01-10-2007, 03:27 AM
Every year, a call is sent out on the newsgroup rec.arts.anime.misc for daring participants to choose three characters from anime or manga, and write stories in which those characters and the writer attempt to resolve one, two, or three challenges within one week (which means precious little time for editing or pre-reading). I set the Challenges through to 2006, and wrote a story for one of the challenges in 2006; 2007 was the first year where I got to write the stories without pre-knowledge of the Challenges themselves. The Challenges were posted and judged by Bill Martin this year.
The characters I chose were Yomiko Readman (from the end of R.O.D The TV), Sakura Kinomoto (from the end of the Card Captor Sakura anime), and Chisame Hasegawa (from chapter 152 of the Negima manga).
Here's a copy of this year's Challenges:
Team Lovely But Dangerous 2007
Part the First - Magical Girls: The Gathering
The gadget still felt odd in my hands - smaller and lighter than I expected. But this was the first time I had ever used one of the general-access units; by my own choice, I didn't have administrator privledges any more. I double-checked my choices and pressed the "commit" button.
There was the familiar sparkle in the air, and I felt the air displace as Readman-san, Hasegawa-kun, and Kinomoto-chan appeared in front of me. "Not again..." moaned Sakura.
"Hello, Kinomoto-chan, and Happy New Year. I trust you've been well?"
"It's only been a few hours, Kelk-san. Of course I'm still well."
That's right - it had only been a few hours for her. "There's some homemade shortbreads in the kitchen. Readman-san, I picked up a few dozen books this year ..." I stopped talking to Yomiko when I noticed she'd already picked up my brand-new facsimile softcover of Downing's The Architecture of Country Houses. (It's 484 pages, plus tipped-in illustrations; I expected her to be finished it in a half-hour.) Sakura had already made it to the kitchen and back with the tray of cookies by the time I turned to Chisame. "Hasegawa-san, I apologize for pulling you out of your home reality without warning. Considering what's going on there, though, I suspect you'd appreciate the chance to catch your breath."
"Home... reality? No, I shouldn't be surprised. Negi-sensei's shown me that the world's stranger than I thought it was - this is just more of the same, isn't it?"
"Well, yes ... What the?" The air sparkled and displaced again, and two people I didn't expect but recognized instantly appeared beside them. "Oh, my. Wishbringer-sama, Morisato-san, to what do I owe this unexpected visit? Not that I'm complaining - you're always welcome here - but this is New Year's, and you know what that ... oh, dear. You're one of the Challenges, aren't you, Wishbringer-sama?"
"Please, call me Belldandy. I believe I might be related to your 'challenge', Kelk-san; Kami-sama asked me to deliver a note to you, and I felt a disturbance remarkably like a demon escaping its prison when I arrived." She offered me a scroll.
"B... B... Belldandy? As in the Norn?" Oh, dear - Chisame was already losing it, despite what she'd said earlier.
I took the scroll, then turned back to my other guests. "Kinomoto-chan, I assume Eriol-dono told you what happened last year, er, week. Would you explain what's going on to Hasegawa-kun, please?"
"Hasegawa-kun?" asked Keiichi.
"They're probably not related," I muttered as I read the note. Wonderful - they were here for a week. "Ladies, I'm sorry. Kinomoto-chan, Readman-san, you're going to be here for a week again, but at least this time you're not going to be alone. Hasegawa-kun, your breather is going to be a bit longer than I expected..."
Part the Second (a.k.a. the Easy Challenge) - Whenever You Bring Real Physics Into A Discussion About Anime...
Explanations and introductions went faster than I expected. It helped that most of the people involved had been through the process before. Once those pleasantries were over, though, there was still a question to be answered.
"What's the situation?"
"Well, Readman-san..."
"Yomiko. If she's Belldandy, then I'm Yomiko."
I looked around. "Is everybody comfortable with being on a first-name basis? If you aren't, then say so now." Nobody replied. "Aside from bodyguarding Belldandy-sama and Keiichi-san from the demon that Belldandy-sama noticed, I don't know. We'll find out soon enough, if we turn on the radio - it's time for the hourly news."
I did, and didn't like what I heard. Some nutbar had kidnapped everyone cosplaying as nekojin at NewYearCon, and was threatening to spay or neuter them. (When Sakura-chan asked what "spay" and "neuter" meant, I asked Belldandy-sama to explain the words to her. If anybody could answer Sakura's questions without destroying her innocence, Belldandy could. Besides, it kept Belldandy too busy to offer to solve the problem - she was my guest, not my teammate, so asking her to help that way would have been rude.)
"That wasn't much to go on," commented Yomiko as she closed the back cover of The Architecture of Country Houses and picked up Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. (518 pages, plus tipped-in illustrations; at this rate, I was going to run out of new books before the day was up, never mind the week.)
"It never is, on the radio. Chisame-kun, would you check the 'net for more information, please? The computer in the corner is set up for dual-boot Win2k/FreeBSD, the guest account on both sides is 'eva_mcdowell', underscore instead of space, all lower-case, and the password is her usual companion's name, English order, no honourfic, underscore instead of space, all upper-case."
She sat in front of the computer and logged in to the Unix partition. "The fact that you know that I know who Evangaline and Chachamaru are is more frightening to me than anything else I've learned all year, Rob-san. Ah, it's already in your RSS aggregator - 'Crazed Terrorist Takes Hostages at Local Convention'. He's demanding ... Oh, ick."
"Belldandy-sama, would you and Sakura-chan please start making dinner?" What I left unspoken was and keep her from reading this webpage.
"Of course," replied Belldandy. (With Belldandy and Sakura cooking tonight, I knew whatever it was would be good.)
"Yomiko-san..." But she was already reading the screen, over Chisame's shoulder. So was I. I pointed to one line and smiled, and saw her smile in return. I picked up a pen and a pad of sticky-notes and quickly wrote on the top sheet. "Chisame-kun, here's my cellphone number. Yomiko-san and I are heading out for a couple of hours."
Our first stop was the stationery store, where we bought their entire stock of photo paper. Then we headed to NewYearCon, where Yomiko and I flashed our authentic-but-should-have-been-useless-in-this-situation government IDs (mine Canadian, hers British) to get past the crowds of gawkers and into the Con Suite. It's amazing what a bit of official documentation and a determined stride will do in a crowd situation. Once in, we discussed what we had planned with the staff and police while opening all the packages we had just bought. Luckily, one of the Con staff was familiar with the concept of the Challenges, so we let him explain things to the police while we made our way to the hostages.
"Hello!" I shouted at the door to the cosplay area. "We have the photos you wanted!" I held up one open package of photo paper. "Will you release some of your hostages in exchange?"
One of the people inside yelled back, "No way! All the demands for all the kitties!"
That was all we needed to identify the nutbar. "We'll give you the pictures now anyway. Yomiko...?" And suddenly all of the paper Yomiko had been holding was flying through the air, zigzagging its way to the terrorist and wrapping him up tighter than Mirror Man in Yomiko's family's country house.
We left as the SWAT team secured the terrorist and the crisis team got the hostages out in an orderly fashion. The police debriefed us for a half-hour, then let us go - apparently, somebody sent them an order over their computer system to release us...
When I got home, I deliberately did not ask Chisame whether she'd hacked into the police computer system to get us out of the debriefing early. It was dinner time, after all, and it simply would not do to keep Belldandy and Sakura waiting.
Omake - The Delete Function Never Completely Erases The File
Well, I was in trouble - Chisame had found my "Negima scanlations" directory. More specifically, she had found the file {AQS}_MSN_c152_Extra_03.jpg in my "Negima scanlations" directory...
"What the Hell is THAT???"
"Well," I said meekly, "the hair colour's wrong, but..."
"That's not what I meant!"
"You're an internet idol, so I thought this picture would have been okay with you. It makes you look pretty..."
"It makes me look like I'm not wearing any panties!"
Oops... "These pictures are just make-believe, Chisame-kun. You didn't do that, and you didn't do this either, right?" I called up the file {AQS}_MSN_c150_Extra_07.jpg
"That's... that's just wrong! No! I didn't do that! Get rid of those! Now!"
"Okay..." I selected the offending files and hit the delete key, carefully failing to mention the off-site archive copies I had... elsewhere.
Part the Third (a.k.a. the Hard Challenge) - ... Does Whatever a Spider Can
We thought that rescuing the nekojin-cosplayer hostages would have been enough for one day. Silly us. At least we got to finish dinner before the air sparkled and displaced again...
This time, it was a time traveler named Hiro who dropped in unannounced. He was nearly dead when he arrived, and the trip almost finished him off; it was only thanks to Belldandy that he remained conscious long enough to pass along his warning.
"That su- stinks," I said when he collapsed, changing my wording when I remembered Sakura was standing beside me. "I doubt anyone else can do anything about it, so it's up to us. Belldandy-sama, ...?"
"It's taking all of my available power to keep Hiro-san alive, Rob-san."
"That's what I was about to ask. Keiichi-san, I'll have to ask you to bodyguard Belldandy-sama and Hiro-san while the rest of us figure out what to do about Spidey and his giant robot." Wow, that sounded strange... "The first thing we need to do is make sure that Leopaldon never launches that nuke. Second is to make sure Carnage doesn't hurt anyone. Third is to rescue Spider-Man from Carnage. I'd like to manage all three, but that's the priority order they must be accomplished in. We've got ten minutes before the giant robot shows up. Any ideas?"
Chisame raised her hand. "Go ahead, Chisame-kun."
"Get me a connection to Leopaldon, and I'll shut down its computer systems."
"Are you ready to go out there?" I asked her. "I doubt Leopaldon's computer has Wi-Fi installed. No, wait - there has to be some sort of hookup between the Spider GP-7 and Leopaldon's systems, so that Spider-Man can call the giant robot. What if you piggyback that channel? We'd have to figure out how to duplicate the transceiver it uses..."
Sakura reached for her Cards. "If you can describe it, I can Create one."
Well, well... I thought that the Create Card only created simulacra, but I couldn't see any reason why it couldn't create a gadget. "Does anyone know what we need?"
"I watched the show when I was Sakura-chan's age," volunteered Keiichi.
"Close enough. Tell her what to Create, ..." I carefully did not say even if you have to make up something and let her childlike faith fill in the blanks - I trusted that he'd know that much. "... and we'll hook it up to Chisame-kun's computer."
Ten minutes later, the gadget was ready to go and Keiichi was in the bedroom with Belldandy and the time-traveler, protected by Sakura's Shield card. Leopaldon had just appeared at the airport. (I didn't know why it conformed to the sentai trope of having the giant robot appear in an empty location, but I was glad it did. I lived less than five minutes away from the airport; we'd reach it before it could do very much damage.) Chisame pulled her pactio card from her pocket, looked at it for a moment, and said, "I suppose we're going to have to do that again."
"Do what again?" I asked.
"Power it up, so I can use it. I hate magic; it's so illogical... but we have no choice."
So, she had hacked the police computers earlier. "Where are you getting the power from?"
Chisame merely pointed at Sakura. When I turned to look, Sakura had already tossed the pactio card into the air, where it hovered above her Star Staff. "Card created in another world, draw strength from me and do your mistress' bidding! CHISAME... CARD!" She collapsed into my arms.
"Please don't call it that," muttered Chisame as she sat down, invoked her pactio item, and slumped apparently-unconscious in front of the computer.
Looking at her pactio item, I wondered why her home reality hated her so much. Poor girl... but I had other things to worry about. Time to pretend I was Drake and keep Yomiko on-track, again - this time including Drake's habit of looking after the youngsters. "Are you all right, Sakura-chan?"
"I'll be fine, Rob-san. I'm just tired."
I carried her to the bedroom where our guests were taking refuge. "Please, Belldandy-sama, make sure she doesn't kill herself from over-exertion."
"Of course," replied the megami, but I was already on my way to the front door.
"Yomiko-san, let's go take care of that overgrown Tinker Toy." The nice thing about living near the airport is knowing the back ways onto the field. The nice thing about having a pilot as a relative is being allowed to use one of the back ways onto the field. We transferred Yomiko's paper supply from my car's trunk to the baggage cart we comandeered (with computer authorization - thanks, Chisame) and drove it out close to where Leopaldon was standing.
Or, rather, where Leopaldon was breakdancing. Chisame was obviously having some problems shutting down the giant robot's systems... but she eventually triumphed, and Leopaldon came crashing down on its back. (That's the nice thing about 1970s-era mainframes - they have no firewalls to speak of.)
Yomiko papered the giant robot (so that its weapons hatches couldn't open), leaving only a gap where it appeared Leopaldon's command centre could be accessed. Then I called home while Yomiko built a barricade between the robot and us. "Hello?"
"Sakura-chan? It's Rob. The robot is down and secured; please get Chisame-kun out of her trance."
"How do I do that, Rob-san?"
"You're powering her pactio card; just send a thought down the connection. I'm pretty sure that's how it works in Chisame-kun's world."
"Oh." There was a brief pause. "It worked! She's waking up."
"Great! You can drop your Shield and let your creation disappear now. Are you strong enough to Fly out here? We're south-southwest of you, and close."
"I think so, but it might take me a few minutes."
"That's fine..." Just then, I heard metal groaning from Leopaldon. "I have to go now; Carnage is about to break loose. 'Bye!"
I hung up and turned just in time to see Carnage break through Leopaldon's outer hull. "Did you really think this could hold me?"
"No," I replied while Yomiko opened another case filled with paper. "It was just to slow you down. She's going to hold you." I pointed at Yomiko, and Charnage turned to look at her. Yomiko didn't even bother putting down my copy of Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (767 pages); she just did what I call a "blizzard attack" to completely envelop (or should that be "envelope"?) Carnage in paper. "Extra layers, pretty lady; this one's tough."
"You think I'm pretty?" she asked, becoming distracted from the task at hand. Damn, me and my big mouth. Carnage noticed Yomiko's attention waver and took the chance to extend himself to a point, right into my chest. Or, rather, right into the copy of Chronicles of Narnia that was suddenly in front of my chest. I was never so glad to have bought a two-inch-thick book, before or since. "No. You're not going to kill him until he answers my question."
"Yomiko-san... Thank you. Yes, I think you're pretty. I also know we live in two different worlds, literally, so nothing could possibly happen between us. Can we go back to containing the bad guy, please?"
"Oh, okay." She smiled as she threw a few more reams of paper at Carnage, who dodged them.
"You're dangerous, 'Yomiko-san'. But your boyfriend there..."
"I'm/He's not her/my boyfriend," we said together.
"Fine. Whoever he is, he's nothing special." Two more spikes came my way...
...only to be blocked by a shield with a feather on it. Or, rather, a Shield with a feather on it - Sakura had arrived. She landed between Yomiko and me. "What is that?"
"That's Carnage. Careful, Sakura-chan - his body flows like water, and he can make sharp points on the ends of those tendrils."
"Water?" Sakura pulled the Freeze Card from her deck.
"Like water, not really water," I answered while dodging another of Carnage's tentacles.
"Oh." To make a long story short, Sakura finally contained Carnage. She had to use Loop to keep him contained, Sand and Watery together to trap him in quicksand, and finally Sleep to knock him out once he was finally held in one place, but she did it.
"Now what do we do?" asked Yomiko. "Can Sakura-chan do anything to free Spiderman-san?"
"She's exhausted, Yomiko-san." For the second time in twenty minutes, I held Sakura in my arms. This time, she was asleep and wearing my winter jacket. "Off the top of my head, I can think of three ways that Sakura could kill Carnage, but they would kill Spider-Man as well. They would also destroy Sakura-chan's innocence. However, Carnage is vulnerable to sonic attacks."
"How does that help us?"
"We're at the airport. Have you ever heard a jumbo jet's engines start up?"
A half-hour later, Carnage was trapped in a seamless paper package and Spider-Man was free. He'd need to see a specialist about his hearing, but that was better than the alternative. Then they both disappeared, along with Leopaldon and its paper covering.
Once we got home, we discovered that Hiro had disappeared when Sakura had forced Carnage to fall asleep. Belldandy said he never existed after we changed his history; I don't think I could have been brave enough to do what he did.
There was nothing left to do but work out sleeping arrangements for the week. Belldandy and Keiichi got the double bed (and they blushed when I announced that... but their relationship really needed a kick-start, in my humble opinion), Yomiko got the other guest bed, Sakura got my bed, Chisame got the couch, and I got the foam mattress in the basement. (Oh, my back...)
After everyone else had retired to their assigned bedrooms, but before I let Chisame get some sleep, I asked her to sit down for a moment.
"What's on your mind, Rob-san?"
"Well, ... I wanted to apologize."
She looked surprised. "For what?"
"For the choice of honourific I've been using when talking to you. You thought fast and used a hack to get us onto the airport's field quickly enough for us to succeed. That proved to me that the only part of you that's still a child is your body; your mind and your skills are sharper than mine, Chisame-k... Chisame-san."
She actually smiled. She's pretty when she smiles. "That's the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me, Rob-san. Apology accepted. Now get out of here so I can get undressed and go to sleep."
Omake - Go Figure
"So... that Create card of Sakura-chan's. Can it create... anything?"
I looked up from the morning newspaper. (I'm still impressed at how photogenic Yomiko and Sakura are. The photo of me, on the other hand, would best be used as tinder...) "You'd have to ask Sakura-chan that question once she wakes up, Chisame-san. I do know that it only works during the night."
"Only at night? Ick. The card must have been made by a dirty old man."
"It was originally made by a man, yes. But what brought you to that conclusion?"
Chisame blushed. "You should see some of the comments I get from dirty old men on my 'blog. The comments I delete, the posters I ban."
My blush matched hers. "I see... Do they know you're a young teenager?"
"Yes."
"Ick. Let's not discuss this in front of Sakura-chan, okay?"
That night during dinner, we asked Sakura about the Create card.
"I think it's only limited by the imagination of whoever uses it, but anything it creates disappears the next morning."
Chisame looked disappointed at that. "What did you want to create, Chisame-san?" asked Belldandy.
"I was hoping for a souvenier of my stay here."
"Would a photograph do?" asked Keiichi. "Rob-san has a good digital camera, and we still have some photo paper."
"I guess... Yes, it'll do."
I looked at Chisame. "You wanted something more than a photo, didn't you?"
"Well... You have figures of everyone else in your collection, but you don't have one of me."
A-ha; she's jealous. "I want to add a figure of you to my collection, Chisame-san, but I haven't been able to find one yet. The sculptors in this reality seem to like Evangeline-san and Asuna-kun - they just don't make figures of you, or Setsuna-san, or Negi-sensei, or your other classmates. I can't buy what doesn't exist."
"I think I may have a way around that problem," volunteered Keiichi. "Sakura-chan, would you lend me the Create card after dinner, please?"
"Why?"
"I think I can use it to make a machine that will make a figure of Chisame-san. The machine will disappear at sunrise, but the figure will remain."
The lad's a born engineer, that's for sure. "Good idea, Keiichi-san," I commented. Then a selfish idea came to me. "No, wait - make a machine to make a machine to make whatever figure we program into it..."
And that's how Chisame and I got custom Chiu-chan Catgirl statues (complete with panties), somebody on eBay got a third Chiu-chan Catgirl statue in exchange for enough money to pay for the paper and food I'd been buying that week, and I got a small 3-D printer that runs off of recycled plastics and coloured inks. (Keiichi designed the hardware from my concept; Chisame wrote the software drivers.) We used Keiichi's original idea to make a few changes of clothes for everyone, and winter coats and boots for everyone but Yomiko and me, which finally let everyone go outside in the chill of the local mid-winter.
Part the Fourth (a.k.a. the Medium Challenge) - Tell Me, What Do You Want?
Sorry, did I say "the chill of the local mid-winter"? The weather forecast made it obvious that my guests weren't going to need heavy coats while they were visiting...
"Rob-san, are these temperatures normal?"
"No, Belldandy-sama, they're not. We should be dealing with -10 degree highs, not +10 degree highs." I was using the Celsius scale, of course; none of us were American. "Something's seriously wrong."
"What's wrong with warmer winter days?" asked Sakura. "It's more comfortable outside if you don't have to wear a heavy coat."
I couldn't argue with that... but then I remembered one of Sakura's favourite foods. "That's true, but there are some plants that need cold weather to grow properly. If it doesn't freeze, we won't have winter wheat to make flour for pancakes, or maple syrup to put on pancakes."
She looked very worried. "We have to stop the warmer winter temperatures!"
Chisame also looked worried, but for a different reason. "When we arrived yesterday, Belldandy-san said something about noticing a disturbance, and something about a demon. Could the demon be changing the weather patterns?"
We all thought about it. "Maybe," I finally replied. "It'll be easier to fix if this is due to demonic influence."
Belldandy's expression became steely. "I'll have to find that demon, then..."
I raised a hand. "Please, no. Did you read the scroll that you brought for me?"
She looked surprised. "Why, no. It was addressed to you; reading it would have been rude."
"Please allow me to read it to you, then." I picked up and unrolled the scroll, and cleared my throat. "'To The Summoner, I, the All Father, am leaving these two in your care. The Yggdrasil crew is in the process of debugging their particular dimension, and since they are currently the major cause of the bugs, this seems the simplest solution. We will retrieve them in approximately one week.' If you're a major source for bugs, then you should be using your powers as little as possible, no?"
Belldandy frowned. "Yes," she whispered.
"Then leave things to us, please. Although you could help us by sitting still and smiling when the news photographers come by later today to interview Yomiko-san, Sakura-san, Chisame-san, and myself about the Carnage incident."
Sakura looked puzzled. "How will that help us find the demon?"
Chisame answered before I could. "The demon will see Belldandy-san in the news coverage, and come looking for us. We're bait, aren't we?"
"Bait and trap both, Chisame-san..."
------------
"Rob-san, why are we luring the demon to us? We could just hole up here for a week."
"And let the demon do whatever it wants out there, Keiichi-san? We're the only ones in this world who have any idea what a demon can do and who can do something against it."
Keiichi put his hand behind his head. Wonderful - I'd embarrased him. (Now there was no way I could ask him whether he and Belldandy were comfortable sharing a bed...) "When you put it that way, we don't have much choice, do we?"
I shook my head. "Not much choice at all, no."
------------
It wasn't until Thursday that any of us were approached. We had left Belldandy and Keiichi alone in my apartment, and Yomiko had taken Sakura to the library to find some books that were acceptable to both of them. (One's a teacher, the other's a student; I decided to not waste the opportunity to continue Sakura's education.) I was at work.
That left Chisame alone to go shopping. Luckily, she had borrowed my MP3 player/recorder, so I have the exact words of the incident:
"Hello, Hasegawa-kun. I've been looking for you ever since I saw your photo in the newspaper."
"So I've got fans even here. How nice. Who the hell are you?"
(When I asked Chisame about her profanity later, she admitted that she'd read some of my copies of Oh My Goddess and had already recognized the demon from those.)
"What an apt choice of words, little girl. I am a Demon First Class, named Mara. I want your help."
"A demon? I'd laugh in your face if I hadn't seen some of the things that I have seen over the last month. And everybody wants my help this week. What do you want, and what do I get in return?"
"What I want is a trifle - just take a small... gift... to your friend Belldandy. As for what you get... well, I've read some of the stories that you're in. I can remove all of those annoying magical influences from your life, 'Chiu-chan'."
The recording was quiet for a moment. "That's... certainly tempting, Mara-san. How do you propose to get rid of the magic in my life?"
"I have some powers that I will use to isolate you from magical influences - if you agree to do me that favour."
"Magical powers, right?"
"Yes. What of it?"
"So you intend to add magic to my life to get rid of the magic in my life. What's your encore - pouring water on me until I'm dry? I'm not an idiot; I know that what you're offering won't work. Go away, Mara."
"Fine! But don't expect any mercy from me the next time we meet, ungrateful human!"
That's where the recording ends.
------------
We sat in silence after Chisame played the recording for us after dinner that evening.
Keiichi was the first to speak. "Mara. Well, at least now we know who the demon is."
Chisame cleared her throat. "I have to admit, she almost got to me. But the way she was going to pay me was so... so irrational that I just couldn't accept it!"
"But she didn't get to you, right?" I smiled at her. "You're stronger than you think you are, Chisame-san. Springfield-sensei is lucky to have you as an ally... and so are we."
"And from what she said," commented Yomiko without looking up from reading my copy of Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings (236 pages), "she won't be making the offer again."
"Assuming we can trust a demon," I added.
"Oh, Mara is very trustworthy," Belldandy offered. "She's just... not very nice."
"So, unless Mara comes on the warpath, Chisame-san doesn't have to worry. But the rest of us do."
------------
I can only guess at what happened Friday. Chisame and Sakura were shopping together, and Belldandy and Keiichi were alone at home. Once again, I was at work. It was Yomiko's turn to be bait - upon reflection, that was our mistake.
I know that Yomiko went to the bookstore that afternoon. I know she returned two hours later, just after the rest of us returned home, with a double-handful of books. That should have been a warning sign; she didn't come back from the bookstore with a crate-full of books, just a double-handful of them. But we didn't notice that until it was all over.
"Oh, my! What a lot of books!" Belldandy moved to help Yomiko with her purchases. "May I help you with those, Yomiko-san?"
"Yes. Thank you." We also didn't notice that Yomiko's speech was stilted, or that she wasn't reading.
"Can I help, too?" asked Sakura. "There's more books here than even two people can carry easily... Don't touch that book!" She shouted that last at Belldandy, who was about to take a pink-covered hardcover from Yomiko's pile.
"What's wrong?" I demanded.
"That book... it's magical. And evil, like the magical book that almost killed my friends and brother in Hong Kong."
I looked at the book, and started laughing. "Oh, that's too silly! There's no such book as the Nekomimicon, and even if there was, Chiwa Saito is a voice actress, not a writer." I stopped laughing. "Get out of the book, Mara."
"I'm not in the book," replied Yomiko - no, Mara - as the pages from the other books came loose and started swirling around her.
"Oh, shit." I didn't care that Sakura could hear me, not just then. "Grab her! And don't touch that book!"
But the papers were a near-impenetrable barrier between us and Yomiko/Mara. "I've done my homework, Mr. Kelk. You're no exorcist. What are you going to do, kill this woman to drive me out of her?"
"No, Mara," replied Belldandy. "I'll free her from you." She raised her hands and brought them together to form a spell sphere... and a Bug popped out of the space between her hands. Suddenly the walls in my apartment were paisley. Keiichi hit the Bug with my heaviest hammer, the Bug disappeared, and the walls went back to normal.
"Belldandy-sama, please stay out of this. Your powers are a bit unreliable right now, remember?"
"I'm sorry."
"I understand why you did what you did, and I appreciate it. But right now, we're protecting you, not the other way around. This isn't like Hiro-san; it isn't a life-and-death situation. Please, stay out of this, okay?"
"All right." She and Keiichi backed away from the rest of us, edging into the hallway.
While Yomiko/Mara's attention was distracted by Belldandy, Sakura had activated her Star Staff. She hurried to get out of the front room, taking Chisame with her.
"Hey! I need some help here! Don't run off!"
"And why would you need help against me, Rob-san?" asked Yomiko/Mara, in Yomiko's voice. "You as much as admitted the day I arrived that you like me..." The shield of papers fell away and she reached to caress my cheek.
"Yomiko-san..." I took her hand in my own. "I'm not about to take advantage of a woman who isn't in full control of her faculties. As long as Mara's in you, I won't... I can't think of you that way."
Her eyes glowed red. "You had ... your chance, human. Now ... now give me Belldandy or ... or suffer the consequences!"
"Why are you having trouble speaking, Mara? Is Yomiko-san fighting against you?"
"NO! No, she isn't!" But she had started reading the closest book to hand - Schroeck and Schroeck's GURPS Robin Hood (128 pages).
"I think she is," replied Chisame from the hallway. "Wouldn't you rather have a willing host, Mara? You did promise to show me no mercy the next time we met. What's worse than losing control of my own body?"
Yomiko/Mara snarled. "If you're so ready to become my host body, then so be it!" There was a glow around Yomiko, which moved to Chisame.
I caught Yomiko in my arms as she fainted. Then I looked at Chisame, who was glowing red. "Oh, no. No... Why, Chisame-san?"
"To get her out of Yomiko-san," replied Chisame as she stepped out of the bedroom and stood beside... Chisame?
"What?"
"How?" I don't know which of us was more puzzled, me or Mara. Then Sakura stepped out of the same bedroom. "Of course! She's the Mirror Card!"
"No, I wouldn't do anything like that to Mirror-san, even if she was here." The Chisame that Mara had possessed disappeared, leaving Mara behind in a visible spirit form, and the Twin Card appeared in Sakura's hand.
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!"
"Really lousy Anakin impression there, Mara," I snickered. "I think Belldandy-sama and Keiichi-san left while you were trying to seduce me with Yomiko-san's body; you've got no reason to stay here. What do you want to do - chase after them, or waste time here?"
"I won't forget this!" she cried as she disappeared.
I took a deep breath, exhaled, then turned to Sakura. "Is she gone?"
Sakura looked around. "I think so."
"What do we do with the Nekomimicon?" asked Chisame.
I looked at Sakura, who looked at it and shuddered. "We'll have to destroy it without touching it. Sakura-chan would you be kind enough to use the Move Card to get it out of here?"
"All right," she replied as she pulled that card from her deck. "Then I'll let Firey have its way with the book." It was a good thing that Yomiko was still unconscious; she wouldn't have let Sakura burn the book, no matter what.
"We didn't really leave, you know," said Belldandy from the other bedroom.
"Oh, you didn't?" I smiled innocently. "It's a good thing I didn't know that before Mara left, then. She'll be on a wild goose chase for a day or two; by then, if we're lucky, you'll be ready to head home."
Ah, yes... When we destroyed the Nekomimicon, we discovered that Mara had wedged the Demons CD inside of it. That explained the evil aura that Sakura had detected, and saved us a bit of searching... but it also meant that Mara would be back for the disc. I'd have to ask Sakura to keep a Shield around the entire apartment for the rest of the week. As for the book itself, the surviving pages were blank; Mara had stolen a trick from us, the sneaky demon...
Omake - What Might Have Been...
The day before everyone left, Yomiko asked to speak with me, alone. Keiichi and Sakura were using the Create Card to create a gadget that made luggage for eveyone (with their new clothes and all, everyone needed bags), and Belldandy was sharing some high-speed computer debugging tips with Chisame (which I'd asked of Belldandy; Chisame would need the advice literally as soon as she got home). We stepped into the hallway.
"Is something wrong, Yomiko-san?"
"Nothing's wrong," she replied as she put down my copy of Spainhour and Eckstein's Webmaster in a Nutshell (523 pages, and she certainly had eclectic tastes; but then, so did I). "I just..."
"Just...?"
She sighed. "I remember what happened when Mara was controlling my body. It's been a while since the last time I... well, you know... and you're a nice enough man that I wouldn't have minded, much, but I'm happy that you didn't take advantage of me. Thank you."
I cleared my throat and looked at the floor. "Well... Yomiko-san..."
"Yes?"
I could feel the blush on my face. "I... Well, I was sorely tempted. You are a very attractive woman, after all."
"Rob-san, I remember you telling me that we live in two different worlds, so nothing can possibly happen between us. Please don't say anything else, all right?" And she picked up the book and went back to her own private world, leaving me alone beside her.
Part the Fifth - Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow
The gadget chirped as a golden glow appeared around it, then it went silent as the glow solidified into a note. I looked at it, read the first sentence, then passed it to Belldandy. "It's for you."
"Oh!" She read the note, then smiled. "It's almost time to go home!"
Sakura smiled. Yomiko looked up from my copy of Spoor's Digital Knight (378 pages) and frowned. "I'm not finished reading this yet..."
"Keep it. I correspond with the author on occasion; I can get another copy."
She grinned and hugged me with her free arm (causing me to blush), never taking her eyes off the book (causing me to sigh). "Thank you!" Then she stepped back and frowned. "Do you really know the author well enough to correspond with him, or are you just saying that to make me feel better about taking the book with me?"
"I know three authors that well. Maybe I'll have some autographed books waiting for you next time." Yomiko looked happy at that thought.
Chisame... Chisame looked wistful. "Can... Can I stay?"
To quote a certain fictional time-traveler, 'Oh, boy'. "Chisame-san... You're a pretty girl who's young enough to be my daughter. What would people think?"
"I don't care. Mara reminded me that I'm not really comfortable with all the magic that's been dumped into my life lately. If I stay here, I can leave that behind me."
Belldandy looked worried. "You'd also be leaving your family and friends behind you. Are you all right with that?"
Chisame sighed. "I think it's a fair trade."
Bull. I looked her straight in the eye, and, for her sake, played the only card I had left. "You've seen some of the manga chapters after the point where I pulled you out of your home reality. You know that Springfield-sensei needs your help in order to get through his current crisis. Are you really going to turn your back on your responsibility, Hasegawa-san?"
"Damn you..." She started crying. "Can I at least come back for a visit?"
My heart melted at her tears. "Sure, if you can figure out how, and I know from last year that at least one person's figured out how. Hang on a moment." I unlocked and opened my file cabinet, and pulled out copies of Kaolla's notes from last year's Challenge. "This should give you a head start." I handed copies to Yomiko, Sakura, and Keiichi, as well as Chisame. "Don't let your respective governments get their hands on these, okay?"
"Of course not," replied Yomiko with a shudder.
They were all packed and ready to go in a quarter-hour... just in time for Mara to burst in. "They never left you!"
The sparkle formed around everyone but Mara and me. "Hey, I was mistaken. It happens. They're leaving now; you going home with them, or hanging out with me?"
"Dont flatter yourself, mortal," she replied as she grabbed Belldandy's hand. The sparkle expanded to include Mara with the others.
And then they were gone.
Epilogue
"I'm home."
"Where the hell have you been, Yomiko?"
"I'm sorry, Nenene-sensei. It was a mission, and I couldn't tell you before I left."
"You don't go on missions any more! Tell me the truth."
As Yomiko did so, Nenene realized she was hearing the plot of a new novel. A hackneyed novel, to be sure, but she could fix that.
------------
"I'm back."
"You left?"
"Oh. Never mind that now; we still have work to do. When Negi-sensei wakes up, tell him '4000 meters straight up, and don't get shot'." Then Chisame dived into cyberspace - for the first time, as far as her companions knew.
------------
"I'm home!"
"Welcome home, Sakura."
"I'm glad to be back, Eriol-kun. Tomoyo, I learned about a wonderful thing this trip, and I think I can make them. It's called a 'pactio card'..."
------------
Nobody to see me come back. Good, I won't get chewed out for failing my mission.
"But We are here, and We will chew you out," came a voice from behind Mara, answering her unspoken thought.
"Oh, no. H-h-Hild-sama, I... I can explain..."
------------
"We're home!"
"Welcome back! Did you two have fun on your vacation?"
Belldandy and Keiichi blushed at Urd's question. Skuld's reaction on noticing that was "Ewwwww..."
------------
"Hi, Rob!"
"Aaaah! Oh... Hi, Kaolla-san. How are Shinobu-san and the others?"
"They're doing well. How're you?"
"Well enough, all things considered. You're five minutes too late for the fun this year."
"Drat. What'r'you doing today, then?"
"Going shopping for a new mattress for my double bed," I replied with a grin. "The one I've got is shot..."
[iConcordance[/i]
What? "Did I win?" Oh, yes - somehow, I was awarded a full win on all three challenges. Lucky me...
-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
The characters I chose were Yomiko Readman (from the end of R.O.D The TV), Sakura Kinomoto (from the end of the Card Captor Sakura anime), and Chisame Hasegawa (from chapter 152 of the Negima manga).
Here's a copy of this year's Challenges:
Quote:
Easy Challenge
It's the new year. You've assembled your team and are awaiting the challenge. Your town was hosting the first ever NewYearCon, a week long event that will ring in 2007 like nothing else, and that's when all hell broke loose. At the morning's festivities, someone took all the catgirl and catboy cosplayers hostage, and is threatening to "Spay and Neuter" them if his demands are not met. Some of which are 1) a football helmet full of cottage cheese, 2) a 2 gallon ziploc bag of M&Ms, all the brown ones removed, and 3) naked pictures of Bea Arthur. We don't know if it was the umpteenth "Bring Me To Life" AMV or ManFaye offering him a lapdance, no one's pointing fingers here...
Your teams must bring about a successful resolution to this event.
Medium Challenge
Once you've summoned your team, you realize you are now face to face with 5 people, not 3. Two additional people have shown up. Keichi Morisato and Belldandy are holding a note for you which reads as follows, "To The Summoner, I, the All Father, am leaving these two in your care. The Yggdrasil crew is in the process of debugging their particular dimension, and since they are currently the major cause of the bugs, this seems the simplest solution. We will retrieve them in approximately one week." Belldandy also states that in the process of coming here, she sensed something ominous came along as well. She was right. Across town, Marller/Mara was just released from her CD. Your challenge is simple, survive the week without Belldandy saving your butts. She will not intentionally lead the fight against Marller/Mara, but she will not sacrifice her or Keichi's life.
Hard Challenge
I don't know how many of you are aware that Spiderman had his own live action show in Japan, but someone from last year, The Robot Controller, is enough of an otaku to know that. He escaped from wherever he was at, and decided to cobble together his own summoning device. He summoned Spiderman, along with the Spider GP-7 he was driving at the time as gear, the space battleship Marveller, which turns into the giant robot Leopaldon, and then he stupidly hit the "Random" button. NEVER HIT THE RANDOM BUTTON! His third character was also drawn from Stan Lee's creation, however, it was a bit more recent... the Carnage symbiote, before it merged with Kletus Cassidy. Upon summoning, the symbiote mergers with Spiderman, to form Spider-Carnage, and the insanity of the merger causes Spider-Carnage to kill the Robot Controller, wreck his lab, and remove the one thing that could undo what happened. Your team must stop Spider-Carnage from destroying the world. A time traveller, named Hiro shows up and tells you, "The future I am from, Spider-Carnage wasn't stopped. His robot was almost defeated, and it decided to punch a nuclear warhead to go out with a bang. The ravaged land I am from is a nightmare worse than any of your post-apocalyptic movies. I must tell you, 'Save the Spider, Save the World!'"
Partial wins will be awarded to those who defeat Spider-Carnage and his robot. Full wins to those who can redeem Spiderman.
Team Lovely But Dangerous 2007
Part the First - Magical Girls: The Gathering
The gadget still felt odd in my hands - smaller and lighter than I expected. But this was the first time I had ever used one of the general-access units; by my own choice, I didn't have administrator privledges any more. I double-checked my choices and pressed the "commit" button.
There was the familiar sparkle in the air, and I felt the air displace as Readman-san, Hasegawa-kun, and Kinomoto-chan appeared in front of me. "Not again..." moaned Sakura.
"Hello, Kinomoto-chan, and Happy New Year. I trust you've been well?"
"It's only been a few hours, Kelk-san. Of course I'm still well."
That's right - it had only been a few hours for her. "There's some homemade shortbreads in the kitchen. Readman-san, I picked up a few dozen books this year ..." I stopped talking to Yomiko when I noticed she'd already picked up my brand-new facsimile softcover of Downing's The Architecture of Country Houses. (It's 484 pages, plus tipped-in illustrations; I expected her to be finished it in a half-hour.) Sakura had already made it to the kitchen and back with the tray of cookies by the time I turned to Chisame. "Hasegawa-san, I apologize for pulling you out of your home reality without warning. Considering what's going on there, though, I suspect you'd appreciate the chance to catch your breath."
"Home... reality? No, I shouldn't be surprised. Negi-sensei's shown me that the world's stranger than I thought it was - this is just more of the same, isn't it?"
"Well, yes ... What the?" The air sparkled and displaced again, and two people I didn't expect but recognized instantly appeared beside them. "Oh, my. Wishbringer-sama, Morisato-san, to what do I owe this unexpected visit? Not that I'm complaining - you're always welcome here - but this is New Year's, and you know what that ... oh, dear. You're one of the Challenges, aren't you, Wishbringer-sama?"
"Please, call me Belldandy. I believe I might be related to your 'challenge', Kelk-san; Kami-sama asked me to deliver a note to you, and I felt a disturbance remarkably like a demon escaping its prison when I arrived." She offered me a scroll.
"B... B... Belldandy? As in the Norn?" Oh, dear - Chisame was already losing it, despite what she'd said earlier.
I took the scroll, then turned back to my other guests. "Kinomoto-chan, I assume Eriol-dono told you what happened last year, er, week. Would you explain what's going on to Hasegawa-kun, please?"
"Hasegawa-kun?" asked Keiichi.
"They're probably not related," I muttered as I read the note. Wonderful - they were here for a week. "Ladies, I'm sorry. Kinomoto-chan, Readman-san, you're going to be here for a week again, but at least this time you're not going to be alone. Hasegawa-kun, your breather is going to be a bit longer than I expected..."
Part the Second (a.k.a. the Easy Challenge) - Whenever You Bring Real Physics Into A Discussion About Anime...
Explanations and introductions went faster than I expected. It helped that most of the people involved had been through the process before. Once those pleasantries were over, though, there was still a question to be answered.
"What's the situation?"
"Well, Readman-san..."
"Yomiko. If she's Belldandy, then I'm Yomiko."
I looked around. "Is everybody comfortable with being on a first-name basis? If you aren't, then say so now." Nobody replied. "Aside from bodyguarding Belldandy-sama and Keiichi-san from the demon that Belldandy-sama noticed, I don't know. We'll find out soon enough, if we turn on the radio - it's time for the hourly news."
I did, and didn't like what I heard. Some nutbar had kidnapped everyone cosplaying as nekojin at NewYearCon, and was threatening to spay or neuter them. (When Sakura-chan asked what "spay" and "neuter" meant, I asked Belldandy-sama to explain the words to her. If anybody could answer Sakura's questions without destroying her innocence, Belldandy could. Besides, it kept Belldandy too busy to offer to solve the problem - she was my guest, not my teammate, so asking her to help that way would have been rude.)
"That wasn't much to go on," commented Yomiko as she closed the back cover of The Architecture of Country Houses and picked up Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. (518 pages, plus tipped-in illustrations; at this rate, I was going to run out of new books before the day was up, never mind the week.)
"It never is, on the radio. Chisame-kun, would you check the 'net for more information, please? The computer in the corner is set up for dual-boot Win2k/FreeBSD, the guest account on both sides is 'eva_mcdowell', underscore instead of space, all lower-case, and the password is her usual companion's name, English order, no honourfic, underscore instead of space, all upper-case."
She sat in front of the computer and logged in to the Unix partition. "The fact that you know that I know who Evangaline and Chachamaru are is more frightening to me than anything else I've learned all year, Rob-san. Ah, it's already in your RSS aggregator - 'Crazed Terrorist Takes Hostages at Local Convention'. He's demanding ... Oh, ick."
"Belldandy-sama, would you and Sakura-chan please start making dinner?" What I left unspoken was and keep her from reading this webpage.
"Of course," replied Belldandy. (With Belldandy and Sakura cooking tonight, I knew whatever it was would be good.)
"Yomiko-san..." But she was already reading the screen, over Chisame's shoulder. So was I. I pointed to one line and smiled, and saw her smile in return. I picked up a pen and a pad of sticky-notes and quickly wrote on the top sheet. "Chisame-kun, here's my cellphone number. Yomiko-san and I are heading out for a couple of hours."
Our first stop was the stationery store, where we bought their entire stock of photo paper. Then we headed to NewYearCon, where Yomiko and I flashed our authentic-but-should-have-been-useless-in-this-situation government IDs (mine Canadian, hers British) to get past the crowds of gawkers and into the Con Suite. It's amazing what a bit of official documentation and a determined stride will do in a crowd situation. Once in, we discussed what we had planned with the staff and police while opening all the packages we had just bought. Luckily, one of the Con staff was familiar with the concept of the Challenges, so we let him explain things to the police while we made our way to the hostages.
"Hello!" I shouted at the door to the cosplay area. "We have the photos you wanted!" I held up one open package of photo paper. "Will you release some of your hostages in exchange?"
One of the people inside yelled back, "No way! All the demands for all the kitties!"
That was all we needed to identify the nutbar. "We'll give you the pictures now anyway. Yomiko...?" And suddenly all of the paper Yomiko had been holding was flying through the air, zigzagging its way to the terrorist and wrapping him up tighter than Mirror Man in Yomiko's family's country house.
We left as the SWAT team secured the terrorist and the crisis team got the hostages out in an orderly fashion. The police debriefed us for a half-hour, then let us go - apparently, somebody sent them an order over their computer system to release us...
When I got home, I deliberately did not ask Chisame whether she'd hacked into the police computer system to get us out of the debriefing early. It was dinner time, after all, and it simply would not do to keep Belldandy and Sakura waiting.
Omake - The Delete Function Never Completely Erases The File
Well, I was in trouble - Chisame had found my "Negima scanlations" directory. More specifically, she had found the file {AQS}_MSN_c152_Extra_03.jpg in my "Negima scanlations" directory...
"What the Hell is THAT???"
"Well," I said meekly, "the hair colour's wrong, but..."
"That's not what I meant!"
"You're an internet idol, so I thought this picture would have been okay with you. It makes you look pretty..."
"It makes me look like I'm not wearing any panties!"
Oops... "These pictures are just make-believe, Chisame-kun. You didn't do that, and you didn't do this either, right?" I called up the file {AQS}_MSN_c150_Extra_07.jpg
"That's... that's just wrong! No! I didn't do that! Get rid of those! Now!"
"Okay..." I selected the offending files and hit the delete key, carefully failing to mention the off-site archive copies I had... elsewhere.
Part the Third (a.k.a. the Hard Challenge) - ... Does Whatever a Spider Can
We thought that rescuing the nekojin-cosplayer hostages would have been enough for one day. Silly us. At least we got to finish dinner before the air sparkled and displaced again...
This time, it was a time traveler named Hiro who dropped in unannounced. He was nearly dead when he arrived, and the trip almost finished him off; it was only thanks to Belldandy that he remained conscious long enough to pass along his warning.
"That su- stinks," I said when he collapsed, changing my wording when I remembered Sakura was standing beside me. "I doubt anyone else can do anything about it, so it's up to us. Belldandy-sama, ...?"
"It's taking all of my available power to keep Hiro-san alive, Rob-san."
"That's what I was about to ask. Keiichi-san, I'll have to ask you to bodyguard Belldandy-sama and Hiro-san while the rest of us figure out what to do about Spidey and his giant robot." Wow, that sounded strange... "The first thing we need to do is make sure that Leopaldon never launches that nuke. Second is to make sure Carnage doesn't hurt anyone. Third is to rescue Spider-Man from Carnage. I'd like to manage all three, but that's the priority order they must be accomplished in. We've got ten minutes before the giant robot shows up. Any ideas?"
Chisame raised her hand. "Go ahead, Chisame-kun."
"Get me a connection to Leopaldon, and I'll shut down its computer systems."
"Are you ready to go out there?" I asked her. "I doubt Leopaldon's computer has Wi-Fi installed. No, wait - there has to be some sort of hookup between the Spider GP-7 and Leopaldon's systems, so that Spider-Man can call the giant robot. What if you piggyback that channel? We'd have to figure out how to duplicate the transceiver it uses..."
Sakura reached for her Cards. "If you can describe it, I can Create one."
Well, well... I thought that the Create Card only created simulacra, but I couldn't see any reason why it couldn't create a gadget. "Does anyone know what we need?"
"I watched the show when I was Sakura-chan's age," volunteered Keiichi.
"Close enough. Tell her what to Create, ..." I carefully did not say even if you have to make up something and let her childlike faith fill in the blanks - I trusted that he'd know that much. "... and we'll hook it up to Chisame-kun's computer."
Ten minutes later, the gadget was ready to go and Keiichi was in the bedroom with Belldandy and the time-traveler, protected by Sakura's Shield card. Leopaldon had just appeared at the airport. (I didn't know why it conformed to the sentai trope of having the giant robot appear in an empty location, but I was glad it did. I lived less than five minutes away from the airport; we'd reach it before it could do very much damage.) Chisame pulled her pactio card from her pocket, looked at it for a moment, and said, "I suppose we're going to have to do that again."
"Do what again?" I asked.
"Power it up, so I can use it. I hate magic; it's so illogical... but we have no choice."
So, she had hacked the police computers earlier. "Where are you getting the power from?"
Chisame merely pointed at Sakura. When I turned to look, Sakura had already tossed the pactio card into the air, where it hovered above her Star Staff. "Card created in another world, draw strength from me and do your mistress' bidding! CHISAME... CARD!" She collapsed into my arms.
"Please don't call it that," muttered Chisame as she sat down, invoked her pactio item, and slumped apparently-unconscious in front of the computer.
Looking at her pactio item, I wondered why her home reality hated her so much. Poor girl... but I had other things to worry about. Time to pretend I was Drake and keep Yomiko on-track, again - this time including Drake's habit of looking after the youngsters. "Are you all right, Sakura-chan?"
"I'll be fine, Rob-san. I'm just tired."
I carried her to the bedroom where our guests were taking refuge. "Please, Belldandy-sama, make sure she doesn't kill herself from over-exertion."
"Of course," replied the megami, but I was already on my way to the front door.
"Yomiko-san, let's go take care of that overgrown Tinker Toy." The nice thing about living near the airport is knowing the back ways onto the field. The nice thing about having a pilot as a relative is being allowed to use one of the back ways onto the field. We transferred Yomiko's paper supply from my car's trunk to the baggage cart we comandeered (with computer authorization - thanks, Chisame) and drove it out close to where Leopaldon was standing.
Or, rather, where Leopaldon was breakdancing. Chisame was obviously having some problems shutting down the giant robot's systems... but she eventually triumphed, and Leopaldon came crashing down on its back. (That's the nice thing about 1970s-era mainframes - they have no firewalls to speak of.)
Yomiko papered the giant robot (so that its weapons hatches couldn't open), leaving only a gap where it appeared Leopaldon's command centre could be accessed. Then I called home while Yomiko built a barricade between the robot and us. "Hello?"
"Sakura-chan? It's Rob. The robot is down and secured; please get Chisame-kun out of her trance."
"How do I do that, Rob-san?"
"You're powering her pactio card; just send a thought down the connection. I'm pretty sure that's how it works in Chisame-kun's world."
"Oh." There was a brief pause. "It worked! She's waking up."
"Great! You can drop your Shield and let your creation disappear now. Are you strong enough to Fly out here? We're south-southwest of you, and close."
"I think so, but it might take me a few minutes."
"That's fine..." Just then, I heard metal groaning from Leopaldon. "I have to go now; Carnage is about to break loose. 'Bye!"
I hung up and turned just in time to see Carnage break through Leopaldon's outer hull. "Did you really think this could hold me?"
"No," I replied while Yomiko opened another case filled with paper. "It was just to slow you down. She's going to hold you." I pointed at Yomiko, and Charnage turned to look at her. Yomiko didn't even bother putting down my copy of Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (767 pages); she just did what I call a "blizzard attack" to completely envelop (or should that be "envelope"?) Carnage in paper. "Extra layers, pretty lady; this one's tough."
"You think I'm pretty?" she asked, becoming distracted from the task at hand. Damn, me and my big mouth. Carnage noticed Yomiko's attention waver and took the chance to extend himself to a point, right into my chest. Or, rather, right into the copy of Chronicles of Narnia that was suddenly in front of my chest. I was never so glad to have bought a two-inch-thick book, before or since. "No. You're not going to kill him until he answers my question."
"Yomiko-san... Thank you. Yes, I think you're pretty. I also know we live in two different worlds, literally, so nothing could possibly happen between us. Can we go back to containing the bad guy, please?"
"Oh, okay." She smiled as she threw a few more reams of paper at Carnage, who dodged them.
"You're dangerous, 'Yomiko-san'. But your boyfriend there..."
"I'm/He's not her/my boyfriend," we said together.
"Fine. Whoever he is, he's nothing special." Two more spikes came my way...
...only to be blocked by a shield with a feather on it. Or, rather, a Shield with a feather on it - Sakura had arrived. She landed between Yomiko and me. "What is that?"
"That's Carnage. Careful, Sakura-chan - his body flows like water, and he can make sharp points on the ends of those tendrils."
"Water?" Sakura pulled the Freeze Card from her deck.
"Like water, not really water," I answered while dodging another of Carnage's tentacles.
"Oh." To make a long story short, Sakura finally contained Carnage. She had to use Loop to keep him contained, Sand and Watery together to trap him in quicksand, and finally Sleep to knock him out once he was finally held in one place, but she did it.
"Now what do we do?" asked Yomiko. "Can Sakura-chan do anything to free Spiderman-san?"
"She's exhausted, Yomiko-san." For the second time in twenty minutes, I held Sakura in my arms. This time, she was asleep and wearing my winter jacket. "Off the top of my head, I can think of three ways that Sakura could kill Carnage, but they would kill Spider-Man as well. They would also destroy Sakura-chan's innocence. However, Carnage is vulnerable to sonic attacks."
"How does that help us?"
"We're at the airport. Have you ever heard a jumbo jet's engines start up?"
A half-hour later, Carnage was trapped in a seamless paper package and Spider-Man was free. He'd need to see a specialist about his hearing, but that was better than the alternative. Then they both disappeared, along with Leopaldon and its paper covering.
Once we got home, we discovered that Hiro had disappeared when Sakura had forced Carnage to fall asleep. Belldandy said he never existed after we changed his history; I don't think I could have been brave enough to do what he did.
There was nothing left to do but work out sleeping arrangements for the week. Belldandy and Keiichi got the double bed (and they blushed when I announced that... but their relationship really needed a kick-start, in my humble opinion), Yomiko got the other guest bed, Sakura got my bed, Chisame got the couch, and I got the foam mattress in the basement. (Oh, my back...)
After everyone else had retired to their assigned bedrooms, but before I let Chisame get some sleep, I asked her to sit down for a moment.
"What's on your mind, Rob-san?"
"Well, ... I wanted to apologize."
She looked surprised. "For what?"
"For the choice of honourific I've been using when talking to you. You thought fast and used a hack to get us onto the airport's field quickly enough for us to succeed. That proved to me that the only part of you that's still a child is your body; your mind and your skills are sharper than mine, Chisame-k... Chisame-san."
She actually smiled. She's pretty when she smiles. "That's the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me, Rob-san. Apology accepted. Now get out of here so I can get undressed and go to sleep."
Omake - Go Figure
"So... that Create card of Sakura-chan's. Can it create... anything?"
I looked up from the morning newspaper. (I'm still impressed at how photogenic Yomiko and Sakura are. The photo of me, on the other hand, would best be used as tinder...) "You'd have to ask Sakura-chan that question once she wakes up, Chisame-san. I do know that it only works during the night."
"Only at night? Ick. The card must have been made by a dirty old man."
"It was originally made by a man, yes. But what brought you to that conclusion?"
Chisame blushed. "You should see some of the comments I get from dirty old men on my 'blog. The comments I delete, the posters I ban."
My blush matched hers. "I see... Do they know you're a young teenager?"
"Yes."
"Ick. Let's not discuss this in front of Sakura-chan, okay?"
That night during dinner, we asked Sakura about the Create card.
"I think it's only limited by the imagination of whoever uses it, but anything it creates disappears the next morning."
Chisame looked disappointed at that. "What did you want to create, Chisame-san?" asked Belldandy.
"I was hoping for a souvenier of my stay here."
"Would a photograph do?" asked Keiichi. "Rob-san has a good digital camera, and we still have some photo paper."
"I guess... Yes, it'll do."
I looked at Chisame. "You wanted something more than a photo, didn't you?"
"Well... You have figures of everyone else in your collection, but you don't have one of me."
A-ha; she's jealous. "I want to add a figure of you to my collection, Chisame-san, but I haven't been able to find one yet. The sculptors in this reality seem to like Evangeline-san and Asuna-kun - they just don't make figures of you, or Setsuna-san, or Negi-sensei, or your other classmates. I can't buy what doesn't exist."
"I think I may have a way around that problem," volunteered Keiichi. "Sakura-chan, would you lend me the Create card after dinner, please?"
"Why?"
"I think I can use it to make a machine that will make a figure of Chisame-san. The machine will disappear at sunrise, but the figure will remain."
The lad's a born engineer, that's for sure. "Good idea, Keiichi-san," I commented. Then a selfish idea came to me. "No, wait - make a machine to make a machine to make whatever figure we program into it..."
And that's how Chisame and I got custom Chiu-chan Catgirl statues (complete with panties), somebody on eBay got a third Chiu-chan Catgirl statue in exchange for enough money to pay for the paper and food I'd been buying that week, and I got a small 3-D printer that runs off of recycled plastics and coloured inks. (Keiichi designed the hardware from my concept; Chisame wrote the software drivers.) We used Keiichi's original idea to make a few changes of clothes for everyone, and winter coats and boots for everyone but Yomiko and me, which finally let everyone go outside in the chill of the local mid-winter.
Part the Fourth (a.k.a. the Medium Challenge) - Tell Me, What Do You Want?
Sorry, did I say "the chill of the local mid-winter"? The weather forecast made it obvious that my guests weren't going to need heavy coats while they were visiting...
"Rob-san, are these temperatures normal?"
"No, Belldandy-sama, they're not. We should be dealing with -10 degree highs, not +10 degree highs." I was using the Celsius scale, of course; none of us were American. "Something's seriously wrong."
"What's wrong with warmer winter days?" asked Sakura. "It's more comfortable outside if you don't have to wear a heavy coat."
I couldn't argue with that... but then I remembered one of Sakura's favourite foods. "That's true, but there are some plants that need cold weather to grow properly. If it doesn't freeze, we won't have winter wheat to make flour for pancakes, or maple syrup to put on pancakes."
She looked very worried. "We have to stop the warmer winter temperatures!"
Chisame also looked worried, but for a different reason. "When we arrived yesterday, Belldandy-san said something about noticing a disturbance, and something about a demon. Could the demon be changing the weather patterns?"
We all thought about it. "Maybe," I finally replied. "It'll be easier to fix if this is due to demonic influence."
Belldandy's expression became steely. "I'll have to find that demon, then..."
I raised a hand. "Please, no. Did you read the scroll that you brought for me?"
She looked surprised. "Why, no. It was addressed to you; reading it would have been rude."
"Please allow me to read it to you, then." I picked up and unrolled the scroll, and cleared my throat. "'To The Summoner, I, the All Father, am leaving these two in your care. The Yggdrasil crew is in the process of debugging their particular dimension, and since they are currently the major cause of the bugs, this seems the simplest solution. We will retrieve them in approximately one week.' If you're a major source for bugs, then you should be using your powers as little as possible, no?"
Belldandy frowned. "Yes," she whispered.
"Then leave things to us, please. Although you could help us by sitting still and smiling when the news photographers come by later today to interview Yomiko-san, Sakura-san, Chisame-san, and myself about the Carnage incident."
Sakura looked puzzled. "How will that help us find the demon?"
Chisame answered before I could. "The demon will see Belldandy-san in the news coverage, and come looking for us. We're bait, aren't we?"
"Bait and trap both, Chisame-san..."
------------
"Rob-san, why are we luring the demon to us? We could just hole up here for a week."
"And let the demon do whatever it wants out there, Keiichi-san? We're the only ones in this world who have any idea what a demon can do and who can do something against it."
Keiichi put his hand behind his head. Wonderful - I'd embarrased him. (Now there was no way I could ask him whether he and Belldandy were comfortable sharing a bed...) "When you put it that way, we don't have much choice, do we?"
I shook my head. "Not much choice at all, no."
------------
It wasn't until Thursday that any of us were approached. We had left Belldandy and Keiichi alone in my apartment, and Yomiko had taken Sakura to the library to find some books that were acceptable to both of them. (One's a teacher, the other's a student; I decided to not waste the opportunity to continue Sakura's education.) I was at work.
That left Chisame alone to go shopping. Luckily, she had borrowed my MP3 player/recorder, so I have the exact words of the incident:
"Hello, Hasegawa-kun. I've been looking for you ever since I saw your photo in the newspaper."
"So I've got fans even here. How nice. Who the hell are you?"
(When I asked Chisame about her profanity later, she admitted that she'd read some of my copies of Oh My Goddess and had already recognized the demon from those.)
"What an apt choice of words, little girl. I am a Demon First Class, named Mara. I want your help."
"A demon? I'd laugh in your face if I hadn't seen some of the things that I have seen over the last month. And everybody wants my help this week. What do you want, and what do I get in return?"
"What I want is a trifle - just take a small... gift... to your friend Belldandy. As for what you get... well, I've read some of the stories that you're in. I can remove all of those annoying magical influences from your life, 'Chiu-chan'."
The recording was quiet for a moment. "That's... certainly tempting, Mara-san. How do you propose to get rid of the magic in my life?"
"I have some powers that I will use to isolate you from magical influences - if you agree to do me that favour."
"Magical powers, right?"
"Yes. What of it?"
"So you intend to add magic to my life to get rid of the magic in my life. What's your encore - pouring water on me until I'm dry? I'm not an idiot; I know that what you're offering won't work. Go away, Mara."
"Fine! But don't expect any mercy from me the next time we meet, ungrateful human!"
That's where the recording ends.
------------
We sat in silence after Chisame played the recording for us after dinner that evening.
Keiichi was the first to speak. "Mara. Well, at least now we know who the demon is."
Chisame cleared her throat. "I have to admit, she almost got to me. But the way she was going to pay me was so... so irrational that I just couldn't accept it!"
"But she didn't get to you, right?" I smiled at her. "You're stronger than you think you are, Chisame-san. Springfield-sensei is lucky to have you as an ally... and so are we."
"And from what she said," commented Yomiko without looking up from reading my copy of Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings (236 pages), "she won't be making the offer again."
"Assuming we can trust a demon," I added.
"Oh, Mara is very trustworthy," Belldandy offered. "She's just... not very nice."
"So, unless Mara comes on the warpath, Chisame-san doesn't have to worry. But the rest of us do."
------------
I can only guess at what happened Friday. Chisame and Sakura were shopping together, and Belldandy and Keiichi were alone at home. Once again, I was at work. It was Yomiko's turn to be bait - upon reflection, that was our mistake.
I know that Yomiko went to the bookstore that afternoon. I know she returned two hours later, just after the rest of us returned home, with a double-handful of books. That should have been a warning sign; she didn't come back from the bookstore with a crate-full of books, just a double-handful of them. But we didn't notice that until it was all over.
"Oh, my! What a lot of books!" Belldandy moved to help Yomiko with her purchases. "May I help you with those, Yomiko-san?"
"Yes. Thank you." We also didn't notice that Yomiko's speech was stilted, or that she wasn't reading.
"Can I help, too?" asked Sakura. "There's more books here than even two people can carry easily... Don't touch that book!" She shouted that last at Belldandy, who was about to take a pink-covered hardcover from Yomiko's pile.
"What's wrong?" I demanded.
"That book... it's magical. And evil, like the magical book that almost killed my friends and brother in Hong Kong."
I looked at the book, and started laughing. "Oh, that's too silly! There's no such book as the Nekomimicon, and even if there was, Chiwa Saito is a voice actress, not a writer." I stopped laughing. "Get out of the book, Mara."
"I'm not in the book," replied Yomiko - no, Mara - as the pages from the other books came loose and started swirling around her.
"Oh, shit." I didn't care that Sakura could hear me, not just then. "Grab her! And don't touch that book!"
But the papers were a near-impenetrable barrier between us and Yomiko/Mara. "I've done my homework, Mr. Kelk. You're no exorcist. What are you going to do, kill this woman to drive me out of her?"
"No, Mara," replied Belldandy. "I'll free her from you." She raised her hands and brought them together to form a spell sphere... and a Bug popped out of the space between her hands. Suddenly the walls in my apartment were paisley. Keiichi hit the Bug with my heaviest hammer, the Bug disappeared, and the walls went back to normal.
"Belldandy-sama, please stay out of this. Your powers are a bit unreliable right now, remember?"
"I'm sorry."
"I understand why you did what you did, and I appreciate it. But right now, we're protecting you, not the other way around. This isn't like Hiro-san; it isn't a life-and-death situation. Please, stay out of this, okay?"
"All right." She and Keiichi backed away from the rest of us, edging into the hallway.
While Yomiko/Mara's attention was distracted by Belldandy, Sakura had activated her Star Staff. She hurried to get out of the front room, taking Chisame with her.
"Hey! I need some help here! Don't run off!"
"And why would you need help against me, Rob-san?" asked Yomiko/Mara, in Yomiko's voice. "You as much as admitted the day I arrived that you like me..." The shield of papers fell away and she reached to caress my cheek.
"Yomiko-san..." I took her hand in my own. "I'm not about to take advantage of a woman who isn't in full control of her faculties. As long as Mara's in you, I won't... I can't think of you that way."
Her eyes glowed red. "You had ... your chance, human. Now ... now give me Belldandy or ... or suffer the consequences!"
"Why are you having trouble speaking, Mara? Is Yomiko-san fighting against you?"
"NO! No, she isn't!" But she had started reading the closest book to hand - Schroeck and Schroeck's GURPS Robin Hood (128 pages).
"I think she is," replied Chisame from the hallway. "Wouldn't you rather have a willing host, Mara? You did promise to show me no mercy the next time we met. What's worse than losing control of my own body?"
Yomiko/Mara snarled. "If you're so ready to become my host body, then so be it!" There was a glow around Yomiko, which moved to Chisame.
I caught Yomiko in my arms as she fainted. Then I looked at Chisame, who was glowing red. "Oh, no. No... Why, Chisame-san?"
"To get her out of Yomiko-san," replied Chisame as she stepped out of the bedroom and stood beside... Chisame?
"What?"
"How?" I don't know which of us was more puzzled, me or Mara. Then Sakura stepped out of the same bedroom. "Of course! She's the Mirror Card!"
"No, I wouldn't do anything like that to Mirror-san, even if she was here." The Chisame that Mara had possessed disappeared, leaving Mara behind in a visible spirit form, and the Twin Card appeared in Sakura's hand.
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!"
"Really lousy Anakin impression there, Mara," I snickered. "I think Belldandy-sama and Keiichi-san left while you were trying to seduce me with Yomiko-san's body; you've got no reason to stay here. What do you want to do - chase after them, or waste time here?"
"I won't forget this!" she cried as she disappeared.
I took a deep breath, exhaled, then turned to Sakura. "Is she gone?"
Sakura looked around. "I think so."
"What do we do with the Nekomimicon?" asked Chisame.
I looked at Sakura, who looked at it and shuddered. "We'll have to destroy it without touching it. Sakura-chan would you be kind enough to use the Move Card to get it out of here?"
"All right," she replied as she pulled that card from her deck. "Then I'll let Firey have its way with the book." It was a good thing that Yomiko was still unconscious; she wouldn't have let Sakura burn the book, no matter what.
"We didn't really leave, you know," said Belldandy from the other bedroom.
"Oh, you didn't?" I smiled innocently. "It's a good thing I didn't know that before Mara left, then. She'll be on a wild goose chase for a day or two; by then, if we're lucky, you'll be ready to head home."
Ah, yes... When we destroyed the Nekomimicon, we discovered that Mara had wedged the Demons CD inside of it. That explained the evil aura that Sakura had detected, and saved us a bit of searching... but it also meant that Mara would be back for the disc. I'd have to ask Sakura to keep a Shield around the entire apartment for the rest of the week. As for the book itself, the surviving pages were blank; Mara had stolen a trick from us, the sneaky demon...
Omake - What Might Have Been...
The day before everyone left, Yomiko asked to speak with me, alone. Keiichi and Sakura were using the Create Card to create a gadget that made luggage for eveyone (with their new clothes and all, everyone needed bags), and Belldandy was sharing some high-speed computer debugging tips with Chisame (which I'd asked of Belldandy; Chisame would need the advice literally as soon as she got home). We stepped into the hallway.
"Is something wrong, Yomiko-san?"
"Nothing's wrong," she replied as she put down my copy of Spainhour and Eckstein's Webmaster in a Nutshell (523 pages, and she certainly had eclectic tastes; but then, so did I). "I just..."
"Just...?"
She sighed. "I remember what happened when Mara was controlling my body. It's been a while since the last time I... well, you know... and you're a nice enough man that I wouldn't have minded, much, but I'm happy that you didn't take advantage of me. Thank you."
I cleared my throat and looked at the floor. "Well... Yomiko-san..."
"Yes?"
I could feel the blush on my face. "I... Well, I was sorely tempted. You are a very attractive woman, after all."
"Rob-san, I remember you telling me that we live in two different worlds, so nothing can possibly happen between us. Please don't say anything else, all right?" And she picked up the book and went back to her own private world, leaving me alone beside her.
Part the Fifth - Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow
The gadget chirped as a golden glow appeared around it, then it went silent as the glow solidified into a note. I looked at it, read the first sentence, then passed it to Belldandy. "It's for you."
"Oh!" She read the note, then smiled. "It's almost time to go home!"
Sakura smiled. Yomiko looked up from my copy of Spoor's Digital Knight (378 pages) and frowned. "I'm not finished reading this yet..."
"Keep it. I correspond with the author on occasion; I can get another copy."
She grinned and hugged me with her free arm (causing me to blush), never taking her eyes off the book (causing me to sigh). "Thank you!" Then she stepped back and frowned. "Do you really know the author well enough to correspond with him, or are you just saying that to make me feel better about taking the book with me?"
"I know three authors that well. Maybe I'll have some autographed books waiting for you next time." Yomiko looked happy at that thought.
Chisame... Chisame looked wistful. "Can... Can I stay?"
To quote a certain fictional time-traveler, 'Oh, boy'. "Chisame-san... You're a pretty girl who's young enough to be my daughter. What would people think?"
"I don't care. Mara reminded me that I'm not really comfortable with all the magic that's been dumped into my life lately. If I stay here, I can leave that behind me."
Belldandy looked worried. "You'd also be leaving your family and friends behind you. Are you all right with that?"
Chisame sighed. "I think it's a fair trade."
Bull. I looked her straight in the eye, and, for her sake, played the only card I had left. "You've seen some of the manga chapters after the point where I pulled you out of your home reality. You know that Springfield-sensei needs your help in order to get through his current crisis. Are you really going to turn your back on your responsibility, Hasegawa-san?"
"Damn you..." She started crying. "Can I at least come back for a visit?"
My heart melted at her tears. "Sure, if you can figure out how, and I know from last year that at least one person's figured out how. Hang on a moment." I unlocked and opened my file cabinet, and pulled out copies of Kaolla's notes from last year's Challenge. "This should give you a head start." I handed copies to Yomiko, Sakura, and Keiichi, as well as Chisame. "Don't let your respective governments get their hands on these, okay?"
"Of course not," replied Yomiko with a shudder.
They were all packed and ready to go in a quarter-hour... just in time for Mara to burst in. "They never left you!"
The sparkle formed around everyone but Mara and me. "Hey, I was mistaken. It happens. They're leaving now; you going home with them, or hanging out with me?"
"Dont flatter yourself, mortal," she replied as she grabbed Belldandy's hand. The sparkle expanded to include Mara with the others.
And then they were gone.
Epilogue
"I'm home."
"Where the hell have you been, Yomiko?"
"I'm sorry, Nenene-sensei. It was a mission, and I couldn't tell you before I left."
"You don't go on missions any more! Tell me the truth."
As Yomiko did so, Nenene realized she was hearing the plot of a new novel. A hackneyed novel, to be sure, but she could fix that.
------------
"I'm back."
"You left?"
"Oh. Never mind that now; we still have work to do. When Negi-sensei wakes up, tell him '4000 meters straight up, and don't get shot'." Then Chisame dived into cyberspace - for the first time, as far as her companions knew.
------------
"I'm home!"
"Welcome home, Sakura."
"I'm glad to be back, Eriol-kun. Tomoyo, I learned about a wonderful thing this trip, and I think I can make them. It's called a 'pactio card'..."
------------
Nobody to see me come back. Good, I won't get chewed out for failing my mission.
"But We are here, and We will chew you out," came a voice from behind Mara, answering her unspoken thought.
"Oh, no. H-h-Hild-sama, I... I can explain..."
------------
"We're home!"
"Welcome back! Did you two have fun on your vacation?"
Belldandy and Keiichi blushed at Urd's question. Skuld's reaction on noticing that was "Ewwwww..."
------------
"Hi, Rob!"
"Aaaah! Oh... Hi, Kaolla-san. How are Shinobu-san and the others?"
"They're doing well. How're you?"
"Well enough, all things considered. You're five minutes too late for the fun this year."
"Drat. What'r'you doing today, then?"
"Going shopping for a new mattress for my double bed," I replied with a grin. "The one I've got is shot..."
[iConcordance[/i]
Quote:That's right - it had only been a few hours for her.I chose Sakura and Yomiko for my team in the 2006 New Year's Challenge, along with Motoko Aoyama from Love Hina.
Quote:More specifically, she had found the file {AQS}_MSN_c152_Extra_03.jpg in my "Negima scanlations" directory...Available from the Aquastar-Anime website, of course - look for the zip or rar files of the mentioned chapters.
Quote:Off the top of my head, I can think of three ways that Sakura could kill Carnage(1) Run him through with the Sword; (2) Erase him; or (3) torch him with Firey.
Quote:There's no such book as the Nekomimicon, and even if there was, Chiwa Saito is a voice actress, not a writer.I'll admit to a slight bit of editing here from the version that I posted to Usenet; I had originally written "Chiho Saito" instead of "Chiwa Saito", which ruined both the line and the joke. Chiwa Saito is a voice actress sometimes known as "nekomimi-sama" because of her role as Hazuki in Tsukuyomi Moon Phase; Chiho Saito is a writer of, amongst other stories, the manga version of Revolutionary Girl Utena.
Quote:But she had started reading the closest book to hand - Schroeck and Schroeck's GURPS Robin Hood (128 pages).At the time I wrote the line, GURPS Robin Hood really was "the closest book to hand".
Quote:I know three authors that well.Yes, I do know Ryk well enough to correspond with him, although I rarely do so. The other two authors I know that well are Gilles Poitrais and (of course) Bob.
Quote:The one I've got is shot...C'mon, we've all been waiting for that scene for two decades now. But I agree with Andrew Mays, the lead character in Pearson Mui's Anime Detective fanfiction series, when he says lemons leave a sour taste in his mouth - you're just going to have to use your imagination here.
What? "Did I win?" Oh, yes - somehow, I was awarded a full win on all three challenges. Lucky me...
-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
![[Image: wink.gif]](http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/wink.gif)