Lurker
carefully constructed his next words. "Anta wa...Ayanami Rei desu
ka?"

Rei blinked in surprise, before nodding slightly. "hai..." she
replied quietly, and launched into a question which Lurker couldn't
quite make out. He assumed she was asking how he knew who she was,
and probably a few things that were more paranoid in nature. Holding
up a hand to silence her, he motioned for her to turn slightly.
Uncertainly, she did...

And it was Rei's turn to be thrown for a loop. "nani...!?" she
exclaimed (albeit quietly) as she stared at the silken image of
herself hanging on the wall. She turned back to Lurker, eyes wide,
and asked something else. Wordlessly, Lurker handed her the magazine,
and she dropped it as though it were poison upon seeing herself on
the cover. 

One thing Ayanami Rei has never been known to do throughout
Evangelion is panic. However, Lurker was seeing exactly that: a
frightened young Japanese girl with absolutely no idea where she was,
who had just been presented with two caricatures of herself by an
unfamiliar gaijin. Even with the strangeness of the situation, he
couldn't stand seeing someone so out of sorts, and wished he could
say or do something to calm her down. 

"Dammit," he growled to himself, "why couldn't I have spent more time
practicing with that audio course?" 

Rei froze, and blinked. "you...speak english?" she asked.

"Course I do," Lurker snapped, "it'd be pretty hard to function here
otherwise." As soon as that comment was out of his mouth, more reflex
than rational thought, he blinked. "Wait a sec...you can speak
English?" he asked Rei.

Rei nodded. "yes..."

"Well I'll be damned," Lurker said. "That's going to make things
easier."

"how did i...end up in this place?" Rei asked. "are you one of the
apostles?"

"Apostles?" Lurker blinked for a moment. "Oh," he said as it dawned
on him, "Angels...no," he said, "I'm not...as for how you got here,
I'm trying to figure that out myself," he said.

Rei pointed to the magazine on the floor, and to the wall scroll
hanging behind her. "could you please explain these things?" she
asked. 

"Aheh...well," he said, uncertain of how to begin, "You see...it's
like this..." *How best to explain...?* "This is gonna be hard to
understand, but...you aren't supposed to be real. You're a fictional
character..."

"fictional?" Rei asked.

Lurker nodded. "Hai...from a popular anime series." 

"anime..." Rei said, shaking her head. "that can't be...i am real..."

"Which is what I can't figure out," Lurker said. "This kind of thing
just doesn't happen for real. I mean, one minute I'm sitting here
tracing a picture of you," he ranted, holding up the tracing in
question, "and the next..." he trailed off.

Rei reached out and plucked the pencil tracing from Lurker's hand,
examining it. "this is very nice," she said absently.

"Thanks," Lurker said, letting the absurdity of the conversation slip
past him unchecked. "I'm not usually that good at drawing. Must have
been that new pencil..." His eyes widened. "Wait a minute..." He
picked up the green pencil from his desk and examined it. It looked
the same as it had before, with just a tiny bit of lead advanced.
"What was it about pencils, and tracing...?" he muttered aloud. "Oh
yeah!" he exclaimed, striking his desk with the pencil. He turned to
face Rei, who was staring at him inquisitively. As he did so, he
failed to notice the deep forest-green light pulsing from the cover
of the Dragonball tankoubon he'd managed to stab with the pencil.
"That's what happened!" he began excitedly. "I was tracing you, and
then it started glowing, and then you were there, and--" 

Lurker broke off abruptly as his body was suddenly engulfed in
emerald flames. He began screaming, and Rei sprang to her feet,
scrambling backwards, looking around warily. 

=======================================================

AUTHORS' NOTES:

Lurker: 
Frankly, I'm still amazed we've managed to pull this off so well.
This all started as a brainstorm on a Monday, the result of an idea
that I'd had the night before, combined with an idea I got after
getting my first look at Pokemon. It all blended, warped, and twisted
into the basic concept for the pencils...and by the time I'd heard
back from most of the group I pitched the project to the next day, I
had enough preliminary info in place for us to get a good start.
After that, it was more or less through the quick work, creative
thinking, and enthusiasm of the others that what you've just read
came into being. In under a week, what started as a half-baked little
idea for something completely off-the-wall picked up like a hurricane
and turned into Pencils...I'm still surprised at how quickly
everything developed. I'd like to thank all the other authors
involved, even those whose material hasn't yet appeared, for their
enthusiastic participation in this project, as well as Chris Angel,
who left the project after the first day, but is occassionally
sending me tidbits of thought and ideas on how to improve the overall
planning of the project. Given the rapid pace at which we've been
steamrolling along in getting this thing off the ground, I'm very
enthusiastic and optimistic about the future of the project, and hope
that everyone has enjoyed reading our combined insanity. ^_^

Flashman:
I don't know what to do. Should I congratulate Lurker for coming up
with this idea... or should I kill him for getting me involved in
ANOTHER project, when I SHOULD be working on what I've been ignoring
for so long?!  Oh well... I guess there are worse ideas I could be
distracted by (one thing that comes to mind is a "I don't wanna go on
a rant here" rant about a funny-yet-undeserved MSTing of "Tekken:
Project Alpha").Oh well 2, at least this helped me clear my head
after working on (Shudder) Munihousen....  At least until chapter 3
comes back for the second draft. @_O

JD:
Hrm....  Author notes? Isn't this the part where one generally thanks
people?  Kinda like Oscar  acceptance speeches? Well, I didn't win
any awards, and I don't really have anyone to thank, besides. More
after the next chapter.  Right now, it's time for my medication...


=======================================================

PENCIL TRACE PRODUCTIONS

eternallostlurker@worldnet.att.net		sabreb@erols.com
databank@mindspring.com			ashita@rocketmail.com
mihoshi@eudoramail.com			mxjk67c@prodigy.com
ukyoukwnji@aol.com				maercutio@aol.com
terbril@hotmail.com