I'm ba-aack! Yes, back from vacationing in the hinterlands of northern
Ontario, where the mosquitoes damn near gnawed me to the bone. Here's a
little something that's been floating around the hard drive for a while. I'm
kinda stalled on it, and I'm hoping some feedback'll get me writing again.
CATGRRLZ: An Adventure of Shampoo
DISCLAIMERS: Shampoo created by Rumiko Takahashi. Other
characters copyright Masamune Shirow, Takada Yuuzou, Tatsunoko
Productions and more.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is effectively a side-story to
my lemon fanfic Rock N' Roll 1/2, specifically the second
chapter. BUT! You needn't have read it to understand and
(hopefully) enjoy this story. If I've done my job right, this
should stand quite nicely on it's own. Unlike it's progenitor,
this story isn't a lemon, and contains only a little lime, so
little, in fact, it barely warrants a mention.
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
CHAPTER ONE:
The Dragon raged in the darkness at the End of Time,
gnawing madly at the bars of the prison of madness like a
trapped animal, willing to forfeit a limb to escape from his
fetters.
The Dragon had been mad for aeons before the tiniest
spark of the Earth's sun had guttered into nothingness in the
darkness of space, leaving the bones of her nine children to
freeze in the icy grip of death.
He had been mad since before the end of Crystal Tokyo,
when the children of man scattered like seeds on the wind to
distant, still-burning stars.
He had been mad since before the Great Ice ended what
humans laughably refer to as civilization.
He had been mad since before an earthquake destroyed
Tokyo, the _first_ Tokyo, before women wore metal skin and
fought the steel monsters.
He had been mad since before a Crown Prince of Jurai
crashed to Earth, his pursuit of a space-pirate finished, his
prey brought to ground.
He had been mad when the mammoths roamed the frozen
plain, and humanity followed in their wake.
He had been mad since the days before the oceans drank
Atlantis, and the Silver Millenium fell.
In short, he had been mad longer than mankind has walked
upright.
There are worlds beyond worlds, universes beyond
universes, spiralling out across the ether like a pinwheel of
light, each different in so many ways, each similar in others.
Yet all of them began in one singular moment, and all of them
will end, with a bang, (or a whimper) in another.
This last point, the End of Time, The Vanishing Point,
the Big Crunch, call it what you will, is an instant of pure
and utter nothingness colder than the farthest star, blacker
than the deepest void. It is an instant of pure potentiality,
where nothing exists, yet everything is possible.
There, the Dragon raged. There, he hated. And from there,
he reached out his claws...
And struck.
For at the End of Time, all things perish. Even fetters
forged to contain a mad god.
And all times past, present, future... Ceased to exist,
in a blink.
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
In a universal cluster not too terribly far from our own,
a young girl leapt from rooftop to rooftop like a grasshopper,
her lithe form silhouetted against the full moon. Not an
unusual sight to the denizens of the district known as Nerima,
Japan; however, one aspect of the tableau was certainly out of
the ordinary.
While the young Chinese warrior known as Shampoo was a
frequent commuter on the rooftop superhighway, she wasn't
usually crying.
Then again, it had been an unusual night.
The evening had begun prosaically enough, with Shampoo
engaged in the monthly task of balancing the books for her
family's restaurant, but had ended in heartbreak and disaster.
To escape the effects of the latest manifestation of her
Jusenkyo curse, Shampoo had been forced to use one of her
great-grandmother's magical talismans to seduce her beloved
Ranma. The talisman, a magical flower known as the Lover's
Poppy, would ensure that the victim would believe he was
dreaming of his One True Love. Thus freed from the twin
complications of guilt and duty, Ranma had made her his own
and declared his enduring love. It had been perhaps the
happiest moment of Shampoo's young life, a happiness shattered
when Ranma had called out the name of the woman to whom he
believed he was making love...
Akane.
Shampoo had left her Airen's home in tears, her heart in
shambles. She had returned to her room at the Nekohanten only
long enough to collect a few personal belongings and say
goodbye to her great-grandmother, then had left in search
of...
A home? Acceptance? A place far away from the one who had
hurt her so? She wasn't sure. She couldn't bring herself to
fulfil her duty as an Amazon to execute the woman who came
between herself and her Airen; she may not have liked, or even
respected, Akane Tendo, but she refused to cause Ranma the
pain Akane's death would bring. But without her Airen, she
would never be welcome home in Nyuchezu. So she was now a
nomad, a woman without a home, without a people, without a
love.
So when the glowing portal opened up in front of her, she
figured 'Why not?' and stepped through.
BLINK<
The universe died.
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
In a world only mere metaphysical steps removed from
Shampoo's, another young woman rocketed across the Nerima
skyline. This girl, however, was laughing merrily in the
afternoon sunshine. Her favorite playmate, Eimi, had popped by
for some fun and games.
"Get back here, Nuku Nuku," cried the pursuing petite
blonde android as she opened fire with her Mishima Heavy
Industries Particle Cannon, incinerating the better half of
the street, "I want your body!!!!"
Nuku Nuku peeked back over her shoulder and pulled a
redeye/raspberry combination that never failed to incite Eimi
to greater heights of rage. It was so much fun to play!
"Nuku Nuku cannot play with you much longer, Eimi-chan!
Nuku Nuku must pick up Ryunnosuke from school!"
Eimi snarled and intensified her barrage, her rocket-pack
barely allowing her to keep up with the taller android's
leaps. "Ryo-chan'll just have to do without you today, you
obsolete model! Give over!"
"Bii-Dah!" Nuku Nuku responded eloquently before
disappearing through the glowing dimensional portal that had
appeared in front of her while her back was turned.
The glowing portal blinked out of existence just as Eimi
pulled up in front of it, her chassis glowing red with rage.
"Curse you, Nuku Nuku! I don't know how you did it, but
you won't escape me for long-"
BLINK<
The universe died.
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
Some distance away, metaphysically speaking...
Two sensuous female figures on souped-up motorcycles tore
through the crowded streets of Newport City, their long, mane-
like hair flowing behind them like the tails of comets.
"I'm tellin' ya sis, I'm beginning to think that this
wasn't the best idea..." The one on the left called, her voice
barely carrying over the whine of her bike's engine.
"At least we ain't carrying' piss this time!" her twin
called back teasingly. Her sister's retort was cut short by
the whistling of an artillery shell. "Incoming!"
"Gotcha!" the other responded, swerving into traffic. The
shell exploded into the street, scattering smoke and flaming
debris across the area. The two biker blondes burst out of the
smoke cloud like they were shot from a cannon themselves,
looking none the worse for wear despite their near-brush with
death.
Roughly a block behind the pair, a squat, almost super-
deformed parody of a tank pursued, the tiny machine's jagged
treads tearing up the pavement. In the gunnery seat, a red-
headed girl barked into a walkie-talkie clutched in one gloved
hand.
"Brittain, this is Leona! Bonaparte and I are closing in
on the Puma sisters, but there's no sign of Buaku... I think
they've split up!"
"Affirmative, Corporal, we're closing on Buaku's position
now..." a gravelly voice crackled over the walkie-talkie.
"D'ya need help with the Pumas?"
"That's a negative. I've got 'em this time!!!" The
redhead smiled ferally, toggling off the comm unit. Kicking
her pilot Al in the head, she urged the tiny tank forward.
Bonaparte emerged from the cloud of smoke with a roar of
his diesel engine. The turret swivelled, scanning the area for
their prey.
Aside from a tiny flicker of light about fifty feet away,
there was no sign of the Puma sisters-
BLINK<
The universe died.
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
Even further away, in the grand scheme of things...
The giant bird-shaped robot took another step, neatly
demolishing three-quarters of the market district as well as
Hokkaido Charlie's Karaoke Fun Time Palace. The populace (who
were for some inexplicable reason entirely made up of SD robot
animals dressed as pseudo-Meiji-period Japanese) screamed and
ran around in circles. Wails of despair and pithy sarcastic
remarks could barely be heard of the din of the stomping
metallic monster.
At the Imperial palace, the Emperor and his advisors were
up in arms.
"FRED!" hooted the Emperor, divinely appointed leader of
his people, "FRE-ED! FRED!" The panda-faced monarch grinned
inanely.
His chief advisor, Al Dente, shook his canine head and
sighed. It was time to call _them_. Hopefully, they'd cause
less property damage than the giant robot would.
With a regretful glance at his insane Divine Emperor, the
city's defenders were summoned.
At the Samurai Pizza Cat headquarters, two thirds of the
famously heroic (and heroically famous) feline trio were in a
panic.
"Where da heck is she?" Speedy Cerviche yelped, dancing
nervously in front of the lid of his launching tube.
"Beats the heck outta me, Speedy," Guido Anchovy
temporized, a little nervous himself. "How're we gonna do our
cool transformation slash launch sequence without Polly?"
"No time to wait, guys," their dispatcher Francine
interrupted. "You'll just have to save Little Tokyo without
her."
"Dis is probably another one o' da Big Cheese's evil
plots!" Speedy meowed. "We'll show him! We can beat down his
lame giant Crowbot even without Polly Esther at our side!"
"So..." Francine asked, "You want I should call in the
Pizza Cat Rescue Squad?"
"OH Yeah." affirmed Guido.
BLINK<
The universe died.
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
Second universe on the left, and straight on 'till
morning...
A trio of weary sword-slinging adventurers took their
ease in the back of a moving cart, loosening their armour and
stretching out tired muscles. Their leader, a strapping,
genki-as-all-get-out he-man warrior-type, counted their loot,
an avaricious grin on his handsome but slightly dim-witted
features.
"That's three hundred golden piscatellos apiece, my bosom
companions," the somewhat-dashing swordsman chortled
gleefully. "We're gonna live like kings!"
"Ahem..." interjected the distaff member of the trio.
"_And_ queens, Pierce."
"Thanks, Santa," sniffed the buxom, raven-haired elven
sorceress. "Good thing, too. I could really use a bath. I'm
all... sticky." The elf flicked a bead of unidentified (and
probably best left that way, too) goo out of her cleavage,
hitting the third member of their trio between the eyes.
"Whoops. Sorry Bobo-chan..."
Bobo, a huge, even-more-strapping-than-strapping-can-be
barbarian, grunted monosyllabically and wiped the drop of
fluid off his forehead. "S'okay."
Santa the swordsman sighed happily, visions of
whorehouses dancing through his head. "Yep, we're all gonna be
livin' like assorted types of royalty. Or we WILL be..." He
leaned over and bellowed at the beast of burden pulling the
cart, "If Pink ever GETS US TO A GODDAMN TOWN!!!!"
Pink, the pretty (and pretty put-upon) cat-slave hauling
the cart, winced under Santa's rebuke. "I'm sorry Santa!
Things'd go much faster if I had a little help..." She
pleaded.
"Tut-tut..." Santa tut-tutted. "Pierce, Bobo'n me worked
hard for this treasure. Now it's your turn to pull your
weight. Feedin' an' clothin' you ain't cheap, ya know..."
"But San-taaa...!" Pink complained, "It was me that
distracted the Many-Tentacled-Beast of Tragath-Nor so that you
guys could _get_ the treasure..." Pink winced, remembering the
multitude of long, sweaty limbs the MTBoTN had possessed, each
requiring individual 'distraction'.
"No buts!" Santa barked. "Get movin'! I wanna hit town
before dark!"
Pink was about to retort (possibly illustrating a few
salient points with her Big Pink Mallet of Retribution) when a
glowing portal opened up under her feet and swallowed her up,
vanishing just as quickly.
The cart, no longer being held up by the deceptively-
strong cat-slave, tumbled forward, spilling the three
adventurers and their booty out onto the road.
"By all the Gods that once there were!" Pierce swore
colourfully, "What happened to Pink?!"
"It's terrible! It's horrible!" Santa wailed.
"Yeah," Bobo grunted. "We gotta go save her, I guess..."
"That's not it!" Santa wailed despairingly. "Now we gotta
WALK all the way to town!!"
BLINK<
The universe died.
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
Shampoo stepped cautiously through the glowing portal,
her bonbori at the ready as the luminescent doorway
disappeared behind her. She may have been grieving, but that
was no excuse for less-than-total alertness.
She found herself in a cyclopean structure; titanic walls
composed of some glossy black stone rose to a point high
overhead. Torches guttered along the walls, casting tongues of
light in all directions as the dim light was reflected by the
sheen of the obsidian walls. The floor felt gritty and
unfinished underfoot; a quick glance revealed it to be a soft,
fine sand as dark as the walls.
"<Hello?>" Shampoo called out in her native tongue.
"<Anyone here?>" Her words echoed faintly, almost resentfully,
as if the air resisted being disturbed.
Her only answer was the crackle-pop of the torches as
they flickered as though blown by the wind, despite the air of
the chamber being perfectly still. A frisson of worry crawled
up Shampoo's spine and perched on her shoulder.
"<That's what you get for stepping though strange
floating glowing doorways, Shan Pu,>" an inner voice taunted.
"<Now you're stuck in Ry'leh or someplace...>" Shampoo
mentally cursed the impulse that had caused her to pick up a
book by that spooky American author, regardless of the fact
Kasumi had recommended it. Still, she'd asked what the statue
in the center of Nerima represented; her own fault for asking,
she supposed. "<Well, you know what they say, Shan Pu.
Curiosity killed the cat...>"
As if in answer, the sand under her feet began to slide
to the left. Startled, Shampoo almost lost her balance before
finding her footing once more on the shifting sands, being
carried along like a cork on the ocean's waves. The sand
slowly spiralled inward towards a blot of darkness, visible
even against the black-on-black decor of the chamber.
"<Oh, damn.>" Shampoo cursed, "<Now what?>"
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
Nuku Nuku stumbled backwards through the glowing portal,
landing indelicately on her tush. She blinked once as the door
vanished.
"Ummm..." the android glanced around, her 'ears'
springing up from under her cherry-red hair. "Where did Eimi-
chan go?" She peered about the room, absently running a
passive sensor-sweep of the chamber. Various heads-up display
readouts scrolled across her vision, telling her the
composition of the green, gem-like mineral that made up the
walls and lay on the ground in pulverized form. The room was
lit by torches along the walls, which gave off a pleasant,
herb-like scent as they burned, temporarily distracting the
android schoolgirl.
Thus entranced, she only noticed the swirling sands
beneath her feet when her internal gyroscope began to complain
about the lack of solid footing.
"Yoops!" Nuku exclaimed as she began jogging in place,
maintaining her position with little difficulty. "Hello out
there!" she called, "Nuku Nuku cannot play, she must collect
Ryuunosuke from scho-ol!"
If whatever was making the sands move heard her, it
didn't respond. The android began running against the sand's
current, making little headway. No matter how fast her
cybernetic muscles propelled her, she felt herself sliding
towards the centre of the room, where a hole seemed to have
opened up.
"Ooooh, Nuku Nuku doesn't like this one bit!!"
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
With a roar of torqued-to-the-tits engines, the Puma
sisters careened through the portal, skidding to a stop in a
spray of tawny yellow sand.
"Well..." Anipuma said, glancing around at the sandstone
walls, "That was unexpected..."
"You, uh... You don't suppose that this is some weird
kinda trap set by the Tank Police, do ya?" Unipuma queried,
her ears twitching in confusion.
"Probably..." her twin scowled. "Okay Leona! You got us!
Time ta come out an' gloat!" No answer was forthcoming. "Aw,
c'mon Miss Piggy, whereareya?" Silence still reigned.
"Awright, that's it!" Unipuma dismounted her bike and
produced a ridiculously-large gun. "Y'all better come up with
some answers or we start shootin'!"
"Yeah!" Anipuma agreed, pulling out her own BFG. "Well?!"
Still silence, punctuated only by the tick-tick-tick of
cooling motorcycle engines. Finally, Unipuma snapped.
"Fine! It's shootin' time!!!" With a gleeful cackle, she
emptied a clip into the air. Anipuma joined her, spraying the
walls with a hail of armour-piercing shells. The barrage
continued for a good solid minute. Finally, the twins ceased
fire.
Unipuma stepped out of the pile of spent brass around her
feet, practically spitting with fury. "This sucks! This is
cruel an' unusual punishment, ya know!" she called to their
invisible captors. "Answer me, dammit!!!"
With a stony rumble, the sand that made up the floor
began to churn inwards, dragging the twins and their
motorcycles towards the pit opening up in the centre of the
room.
Anipuma glared over at her sister as they were sucked
into the pit. "Well, geez! Great! This is SUCH an
improvement!!!!"
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
With a sound suspiciously like that of a hairball being
regurgitated, a small, red-armoured figure was ejected from a
portal into a red-walled room, landing head-first in the sandy
floor.
"Ack!" cried Polly Esther, spitting out ruddy sand.
Grumbling under her breath, she stood up, pulled off her
helmet and shook out the sand while taking in her
surroundings.
"Well, THIS is just wonderful. I wonder where the heck I
am?" She replaced her helmet and glared around the room.
"Sheesh! A girl goes looking for the sandbox and where does
she end up? In the pyramids of Mars or something... Oh well,
when you gotta go, you gotta go..."
Demurely, she began scratching away at some of the sand,
clearing a small depression. She stretched, squatted daintily,
and looked out at the audience. "Can't a girl have a little
privacy? Is that too much to ask?"
The room obligingly went pitch dark.
"THANK you."
Pleasant, unobtrusive instrumental music began to play as
Polly took care of business.
"Okay, I'm done!"
The lights came back up, revealing a composed and calm
Polly, tamping down some loose sand. She straightened,.
brushed her hands against her armoured thighs, and looked
around once more.
"Now, which way to the exit?"
A pit opened up in the centre of the room, sucking the
sand and Samurai Pizza Cat down.
"Hmmm..." Polly mused as she plummeted, "a flushing cat-
box. Innovative..."
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
With a yelp of surprise, Pink found herself in a azure-
hued room surrounded by flickering torches.
"Hello? HEL-LO?" She spun around, in search of some form
of exit, yet there was none to be found.
It must have been powerful magic that spirited her away
from her so-called friends, she pondered. Powerful magic
generally meant a powerful enemy. With a sigh, Pink began to
disrobe, her white tigerskin tunic pooled at her feet.
It was horrible, and miserable, but it was her lot in
life, she knew, to be the receptacle for the lusts of any
vaguely male evil creature that happened to cross her path.
Not for the first time, she cursed the gods who had made her
this way. Still, the myriad assaults she had endured had never
proven fatal, and when you're dealing with demons, that's
about the best one could hope for.
Disgusted, both at her situation and her own resigned
acceptance of same, she lay back on the blue-hued sand and
awaited her inevitable violation. It was only a matter of
time, she knew, before Santa and company would ride to her
rescue, but it would surely be long enough for her to have to
endure some... unpleasantness.
Thus, when the sand began to be sucked into a pit in the
center of the chamber, Pink was only mildly surprised.
"There's probably some kind of tentacled ant-lion at the
bottom," she sighed as she disappeared into the depths.
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
Neither tentacle, nor Tank Police, nor Great Old One
awaited the various catgirls as they were dropped onto a vast
pile of sand in all the colours of the rainbow.
The six impacts were punctuated by various colourful
curses and a lot of hissing and spitting as they tumbled end
over end down the pile into a heap six girls deep.
"What th'HELL's goin' on here?!" barked Anipuma, pulling
her face out of SOMEone's cleavage.
"Everybody... Get off... SHAMPOO!!!" groaned the violet
haired Amazon, prying herself out from under the tangle of
arms and legs.
The others disentangled themselves with some difficulty
(especially Polly who, trapped under the weighty android form
of Nuku Nuku, had been tentpegged into the sands.
With some trepidation, the girls gazed around at their
surroundings and each other.
The pile of sand at whose base they stood sat upon a vast
plain of grey desert, stretching off into the distant horizon
in all directions. The sky was a uniform midnight purple,
without even the slightest twinkling of stars. No breeze
stirred the sands beneath their feet, or ruffled fur or hair.
There was nothing but absolute silence, broken only by the
sounds of their breathing and the almost-imperceptible sounds
of Nuku Nuku's servos in motion.
Shampoo had never understood the phrase 'deafening
silence' before that moment. She took in her companions.
Three of them appeared to be some form of cat-human
hybrid; golden-haired, leonine twins and a third with
candyfloss-pink hair and dusky skin. The another seemed to be
an ordinary schoolgirl, until one looked closer. The tiniest
hint of fang could be seen in her mouth, while metallic, vane-
like 'ears' poked out of her cherry-red hair. The fourth
was... A robot of some kind?
"Ayiahh..." She breathed. The blonde twins were at least
a head and a half taller than herself, even before one counted
their teased-out hair, and carried themselves like fierce
fighters. Her battle sense warned her that they were both
tense, and ready to explode into violence at the slightest
provocation; she decided it would be wish to defuse the
situation as soon as possible.
"Where is we? Does anybody know?"
*THE END OF TIME,* A deep, richly feminine voice spoke in
all their minds. They looked around at each other, yet they
all bore the same look of confusion. Shampoo glanced up into
the heavens and gasped.
Above the sextet floated the translucent form of a woman,
beautiful, majestic. Her head was that of a slender cat with
gold-pierced ears and warm green eyes. Around her neck was a
fan-like collar of yellow gold, and about her waist hung a
kirtle of white cotton. Three diamond-shaped marks stood out
white against the midnight fur of her face, one on either
cheek and the third in the center of her forehead.
"W-who... ARE you?" Pink gasped out, perhaps the one most
used to the appearance of strange magics. "Did you bring us
here?"
*YES, IT WAS I WHO BROUGHT YOU HERE, LITTLE KITTEN,* the
ghostly woman said warmly. *I AM BASHTET. AS TO WHY YOU WERE
BROUGHT HERE; IS IT WRONG FOR HER MOTHER TO PROTECT HER
CHILDREN?*
"Mother?" Anipuma snorted. "We ain't got no mother," she
said, pointing a thumb at herself and her sister. "We was
grown in a lab. What's the real story here?"
*YET YOU ARE, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU, MY CHILDREN,
REGARDLESS OF WHO BORE YOU,* she nodded at Pink and Shampoo,
*BRED YOU,* she continued, nodding at the Puma sisters, *OR
BUILT YOU.* This last she looked at Nuku Nuku and Polly. *FOR
YOU WERE EACH MADE IN MY IMAGE, AND YOU CARRY WITHIN YOU A
SPARK OF MY DIVINITY.*
In the depths of Nuku Nuku's organic feline brain,
instinct cried out for her to prostrate herself in front of
Bashtet, yet the higher order of intelligence provided by her
cybernetic enhancements rebelled.
"Excuse Nuku Nuku please, but she must go home.
Ryuunosuke is waiting for her to pick him up from school."
"Yeah, this is all very exciting and cosmic and fabulous
an' all, and I mean that," Polly added, "but Little Tokyo's in
danger, and Speedy and Guido'll be lost without me! I gotta go
home."
Bashtet smiled sadly. *I AM AFRAID THAT CANNOT BE. YOUR
WORLDS, YOUR UNIVERSES ARE GONE. YOU SIX ARE ALL THAT I COULD
SAVE, AMONGST ALL MY CHILDREN*
"Ryuunosuke is... Gone? Nuku Nuku does not understand.
Where has he gone?"
*ALL TIME HAS CEASED TO EXIST. THE MULTIVERSE IS IN
OBLIVION'S GRIP, NOW.*
"Aw, come ON!" Unipuma snarked. "You don't expect us to
believe a cockamamie story like that, do ya?" She glanced
around at her fellow catgirls. "This is all somekinda trick,
ain't it? Some weird new psychotropic drug or punishment or
something. Why, me an' Anipuma're probably doped to the gills
in some Tank Police holding cell right now, and we're
imagining this."
"Yeah!" Anipuma echoed.
"Shampoo is _very_ real, Shampoo assure you. You maybe
need to feel her sword for proof?" the Amazon snarled, drawing
her curved blade from her pack.
"Bring it on, China-Girl!" Anipuma hissed, shoving a
fresh clip into her BFG.
"Please, now, let's not fight..." Pink begged. "Can't we
just discuss this reasonably?"
"You just keep yer mouth shut, pinky!" Unipuma growled.
"I got an itchy trigger finger, y'know?"
"C'mon now, don't do this-" Polly attempted to insert
herself between Shampoo and the Pumas, but ended up being
trodden underfoot.
*YOU DO NOT BELIEVE ME?* Bashtet asked, gazing
emotionlessly at the sisters. *YOU DO NOT SENSE THE WRONGNESS
WITH YOUR OWN HEARTS?*
Come to think of it, Shampoo mused, her eyes never
leaving her opponents', she did feel an odd sort of
dislocation, like something indescribable within her was
missing.
*THEN, SEE FOR YOURSELVES.*
------------------------>^o.o^<-------------------------------
TO BE CONTINUED
This fic has a long history; I originally conceived of
the idea almost a year ago while working on Rock 'n Roll 1/2,
a project that's been on the back burner (Wa-ay back) for some
time now; it was originally supposed to be something spammish,
when it turned into a high-concept piece on me. Still, the
question remained; finish it, and THEN release it, or release
as we go along, chapter by chapter. Since I always write
better when assisted by feedback, I figured, what the hey,
release it now. I've been whacking away at it for months now,
during fallow periods for my other fics, but I figure I've a
respectable amount here for a first chapter.
Liked it? Hated it? Let me know! Private responses are
good, Public are better, MSTs are taken in good spirits, and
flames (which I define as completely unconstructive negative
criticism) are deleted. Mata ne, Ciao fer now, Bai bai,
toodles, a la prochain, etc.
Dave Menard
-------------------------------------
Fanfiction pages: http://spghome.tripod.com/
"Just as there are laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy, so there are
in fact Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy. Neither can ever be created or
destroyed.
But one can be converted into the other."
-Spider Robinson, 1977