Okay, I got a couple emails from people saying Ep.2 never got posted, though
Outlook shows it being sent on Sunday; dunno what's up but I'm reposting it
just in case. Apologies if this ends up being a repeat for anyone. ^_^;

Mangatripper
By Ewen "Blackbird" Cluney
Episode 2

Only in dreams
We see what it means
Reach out our hands
Hold on to hers
But when we wake
It's all been erased
And so it seems
Only in dreams
 - Weezer, "Only In Dreams

You might not believe the next part of my story. I remember it so
vividly, though. Not like the fading, fleeting swirls of a dream,
but a crystal-clear etching of a memory, more solid than any
other in my life. I blinked in warm sunlight, and slowly picked
myself up. On the edge of my consciousness was something like a
dream, something about being turned inside out, about golden
light, and about endless stacks of drawings.
	Blinking in the bright afternoon light I looked out at the
city before me in awe. It was Tokyo. I'm sure of it. The signs
were in Japanese for one thing. Some people passed behind me - I
realized I was on some kind of bridge between two buildings - and
when I spun around to look at them I fell into shock. There's no
gentle way to put this; I was confronted by living, breathing
anime characters. Just average people - housewives, schoolgirls,
salarymen - but with huge eyes, tiny mouths and noses. I looked
at my own hands, and instead of a mass of bones and flesh and
skin and hair and veins, I saw a hand-shaped outline with flesh-
tone coloring. An adorable little girl with pigtails was looking
up at me.
	"Oniisan... you dropped this," she said. She was holding my
Kasumi UFO catcher and grinning
	I nodded numbly, took it from her hands, and thanked her.
She scurried off. My brain was taking its time in letting me come
to terms with this new reality. I was in an anime. Not a dream -
but the genuine article. I was sure of it. I thought about home
for a moment, but immediately decided I was better off here.
Whatever happened, it would be something exciting and wonderful.
I was sure of it. I started walking, again not caring where I
ended up, but this time sure that something great awaited me.
	I know there's a lot of people who write self-insertion
fics. I've heard too many complaints about them, and besides, how
could I be appropriately cruel to a character who is, in fact,
myself? And then... I bet there's some people who like some
celebrity so much that they know as much as I do about Kasumi,
and I have to wonder what happens when someone like that meets
the object of their obsession. But when you got that obsessed
over someone even though you know for a _fact_ that they don't
and couldn't exist in real life...
	I was walking down a crowded street when, like something
right out of an anime, the people walking seemed to part for a
moment and there before me... I have no words to describe how I
felt at that moment. For those of you who haven't seen Excelion,
Kasumi is an average high school age girl with medium-length blue
hair. She wears a standard school uniform a lot of the time, and
glasses too. Her eyes are ice-blue, just a bit lighter than her
hair.
	At that moment, as I was taking in the sight before me, I
think she noticed how I was looking at her. She turned to face
me, blushing just a little. "Um... Who are you?"
	I tried to think of what to say. This wasn't a celebrity or
an actress; she actually was the character I had watched through
so many adventures, a delicate high school girl with magical
powers. I'd also totally forgotten that I was still holding the
UFO catcher doll in my hand. "Gabriel Collins." I replied weakly.
	She walked up to me, leaning close and adjusting her glasses
to stare more intently. Did I mention Kasumi was pretty forceful
when she wanted to be? The doll was pulled out of my hand and
shoved in my face. "And what exactly is this?"
	She was probably thinking that I was some kind of weirdo
stalker or something. "Kasumi, I can explain..."
	Her eyes narrowed. "You're one of Katsuhito's friends,
aren't you?"
	Katsuhito was the president of the photography club in
Excelion, who'd been trying to expose Kasumi and her friends for
ages. She didn't hate him with a passion like Arisa did, but came
close. "No! It's nothing like that!"
	Kasumi scrutinized the doll. It was of her in her school
uniform, but with a Soul Sword in one hand. "Excelion Nuigurumi?"
she read. "Nuigurumi" was the Japanese word for a plush toy.
"Made by Banpresto? Who _are_ you?"
	It wasn't supposed to be like this - that's what I was
thinking, but I later realized that I was very wrong about that
and this was exactly how it was supposed to be. "I'm..." I took a
deep breath. What happened next should've clued me in as to the
nature of the place I was in - in more ways than one - but
somehow it didn't. A ball of energy flew by - I found myself
pulling Kasumi to the ground and out of its path, which proved
fortunate since when it struck a building down the street there
was an ear-splitting explosion.
	The figure that loomed out of the haze was a tall, slender
bishounen - an anime "pretty boy" of the type so often seen in
shoujo manga. He wore a long coat and slacks made of black
leather, with his hairless but toned chest bare save for a silver
cross pendant. He held a katana in one hand that glinted
menacingly in the daylight, matching his red eyes.
	Culling through my encyclopedic knowledge of Excelion, I
could find no clue as to who this man could be. He was too human-
looking to be a mazoku, and too effeminate to be a new Dark
General - there were only supposed to be eight anyway. And... as
I thought about it more I began to realize that he was in a
different art style than the cast of Excelion. Kasumi and I were
"drawn" in typical Hitoshi Asakawa style, while the stranger
looked more like he'd stepped out of something by CLAMP.
Something where he was a villain.
	Apparently this was a Kasumi from late in the TV series,
because she moved assuredly, without hesitation, as she touched
her bracelet and called forth her Soul Sword. It was an ornate
greatsword, about as long as she was tall. I knew that she could
wield it as though it were light as a feather, but to actually
see it happen before my eyes was incredible.
	"Who are you?" she demanded. "What do you want?"
	The bishounen brandished his katana and grinned. "What an
amusing pairing." His voice was like a knife wrapped in velvet,
the menace in his tone almost hidden, but not quite. He motioned
first to Kasumi. "You will be perfect for my master's purposes,"
he announced. Then he turned to me. "And you... I think you'll do
nicely for my entertainment." It was dawning on me that there was
something very... yaoi... about him.
	My mind raced, trying to figure out how Kasumi would try to
handle this situation. Her powers were considerable, but they
also tended to cause a lot of collateral damage. In the TV series
it was played for laughs, but in the OAV series... I really feel
sorry for her. A blue glow surrounded Kasumi's sword, and the
world seemed to move into slow motion as the bishounen's katana
glowed red in response. She was going to try her Azure Blaze
attack, and I took it as my cue to back away as quickly as I
could. Suddenly she thrust the tip of her sword into the ground,
throwing out a shockwave of energy. Then I realized - her
opponent had done exactly the same thing. The two shockwaves
clashed and tore at each other, and finally died out.
	Both fighters were unscathed, but Kasumi was shaken. "You...
countered my attack completely! How?!"
	This was about the time that I first realized that the
knowledge of anime that I'd been collecting over the past five
and a half years could be useful here. "He can mimic any
technique you use against him!" It was an old clich�, and any
group of super-powered villains usually had one among their
number who could do that. They were always total bastards, and
the hero (or heroine) had to do some serious quick thinking to
have any hope of winning.
	The bishounen glanced in my direction again. "I like him
already. Very astute; no one's ever guessed on the first attack
before."
	The question was, what did he have of his own? If he could
only mirror opponents, then any sufficiently determined and large
group could probably beat him if they were careful. I moved
closer to Kasumi.
	"How'd you know?" she asked quietly.
	"I've seen his kind before. You have to take advantage of
his imitation power and his arrogance."
	The glance she cast at me was a suspicious one. She probably
was wondering if I was another who'd read the Book of Excelion.
Kasumi charged her sword again, and her opponent responded in
kind. She feinted and dodged sideways, throwing a few quick, weak
bolts of energy.
	I ducked behind a car. It was odd, but no one seemed to be
paying any attention to what was happening. I would've expected
police cars, fire trucks, news vans, and people everywhere
gawking. I was in an anime, I realized, and that meant I was in a
world that operated on anime logic. If I could just find a way to
take advantage of it...
	When I stood up again, Kasumi and the bishounen were facing
off - he was complaining about how feeble her attacks were.
	"In that case," I replied. "Why don't you have a taste of my
special technique?"
	I jumped over the car, a bit clumsily, and moved in closer.
"Be ready to get him." I whispered to Kasumi as I passed her. My
heart was thumping pretty damn hard at that point. On the one
hand I was exploiting this guy's weaknesses, but on the other
hand if I was in an anime, then I might be doing something that
the story would decide was totally impossible. I didn't want to
accept that, though. Anime heroes always won by doing stuff that
was totally audacious.
	When I was maybe three feet away from Mr. Villain, I held up
my hand in a fist.
	"I don't sense any power from you." He muttered.
	I put on what I hoped was an arrogant grin. "Of course not.
I can suppress my aura."
	That seemed to satisfy him for the moment, and he imitated
my stupid posture exactly. I tensed up my arm as much as I could,
and prayed he couldn't read minds. He watched my face and my fist
intently. I was sweating, and I hoped he didn't read too much
into that.
	"HITEN-MITSURUGI-RYU!" I intoned, shouting the first attack
phrase that came to mind, "KUZU-RYU-SEN!" I opened my fist
menacingly and then kicked him in the groin.
	He was on the ground, and Kasumi was looking on in abject
shock.
	"This would be a really good time for a Cobalt Void or
something!"
	Kasumi blinked and nodded. The Cobalt Void was an attack
that banished the target back to their home plane, surrounding
them with a ball of dark blue energy that rapidly shrunk down to
a single mote of light and then vanished. That was exactly what
she did, and it worked perfectly. It looked just like I
remembered, used about nine times over the course of the two
seasons of the Excelion TV series.
	I let myself fall down to a kneeling position and breathed
deeply in the hopes of getting the pounding of my heart to calm
down. Kasumi sighed and returned her sword to the void from which
it came. "Now," she said evenly, "you have a lot of explaining to
do, Gabriel Collins."
	I picked up the little UFO catcher doll - somehow it had
survived intact (though a little dirty) - and put it in my
backpack. As I did so, I remembered the art books in there.
Reluctantly, I pulled one out and held it up in front of her.
	"Excelion Illustration Collection 2?" she read. "What...?
Where did you get this?" There was an edge of fear to her voice.
"Is this how you know so much about me?"
	"I'm..." Kasumi wouldn't let me out of this one. She was shy
and quiet a lot of the time, but when she wanted something badly
enough there was no stopping her. "You might think I'm crazy...
I'm not so sure myself right now. But I think I came here from
another world. A place where powers like yours aren't real at
all."
	She opened the art book and began looking at the pictures.
"I remember all of this. This is what happened last year when we
fought the Eight Dark Generals." She reached the part that was an
interview with Hitoshi Asakawa and stopped short. "Has my whole
life been something created for an audience's amusement?" she
breathed. "Am I just an anime character?"
	"What would be so bad about that?" The question was a
rhetorical one, and bitter at that. "You can live forever in the
minds of the fans, and have a life that actually means something.
Not a bunch of stupidity that goes nowhere like... like..."
	"Just how much do you know about me? I must be your favorite
character, right?"
	I should've said something else, anything else, besides what
came out of my mouth next. As I spoke I slowly rose to my feet.
"Let's see... Your birthday is on October 27, favorite food is
chocolate cheesecake, least favorite food is fried eggs, favorite
school subject is Japanese. You were raised by your mother and
have a younger sister named Harumi. You also had a pet cat named
Tama. Your computer's desktop wallpaper is of you, Arisa, and
Yuuko dressed up as a cat, fox, and bunny, respectively-"
	"Shut up!"
	The words hit me harder than any slap could have.
	"Do you think I'm supposed to be impressed or something?
That's just... scary! How would you like it if someone came to
you out of nowhere and knew every little detail of your life!"
	She was on the verge of crying, and I was feeling like
serious scum about then. "I'm... sorry." I managed. "I didn't
mean it like that."
	 Silence reigned for a long time. Kasumi wiped her eyes.
"Baka." she muttered.
	"Looks that way."
	She almost laughed in spite of herself. "I guess you don't
know where we are either, do you?"
	That caught me off guard. "Huh? I... thought this was
Tokyo..."
	"It is," she replied, "and it isn't. It's Tokyo, but it's
like neither I nor anyone I know exists here."
	I tried to imagine how Kasumi would react to being cut off
from her friends and family; it was hard, and I didn't like that
image. Without realizing what I was doing, I put my arms around
Kasumi and held her close to me. It felt... I'm not sure how to
describe it. Holding her like that, it felt like there was a
sudden explosion of warm, gentle light inside me. Thinking back,
it seemed that she let herself become immersed in the feeling for
just a moment before she abruptly pushed me away.
	"Why do you like me so much? What's so special about me?"
	I tried to find words for what I felt about her, for the
feelings that had ultimately led me to have an enviable library
of all things Excelion consuming half my apartment. "I don't know
how to explain." I said at last. "But... if there's anything I
can do to help you get home, I'll do it."
	Kasumi looked at me skeptically. "How did you know so much
about that bishounen guy? Have you seen _his_ show too?"
	I shook my head. "I don't know where he was from. I've just
seen so much anime. The whole attack-imitating enemy thing has
been done dozens of times."
	"If we're in a world that's actually an anime..." she mused.
"That kind of knowledge could be really useful. I don't know if I
could've won without your help."
	I just wished I had the knowledge of how not to talk to her
without sounding like an idiot. I wasn't that great at talking to
girls in the first place, and at that point I felt like the
spirit of every timid nosebleeding anime protagonist was trying
to possess my mouth.
	"I'll take you up on your offer," she said at last. "But no
funny business. Understood?"
	I nodded, just barely managing to hide my enthusiasm. "Of
course!"
	Kasumi decided to simply start walking, and indeed staying
in one place was unlikely to turn up anything. If this really was
an anime, then it seemed unlikely that anyone would may much
attention to the fact that the better part of a city block had
been toasted anyway. Walking like that might've been pleasant,
but Kasumi was distant and didn't talk much, and thoughts of the
way she'd yelled at me kept burning in the back of my mind. It
reminded me of how things got when there was tension among my
friends; everyone grudgingly backed down, leaving a grim, tense,
pensive silence where everyone contemplated what they'd done
wrong.
	"I'm sorry... about before." I blurted out.
	"You already apologized," she reminded me. "What kind of
world are you from? Katsuhito never apologized for anything in
his life, and Ichiro took a week to get over his embarrassment
enough to say he was sorry to Arisa."
	She didn't sound angry at all, which was really heartening.
"My world... is really boring."
	"Sounds nice."
	I stopped short. "What?"
	Kasumi turned around to face me. "The past three years of my
life have been full of fighting monsters and trying to save the
world. A world. Lately I've been thinking, and I've come to
appreciate being able to just get up and go to school and have
fun with my friends."
	At the time it sounded so stupid to me to want things to be
so boring and mundane. "I don't think you'd want things to stay
that way forever." Halfway through the OAVs Kasumi had decided to
give up the power and go back to being a normal girl, only to
find that her life seemed boring and incomplete.
	The look she gave me was unreadable, and the moment was
quickly interrupted anyway. Kasumi blinked and jumped at
something.
	"What is it?"
	She looked around as though searching for something. "I can
sense something..." Of course! How could I forget - like every
other magic-user in Excelion, Kasumi could sense magic of all
sorts. That meant she might be able to find a way out of this
world.
	Abruptly, Kasumi broke into a run. Luckily she was the most
delicate of the three girls; I don't think I could've kept up
with Arisa no matter how hard I might've tried. We turned a few
corners, past bewildered housewives and children, and headed down
an alleyway. Kasumi came to a halt in front of what looked to be
an ancient well or fountain of some sort. It took a moment, but I
finally placed it in my memory; it was nearly identical to the
one from the first Card Captor Sakura movie.
	"This is it." Kasumi said firmly. "It's definitely a magical
portal of some sort."
	I nodded. It sounded crazy, but I was sure I could feel
something there. It was like a nagging feeling that this wasn't
what it seemed. "But where does it lead?" I asked carefully.
	We looked at the well for a long time. Suddenly, Kasumi
climbed up onto the edge of the well. She held her hand out to
me. "Come on. We won't get anywhere standing around here."
	That impulsiveness seemed so unlike her... But then in the
anime Kasumi had never been in a situation like this. When I was
standing next to her, Kasumi jumped into the water, pulling me
along with her. Somehow I expected to be soaking wet, but there
was only a warm, blue light...

------------------------------------------------------------------
Ewen "Blackbird" Cluney                     blackbird@blackbird.nu
Blackbird's Domain                        http://www.blackbird.nu/
The Official Thrash Home Page          http://thrash.blackbird.nu/
Knight Kevlar of the Immortal Frog        Silver Knight of Mihoshi
              "Be nice to me; I might just develop
             psychokinetic powers and destroy Tokyo!"
------------------------------------------------------------------

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