So okay, maybe it's been more of two months instead of two weeks
like I said, and maybe my sense of time is no good anyway, and then
couple it with the parts I still had to work on taking, oh, say treble
the amount of size as I expected, and I'm sure you can see how that
might happen, yes?

As always, comments are appreciated, as are criticisms, or even a
combination of the two. But now that it's done I can finally set my
mind to work on other things, like maybe some Utena stuff, or A Man's
Man II, or whatever else I've let trail for far too long (yay!) Two
years is a long time, after all, for something which is only a 
three-parter, eh?




Dramatis Personae:

Matthew "He's a mean muthah--," Lewis

    -too lazy to actually be pure evil
    -appears in this part, so you can all relax
    -has some relationship with these new Bugrom types
    -knows more about the El Hazard world than anyone suspects
    -strangely inoffensive, despite both word and deed
    -a very bad, bad man indeed

Anand "The man who would risk his neck for his brother man," Rao

    -can really take a beating and keep on ticking
    -trying to prove that drinking really can make you forget
     your problems
    -Masamichi Fujisawa's drinking compadre
    -doesn't want to have a relationship with Londs
    -willing to help others, especially if it gets him away from 
     Londs


Michael "We can dig it," Chen

    -has an extra X chromosome most of the time, as well as missing
     that all-important Y one
    -adjusting fairly well to things
    -is not the metal idol
    -hasn't snapped... yet


Dave "He's a complicated man" Eddy

    -developing a real dislike for leather accoutrements
    -spends spare time finding hiding places from Afura
    -can also take a beating, though not willingly
    -starting to rethink winning the contest he never entered
    -really starting to rethink staying at the palace

Andrew "No one understands him but his woman," Huang

    -still hoping and praying he'll get a chance with Nanami
    -doesn't actually have a chance with Nanami
    -useful as an environmentally safe backup engine for vehicles
    -pure, young lad
    -easy target

        El Hazard-- The World of Too Many Authors, 3
                            a.k.a.
                All Good Things... and This, Too
                            a.k.a.
                    The Return of the Matt


    It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Well, not
exactly; it would be by far more accurate to say that it was the
worst of times, or at the very least pretty darn crummy of times,
because there's no way in hell one could call it the best of times,
especially if you were one of a very specific four individuals, all
(originally) male. 
    Matt, it seemed, had risen far above what they thought he
would-- far above the dizzying heights they now occupied as guests
of the royals. From prisoner of the Bugrom to revolutionary leader,
and wanting to open up channels of trade and more with Roshtaria.
It was all his fault, the whole thing, and here he was, coming up
roses. Most definitely not fair, not at all. A situation which
needed immediate rectifying.
    "Our First Among Equals," the neo-Bugrom Karl began, "Matt, as
you call him, wishes to discuss further a possible alliance with
you bourgeoisie bastards. By uniting our forces, we believe it
possible to force out the dominating and archaic upper-class
aristocracy on the other side of the River of God and free the
proletariat from their control. We shall see an end to the hardship
and suffering of our comrades who have not yet thrown off the yoke
of Diva's oppression!"
    One of the other neo-Bugrom behind Karl (Moe, to be precise)
was busy smacking around Larry and Curly for not paying attention
to Karl's speech. "Youse guys gotta pay attention! It's
disrespectful, in front of the princess here, you see?" Moe
threatened.
    "But, but," Larry and Curly whined, while Curly-Joe and Shemp
stayed out of it, "we've heard it hundreds of times! It's
_boring!_"
    Anand, Andrew, Dave, and Mike collectively shook their heads.
That atrocious pun of naming one of them Karl-- yet another reason
for payback. 
    Shemp coughed. "At any rate, He would ask that a small
delegation be sent, both as a gesture of good faith and as
negotiators. There are some conditions, however. The first, is no
women."
    "No women?" asked Fatora. "He got something against women?
Misogynist or something?"
    "No, no. Nothing of the sort," Karl said, holding his two upper
hands palm out, in a gesture of warding. "He merely suffers from a
condition, you see, which would make sending females a bad idea."
    "Oh?"
    Matt's four former companions nodded to themselves. Dave was
elected to explain by unanimous decision-- his. "It isn't so much
that Matt suffers from his condition as it is that women suffer
from his condition. The ability he gained is that he's absolutely
irresistable to women."
    "Pheremonal in nature, we believe," Moe added, incongruously
serious. 
    Rune Venus paused for a moment, cocking her head to one side in
thought. "A delegation?" Her gaze swept the room, and came to rest
on four particular individuals. Guess who.
    Dave thought that this might happen. On one hand, it would mean
seeing Matt, but on the other hand it meant getting away from Afura
for awhile. Gripping hand, the latter was preferable, buy a small
margin. Dave was correct in this. 
    Anand thought that this might happen. At least it would get him
away from Londs for a while, and that was the important thing.
Anand turned out to be right as well.
    Mike thought that this might happen. Oh well, they weren't
serving anything really good for lunch today anyway. Since it was
some strange liver on a pita, spread with a type of cheese which
Mike could only describe as "something tasting like athelete's
foot," and no, I don't want to speculate on how/why Mike knows what
athelete's foot tastes like, he-- er, she, too, was correct.
    Andrew thought that this might happen. No way in hell was he
going to end up pushing the van all the way to wherever the heck
Matt's nation was.    
    Andrew, as it turned out, was quite mistaken in his assessment.

                                ***

    The trip to Matt's demense was uneventful, and by that I mean
to say boring, but in truth I really just don't want to tell you
about it, so there. Use your freaking imagination, okay? What the
heck do you think's going to happen when you stick three guys in a
van being pushed by a fourth, and a bunch of Bugrom who are perhaps
even stranger than they are intelligent? Right. No need to really
get into it or anything like that now, is there? Well, okay, so
maybe you're right and there is. 
    So, in very broad and general terms, the trip went through the
Desert of Bleached White Bones, and down the River of God. The
whole trip took four hours, thanks to Andrew's great speed and
endurance-- due in great part, no doubt, by the threats of Dave and
the Shemp Bugrom. Karl kept arguing for Andrew's release from
bondage, saying that it was a classic struggle between the
proletariat (Andrew), and the burgeousie (the people in the van).
Karl, and the rest of his kin, not being human, were exempted from
the same status as the rest of the passengers as evil tyrannical
beings bent on oppressing the workers (not that it stopped them
from exhorting Andrew to even greater speeds, mind you, but it's
the thought that counts).
    The lands changed during their journey. Signs of habitation on
the other side of the Desert or Bleached White Bones, which had
heretofore lain fallow and desolate. Fields of grain stretched out
into the horizon. They passed by quickly, to be replaced by
straight streets and roads, paved, level and surrounded by electric
streetlights.
    Eventually, in a place that looked like a familiar downtown,
Karl tapped Dave (who was driving) and said, "We are here, at the
capital, burgeousie scum." 
    A shout to Andrew to stop pushing, a slamming of the brakes,
and soon enough they were standing in the centre of the city square
and marvelling at the constructions they saw.
    "Matt is responsible for this? Dave asked incredulously as he
looked around in wonder. Dave was not the only one doing so, as
both Anand and Mike craned and twisted and contorted their necks
while their mouths hung open. Andrew was too busy panting and
trying not to retch to notice his surroundings.
    "I find that hard to believe," Anand chimed in.
    "Mike nodded. "Yeah-- who would have thought that under that
lazy exterior there wasn't a lazy interior?" They all nodded at the
wisdom of Mike's words, Andrew included.
    "Probably... hah... got these... hah," Andrew struggled to say,
waving an arm to indicate the Neo-Bugrom, still bent over and still
out of breath, "to build it."
    "Yes, but what about designing and planning? There's still
that, and it does look like he's trying to recreate Earth. Look at
that building! Why, this place could practically stand in for a
city in North America!" Anand noted.
    "Well, except there's no slums," Mike amended.
    "Then any in Canada," Dave slipped in. He shrugged and
continued on. "Plotting, yes. I think we all knew he could plot.
Planning though, is a whole other kettle of fish."
    "What do you think, Karl?" Anand asked, turning around to ask
the economic-minded Neo-Bugrom.
    Anand's question would forever go unanswered by Karl, for Karl
was gone. So, in fact, was the whole Neo-Bugrom delegation. The
square seemed positively derelict, to be honest. Still, there was a
reply. "You cod always just ask me." A pause, and then even more
whimsical, "Just for the halibut."
    There was only one man that could make a pun that atrocious and
be proud of it. The four slowly turned as one, to the source of it.
"Matt!" they screamed. And there he was, in all his glory. Well,
okay, not really glory _per se_, but you know what I mean, don't
you? It's just an expression, people! Artistic license and all
that? Oh, forget it-- you can just get someone else for this. I
refuse to work under these conditions any longer, do you hear me? I
absolutely refuse!
    What? What? Oh, so now you want me to narrate, too? If I knew
this when I came here for my internship-- okay, okay. Where did he
leave off?
    So, to recap: Dave and crew at the capital, Neo-Bugrom
delegation nowhere in sight, Matt pops up out of the blue, all
smile and smarm. There all caught up now. So.
    Matt scrutinised his former compatriots closely, bemused and
benificent smile on his face all the while. "Just the men I was
wanting to see," he said, nodding to himself. 
    Matt stopped smiling and nodding. "Where's Mike?" he asked,
Mike having been obscured from his investigation by Dave's bulk. It
was at this time Matt finally noticed Mike, not that he knew Mike
was Mike; I mean he knew who Mike was, of course, but not that the
person in front of him was Mike, which Mike was, of course, even
though Matt didn't know that because Mike didn't look like Mike,
except that Mike did, in fact look like Mike, it's just that Matt
didn't know that Mike looked like Mike at the time, even though
Mike did look like Mike, if you see what I mean. Give me a break!
I'm not even supposed to be doing this, okay? I'm under a lot of
pressure here!
    At any rate, Matt's face grew terrible and wroth, and his fury
awful to behold. Hard to believe, I know, but true, nonetheless.
"What's this? What is this?" he bellowed. "I thought I made myself
exceptionally clear on this! No! Girls! I bloody well asked for you
guys specifically because I knew no woman in her right mind would
want to come along on a trip with you, just in case they decided to
ignore my frigging request!" Interesting to note that Matt's
enunciation improved dramatically during this rant-- actually
pronouncing the letter 't' at the end of words instead of the
unvoiced glottal stop he normally used. I always wanted to use a
technical term like that: unvoiced glottal stop. Gives me a warm,
tingly feeling inside, being able to say that. Ooh! "What the hell
is wrong with this one? What kind of dirt you got on her, eh? Got
to be some pretty bad frigging stuff, I know that much!" Matt
looked at Mike and still crackling with irate energy said, "So
miss, what about it? You not right in the head? Is that it? They
holding your family hostage or something? Blackmailing you? Come
on, you can tell me."
    "Uh, Matt?" Mike said in a small voice while everyone cowered
in front of Matt's rage-- do you really expect them to believe
that? Oh, well then-- that's not being very charitable to their
intelligence, is it? Right, right, what do I know. Anyway, Mike was
saying, "I am Mike," which is a reasonable statement for Mike to
make, Mike being Mike, after all. 
    The rage deflated like so much hot air out of a balloon. "Oh,"
Matt said cheerfully, "that's different then," and he was all
smiles and good cheer again. "So you have some kind of
illusion-type ability, eh? Hey, you know you look like Key, from
Key the Metal Idol, eh? Yo do that on purpose or anything? I mean,
you used to go by the nick of Key for a bit there, eh?" As Matt
babbled on and nodded approvingly, he did not notice what Mike was
doing. 
    Now, what exactly was Mike doing, you may well ask, and I may
well answer. Okay, so I'm going to do more than possibly answer.
Mike was scenting the air, similar to the way a hunting dog might.
A grin, hungry and feral, grew on her face as she slowly sidled
closer and closer to the unsuspecting Matt.
    "What's with the beard, Matt?" Anand asked casually, also
oblivious to Mike's intentions. 
    "It is rather scraggly-looking," Andrew noted truthfully.
    "Well, that, and you didn't have one the last time we saw you,"
Dave amended.
    "You try reinventing shaving cream and razors when you're the
only one who'd be able to use them and see what happens, okay?" was
Matt's reply, only not quite. It is what Matt wanted to say, what
he meant to say, in an ideal world what he would have said. This
not being an ideal world, however, what Matt actually said was,
"You try figuring out shavi-- urk!" for you see, Matt was unable to
complete his irritation, owing to Mike suddenly hanging onto Matt
rapturously. Matt did the sensible thing and screamed.
    The scream was a very manly one, mind you. No high piercing
wail more at home coming out of a school girl or anything like
that. This was a full open-mouthed one, coming from the back of the
throat or somewhere deep in the recesses of his abdomen. Yes, this
scream was the very model of masculinity, and certainly nothing to
be ashamed of. It was soon joined by another scream, which was
closer to something to be ashamed of. This new scream came from
Mike, still holding onto Matt, but now male, and now just as
horrified as Matt.
    The screaming stopped. Mike loosed his now-male hold on Matt,
and instead hugged himself tightly. "I... hurgh... hah... can't--."
Mike started shaking uncontrollably. 
    Dave, Andrew and Anand looked upon the situation in a stunned
silence. 
    "He's going to pop!" Dave said, with some relish.
    "Ten says he doesn't," quipped Anand, without mustard and
pulling out some money to back his claim.
    "I'll take a piece of that action," Andrew said, sans ketchup
just for the continuing pun, you see, and God! I'd prefer a
lingering, painful death than to have to say puns like that, kill
me, kill me please. Oh yes, and Andrew took out a similar bill.
    Anand ended up owing Andrew ten.
    I notice you have not followed my what-I-hoped-to-be last
request. I meant it, you know. Seriously. When will the hurting
stop? Oh yes, and Matt just stood there, frowning and looking very
much like he just ate something disagreeable but was trying not to
show it. He tilted his head upwards and bellowed out, "Noseplugs!
Get me some noseplugs!"

    So, after some noseplugs had been brought and shoved up Mike's
nostrils by a Neo-Bugrom who looked like like the Shemp delegate,
which didn't take too much time, really, Matt stopped cringing in
mortal terror behind Dave. Matt straightened himself out in a
single motion, standing taller and a strange look of calm and
dignity on his face-- instead of the normal ennui/manic glee
dichotomy the rest were used to. It was quite disconcerting.
    Matt sighed. "So, I suppose you want a tour or something,
right?" he said without preamble, and another oddity for Matt,
without postamble either. This was not the same man that they knew,
a thought which would normally gladden the foursome, but they did
not know what had replaced him.
    Dave spoke first. "Just one second, Matt, we have to decide
something." Motioning the others to join him, Dave moved around to
the other side of the van. Anand, Andrew and Mike followed. Matt
leaned up against the van and idly inspected his fingernails,
cleaning out some particle from underneath them at random
intervals.
    "So guys," began Dave, "What do you think?"
    Anand gave his assessment of the situation first. "On one hand,
well, we're supposed to be ambassadors, right? To negotiate a
treaty and everything. On the other hand, I have to wonder if
Matt's been replaced by somem zombie guy or something."
    "Yeah, he's really freaking me out, there," Andrew agreed. "All
calm and nice and everything. I mean, either something's happened
to him, or he's got some really, really elaborate prank set up and
he's going to pull it on us any time now."
    Dave looked at Mike. "What do you think, Mike?"
    "I thig thad the quigger we ged oud of here, the bedder, for
me," was Mike's reply. You'd sound something like that too, if you
had stuff jammed up your nose, so I wouldn't get all hoity-toity
with me about that, you!
    "Roit then," Dave said, drawing himself up to his full height.
"That's what we do. Get in, get out. Wham, bam, thank you Matt.
Watch in case he tries something funny. Caution will be our
watchword."
    "Dave?" Mike asked. 
    "Yeah?"
    "You know you just said, 'roit' instead of right?"
    "How about I throw another shrimp on the barby, Mike," Dave
said, looking down menacingly on Mike. "You know, you're not very
tall, are you, Mike?"
    "I'll shuddup now."
    "Good idea."
    "So, you guys coming or not?"
    "Wait, who was that?" Anand asked, looking around.
    "Me," said Matt, from behind Anand, having finished his
impromptu manicure.
    "How'd you do that?" Andrew half-shouted.
    "Do what?"
    "Sneak up on us like that! How long have you been there?" Anand
supplied.
    "Oh, that." Matt took a lungful of air and in a smooth, breathy
voice intoned, "I have always been here."
    "Shut up, Matt," Dave replied, more than a little annoyed.
    Matt folded his arms behind his back and looked up into the
sky. It was a nice, sunny day, and the skyline jagged with tall
buildings. "You do realise," he observed, "that it's generally not
a good idea for an ambassador to a foreign and rather unknown
country to say stuff like that to said potentially hostile
country's ruler, right? I mean, you are aware of that, are you
not?"
    A strange thing occurred. A simultaneous smile broke out on
Anand, Andrew, Dave and Mike's faces, all in perfect synchronicity.
This was familiar, this was the Matt they knew. "We'll have that
tour now, Matt," Dave spoke for everyone, relief and eagerness in
his voice. I was getting a little worried myself, actually, and did
you notice how Matt deflected that question? Just mentioning it in
passing, that's all.

    So anyway, what about that tour? Matt clapped his hands, and
the square was filled with Neo-Bugrom again, going about their
daily businesses, doing whatever it is they did. A scene very much
like one out of and modern-day busy city, except of course the
people had been replaced with strange insectoid-humanoid beings.
"So, okay lads, I'm gonna be busy, so gawchew a tourguide." Matt
turned his head and bellowed, "Pimpdaddy!"
    Then the music kicked in. Seventies' funk, it was, and quite
powerful. A saxaphone could be made out, in it. Good beat. So cool,
so slick, this was a most powerful theme music indeed. A door
opened, and out of it, a figure didn't walk, didn't run, it
_strutted_.
    The figure was a Neo-Bugrom, yes, but much different from the
others. It had style. A gaudy, tacky, gauche kind of style, to be
sure, but style nonetheless. Scads of it. A light lavender
carapace, with bands of deep purple and dark red at the joints and
legs. A bright yellow feathered boa hung around its neck and
trailed to just above the knees, at which point the silvered go-go
boots, complete with platforms, kicked in (sans goldfish swimming
in them. That pair was for formal occasions). A jet black cane in
its lower left arm, tapping the ground occasionally, and topped off
with a gold head. Bright neon green fedora, complete with neon
orange feather sticking out of it, adorned this one's head, and
allowed for the antennae to stick through. Pimpdaddy was so fly, he
even had a pair of translucent wings pinioned on his back.
    Matt announced, raising his voice to be heard over the music.
"My oldest son and veep, Pimpdaddy."
    Andrew shuddered. Dave blinked in shock. Mike opened and closed
his mouth wordlessly, like a fish. Anand said, very quietly and
very, very earnestly, "You are a very evil man, Matthew." No one
could disagree with that assessment.
    A shrug was all Anand received for reply. Well, a shrug and a
bit of a hum, sort of a grunting noise, really- a cross between a
hum and a grunt. Okay, there were some words too, in addition to
the grunt/hum and the shrug, but that's it, I swear. Right, right,
I suppose I should mention what Matt said, shouldn't I? Okay, after
the shrug, which coincided with the grunt/hum I might add, Matt
said, "Yes, but at least I wasn't shot in the head and burnt alive
and now have to wrap myself in bandages, only to lose to some pint
sized pansy-looking dude ten years later."
    Anand blinked. "I haven't seen that far into the series, Matt!
How far do you know in the series?" 
    Matt turned around and calmly gazed at Anand with half-veiled
eyes which would normally be a sign of boredom and therefore
safety, normally. Whatever other words may be applied to Mr. Lewis,
normal, or any derivative of the word which does not include the
prefix ab-, is not one of them. "I know everything," he intoned.
    Anand started to hyperventilate. "Matt! Tell me! Must! Know!
What! Happens!"
    "Must! Stop! Talking! Like! William! Shatner!" Matt retorted,
grinning his mad grin and panting heavily in mockery.
    Anand gripped Matt's shirt two-handed and tried to pick him up.
Matt's grin widened further, a laugh starting. His feet stayed on
the ground. "Assaulting the head of a nation you're ostensibly here
to form a treaty with? Tisk, tisk, Anand. You must have been
spending too much time with some very violent people. Why, it's
almost like you wanted to fail in your diplomatic undertaking and
never, ever be able to get back to Earth."
    "What? Earth? Whatwhat? Get back to Earth? What's this?" Dave
burst into the conversation. 
    But Matt was already skipping away down the street, turning
around and waving. "Bye guys! I don't want to do anymore
irreparable damage right now, and I've got better things to do,
anyway." That's what Matt said at any rate, and while I personally
find it hard to believe Matt would ever find something more
important to do than tormenting someone, unless it is tormenting
several people at once, that's what it says here and
who-am-I-to-argue-I'm-just-the-intern-who-gets-unwarranted-abuse-he
aped-upon-him-kill-you-all-bastards-bastards-bastards. Did I say
that out loud?

    "Everything is so neat and tidy," Anand commented, as they
walked through the commercial district. There was a nice outdoor
cafe they stopped in.
    "I wonder how he was able to build everything so quickly,"
Andrew mused.
    Dave nodded over a particularly delightful fruit drink. "A
model of efficiency. And yet you still expect us to believe that
Matt founded this society?"
    Pimpdaddy nodded his head, a fluid, languid motion which seemed
impossible given his wearing of skeletal structure on the outside
of his body and all that. "It's true," he said, his voice rich as a
river of liquid gold. "We have no crime, and no poor, even though
we are nominally a capitalist society, despite Karl's wishes for us
to make the leap into communism. We find that money is useful as a
means of keeping track of the relative worth of things, for
instance."
    "Yeah," Andrew interjected, "but you have Matt as an absolute
ruler!"
    Pimpdaddy's laughter boomed around the table, causing a few
patrons to casually look up at the sound, and then go back to their
own businesses. He threw his upper arms out, expansively gesturing
at the whole city, the hole country. "But we are not a
dictatorship, here! We have laws limiting the powers of our
leaders, and furthermore we are a democracy." Slyly, Pimpdaddy
continued, "What of your Roshtaria? Your Alliance? Are they not
ruled by a Princess? Is it not hereditary? the Divine Right of
Kings, or Queens-Princesses at any rate, as determined by access to
the Eye of God?"
    "What do you know of the Eye of God?" Dave asked sharply.
    "More than you do, obviously, and less than Matt."
    "You know what we were never told?" Mike said unexpectedly.
"The name of your country, or of this city, actually."
    "We are the nation of Kitab, and the city is called Kahani.
Beautiful, isn't it?"
    Anand, who was drinking something tasting remarkably like ho
chocolate, ended up spraying it out as a fine mist. Unfortunately
for Andrew, and Andrew's heretofore untouched pastry with it's
delicate flavour and eye-pleasing shape and light, fluffy crust, he
was sitting across the table when the spray went. "What the heck'd
you do that for?" Andrew sourly said, wiping his face with a handy
cloth napkin. 
    "Because I know what those words mean."
    "What do you mean?" asked Dave.
    "They're Hindustani, the words. The country's name is Book, and
the city's name is Story."
    "I guess that puts the kibosh on your theory about languages
here, doesn't it, Dave," Andrew asked sardonically, nearly done
wiping himself off.
    "Shut up, Andrew," Dave said, and then turned to Anand. "How
did you hear them? Was it in English? I mean, the way you've been
hearing everything else? Or did you hear Alifbay instead of
alphabet and Kahani instead of story?"
    Anand nodded. "Yes, I heard Book instead of book, and Story
instead of story."
    Dave blinked, once, twice, thrice. "I... see...," not actually
seeing at all, of course. He turned to Pimpdaddy. "I want to see
Matt, now."
    Pimpdaddy blinked. "I think I can arrange that," he said
slowly, "assuming we can find him. He's usually pretty busy
working."
    Mike's laughter barked out, incongruously harsh compared to her
slight form. Andrew was wiping tears away from his eyes he was
laughing so hard. Even Anand could not contain himself, sniggering
and shaking his head sadly. "Right," said Dave, and not Fred, who's
just too sexy for this story, "tell us another one."
    Pimpdaddy sighed and stood up. "Well, let's go and try and find
him, then. We'll check the capitol buildings first."
    A waiter came and handed Pimpdaddy the bill, who promptly paid
it. They left. After they turned the corner, a sigh broke out
amongst the patrons, as five of the Neo-Bugrom shimmered, heat
mirage-like, and would have looked totally human, if not for their
pale blue skin.

    So they went to the capitol buildings, which ended up being a
series of quaint but essentially non-descript townhouses, which, if
I describe would defeat the purpose of calling them non-descript,
so I won't.
    "This is is?" asked Dave, incredulous.
    "I was expecting something a little less... non-descript,"
Andrew volunteered. Didn't I tell you it was non-descript? See?
See? I wasn't lying, was I! Hah! Take that!
    Pimpdaddy replied, "We thought that somthing ostentatious would
be not only unnecessary, but counterproductive. Less likely to be
the target of attacks from foreign powers because none of them
would believe it. No need to announce where it is, is there?"
    The foursome blinked. On one-hand, this was in keeping with the
kind of devious and twisted thinking of Matt, and yet on the other
hand, "No need to announce?" Anand asked, genuinely confused. He
shook his head, unable to overcome the inherent paradox of this
statement and Matt, put together.
    "So which one of them is he in?" Mike asked.
    Pimpdaddy waved his hand, gesturing at all of the townhouses.
"They are all interconnected on the inside. Matt is most likely in
there somewhere."
    "Great-- it's probably a rat's nest in there, isn't it?" Dave
said depressedly.
    Pimpdaddy nodded and said cheerfully, "A veritable maze."
    "How are we going to find him, then? We'd need a bloodhound or
something, if he doesn't want to be found," Mike asked.
    The three men stared at him. "We may not have a bloodhound,
Mike, but we have someone just as good," Dave said. He smiled, much
like a shark might.
    Andrew smiled in a similar fashion, as well. "About time
someone else got it happening to them!"

    After much debating, and by that I mean struggling, which ended
up having Andrew speaking temporarily in a voice higher pitched
than Mike's, they had finally managed to convince Mike to play
her/his part. Pimpdaddy, sensing that it was an internal struggle,
stepped away and took no part in it, although he was impressed with
Mike's tenacity.
    Anand rubbed his left forearm and gave Mike a reproachful look,
on the steps of the middle townhouse-front. "You didn't have to
bite so hard, you know. My powers went into effect on that one,
Mike."
    Mike tried to make some reply, but the makeshift cloth gag
prevented him from saying anything comprehensible, and I am quite
sure that what he would have said is not fit for impolite company,
much less polite company. He sagged in his bindings, tied up as he
was by a rope soft as silk and stronger than steel and I would
rather not go into how it was made, if you please.
    "If you don't scream, we'll take the gag off. And remember,
tying you up like this is for your protection as much as ours,"
Dave said. Mike nodded sullenly, and Dave signalled Anand to take
of the gag.
    Gag now off, Mike asked, "What do you mean?"
    "Well, you know what'll happen if you smell Matt, right?"
    Nodnod.
    "You'd rather not go all ballistic and start hanging off him
and stuff before you change, right?"
    Nodnod.
    "This," Dave took a moment to lift the part of the rope he was
holding much like a leash, "will ensure you don't do that. It'll
also make sure you don't get away from us when you do smell him."
    Mike sighed. "Courage!" he lamented. "It couldn't come at a
worse time," he said ruefully.
    Andrew snorted, "It didn't come, it doesn't matter."
    These guys were so hip it was tragic, really.

    The halls were brightly lit, with nice, thick carpetting and
clean plaster walls with sparse, but tasteful decorations. It did
not have the feel of a government building at all. Too wide for a
house though, much less a townhouse. And they were, in point of
fact, quite labrynthine.
    It was Mike who led the way, nose up in the air, searching for
a scent that would turn her male. Dave followed, the rope which
so-snugly-bound Mike lashed around his wrist and arm. Pimpdaddy
brought up the rear. What about Andrew and Anand? Yes yes, they
were there most certainly, but their positioning really isn't
important, you see, and so I thought I'd save a little bit of space
by not mentioning it. You know, conserving words a touch? Not being
some big description whore? Well, if that's the way you're going to
be... ...I guess I'll just have to take it, for now. Once my
internship is over, though, and I get a good job, I'm coming back
and burning the building, and everyone in it, down. I'll take
especial care to burn you down, too. Remember it-- I will. It's the
only thing keeping me going right now. 
    Mike stopped in front of a closed,
just-as-non-descript-as-the-townhouse-front door, and licked her
lips. Her brow creased with strain as sweat began to form there.
"Guys... noseplugs... need them now."
    Dave nodded at Anand, who took the plugs from his pocket and
stuffed them up Mike's nose. Mike sighed in relief. "Matt must be
through this strangely non-descript door, guys," she said, somewhat
nervous.
    "Well," Andrew said, impatient, "why aren't you opening it?"
    "The, ah, ropes around him, and his arms being behind his
back might be a good reason why," Anand responded.
    "Right, only one way to do it, then," Dave said, decisively
opening the door and then pushing Andrew through, shutting it.
    Anand put his ear to the door. "I don't hear anything, no
screaming or anything, at any rate."
    Dave nodded and opened the door once more.
    "Uh, guys? The ropes? You want to do something about them?"
Mike asked, but recieved no confirmation that she was heard.
    "What the heck was that?" Andrew shouted at Dave, barging out
of the room.
    Dave easily ignored Andrew and stuck his head in the room.
Andrew had to get out of the way, and ended up standing there,
blinking in confusion. "Dark," Dave said, describing the room
accurately, for there were no windows in it, and all the lights
were off.
    "Guys? I'm still tied up here." Nobody noticed Mike.
    So they (Pimpdaddy notwithstanding, that is-- he left them to
their own devices and instead buffed his claws) went in the dark
room, which should not be confused with Dark City, as there were no
strange alien guys who liked to chatter their teeth and do this
thing called Tuning, which had nothing to do with radios or
televisions or the sort. They fanned out to the sides of the room,
hearing nothing but themselves, and searched for a lightswitch. All
except for Mike, of course, who stayed in the hallway, still bound.
"Is anybody alive in here?" Dave asked.
    "Is anybody alive in here?" Anand echoed.
    "Nobody but us in here," Andrew sighed.
    "Nobody but us," a familiar voice sing-songed. "Funny, I don't
recall the Police getting back together." The lights turned on,
flaring to life. Matt was at the far end of the room, hand on the
light switch.
    "It's not funny anymore guys, someone untie me," Mike
plaintively warbled from outside the room. 
    The room was bare-- not even carpetted but dull grey concrete.
There was a door at the other end, where Matt stood, wild-eyed and
teeth bared in an expression that could be mistaken for a smile.
His hair was disordered and he had a look of energy that
transcended the bounds of exhaustion. "So you found me, now what?"
    "Can you untie me?" Mike asked in a small voice, now just
inside the room at the other end. She was ignored or not heard.
    "I can't remember, why did we come here, anyway?" Anand said.
    "Because Dave wanted us to, and he's bigger than us?" Andrew
replied.
    "Oh, good answer. Dave?"
    "What do you know of the Eye of God, Matt?" Dave said,
narrowing his eyes and looking at the frenetic leader of a nation.
    "Enough to know that it's our ticket home, if you know how to
use it properly." Matt buffed his fingernails on his shirt. "No one
else, of course, knows how to use it properly, mind you." Then he
added, under his breath, "Assuming my theories are correct, and
they have been so far, so why wouldn't they be right about that?"
Luckily, or perhaps not, no one heard Matt's little aside.
    "Ropes, me, off?" 
    "Now," Matt said, turning around and opening the door behind
him, "if that's all you want, why don't you bugger off for a bit,
and we can hammer out details of the treaty later. Better yet, you
can negotiate with Pimpdaddy or something. I'm busy." The door shut
behind him. Dave tried to open it but found it locked.
    Pimpdaddy arrived again and escorted them out of the plain
room, turning the lights out and shutting the door behind him as he
left. In the darkness, a distinctly non-male voice quavered, "Guys?
it's not funny now. Can you untie me now? I don't like the dark."
And then, even smaller, "I want my mommy."

    So there's this room, see? And in it there're chairs and tables
and stuff. Fairly standard, really-- a conference room type of
affair. The walls were a deep cream white and there was a large
window that was closed and had venetian blinds which were not. Rich
burgundy carpet, and very thick and soft. Mike was busy feeling
just how soft, in fact, lying down on it and taking a nap. One did
not need to look too closely to notice Mike was no longer tied up.
    Dave sat on a wooden chair with upholstery that did not clash
with the carpet, against a wall. The wood had a particularly deep
colour, and finely polished. His head was back agains the headrest
and his eyes were closed. Anand stood next to the window, peering
out of it and fiddling with the rod which controlled the opening
and closing of the blinds. Dave looked up suddenly and asked,
"What're you doing, Andrew?"
    I forgot about Andrew, didn't I? Easy enough a mistake, I
suppose. Andrew sat at a side of the main conference table (very
elliptical, and the same type of wood as Dave's chair), back to the
door, and feverishly scribbling something down on a three-ring
notebook which he must have acquired off of Pimpdaddy. There is a
large, albeit half-eaten, mushroom by the notebook.
    "I got some ideas for Evanjellydoughnut," Andrew said, without
pausing his writing.
    "Oh?" this perked Dave up. Anand, as well, not even the
mesmerising power of the opening and closing blinds could compete
to hold his interest. "So, what's going to happen?"
    "Well, Rei's going to go up to Shinji and say, 'You and me,
baby, we ain't nuthin' but mammals, so let's do it like they do it
on the Discovery channel.'"
    Mike raised her head and looked at Andrew. "What the hell are
you talking about?"
    "And then what?" Dave prompted.
    "Well, love, you know, the kind you clean with a mop and
bucket."
    "What else?" Anand was absolutely fascinated, in a horrid,
driving-by-a-car-accident kind of way, and you bastards I hate it
when you do that, causing traffic to slow down to a crawl and
hgetting jam ups just to satisfy your morbid curiousity! Next time
I'll make sure it's you that they're looking at, you got me? You
got me?
    "Well, they do the kind of stuff that only Prince would sing
about," Andrew said conversationally. "And Kensuke finally gets
some off Asuka-- they do it doggy style so they can both watch
X-Files." Andrew nibbled at a large mushroom by the notebook he
was writing erratically on.
    At this point, Dave developed a small facial tic. Anand was
making a strange mewling sound. Mike was fascinated, though. "Go
on! Go on!" Mike's voice was already on its descent into something
more approaching manliness, and his form well on the way to
becoming, well, _his_ form, know what I mean? 
    "Well, there's this dance, right?" Andrew was starting to sweat
and his eyes were careening around independant of each other. "And
Touji and Hikari are at the dance, and then Touji leans over to her
and says, 'The Touji dance is yo' chance for doing the hump! Do the
humpty hump! Everyone do the humpty hump!' And then she asks him,"
Andrew is quite jittery now, his limbs twitching quite noticeably,
'How do you do that?' and he says--"
    "What does he say?" Mike asked, sitting up and extremely eager
and most definitely not female.
    "He says, 'First I limp to the side like my leg was broken,
shakin' and twitchin' like I was smokin'. Crazy wack funky. People
say, "You look like MC Hammer on crack, Touji!" That's all right,
because my body's in motion, it's supposed to look like a fit or a
convulsion, anyone can play this game. This is my dance y'all,
Suzuhara's my name. No two people will do it the same! You got it
down while you appear to be in pain, humpin' funkin' jumpin' gig
around shakin' your rump.' And behind him, you have Kensuke and
Shinji and Rei and Asuka demonstrating the dance!"
    "Brilliant! Brilliant!" Mike clapped his hands with glee.
    Andrew shot straight up and shouted, "The colours! The
colours!" crumpled back into his chair and whimpered, "Bad trip. Oh
man, what the hell was in that mushroom?" and promptly lapsed into
unconsciousness, like a good lad.
    Dave sighed and grunted as he got out of the chair. "That's it,
this time, Matt's going to talk, and I'm not going to get
distracted or confused by his wordgames."
    "How're you going to manage that, Dave?" Anand asked, being
about the only one able to do so, currently, as Mike was busy
trying to decipher Andrew's hallucinogen-induced scrawl, and you
already know about Andrew's condition.
    "Simple, I won't listen to him!"
    "Not to nitpick, Dave, but isn't there a flaw in the plan? If
you don't listen to him, then what's the point of getting him to
talk?"
    Dave narrowed his eyes. "Shut up. You know what I mean. Let's
go."
    Anand gestured to the other two members of their entourage.
Dave dismissed them with a wave of his hand. "They're useless right
now. Just leave them here." Anand shrugged and did as he was told.


    So Dave and Anand went to see the Wizard, but Dorothy beat them
to it, her and her little dog, too, and by that I mean they went to
find Matt, and maybe there was someone on El Hazard called Dorothy,
and maybe she had a little dog, I don't know, because she sure as
hell doesn't appear in this story, so I don't really care either,
not that I really care about this story anyway, I'm just a lowly
intern who's being forced into doing this. So there.
    Anyway, Dave and Anand went back to the room they last saw Matt
in, and opened the door. It was still dark, because you may as well
save on electricity if no one's in the room, right? Very economical
of Matt, and environmentally friendly, too (and he's single,
ladies! Run, don't walk, to him). They did not walk straight into
the room to the other side, but felt along the walls until they met
up at the door on the other side. Dave turned the lights on. "Heh--
I knew it," he said, looking at the room, now filled with chairs
and tables and piles of papers and books and a miscellany of other,
unfinished metallic objects. Anand merely nodded-- the were getting
wise in the ways of Matt. Scary thought, isn't it? Gives me the
willies, I'll tell you that, and I don't even feel less of a man
admitting it, and oh yes, shut up. I don't need to hear any cracks
about my manliness, especially from some guy who makes doilies in
his spare time and wears lipstick, okay?
    Anand and Dave looked at each other, and nodded. They delivered
a simultaneous kick to the door, knocking it down. Drifting from
inside the other room was Matt's voice, droning, "...and note, get
door and hinges fixed-replaced. Send bill to Roshtaria, Rune Venus
with note of explanation: most likely Dave, probably with Anand's
help, but other possibilities. Must detail an investigation. Now,
back onto...," and so on and so forth. 
    They peeked in, slowly, cautiously. The room was bright, and
from what could be seen of the walls, white. It looked like a busy
war-room kind of thing, straight out of some Cold War era, under
the Pentagon, top-secret installation, at least as interpretted by
Hollywood and instead of human personnel you had the Neo-Bugrom. It
even had humming comoputer machines, and screens and clear maps
with marks on them for troop deployments and supply lines and
whatnot, of the known world of El Hazard, on both sides of the
River of God. This nation had more detailed information as to the
other side of the River, it would seem, to no one's surprise. In
the centre of the room, Matt sat, strapped into a chair raised on a
dais. At the ends of the armrests were two keyboards, which he was
typing away busily, the stacatto sound of his fingers over the keys
sounding like a muted machine-gun. He was dictating as well, at
least two or three different subjects at once, and there were five
Neo-Bugrom whose sole purpose was to take the dictation, each one
having to separate Matt's unwavering drone into his particular
subject, which Matt would switch to and fro, seemingly at random.
Various subject included but were not limited to: an upcoming
election, and the logistics involved in that, reviewing the
liberation efforts against Diva and Jinnai, development of a more
efficient and safer system of manufacturing and storing hydrogen,
for usage in fuel cells and vehicles, switching from silicon to
gallium-arsenide semi-conductor chips, and, "...why don't you come
in now, you two. I want to see who it is and why you're disturbing
me."
    Dave's first words were, upon glancing around the room and
focusing on Matt, "You look like hell, Matt." Matt indeed looked
like Hell, as long as Hell looked like Matt, but with dark rings
under his eyes from exhaustion and the only reason he was sitting
upright was the straps on the chair. Furthermore, Matt's eyes
darted back and forth, every once in a while he would motion his
head sideways, indicating to a Neo-Bugrom to change the screen he
was reading.
    "Well," Matt grinned, the fierceness of it somewhat destroyed
by the obvious tiredness of him, although nonetheless wild for it,
"I've been operating in a state of hyper-consciousness/intelligence
for pretty much since I escaped Diva with my sons and set up this
nation, speaking of which we need a name for it, I never gave it
one. Add that to a question during the election, and perhaps we
should come up with a couple of selections. Wait, no, I did name
it-- I forgot. Good, cancel question. Everyone, take a break, and
someone please unstrap me from The Chair?" A Shemp-type Neo-Bugrom
carefully undid the straps, causing Matt's upright form to no
longer be upright, which makes sense because he's not really a
model citizen anyway, although he does have good posture, I'll give
him that. All the Neo-Bugrom left.
    Anand nudged Dave, who looked at him and then remembered why he
came and broke down the door and hopefully no one would take it out
of his hide when he got back, especially Afura, who might do so
_literally_. "Uh, Matt? We have questions."
    Matt waved a hand and said, "Ask away, I'm in a mood to
answer."
    "Right. First, how did you build this all up so quickly? Where
the technology? Why so Earth-like?"
    "It's quite simple, really. While you guys were partying it up
in Roshtaria, in Florestica-- bye the way, is it Rune Venus or Lune
Venus? I always liked the way the former sounded, aurally, that is,
but the latter has a more planetary reference, and I like the
significance of it. I could never really figure out which one it
was. --I was, well, held in captivity, making my sons and all
that," Matt repressed a shudder, "I used the time to redevelop my
math skills, and reinvented a lot-- it kept me sane."
    Anand opened his mouth to say something, but Matt cut him off
with, "Shut up, Anand."
    "You still haven't--"
    "I'm getting to that. Once I was liberated by/with the help of
some of my sons, I came here and we started to build." Matt cracked
a grin. "I realised something, then-- to build a better society,
all one needs are better citizens. My sons have a built in work
ethic, a legacy of their insectoid heritage, I would assume,
although possibly some of it from me, regardless of how shiftless I
normally am when I work, I _work_. Another legacy are remnants of a
hive-like mentality, more of a communal thing now, really, where we
try to do what is best for the community, for the whole, as opposed
to for the head of the hive. More independant. 
    "And they are brilliant, absolutely. Each one would be
considered a genius. Now, I'm no slouch when it comes to smarts,
but I think that there's got to be more than that, given what the
regular Bugrom are like. Perhaps it is something to do with a
hybridisation of human (earthling) and Bugrom genes, and/or perhaps
it was the way they were raised, a question we are exploring now,
actually, but regardless, they are brilliant and tireless workers.
Add to it that we took some supplies: construction equipment and
books, mainly, from some of the human nations (quietly, so as to
not cause a fuss), and that there are millions of us, and it isn't
hard to figure out." Matt waved his hand. "Is that it?"
    Dave and Anand nodded dumbly and walked out the doorway, noting
that the broken door had now been removed, and the splinters on the
floor swept up. "Dammit! I bloody well forgot again!" Dave moaned
and popped his head back in the door, determined to get more
answers. Matt had other ideas, mind you, being quite totally and
quite soundly asleep. "How does he manage to do that?" a peeved and
anguished Dave asked the ceiling. The ceiling had no answers, or at
least none that it wanted to give out to Dave, not that he probably
would have understood anything the ceiling might have had to
communicate, anyway. 

                                ***

    The rooms were quite nice. Sumptuous, even. Personal bathroom,
ample closet space, the works. Tasteful decor-- one might even say
_subtle_ so it was obvious that Matt didn't have a hand in it. Some
rather nice Cubist and Abstract art hung on the walls, different
pieces for every room, of course. Anand, Andrew, Dave and Mike each
had their own room. Each room was equuipped with a computer (hooked
up to a network) and a printer and scanner. Of course, there was no
porn to surf for, and the games were somewhat inferior to Alpha
Centauri or Quake III Arena, for instance, but then again they
weren't Daikatana either, so while the four did not spend a lot of
time on them (a lack of porn to be found could be another reason
why, but I can only speculate on that), they did spend a bit. Case
in point: Dave was up at midnight, typing up his latest missive to
Roshtaria, on the status of the negotiations. 

        Going well, although not too much interaction with Matt-- 
    perhaps the reason it is going so well. Pimpdaddy is a tough,
    shrewd negotiator, and often takes us on trips to see parts
    of the city and industrial complex, as well as surrounding
    countryside. 
        On the point of military force, I mentioned that with the
    Eye of God, we need fear nothing, and have all the military
    might we need. Pimpdaddy snorted in what can only be 
    interpretted as derisively, and said, and I quote, "We have no
    fear of the Eye of God." He would not explain why. I suspect
    this may have something to do with Matt, who knows more than
    he is saying-- he has some knowledge of El Hazard that we do
    not, and possessed it before we came. Perhaps this is not his
    first visit? Are there other incidences of crossing over, in
    the past? Knew about the Eye of God right from the start-- may
    know how to use/design it? Perhaps building their own?
        On the terms of a military alliance there are problems.
    Kitab is much more aggressive with regards to the Bugrom empire
    than ourselves, although it tends to be more of quick
    hit-and-run tactics, damaging emplacements instead of citizens
    and soldiery. Against the populace, a war of propaganda is
    raised, with some admittedly catchy phrases and
    anti-Diva/Jinnai sentiments. The

There was a tapping, a gentle rapping, rapping at the chamber door.
Dave looked up. The door was locked. The door was being opened,
anyway. Looking around for a weapon of any sort, Dave grabbed upon
the first available object and shouted, "Hold it right there, I
know how to use this thing!"
    Matt smirked. "And what are you going to do, Dave? Brush out
the non-existent tangles in my hair?"
    Dave looked at the object in his hand, only to find a
hairbrush. "What do you want, Matt."
    "Well, actually, I'm afraid you guys are going to have to
leave. I mean, now. Back to Roshtaria. I'm coming along with you,
as well."
    "But we have to get ready, we have to--"
    Matt calmly brushed away Dave's protestations, although he did
seem somewhat agitated. "Nothing of the sort. The van is all
prepped and ready to go. Everything necessary is packed and ready
to go, except for any personal effects you guys have in your
rooms."
    "One question: why?"
    "Because Pimpdaddy won the election, so he's now the Head of
State, not me. It doesn't matter, anyway, I've nothing left to
teach them, except this last lesson."
    "What's that?"
    "You shouldn't trust anyone. Now, if you don't bloody well
hurry up before they find out exactly how I'm implementing that
lesson, Bad Things will happen, and not just to me, I've made damn
sure of that. Now, wake the others up and meet me at the van in
twenty minutes."
    Dave left the room rather quickly. Matt looked around, hands
clasped behind his back except when he idly poked and prodded
somthing of interest with a pen. He sat down at the desk and tooked
at Dave's missive to Rune. "No, this won't do at all. Looks like
I'm going to have to go over this one too." He sighed and began to
work. Twenty minutes later, though, he was waiting at the van for
the others to arrive.

    Parked alone in a fully equipped, yet empty save for their
mini-van, underground parking lot, and by fully equipped I mean it
even had a sign prohibiting propane-powered vehicles from entry.
Anand noticed the sign and asked, "You have cars that run on
propane here, Matt?"
    Matt blinked. "No, why do you ask?"
    Andrew rubbed his eyes, still bleary from just waking. He and
Dave just arrived, and were the last. They met Matt, Mike and Anand
behind the van, tossing in a suitcase each of personal effects.
"I'm not pushing it again, you guys, and that's final," Andrew
said, mid-yawn.
    "Nono. Of course not," Matt said distractedly. "I've prepared
for that."
    "Really? Wow, Matt, you're not so bad after all!" Andrew perked
up.
    "Yeah, allow me to show you. Come around to the front of the
van." They did. 
    "Wha-- what is that?" Andrew asked, feeling a sense of dread
growing on him as he discerned the purpose of the device. The one
part looked quite like a harness, to be fitted around a man. A man,
in fact, of about his height and dimensions.
    "Why, it's a harness, of course," Matt replied easily. "I said
you wouldn't _push_ it, I never said anything about _pulling_ it."
Matt turned to Mike and said, "You can sit on top of the van and
guide Andrew. That way you won't need the noseplugs." Matt fished
something out of a pocket. "Here's a pair of goggles for your eyes,
in case of wind. Also, I've got a small two-way radio, so I can
send directions to you without opening the window and releasing the
scent."
    Mike shuddered at the implications of what would happen if she
smelled Matt. "Cool," she said.
    "Anand? If you would help Andrew into his harness, and Dave, if
you give Mike a boost to the seat I've had prepared on the roof, we
can be off." Anand and Dave complied with Matt's requests.
    "You try to cop a feel, Davey, and I'll tell Afura about it,"
Mike threatened.
    Dave blanched. "You wouldn't!" he said, remembering what Afura
said she'd do if she even so much as heard a rumour of his eyes
wandering.
    "I would, but you'd better not. I overheard what Afura told you
before we left." Mike grinned. She looked incongruously cute doing
so. What a horrible thought. Did I say that out loud?
    Soon enough Mike and Andrew were in position. "Are the blinders
really necessary, Matt?" Andrwe whined.
    "Oh yes, of course. We don't want you scared by what might be
on either side of you, you know."
    "What? What? Scared of what? What do I have to be scared of?"
    "Mike? If you would, as soon as I close the door, let's go."
    "Right, Matt."
    "Hey! I asked you a question there. It's not going to be
danger-- ouch!"
    Mike cracked the whip and said, "Geeyap!" Andrew took off like
a bolt, the van behind him. Mike put the goggles on. "This is fun!"


                                ***

    The team of Andrew and Mike made for a quite efficient means of
propulsion. Whenever Andrew would start to slack off, Mike would
crack the whip and say, "Onward, Harvard boy! Faster. Why, this is
just a little morning stretch for a Yale man, Harvard boy!" and
then more often than not, cackle gleefully.
    The radio attached to the collar of Mike's shirt crackled to
life. "Mike?" It was Matt's voice.
    "Yeah, Matt?"
    "I need you to veer off to the right, and slow down." Mike
complied. "That's good. Straight into those hills. There will be a
cave on your right coming up soon, and stop in front of it." The
mini-van came to a stop. "Right, now, put on your noseplugs,
because I'm coming out. There's someone I have to see here."
    "Who, Matt? Some strange hermit dude from earth who crossed
over and got some strange power to see the future, but came a
couple of years before anyone else?"
    "No, that'd be stupid. And I bet you're going to say he got his
eyes poked out by the Phantom Tribe or something, too, which is
bollocks because I've been assured they wouldn't do something like
that. Besides, how unlikely is it that it would transport just the
one guy in time, as well as space, releative to the rest of them--
that's just stupid. Use your head, ma--woman! You got them on?"
    "Uh, yeah. I god dem on."
    "Good, I'm coming out."
    Andrew was taking this moment to try and get out of the
harness, but failing miserably and he ended up just slumping to the
ground, connected to the van by about three meters (that's about
ten feet, to you non-metric-using people, get a real system of
measurments!) of silk cable stronger than steel-- just don't ask
how it was manufactured. Anand and Dave took the moment to step out
of the mini-van and stretch, as well, not to mention try to find
out who or what Matt wanted to stop and see, and why.
    Unfortunately, the cave was very dark, and though Matt could be
seen, whomever he was talking to could not. While Matt was loud and
easily heard, the same could not be said about the other side of
the conversation. Matt bellowed, "Look, it's going to plan. I did
not abrogate the treaty. No, not at all. Listen, if you want me to
fulfill my part of the bargain you know I can't do it from there. I
_had_ to leave." He sighed and paused, presumably while the other
person spoke. "No, that part of it was with _me_ and not Kitab-- I
was quite specific. Check your copy of it." Another pause, and then
an exasperated sigh. "Look: it's quite simple. If you want out, I'm
your only way. Haven't I treated you better than anyone else?
Wasn't it me who came to you, in fact? Have I given away anything?
Did I not make a haven for you? I'll need your data to corroborate
my theories, and probably access to your equipment. I'll leave you
to think about it. You know how to get in contact with me." Matt
walked out of the cave's mouth and shook his head. He looked up to
the foursome and said, "Let's go. I want to sleep in a bed
tonight."
    "More... rest," Andrew murmured.
    A sound caused them all to look up at the one hill. It was a
clicking, clacking, chitering kind of sound, and quite uniform.
Matt paled. "Oh no," he moaned.
    While it was enjoyable to see Matt in such a condition,
especially after all he'd done, there was the matter of whatever
would engender such a reaction in him would certainly not be good
news to them, either. "Oh no, what, Matt?" Dave asked. Matt just
pointed.
    Heads crested the hill. Hills, actually. Before the heads could
be seen, though, there were antennae. Lots of them, weaving and
swaying and more than that, _scenting_. Then came the bodies,
complete with arms and legs. Bugrom, lots of them.
    Then there was a palanquin of crystal, with two forms on it.
One of them a decidedly _female_ form, at that, and lounging on it
sensuously. The other was a pale-looking frowning stick of a
teenager in a suit, sitting and leaning forward, hands supporting
his torso on his knees/lap. The female form spoke, but not in a
language any of them could understand. The boy spoke after her,
sullenly translating. "Matt, I, Diva have come all this way to
claim you for my own, because I cannot live without--"
    Matt cut the boy off. "Shut up, Katsuhiko. I know what she
said. Even if I couldn't understand Bugrom I'd still know."
    "You understand Bugrom, Matt? I thought that he," Dave nodded
to Katsuhiko Jinnai, "was the only one who could talk to them!"
    "You don't spend a lot of time among them without learning
their language. Some of it's beyond me, of course, owing to the use
of scent to convey certain messages, mainly of urgency and an
emotive nature. That's probably why the communication barrier,
actually. I can understand some, but not speak it."
    Diva spoke again. Jinnai once again translated, for the benefit
of the others. "Give Matt back to me, and you shall not be harmed.
I wish to... continue... where we left off."
    Matt shuddered. "Never! They'll never give me up!"
    "Actually, Matt, we'd probably be more than happy to--" Andrew
began but was cut off by Matt, though Anand, Mike and Dave were all
nodding in agreement with Andrew.
    "You do realise that I'm the only one whose got the ticket
home, don't you?" Matt turned and shouted at his reluctant
compatriots. "Right, now, let's try that again: Never! They'll
never give me up!"
    "Damn straight!"
    "All for one and one for all!"
    "I wanna be a guy again, full-time!"
    "Actually, I don't have it so bad, except that you guys keep
using me to push or pull the mini-van, and--"
    "Shut up, Andrew" the other four chorused.
    "I've had my moment," Andrew replied meekly, cringing.
    "Run for the van!" Matt shouted, already halfway there. Mike
was already there, not having left the roof, and Andrew, well, we
still had the silk harness around him, but he did finally stand up.
Doors opened and men dove into the mini-van. Matt screamed, "Go!
Go! Go! Go!" and no, he wasn't referring to his footwear which were
a pair of sensible brown shoes, and not boots of any sort,
especially long silvered ones that would be more appropriate in a
club or a rave (although he was acting kind of like someone
currently in the throes of crystal meth, but that was something
which was par for the course, with Matt). A crack of the whip just
above Andrew's ear (it was really quite unnerving the accuracy Mike
had with it) was a very good incentive for him to start running
really, really quickly. 
    Inside the mini-van, which was filled with assorted things that
were not there when they had left Roshtaria for Kitab and whose
purpose could not be ascertained with a glance because they were in
metal boxes, and without opening said boxes for they were locked,
Matt was busy opening one of the longer, thinner boxes. "Who knows
how to use one of these?" Matt held in his hands a rather large
rifle with a big scope. And by large, I mean calibre. Had to be a
.50, no problem. Anand and Dave shook their heads. Matt sighed as
he rolled down a window. "Three freaking Americans here, and it's
the Canadian that ends up with the gun." Matt sighed again and
chambered a bullet. He hummed to himself and carefully took aim,
flicking the safety off, because Kitab had passed a law requiring
safeties on all firearms, and shot Diva's crystal palanquin,
shattering it. "That should stop them. They won't move until she
can get something to be carried on." Matt pulled the rifle and his
head back in the mini-van, rolled up the window, cleaned the rifle
and made it ready for storage, and put it back in the box, locking
it. "Are the beds comfortable in the palace?"
    
    The rest of the trip was, if not exactly peaceful, then free of
external interruption. _Internal_ interruption, on the other hand,
is a whole other story. Matt was explaining why exactly it was that
Anand could hear the words, "book" and "story" while everyone else
heard "Kitab" and "Kahani," as they sped into Florestica. "...and
so I decided to make my own language to test out the theory. I made
an agglutinative one--"
    "Agglutinative?" Dave asked, not taking his eyes off the, well,
not road really, but ground, and Andrew, who was still pulling
them. 
    Matt sighed, perhaps at the interruption, or perhaps at not
having his terminology understood. "Yes, aggulinative-- a language
that is inflected that way. You don't really have words, per se, so
much as word-sentences. An example from home would be Inuit.
English, for instance, is not an agglutinative language, but a
synthetic one, where the specific placement of words is very
important to convey meaning, such as ownership, or who is doing
what, as opposed to a change of inflection. It didn't used to be
that way, though, back in the days of--"
    "We get the picture, Matt," Dave again interrupted, trying to
bring the conversation back on track, although why he wanted to was
beyond me.
    "Right, so okay then, eh? Well, it didn't work. It all came out
as English, to me. And we're at the palace now." Matt pressed a
button on the two-way radio and said, "Mike, get 'im to stop, we're
there."
    Matt's radio cackled to life, "Right-o!" and Mike began to
crack her whip and shout at Andrew to stop. 
    They finally came to a stop. The palace who's who were already
there, waiting for them. Matt peered out the window of the minivan.
There were women out there. He frowned. 
    "What are you going to do, Matt?" Dave asked. "This could get
ugly." Dave quite obviously did not mind if it got ugly, since Matt
would be the target of the ugliness, and not him.
    "Well," Matt began, "First, you guys're gonna get out, quickly,
and without opening the door too much and closing the door
immediately after, so that the scent doesn't carry too much
outside."
    "What then?"
    Matt smiled, superior (some might say smug, but they'd be
right) and self-confident in himself. "You'll find out," he would
only say, in a mysterious and infuriating fashion.
    "One day Matt, you'll get yours."
    Matt grinned. "Perhaps," he said in the same tone, "but that
day ain't this one." He hitched a thumb at Anand and said,
"Besides, you're talkin' to the wrong guy-- I don't do karma. Now,
just get out of the mini-van, okay?" They did as they were told--
possibly because Matt's left hand was negligently patting one of
the metal boxes he'd stored in the minivan; specifically, the one
he had opened up to take out Diva's palanquin with. 
    They waited expectantly outside of the van with the natives,
and watched as it rocked a bit, slightly. Well, Andrew did a very
good imitation of a pile of jelly, actually, and so he really
wasn't waiting so much as recuperating, but that's neither here nor
there. After a couple of minutes of silence and staring at the van,
Fatora yawned. "So," she said, "what exactly are we waiting for,
anyway?"
    "Matt's in there," Dave said simply.
    "He seems to have come up with a way to get around his scent,
or so he has led us to believe," Anand chimed in with support.
    "Oh." Fatora went back to staring at the slightly swaying van.
    The side door unlocked. It opened, slowly. Smoke, created via
the application of water (liquid) to dry ice, billowed out-- at
least, that's what it smelled like. The palace people did not ooh
and aah appreciatively, nor did Makoto nor Nanami nor Fujisawa, nor
anyone else, actually. Just bored, blase looks, all around. A bird
chirped.
    Out of the door and the smoke a figure appeared. It was tall
and upright and definitely inhuman. Of the body, nothing could be
said, for it was totally covered by a shimmering cloak/curtain
which hid the underneath shape-- not even appendages, or a lack
thereof could be made. For a head, there was a downwardly curved
banana-shaped thing, the same colour as the cloak, but not nearly
as shimmering. At what must be assumed to be the front, was a small
aperture, glowing from the inside. The head waved back and forth,
seeming to take everyone in at once.
    "Matt?" Anand asked. "Is that you in there, Matt?"
    A voice like a sigh answered, accompanied by bells, "Yes."
    Andrew, who had sufficiently recovered in the minutes waiting
for Matt's exit from the minivan, laughed and said disparagingly,
"You look like a Vorlon, Matt!"
    The voice answered, "If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die!"
    "Hah hah hah," Andrew said. No, I don't mean he laughed, I mean
he said that, and in an especially flat tone of voice, too. Have I
told you to shut up, I'm the narrator here, lately? Oh, sure, I'm
an intern, and shouldn't even be narrating at all, but you all
pushed me into it, so you can just go to hell, okay?
    "Well, I _do_ need an Encounter Suit, don't I?"
    "Ah," Rune Venus began, causing the head and its single glowing
ocular to focus on her, "you would be Matt?"
    "No," came a disappointed voice from the Encounter Suit, this
time not the breathy one with the bells, but Matt's regular one. 
    The monarch looked flustered, not prepared for this response.
"What? But I thought you were--" she was cut off by the joyful
laughter coming out of the Encounter Suit. Oddly enough, there was
absolutely no malice in the laughter.
    "I don't believe how many times people fall for that one!" Matt
said, no longer laughing but still happy. "Yeah, I'm Matt." He was
all business now, lsting his requirements. "I need political asylum
from you. I will also need some equipment, and some rooms, sealed
and self-sufficient, set aside for me. I will need access to the
Eye of God, so you will need to take the shield down. I will need
to be able to work on the Eye for long periods of time,
undisturbed, and so quarters there will be needed, unless some
already exist, which they quite possibly do, there."
    "Why should we do this?" Fatora asked, annoyed by Matt's
presumption. "Why do you assume we will just give all this to you?"
    "One, because you want to keep me out of the hands of Diva, who
most assuredly is where I'd have to go for asylum next, and who
would be more than happy to have me. You'd then most likely have to
deal with an overwhelming number of my sons working for her in a
short period of time. Very fast maturation rate.
    "Two, because I have great confidence that my theories on the
Eye of God are correct, and if they are, I will share them with
you, letting you be able to use it without any harm and with great
precision. I can get all of us from Earth, home.
    "Three, be glad that I couldn't get my hands on any uranium so
that I could make plutonium." Everyone from Earth, including those
who came with Matt, looked at the Encounter Suit with great fright
and shock. "They know what I'm talking about, and yeah, I could do
it, too. You don't need to worry, though-- it was something only I
worked on, and never showed them my research-- plus I destroyed all
data about it before I fled." Matt paused dramatically. "Of course,
I can potentially replicate the research, and I'm sure Diva and
Katsuhiko would be more than happy to...," he trailed off.
    "What's he talking about?" Londs asked.
    "Give him what he wants," Dave said, whey-faced. "He bluffing,
I know he's bluffing, he's got to be bluffing about that, but why
can't I totally convince myself that he's bluffing?"
    The grin underneath the Encounter Suit could be felt. The
glowing aperture did in fact widen somewhat, as well. Matt's glee
came off in palpable waves. "That went well; I didn't even have to
mention the two sub-machine guns I'm currently holding in my hands,
one filled with hollow-point and the other with flechette ammo.
Yes, I know, Geneva convention and all about the flechettes, but
really that doesn't apply on this world, does it? But first," he
said.
    "But first," Rune Venus and the rest of her entourage repeated
dreadfully.
    "Well, I've been operating on a level of nigh manic activity
and thought for... I've lost track. So, 'but first,' I'm going to
crash." So saying, the Encounter Suit tipped backwards, until
finally it reached the point of no return and he just plain fell on
his ass. Hopefully, the Encounter Suit also included padding.
    "That is without a doubt the damndest thing I have ever seen,"
announced Fujisawa. No one else could disagree.

                                ***

    Do I really have to go through all the stuff that happened in
between Matt falling and him on the Eye of God, working? Yes, you
say? Absolutely necessary? But we're running too long as it is, and
you know how much that's going to add? Okay, good, I'll just sum it
up then: it took Matt a while to rest up, a couple of months or
something like that-- days kind of bled into each other and all
that jazz. Once in a while he ventured from his hermetically sealed
section of the palace (which earned him the monicker 'Bubble Boy'
behind his back) in his Encounter Suit. He didn't do much, and
occasionally would receive visitors, in the form of Anand or Dave
usually, who often tried to escape their paramours. Makoto, to,
would appear, sometimes for that reason and sometimes to try and
pump information out of Matt-- it didn't work and very often Matt
could not be found amongst his room.
    During this refectory period the Eye of God was made habitable
for Matt, and so when he entered into the main hall in his
Encounter Suit and spoke the breathy words with the accomaniment of
bells, "I am ready to begin my work," they were ready for him to
begin his sojourn on the Eye, especially because it meant not
having him walking around in the Suit doing who knows what
underneath it.
    "Is he always like that?" Rune Venus asked once Matt left the
court.
    "No," Anand answered amicably. "Usually he's much worse. He
must like you people a lot or something." The princess nodded
slowly, considering this statement.
    Shut up, I told you I was going to skim over most of it; didn't
I give them all the salient details? Okay, okay, I'll do it, but
only because you'll give me a good report, right? This is
blackmail, you know; lousy co-op program, forcing me to work for
you.
    So okay, maybe that wasn't all that happened. Maybe there was a
bit where Matt, Dave, Anand, Andrew and Mike (wearing a set of nose
filters) were relaxing in a room with overstuffed plush couches in
Matt's section of the palace.
    "This trade with Kitab is going pretty well then, is it?" Mike
asked.
    "Yeah," Anand answered, sipping on some fruit-flavoured
carbonated beverage. "They didn't seem to hold it against us that
Matt's got political asylum here."
    "What exactly did you do to them, Matt?" Dave asked.
    "Well they know that the main reason I'm here is for the Eye,
and to get off this rock and back onto Earth-- and the sooner that
happens, the better, to them."
    "So what did you do, Matt?" Andrwe repeated Dave's question.
    "Well, you know the saying 'you only hurt the ones you love?'"
Matt asked. They all nodded. "Well, let's just say I showed my sons
the depths of my love. It was surprisingly deep, too."
    They nodded in understanding, pausing to reflect on the truth
of Matt's words. "That doesn't answer the question though, Matt,"
Andrew noted.
    "Yes, but unfortunately I'm not Sir Gives-a-damn from the
magical land of I-care-alot, so that's all you're going to get from
me," Matt replied in a very, very condescending tone, as if he were
talking to an imbecile, which he clearly thought he was. "But," and
he paused here to get up from the reclining chair (leather, and
very soft) to get a drink from the mini-fridge installed in the
room, "what I was wondering is, what do you think about ess eye
fics? I keep hearing defenders say that 'after the first, oh, three
pages or so it's no longer an ess eye, because the character has to
change and so is no longer you. Ah, this juice stuff's good."
    Andrew answered first. "Well," he sipped his glass
thoughtfully, "In a way, that's true, because at that point, the
avatar ceases becoming you. Usually, enough different stuff happens
to that character that it's a different person. On the other hand,
unless there's some sort of catastrophic brain damage, it's still
_largely_ the same person."
    Matt peered out of one eye over his glass at Andrew. "So you're
pretty wishy-washy then, eh? Don't want to offend anyone, even
though none of us here have written ess eyes? Don't want to commit
to something, eh? That it? That it?"
    "Wow, Matt. I think I'll just sit here and take that abuse from
you like a good little boy!"
    "I knew you would, Andrew, because otherwise I'd have to do
something horrible to you."
    "Do you have trouble understanding the concept of sarcasm,
Matt?"
    "Not really. I just find the best respose to sarcasm is to
respond to what the person is saying as if they actually meant it."
    Anand butted in with, "You're evil, Matt."
    Matt shrugged, "And you're cute; at least, that's what Londs
tells me. What else is new? Just out of curiousity, is it true what
he says about your birthmark?" 
    "At any rate," Andrew said, "I'll say that generally, ess eyes
remain ess eyes after three pages because the person usually
remains in-character to himself, even if wondrous and unlikely
things happen to him."
    "It doesn't matter, to me," Mike said. "There's no magic length
to me at which point an ess eye becomes an original slash annoying
new character."
    "Wouldn't you say though, that after a certain point the ess
eye becomes a different person? No longer recognisable from what he
or she originally was, because of what has happened in the story?"
Anand asked, finally overcoming the embarassed silence Matt
inflicted upon him.
    "You mean like how I may not be the man I used to be, say, five
years ago," Matt said, "and people who knew me from a long time ago
might not recognise me now?"
    "Matt, I'm quite sure you were always like that," Dave
interjected.
    "I was speaking hypothetically, Dave, and of course I've pretty
much always been like this-- perfection doesn't need changing."
Matt said loftily. "But that's what you mean, yes? Certain events,
especially traumatic and/or drastic ones can certainly influence
someone's direction in life, causing an epiphany."
    Anand nodded. "Pretty much."
    "Yet one can extrapolate what one is likely to do under certain
conditions. What I would do in situation ex, given that events why
and zed have already happened to me.  One can plot out and predict
these things quite accurately, given even the smallest amount of
self-knowledge. How is it we often know what the reactions of a
friend will be when something new happens? There remains a core,
which is added onto, or perhaps subtracted sometimes, but never
completely replaced." Matt paused and smiled slyly and said, "So
what kind of ess eye fic would you write, if you wrote one, guys?"
    "I wouldn't," Dave said.
    "I'm not sure what series I'd put me into, and what I'd do,"
Andrew muses.
    "Come on, Drew," Matt scoffs. "We all know you'd pop yourself
in Eva and try to make friends with the pilots and bridge staff and
such. Of course, what would really end up happening is Gendo would
have you shot, or at least pistol-whipped, when you tried that."
    "How do you know, Matt?" retorted Andrew.
    "Because that's the very least I'd have done to you if I were
Gendo, and if there's anyone in this room now that can think like
Gendo, it'd be me?"
    "Ooh, good point," Mike snickered. "Of course, he's got you
there, Nancy."
    Dave and Anand chimed in with, "Well yeah," and "No question
about it. I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with Matt, and not
being forced to do so."
    Andrew, on the other hand, forgot about the argument entirely
and said, "Nancy? Nancy! What the heck do you mean by that? I'd
think if anyone here should be called Nancy, it'd be you, Mike!"
    "You've been staring at Mike's chest again, Nancy?" Matt
interjected.
    "It's quite simple," Mike explained. "You get called Drew. From
Drew we get the young adult mystery writer Nancy Drew. From Nancy
Drew we get Nancy." Mike looked quite satisfied.
    "That's a Matt chain of logic, you know," Dave dead-panned.
    "I always knew you were a bit of a Nancy-boy, Drew," Matt
grinned. "You know what I'd do, though? I'd write a fic and stick
other authors in it with me, but only I'd have knowledge of the
anime we got put in. Then I'd have fun screwing around in it.
That's what I'd do."
    "You mean kind of like what's going on now, Matt?" Anand asked.
    Matt paused for a second as his eyes looked up in thought.
"Actually, quite a bit like right now. Damn, wouldn't that be a
pisser?" Matt yawned and said, "Well, you bore me now, leave." They
sat there for a second or two, at which point Matt's eyes bugged
out and he shouted, "Leave!" He started to reach for something
under the couch. They left. Quickly.

    So there. That's what it was like. Matt never did use a gun on
anyone though, or if he did then they never pinned it on him, and
that's good enough, right? Well, okay, there was the one time, but
it shot out paint balls, and really, it was silly asking him what
he wore underneath the Encounter Suit. Now that we've got that
settled with, we can get to the Eye of God, which is where Matt was
receiving his mail, assuming he got any mail, which he didn't, and
also assuming there was anyone who'd deliver to the Eye of God, and
they didn't. Rain, sleet and snow, yeah, no problem, but way up
high on artificial satellites that wreak havoc with space and time
are another thing entirely, thankyewverymuch!
    Back in the Palace, things were pretty much business as usual,
much to the lament of Anand and Dave in particular. On one day, not
too long after Matt's first trip down from the Eye of God, they
were gathered in one of the gardens-- and by they I mean all the
name players, plus a few exquisite, but unimportant and so I shall
not bother to name them, servants, with trays of food and drink.
Dave seemed quite reluctant to sit down, and so stood, pacing
around stiffly.
    Matt was there, or at least his Encounter Suit was, and
something was moving it and talking, so they assumed it was him. "I
need more supplies. Figuring out the Eye is more difficult than I
suspected it would be, due to the need to traverse it. I don't
suppose there exists a map of the interior anywhere?" There was a
shake of heads from the priestesses, Makoto and Schtalubaugh.   
    "Mapping efforts will have to continue, then. I'm going to be
going up and down the Stairway (although really it's more like an
elevator) a fair amount. Be testing it, and some other things, too.
Not the primary process, don't worry about that, but I need to get
a feel for the Eye-- as such please disregard things like the
Stairway going and there being no one or nothing on it.
    "Makoto-- I will be calling upon you and your talents, several
times before I am done, most likely. You will help, yes?" Matt was
not asking if Makoto would help him. "Very well. If there are no
questions, I am anxious to get back to business. Leave the supplies
on the platform on the Stairway-- I will bring it up myself. Do not
attempt to come up unless I specifically request it-- that would
not be a good idea, and there may be some danger, as I will be
involved in delicate work." Matt turned and left before anyone had
a chance to take him up on his offer of answering questions.

    Work progressed. Matt was seldom seen in the Palace, spending
most of his time on the Eye of God, and everyone was glad. It is
rumoured that several of them celebrated in a midnight cabal,
involving milk and cookies (yay!) but I cannot confirm that, nor
can I confirm that it involved Rune Venus, Makoto, Nanami,
Fujisawa, and at least one of the Priestesses if not two (Afura
being busy tracking down Dave).
    The last time Matt was down he was wandering through the palace
and muttering to himself. "Eye of God... ...not original
purpose.... ...negative matter and mutual gravity?-- look into
under the Stairway.... ...Cauchy problem in spacetimes with closed
timelike curves... ...simple, really, just--" It was at this point
that Matt's train of thought had been derailed, as it were by a
revelation: he was not wearing his Encounter Suit. This revelation
was brought on by the sizable percentage of palace staff following
him, and following isn't really the right word, because it was more
of chasing him, you know, like hunter(s) and hunted type of thing.  
    Matt's epiphany came about as one of the nameless-yet-beautiful
palace serving women grabbed his shoulder and whipped him around.
He looked up, screamed in a Homer Simpson kind of way and ran the
opposite direction. After zig-zagging through various corridors,
Matt grinned fiercely, staggering and leaning forward dangerously.
He had lost his pursuers, and he knew another way to the Stairway
and from there to the Eye of God, so staking that out would not
help. Now, all he had to do was to find out what this warm and soft
thing his face was now buried in. Why was it purring? It wasn't
furry-- felt like silk, but the warmth was coming from underneath
the silk, and there was a regular movement, as well-- an expansion
and a contraction that was tantalisingly familiar. Then arms,
almost as soft as the silk, wrapped around his head.
    "I've always liked men with beards, so manly," a most
definitely female voice said. Matt would liked to have looked up
(in fear), but was unable to, due to the headlock Rune Venus had
him in, head still against her chest (in fear).
    Twisting his head around so that now speech was possible, Matt
said, "Maybe we should continue this elsewhere?" leaving the
question dangling in the air. Rue Venus nodded and allowed Matt to
straighten up. This allowed Matt to flee (in fear). Along the way
he ran into Makoto and dragged him along in his wake, nearly
dislocating the poor boy's arm in the process. It was quite some
time before Matt ventured from the Eye of God again. Hence the
celebration with milk and cookies-- some of them were even double
chocolate.

    Eventually the day came when Matt stepped down from the Eye
again. He was met halfway to the palace by a delegation of
consisting of  Anand, Dave, Makoto, Nanami and Mike. He was wearing
his Encounter Suit this time. They looked at him (well, his suit,
at any rate) expectantly, not speaking. "When do you want to go
home?" Matt asked out of the suit. 
    "You mean...?" Makoto trailed off hopefully.
    The headpiece nodded. "Yeah. I did it. Not only deciphered it,
but also figured out the control mechanism. It was very similar to
what I was expecting, really. Safe to use now. Had to rebuild and
install a few things, but that's okay. Makes it easier all around,
really. Still need either the princesses or Makoto, though, to
effect a transfer-- I didn't think they'd like it if I modified it
so that anyone could control it." Matt yawned. "Where's Nancy,
anyway?"
    Dave pointed a finger at Nanami. "Nanami here has him running
around doing errands."
    "Well," she said, "he just follows me around like a puppy dog
otherwise-- it kind of freaks me out, if you want to know."
    "That's okay," came the reply from the Encounter Suit, "just as
long as you remember he's our bitch before he's yours, we'll get
along smashingly." He paused and started again, "Would two days be
enough time for everyone else to get ready and say their goodbyes
and such? I think it best if the five of us, Anand, Mike, Andrew,
Dave and myself cross first-- as a test case, if you will. Besides,
I'll need Makoto on the other end, here, in El Hazard, to
manipulate the Eye. Afterwards, he can bring us, or myself at any
rate, back, and I can make some adjustments and calibrations--
basically put a timer on it so that Makoto can cross without the
Princesses having to manipulate the Eye." Matt turned and left.
    They rushed back to the palace to tell everyone the good news.
Another celebration occurred, and this time not something as staid
as milk and cookies; the next morning Mike found himself fleeing
from an enraged Fatora and Alielle, Anand woke up in Londs' room
and did not know whether he should be grateful or frightened that
he could not remember what happened, Dave found himself deep in the
bowels of the palace, wearing a leather mask with zippers covering
the eyes and mouth, while Andrew woke up feeling somewhat
refreshed but somewhat miffed, having been too tired to go to the
party and having fallen asleep instead, not that anyone told him
about it until afterwards, anyway. He most likely would have taken
it the right way if he saw Nanami trying to hang off Makoto, and
fighting with Shayla Shayla for the right to do so-- not that it
would have done anything except make him a bit more bitter and
increase the likelihood of an ulcer.

    Two days later.
    On top of the Stairway. The van, Matt had it there when they
all arrived. He was there as well, in his Encounter Suit. Dave,
Anand, Andrew and Mike, of course-- they stood near the van. Makoto
stood beside Matt. Nanami and Afura Mann and Dr. Schtalubaugh stood
off to the edge, along with the princesses Rune Venus and Fatora,
just in case they were necessary. Alielle was there as well, of
course.
    Makoto distractedly traced the machinery Matt had set up with a
finger. "It looks familiar," he said, trying to puzzle out the
translucent balls and the straight and spiralling pipes that
connected them together. It looked more like an art piece or a
chemical model than anything else, and certainly not a control
piece for the Eye.
    "I am ready, let's begin," Matt said. "Get in the middle of my
set up here, and place your hands on the balls which are on either
side of your waist." Makoto did so. "Good."
    "That looks like that get up those blue bastards had me in,"
Fatora frowned and said. Nanami perked up and looked around, but
could see no one skulking about or anything.
    Makoto closed his eyes and the whole Eye seemed to hum. Matt
said, "Good. Build the power up, slowly now. Right, there, that's
it, stop. Level it off now. Feed anymore power and you'll have a
repeat of what you narrowly averted before, only this time it won't
be narrowly averted.
    "Okay now, I need you to direct a search. Use the mini-van as
search criteria." The Eye opened and a beam of light came out,
enveloping the mini-van. "This will enable the Eye to find the
right dimension to place us in-- we've been here too long,
breathing the air, eating the food and drinking the water, for
ourselves to be used, but things we brought over could, since they
have not exchanged original matter for El Hazard molecules. It is
not quite true that all atoms of a particular element are exactly
identical, it seems-- there is a certain distinction, a resonance,
if you will, which can tell one the where-when of said atom's
origins. The Eye of God can compare and use it to find specific
place-times."
    Less than half a minute after Matt's lecture, Makoto softly
intoned, "Found it."
    "Good," Matt said approvingly. "You can open up a view, to make
sure. Not an actual portal yet, but a view. Do it now."
    Makoto did so. "How do you know so much about the Eye,
Matthew?" he asked from faraway.
    "That's not important now. What is important is that this would
appear to be the right place. I'll stay here in case Makoto needs
help. The four of you guys get in the van. I was doing some stuff
in there, though, so Mike you're gonna want nose filters. Now,
Makoto, concentrate on the view-- make the membrane between here
and the other side permeable from this side, yes, that's it,
right."
    Dave and the gang opened the side sliding door of the mini-van.
Nanami's eyes suddenly caught something that wasn't supposed to be
there. "Matt!" she cried, and pointed at the mini-van, not the
Encounter Suit. More specifically, she pointed at the windshield of
the mini-van, or rather, what sat there behind it, or I should say
_who_ sat there behind it.
    Everyone not piling into the van who also wasn't controlling
the Eye of God, looked. They saw Matt, sitting in the driver's seat
and waving back at them with one hand as the engine roared to life.
    "Who's in the Encounter Suit then?" Rune Venus asked.
    Londs strode up to the suit, and pulled the cloak away. The
head fell backwards. "Najato!"
    The Phantom Tribe boy smiled and spoke. "None other."
    "Aha!" Fatora cried, "That's how he did it! I knew that stuff
was from the Phantom Tribe!"
    "Well, we did supply him with some materials and equipment, as
well as what we found out about the Eye of God from before, but
really they were supplementary for him. Allowed him to do it
faster."
    The door closed on the mini-van and it roared forward as Matt
rolled the window down and laughed. "You'll never get me, coppers!
And it's too late to shut down the portal and none o' you'll ever
get through it before me, and after me it's gonna go back to
impermeability!" Matt drove through the portal to Earth.
    "Makoto! Keep it open!" Nanami cried.
    "Can't, he put something in there, some pre-programming or a
hardware restriction that I can't get around. I'm trying, though.
Give me a bit of time."
    On the other side of the portal, Matt stopped the mini-van and
got out. He turned around and waved and shouted, "Can you hear me?"
although to them it was somewhat faint. "Well, it doesn't matter
anyway, because Makoto, you should be hearing a small beeping
sound. I'd disconnect from the equipment because it's going to blow
real soon-- no real explosion, but enough to slag all the
circuits-- you'll not be able to use it again or decipher its
workings from examining it. And my notes? I seem to have brought
them with me, sad, that." Matt waved, "Sorry, Najato, and I
actually mean it and feel real regret, but I couldn't help you.
Still, at least your people are closer to their home now, goodbye!"
and then the portal closed.
    The crew tumbled out of the mini-van shortly after. Mike was no
longer a she, nor was he having an adverse reaction to Matt...
well, no more than anyone else, at any rate. "What was that, Matt?"
Dave said, doing the speaking for all of them.
    "Hey, I'm a guy again," Mike said, checking his parts. "Cool. i
guess once we left there, our powers stopped working."
    Matt looked up at the skyline and around at the people milling
around. He laughed and capered about. "Looks like it worked, lads,
eh? We're back-- we're back! And here you were doubting me! Hah!
Who's laughing now? _Who's laughing now?_" Of course, it was Matt
who was laughing now. And then, he wasn't-- like someone suddenly
threw a switch and turned him off. He stood there, away from the
van, pale and pointing and trembling furiously. The pointing arm
went down and he inhaled. Matt looked at the sky and screamed out
an obscenity which caused all to stop and pause with its volume and
ferocity.
    A look saw two women, one curved, naturally dark-skinned and
also sporting a tan, white-haired and dressed in something more
appropriate to a dance club, and the other a bit more slim, with
wheat coloured hair and dressed in a more demure, yet still stylish
fashion. They had markings on their faces, one around the pineal
gland (third eye) and the other markings like a tear just at the
edeg of the eyes. The two women looked at Matt and frowned
slightly. They came closer, and their frowns deepened.
    "Urd! Belldandy!" a male voice called out from behind the two
women. A male voice that was somewhat familiar to Matt, and not one
he heard in Japan before, either.
    "No," Matt groaned, "Bad enough we're not home but in another
anime, but please, not this."
    "_Another_ anime, Matt?" Dave asked.
    "What do you mean by another?" Anand queried.
    "Yes, tell us," Andrew said, smiling.
    "Tell us," Mike echoed.
    Matt's attention was focused, however, not only on Belldandy
and Urd's approach, but that of the owner of the voice, and so he
deigned not to notice his companions' queries. The man doing the
calling finally caught up to them. He was tall, about the same
height as Dave, although thinner (but not stick-thin). Short hair
that hugged his skull, fair-skinned with freckles, he also wore a
dark, dark green trenchcoat, opened, and sporting a black t-shirt
with the word CAMEO written on it in bold white English lettering.
"That clinches it," Matt said from somewhere deep within his gut.
Matt arched his back up and raised his hands to the sky, with his
middle fingers extended. "You one-eyed bastard, you get your rass
down here before I punt you all the way to"
    "What's Matt talking about?" asked Andrew.
    "-uck you! You hear me? I'll poke your other damn eye out and
fu--"
    "I think he's referring to them," Mike said and pointed to the
two women and the man.
    "--cket! Bastard! I'll get you for this, don't think that I
won't! I'll throw so many punches you'll beg me for a kick! Get the
f--"
    "He's certainly passionate about it, isn't he?" Anand observed.
And indeed, Matt was hopping up and down, capering about and
gesticulating wildly, as well as rudely, to the sky as he ranted
and raved and cursed and swore.
    "Bastardbastardbastardbastard! You get you rass down here and
face me unless you're just some chicken pansy!"
    "What's going on, Urd?" the as-yet-unidentified-except-by-Matt-
who-was-in-no-condition-to-exchange-information man asked.
    "It's probaby a good idea if we back away from Matt, isn't it?"
Andrew observed. The others nodded and stepped back towards the
mini-van.
    "All my plans ruined! I would've been rich back home, you hear
me! I would have advanced the world a hundred years, you old,
tired, used up excuse for a deity! A revolution with what I brought
back, a dream and vision of a beautiful and more egalitarian world!
I would have dragged us out of our past and into the future! Get
with the program! Monotheism's the way to go! None of this Return
To Paganism bullcock! We got rid of you and your kind hundreds of
years ago, you poncey git! Oneoneone! Well, except for Hinduism,
and that's a special case-- okay, the dualism of Zoroastrianism is
okay, too, but you old, tired, withered forgotten and unworshipped
ones, Get Out!"
    Said unidentified man noted, "He's got a serious groove on with
that ranting and stuff, doesn't he? Lotsa energy."
    "-impslap you into Ragnarok! Take another drink for Mimir's
well, because you got seriously gypped on that deal, bye!"
    "Well, he's a demon, Chris," Urd replied, pointing at Matt.
    "Don't make me come up there, or I'll be really pissed!"
    "How can you tell? There's plenty of norma-- well, maybe not
normal, per se, but people who could curse like that and they're
not demons or anything," Chris replied.
    "-ake it out on you rass! I'm gonna climb Bifrost and stick my
foot so far up your"
    "Half-demon, at any rate," Belldandy interjected. "Over his
right eyebrow, the small blue slash? You remember Mara's markings,
don't you, brother? The same type of thing, except there were more
of them in her case, denoting a different ranking."
    Andrew who had been following the trio's conversation
whispered, "Angel? God Boy? I can see why Matt's a bit miffed,
then."
    "You're still new to your godhead, bro, so it's not something
you're used to looking for, but to Bell and I it's second nature,"
Urd said.
    "Aw, crikey-- we're in an ess eye now, aren't we?" Dave said,
somewhat annoyed, to the others.
    "--ake you my bitch! Nah, you'd probably like that, wouldn't
you? Get down here! GET DOWN HERE!"
    "Well, we can't just let a demon or a half demon get away with
that, right? That's bad, isn't it? He sounds really unstable, and
if he's got some power in him, then he could be really dangerous,
right?" Christopher Angel, God of Moments, asked his sisters.
    "-ing my guns and go John Woo style up there on the whole
friggin' place unless you face me now!"
    Urd and Belldandy nodded. 'Nuff said; Matt had to be dealt with
now. They cupped their hands and thrust out their arms at Matt,
balls of energy starting to grow in front of their hands.
    "Couldn't you two just hold him down as I beat the spit out of
him or something? Wouldn't people notice you blasting him with
stuff?" Chris asked his two siblings, not noting that three on one
is not the most fair of odds.
    "-it you until candy comes out, buh'clah!"
    "Bah'clah?" Anand asked, not quite getting the same
pronunciation as Matt. "What the heck is that?"
    "Bluh'clad? Bloodclot? Didn't he once say that's what it was?
I'm pretty sure he used it once and then explained it," Andrew
replied. "You know how he likes to explain stuff, even if he
doesn't have a clue," Andrew added. Anand, Dave and Mike could only
nod-- they knew too well.
    "By the time I'm through with you, there won't even be enough
for a chew-toy for Fenris, ya meddling mother--"
    "You think we're far enough away from Matt that we'll be safe
from the beatdown?" Mike asked.
    "Yeah, we should be fine, and more importantly, we've got prime
seats for the beatdown," Dave nodded absently, watching the byplay
intently.
    "Well, we don't actually know how powerful he is, but if he's
making threats like that...," Urd drifted off, letting Chris, and
everyone else finish off the sentence.
    Chris nodded thoughtfully. "And those people he's with might be
dupes of his and help him out. I'd rather not have to hurt mortals.
Right. Makes sense." Chris held out an arm, and used the other to
brace it. A ball of energy started to form in one hand, mirroring
the ones now growing in Belldandy's and Urd's hands. Matt was not
aware of this, but he soon would be.
    And that was about the time that the ranting and raving turned
into screaming and whining.




Nono, that's it, end of story-- what did you expect? A happy
resolution to everything? A happy-happy, hunky-dory ending?
Something less abrupt, maybe? Something a little less
anti-climactic, maybe? Have you actually _read_ the story? What
story? What plot? Right. How else could it have ended? Oh yeah, I
almost forgot:

Special Guest:

Chris "Just a slob like one of us" Angel

    -also known as "Fanfic author just guesting in this feature"
    -you may remember him from such works as Oh My Brother, 
     specifically
    -recent Canadian ex-patriot
    -taking a job away from an American, the bastar-- wait, I mean,
     Woohoo! squeeze 'em for all they got, baby!
    -doesn't have a thing about lesbians in his stories, that's a
     different Chris-from-Canada
    -not part of the diabolical Canadian Takeover Plot, not that
     such a plot exists, la lala lah!
    


    My internship is over, and I'm outta this slavery. Peace!


Author's note: I'd like to reiterate what I said in part 1; namely that
the characters are fictional and any resemblance to those living or dead,
in appearance, name, or actions, are purely coincidental, and I'd also like
to thank my prereaders, Anand Rao, Andrew Huang, Dave Eddy, Michael Chen,
and the special guest prereader for this part, Christopher Angel. And, unlike
other people who tell you that any praise is due to their prereaders and any 
fault lies in them, the writer, I know better. Any praise is to be given to
me,
for it was my idea, my vision, my writing, and any fault theirs, for not
catching any errors, or for not providing me with a convincing enough argument
as to the imperfection of my writing (which is, of course, nigh inconceivable,
I know, to any right-thingking being, but there are those who are somewhat
unbalanced, shall we say, out there), which is purportedly their job as
prereaders. I'd also once again like to note my return to the long,
rambling and
basically unrelated and meaningless Author's Notes. It's been a long time,
baby,
and oh, how I've missed you. <sniff> ^_~

Exuent


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