[Editor's preface: If you're familiar with Pencils from the past...you'll
notice that chapter one is about three times as long as the original. That
means you can't skip over this, because over 75% of it is brand new.]


[Japan - northern Honshu]
[September 13, 1999]

Several technicians and officers seated around the JSDF monitoring station
looked up as Commander Edo Stureika walked into the room. He did not look
like he was in a good mood.

"Alright, what's so damned important that you had to get me up at three in
the morning?" he groused.

The technician seated at the satellite monitoring terminal stood, and bowed
apologetically. "Sumimasen, commander. We received an urgent communication
from the Tsukino Observatory in Hokkaido this morning, and we thought you
should know."

The commander frowned. "Alright, then, what is it?"

"An object of unknown origin was detected moving into high orbit over Japan
around midnight. The object is of massive size, and the observatory crew
could detect no recognizable markings. The object matches no known
configuration." The tech motioned to the main monitor screen, which lit to
display the orbital tracks of several of the satellites that passed over
Japan at regular intervals. Amidst the green lines floated an ominous
flashing red blob, flagged with a question mark.

"That's not a very clean lock...can't you get a more precise fix than
that?" The tech looked uncomfortable, prompting the Commander to continue,
"What is it, man? Out with it!"

"The image is computer generated, sir...compiled from visual data being
gathered from a number of observation stations. The radar can't see it at
all. That's why the observatory saw it before we did."

The commander frowned. "You still ought to be able to generate a more
accurate position than this. That's a fairly wide zone."

"We estimate that the displayed image is correct, to within a hundred
meters or so."

"WHAT?" the Commander bellowed in disbelief.

The tech started to sweat. "All visual data agrees, sir."

"But," argued Stureika, "That would make the thing..." he trailed off as he
studied the image again.

"Yes sir," agreed the tech miserably. "At least two kilometers in diameter,
and maybe ten long. Possibly larger."

Stureika gripped the console and closed his eyes. He hated Mondays at the
best of times, and this was going to be a whopper. He could feel the
headache starting. "Do we have a visual of the object yet?" he asked at
length.

"Hai. We have a feed from the observatory now. We had to arrange a secure
link." The tech keyed instructions into his console, and the tracking image
was replaced with a somewhat fuzzy picture that showed a massive, dark
shape blotting out the stars. A shocked silence descended on the
installation as the sheer enormity of what they were seeing started to sink
in.

The silence was replaced with a collective gasp as their relative positions
and Earth's rotation carried the object out of the planet's shadow,
revealing a cylindrical object of unbelievable size, the metallic surface
glowing a deep bronze in the sunlight.

"That...doesn't look like anything that I've ever seen before," the
commander decided. "Not even on the drawing boards. Anyone have any ideas?"

"Well," piped up another officer, "it's not ours. And it's probably not
Russian."

Stureika gave the man a withering look. "And I doubt the Americans could
put up something that large without anyone knowing about it either," he
snapped.

The officer had the grace to look sheepish, but shrugged. "Well, *I* wasn't
going to report a Yufou," he countered.

Raising an eyebrow, Stureika turned back to the screen. The man was right,
in a way...no one wanted to report that sort of thing. It tended to have
adverse effects on promotion. But this time...what else was there to call
it?

"Ma...masaka..." One of the techs in the back of the room was staring at
the image on the main screen, an expression of stunned disbelief on his
face. In fact, he looked to the Commander as though he'd seen a ghost. A
familiar ghost.

"You *know* that object?" he barked at the quivering tech.

The tech shook his head, never taking his eyes from the image on the
screen. "It's the Bell," he babbled. "It's the Bell!"

Stureika stalked over and shook the man roughly by the shoulders. "Bell?"
the commander repeated. "What Bell? What are you talking about?"

The tech shook his head and blinked, slowly focusing his gaze on Stureika.
"Gomen..." he managed as the Commander let him go. "It's just that...well,
it's not *possible* sir. It's not *real*."

"What's not possible?" growled Stureika.

The tech looked trapped, but sighed as he realised there would be no
arguing. "My...my kids are hooked on a series of OAVs called 'Mahou Tsukai
Tai!'. They've forced me to sit and watch them with them so often that I
know them by heart..."

The commander frowned. "And this...object looks something like one from
those OAVs?"

"Not 'something like'...*exactly like*. I *know* it sounds crazy...but that
thing," he gestured at the screen again, "is the Bell!"

The commander sighed, shrugged, and turned back to the screen and its
impossible image. "Well. It's as good a description for it as any at the
moment." He squared his shoulders and looked to the Comm Officer. "Get me a
secure line to the Minister of Defense. If I'm not going to get any more
sleep tonight, then neither is he."


******


Over the next two weeks, various governments became aware of the massive
object, codenamed 'Bell', which had moved into position and was holding
station over Tokyo, Japan. A general undercurrent of panic grew in the
various intelligence communities, and folders stamped 'Top Secret' and
'Need to Know' spread like dandelions. In the interests of 'national
security', every informed nation chose to keep the public in the dark about
what might be the first undeniable evidence of an interstellar
intelligence.

Even in Japan, a panicked government managed to keep a lid on the existence
of the Bell, despite the sudden rashes of unexplained phenomena starting to
occur all over the country. Observatories and other like facilities were
quietly taken over by the government, and all news was carefully screened.
Broadcasts leaving the country were the most heavily filtered, as officials
preferred not to let the rest of the world in on these strange events.

Not that anyone was paying much attention to the Japanese media these days.
The news programs were starting to look more and more like reruns of bad
monster movies, reporting people and things from fiction were suddenly
becoming reality.

And who'd believe something so absurd could really be happening?




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



   P       E       N       C       I       L       S



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


   c    h    a    p    t    e    r       o    n    e


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


[Perth, Australia]
[October 6, 1999]


The atmosphere in the darkened room was one of deep silence. The blinds
were drawn tight and the door closed, various articles of clothing littered
the floor and a few issues of "Thunderbolts" peeked out from underneath a
single bed. The mass that was sprawled out on the bed emitted a few soft
snores every so often from beneath a fairly heavy doona. The wardrobe off
to the far side of the room was completely open to the world as it was
missing both of its sliding doors. These had been placed neatly next to it,
leaning against the wall with the mirrored one on top of the other. A pile
of books and various knick-knacks was sitting in one corner next to a
swivel chair, which looked fairly sturdy but was actually broken.

A soft beeping broke into the silence like a thief in the night; almost
unnoticed. A hand reached out of the jumbled mess of pillow, doona and
person, groping blindly for the watch at the top of the bed head that was
making the noise. The searching fingers closed securely about the band and
jerked it back into the nest. The beeping stopped a second later.

A few minutes passed, cars going by outside the window making small
splashing noises as they drove along the wet road. A couple of brave small
birds chirped to themselves, trying in vain to keep warm this unusually
cold spring day. They hopped about the windowsill, tweeting back and forth,
seemingly determined to remind the sleeper that the day had well and truly
begun. No soft snores answered them, but the heavy breathing indicated that
it wouldn't be long till they did.

Then the beeping started again, this time electing a response. Two eyes
blearily opened and glanced down at the face of the watch, wondering what
the time was. A thumb came up and depressed a button to the side of the
watch, activating the small light.

The relative quiet of an Australian city block in the morning was shattered
in an instant.

"Oh, SHIT!" Neurons that had been silent for a few hours, either
voluntarily or because the others had beaten them into submission, screamed
back to life as the time registered. Pillow and doona went flying as the
person practically jumped out of the bed. "I am going to be so late!"

A dishevelled, semi-naked young man stood in the middle of the room,
glancing around for the things that he'd need. Snatching up a pair of black
jeans from the floor, he strode across to the wardrobe and grabbed a shirt
from the wardrobe. Quickly opening the draws at the bottom he took a pair
of underclothes out as well, noting as he did so that the lack of them
meant that he'd probably have to do washing the next day. He walked quickly
out of the master bedroom and turned left into the bathroom/laundry of the
small flat, blinking as he turned on the light and stepped into the room.
Putting the clothes that he'd gathered down onto the washing machine he
stripped, taking another look at the watch face as he did so.

"Ok, class at nine, takes me twenty five minutes walking time, twenty
minimum. It's eight thirty five now, so that means that I have about five
minutes to have a shower, get dressed and put my stuff for today in my bag.
Oh goody." Spinning the taps wildly he stepped into the water as soon as
the shimmering curtain came spluttering out of the showerhead.

The whimper of someone having a cold shower on a day that would have fit
well into winter is not the most pleasant sound in the world. If, however,
you have about two minutes to shower and the water heater takes three
minutes to get going, at least it wakes you up.

Stepping out of the water as it had just started warming up, the young man
grabbed a nearby towel and quickly rubbed himself down, getting rid of the
water that was sitting on his skin. Scrubbing his short hair quickly, he
tried to get most of the water out of there as soon as possible. He looked
into the small mirror on the bathroom cabinet and nearly laughed out loud.
His browny blonde hair was standing straight up, sticking out at all
angles. Grabbing a nearby, much-used brush he attempted to make it sit
flat. Looking into his own blue eyes for a second and noting that he really
should have a shave he murmured softly, "I really shouldn't have gone out
last night."

Grinning to himself, remembering last night, Michael--known to most as Mike
or Mick--laughed softly as he continued to brush his hair into submission.
"But what would life be without a little fun every now and then?" Looking
at his body in the mirror he was mildly dismayed at the small gut that
still refused to die. As he pulled his shirt on he glanced at the time
again, and nearly freaked. "Damn! I have to stop piss farting around!"
Grabbing up the jeans, he was about to put them on when something struck
his nose. The delicate smell of beer. The type of smell one does not want
to be arriving to class with ingrained in one's pants.

Throwing the jeans into the fairly large "to-be-washed" pile underneath the
ironing board and remembering now that Paul had wrung a beer-filled sponge
out over his leg last night, Mike went in search of another pair of jeans.
Not finding anything viable left in his wardrobe, he turned to the small
pile of clothes next to it. These clothes had been a "present" from his
mother, the type of present you get when you leave home and conveniently
forget to take all of your old clothes with you. At least there was a pair
of jeans in it. Pulling the faded pair of blue jeans out of the pile and
glancing briefly at the mirrored side of the wardrobe door that was resting
on the floor on the other side of the wardrobe, Mike noted the writing on
the inside of the jeans.

'Michael John Ricketts, Year Eight, DDHS.' along with his address and phone
number at the time. A big believer in labelling things so as not to lose
them, his mother had written on them all the information that anyone could
ever possibly need to return them. "Year eight, eh? Only seven and a half
years ago now. Should still fit." Quickly opening them, he pulled the denim
up over his legs and zipped them up. Staring in the mirror, and looking at
what appeared to be a new layer of blue skin, he muttered to himself in a
tight voice, "Ooookay, so maybe they're a little smaller than last time I
wore them." Looking at his watch, and seeing the time--eight forty--he
decided against looking for any other, perhaps slightly bigger, pairs of
pants. As it was, he was going to be late; any more time lost and he was
going to be really late.

Quickly pulling on a pair of socks and his latest pair of sneakers, he
raced out into the main room of the apartment, grabbing his bag, workpad
and Walkman. Putting those into the yellow canvas backpack that had been
with him since his first year of school, he tugged the small buckles closed
and sighed. The bag was on its last legs and wasn't going to be around for
much longer. Slipping the rimless glasses that he wore on, he took a quick
look out of the window, dreading what the unseasonal cold meant he might
see.

Sure enough, dark grey storm clouds greeted his vision. The storm that had
been building for the last few days was here. What a storm was doing
showing up in October, Mike wasn't sure, but he blamed El Nino. Of course,
the great thing was that El Nino could be blamed for all sorts of things,
from unseasonal weather to where the last beer in the fridge at a party had
disappeared to. A sudden preview of the next few minutes flashed before his
eyes, showing a definite vision of him getting drenched on the way to
University if he didn't take a raincoat. Racing back into the bedroom he
grabbed the massive overcoat that was hanging on one side of the wardrobe.

Walking swiftly to the door, he switched the Walkman on and slipped the
earpieces into his ears. Opening his door, he swung the backpack onto his
back and stepped out into the slight drizzle that had sprung up. Listening
to the sounds of Triple J, the national "youth station", thanking his
foresight in getting out his jacket, and still wondering why the storm had
chosen today to appear, he started on the twenty five minute walk to
University.


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


[October 7, 1999]


In Nerima--or at least a Nerima, Kasumi Tendo walked upstairs to see why
Akane and Ranma hadn't come down. The answer was really fairly obvious.

They weren't there.

"Oh, my. I hope they didn't find another of those reality chains. That
makes them both so cranky..."


******


In a universe close, but not quite next door, one Ryoko was getting very
very upset.

This wasn't unusual, since she had a talent for getting upset rivaled only
by her, well, rival, Ayeka.

This time, the reason wasn't the rival.

"Come on, hasn't ANYONE seen Mom?"


******


[Georgia]


In a universe rather unlike any of these, things were getting out of hand.
Well, in the opinion of a casual fanfiction writer named Robert Haynie
(Although for reasons that will not be explained at the moment, most of his
readers were apt to refer to him as Kenko) they had gone past out of hand
and were sinking rapidly.

"Please! I don't speak Japanese hardly at all! I don't know what happened!"

The taller redhead was yelling at him. The shorter was playing with
something that looked uncomfortably high tech. And he was hoping to HELL
that the dark haired one wasn't planning to try to cook anything.

Short redhead said something in a language that definitely was not
Japanese, and if Kenko was right, probably wasn't human.

"Look, I really really don't understand..."

It wasn't easy to keep his eyes where he really wanted to keep them--which
was anywhere but the three girls. Dark hair was in pajamas, so was Short
Red, and Taller red--although still short--was in a close to transparent
blue teddy. Kenko knew--just knew--that not looking at her was a very good
idea.

Especially as he was also beginning to suspect that the stupid pencil was
behind it all.

He glared at it, partly from frustration, and mostly because glaring at it
kept him from staring at Taller Red. And don't think for a moment he didn't
know exactly who they were. All three. He just wasn't in the mood to admit
it to himself, or the universe at large.

Because it was just plain not possible. Hell, this was a plotline he'd
never even consider writing. Too much like one of those bad SI things or
one of those idiotic revengefics or something like that.

"Ah, that's better. Here, you'll want one too."

Kenko finally said something that the two Japanese speakers understood.
Unfortunately, it was a string of very dirty words interspersed with cries
of pain and a screamed "What did you do THAT for!?"

"I don't want the translator to get easily lost, of course. As an earring,
it's relatively safe."

"Yeah, well, I don't have pierced ears! Until now! That HURT!"

"Look, all I want to know is how I got here, and how Akane got here, and
how we get back--OW! Hey, kid, what was THAT for--I do not believe it."
Ranma--and Kenko somehow instinctively KNEW it was the Ranma from his Girl
Days cycle, otherwise no WAY would he--or she--be wearing that outfit,
froze at the sight of the third, as yet unnamed person.

"Not kid. Washuu-chan, if you please."

"But...but you're an anime character..."

"I was about to say the same thing. A favorite of Tenchi's I might add.
Although the outfit does seem somewhat...inconsistent," Washuu-chan
half-leered.

Akane, who'd had the good fortune to already have had an ear pierced,
looked about, and asked, "All right...now we can talk, right? So, where are
we anyhow? And who is this guy?"

Said guy was carefully tracing a picture of a bathrobe. Three times. And
hoping desparately this would work. So that he'd stay relatively unbeaten
on.


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


[Australia]
[October 6]


Edging himself forward, Michael slowly and silently cracked open one side
of the double doors, straining to hear if the lecturer had started yet. At
seven minutes past the hour it was a pretty sure thing, but you never could
be sure--people could get delayed, equipment could play up...just because
this was one of the better campuses available was no reason for difference.
Hearing the slightly strained drawl issuing from within, he cursed
silently. No such luck today, and, even worse, this lecture theatre had no
back door--making a discrete entrance impossible.

Resigned to his fate, he quickly opened the door and slipped inside. The
lecturer paused for a moment, then continued. Probably going to be asking
me all of the questions in the practical now. Mike sighed to himself as he
took a seat close to the door. Quickly placing his bag on the bench in
front of himself and opening it, he took out the thick, five-subject
workpad that served as his means of taking notes. Sparing the time for a
fast look around the room as his hand reached in to get a writing utensil,
he looked for one face in particular. As soon as he was sure that Paul
hadn't shown up to class a broad grin spread across his face.

His reaching hand groped around in the bag, but, after a few seconds of not
finding what he was feeling for, he looked into it. The Walkman, a Mars Bar
wrapper, some receipts, a small notepad and two textbooks stared back at
him. No pencil case. Bugger. Sighing in the realization that he couldn't
take notes, he settled back into his chair, putting his bag on the ground
beside him. He stretched, looking at where the lecturer was talking, hoping
that this particular lecture wouldn't be that important.


******


Nearly 2 hours and one lecture later, Mike looked longingly at the door.
Although he'd tried to keep himself on the task at hand, his mind had
wandered after a half an hour or so.

It was amazing how much stuff a bored mind could touch on. He'd found
himself thinking about nearly anything, from what to reveal to the readers
next in Mirror, Mirror to possible reasons why he was still single.
Actually the possible reasons were quickly narrowed down to one. While he
went out often enough and got together regularly each Friday night, it was
always with the same group, three other bachelors and two couples. No
single women. He had just resolved--as he had at least a hundred times
before--to find another group of people to hang around (preferably with a
few single women this time) when he was startled to hear the sounds of
students closing various textbooks and workpads.

Switching his attention quickly to the front of the lecture theatre, he saw
the lecturer had turned the projector off and was collecting his slides.
Poor old guy, still wasn't used to the fact that he could prepare the
entire lecture in PowerPoint and bring a single disk to the lecture hall.
Well, either that or he simply liked slides better. Shrugging to himself
and wondering briefly which it was, Mike picked up his unused workpad and
dropped it off the bench into the still open bag. Buckling the two straps
on the canvas bag closed he was just about to pick it up when something
caught his eye.

A golden glint winked at him from under one side of the bag. It drew his
eye as he looked at it, encouraging him to move the bag aside, pick it up,
look at whatever was making it and then horde that item for the rest of his
life. Feeling much like a human magpie--imagine, attraction to shiny
glitter--the young man reached down and tugged the bag to one side.

"What the..." He stared down at what had been revealed. A mechanical
pencil. A nice, usable, red-with-golden-highlights, click-and-write pencil.
He quickly picked it up and, as most people would, clicked the end,
watching as the lead popped out of the nozzle. Shaking it gently he
listened to the leads inside rattle. The damn thing was full!

Michael quickly looked around. Who owned this thing? The golden highlights
indicated that it might be expensive. The few people left in the lecture
hall were quickly heading towards the exit. He glanced up a few rows, left
and right. Nope, no one was looking for anything; it was just the typical
end of lecture shuffle.

"Heh. Mine!" Applying the old golden rule: Finders Keepers, Mike slipped
the pencil into a pocket and picked up his bag, slipping it onto his
shoulder. Walking towards the double doors that made up both the entrance
and exit to the lecture theatre, he shook his head. If only he'd found that
at the start of the lecture, then he could have actually taken notes. Or at
the very least, doodled while he was supposed to be taking notes. His blue
eyes glinted mischievously as he grinned.

Trudging off to the required practical and dodging the rain droplets that
were still coming down, the young man wondered why he'd felt the urge to
trace something. After all, since he hadn't traced--or seriously
drawn--anything in years, it'd be a pretty pointless exercise.


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


[Mexico City, Mexico]
[October 5, 1999]


Meet the ITESM, the Technological Institute of Advanced Studies of
Monterrey, more commonly known as "the Tec," for short. A place where
electronics laboratories were paces away from photography workshops; where
psychologists and industrial engineers worked side by side; where the
youngest high-school freshmen made everlasting friendships with senior
college students. A homey university, where almost everyone you meet could
be your best friend, and where technology met art in its most sublime form.

It had a pretty good cafeteria, too.

In such a place, even extraordinary events were considered usual fare.
Students running, left and right, trying to catch up with the frantic
advances in their courses. Accountants trying to figure out how much that
new building was going to cost. Teachers damning everything to hell as
their brand new laptops decided to implode and take months of quizzes and
exams with them. Otaku shrieking at the announcement of new showings from
the local anime clubs. All this and more was daily occurrence at the Tec.

However, to see a young Asian woman jump out of a drawing was NOT daily
occurrence, and even less to see such a thing originating from a drawing
made by one of your classmates.

During Linear Algebra, at that.

All of a sudden, thirty-six pairs of eyes were focused on the newest
addition to their class, paying no attention to the piece of paper behind
her which, for some reason, seemed to be ablaze with crimson flames. The
girl herself would have attracted a great deal of attention even if she
hadn't appeared out of nowhere, though. She was young, no older than 21,
and had a mane of scarlet hair that was slowly fading into a more
believable auburn. She was about five feet and five inches tall, and her
figure--despite being hidden underneath a long-sleeved white blouse and
dark blue trousers--was already making the few females in the class simmer
with jealousy (the males' reaction, thankfully, still consisted of staring
at her in shock while their brains tried to figure out what was happening.)
Her face, though bright and clear, betrayed her heritage; those with
clearer minds in the class identified her as Japanese.

But her eyes, which were the color of the midnight sea, revealed that she
was as surprised to be here as everyone else was about seeing her. Perhaps
even as surprised as the young man that sat at the desk behind her, on
whose notepad the blazing sheet of paper lay.

"Na...nanda?" she stammered, her eyes looking around frantically. "Koko
wa...Ra-Raeru-chan? Ome wa doko da?"

As her questions received no reply, she headed for the small balcony at the
back of the classroom. The shock of the students quickly became catatonia
when they saw a bright white aura explode from her body. Most of them just
signed off from reality when she flew out the window, with all the calm of
a shooting star on amphetamines.

After two or three minutes of silence, the teacher cleared his throat, and
said, with the voice of a chihuahua that hasn't seen a toilet in years,
"So, um, anyone want to come to the front and solve this example?"

Needless to say, the students were *not* of the mind of solving any partial
derivatives for the rest of the day. Or the rest of the semester, for that
matter. What they had seen today would not be easily forgotten.

There was one student who would not forget this occurrance at all, though.
Namely, the one from whose drawing the girl had sprouted. As the remainder
of the class toiled on (at least, as the teacher did,) he kept staring down
at his notebook, wondering what in the world had just happened...

And why was the picture itself colored red?

At last, the class ended. Still at a loss for words, the young man
collected what was left of his wits and left the classroom, trying to
remember what he might have done to cause this..."event" to happen...


[Two days earlier]


It was Sunday night, and a light drizzle bathed the concrete jungle of
Mexico City. People scurried to and fro, already looking for shelter from
the downpour that was sure to come. To Jorge Pratt, though, rain was always
welcome.

Better known by his Internet colleagues as Zef, for Zephyr, he stood out in
the crowd only because he was the only one not fleeing from the rain. He
was average in height and build, though somewhat athletic thanks to the
Taijiquan training he received at school. Seawater-green eyes peered out
from beneath thick eyebrows, which gave him the appearance of a cat.
Dressed in what he called his "uniform," namely black trousers and a
navy-blue collarless shirt, he also carried a long brown box, which was
slung over his shoulder by means of a makeshift strap.

It's not that he *wanted* to catch a cold. It was just that he had always
liked rain. That helped put a smile on his face as he walked towards the
bus stop. Yes, he *could* have taken a car, but with the traffic and
gridlock that just a little shower could create in Mexico City, he
preferred not to be the one at the wheel.

As he waited for the bus to arrive, he noticed that the drizzle had slowly
grown into a more menacing rainstorm. Shrugging, he decided that maybe he
should wait inside one of the stores along the street --it's one thing to
appreciate the cool sensation of a frail curtain of water falling on your
face, but to be pounded by raindrops the size of ping-pong balls is quite
another.

Drenched, Zef walked into a nearby shop, named "Lumen." It was rather
large, and it specialized in art materials. There were many families there;
he guessed they were making last-minute shopping for their children's
school stuffs, even though classes had started a month earlier. There were
also people browsing through the square-meter paper catalogues, or gawking
at the computer displays.

Seeing that it would take quite a while for the storm to calm down, Zef
thought that it was as good a time as any to catch up on the fanart he was
supposedly going to put up on his webpage--when he finally got around to
subscribing to another provider, that is. While he thought about what to
work on this time, he looked around for the pen and pencil counter, at the
same time looking for how much change he had left in his pockets. He
finally came up with the equivalent of three dollars when he found the
counter.

Looking over the selection, he quickly picked a regular pencil, a black
pen, and a unique mechanical pencil, colored red with gold inlays. He was
surprised at the price: roughly the equivalent of fifty American cents.
Taking the items, he also bought a pair of simple bond paper sheets and a
clear plastic board, then headed outside.

Waiting for the rain to die down, Zef remained beneath the store's awning
as he got ready to draw. He placed one of the sheets on the plastic board
and tapped on it with the wooden pencil as he tried to think of what
picture to make. Usually, he would take a used sheet of paper to draw the
rough sketch, with which he would work until he thought the picture was
finished. Then he would retrace it on the same sheet with black ink, and
finally, when all the details were ready, he would trace the entire picture
on a clean sheet, preferably using sharpened pencils so that the sketch's
rough lines could be translated into traces void of smudges or eraser
marks.

He finally set to work, inspired by a scene from his own fanfiction series.
It was a picture of Ranko Saotome, the main protagonist of his Song of the
Phoenix saga, and the main villain, a demon named Dyspherum. They were in
different poses, as if unaware of each other, yet with their hands clasped
together.

"I really have to work more on that story..." he thought. "Here I'm making
pictures of Dyspherum already and I haven't even written her into the plot
yet..." But those thoughts were quickly put aside as he continued to draw.
He was surprised at the ease with which the picture appeared on the paper,
especially the subjects' faces--then again, both characters were supposed
to be identical to each other save one thing: where he would carefully
shade Ranko's eyes, he only had to draw Dyspherum's as dark voids.

Nevertheless, although the faces were easily drawn, the shape of
Dyspherum's body eluded him. Ranko's had turned out exactly like he had
wanted it, but the posture of the demon's body was difficult to work with.
The feet were somewhat out of proportion, as were the arms in relation with
the legs.

After several more attempts, and a couple of accidents with the pencil's
eraser, he decided to give it a rest. Realizing that the rain had
diminished enough, Zef quickly retraced Ranko with the black pen, then
placed both sheets of paper underneath the board to protect them from the
remaining raindrops. Afterwards, he headed back to the street and was
pleased to find the bus already waiting at its stop.

He continued to try to fix Dyspherum's picture during the bus ride, but for
some reason, whenever he changed one thing, another, more glaring mistake
appeared. Then the eraser at the end of the regular pencil ran out.
Sighing, Zef took out the mechanical pencil he had just bought and turned
it around, so that its eraser could continue the job. The instrument was
barely half an inch away from the picture when he stopped.

He looked at the picture of Ranko, already finished and waiting to be
traced into its final form, and then at Dyspherum's, with a hand and a wing
missing but otherwise passable--not as good as Ranko's but not bad enough
to demand immediate correction. He shrugged and decided to conclude his
work with his favorite redhead before doing any more sketching on
Dyspherum.

Cautiously, thankful that there were no speedbumps or potholes in the bus'
path, Zef traced Ranko's picture on the clean sheet. The black ink was
strong enough to be seen easily through the paper, so the final draft was
quickly becoming a perfect duplicate of the original. Still, the mistakes
made on Dyspherum still nagged at him. Soon, even though Ranko was only
halfway completed, he ended up going back to the demon's picture.

It was then that he was rudely introduced to the popular concept known as
Murphy's Law.

Just as he was beginning to place the lead of the pencil upon the sketch,
the bus blew a tire, stopping abruptly and causing him to forcefully lurch
forward. The pencil stabbed at the sketch, Zef's body pressing against the
end that held the eraser and making the lead pop back into the barrel--not
to mention, causing Zef to curse slightly in pain. But as the momentum
continued to push him and the pencil forward, the metal barrel scratched
against the sheet, tearing away nearly a centimeter of paper right where
Dyspherum's missing hand would have been.

When Zef noticed what had happened, he frowned and swore, "Oh, damn..."
With a sigh, he shook his head and folded the paper in half, then split the
damaged part, which still had Dyspherum's picture, from the one containing
Ranko's. The half that was unscathed was still good enough to deserve
saving, and he could always draw Dyspherum independently and trace her on
the clean sheet afterwards.

Crumpling the torn half of the sheet into a ball, Zef came down from the
crippled bus and tossed the garbage into a nearby bin. Fortunately, the
vehicle had stopped just behind the other bus that could take him home; Zef
climbed aboard and sighed again.

Next time, no more drawing while on the bus, he thought to himself.

And the paper in the garbage basket suddenly started to shake.


******


It was Tuesday, which meant that there was a Linear Algebra class today.

Zef sat at his desk, oblivious to the teacher as he continued to spout
subjects already covered by earlier courses. At least that was a good thing
about Linear Al: since you had already been through it thanks to other
classes, there was plenty of time to work on things other than math.

Numerical Methods and Linear Algebra was Zef's equivalent of an Art class.

Even though he was already taking a Painting workshop at the Tec, Zef knew
most of his best drawings and sketches, which he would often translate into
pastels and charcoal paintings at said workshop, were done in classes like
Physics and Math. And ever since Sunday, he had had this strongest urge to
finish that picture of Ranko he had been working on...


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


[Central California]
[October 6, 1999]


A boy in his mid-teens was browsing through an art supplies shop. To most,
he was the otaku and fanfic writer known as Demented Otaku. Unlike most of
the other occupants of the store, he couldn't draw anything other than a
little SD scientist guy he made up.

A slight flash caught his eye. Having a weakness for shiny objects, he
turned towards the source of light. They happened to come from a group of
ordinary looking mechanical pencils.

Preferring ordinary wood pencils, he would have simply left the shop, but
since it was a shiny object, he decided to purchase it. Demented Otaku, or
"Demota" for short, picked up a green one and took it to the register.

"Fifty cents." The clerk said.

"Fifty cents for a pencil?" Demota asked. He was a bit of a miser since he
was low on cash most of the time, and decided to try out bargaining since
it always worked in the movies. He would soon learn that it didn't work
that way.

"How much do you want it for then?"

"Ten."

"Kid, it's just a pencil."

"Exactly. So it shouldn't matter how much I get it for."

Since the clerk was having a rough day, he decided to play along. "Twenty,
but that's the lowest I'm going."

"Twenty?"

"Yes. Twenty."

Twenty cents seemed reasonable for a mechanical pencil. Unfortunately, the
disgruntled clerk had something else in mind. Demota handed over a quarter
to cover the price, unprepared for the treachery at hand.

"You're about nineteen dollars and seventy five cents short."

"WHAAAT?"

"We agreed on a price. Twenty."

"But...but..." The teen was at a loss for words. He was about to refuse
buying the pencil, when a ray of light hit the green barrel of the shiny,
smooth, glittering surface, causing it to sparkle. It was so shiny...

That was the last thing he remembered before he found himself outside the
store with a green mechanical pencil, and twenty dollars gone from his
wallet. He mentally kicked himself. "Damn. I coulda bought a video for that
much." He decided to simply head home and make the best of the situation.
Besides, mechanical pencils were a rarity in his household. Demota was sure
that he could at least learn to become a better artist with a mechanical
one. Besides, just by holding this shiny wonder, he felt like a better
artist already! The Demented Otaku decided to head home.


******


"Tadaima!" He shouted upon opening the door. In response, a small grey cat
walked up to him, the only other living thing in the house at the time,
since his parents were visiting relatives in Taiwan because of the
earthquake, and his sister was at the house of one of her friends. Demota
kneeled down to the cat. "Oh well." He said. "Guess it's just you here,
Natsu-chan."

Natsu the cat replied with a soft "Myuu!". Looking at the clock, her owner
simply petted the grey cat a bit and filled her food dish, before going up
to his room. For some reason, he felt more confident in his artistic
ability just by holding the pencil! He felt more sure of himself.

He felt like tracing something.

Demota looked around his room for something to trace. His room was a bit
odd, however. Printed anime fanfics lay on the floor. Posters covered most
of the wall. A gigantic wallscroll of Ranma and Akane in wedding clothes
was on the largest wall, what he considered the best decorative piece in
his room. Anime videos filled up several shelves in his bookcase. On his
bedside table were his plans for world domination. Just some bizzare
things, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Out of ideas, he started
reading over his MSTs, trying to find some inspiration there. Kerrigan,
Washuu, Belldandy, and himself composed his MSTing team.

Perhaps there would be a good place to start! Except for Kerrigan. She
seemed a bit too grim for him to do much with for the moment.

He chose an Aa! Megami-sama! poster, and a rather maniacal looking picture
of Washuu he had printed a long time ago. Just for the heck of it, he threw
in a printing of Takeshi and Kasumi of Pocket Monsters at a picnic table as
well. Having no tracing paper of his own, he decided to swipe some from his
sister's room. "I'm sure Felicia won't mind." He said to nobody in
particular, as he usually did. "Her ability is far beyond tracing now."
After a little thought, he took the entire pad.

Soon, Demota set his latest attempt for artistic competence into action. As
he traced, the green pencil seemed to leave a shimmering line where the
lead was. When he was done, he stood to admire his handiwork. "Well, at
least it's better than my other ones. Hmm....that's weird." The pencil
lines were now beginning to glow. Deciding to ignore it and hope it would
go away, he turned around and started to walk out of the room. He stopped
instantly when he heard a sound. Kinda like TV static, then slowly fading
into clarity. He turned around, wondering what the hell was going on.
There, in front of him, was a curious and somewhat surprised redhead with
crab-like hair, a very confused woman with strange markings on her face, a
dark skinned boy with a lechereous expression that was currently staring at
the woman with the face markings, and a girl of about thrirteen that looked
completely shocked.

Demota, completely panicked and confused, did the only thing he could do
faced with such circumstances. He ran like hell.

Of course, that was before he slammed into the wall and knocked himself
out. He fell onto his side, his hands automatically going into the
Takahashi pose that had seared itself into his brain from his constant
exposure to anime. Of course, falling on his side automatically meant
falling down the stairs.

*thud*

*thud*

*thud*

*THWACK!*


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


[Australia]


"Hey, John," Mike nodded in greeting to the other man, "can I catch a lift
home with you?"

The practical--as much fun as a practical in LISP can be--was finally over,
and the quickest, easiest way to get home would be to find someone with a
car that would be passing close by his neighbourhood. John Stallo, a close
friend and fellow student, fit the bill nicely. John was first generation
Australian, his parents had moved there from Italy just before he had been
born, a little over two decades ago now. His thin frame and thick black
hair showed his genetic heritage quite well. Shrugging to himself, and
adjusting his gold-framed glasses, John nodded quickly as he logged out of
his workstation.

The two exited the Computer Science building, watching the gathering clouds
and making small talk as they walked. "So, where're you parked today?" Mike
asked as they started to walk down the steps of building 314. On a campus
that was almost bigger than Mike's hometown, parking was getting fairly
scarce. The number of parking permits issued per year far outweighed the
actual number of parking bays, in this case by a factor of almost three
permits to one bay. The fact that they were walking down the steps--as
opposed to taking the side passage to the nearby parking--narrowed it to
two choices, the parking opposite them and...

"The Gravel Pit." John raised an eyebrow as he smiled, somewhat
sardonically. "I got here at nine on the dot. You know there aren't any
decent parking spots left by then." The slightest hint of Italian in his
accent revealed itself as he hit a few key syllables. John, curse his hide,
had travelled back to Italy on the Christmas holidays, to visit relatives
that hadn't followed his immediate family over here. The fact that he'd
been able to speak fluent Italian had probably gotten him halfway there,
while the most that Mike could remember--from lessons way back in primary
school now--were the words to "Happy Birthday".

'The Gravel Pit' was the affectionate name that the students had bestowed
upon this year's new parking bays, due to the fact that they were, as yet,
unpaved. Added to help deal with the ever expanding student population,
they were located at the very end of the campus--about a ten minute walk
from where the two were now.

Michael grimaced; that was almost as bad as walking home. Sighing quietly
to himself he asked, "So, how's your car going? Got rid of that yellow
sticker yet?" Almost as bad as walking home, but not quite. The campus
grounds were relatively flat, unlike his usual trek; added to that was the
additional bonus that he'd have someone to talk to for awhile.

John nodded again, "Yep, on Monday."

Silence reigned for a few moments as they passed through two of the
engineering buildings, watching as the normal life of the campus continued
around them. On the engineering bulletin board, a lonely green photocopied
sheet proclaimed the fact that the annual engineering and nursing ball
would take place sometime in the next three weeks. Making a note of the
date for future reference, Mike quickened his step as he realised that he'd
fallen slightly behind his taller companion.

"So? How much was the final bill?" The sticker had been a major point of
conversation for the last week or so; if the bill had been too high, John
would have scrapped his car, depriving all three--John, Paul and Mike--of
convenient transport.

"About five hundred. Give or take," John paused for a second, glancing at
the engineering cafe, "But, at least now I have a road worthy car."

That was true; John's car had been spluttering along for the past few
months now. Before he'd gotten the sticker, it was somewhat of a minor
miracle if the thing started in the morning. It had improved over the last
week as John had fixed things in readiness for the coming inspection. Now
the engine was, while not purring, at least not choking any more.

As they moved fairly swiftly down the outside avenue, eyeing the still grey
sky warily, they walked in silence past the next few buildings--the English
and Arts block. Not surprisingly, nobody was outside today, sketching or
practicing for a play, reminding them even more of the fact that the sky
looked ready to open up at any moment. Turning the corner and watching as
the Pit approached, John asked, "Are you going to play soccer on Friday?"

Mike nodded, while following John through the first few rows of cars, "Yep,
wouldn't miss it for the world." Catching sight of the upcoming olive green
exterior with the slight hint of rust that was John's car, he turned
towards it. Soccer was one of the best things about Uni, especially when
your supervising lecturer played the same game. Illegal tackles were not
entirely unheard of, and the occasional good play would be rewarded with
yells of 'That's an extra ten percent'. Mike smiled again. Yep, no way was
he missing Soccer on Friday; it was way too much fun.

John laughed briefly. "Do you think Paul will be there?"

"Heh." Paul still hadn't shown up, and after what he'd drunk last night it
wasn't really surprising. But then again, Mike couldn't really talk; after
all, he'd missed class once or twice for similar reasons. "Yeah, you know
him, doesn't miss a game." They were still smiling as the first spots of
rain hit the ground around them. A brief glance was all it took to convince
them to run the last few meters. Just before they reached the car, the
clouds above them opened up to divulge the rain that they'd been holding
for the last few hours.

As he stopped at his car, John reached into his bag withdrew his keys.
Fumbling a little in his haste to get out of the rain, he unlocked the
driver's side door and slid in behind the wheel. Reaching across he swiftly
unlocked the passenger's door, allowing the other young man to open the
door and clamber in. Michael shook himself briefly trying to get rid of as
much water as possible before getting in. To John's dismay, it went all
over the inside of the car instead.

"Hey, hey! Watch it there!" John mock-glared at the other occupant,
probably a little annoyed at the slight mess. Glancing at the water, an
apologetic shrug was the only way that Mike could answer.

Quickly closing the door behind himself, Mike wiped the rain from his coat,
trying to make less mess this time. Waiting as John threw his bag onto the
back seat, he hugged his own bag to his legs. Staring out at the large
amount of water that was running down the windscreen and the huge droplets
that were splashing off the bonnet and ground around them, Mike gave silent
thanks that he wasn't walking home in it, coat or no.

"What is with this weather?" Michael asked somewhat rhetorically, as John
started the car. Looking out at the unseasonal rain, John just shrugged and
then started to maneuver his way out of the impromptu car park.


******


Shaking the last drops off his coat as he stepped into his apartment, Mike
quickly closed the door behind him, locking it as a matter of course.
Glancing to the left of the doorway, into the sink of his small kitchen, he
sighed as he realised that he'd probably have to do something about the
number of dishes that were piling up. Nodding to himself, he admitted that
maybe, just maybe, "the leaning tower of plates" was not a good thing to be
building up. Again. Determined to do something about it, he opened the
cupboards under the sink, looking for the washing detergent and, of course,
finding none.

Sighing to himself and remembering now that he'd used the last of it last
time he'd washed up, Michael glanced out the kitchen window into the still
pouring rain. A trip to the corner shop was definitely in order. He watched
as a duck sought shelter under the slight coverage of a peppermint tree,
trying its hardest to disappear into the foliage. He stared; the rain
appeared to fall sideways as the wind picked up. But not right now, he
amended.

Deciding that out of...respect for the monumental effort that had gone into
the building of the tower--that architectural style, those graceful arches
of plate and bowl, the exquisite gilding of knife, fork and spoon, that
bloody weather--he'd gracefully forgo walking to the shops at this time.
Shrugging and promising to do it some time soon, he trudged in through the
kitchen area into the dining/main room behind it, where his computer lived.

Mike's computer never complained, blew up or decided not to work. It never
needed cleaning, other than the odd dusting, never needed any preparation
to start and hadn't actually attacked him yet--unlike the wardrobe. To put
it simply; Mike's computer was a Thing of Wonder (tm) in his Apartment from
Hell (tm). Switching it on, he watched as the blank neon glow gave way to
his start up screen--an animated Eva start-up picture--and eventually
dumped him into the familiar Windows desktop, which was also covered in an
Evangelion pic, featuring all three distinct Evas.

"Okay, let's see what's new." Nodding slightly to himself, and frowning as
the brown of his fringe showed briefly in his line of vision, Mike reached
past the monitor to his modem, switching it on and watching as the lights
flickered to life. Hitting a short cut to his net connection and waiting
while the newly activated piece of hardware dialed, he looked briefly over
the desk that his computer was sitting on top of.

The cover of Live's "Throwing Copper" reminded the young man what was
currently sitting in his CD drive. Popping the tray open for a second, then
closing it, he was content to wait for the player software to pick it up.
Several paper printouts were littered on various parts of the desk, most of
which showed parts of C code. Additional scribbles in the columns and free
space detailed exactly what a bored mind had thought about an assignment
that basically had been "translate Pascal to C" and the lecturer that had
given it. Most of them were quite descriptive, with insults levelled at all
things from his ancestry to what would happen if the scribbler ever chanced
upon him with a chainsaw at night.

Opening his mailer as soon as the modem finished its mating call, Mike
waited for his waiting messages to download, sorting them as they arrived.

"Crap. Delete. Save. Spam. Delete. Delete. Really delete. Save. Save. Read
now." Seeing a message from a friend, Mike opened it to find several screen
shots of a game that he'd never heard of before. Money Idol Exchanger, eh?
The pics showed several shots of what appeared to be some sort of puzzle
game. The background of each playing zone held a picture of an overly
exaggerated 'magical girl'. Above them were the words 'ain't they CUTE?'
Trust Nick. The guy was obsessed with the Neo-Geo, so these were probably
screenshots from there.

Sighing, and quickly deciding what he'd say back to that, Mike copied the
mail across into another folder. Popping open another window he typed in
the brief response: "You're a freak, know that, Nick? ^_^" hit send and
returned to his browsing.

He opened yet another mail from Nick, this time with a picture of two Fatal
Fury characters and another comment. 'Noooooooooo! How can she marry anyone
but me! ^_^ Found this at a site dedicated to the FF/KOF games. Remember
what happens when Mai and Andy come out together in '97? Check her feet.
^_^' Nick had included a link to the site at the end of the message, even
though both he and Mike had been there before.

The scene featured Mai Shiranui and Andy Bogard...well mainly the backs of
Mai Shiranui and Andy Bogard, anyway. The viewer was looking straight down
the aisle of a church, slightly elevated so that they could see over the
respective shoulders of Andy and Mai to the priest waiting at the end. It
seemed that Mai had broken the tradition of the bride and groom entering at
separate times, and was in fact clinging to Andy's arm as they both walked
towards their union.

They were half facing each other as they walked; their facial expressions
could be clearly made out from the viewer's perspective. Mai, walking on
the left, had a broad grin on what could be seen of her face, clearly
enjoying the proceedings. Andy, on the other hand, had an expression of
what could only be complete nervousness on his face. A little cliche to be
sure, but perfectly acceptable overall.

Andy was dressed in the stock standard black tux, complete with white
collar and polished leather shoes.

Mai was in a fairly demure white dress, which covered her entire back,
except for a small portion at the bottom. The hem of the dress was slightly
hitched to one side, allowing a glimpse of one shoe. It seemed that the
artist had seen the games and had neglected the bridal train to show off
something that would amuse most of the players. Mai was not wearing white
heels, or anything that one would expect under a bridal dress. Instead she
was wearing the soft red boots that she fought in.

Mike snorted in amusement. King of Fighters '97 had been a great game, and
while he hadn't really had the opportunity to check out whether '98 or '99
did the same, he still thought it was pretty funny. If Mai and Andy fought
against each other in the game, Mai would appear before the match in a
wedding dress, throw the bouquet at Andy and the quickly spin the dress off
and start the fight.

"Heh, good one." Michael rubbed an itch above his left eyebrow and shifted
his position about on the seat as he looked at the picture. Just as he'd
settled into his new position--legs stretched out in front of him and
shoulders resting comfortably against the headrest of the chair--he was
stabbed in the right leg. "What the hell?"

Reaching into the offending pocket, he pulled out the now almost forgotten
mechanical pencil. "Damn! How the hell did you manage to stab me?"
Remembering his legs, which had been stretched out at the time, the young
man shrugged. Sometimes weird shit just happened in this apartment--look at
the wardrobe.

Clicking the pencil once, Mike looked at the picture again. That'd be a
nice picture to have on hard copy. He blinked, looking at the pencil. He
hadn't traced anything in years! This was the perfect opportunity to
practice!

Whipping a sheet of A4 off the top of the paper pile that rested on his
computer, Mike pushed it against the monitor. Then took the time to curse
himself for being a stupid idiot. The print out on the other side of the
paper was showing through, nearly completely obscuring the picture
underneath.

Placing the page back on the top of his "recycled" paper pile, he drew a
blank sheet out of the printer paper tray. Pushing the paper against the
screen, he watched in disgust as the anti-static monitor failed to hold it
up. Mike muttered nasty things to the makers of anti-static monitors, then
reached across to his bookcase and grabbed the sticky tape. Wiping the top
of his monitor with the hand that held the tape, he noted absently the
layer of dust that rolled off the top. Putting the red pencil down, he
taped the sheet to the top of the monitor.

Leaning back, he studied his handiwork for a second. Yes, that'd do.
Picking up the pencil again, he pressed the sheet flat against the screen.
The young man quickly traced around the outer shell of the two main figures
in the picture. Sitting back, he looked at the outline.

"Hey, for someone that hasn't done this in years, that's pretty damn good."
Michael looked around the apartment. "Even if I do say so myself." He
grinned, then leaned in to fill in all of the inner details.

Outside, the unseasonal October storm that had driven most folks indoors
continued to grow.


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


[Port Arthur, Texas]
[October 7]


An obese form plopped itself down on a couch in a rather cramped bedroom,
and pondered the mysteries of life. Why did it always take Sam Goody's at
the mall two weeks to get the new anime tapes? Why did he bother shopping
there anyway, when it was easier and cheaper to purchase anime online?

And most importantly, why was the new art supply store at the mall offering
a promotional gimmick in which they were giving away high-quality
mechanical pencils, worth maybe two bucks a pop at the most, to shoppers
with $50 worth in mall receipts?

Examining the marbled green plastic storage tube he held in one hand,
Robert Morrison, who far preferred to think of himself by his Internet
nickname, The Eternal Lost Lurker, sighed. Ah well, a free gift is a free
gift.

Switching on his computer, he decided to take a better look at his new
possession while he waited for the increasingly clunky Presario to boot up.
Opening the storage tube, he slid the pencil out, and examined it in the
faint sunlight filtering through the window behind him.

It was, he had to admit, a nice pencil. The barrel was a smooth, metallic
green, and had a sheen to it that almost made it sparkle like an emerald.
He advanced the lead a bit, and noted that, indeed, the pencil was perfect
for tracing. Idly, he reached for the small packet of tracing paper which
had come with the pencil. He tapped the pencil on the table in front of
him. Curious that he felt a sudden overwhelming urge to trace.

With the computer finally booted up, he logged in to check his e-mail. As
he waited, he cast about for something he could trace. Nothing within
reach, he noted, but glancing at the wall scrolls hanging around the room,
he felt the urge to trace growing. He sighed. No way did he have enough
tracing paper for...

He blinked. Wait...he knew that there was a scan of one of his wall scrolls
on the Net. Launching his browser and surfing to the AniPike, he started
roaming through image galleries. It didn't take long for him to find what
he was looking for...a very nice image of Ayanami Rei, in an extremely
fanboy-friendly pose. With the image on its way to the printer, he started
surfing around a bit more, and on a whim, chose an image of Trunks, as well
as one of Pikachu.

Deciding that'd be enough to start, as his tracing skills weren't up to
snuff, he read a bit of e-mail, then logged off and cleared room on his
small table to do some tracing.

Starting simple seemed like a good idea, so he placed a sheet of paper over
the printed picture of Pikachu, and set to tracing. He was amazed at how
smoothly the job went; it took mere seconds to complete a tracing job that
normally would have taken him much longer. Finished, he inspected his work.
Not bad; the trace was perfect. After a moment's inspection, he set it
aside, and set to work on tracing Rei. The complexity of the image should
have made it more difficult to trace; instead, he found that it was as
simple as tracing Pikachu, the only difference being that it took all of
two minutes.

So engrossed was Lurker in his tracing that he did not notice the
shimmering lines of his first tracing. Nor did he notice when several
bright emerald sparks danced off the page, creating a swirling cloud of
light.

Lurker set aside the finished tracing of Rei, and began to place a sheet of
paper over the picture of Trunks. He lowered pencil to paper, and prepared
to click the lead advance, when...

"Pi..pika!? Pika Pikapi?"

Lurker froze. "What the hell was that?"

"Pi, Pikapi pika! Pika, pika pikachu pika pi?"

Lurker glanced around frantically, hand still frozen in mid-click. There,
in the chair which largely served as a repository for unwatched tapes and
discs, sat...no. It wasn't possible.

Lurker blinked, then rubbed his eyes with his free hand. It was still
there.

One foot tall. Yellow. Insufferably cute. And glancing around with a dazed
and somewhat upset expression.

Pikachu.

Faintly, he noticed the sparkling trail of light fading from his second
tracing.

And more than faintly, he felt another presence in the room.

"koko wa...doko desu ka?"

Numbly, he glanced to his left. Sitting beside him on the sofa, in the
(extremely pale) flesh...


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


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
blues 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...

And on top of that, her stomach hurt.

There was a crashing noise, and she sat up and 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 herd of plastic dinosaurs to get there. It
occurred to her that her stomach was suddenly feeling much better--she must
have landed on one or more of them. She picked up the chair: 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;
fair-haired and blue-eyed, 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.

******

It is said that in this world, every one of us have doubles walking this
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 it wasn't 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 threshhold 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 set
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 conspiratorical 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 wasn't
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."

"Pro.. per.. ties?" The word rolled slowly off her tongue as 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 riffing 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.


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


[Texas]


No.

This...this wasn't possible.

And yet, there she was. Chalk-white skin. Pinkish-red, unblinking eyes.
Short, fine white hair, with a faint cyan tinge, as though someone had
poured diluted chlorine through it. Plugsuit, white with black trim,
extremely tight-fitting, leaving very little to the imagination.

"anata wa...dare ka?"

Lurker's gaze shifted from the girl sitting next to him, who should not be
there, to the mouse sitting in the chair across the room from him, which
should not be there. And back. And forth.

Four things happened in the next five seconds.

Pikachu, in a moment of panic, cut loose with a mild Thundershock, which
struck Lurker and the girl who could not possibly be sitting beside him.

Lurker's hand, still holding the pencil, stabbed violently down on the
image of Trunks before him, clicking the lead advance and stubbing the lead
back into the pencil.

A shower of green sparks erupted from the pencil tip, and a harsh green
fire spiraled out of the paper, spreading up Lurker's arm, consuming him
almost instantly.

And Lurker screamed.


******


Ayanami Rei had seen many strange things in her lifetime. Indeed, she knew
that she herself was considered by those around her--just because she never
reacted to their words, didn't mean she never heard what was said about
her--to be strange. From the bizarre underground complex known as the
Geofront, to the massive biomechanical beings called Evangelion, to the
bizarre paranormal menaces called Shito (or Angels, depending on which
branch of NERV you asked), to fourteen-year-old children being pressed into
more or less military service, she had been exposed to so much of the
unusual and extraordinary that very little fazed her.

The events of the last few minutes, however, had been enough to rattle even
the emotion-deficient Evangelion pilot.

24 hours ago, the entire power grid of Tokyo-3 had shut down, cutting off
not only the city, but also the Geofront, which had been left mysteriously
bereft of emergency power. During the outage, another Angel attack had
commenced, and even without power, the three Children had managed to get to
the Eva cages, where the Commander himself was hard at work preparing the
mecha for manual launch.

The Angel had been defeated, power had slowly been restored, and with
school called off for the day, Akagi Ritsuko had called the pilots in for
another round of synch tests. Rei had just finished suiting up...

And suddenly, she wasn't where she was supposed to be.

Instead, she was sitting on a sofa, in a small and cluttered room, next to
an overweight gaijin.

While she was trying to determine what had happened, yet another series of
bizarre events unfolded, in rather rapid succession.

The yellow...rodent, she supposed, sitting in the chair in the middle of
the room delivered some type of static electric shock to herself and the
gaijin. It was a mild shock; the polylatex construction of her plugsuit
diverted most of the current.

She still wasn't sure what had happened to the gaijin. It didn't fit the
circumstances.

The moment the shock had hit, he had a muscle spasm, and his hand struck
the table in front of him. Rei could see nothing combustible on the table,
aside from a few pieces of paper; nevertheless, a fire had started, and had
rapidly engulfed the gaijin. The flames were a bizarre shade of green; Rei
had never seen green fire before, and it was slightly disconcerting.

Not quite as disconcerting, however, as the unearthly screams of pain
coming from within the shroud of fire.

She had quickly moved away from the couch, noting after the fact that
neither the upholstery nor the carpet were catching fire.

Within seconds, the writhing form within the flames stopped screaming. Rei
assumed he had either fainted from shock and pain, or was dead. The flames
themselves were beginning to draw in on themselves, as though the fuel
feeding them was shrinking. Flesh burning away, she analyzed. A part of her
mind told her that she should be trying to do something to smother the
flames. Another part of her mind shot back that she had no idea where a
fire extinguisher might be located, or any water. Another part of her mind
was still trying to determine what was going on.

The dominant part of her mind remained impassive and neutral, and continued
to watch as the flames slowly died.

"Pika? Pi, pika pi!?" The creature in the chair chattered.

Rei blinked. There was no trace of the gaijin she had seen when she
arrived.

Instead, in the very place where he had presumably burned to a crisp, a
different gaijin slumped against the sofa. While the other one had been
overweight and dark-haired, this one was slender, lightly tanned, and had
pale hair. He also seemed a bit younger than the previous one.

Hours of drilling in NERV emergency aid procedures prompted Rei to
determine if this new arrival was alive. She confirmed a pulse, and noted
the steady rise and fall of the chest associated with normal breathing.

With that issue cleared up, Rei stepped back, and glanced at the rodent on
the chair, who seemed to be concerned, as well as confused. She glanced
back at the strange youth on the sofa.

"[what is going on here?]" she wondered.

"Pika chu," the yellow creatured offered, as though responding.

Somehow, Rei thought, that made about as much sense as anything else.


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


[Georgia]


"I don't know where the clothes came from, I was only tracing a couple of
head shots...somehow I got you here at night, I guess, and I was thinking
about my story...I still don't see how this could have happened, and I
don't know how to send you three back. I'm sorry..."

Akane found herself unable to get too angry at the obviously confused and
upset writer. It was clear that he was as much in the dark as they were,
and besides, he'd also managed to produce three robes for their much-needed
modesty--especially Ranma's. This would happen on both a Girl Day AND a
Feminine Night.

"Pointless weirdness manifesting for no good reason? Story of my life, pal.
Kinda a relief to see that I'm not the only one who suffers from it...even
when I'm still suffering. So, where'd you get a magic pencil again,
anyway?"

"Just picked it up at Esker. But it was the only one there, and it was on
sale. Fifty cents, I mean it was a bargain. But why there..."

"And we're in America?"

"Yeah. Augusta, Georgia, to be exact."

"And we're anime characters?"

"Well, you two are, ah, a variant, from a story I write, and I don't know
about Washuu-chan..."

"Story?" asked Akane.

"Um...this is rather...complex..."

"More accurately, his stories just happen to reflect a variant reality. In
a real sense, he's less a writer than a recorder. However, the manner in
which he records them is rather clever," snickered Washuu-chan, who was
reading Kenko's files.

"Thanks...so much for imagination. Hmmph."

"Not at all. You have a perfectly good imagination, Kenko-san. It's merely
that given the quantum nature of reality, every possible universe must
exist, so whatever your do write WILL exist somewhere. So, in a real sense,
you're also less a recorder than a writer. And in a third sense, you are
doing both at the same time, recording while writing a unique event."

"My head hurts," Kenko complained.

"You and me both," added Ranma. "She's worse than Lina."

"At any rate...there are other problems involved. This...pencil...gives off
a rather unusual energy reading. Part of that energy is holding us here in
his reality."

"So, we break the pencil, we go home?" Ranma asked eagerly.

"I wish it was that simple. I'm detecting thousands of similar patterns
from all across the globe. Many of which are at dangerous levels. Simply
breaking that pencil could easily strand us here permanently, in fact. At
the moment, I simply do not have enough data."

"Oh, great," Kenko said weakly, completely unaware that his right hand was
idly tracing a doodle he'd made before for a possible omake gif.

"What I suspect we'll have to do is somehow gather every pencil there is,
and contain them in a quantum flux field, to reverse the effects and set
things right. And I believe there's quite a lot wrong."

Kenko shuddered. He'd turned on the news, and had seen chaos. Now he had a
good idea why. "You said it. If there are thousands of these, and they fall
into the hands of various otaku and fanboys...or the sort who watches the
more twisted stuff, or..."

"Fortunately, you may have well made a great step in saving your world,
Kenko-san. It's because of your foresight and good taste that we can defeat
this problem."

"Um...what foresight do you mean?"

Washuu-chan smiled, her hands on her hips. "Why, ME of course! I AM after
all the GREATEST GENIUS IN THE UNIVERSE! HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!"

"Oh. Of course. How clever of me." (I'm a dead man.)

"You know, she's right. With me and Akane here, if it comes down to a
fight, the enemy won't stand a chance!" Ranma smirked. Cutely, at the
moment, but a smirk nonetheless.

"Of course." (Dead probably isn't an adequate term any more.)

For some reason, no one--not even Kenko--noticed the pencil finishing the
tracing of the doodle. But they did notice the frustrated thump of the lead
in the center of the tracing. And the green flare of the barrel.

The pencil wanted to change the user, but it couldn't. The picture wasn't a
living being. It wasn't even a person.

It was a barrel.

The nature of the pencil was to transform the user when triggered. So it
did it the best way it could.

Kenko stared as the lines flared, took on color. The barrel appeared...a
small cask, hardly two feet tall. It rose into the air. And Kenko, somehow
knowing what was going to happen, was paralyzed in fear.

"Get it away get it away get it away get it agurgle."

The scream was, to say the least, deafening.

Akane picked up the now empty barrel, and scowled. "I can't read
this...it's in Chinese."

"THAT I could have guessed," said Ranma, staring (nervously) at the less
than pleased Kenko, who was no longer screaming. SHE was too busy
whimpering.

Washuu-chan took the barrel, and fed the label into her portable
supercomputer. And then boggled.

"Spring of drowned ninja catgirl? There was a catgirl to drown? I suppose
that considering the effectively infinite levels of a quantum reality
matrix, this is an understandable possibility, but..."

"I was just sketching a barrel," Kenko whimpered. "I didn't know it had a
label on the other side..."


******

Kenko--or, if one prefers, Neko-Kenko--wasn't the typical stereotypical
anime catgirl. Those, for lack of a better term, are just girls with ears
and tails added.

Neko-Kenko, on the other hand, was definitely feline. Her (quite unwanted)
thick pelt of blue fur was contrasted by a white mane that was below her
shoulderblades. Her tail was twitching in frustration and misery, while her
short muzzle twitched. Whiskers, ears, the whole nine yards. Add a pair of
slitted ruby colored eyes, cute but definitely feline fangs, and an
expression of extreme depression. Not like the typical catgirl at all.

She wasn't pleased with her new figure or stature either. Kenko was of
average height, about 5 foot nine. Neko-Kenko was inbetween Ranma and Akane
in height (Well, Girl-type Ranma, to be technical) and build. If she wasn't
so obviously depressed, she would be alluring in an exotic fashion.
Especially since her clothes were in tatters, because when you have fur,
you find that a lot of clothing is insanely uncomfortable. After only a few
moments, she'd scratched her clothing into shreds trying to loosen it and
to free her trapped tail.

"Almost done--there! Perfect. Now, the hot water," chirped Washuu-chan,
happy in her favorite pastime--making inventions that no sane person would
even think of needing.

"AIIIIGH!"

"It doesn't have to be THAT hot, Akane," noted Ranma.

"I don't care--I'm a ME again. Well, a me in really battered clothes."

"Right. Now, try these on--I made them especially for you."

Kenko took the apparently normal pocket T and khaki slacks--much the same
as he normally wore day to day--and paused. "What's special about these?"

"Thermaquatic self-altering clothing! I've had the base theory for about
500 years, but I never thought I'd ever get an opportunity to test it! Oh,
I am so BRILLIANT!"

Uncertain, Kenko retired to the bathroom to try them on. "Hey...they fit.
So do the loafers. OK, but what do you mean by Thermaquatic whatever?" He
stepped out--to be met by a splash of cold water. SHE glared for a
moment--and then eeped.

"Brilliance! The clothing automatically alters its configuration to give
the wearer the maximum comfort for their altered form! Even the
undergarments are self-adapting, and it also automatically self-cleans AND
dries your fur! And it's stylish too!"

"If I was a member of the 3WA, maybe. But...it is comfortable, and the
close fitting parts...they aren't uncomfortable against the fur, though
they ought to be..."

Neko-Kenko's outfit was, actually, somewhat similar to that of the infamous
3WA Trouble Consultants. The shorts were slightly skimpier, the halter
also--and instead of knee high boots, instead ankle length cuffed booties
were worn, with open toes. Short wrist length fingerless gloves also graced
the hands of the catgirl. Neko-Kenko wasn't certain why they were there, or
why the choker was either. All she knew is that the outfit was a pristine
white with black trim, and that it was both comfortable on her furred
body--a good thing--and made her look like an aluerophiles' wet dream--not,
perhaps, a good thing.

Ranma was steadfastly refusing to look. "I'm sorry, but...it'll take me a
while to get used to this...creeping me out..."

"Aw, I think she's really kawaii," retorted Akane.

"Kawaii isn't high on my priorities of things to be. You're the genius,
can't you figure out how to keep this from happening?"

"Oddly enough, I can! It's easy, all I have to do is spray you with a
sealant to repel water!"

"Great, let's do that!"

"Unfortunately, since that would also cut off the flow of air to your skin,
you would die within twelve hours."

"Not so great. Well, that means...I got to live with this..."

"Hey, it's good that Ranma and I are here. We can help you adjust, Ranma's
done it before, remember?"

Ranma shook her head. "Akane, that was how to be a girl. Not a c-c-c...not
a what she is. I don't know if I can help with that..."

Washuu-chan grinned. "I've got a suit for you too, Ranma. Oh, I AM glad
he's got those tapes...put this on, you'll like it!"

Ranma went to the bathroom as Kenko had, and came out in a sleeveless red
minidress cut to her preferred Fighting Skirt style. Black tights and
bracers accented. "And?"

Hot water, and the familiar shift. Instant black Chinese shirt and pants.
"Hey, this is great! Say, even my panties became boxers! And I'm perfectly
dry, too. Whoa--how'd you make my hair braid itself too?"

"Science, of course!"

"I'd like to talk to you about a school uniform. For when we go home."

"Certainly, certainly! It's nice to have an application for this
technology!"

"I'd rather have an application of hot water," grumped the underclad
catgirl.

"Oh, sorry...here you go," Washuu-chan grinned. Splash and change, a dry
(and male) Kenko stood.

"I want to find out what's going on. I want to gather those damn pencils
and find a way to make everything normal again. But most of all I want to
stop turning into the damn centerfold for Cat-Fancy Magazine.
Fortunately...I also think we have an advantage."

"Of course, we have an advantage! We've got the greatest genius in the
Universe!" crowed Washuu-chan.

"And two of the greatest fighters, yeah," noted Kenko. "But we also have
something that hopefully most people don't have in combination. We have
this--" Kenko held up the pencil-- "And we have these." He pointed to a
bookshelf filled with various anime and manga references. "Between the
pencil my reference texts--I'm REALLY thinking about my BGC RPG right
now--and Washuu-chan's...inventiveness...I think we can pull this off. And
there have to be others dealing with this kind of thing also...we can't be
the only ones who want to get this fixed."

The others nodded in agreement.

Thus was team Kenko born.

Gawd help us.


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

[Australia]
[October 6]


It was done, finished, el finito. Mike pulled the page away from his
monitor and placed it on the desk next to the printer.

He looked at the intricate trace, staring at the detail. It was amazing! It
looked like everything was there, that nothing had been missed, even though
paper this thick was not the best for tracing. He looked carefully at the
page, then up at the monitor. Then stopped and looked again.

He blinked in startled shock. They were _exactly_ the same. "What...? There
is no way I'm that good. No one is. Traces are never as good as the
original picture. There's always something out of place or a little bit
wrong."

Michael was still babbling to himself when the page caught fire.

"FUCK!" He pushed the page to the ground and stamped on it. "Brilliant! I
can add 'caused piece of paper to spontaneously combust' on my
weird-shit-that-has-happened-in-this-apartment list." He pressed his
sneaker down over the tiny amount of flame, relieved that this, at least,
hadn't gotten out of hand.

A line of fire sprang out from under his 'solution-in-a-shoe' and continued
to burn even more of the page. "The fuck!?" Mike lifted his shoe, looking
underneath to where the original fire still burned merrily. Nothing had
happened; he couldn't see any indication that the small flames had died
down even slightly. What the...? He paused, stretching his hand out towards
the page. Then drew back, even more startled. There was none of the regular
things associated with fire; no smell, heat or smoke coming from the
burning page. What the hell was going on?

Watching as the cold ruby flames licked along each pencil stroke, Mike
swallowed. What the bloody hell was going on here? He watched as each
impression of lead flared to life, like a molten line of metal following
the pour course. It quickly outlined the figures first. then moved on to
the lines inside these, following the same strokes and in the same order
that he'd traced in.

The red flames finished--as he'd done--on the ribbon that was interwoven in
Mai's hair. "Now what?" The young man spoke aloud, even though there was no
one to answer him. In seeming response to his question the line of fire
sprang from the page, growing as it span in mid air. Falling sideways off
his seat, away from where the lines of fire were now life-sized, Mike
swallowed again. "This can't be good." He pulled the seat in front of
himself and continued watching through the hole in the lower back.

The elevated fire tracing flared, lines bleeding inward, joining onto one
another, forming a plane of blood coloured fire in mid air. This floating
pool of flame shone with bright red highlights where the original lines had
been on the picture. Mike watched in horrified fascination from behind his
chair as this pool ballooned outwards, bubbling out to match the correct
proportions of the figures encased inside--the correct proportions if there
actually had been a Mai Shiranui and Andy Bogard.

Too shocked to move, Michael watched as the flames solidified to a clear
ruby, the flicking and instability changing to solid definition. A life
sized crystal statue of Mai and Andy rotated slowly to a stop in the middle
of the room. As it settled to the ground a bright flash of red caused the
shocked observer to blink, blinded for a second.

"[What happened the church? Where are we?]"

Mike blinked again. Surely that hadn't been a female voice? With a sinking
feeling, he blinked the rest of the flash out of his eyes. Two forms
resolved themself in his field of vision. A tall tuxedo-clad man was
apparently trying to calm down a very agitated woman. Feeling a large
migraine coming on, he stared as they looked around the apartment, noting
with a detached manner that he would have cleaned up if he'd known that
someone was going to drop in on him like this.

"Uhhhhh." The two figures spun, dropping into defensive stances, two pairs
of eyes locked onto his. "Um...Hi?" Mike waved weakly from behind his
chair, a sickly smile on his face.

The two people--who Mike refused to name, lest it turn out to be
true--relaxed, not finding any immediate threat in the third year
university student who was crouching on the floor.

"Koko wa doko desu ka?" The blonde man spoke, gesturing around himself and
his companion.

Mike paused for a second. Japanese? Why were they speaking Ja...d'oh! The
game originated in Japan! He wrung his hands together, praying silently
that this was all a bad dream caused by something that he'd drunk last
night. Mind spinning back to the few Japanese lessons that he'd had, he
spluttered out. "Uhh, Watashi wa...Um...Nihongo...Um." He sweated for a
second, muttering loudly under his breath, "Shit! How the fuck do you say
'I don't speak Japanese.'"

"Boku wa Nihongo ga hanashimasen," replied the blonde, a wry smile
appearing for a second on his face.

Mike nodded his thanks, then stopped. "You understood me?" He slapped his
forehead with his palm. Of course, Terry and Andy had been brought up in
America. Then he hit himself again. Whoops, not Andy, just some other
blonde guy. Stupid hallucination, why is it that I never get super models?
"Sorry, what was the question?"

"He asked you where we were." The woman was not pleased, this much was
apparent even without the tones of frustration straining her voice.
Everything about her body language indicated that this was not a good time
to piss her off, from the way she looked around the apartment to the way
that she'd extracted a hand held fan from somewhere inside the dress. She
snapped the fan open with a decidedly sickening sound. The type of sound
one associates with flick knives, or shot guns. Coming as it did from what
looked like an ordinary fan, Mike swallowed again.

"You're in my apartment." She glared at the young man. "My apartment! I
swear! Uhh, In Perth, Western Australia!" The fan lowered into what Michael
suspected was a 'ready' position.

"Liar." The woman snarled, pulling back her arm to throw.

Yep, there was no question about it, he was dead. Oh well, it's been a nice
life. Mike frowned for a second. Well aside from the business with the
wardrobe, anyway.

"Mai! Stop it! He's scared out of his mind." The man reached over and
placed his hand on her arm, stopping her from doing anything rash. Then
started making calming noises to his severely frustrated
fiancee-turned-almost-bride.

Well, thank you, Mr Big-Badass. See if I ever write you in a good light
ever again, How'd you like to be given a curse? Or crippled? Or...chopped
up and eaten by a small tribe of pygmy elephants? Mike giggled, somewhat
hysterically, as he pictured the man before him floating about in bite size
pieces inside some cooking pot. What was this supposed to be, anyway? Some
sort of prank? A beer that went down the wrong way? Some sort of fucking
hallucination? He was an Australian university student that wrote
fanfiction on the side, for God's sake! Characters weren't supposed to come
out of the stories and attack you if they didn't like you! Authoring didn't
have a large casualty rate! He hadn't actually checked, but he was fairly
sure it was a low-risk occupation.

Standing from behind the chair, he moved over to the now silent couple and
bowed to them, remembering something of Japanese culture and politeness. He
nodded to the blonde. "So, you're Andy Bogard?" The man nodded back to him,
his blue eyes narrowing in suspicion as he realized that he'd never
mentioned his name. He was going to say something, but the young man had
already turned away.

The student looked at the brunette in the wedding dress. "And you're Mai
Shiranui?" She nodded back at him, still eager to do some damage. "Oh, that
explains everything then. Someone musta slipped some really bad LSD into
the beer last night. Well seeya, I'm going to sleep this off." Mike
sidestepped them, intending to walk into his bedroom.

The two fighters nodded to each other, sharing a moment of silent
conversation that all really close couples can manage, then spun and
grabbed their reluctant host. Mike yelped as they pushed him up against a
wall, knocking a hanging picture of a massive red dragon to one side. They
stared him in the eyes and asked, one in a calm voice, the other in clipped
tones that screamed repressed violence, "How do you know our names?"

"Ha! Ha! Your names. Hehe. Cute." Mike glanced at the woman, who seemed to
be about to do some real damage. Not wanting his apartment destroyed by the
hallucination of a fictional character, he pointed behind them, saying,
"Look, on the computer screen, what do you see? And if that doesn't
convince you, click on the link."

Andy motioned Mai over to the screen, not wanting to leave a seriously
annoyed ninja in charge of someone that came off as being pretty screwed
up. After a few minutes of watching the now silent student and listening as
"I Alone" started playing from the CD, he called out to her over his
shoulder, "Well, Mai? What is it?" A brief silence answered him. "Mai? What
is it?"

Mai Shiranui was not the type of person to glance at something and dismiss
it out of hand, however annoyed she was at the moment. She was a trained
ninja, specialising in fiery death duels to be sure, but a ninja trained
and true none the less. Therefore, when she looked at the drawn picture of
the characters on the screen, she didn't just yell out "A picture of a
couple Anime characters." Instead she looked closer. After all, this was
supposed to be important.

Shock came as she realised what it was--a scene that minutes ago had been,
for her, a dream come true. Still not believing it, she clicked on the blue
hyperlink above the picture, waiting in her somewhat shocked silence as the
page loaded. The page loaded almost immediately out of the disk cache as
the server confirmed that only a few things had changed since last time
Mike had visited the site.

How does someone describe the feeling that another person gets as what is
reality to them is stripped forcefully away? Things that are substantial
and touchable turn suddenly to mist and wind, intangible from then on. In
the blink of an eye, everything that they _know_ as everyday truth and
belief changes into half-falsehood and outright lies. There is no going
back once reality is shattered so irrevocably. You live forever more with
the knowledge that before you were living a waking fantasy world.

Staring at an Internet page that held nearly every single piece of King Of
Fighters information available--from special moves, hidden characters and
the bios of all of the characters, to a small animated gif of, shockingly
enough, Mai herself twirling with the words 'mail me' emerging from the
flame produced--Mai sat down, heavily. Staring in shocked silence, she
watched as a superdeformed Terry Bogard danced the Can-can next to Iori
Yagami, Kyo Kusanagi, Shermie-Orochi, Athena Asamiya and Yuri Sakazaki. She
stared at the list of "shrines" devoted to herself and other people that
she knew. Walls of reality crumbled, turning to dust in the blink of an
eye.

Andy Bogard, now standing beside his lovely fiancee, placed his hand on her
arm, offering silent support in what was turning out to be one of the worst
days of their lives. In the background Mike dropped silently to a nearby
armchair, muttering silently to himself, trying to reconcile the fact that
these strangers were so familiar, yet so completely unlike the fictional
characters that he knew.

Unnoticed and temporarily forgotten by all, the cause of all this lay next
to the computer, silently glittering to itself in the flickering neon glow.


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


[Mexico City]


By Wednesday afternoon, Zef returned warily to his Methods classroom. He
carried a binder in his left arm, and the long box was once more slung over
his right shoulder. In the binder he kept the tracing he had drawn just
yesterday--a tracing whose lines were now colored ruby-red. After going
through the previous day's events, he realized that it had been exactly
after he finished the tracing that the young woman appeared. He still
wasn't sure about how it had happened, but at least he was certain that it
had been Ranko Saotome herself who had jumped out of the picture.

True, the hair color was wrong, but then, how many people, and how many
Asians in particular had cherry-red hair? Who else could have literally
blasted out of the classroom while enveloped in a bright white aura, aside
from Dragon Ball Z enthusiasts, that is? And, most importantly, who else
would have called for a "Lael-chan" before flying out the window? Zef knew
there were people who liked his stories, and were familiar with them, but
he seriously doubted any of those people could fly without any visible
means of support.

He approached the door to the classroom. The light from the atrium-like
hall beside it fell like a gray curtain, allowing a large shadow to engulf
the corner opposite to Zef in its darkness. Swallowing hard, he tiptoed the
rest of the way towards the room and, when he finally reached it, he peered
in through the small window on the heavy, metal door.

"Sure took you long enough."

The voice made Zef jump back and fall unceremoniously to the floor.

"Gah," he said intelligently.

"I knew I should've come back here earlier," the voice continued. Zef could
only stare in silence as the young woman from before walked out of the
shadows, somehow managing to look threatening despite her shorter stature.
It was Ranko Saotome, all right. There was no mistaking those eyes.

"Gah."

Ranko put a hand on her forehead. "If you're a demon or one of Lael-chan's
enemies, you sure aren't very bright."

"I...I...You...you can't..." Zef spoke, in Spanish. A part of his mind that
hadn't logged out for the day acknowledged Ranko's look of confusion and
continued in English, "You can't be here. It's just...You just...can't!"

Ranko frowned, "Well, I'm here. I don't know how, but I am." She took a
step forward, her eyes piercing, "Where is 'here,' anyway?"

"This...this is..." Zef stammered, then tried standing up. He was still not
used to the sight before him, so his feet slipped on the polished tiles of
the floor. Before he fell back, though, Ranko's hand grasped his wrist and
pulled him upright.

Zef's chest pounded violently. He could feel her touch. The firmness of the
grip, strong like steel yet painless; the warmth of her hand, a hand that
barely circled his wrist. It was *real*. "My God..." he croaked out, again
in Spanish. "You...you *are* really here!"

"You needed proof?" Ranko asked, her voice sounding a little like a growl
now; it was easy to see she was beginning to get frustrated.

"Just..." Zef's mind raced. How to make absolutely sure that it was her?
"You...you called for Phaeron yesterday, didn't you?"

"You *do* know about him?" Ranko asked, her face lighting up a little,
hopeful.

"Let...let me think about this for a second..." Zef thought, stepping back,
as Ranko released her grip on his wrist. "You...your name is Ranko Saotome,
right? No, wait, your *real* name is Zhaodi, but afterwards it became
Ranma, but you *prefer* to be called Ranko."

The girl's eyes widened, "How do you know about that?"

"Your...sister's name is Yuannyan, though it used to be Pandi, she's your
twin sister. You have a brother Ranma, from whom you were split some time
ago." Ranko's expression kept growing from surprise to flabbergasted, which
let Zef know that he *was* right about her. "You consider Akane a sort of
honorary sister. Your mother, Nodoka Saotome, is really a reincarnation of
the angel Pax. You also have an older sister, who is also an an--"

Zef's words were cut short as Ranko grabbed him by the collar of his shirt
and *lifted* him off the ground using only her left hand. "All right," she
said, sounding perfectly calm, "I wanna know *right now* how the heck you
know so much about us."

"Calm down! Calm down!" Zef yelped. He knew perfectly well that it took a
lot of pressure to get *this* Ranko so upset, and that it was a dangerous
thing to do so. "I can explain!"

She lowered him, but kept grasping his shirt, "Okay, talk."

Zef gulped and stared at her, not knowing how to put it. If she knew that
he was the one directly responsible for everything she and her friends had
been through...No, don't think like that. Besides, he had written Ranko as
a forgiving person, and she *might* also see him as the one responsible for
her meeting her soulmate. Oh, well, might as well give the truth a chance.

"I...know so much about you because I...I wrote you."

She leveled a stare at him. "What?"

Zef took a deep breath, and repeated, "I wrote you. I...kind of created the
universe you live in."

Ranko would have laughed at him, saying, "Nice one, but I've already met
the God of our universe and you ain't Him." She would have, if not for the
dead-serious look on Zef's face. "What do you mean?"

Zef tried to come up with a way to prove to her that he wasn't as crazy as
her glare seemed to imply. He could only think of one.


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


Ukyou rushed to where her she-male waitress had been thrown from the
vortex. Konatsu didn't appear to have been hurt, thank the Kami, but he was
unconscious all the same from the landing.

Ranma stepped back, still staring in shock at the kunoichi's sudden
arrival. "What the hell *is* this, Ucchan? What happened to that girl? And
what's *he* doing here?"

Ukyou looked up at Ranma from where she knelt beside Konatsu. "Calm down,
Ran-chan. She was saying something about this pencil here..." Once again,
she twirled it between her thumb and index finger, peering intently at its
whirling design. "Something about being warned never to stub the lead
against a picture..."

"Which she just did."

"You got it, sugar. Looks like that warning was pretty serious."

Ranma stood there, pondering this. Then, his eyes lit up. "That must be
what happened to that guy!"

"And his wife and kid, right. You know, I'd be willing to bet that that
girl did that deliberately; I'll bet she was trying to follow them."

"Hmm..." Ranma considered this. Then..."Well, whadda we do now? We gotta do
something about him, don't we?" He motioned toward the still-unconscious
Konatsu.

Ukyou stood up. "I guess for now, we might as well let him sleep it off."
She looked out the picture window; the last red streaks of sunset had began
to fade from the sky.  Come to that, we might as well all get some shuteye
and try to sort this whole mess out once we're rested and refreshed, ne?
C'mon, give me a hand..." She grabbed the kunoichi's arms and gestured for
Ranma to take his legs. "Oh, were there any bedrooms up there, did you
notice?"

"Uh...yeah, there were." Ranma grunted from Konatsu's weight. He may have
been built like a tall, slender girl, but delicacy did not lighten the
burden that he was. "One had a double bed filling most of the room. I
didn't get a good look into the other room--all I saw was this trampoline
in the middle of it." By this time, the two had hauled the kunoichi to the
foot of the stairs. The stairs were positioned just a couple meters from
the front entrance to the house; it was a split-level layout. Ranma went
first up the stairs.

"All right, first we get him down in the room with the double bed, I guess.
Then we'll figure out a place to crash ourselves." One they had hauled
Konatsu up the eight steps, Ranma guided them into a room painted a bright
yellow. Sure enough, the bed took up nearly half the floor space of the
room, and a sewing table set up next to the bed like a nightstand took up a
third of the remaining space. A bit of a heave, and Konatsu was sprawled
onto the bed's white quilt, a beatific smile on his face.

Ukyou let out her breath in a relieved sigh. "Well, that takes care of
*him,* anyway. Now we gotta find a place for us." She either didn't notice
or ignored Ranma as he blanched at the word 'us.' To his credit, he was
making an effort not to let his concern show. The two of them turned out
the light, and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind them.

While they were upstairs, they stuck their heads into the other bedroom
Ranma mentioned. As he had said, a small round trampoline sat in the middle
of the room, but it was the least of the obstacles in getting to the bed
against the far wall of the room. Blocks, game pieces, and stuffed and
plastic animal were littered about the floor. "Hm. Must be the kid's room.
In any case, it's not big enough for both of us."

Still worried with Ukyou's choice of words, Ranma swallowed audibly before
muttering, "Oh well. Guess that means you can have the bed. I'll take the
couch downstairs. No problem."

A frown crossed Ukyou's face. Ran-chan sounded just a bit *too* relieved
about how things were turning out. Well, she wasn't going to just give up
that easily. She clutched his hand and started downstairs, pulling him
along behind her. "Well, let's get you settled, then..."

A right turn at the foot of the stairs, and they found themselves by the
picture window again. This time, the scene outside was quite dark. Turning
on the lights, they realized there was another, flat-backed couch right up
against the window. It was buried under a pile of papers, to be sure, but
it was there all the same. "Hm. Looks like you could sleep down here after
all, Ucchan, if you wanna..."

While Ranma was still looking at this new-found couch, Ukyou had discovered
a doorway off to the right, leading to...? "Hey, Ran-chan...where's this
go?"

"How should *I* know?" he shrugged.

"Well, then...?" Ranma sighed and followed Ukyou...

...into a spacious master bedroom. The color drained from Ranma's face, and
rushed to fill Ukyou's. She walked over to the bed, and pressed down on the
deep purple sheets. The mattress bowed and rippled. Ukyou's eyes lit up,
and she began to unfasten her spatula and bandolier.

Ranma backed up a step. "Uh, Ucchan...what're you doing?"

She walked over to him, and gently cuffed him on the shoulder. "What's it
look like, silly? I'm getting ready for bed. This thing's big enough for
the both of us. Whaddya say?"

"Ah...er...I didn't bring any pajamas or nothing..."

"That's a problem?" She slipped off her okonomiyaki seller's tunic and
stepped out of her tights. At this point, Ranma had lost the presence of
mind to even back away, especially when Ukyou turned her back on him and
began, slowly, to undo her chest bindings.

"Well, I mean...that is, I couldn't...erm, but I...but...what ab-b-bout
A-A-A...?"

Keeping her back to him, Ukyou let go of the unwinding cloth, closed her
eyes, and sighed deeply. "What about Akane, right? Ran-chan, do you realize
that we really have no idea how to get back to Nerima? And even if we did,
by the time we did, we'd have been gone long enough for Akane to already
assume the worst? Especially if you and I come home together. Whether or
not anything happens between us here, she's going to assume that it did,
you know. Why not...just try it?" She heard an audible gulp behind her. It
was time to go for broke. She picked up the dangling bindings, and turned
around to face her fiance.

"Besides," she said as the last strip fell away from her chest, "don't you
like me? You said I was cute, once...am I suddenly so awful now? You may be
stuck here with me, Ran-chan--is that really all that terrible?

"I promise...I won't make you do anything you don't wanna. But, just for
me...would you be willing to join me?" She climbed into the bed, and
sprawled out on her back. "It's really comfortable here. Please?" She sat
back up, and gave him her best pleading look.

Ranma closed his eyes, and dropped his head. He could never resist a
pleading girl. Even when he knew there'd be trouble. "Fine, whatever. But
you keep those panties on, will ya? And don't glomp me, got it?" Ukyou
nodded vigorously, a large smile on her face. He undid his Chinese shirt,
turned around, and walked out.

Ukyou started in surprised chagrin. "Ran-chan...what...?" She cut herself
off as she heard running water. She hoped he was just preparing for bed.

Sure enough, he walked back in with a toothbrush. "Here...they had a couple
still in boxes under the sink."

She got up out of the bed, and gave Ranma her most grateful look as she
accepted it. "Thank you, Ran-chan...for everything."

Once evening ablutions were taken care of, they shut all the lights off and
climbed into bed, together. There was a mild hum coming from the nightstand
on Ukyou's side which turned out to be a faulty connection in the
electronic alarm clock--they'd just have to live with it. Ranma and Ukyou
both lay on their right sides, Ukyou staring at Ranma's back, Ranma with
eyes closed, feeling the touch of her eyes. Oh, wait...that was her hand on
his shoulder...!!

"Ran-chan?"

He fought to remain calm. "Hm?"

"Goodnight, honey..." and she leaned forward, kissing him on the cheek. He
was thoroughly glad of the dark; this way, she couldn't see him blush.

"Yeah...g'night, Ucchan..."

Time passed. Soon Ranma heard another sound join the alarm clock's
hum...the gentle sound of Ucchan's snore. Satisfied that she was asleep, he
hoisted himself out of bed, into the bathroom...where he dumped a cup of
cold water on himself, before returning to her.

He was so preoccupied with having to deal with Ukyou's affections that,
upon returning to the bedroom, he never noticed the pencil, tucked behind
Ukyou's alarm clock, emitting a faint hum in tune with the clock's. Nor was
he aware as it glowed, its colors swirling in the darkness. But it was
aware of them...

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


[Mexico]

"You're kidding me...'Song of the Phoenix'?"

Zef cringed slightly as Ranko started reading the contents of the web page.
They were at one of the computer labs which, thankfully, was empty save the
two of them.

While she read the page, as well as the text files that accompanied it, he
kept staring at her. Whether she was disturbed or not by his glance, she
didn't show. Zef, on the other hand, could still hardly believe what he was
seeing. This was *Ranko* in front of him. Not a lookalike, not a Japanese
exchange student that happened to have the same voice and some knowledge
about his stories, but the real McCoy. The character, the person that had
driven him to writing fanfiction in the first place. And she was sitting
not two feet away from him, in one of the Tec's computer labs.

It was all Zef could do not to freak and run away screaming.

And he continued to stare, noticing how the light cast shadows on her face,
how her eyes moved about as she read the screen before her, how she shifted
position on the chair, how her hands flitted nervously across the desk,
how--

"GAAAAAH! Evil thoughts, begone!" he thought, hurriedly concentrating on
how the light cast shadows on the chairs instead.

"This can't be right..." Ranko's voice pulled him back to reality.

Zef looked up at her face again, and felt his chest contract. Ranko's
countenance betrayed a great deal of insecurity, of helplessness--something
which struck him as odd. But then, would he have expected otherwise? He had
just shown her proof that she was just a fictional character. Pages and
pages of text that told her that all of her life was just part of some
college kid's imagination. All of her sorrows, all of her triumphs, were
just words describing a place that never existed.

Seeing her, Zef felt very guilty. He knew she wouldn't accept what he was
saying at face-value; after all, he, of all people, knew that Ranko Saotome
was not one to give in and surrender. He hoped so, at least, he hoped that
she didn't really believe him. Otherwise...well, he'd have to think of
something.

"W-well..." Ranko finally said, clearing her throat. "I...I'll have to
think about this, but..." She let her shoulders drop and gazed straight at
Zef, "I guess I'll accept *this* explanation for now." She leaned closer,
making sure he wouldn't miss her message, "At least until I find a real
explanation, that is."

"Of...of course," Zef said, smiling nervously.

"All right," Ranko said, "You say you...'wrote' me. So how did I end up
here?"

"I'm kind of wondering that myself," Zef replied. At Ranko's frown, he
said, "Look, I know just as much as you do about this, and I'm just as
surprised to see you here. All I know is that I was making a picture of you
when--"

That caught Ranko's attention, "Picture? You were making a picture of me?"

"Well, yeah..." Zef shrank back timidly, "I, uh...sometimes I start
drawing..."

Ranko sighed and closed her eyes, "When will you people leave me alone? I
hate it when someone like Nabiki starts taking pictures and..."

"I know," Zef said, "I don't like her doing that either."

"And when she sold them to all the guys in high school!" Ranko said.

"But at least she learned not to do it," Zef offered.

"Damn right!" Ranko grinned, then chuckled a bit. Zef joined her after a
moment. However, the laughter died quickly, and they both stared at the
floor afterwards.

"This is creepy," Ranko said quietly.

"You're telling me?" Zef replied.

"What are we gonna do about this? It's not like I can use the Caller to get
back home."

At the mention of the Caller, Zef's blood froze for a moment. "No!
You...you're right, you can't. The Caller doesn't work that way..."

Ranko shut her eyes, grimacing at the words.

"Hey," Zef said, placing a nervous hand on her shoulder, "We'll think of
something. You come from a world filled with magic, remember? If there was
something from *that* world that brought you here, I'm sure you'll figure
it out. If not...well, this world has never even heard of the things you
can do, so it's possible you can break out of it and go back home."

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the faint hum of the air
conditioner and a low sigh from Ranko. Finally, she said, "I guess you're
right. Besides," she added with a faint grin, "I get into this sort of
thing all the time. Might as well calm down while we figure out what
happened."

"Right," Zef couldn't help smiling. "You know, it's getting late. Maybe we
should, uh, head home or something."

Ranko cocked an eyebrow at him, "Home? Your home?"

"Er..." Oh, right.

She gave him a lopsided smirk, "I think I can chance it. No funny business,
though."

Thinking of the Ranko that faced off against a devil and a world-destroying
sorcerer, as well as her hot-headed boyfriend, Zef grinned shyly and said,
"I wouldn't think of it. I mean it."


******


"You sure it's okay?"

"Trust me. My parents are on vacation, and won't come back for three weeks,
and my sister won't get out of work for a while. Plus, my cousins had to
stay at the hospital for their night shifts. We'll have a few hours
available to figure out where to set you up."

"O-kay..." Ranko said as she leaned back on the seat of Zef's car. "And how
many cats you said there are?"

"Two regulars, four if they're all there, but..." he fell silent for a
moment. If he was right, and this Ranko was the one that was currently in
college, then she shouldn't be afraid of cats anymore--why, *that* Ranko
even had a pet cat named Tora. Still, better make sure...

"That reminds me," he said, "What's the last thing you remember, before
showing up here?"

"Hmmm..." Ranko thought for a second, "Last thing I remember, I was in
Doctor Tofu's office. You know, he was helping me out with some of my
classes."

"I know, I know," Zef smiled ironically, "But that's a little vague...Did
Phaeron and you...you know..."

Ranko frowned momentarily, as if recalling a sad memory, "Yeah. Met Ruiko
already, too. Why?"

"Just wondering something," Zef said, "You and Tora already met, right?"

A grin appeared on Ranko's face, "Yeah. Too bad she ain't here. She'd just
*love* you."

"Er, I'm sure she'd love having a new scratching post, yeah...Anyway, if
you and Tora are already together, how come you asked me about the cats?"

"And you said you know everything about me?" Ranko said, "I can *stand*
being around cats, just not many of them." Suddenly, she leaned forward and
said, "This is stupid. Why can't I go to a hotel or something?"

"Because it will be easier for you if you don't go too far from me. This is
Mexico City, remember? From what I know, you *don't* speak Spanish.
Besides, you know you don't have to worry about staying at my place,
remember? I've trained in a couple of martial arts styles for four years,
you've trained all your life. However, I can help you get around, I can
find someone who speaks Japanese, I..."

"...can barely drive..." Ranko supplied as the car headed straight for a
lamppost.

"I can barely drive, right..." Zef grimaced as the car avoided the lamppost
and dove into a pothole. "In any case, we're directly related to each
other. I'm your...uh...writer, and you're my...ah..."

Ranko grinned from ear to ear, "Your fanboy's dreams come true?"

Zef wondered whether or not to dignify that with a response.


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


[Franklin, Tennessee]
[October 8, 1999]


Zen, hack fanfic writer and would-be Ukyou suitor, was looking forward to
this. Not so much to the con itself; Anime Weekend Atlanta had some rather
serious organizational flaws in Zen's opinion, but it was still a good
chance to get together with friends.

Looking over the load stuffed into the back of his Pathfinder, Zen nodded
as he checked off a list. "Computer, check. Clothing, check. Battlespat,
check. Cooler, check. Is there anything else that we need to pack in here,
Jerry?"

Jerry Knox, better known among his anime friends as 'Tochiro', peered into
the back of the Nissan and shrugged. "You got the VCRs in there?"

"Naah...Shen can't make it this year, so what'd be the point?"

Jerry nodded. "And since Mike's not coming, we don't need to take the
chicken-on-a-stick, either. I guess that covers it then...So we're ready
to go?"

Zen looked at his watch and grinned. "Yup! And on time for once." Noting
Jerry's sudden hunted look, Zen scowled. "Problem, Jerry?"

Jerry looked around a few more times, then shrugged. "I was just looking
for four horses..."

Zen glared. "Oh, very funny. C'mon, Costello, get Bryan over here, and
let's take a look at the route. Then we can be on the road."

Spreading the atlas out on the hood of the car, he pointed to a mark just
south of Chatanooga. "This is our first stop--we should hit it about
oh-noon-hundred, local."

"East Ridge...Tennessee side of the line, or Georgia?"

"Tennessee. There's a little Italian place just off the Interstate. Nesse
will meet us there for lunch. Then she'll follow us down to Dalton before
she heads back home."

Bryan nodded. "I know where that is...near the old Liberty Con hotel."

Zen nodded. "Ayup. That's the one..."

"Cool. Looks like a plan."

"I should have known that there'd be a reason that you were on time."

Zen ignored the last. "Right then...Jerry, you wanna ride in the
Pathfinder? Okay, then, Ed, you're with Bryan. Let's lock and load."

There was a brief scramble as people secured themselves in their assigned
seats. Five minutes after that, a grey Nissan Pathfinder bearing markings
for the Worlds Welfare Works Association, and her escort (a red Ford Escort
to be precise) were on their way to Atlanta.


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


[October 7]


Dawn broke over a non-descript suburban house, somewhere in America.

"KYAAAAAAAHH!!"

And Ukyou woke with a scream.

Konatsu's scream.

She bolted from the bed, with some difficulty, and charged upstairs to the
guest room where Konatsu has been set to sleep off his traumatic arrival
into this world. She tore open the door with a breathless "Konatsu, what's
wrong?"

The kunoichi's terrified face turned to her, and gaped at her,
open-mouthed. The look of shock was replaced by one of mortification.
"U...Ukyou-sama?! ...KYAAAHH!!" He threw the blankets over his head, and
curled up in a fetal position.

Needless to say, if Ukyou had been startled by her kunoichi's first
outburst, she was completely baffled now. Until she looked at herself. In
her efforts to convince Ranma to share the bed downstairs with her, she had
stripped down to her panties. So at this moment, she was standing in the
doorway to the guest room virtually naked. Konatsu was mortified for her
sake, not his.

"Oh, f'crying out loud..."

There was nothing to speak of in the way of clothes in the closet here, so
Ukyou padded into the other upstairs bedrooms. The child's room had, not
surprisingly, nothing but little boy's clothes in its closet. The other
room, despite being set up as an office rather than a bedroom, held
paydirt. Dresses and skirts, presumably belonging to the lady of the house,
crowded the closet. The wooden pole upon which the outfits were hung was
actually bent from the weight.

She took a jumper off its hanger and threw it on. It didn't quite fit her;
it was just a skootch tight in certain spots, and the skirt, which clearly
should have covered her knees, didn't. Well, it was a covering. Now, to
figure out what was bothering Konatsu.

Her face took on a look of mild annoyance as she made her way to the guest
room; as disconcerting as Konatsu's scream had been, it had, after all,
woken her from a pleasant and sound sleep. She peeled the blankets and
sheets from her trambling kunoichi. "All right, sugar. I'm decent.
Now...what's the matter?"

His eyes were open wide with alarm. "Wh-where *are* we? Are we dead?"

Fair enough questions, but as she hadn't any good answers, it didn't soften
her tone. "Is that all?"

Konatsu nodded, panic still evident on his face.

"Hate to tell ya this, but I don't know much more than you do. Did you see
a family of gaijin drop in shortly after I disappeared?"

The kunoichi's face softened, as he attempted to recall what had transpired
in the Ucchan. "Uhm...there was a commotion in the dining area a little
after you got pulled into that..." he searched for a word, "tunnel. Oh,
yes...that's right!" His eyes lit up as the scene came back to him. "There
were three people, a couple and a little boy...and that's about all I
remember, before finding myself here."

"Okay, that's something. Anyway, we're in their house...I think. I don't
know how, but we seem to have switched places with them." And she explained
what little she understood of their situation.

"Well, it sounds like it's the pencils that caused this, Ukyou-sama. But we
can use them to get back, and get those poor folks out of there..." He
trailed off, as Ukyou's face scrunched up. She was considering the
possibility, and he didn't want to disturb his mistress when she was
thinking. Finally, she spoke.

"No...I don't think we should. Not just yet. Let's make sure about this
before we do something rash, ne?" The look on her face puzzled Konatsu, but
if this was his mistress' wish, then there would be no questioning it. She
smiled at him, reassuringly. "Why don't you get a little more sleep,
'Natsu-chan--you've had a bit of a shock, not to mention a nasty knock on
the head." He winced as she touched his forehead, and she let out a few
sympathetic noises. It had been a rough landing, at that. "I'll go
downstairs and get some breakfast together shortly, okay?" Even as he
nodded assent, his eyelids began to droop once again.

Again, Ukyou smiled at her docile manservant. <Yes, best not to do anything
hasty,> she found herself thinking as she made her way downstairs. <Konatsu
needs to recover a bit, and hey--I haven't had a real vacation in some
time. Always wanted to visit America, too...though I'd'a preferred having a
little time to pack.> She tugged a bit at a corner of the jumper; it was
starting to pinch a bit.

<Besides,> she continued to muse as she wandered into the master bedroom,
<why should I want to leave? I'm here, all alone, with *him*...> She
blinked. The lump under the covers where Ran-chan had lain down last night
had grown smaller. She walked over to the edge of the bed and lifted the
covers...

...which a groggy Ranma-chan proceeded to snatch back, turning over in her
sleep so that she was planted on top on some of them, effectively
preventing further investigation. Ukyou drew herself upright once again and
sighed. <Okay...with *her*. Oh, Ran-chan, why are you so afraid of me?> A
tear almost escaped from the corner of Ukyou's eye before she brightened.
<Well, that's one more reason to stay. Gotta get him used to it being just
the two of us. There's hope. Anyway, I've got some tracing to do, too...>
She blinked again. <Where did *that* thought come from?>

It was then that she first began to hear the pencil's hum. She walked
around the bed, over to her nightstand, and gingerly picked it up. Her eyes
widened as she felt the humming noise in her fingertips. This thing was
purring like a kitten. It wanted to be in someone's hand, it wanted to be
used, it wanted to trace...

But what? Ukyou set the pencil in a front pocket, and wandered back into
the L-shaped room for a little inspiration. Opposite of the picture window
were a couple of bookcases, shelves sagging slightly with the weight of
their burdens. Lots of American cartoon compilations, but nothing Ukyou
considered familiar. Over in the corner was the dining table, the manga
still sitting where the girl had dropped it before being sucked into the
vortex; somehow, Ukyou really didn't feel like dealing with that just now.
There was the television, then, and a smaller bookcase in another corner,
full of videotapes. A whole shelf, it seemed, was dedicated to a series
called...Ranma 1/2.

Wait a minute...Ranma? <*My* Ran-chan?>

Ukyou pulled out a tape, and nearly dropped it as she looked at its cover.
It was her! Glowering, with spatula slung over her shoulder, and with
Ran-chan sitting on the flat part, looking down on her with an angry but
puzzled face.

Good grief...

She set the tape back in its appointed slot (somehow,she had the feeling
she'd seen it before, all too personally), and scanned the shelves for
other possibilities. Ah! Here was something interesting ...A Midsummer
Night's Dream...funny, the white-haired woman on the front didn't look like
she was dressed in Shakespearean costume...

For good reason, as this episode of Oh! My Goddess had *nothing* to do with
Shakespeare, after all. As for the woman on the cover, when she introduced
herself as "the Cupid of Love"...

...Ukyou knew she had her tracing. Hitting the pause button on the remote,
she slapped a piece of blank paper up to the screen (thank heavens for
static electricity), pulled out the pencil, and followed Urd's outlines. In
short order, the job was complete, and the television began to glow with a
blue light not of its own power. Just as in the video, she came out of the
picture feet first. Then, like a professional limbo dancer, the goddess Urd
wiggled her way onto this plane of existence for the first time.

Even though she'd seen the whole scene enacted mere minutes before, it was
hard for Ukyou to believe it. She'd summoned the Goddess of Love all by
herself! Now she and Ran-chan would finally be properly united!

For her part Urd looked around at the cluttered room, strewn with wooden
train tracks, crossword puzzles, and anime videos and uttered the first
thing that popped into her head:

"What a dump!"

Ukyou facefaulted. <This may not be as easy as I thought,> she found
herself thinking with her face in the carpeting.


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


[Dalton, Georgia]
[October 8]


Zen stretched, working the kink out of his shoulders as he left the
Pathfinder in the parking lot of the mammoth outlet mall. This would be the
last stop they made before actually getting to Atlanta, but it was one that
everyone was looking forward to. Dalton had one of the largest collections
of factory outlet stores and seconds shops in the Southeast.

It was also a nice chance to spend a little time with Nesse before the con,
since she wouldn't be able to go. He'd missed her over the past week, and
even a few hours were welcome.

Meandering down the sidewalk, Zen peered into the windows of the various
shops. Nesse and the others had all gone into the book outlet, but Zen had
decided to skip that this year. He always spent too much money when he went
in there, and what money he'd set aside for this trip was to buy anime.
There was a DVD player back home that he wanted to feed.

Still, there were lots of other shops, and while he didn't want to spend a
lot of money before reaching the con, there might be one or two small
things he could afford. He checked his watch. He had almost an hour before
he was supposed to meet the others back at the cars. Plenty of time.

The first place that Zen actually went into was the Corning/Revere outlet.
The last time he'd been through, he'd found some good kitchen tools, and he
wanted to fill out the set. For some reason, he just felt like picking up a
spatula. Unfortunately, they were out of the style that he wanted. They
thought that they would be getting more in, but, of course, they couldn't
be sure. Zen shrugged and thanked them; it was, after all, the nature of
outlet stores.

Working his way down the row, Zen passed by all manner of shops. There was
a linens outlet, but Zen already knew where his towel was. The CD outlet
was having a sale, but mostly on country titles, so he decided to give that
one a miss as well. Now if they'd had a good J-pop selection, Zen would
have been impressed.

Boots, women's wear, fashion clothing, jewelry, furniture...there were
stores for just about everything--just not much that Zen was really
interested in buying. Still, the weather was nice, for October, and the
walk was a pleasant one. He could certainly use the exercise. He had just
about reached the end of the massive complex and was preparing to turn
around and go back to the cars when he thought he saw something odd out of
the corner of his eye.

Turning back to face the strip center, he couldn't find anything out of the
ordinary and was beginning to think that he was imagining things when he
saw it. Nestled between a mammoth store featuring lawn furniture and
another that specialised in candy was a tiny, dingy looking little shop;
the whole thing barely five times the width of the door that led into it.
The sign on the marquis was understated and proclaimed the store's name to
be 'Artifax'--and there was a smaller sign over the door that read
'Saunders'.

It was that second sign more than anything else that made Zen go to take a
closer look. Once he could see in the window, though, he was hooked. While
every other store in the center carried merchandise that was new, the
things that adorned the shelves of this odd little shop looked old--some of
them looked very old indeed. His mother would have called it a junque
shoppe, while his aunt, had she seen it, would have been charitable enough
to call them 'antiques'.

An old tube radio sat in one corner of the display window, the lights
behind the dials glowing with the friendly warmth that comes only from the
use of sixty watts of power when modern equipment could do the same job
with microwatts. There was also a little black bag--the type that doctors
used to carry in the days when the local physician still made house calls.
The bag was open, though there was something odd about the instruments that
were arrayed inside. It was nothing Zen could nail down, but looking at
them made his eyes want to go in directions that just didn't exist.

In the back, there was a small glass object that made Zen swear the
glassblower that made it had been stoned--it looked for all the world like
a Klein bottle, that topological nightmare that was the bane of every
student of higher dimensional maths. Zen loved places like this--loved the
smell of them--the collections of esoteric bricabrac--the *feel* of
places this timeless...this ageless. They were charged with a kind of magic
that one just didn't find when shopping in more sterile, modern stores.

The door creaked theatrically as Zen pushed it open, brushing a small set
of chimes that jangled to let the shopkeeper know that he had a customer.
Zen was mildly surprised to note that aside from himself and the
proprietor, the little shop was deserted. Zen took a deep breath, inhaling
the slightly musty scent of old, interesting things, then smiled at the old
man behind the counter.

Moving into the store, Zen started to examine the various treasures the
shop had to offer, fascinated by their sheer number and variety. Had he
been paying more attention to the way the old man kept looking at him and
nodding to himself, Zen might not have felt so relaxed.

Questions to the man who ran the shop were met with polite smiles, and
silent shrugs. Zen was starting to wonder if maybe he just didn't speak
English. It was certainly possible, given his obviously Asian heritage. He
was short and wiry, and radiated strength and vitality despite his advanced
years. He could have been eighty--or eight hundred--neither would have
surprised Zen. His eyes were so dark that they looked to be almost black,
and they sparkled with a subtle amusement--or perhaps, Zen thought, that
was just the way the light bounced off the little round lenses of his
wire-frame glasses.

Rummaging through one of the shelves, Zen found an old, eastern style oil
lamp. For a moment, he considered giving it a quick rub, but in the end,
he decided against it. Sometimes it was better to keep the illusion of
magic than to spoil it with the cold light of reality.

Along the back wall of the shop, under shelves cluttered with the treasures
of a hundred lifetimes, was a long, glass display case in which Zen found
some of the more quixotic items. A hardshell aluminum case caught his eye.
The box was open and the brushed finish gleamed dully in the low light. A
tag on its side was stamped USR&MM, and nestled inside was a vaguely ovate
shaped 'sponge' of a silvery metal so pale it was almost white, like
platinum, or iridium.

Next to that was a small box of a pale wood, the top set aside to reveal an
interior lined with crushed velvet. Cradled in this nest of soft fabric was
a pendant--a thick silver chain bearing a stone the size and shape of a
robin's egg. It looked for all the world like an opal, a myriad of colours
chasing each other across its smooth surface--except Zen had never known an
opal that glowed with its own soft inner light.

Another pendant was on display in the next box, but one of a more grisly
nature. Some kind of dessicated animal paw, like a furry hand from some
miniature mummy, cut off just behind the wrist and capped with silver.
Behind that was a box that contained a set of items, all plated in what Zen
thought was probably pure gold--a rectangular cigarette lighter, a capped
fountain pen, and a bullet. It struck Zen as odd, because the shell was of
no calibre that he could recognize.

The last item in the case that caught Zen's eye was a cylinder of crystal
and brushed metal, mounted on a pistol grip. Within the cylinder, Zen could
see fine details, and at its core, a dull violet glow. There was a word
burnished into the pistol grip in a language Zen had never seen before, but
for some reason he just *knew* the word was 'Isher'.

Zen smiled as he started to examine the rest of the things that were
scattered around the shop. Places like this were magical indeed, and he was
loving every minute of his browsing. On one shelf was an odd device, about
the size of a sewing machine, which appeared to be all gyroscopes on the
inside. Another held a single persian slipper that still bore the strong
scent of fine tobacco. On still another were displayed a pair of high
heeled shoes that looked to be made of red glass. And in the corner, Zen
was sure he saw a plushie wombat.

There was an old, wooden box--about fourteen inches long, maybe eight wide
and five high. It had no particular markings, save the obvious signs of
years of wear. On a whim, Zen opened it. The lid was hinged, and folded up
stiffly with the theatrical squeak of a rusty hinge, though it looked well
enough oiled. It looked a hell of a lot deeper inside than it was out, too.
Zen lifted it up and looked, but the bottom appeared solid. He set it back
down and turned his attention to other items. Behind him, a hand reached up
from the depths of the box, wagged a finger at him in a scolding gesture,
and then pulled the lid of the box shut with a snap.

Zen's eyes kept being drawn back to a polished wooden box that contained a
set of fine drafting tools, and had the name 'Quintus Teal' stencilled on
the outside. The wood of the box had a warmth to the touch--it felt almost
alive. Zen considered buying it, but another look at the tag on the bottom
convinced him to put it back on the shelf. Regretfully, he turned to leave.
He smiled at the shopkeeper and sighed. "It's lovely...thank you for
allowing me to see it." But before he could move toward the door, the
proprietor spoke.

"Perhaps you would like to buy one of these?" asked the old man, holding
out a small, flat box. Zen was startled. The voice seemed impossibly deep
and sonorous for such a small man, and his english, while slightly
accented, was flawless. He blinked at the old man, then looked down at what
he was being offered.

The box held pencils--three mechanical pencils. One was red with gold trim,
one was blue with silver, and the third was a rich green with copper
fittings. Each pencil had a pearlescent surface that made it look like it
was glowing--almost alive--while the metal accents had a soft, brushed
finish that was elegantly subdued, rather than garish. The barrel of each
was subtly contoured, and textured to be comfortable to grip. They were,
Zen thought, probably some of the most attractively designed pencils he'd
ever seen.

Zen looked back up at the man, and shook his head slightly. "I'm sorry," he
said. "These are beautiful, but they're probably more than I can afford
right now..."

The old man smiled enigmatically and inclined his head in an expression of
amusement. "Special today," he said. "Fifty cents."

"Fifty cents?" Zen blinked. He looked back down at the pencils, thinking
about how nice it would be to have a really comfortable pencil to draw
with. And at fifty cents...surely there had been a mistake. "Just fifty
cents?" he repeated.

The man nodded, never taking his eyes off of Zen, never blinking. "Fifty
cents. One to a customer."

Zen hesitated. He found the intensity of the old man's scrutiny mildly
disconcerting. Still, fifty cents was a price that even he could afford
with ease, and there was something compelling about those pencils. "Only
one to a customer, mmm?" he asked while he thought about it.

"You must choose," agreed the old man, his expression never wavering. There
was something about the old man's tone that gave Zen the distinct
impression that he wasn't talking about pencils at all, and that there was
a far deeper meaning to his words. But that was ridiculous. Besides. Fifty
cents...how could he possibly go wrong?

"That seems more than fair," Zen said. He studied the pencils once more.
Which one? They were all very nice, but as the man had said, he had to
choose. The red one was the brightest, catching the eye before the others,
but the others were more soothing. After another moment's thought, Zen
selected the green one--while blue was his favourite colour, the blue had a
cold feel to it that Zen would have been hard pressed to explain.

Once the selection had been made, the shopkeeper took the pencil Zen had
chosen, and wrapped it in a sheet of old looking parchment, then slid it
into a small tube of polished wood. Zen blinked again. He'd known that the
pencils were fancy, but he'd no idea that they were -that- elaborate.

Paying for his purchase, Zen thanked the man again, and left the shop with
his prize. He wanted to show it to Nesse--being a geologist, maybe she
could tell him what the thing was made of. He made it three stores down the
row when he met the rest of his group coming the other way.

"There you are," scolded Nesse. "We've been looking everywhere for you.
I've got to be getting back home..."

Zen blinked, and looked down at his watch. "Eep! Gomen ne...I found this
neat little shop, and I guess I sorta lost track of time..."

"Neat little shop?" asked Nesse, her tone one of deep suspicion. "And just
how much did you spend in this 'neat little shop'?"

Zen adopted a wounded expression. "Madame...you do me an injustice..."

"How much," Nesse repeated determinedly, "did you spend...?"

With a scowl Zen snapped, "I spent fifty cents. And how much did you spend
in the Book Barn?"

Nesse blinked. "No need to get defensive, luv. I was only asking."

"I know...I'm sorry," Zen sighed. "Just once, though, I'd really, really
like it if that wasn't the first question out of your mouth every time."

"But you know we're on a budget..."

"Hell yes, I know that. But it's not *that* tight. Anyway, you just gotta
see this place. It's got some of the neatest stuff..."

"Like what?"

"Well, there was this really nice set of drafting tools...and there were
books...and I'd swear that they had a Klein bottle in the window..."

"Hold it...did you say 'Klein bottle'...?" Nesse interrupted. "As in
those bubbles with a hyperspace complex?"

Zen nodded. "S'right...and there was this compass that you'd love...at
least I *think* it was a compass..."

"Okay! Okay! I'll take a look...So where is this mystery shop of yours?"
asked Nesse.

Zen gestured over his shoulder. "Right there...between Patty O's Furniture
and the Sugar Shack."

Nesse peered over his shoulder, looking. "Where? I don't see it..."

Zen turned and pointed to the space between the two stores he'd named.
"Ness, it's right...over...there..." Zen's voice trailed off into silence
as he stared. The shop was gone. The only thing between the two superstores
was a concrete wall; one that couldn't have been any more than eight inches
thick.

"Nesse's eyes narrowed. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"No! I'm telling you..." he said weakly, "It was there...Right there,
between those two stores...I swear that it was...had a sign over the door
that said 'Saunders' and everything..."

Nesse patted him on the shoulder and smiled indulgently. "Sure it was. It's
just gone now." She turned and stalked back towards the area where the cars
were parked, leaving Zen still standing in shocked confusion. "Again with
the jokes...always with the jokes...Honestly...just how gullible does he
think I am?" she muttered to herself as she walked away.

"But...it was *right* there..." Zen whispered to himself. "I *know* that
it was..." He patted his pocket, feeling the reassuring solidity of the
pencil he'd gotten. Drawing it out of its wooden tube, he stared at it,
letting the light play off its pearlescent green surface. "It *had* to have
been there...where else would I have gotten this?"

"Dammit, Zen, Come on, will you?" Jerry called. "Nesse's gotta leave, and
we've got reservations at Ume Zono. I'm getting hungry again!"

Shaking himself out of his reverie, Zen absently slipped the pencil back
into his pocket and turned toward the Pathfinder. Forcing down a mild sense
of unease, he trotted off to join the rest of his crew. Jerry was right, at
least--the food at Ume Zono was not to be missed.


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


[Texas]
[October 7]

Lurker groaned as he slowly rose from the depths of unconsciousness. *What
a fucked-up dream,* he thought. *Oh, man, I have such a headache...*

Groggily, he allowed a bit of light to filter through his eyelids. The room
seemed brighter than it should, and he registered after a moment that he
was sitting up, in a more or less reclined position. *How did I manage to
fall asleep sitting up?* he wondered.

"daijobu desu ka?" a voice asked softly from somewhere nearby.

"Ee...daijobu," he responded, vocal chords on autopilot.

"Pika pi pikachu?" another voice asked. "Pikapi pika?"

Lurker blinked. *Wait a second...I'm alone in the apartment now. I wasn't
watching Pokemon. That doesn't sound like...the...television...* He opened
his eyes wide. And stared.

"No. No. I am not seeing what I think I'm seeing." He shook his head, as if
to dispel the vision before him. This tactic proved to be useless. He
glanced to the side, attempting to focus on something else other than the
apparition.

Another apparition blinked at him from his left.

Out of the corner of his right eye, the first apparition began to look
concerned.

Wait.

Corner...of...his...RIGHT...eye? The one that literally had not seen the
light of day in over two years?

"Okay, that proves it," he rambled aloud. "I've finally flipped. Gone off
the deep end. Sanity go down the hoooooole. Bye-bye sanity. Gonna spend the
rest of my life taking the nasty candy. Yep. One hundred percent nucking
futs. Narf, poit, zort."

"Pi pika, pika?"

"you speak english. is this america?"

Lurker paused in his rant, and attempted to recompose himself. He didn't
feel any less sane than usual--which, granted, wasn't saying much. He
didn't seem to have any trouble thinking, but that was no proof of
anything. Then his mind latched onto something someone once said to him.
"Anyone with enough presence of mind to declare himself insane, has not
gone insane yet."

"Okay, think," he said to himself, though he was still speaking aloud.
"Logical explanation for all this. Power surge. Indigestion. Still asleep.
Gotta be something."

"are you certain you are alright?" the albino seated at the end of the
couch asked, with an expression dangerously bordering on becoming nervous.

"No, I'm not alright!" Lurker snapped. "I'm having a conversation with
Ayanami Rei, in English no less, and there's a fucking PIKACHU sitting in
that chair over there! There's nothing *alright* about that, at all!"

"Pika, pika pi!" Pikachu said, scowling. Its cheeks began to spark.

"Sorry," Lurker said. "I wasn't saying that you sitting there isn't...ARGH!
What am I *doing*!? I'm talking to an electric mouse that doesn't even
exist!"

Pikachu zapped him.

Coughing, and wafting a little smoke out of his face, Lurker grimaced. "I'm
even imagining new kinds of pain. And the illusion that I can see out of my
right eye. Heh. Maybe I have gone insane."

"whether you are insane or not is irrelevant. how do you know my name? who
are you? what is this place? what happened to the other person who was
here?" the blue-haired girl asked.

"Alright, I'll play along," Lurker said. He pointed at the wall scroll
hanging on the wall. "You see that? That's how I know who you are. And
you're in my bedroom, in my apartment, in Texas, in America. As for who I
am, just call me Lurker. And what other person?" he finished, almost
genuinely curious.

Rei turned to look at the indicated wall hanging, and her eyes widened
almost imperceptibly. "that...that is..."

"Yeah, it's you," Lurker said. "Nice pose, don't you think? That's why I
was going to trace...it...waitaminute..." Lurker glanced at the table in
front of him. The normal contents of the table were not there, having been
moved about a bit; the table was covered with papers, and a single
mechanical pencil.

Lurker picked up one of the sheets of paper, the tracing of Rei he'd
completed. He frowned at it. The pencil lines, originally the usual dark,
charcoal grey of most mechanical pencil lead, were a deep forest green. He
set it aside, and picked up the other tracing he'd done. The lines of the
Pikachu tracing were the same bizarre green color.

He glanced at the set of printed pictures on the table. The one he'd just
been about to trace, Trunks, had a large tear in it, which was ringed by an
irregular, discolored viridian blob.

His hand brushed against the cool, metal barrel of the pencil. It began to
shimmer slightly, catching his attention. He glanced at the pencil, then at
the Trunks picture, then at the two tracings. Then, he glanced at his own
hand...and stared.

"The HELL...?"

That wasn't his hand. That wasn't his arm. He then realized that when he
had spoken earlier, it had not been his own voice.

He turned to Rei, and took a deep breath. In as calm a tone as possible,
said, "I want you to tell me everything that happened, from the moment you
found yourself here, until the moment I woke up."

"i saw that animal, and another person. i asked where i was," Rei said, not
showing any adverse reaction to Lurker's tone. "the other person appeared
surprised, then that animal..." she paused. "shocked both of us somehow. it
was a mild shock, and did not affect me. the other person caught fire, and
began screaming." she paused again, and seemed to be having difficulty with
the next part, as though she could not believe it herself. "when the fire
burnt out, the other man was gone, and you were in his place."

"Wait..." Lurker frowned. "What do you mean, 'another person'? There wasn't
anyone else here, was there?"

"there was a different person here before," Rei replied. "overweight,
slightly older than you. he burned to death, and you appeared in his
place."

Lurker blinked. "Overweight..." He looked down at himself, noticing his
different clothing, and more importantly, his lack of a gut. He nearly fell
over in astonishment. "Impossible..."

"what is impossible?" Rei asked.

"The...overweight person you saw before," Lurker said slowly, "was me. Is
me. Should be me. Argh...this isn't making any sense."

"no, it is not," Rei agreed.

Lurker snorted. "Okay, so you're saying I caught fire, burned to death,
then ended up on the couch, except it wasn't me."

Rei blinked. "that is not--"

Lurker interrupted her, frowning. "The fire was...green, wasn't it?"

"yes."

"And I don't look like the person you saw when you arrived here."

"that is correct."

"What do I look like now?" Lurker asked.

Rei paused. She reached over to the table, and picked up one of the
printouts. "Like this."

Lurker stared at the torn image of Trunks. Shakily, he stood, and walked
towards the door which led to the bathroom. Opening it with difficulty, he
flipped on the light switch, and looked in the mirror.

The reflection that stared back at him was not the overweight, unhealthy
twenty-one-year-old with a thick, unruly mop of black hair and brown eyes,
one of which tended to squint and had begun to lose its pigmentation as a
result of blindness. Instead, the man in the mirror before him...

No, not man. Boy. Seventeen years old, eighteen at the most. With lightly
tanned skin, a high brow, piercing blue eyes, and shoulder-length, straight
lavender-grey hair. He was wearing different clothing as well: a black,
sleeveless T-shirt, loose grey trousers, heavy boots, and a blue jacket.

*Funny,* he mused. *I don't feel like a Saiyajin. Healthier than I've
been...well, ever, but...*

Walking back into the bedroom, he took in the sight before him with new
acceptance. He had been ready to pass this all off as a delusion again,
but...

The pencil. The tracings. The picture of Trunks.

The memory of the green flames.

Whatever was going on was a definite 11.0 on the Weird Shit-O-Meter, but it
was, without a doubt, real. It was happening. And he had to deal with it.

He took a moment to take a good look at Rei. She was pale, anorexically
thin, fragile. Beautiful.

Shaking his head to clear out that train of thought, he sat back down, and
picked up the strange writing implement. He was almost immediately
overwhelmed by an urge to trace. Fighting it, he said to the others, "I
have a theory about what's going on here. Hold on while I test it." Opening
a storage bin underneath his computer table, he withdrew a Pokemon strategy
guide. Finding the most innocuous thing he could think of--a Pokeball--he
placed a sheet of clean tracing paper over the image, and set to work.

Within seconds of completion, the tracing began emitting brilliant green
light. A cloud of sparks erupted like fireworks from the paper...and a
small, red-and-white sphere appeared out of thin air, settling in the
center of the page.

"Piiikaaa," Pikachu murmured.

"what is that?" Rei asked.

"Proof," Lurker said. Holding up the pencil, he elaborated, "This...pencil,
I think, is how you two got here, and..." he gestured to himself, "how this
happened to me."

"i do not understand," Rei said. "it is a pencil."

"I don't understand either, but this," Lurker said, picking up the
Pokeball, "is proof." He paused, and took a deep breath. "You are
both...fictional characters."

"fictional?" Rei asked.

"Pika chu?" Pikachu echoed, its eyes wide.

"How best to explain this..." Lurker sighed. "You, Ayanami Rei, are from an
anime series called Evangelion. You, Pikachu, are from the Pokemon anime."
He blinked. "Well, possibly anyway."

"evangelion...anime..." Rei repeated.

"Pi!? Pika pi!"

"Are you the Pikachu that belongs to Ash Ketchum?" Lurker asked, directing
his attention to the electric mouse.

"Pikapi pi pikachu," the Pokemon nodded.

Lurker closed his eyes. "Shit." Opening them again, he shook his head. "I'm
sorry about this. I promise, I'll try to find a way to put you both back
where you belong."

"but...you said we are...not real," Rei said, a note of almost-confusion
touching her soft, monotone voice.

"Well, you're obviously real *somewhere*," Lurker replied. "I don't know
what the hell this pencil is, but I have a hunch it isn't capable of
spontaneously creating living, breathing people. And Pokemon," he added,
noticing that Pikachu was beginning to spark a bit. "No, you had to have
come from somewhere else. And if there's a way to bring you here, there's
got to be a way to send you back."

"Pika pi pika pikachu?" Pikachu asked, looking hopeful.

"Unfortunately," Lurker said, "I have absolutely no idea what that might
be."

Pikachu facefaulted. "Piikaaaa."

"Well," Lurker said, turning the pencil idly between his fingers, "The best
place to start looking for an answer is the place this pencil came from,
the mall." He paused, and looked at Rei. "And even if we don't find
anything, we can at least do a little shopping. Just in case you have to
stay here a while."

Rei blinked. "shopping?"

Lurker nodded. "You'll need clothes. Plugsuits...well, they don't quite fit
in around here." *Especially not if I can't concentrate because I'm too
busy trying not to get horny,* he mentally added.

Rei nodded. "understood."


Reaching into his closet, Lurker pulled out a T-shirt that once would
barely fit him, but would now be far too large, and handed it to Rei.
"Here, put this on," he said. "Nobody will notice the plugsuit if you cover
it up."

Rei slipped the shirt on over her head. It reached almost to her knees.
"Perfect," Lurker mused. Reaching up to the top shelf of his bookcase, he
picked up his favorite cap, and perched it on his head, frowning in
irritation as he realized he'd have to adjust it, and get used to the new
hairstyle he'd acquired.

He noticed Pikachu staring at him, its ears drooping. "Pikapi..." it
sighed.

Lurker blinked, then realized what the problem was. "Oh, Pikachu...this cap
reminds you of Ash, doesn't it?" Indeed, the cap Lurker was wearing was an
almost exact duplicate of the famous Pokemon League cap worn by the young
human star of the Pokemon anime.

"Piiikaaa." Pikachu looked miserable.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll see him again soon enough," Lurker assured
the yellow mouse. "Now, come on you two...we're headed for the mall."
Almost as an afterthought, he picked up the Pokeball, pressed the button
which would reduce it to a convenient size, and slipped it into a jacket
pocket. *Might come in handy.* Snagging his car keys and wallet, he left
the apartment, Rei and Pikachu in tow.


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


[Atlanta, Georgia]
[October 8]


Zen looked blearily at the clock on the nightstand. Almost midnight. He
thought about getting up and going out to find some of the others but
decided against it. John and the kids would be sacked out by now in their
room, and Goddess alone knew where Jerry would be. There was a party being
thrown by the Otakon crew that would be worth going to if only for the
drinks, and a rumour that there was going to be an all night copy party had
caught Jerry's attention.

There was also the dance, and the annual nerf wars would be in full swing
in the lobby by now. Or, if he was feeling particularly self abusive, there
was always the karaoke. Naaaah. Zen wasn't a dance type person, and he
didn't really feel like watching anything. And the very thought of a bunch
of drunken otaku belting out tuneless renditions of 'Jajauma ni
Sasenaide' or 'Midnight Densetsu' was enough to make him a bit queasy.

And he didn't need to go looking for drinks. He'd brought along the
ingredients for a hypermug or two of Nesse's 'Exploding Pineapple'. It was
a mix of light and dark rums, grenade(ine) and pineapple juice, and it was
one of the few alcoholic drinks that Zen actually liked. This time he'd
added a dash of creme de menthe for a slightly different flavour.

On reflection, Zen decided that what he really needed was just some sleep.
It was ironic, he mused. He was probably one of the only people in all of
creation that went to an anime convention and got more sleep at night than
he did usually. Hell, he'd sometimes get as much as four hours of sleep at
a time at a con. He yawned. Yes, a bit of sleep seemed like an
extraordinarily good idea...

Washing down a couple of Sudafed with the last of his exploding pineapple,
he looked back at the drawing he'd been working on. It was coming out
really well...the figure was just the way he'd wanted it, and he was
particularly happy with the eyes. Once he got back home, he'd scan it and
put it up on his Revenge Fics sub-page. He picked up the green pencil, and
signed it with a small fluorish. With a click of the advance, Zen pressed
the pencil tip to the paper, and pushed the lead back into the barrel.

Setting the drawing and the Pencil aside, Zen got up and stretched, working
the kinks from his shoulders. As he turned toward the bed, he failed to
noticed the sudden flare of green light from the sheet of paper, the lines
of his drawing taking on a phosphorescent life of their own.

Nor did he notice the same cold, octarine fire that enveloped his own body
as he collapsed onto the bed, asleep almost as his head hit the pillow. The
light pulsated and grew ever brighter, the entire room taking on an eerie
silence save for the not so gentle sounds of Zen snores.


******


Sunrise was still over an hour away when a low moan sounded in the darkness
of the hotel room. Clad in a tight-fitting, two-piece outfit and a pair of
knee high boots, a red-headed girl was sprawled out across one of the beds
like a sack of rice. The bed was still made; whether she'd been too tired
or too drunk to pull back the covers before she passed out was anyone's
guess.

With another groan, she slowly pushed herself up and rolled into a sitting
position on the bed's edge. She put her hands to her head, massaging her
temples as though she had the great grandmother of all headaches.

In the slurred speech of the half-awake, she muttered darkly, "Oh, goddess,
but I have the great grandmother of all headaches..." She got shakily to
her feet, swaying a bit as though she were having difficulty keeping her
balance. "Musta been on hell of a party," she mumbled to herself,
staggering in the general direction of the bathroom. "An' I swear, I dinna
touch a *dram* o' that Scotch...!"

After the third try, she managed to find the bathroom door, open it and
make her way woozily inside. There was a long pause and a solid thump
followed by a string of curses. Another pause was followed by a bright
flare and an inarticulate cry as she found the switch and the lights came
to life.

There came the sound of water running in the washbasin, along with
splashing sounds and a sharp gasp as the cold water and perhaps a bit of
soap got in an eye. Fumbling sounds as she reached blindly for a towel to
dry her face, and another long silence as she found it.

That silence was shattered by a full throated, feminine scream.

The door flew open and Zen-chan came flying out of the bathroom as though
she'd been shot out of a railgun. She caromed off the far wall, and bounced
to a halt in the middle of the room. She stood there for a time, panting
and trying to force down a building sense of panic.

Finally, she took a deep breath. "Mental note," she wheezed, "NEVER mix
rum and antihistimines before going to bed." Her eyes widened at the sound
of her own voice, and delicate hands flew to her throat, feeling the
smooth, hairless skin of her neck, and chin.

Slowly, almost fearfully, she made her way back toward the closet, and
opened the door to reveal a full length mirror. After working up the
courage to look at it, she stood frozen, staring at the image in the glass
in slack-jawed amazement.

Someone else's reflection stared back at her. The girl in the mirror looked
like Ranma Saotome...or at least like Ranma Saotome would have looked if
his girl form had become a trouble consultant for the Worlds Welfare Works
Association. Fiery red hair hung to the small of her back, along a figure
that was compact and curvy; well suited to the 3WA combat bikini it was
wearing. Eyes of deep cobalt stared back at her from under unruly bangs
with an expression of panic that would have been almost comical under other
circumstances.

Zen blinked. The girl in the mirror blinked. Zen made a half turn to the
right. The girl in the looking glass mimicked her again. Zen reached toward
her reflection with a trembling hand and her counterpart in the mirror did
the same. Their fingertips touched, but there was only the feel of cold
glass. Zen stared down at her arm--not the massive, thick-boned limb she
was used to--but one that was slender and wiry--feminine.

Zen-chan did what anyone would do in her place. She dropped to the floor in
a dead faint.


=======================================================
   t  o    b  e    c  o  n  t  i  n  u  e  d  -  -  >
=======================================================



Fantasy and reality continue to run together as the chaos caused by the
pencils spreads. Where are they coming from? How will our heroes deal with
all of this? What dangers lie in store for them? Find out in the next
chapter of PENCILS!



Editor's Notes:

Whew. This sumbitch was longer than any of us expected. And this is barely
even the beginning...

If you've read this far, all of us appreciate it, and hope you enjoyed
reading as much as we've enjoyed writing this. If you have, stay
tuned...there's a lot more where this came from. ^_^

If you're confused by the constant jumping around, both in space and time,
rest assured that this isn't going to be the normal way of things
throughout Pencils. As the story progresses, the timeline will gradually
streamline into something a bit more linear, and there should also be less
jumping about as the various 'heroes' meet up.



DISCLAIMERS:
Any and all fictional characters, events, trademarks, and objects are
copyright their respective creators and owners.
Any and all authors and real-life personae are property of their own
selves, and used (usually) with permission, because it would just suck if
it were otherwise.

"Pencils"
Original Concept: The Eternal Lost Lurker
Chief Editor: The Eternal Lost Lurker

Co-Conspirators:
Ukyou Kuonji
Jorge Pratt
Kenko
Zen
Demented Otaku
Flashman
JD Farber
Michael Ricketts

Chapter One Contributors:
The Eternal Lost Lurker
Michael Ricketts
Demented Otaku
Jorge Pratt
Ukyou Kuonji
Kenko
Zen

==========WE DENY EVERYTHING==========



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