A Little Stagger Snippet

[Pyeknu]

And a little bit more before going to bed.
**** **** ****

Somewhere, a different
dimension,

"He's THERE?!"

"Indeed he is,
Stormsdaughter."

The celestial being known in
one world as Major General Helene Diedmeier, a.k.a. Wetter Hexe of the United
Nations Metahuman Peacekeeping Forces, looked as if someone just appeared right
out of nowhere and kicked her hard right in the gut.

"How . . .?  Why . . .? 
THERE?!  How did Doug get
THERE?!"

"A native of that
universe possessing one of the Voices of the Peoples' Desire sensed your friend
about to be attacked by beings who would seek his demise for all his acts over
the last fifteen centuries in his time-line since he was taken from your
side."

That message made Helene turn
totally white as her mind recalled where she had heard the phrase "Voice
of the Peoples' Desire" before in conjunction with a device or weapon that
could literally defy the Will of the Fates Themselves and drag
Douglas Quincy Sangnoir into a universe where the influence of the Power
that Unleashed Existence Itself in all its great complexity was so
unbelievably strong.  On considering
that, the celestial being born a weather-manipulating mutant years ago in
Germany paled.

If the native of THAT
universe that dragged the Loon into it had been one of the so-called
"Jewel Warriors," the nearly-countless heiresses of the Seekers, that
person would have been referred to as a "Warrior of the First Race."

Helene had cause to remember
one of them quite well:  The Earth Jewel
Warrior, a Canadian woman named Dean Raeburn . . . or "She Who Bears
The Keystone Jewel."

If the native of that
universe had been one who had taken the Test of the Praetorians and become a
"Praetorian Guardian" as they were called there, such a person would
have been addressed as a "Spirit Guardian of the Second Race."

Helene had met the Praetorian
Guardian for Earth, a charming fellow who called himself Vladímir Rusalovic
Tayceško in civilian life in Russia and Lord Rjazán' when in his
fighting costume – it was the same time Wetter Hexe had met Major Raeburn – so
he was known as the "Spirit Guardian Friend of the Keystone Jewel
Warrior."

If said native was a resident
of the planet Yiziba – a world that would have given metahuman control
activists on Helene's own Earth nightmares for the rest of their very lives! –
which lay three hundred light-years from the Earth in that universe, such would
have been addressed as a "Child of the Forge of the First Race."

Of course, the one
Yizibajohei respectfully nicknamed the "Goddess Who Walks Amongst
Men" in this incarnation by those who knew of her yet did not wish to
speak her battle-name Infinity would be addressed as the "Infinite
One" or the "Cosmic All."

The native of the planet
Noukiios who absorbed the blood of a celestial dragon into her veins in her
first life and had been reborn in this life was known by her popular name
amongst all those who celebrated her actions: 
"She Who Speaks to Dragons."

On recalling all those names,
Helene then gulped.

The term "Voices
of the Peoples' Desire" applied to devices that came from one
world.

"Sagussa . . .?"

"Indeed,
Stormsdaughter.  The native is of the
blood of His world."

The elder weather goddess
then blinked.  "Why?  He has never interfered before!"

"He does so now,
Stormsdaughter.  And given what He is,
that he has allowed this to happen may indicate one of Us has overstepped His
or Her bounds.  In His eyes."

Helene blinked as she found
herself alone . . . and then, after taking a moment to consider what she had
just heard, she chuckled as she relaxed herself.

"Well, that will make
Looney INCREDIBLY happy . . .!"

*    *   
*

Local Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 4:52 AM MSK
Location:  A hidden hill east of Goroda Rjazán',
Rjazanskaja Oblast', Russia,

"Alright, I'm here!  Where's the damned fire, Vlad?!"

Hearing that impatient voice
from behind him – One would believe that given she is over a hundred and
forty years old and had absorbed Hirosuke's very memories into her soul,
Deannette would learn how to speak with proper dictation, the
nearly-immortal being whose existence had been rumoured and speculated on for
thousands of years mused – the man known to the few people he had befriended in
this time period under the name "Vladímir Tayceško" took a deep
breath before he turned to gaze with his burning golden eyes on his current
guest, Earth's Seeker Jewel Warrior and the former commanding officer of the
1st Canadian Specialised Warfare Unit. 
"There is no 'fire' which requires you to go extinguish it,
Deannette.  But I would believe that you
would desire to know when a friend of Helene Diedmeier came to our section of
the Multiverse."

Silence.

"Helene . . .?"
Deannette Antonia Raeburn asked as she tried to recall where she had heard that
name before, and then she blinked. 
"Oh, right!  Back in
'Forty-nine.  Some Nazi hangers-on in
East Germany tried to summon a goddess to help chase off the Allies occupying
the country at the time.  They had some
of Josef's notes about divinities and they botched up the summoning
ritual.  Dragged a young girl who had
just Ascended to Celestial level from her home universe to ours.  After we cleared the mess out, you sent her
home."

"Yes," the
silver-haired man – in his current form, Vladímir appeared to be a man in his
mid-fifties, trim and fit for a Great Russian his age with no sign whatsoever
of any illness or addiction to any vices such as alcohol; Dean knew he was
thousands of years old though she hadn't guessed his precise age – said as he
walked down from the window of his home where he had been gazing somewhere,
beckoning his guest to join him at the scrying pool he had placed in the middle
of his domicile.  "Look here."

Dean looked . . . and then
she blinked as she nodded as the image of a handsome man appeared in the
pool.  "Oh, I've heard of this
guy.  Arch-mage sorcerer but he can't
control his abilities.  It's all locked
on him listening to music to make him do what he wants to do.  Takes after all the Warner Brothers cartoons
back when they were making decent animated shorts before the big television
boom put a stop to all that."  A
glance towards Vladímir.  "How'd
this guy get here, anyway?"

The Praetorian Guardian of
Earth made a gesture with his hand, thus allowing the fourteen-decade old
Canadian ex-air cavalry pilot to watch a quick replay of Douglas Sangnoir's
life since he had been forced out of the dimension of his birth.  Thanks to the Power Jewel she had found in
the summer of 1889 in a cave in the mountains of northern British Columbia, she
could follow along with the fast replay; normal Terrans and most Avalonians
would instantly get a headache at the massive flipping of images.

"Holy hell . . .!"
she then breathed out.  "He's been a
busy one."

"One who has done his
best to honour his beliefs and his commitment to his wife.  But in his doing so, he has attracted
attention.  Look there."

Dean looked . . . and then
she smirked.  "Ah!  Didn't like the idea of coming to our little
corner of the Multiverse, huh?  Saw
something they didn't agree with."

The ghost of a smile crossed
Vladímir's face.  "Indeed."

"So who brought him
here?"

"This one."

The Canadian gazed down . . .
and then she scowled.  "Oh, one of
those kids, huh?  Got herself one of the
early Haijo-ju marks from Sagussa."

"Yes.  Douglas has taken note of the Staff's power
and has decided he wishes to train young Mizuho in how to use the Staff.  Negako's teachings so far have done much, but
there are things even she does not know. 
With Douglas here, you will not have to intervene directly in this
matter, Deannette.  But the chances are
there that some might become ambitious enough to brave entering our dimension .
. . "

A shrug.  "Hey! 
They want to commit suicide, that's their tough luck."

Vladímir could only shake his
head as Dean snickered . . .

*    *   
*

[Pyeknu]

The next day begins.
**** **** ****
Local Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 7:00 AM EDT
Location:  H.M.C.S. Haida, Deck A10 Forward,
Senior Officer's Quarters,

Yours truly is about to make
an admission, folks.

I just HATE boatswain calls.

What was that?

"What's a boatswain
call?" you ask.

Well, folks, imagine the shrillest
whistle you could ever hear . . . and then pipe the sound down a long dark
tunnel with perfect acoustics.

Oh, yeah.  Pump the volume straight up to maximum at the
same time.

That's a boatswain call.

But then again, it really
didn't surprise me.

This IS a Canadian Navy ship
I'm currently sleeping on.

Even if the accommodations
would put the Queen Elizabeth 2 to total shame.

As the general call
mercifully ended quickly and the boatswain mate of the watch made the morning
announcements over the intercom system, I slowly picked myself up from the
covers I had stretched out over my bed – including some rich furs that I had
been given as presents from friends at the Collegium in Valdemar – as I moved
to rub the sleep out of my eyes.  At the
same time, the screen saver on Eimi's laptop flicked off to reveal a
sleepy-eyed A.I., who depicted herself in pyjamas and a night cap.

Why a night cap?

In all the time I've travelled
with her, I never really asked that question.

"'Morning, Doug,"
she called out to me.

"'Morning," I
answered back as I moved to slip out from under the covers.  "So how was your first night bonded to
the local Tapestry?"  As always, I
used the term I picked up in teh Collegium to describe the virtual world of the
Internet.

Eimi blinked, and then she
giggled.  "Wow . . .!"

Yep, folks.

I was right.

My good friend was now
literally in Tapestry HEAVEN!

"Good morning,
Doug-san.  Eimi-san."

I turned, and then
grinned.  "Good morning to you,
Hiromi-chan," I said as Hiromi walked in with a tray of breakfast – no doubt
prepared by Seina herself, bless her heart – which she placed down by the main
writing desk with the laptop given to me by the ship's supply department.  "You didn't need to do that for
me."

"Well, it appears the
good Master Knight Allain has acquired a cold and Seina is busy preparing a
nice chicken broth before he goes down to visit the good healers in the ship's
cockpit within the hour, so I elected to help with breakfast," she
explained.

*    *   
*

By the way, folks,
"Master Knight" in Hiromi-speak means a senior Army officer.

Eh?

"Hiromi-speak?"

What's that, you ask?

Well, it's a rather classical
and flowing speech, flecked with all sorts of wonderfully embarrassing titles
for people worthy of such respect, that is used only by one Moroboshi Hiromi
a.k.a. Ryuko Kyorei – God help you if you EVER call her "Reitei,"
which is the standard Japanese name used for her past-self! – of Tomobiki in
Japan.

Got it so far?

Good!

*    *   
*

"So Brian and Mark live
ashore?" I asked.

"Yes.  Both are married, of course, so they have
quarters ashore.  Brian's delightful wife
Ellen is currently in charge of Base Niagara's Personnel Support Programs
branch; she make sure all the people posted to the base or Haida remain
in top physical form.  They have two
children, both of whom are currently in university right now getting their own
degrees and moving to make lives for themselves.  Mark's lovely wife Nancy is a normal
housewife, though she helps administer the Base CANEX store.  They have a daughter who's in junior high
school; 'elementary school' as it's called in Canada.  She'll be preparing for another day of
classes at Plymouth School, no doubt."

I nodded as I headed into the
bathroom – given how big this ship was, it didn't surprise me that all
living quarters had their own private lavatories – so I could commence daily
ablutions.  "Speaking of school, you
and Mioko are in sixth form now," I stated, using the English term for
Grade 12 or third year of high school as it was seen in Japan.  "Why aren't you two back in Tomobiki
attending classes?"

A chuckle.  "I rather would prefer that, but given
that this is the year we're supposed to cram and cram for the Centre Test – and
given that the highest post-secondary institutions across the planet would have
honour-duels to the death to welcome myself and my extended family into their
freshman classes next year – the idea of being able to peacefully study for
such tests was seen as much more paramount than subjecting myself to
'examination hell.'"  As I laughed while
I shaved my face – making sure I didn't nick myself – she added, "I
disagreed, but everyone overrode me. 
Fortunately, my beloveds and I are still seen as affiliated with
Tomobiki High School, so when Takara comes aboard with Yayoi-chan and
Kanami-chan, her arms will be laden with all the week's assignments from our
nominal classroom teachers back in Japan."

I perked.  "Takara?"

"Sumai Takara, also
known as 'Sohofu' or 'Sokogo.'  In her
first life, she was the Empress Sòng of Hàn, the Lady Sòng Baofeng.  My first wife."

I shook my head.  "Doesn't that get a little
troublesome?"

"Having both my wives
from my first life and one of my mistresses living with me full-time?" she
ventured back as I sensed her prepare my morning tea.  "I was petrified when Mioko met up with
Miwaka – that's Wan Miwaka; she was the Consort Wáng Meiruò in our first lives
and the mother of my eventual successor on the Dragon Throne – after we dealt
with the Urusian Imperials and that boor Ogi on Yaminokuni . . . " – I bit
back the laugh I felt on hearing that planet's name again – " . . . and
they made their 'ladies' agreement' to share me, I was trapped with utterly no
way out."

"Save surrender of
course, my husband."

I perked.  Woman's voice, but not Mioko.  I leaned out of the bathroom to find myself
gazing on a smiling blonde girl looking to be a year younger than Hiromi.  After a quick check with my mage-sight, I
confirmed that she didn't have a dragon or anything else inside her that was
out of the ordinary save for her being a toshi; a "B-rank" one given
her gold magatama earring; I had read about how the earring colours changed as
toshi gained more unique fighting experiences. 
"The Lady Takara, I presume."

"You presume correctly,
Master Looney Toons," she answered as she held up a small travelling case
for a business suit.  "Courtesy of
the American Army liaison staff aboard the noble Arizona, Lord Colonel
Sangnoir; your uniform while you're here."

"Proper rank and accoutrements?"
Hiromi asked as I blinked in confusion.

"Naturally," Takara
said as she moved to unzip the carrying case to reveal the new-model dark blue
uniform worn by American Army soldiers these days; back in my universe and
time, they still wore green.  "Of
course, the medals aren't properly exact given his experiences, but we don't
want to plaster his presence here across the planet just yet, so it's best to
make him fade into the background for the time being."

"Why the disguise?"
I asked.

"Because your
battle-suit is a little too unique and peculiar for our universe,
Doug-san," Hiromi said as she gave me an apologetic look while she handed
me my tea.  "Much that I'm sure
you're more than ready to defend yourself and others should such be necessary,
we don't need to drag all the crazies out of the shadows to seek you out."

"How much did Seina tell
you?" I demanded.

Hiromi laughed as Takara
giggled . . .

*    *   
*

Local Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 8:04 AM EDT
Location:  H.M.C.S. Haida, Deck A10 Forward,
Senior Officer's Quarters,

I had to admit, whoever was
the tailor aboard Arizona got it pretty good.

Colonel in the United States
Army – a Special Forces officer at that with the proper qualification tab, not
to mention previous assignment patches indicating I worked with the 5th Special
Forces Group – complete with jump wings from a half-dozen nations (including
Canada), plus air assaulter's qualification badge and "shooting iron"
medals that said I was very nasty with anything that went
"bang!"  An even five rows of
medals in my "salad bowl" of decorations over my right breast
pocket.  And the damned thing fit me like
a glove; the clothing replicators on these ships clearly were programmed to
make sure whatever they produced could fit without much need of snipping and
mending.  Spit-shone boots on my feet and
the proper dark green beret to cover my head with my "current
assignment" crest marking me as part of the 1st Special Forces Group out
of Fort Lewis in Washington.  That was
the Army Special Operations Command's assigned unit to back up the North
Pacific Division of the Earth Defence Force, which currently included H.M.C.S. Haida,
U.S.S. Arizona, the Japanese Starship Yamato, the Republic of
Korea Starship Paekbom, the People's Republic of China Starship Zhèng
Hé – those three being Haida's sister Type One battleship/carriers –
and the Republic of China Starship Dàdù, the Korean People's Navy
Starship Mong'yang and the Mongolian Armed Forces Starship Damdin
Sükhbaatar, which were all Metzada-class Type Two space destroyers.

Much to my surprise, I even
got what was called in the British Army a "batman."

Though I'd hardly call
Sergeant First Class Sarah "Sally" Cramer a mere "batman."

*    *   
*

"Never thought you'd see
girl in green berets, Colonel?" she asked me when we first met after I had
finished my breakfast, reviewed updates from Eimi and got dressed.

"Personally, no.  Unless they're Canadian and wear Army green
as their normal uniform type," I admitted as I enjoyed a second cup of tea
brought fresh from Seina.  "You're
an Avalonian, but your soul is much older than the girls here."

"I was born Terran,
sir," Sally stated.  "In the
local lingo, I'm a 'Terran-turned-Avalonian' like the Director's lovers and a
lot of her friends.  The Director as well
in her own way."  She wriggled the
fingers on her hand; in the other hand was a cub of Starbucks' finest in a
travel mug as she didn't really care for Tim Hortons.  "Got my new body about a half-year ago
after I got my second rocker."  That
was the second curved band on her rank insignia.  "It was a good thing, too.  Getting psychic powers actually helps make things
go a lot easier with some of our co-workers."

"Who exactly?"

"The North Koreans; they
got a whole regiment – in their terms – from their Special Purpose Forces
assigned to back up the Mong'yang," she explained.  "At first, it was pretty rough.  Their current C-in-C isn't in the best of
health these days and he's getting antsy to provoke a few things with their
brethren south of the DMZ.  Elder sisters
in that country, both in and out of the military, are working overtime to make
sure some dumb-ass doesn't screw something up and start a war."  As I nodded – the Koreas were pretty much a
flashpoint in my universe, too; metahumans just made it all the more
interesting – she then smirked. 
"But once a whole ton of them on their side got body-swaps and we
broke past the language barrier, it wasn't that hard.  To be frank with you, Colonel, having a
battalion of SPF fighters at your back would be pretty good in a major
fire-fight.  Not that we'd do that sort
of shit, of course."

I winked at her.  "Leave it to the Rangers, you
mean."

A snort.  "Yeah."

We both laughed; I had picked
up on the various inter-service rivalries in my years with Warriors Alpha.  "Sally, what do you think of all
this?" I then asked.

"The EDF, you
mean?"  After I nodded, she sighed.  "We need it, Colonel.  Even though the conspiracy theorists and all
that have been saying we've had UFOs showing up in the skies over the planet
since Roswell back in '47, what happened two years ago kinda smashed it in all
in for us.  Not to mention the shit with
the world's old being stolen by that space-taxi company right after the
Director's brother made the tag." 
As I perked, she smiled.  "It
wasn't too much of a mess; local magicals and the MIBs got it cleaned up real
quick and the damage to the wildlife and sensitive ecological zones was next to
non-existent when it got done."  As
I perked on hearing confirmation there were local magicals on Earth, she then
gazed at me.  I didn't feel any sort of
probe, but I could tell she was scanning me out.  "How many planets do you think are
orbiting Sol?"

A shrug.  "Nine."

A whistle.  "How'd you guess?"

"It's common knowledge,
Sarge."

She then laughed.  "Well, you're right . . . but not in the
way you think!" she then said. 
"Here's the order here:  Mercury,
Venus, Earth, Mars, Nerio, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.  Pluto's considered a dwarf planet; that got
changed back in '06 when the egg-heads decided to change what being a 'planet'
actually is."  She winked.  "Believe it or not, Nerio is next to
totally unknown to the common man on Earth."

I gaped.  "What is it?"

"A planet of magicals,
Colonel.  Physically, it's Mars'
twin.  The Mundus Magicus as it's
normally called these days."  As I
gaped at her, she shrugged.  "During
Arizona's 'official trials' last summer after she was commissioned, we
actually broke through the notice-me-not charms that protect the planet from
normal observation on Earth.  Raised a
shit-storm in Washington until the Department of Magic had to step in to calm
down the Navy brass down from raising Cain over the fact that there had been a
whole PLANET kept hidden from outside society."  As I laughed – and tried to imagine what sort
of magical charms had to be used to hide a whole PLANET of all things! – she smiled.  "They're not bad folk.  But they're like wand-wizards in the most
part; they just want to be left alone so they can brew their potions and make
spells . . . What?"

I just STARED at her for a
moment before I shook my head.  "Um,
Sarge . . . "

"What is it,
Colonel?"

"Is there a Hogwarts in
this dimension?"

A nod.  "Yeah. 
British wand-wizard middle-and-high school in Scotland.  Why?"

I tried not to pass out on
hearing THAT . . .

*    *   
*

Local Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 10:23 AM EDT
Location:  H.M.C.S. Haida, Deck 12 Main Hull,
Ship's Central Computer Room,

I couldn't believe it.

There was a Hogwarts –
and yes, Beauxbâtons and Durmstrang – in this dimension.

Unlike the Hogwarts I had
served as D.A.D.A. teacher for – this was back in 1995-96 in that universe –
the Hogwarts on Hiromi's Earth wasn't alone in offering places to study for
budding magicals in the United Kingdom. 
In Wales, there was a school called the Merdiana Magical Academy, which
taught a totally different style of magic than the wand-using type that went to
Scotland to study.  While Hogwarts
recruited from fully "native" magical users, Merdiana normally took
in students who had some sort of blood-relationship with Nerio – believed to
have been formed separately when a meteorite had slammed into Mars millions of
years ago to create a whole separate planet with a viable atmosphere that could
support life – or didn't care too much for the local magical ministry's laws
and regulations over how they practiced their craft.  Yes, there was an International Statute of
Wizarding Secrecy here as well, but the equivalent of the International
Confederation of Wizards in this universe was a diverse "International
Community of Magical Cultures" that acknowledged that Magic was a
different between users as people were different from each other . . . and that
it simply didn't make sense to enforce one set of magical rules over everyone
blessed with that power.

Just as surprising to me was
the fact that there was a Harry Potter in this universe.

But unlike the Harry I had
taught and helped when it came to dealing with Voldemort, the Harry here got
help from a Merdiana alumni named Nekane Springfield, the niece of a famous
wizard nicknamed the "Thousand Master," a guy who was seen as a major
hero on Nerio for stopping a genocidal bastard called Fate Averruncus some
years ago.  Since the local Voldemort was
seen as very bad news for magicals regardless of stripe, the I.C.M.C. gave
Nekane freedom to ignore some old laws that forbade her type of sorceress from
interfering with the affairs of wizards loyal to the British Ministry of Magic
. . . and after she helped Harry discover his own type of wandless magic, the
whole mess with Tom Riddle's horcruxi got cleaned up in the summer after
Harry's sixth year, after Albus Dumbledore died a victim to traps that had been
put on one.  Once Voldemort was made
mortal, he was put down in a very quick duel; the actual "Battle of
Hogwarts" as the Ministry of Magic called it – according to a report made
by the Canadian Ministry of Magical Affairs on the matter that had been copied
into Haida's computer banks – lasted about ten minutes after Harry
finally dropped Riddle.

These days, Nekane served as
beginner magical teacher at Merdiana – unlike Hogwarts, freshmen at Merdiana
could be of any age, even young kids; noting that, I was reminded of the
Collegium in Valdemar, which welcomed in new apprentices as soon as they
started showing signs of any metagift – and Harry was now the Director of the Department
of Magical Law Enforcement for the British Ministry of Magic.  He was also, much to my surprise, married to
TWO old classmates from Hogwarts given he was also the direct heir of not just
his family but Sirius Black's family, which gave him two family seats in the
Wizengamot.  His wives were Mandy
Brocklehurst from Ravenclaw (now the Lady Potter) and Pansy Parkinson of
Slytherin (now the Lady Black).  As for
Harry's best friends, Hermione Granger also worked for the DMLE while Ron
Weasley was a player for the Chudley Cannons quidditch team . . . which, after
Tom Riddle finally became room temperature, broke their endless losing streak
and became league champions.

Go figure . . .

*    *   
*

After getting the chance to
read over about the local version of the Boy-Who-Lived – and the
"Man-Who-Won" as he was called these days – I decided to spend as
much time as I could getting a clear readout of the whole metahuman situation
on this planet.

After several hours reading
and talking about same with both Sergeant Sally Cramer and Petty Officer 1st
Class Joan Mercer – Haida's senior intelligence operator – I had no
choice but to conclude this Earth had been on the cusp of the same type of
metahuman explosion my Earth first experienced in the late 1920s.  But for some reason – despite a number of
metas possessing a wide gamut of gifts from the physical to the psionic to the
energy manipulators to even arch-mage type sorceresses and even the quasi-Celestial
having appeared at the time of the Second World War – there hadn't been a mass
development of genetic mutations or people who had become mutates since 1945.

Yeah, yeah, I know!  Hiromi hates those words.

But this is a report for my
universe.

Besides, friends back home
would blink like owls on hearing phrases like "natural-born
metahuman" and "fate gifted metahuman" without understanding the
context.

Still, as I came to conclude
yesterday after I had met Takizawa Kaori and watched her talk with Eimi, the
Avalonians – as a technical "alien" race despite their wide
acceptance on Earth over the last year and more – were certainly going to stir
up the genetic pot big time with their allowing Terrans to become part of their
race as well as interbreeding with Terrans in the normal process of helping the
new generation come into this life. 
Avalonians – though normally made in Terran-type pattern – did also come
as Niphentaxian-types, Noukiite-types, Urusian-types and other races as well,
so the mixture of genes that naturally developed on other worlds was going to
make something happen one day soon.  And
when you factor in the magical societies on this Earth with their own wide
gamut of beings – seeing the various Nerioite "therianthrope" species
in the file about the "Magical World" in Haida's databank just
made me blink – the size of the metahuman explosion when it finally came would
be HUGE.

*    *   
*

[Pyeknu]

This will most likely be the final element of Part 2.  I might add something more before doing a spell check and posting it separately tomorrow.
Enjoy!
**** **** ****

"What would trigger this
sort of thing?" Joan had asked at the end of it.

"Could be
anything," I noted.  "What
really launched things in my universe was the use of atomic weapons and how
radiation began to play games with people's DNA."

"That happened here, but
it never caused anything save for the standard radiation sickness cases for
those who were too close to the damned things," Sally noted.

"The Steel Angels,
maybe?" Joan wondered.

I blinked.  "Who are the Steel Angels?"

Both girls looked at each
other, and then they smiled, which made me wince.

What the hell was THIS all
about?!

*    *   
*

Local Date and time:  Tuesday 11 May 2011, 12:23 AM JST
Location:  Somewhere in Sapporo-shi,
Ishikari-shinkokyoku, Hokkaido, Japan,

"Damn her . .
.!"

The shivering form that had
just appeared in the rolling hills to the west of the downtown core of Japan's
fourth largest city could only snarl as she found herself in a place of solid
blackness all around her.  As her eyes
slowly – too slowly for her own desires – adjusted to the dark night around
her, she slowly picked herself up from the soft ground she had dropped a metre
down from her beam-in point to smash into, and then she moved to make a quick
inspection of her body to ensure she didn't endure any wounds from that
fall.  After a few minutes, she then
breathed out.

"Safe . . .!"

For now, she knew.

The creature that was coming
after her had warned her that coming back to this time and place would only
result in her death.  And the death of
the One that had helped her.

Not that the stupid animated
corpse would really understand that, of course.

A litany of vile curses in
classical Kyotos-accented Yehisrite streamed out from the newcomer's lips as
she brought down the malefactions of all the gods on the heart and soul of that
damned undead bitch – who had a POWER JEWEL of all things; how in God's name
did she acquire something like THAT?! – that had chased her off Sagussa after
she had tried to wipe out those accursed daishi'cha all those years
ago.  Taking several minutes to vent out
her continued anger towards the beast that had stopped her from ensuring the
Fifth Republic would NEVER truly rise, the newcomer then relaxed herself as she
took in several deep gulps of air before she crouched down.

Damn!

It had been a sheer miracle
in and of itself that she had been able to nursemaid the ancient warp-sloop she
had stolen to Earth so she could finally deal with the problem that had sent
her hundreds of years back in time in the first place.

Thinking of what had put her
onto this quest, she then moaned.

"My babies . . .!"

Her beloved children.

Dead at the hands of that
woman who had effectively destroyed her life.

Long BEFORE she had ever
known that planet outside the galaxy had ever existed!

The woman who had taken away
her first true love . . .

The woman who had BONDED that
wonderful man to an ONI of all things . . .!

The woman who then came back
and tore that man away from her grasp . . .!

And for WHAT?!

To bring back a dustbowl
of a planet wrecked in a five-century war to LIFE?!

Was it even possible . . .?

Thinking of that, she
shuddered.

No.

It wouldn't happen.

Not this time!

One way or another, the
so-called "grand design" was going to be derailed!

One way or another, her man
was going to be free.

One way or another, those who
hurt her . . .

Who took her babies away from
her . . .

Who killed her people . . .

THEY ALL WOULD PAY!

She then tensed on hearing
the growl of a VERY empty stomach echo through her body.

"Food . . . "

With that, she made her way
towards the glow of city lights to the east . . .

*    *   
*

Somewhere, a different
dimension,

"You take enormous
risk."

"It's worth
taking."

"To draw HIS wrath on
you?  And in HIS chosen domain?!"

A snort.  "He really doesn't care for what happens
to mortals.  They all – if He is to be
believed – will come to Him eventually, so the 'when' really doesn't
matter!"

"Are you sure?"

That made the Bringer of Balance
pause.  "What do you know?"

"He has chosen a mortal
avatar."

A laugh.  "The Moroboshi boy?  He's nothing deep down.  A coward, an idiot and he's enslaved to his
loins.  Even his marriage to the Oni
didn't change that!"

"Don't let your current
avatar's inner beliefs influence you."

"It is the truth!  How could he accept becoming the 'first
father' of that new race that was planned to arise on His planet without being
enslaved to his loins?"

"And the Daughter of
Gaia?  Do you not know of her."

"Feh!  Lies! 
That thing is no better than a robot . . . "

"You haven't been
looking upon the Earth your avatar now has landed on, have you?"

"There's no
change!"

"Don't be too sure about
that . . . "

*    *   
*

Local Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 7:26 PM MSK
Location:  A hidden hill east of Goroda Rjazán',
Rjazanskaja Oblast', Russia,

"Foolish . . . simply
foolish."

An emotionless smirk crossed
Vladímir Tayceško's face.

"And that will destroy
them both in the end . . . "

*    *   
*

Local Date and time:  Tuesday 11 May 2011, 12:29 AM JST
Location:  An empty lot in Tomobiki-cho, Nishitokyo-shi,
Tokyo-to, Japan,

The man born Sakurambo Hayao –
known more commonly as "Cherry" these days – perked as a very subtle
flow of disquiet surged into his old body.

As the elderly Jodo-shu monk
stood up from the ground of the abandoned lot located about three blocks from
the Moroboshi home, he turned to gaze at the clear night sky ahead.  Personally grateful to the many Avalonians
who had begun using their expertise to start clearing the air pollution that
had accumulated over the Home Islands in the last hundred years – even now,
only fifteen months since the Avalonians had arrived on Earth, the skies over
metropolitan Tokyo were cleaner than he had seen in decades – so he could gaze
upon the stars and try to divine what he had sensed just now from them.

"Darkness . . .
vengeance . . . for what?"

Humming, Cherry moved to
retrieve his cooking pot.

This required further
divination . . .

*    *   
*

Local Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 12:02 PM EDT
Location:  H.M.C.S. Haida, Deck 12 Main Hull,
Ship's Central Computer Room,

I had to take a minute to
absorb what I had just read.

When I did, though . . .

Oh, my dear God . . .!

"They're magical gynoids?!"

"They were," Joan
Mercer answered me.  Sally had gone off
to fetch some tea for us before we would hit Haida's chief and petty
officer's mess for lunch; even if I was an officer by Canadian military custom,
I had told Brian Gamblin that I didn't mind eating with the lower ranks if the
situation demanded it.  "Shortly
after she got her own body, Lady Negako got people to do some research on how
to shift the souls of the Steel Angels into fully organic bodies – while allowing
them to keep their powers – to fulfil a promise she and Major Raeburn had made
to them when they all shut themselves down in 1937 and had their bodies stashed
away to ensure they wouldn't be asked to kill anyone in World War Two.  Or afterward."  As I nodded, she sighed.  "It all got done by last August.  Lady Negako was reunited with Miss
Shichinohe, those of the Angels who wanted to go back into being serving
members of the worlds' militaries got their commissions reactivated and they were
back into service and the others were allowed to get on with their
lives."  A shake of the head.  "None of the one built to represent
Canada in the 'Steel Angel Wars' in the 1920s have come back into service."

"And they're not
persecuted for it?" I asked.

"Of course not,"
Joan stated.  "World War Two was bad
enough even with the limited metahuman involvement centred on the War Hawks and
the other groups that were active at the time. 
If the Steel Angels had been forced to kill normal people . . . "

I nodded as I took that in,
and then I gazed on the image of one Ayanokoji Hakushi.

This universe's technomage
equivalent to Katsuhito Stingray.

The man who had taken magic
and technology – with a heavy dose of benign necromancy and a few other things
even I had trouble identifying, plus the backing of military forces still
haunted with the images of four years of sheer slaughter in World War Two and a
lot of very radical magical thinkers – to create the Steel Angels.

An honest-to-goodness RACE of
magical
combat gynoids.

Unlike the boomers I had run
into in Megatokyo in 2037 – which could be mass produced within the limits of
the local base-line tech once Genom eliminated Sylia Stingray's father and
"acquired" his patents for their use – the Steel Angels, given their
magical origin, couldn't be made at a whim. 
It required materials that weren't available to the common man – or the
common industrial company – which restricted their building to the hands of the
world's various military forces and government-sponsored agencies, backed up by
the advanced magical research teams of local magical ministries.  All coordinated by the Academy of Advanced
Sciences, which was based in Japan even if it was a League of Nations-mandated
organisation; so called to ensure that the world "magic" didn't get
out too openly and make the International Conference of Magical Communities
upset at this wild mixing of magical and "muggle" technology.

And given what I had just
read about how these girls came into being . . .

. . . I had to admit that in
so many ways, Ayanokoji was Stingray's superior.

Even more, Ayanokoji enjoyed
a lot better luck than Sylia's dad ever did.

Despite his military backers'
desire to create the perfect soldier that could take over from mere
flesh-and-blood beings that could be poisoned by mustard gas or ripped apart by
machine gun bullets, Ayanokoji Hakushi elected at the start to create girls who
– atop being quite powerful warriors that could easily fight most of MY friends
to a standstill if required – had hearts and souls . . . and the
emotions to express them.

Save in body, they were as
human as one born of a mother's womb.

And in the period of the
Roaring Twenties – with the revulsion against conflict that the mass slaughter
of the "War to End All Wars" had invoked in so many – the Steel
Angels were seen as living symbols of hope and peace in an uncertain age.

Even the so-called
"Steel Angel War" in 1924 really didn't do anything to change that.

After reading the results of
that fight, it was easy for me to conclude.

That "war" was
actually a glorified Olympic Games for gynoids.

Complete with a lot of
cheesecake, too!

Honestly!

Ripping flags off girl's panties
. . .?!

"So they sensed what was
about to come down on Earth in the mid-1930s with the Nazis and the Japanese
militarists," I stated.  "When
they realised that war was pretty much inevitable – since such conflicted with
their basic programming to NEVER harm a human being if they could avoid it –
they asked Hiromi's sister and this Raeburn woman to deactivate them all and hide
them in places where they couldn't be found and reactivated to be used as
front-line special troops.  Much less
have all the knowledge that went into their creation wiped out given what
Grindelwald and this Tsukuyomi girl was unleashing on the magical side of
things at the same time, right?"

A nod.  "Yes."

"Who is this Raeburn
person anyway?"

Joan chuckled.  "That's one of our planet's first known
metahuman warriors, Colonel," she said. 
"She was the leader of the War Hawks in World War Two."

I gaped at her . . .

*    *   
*

Local Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 12:18 PM EDT
Location:  Cooks Mills, north of Canadian Forces Base
Niagara, Welland, Ontario,

"Hey, Laura.  Got some coffee?"

Gasping on hearing that
familiar voice from the main door to her personal café, which was located on
the corner of Lyons Creek Road and Doan's Ridge Road before the latter crossed
the creek and entered the base grounds proper, Laura Evans (Captain, Royal
Canadian Artillery, retired) spun around before she smirked on seeing the woman
now standing close to her cashier. 
"Dean Raeburn!  As I live and
breathe!" the Steel Angel-turned-Avalonian artillery officer-turned-coffee
shop owner and unofficial guardian of all the people working at Canadian Forces
Base Niagara exclaimed before she beckoned the newcomer over to a chair by the
counter.  "Your usual, I take
it?"

"Yep," Dean said as
she moved to reach into her jacket to draw out one of her Dutch Masters Honey
Sports cigars . . . and then she stopped as she remembered that smoking indoors
in a public restaurant had been outlawed in Ontario years ago.  Health Nazis! the retired air cavalry
pilot and Earth's Jewel Warrior mused to herself as Laura came over with her
preferred cup of Navy brew – with a pinch of sea salt – topped with two creams
and two sugars in a mug. 
"Thanks.  Noted what's
happened here recently?"

"Ah, yes.  Our visitor from another universe.  Metahuman sorcerer by the feel of him when he
showed up on the ranges yesterday afternoon," Laura – who, like all Steel
Angels, was an exceptionally beautiful woman, possessing close-cropped curly
red-brown hair and dark brown eyes on a very pretty face – noted as she gave
the other woman a knowing look. 
"Currently up in space aboard Haida.  Hiromi's people go to him."

"Which is good.  Less work for us to deal with."

"True.  So what are you doing here anyway?"

"Vlad advised me to keep
an eye on things."  A wink.  "In his own unique way."

Laura blinked.  "Something that interested HIM?!"

"I know.  The guy on Haida now got dragged into
our universe thanks to that kid over in Japan who got hold of one of the
Sagussan haijo-ju marks when her soul got yanked from another timeline
with all her friends by a would-be 'master' on Phentax Twelve."  As Laura scowled on hearing that – though she
was nodding as she recalled where she had heard about such a person before –
Dean sipped her coffee.  "Turns out
our visitor's been busy causing quite big ruckuses in other universes.  Typical 'serve the people' type.  He's a paramilitary, full colonel, sanctioned
by the U.N. that fights in a team of metas that includes a young goddess Vlad
and I saved some years ago."

The other woman nodded.  "Saw something wrong, went to fix
it."

"And that got some
'holier-than-thous' quite pissed off at him. 
Had a whole slew of nasties about to make him cash in his dog tags
before Mizuho got him here."

Laura tensed.  "Is there a threat?"

A shake of the head.  "Nothing clear at the time."  A smirk. 
"You know how it is with Vlad."  As Laura laughed, Dean sighed.  "If it was a real threat, he'd tell
me."

The former Steel Angel
nodded.  Given what Dean currently
possessed and had be bound since 1889, calling her down on the
head of whatever it was that was out to kill one Douglas Q. Sangnoir – Brian Gamblin
had visited her café on his way in to work and gave her a briefing via a folded
piece of paper; even if Laura was retired from full-time service in the
Regiment of Royal Canadian Artillery and was only seen as a reservist only to
be recalled to duty at time of general mobilisation, deeply-set
"programming" that had been etched with soul-magic in her Angel Heart
when she was first activated back in 1922 still dominated her life – was a
literal case of unleashing an atomic bomb to get rid of a rat infestation.  Dean was no Celestial by any shake of the
imagination – the bond between Power Jewel and its chosen Host never went
anywhere close to that type of soul-bond . . . and the Seekers who had created
the Jewels three billion years ago had disappeared from Existence itself, never
being seen again – but she could kill one if required.  And had done so several times in World War
Two whenever Axis mystics got a little too out of hand with summoning rituals.

Thank the Creator none of us
were ever active in that time period, Laura then mused.

To actually consort with
THOSE type of disgusting things . . .!

Ugh!  No thank you!

"So you're just here to
keep a loose eye on things," Laura noted.

"Yeah."

"I'll get the guest room
ready."

"Thanks . . . "

*    *   
*

Local Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 12:23 PM EDT
Location:  H.M.C.S. Haida, Deck 12 Main Hull,
Ship's Central Computer Room,

There are many things about
my visit to Megatokyo in 2037 I hated.

There are many things about
that visit I fondly remembered.

Lisa Vanette's reference to
superheroes, of course.

Given the history of one
Major Deannette A. Raeburn of the Canadian Army . . .

. . . calling her THAT would
probably be seen as quite an insult by the woman.

There was nothing – as she
told friends time and time again during those six dark years that humanity was
exposed to world-wide warfare for the first time – that she had done from the
Battle of Britain to the Battle of the Gates of Nurmengard and the final battle
between her War Hawks and the Übermenschen Gruppe over the waters of Lake
Ontario after VJ Day that she could ever want to view as really heroic.

Certainly, she did nothing to
earn those THREE Victoria Crosses she had been given.

No.

To the very end, Dean Raeburn
saw herself first and foremost as a soldier.

An air cavalry pilot for the
10th Saskatchewan Cavalry Regiment (Air) for the first three years before she
was reassigned by Army HQ to form the 1st Canadian Specialised Warfare Unit –
the War Hawks – with an RCAF Women's Division officer named Flight Officer
Jessica P. Dover (who had been gifted with the power of an honest-to-goodness
Slavic žar-ptíca that didn't mind severing the bonds between mortal avatars
and whatever Celestial-like being was possessing them), a Women's Royal
Canadian Naval Service officer named Second Officer Heather Thompkins (an
arch-mage sorceress who was mostly self-taught born from a normal couple that
was more than willing to fight either the Nazis or Grindelwald), and a Royal
Canadian Mounted Police patrol officer named Staff-Sergeant Martin Larsden (who
had been blessed by a Mi'kmaq shaman after he had saved the fellow's life in
the mid-1930s to make him the perfect hunter of men in civilian life . . . and
by extension, the perfect sniper in warfare).

A soldier – No!  Excuse me! 
FOUR soldiers! – of the Greatest Generation who gladly volunteered to do
whatever work had to be done to put down evil.

And she was a hero by any
extent of the term.

The Major never liked being
asked to kill people.

She sure as hell didn't like
the idea of using her gift – which came wrapped up in a three billion year old
piece of cosmically-powered crystal that she wore as a necklace around her
neck; influenced by local comic books at the time and a character named
"Captain Marvel," she used her Power Jewel to infuse typical
FISS-type powers for herself when she went into action, ensuring she was also
invulnerable to any sort of magical or psionic attack – and the martial arts
she had learned under Hozan Hirosuke before World War Two to stomp down on
normal soldiers and enemy metahuman warriors alike as a way of delivering a
vicious psychological blow on the Axis.

Hell, that prompted her in
1942 – after she discovered the Nazi's Final Solution after stumbling onto Konzentrationslager
Auschwitz when it was about to kick into high gear – to plan an operation
to take out Hitler and all his cronies in a three-day search-and-assassinate
mission she called "Phoenix Thunder" to bring the war to an end.

Get it done right away and
send the boys home.

Put a stop to all the things
like "strategic bombing" and the like.

Put a human face back on what
was the worst show of inhumanity in human history.

Why the Allied leaders DIDN'T
take her up on that, the Major NEVER understood!

Even with Hitler being allied
with Gellert Grindelwald as Albus Dumbledore's old lover was pursuing his own
maniac vision to unleash the "greater good" for magicals and mundanes
alike, the Major could have pulled it off with literal ease.

All the targets were damned
crunchies, anyway!

It would have been so easy .
. .

Noting that, I had to sigh.

It was easy for me to
understand.

Phoenix Thunder – for all its
wonderful simplicity and its bold vision for a world at peace – was just way too
radical in the eyes of people like Roosevelt and Churchill.

And while she could have
disobeyed, the Major always understood one thing.

She was a soldier.

And thus duty-bound to obey
higher authority.

She had made an oath.

She was honour-bound to keep the oath.

Even if she didn't like some
of the orders she had got.

Even if she and her friends
were ordered to home defence duty for the rest of the war.

Even if she probably cried
when the casualty lists came in every day . . .

Yeah.  A real hero.

At least the Canadian Army
leadership let her go in 1954 when she retired.

Thank God for that . . .

*    *   
*

"Sad reading, isn't
it?" Joan asked.

I smiled.  Sally had come back with tea and some light
sandwiches made by Yamaguchi Seina. 
"She understood why metas are so feared at times."

"It's like that in your
universe?" Haida's chief intelligence operator wondered.

A nod.  "Yeah. 
We all strive to make things easy between normals and metahumans and
aliens and all the various artificial intelligences and all that . . . but now
that I think about it, there always has been a little tension there, especially
from normals.  My own parents never
really accepted that I was a mutant." 
I didn't catch myself in time, but Joan waved it off.  "So given this was World War Two – after
millions of people had died – and given how powerful this woman could
potentially be . . . "

"She made an oath on a
Bible when she elected to fly with the Saskatchewans," she said.  "'I, Deannette Antonia Raeburn, do swear
that I will well and truly serve Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen
of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors according to law, in the Canadian Forces
until lawfully released.  That I will
resist Her Majesty's Enemies and cause Her Majesty's Peace to be kept and
maintained.  And that I will, in all
matters pertaining to my service, faithfully discharge my duty as issued by
lawful authority placed over me in the name of Her Majesty.  So help me God.'"  Joan smiled. 
"Well, it would have been to King George VI when she swore it, but
it's the same idea."

A nod.  "A real hero."

"No.  A real soldier.  One who knew what she could do . . . but also
knew that she was probably the only one who could actually do it."  Joan waved to the computer terminal I had
been using to skim through Haida's Tapestry to learn more about the
leader of the War Hawks.  "And was
it really her responsibility in the end to shoulder the burden of the whole
damned war by herself?  And even if she
did do it, what then?  If she went too
far without stopping herself, she would actually make those she was trying to
protect actually FEAR her."  As I
gaped at her, she smiled.  "C'mon,
you know this!  Humans are funny that
way, Colonel.  Yeah, the Major could've
put a full stop to World War Two over two years earlier.  Why it wasn't allowed?"  A shrug. 
"I really can't say, Colonel. 
Maybe because the hate and fear and anger and ambition that fired off
that war were just too great even for the 'protector of all life' . . . " –
she made finger-quotes on saying that – " . . . to go out and deal with on
her lonesome."

"Too many cooks with
their hands in the broth making too much of a mess," Sally noted before
taking a sandwich slice and nibbling on it. 
"And when the mess go too big, everyone had to go in to clean it
up.  With their own ideas of doing
it."

I hummed.  "Is that why Mizuho isn't a part of the
EDF?"

Both senior NCOs before me
blinked before nodded.  "The Inada
girl?" Joan asked.  "Of
course.  Sure, that Staff of hers can seriously
help her kick anyone's butt if she wanted to do that . . . but she's went through
Hell to get here, Colonel.  To force her
to serve with us just wouldn't be right. 
She deserves a normal life."

"Besides, if she's
needed, she probably would volunteer to help," Sally added.  "Look what she did for you when you got
pulled here, Colonel."

I blinked, and then
sighed.  "Right . . . "

*    *   
*

Local Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 12:52 PM EDT
Location:  H.M.C.S. Haida, Deck A12 Aft, Flag
Officer's Level,

"Enter!"

"You busy right now,
Hiromi?!"

Hiromi perked on hearing that
voice, and then she smiled.  "Come
in, Doug-san!"

The door opened to reveal a
dashing man with strawberry-blonde hair – said hair being a little bit longer
than what would normally be accepted in the noble Army of the United States of
America, but few might notice from a distance and all aboard Haida at
the time wouldn't really care – and very deep blue eyes.  He was dressed in Army Class "B"
service uniform, looking quite proper despite the medals and decorations there
not even coming close to reflect his true experiences, but shortcuts had to be
made as the chances of someone who might question the presence of an unknown
civilian aboard the UNEDF flagship at this time were still quite strong.  As soon as her ship's current visitor could
determine his proper need and a potential time frame for his eventual return
back – hopefully! – to his home dimension was determined, things would change.

"So how can I help you
in thanks for sparing me from having my brain brutalised by calculus?"
Hiromi then asked as she gazed gratefully at Doug.

The older man perked.  "Calculus?  What type?"

"I still empathically
don't know, to be frank with you," the reborn emperor of the Latter Hàn
mused as she set aside her books. 
"I can use the break for a bit. 
Much that I am perversely grateful for being freed from boring lectures,
being forced to study practically on my own does have its downfalls as
well."  She then blinked.  "You seem very bothered by
something.  Did you discover something
bad?"

"No, but I am
concerned," Doug admitted as he sat down beside her, taking a second to
scan over the calculus formulae written there and nodding.  "Same as my universe."  As Hiromi chuckled, he sighed.  "It's about Inada Mizuho.  And her friend."

"The Staff of the mad
scientist Gihan, you mean."

"Yeah.  How's your sister teaching her how to use
that thing?"

"Trial and error . . .
within reason, Doug-san," she answered. 
"One-sama has always been of the opinion that students best learn
from their mistakes.  While understanding
that Mizuho-san might get out of control if something happens to make her lose
control of herself, Onê-sama does allow her to explore the Staff's capabilities
on her own.  Only giving her the
necessary guidance when she needs it . . . as witness what happened when she
wanted to bring your wife here to join you."  As Doug nodded in understanding, the director
of the UNEDF sighed.  "It's not a
perfect system, but it does work."

"I could give her some
better training," he then offered.

Her eyebrow arched, and then
she nodded.  "True.  Well, let's go ask One-sama . . . "

"You need not call for
me, Hiromi.  I am here."

Doug screamed out at the
closeness of that voice, spinning around . . .

. . . to find himself staring
face-to-face with a woman in her early twenties who looked like she was
Hiromi's elder sister . . . save for a fuller head of wavy brown hair that was
still cut to a taper at the neck and eyes that were nearly pitch-black up
close.  She was also dressed in a black
martial arts gi with a black belt on her waist, said gi having a gold ? kanji written at the end of the
belt.

"ONE-SAMA!"
Hiromi screamed out . . .

*    *   
*

Local
Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 12:55
PM EDT
Location:  Cooks Mills, north of Canadian Forces Base
Niagara, Welland, Ontario,
"Damn
. . . she nails EVERYONE with that trick of hers."

"What
was that, Dean?" Laura Evans asked.

Dean
Raeburn smirked.  "Private joke,
Laurie . . . "

The
Steel Angel hummed . . .

[Pyeknu]

Did add a little bit to the end.
Enjoy!
Fred
**** **** ****
Local
Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 12:58
PM EDT
Location:  H.M.C.S. Haida, Deck A12 Aft, Flag
Officer's Level,

"HONESTLY,
One-sama!  Why do you keep DOING this to
people?!"

No,
I was not scared!

No,
sir!  I wasn't scared at all!

She
just surprised me!

That's
it!

"Coming
in ki-cloaked like you always do to scare people out of their minds . .
.!"

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell
. . .

Okay!  Okay! 
You got me!

She
DID scare me!

But
hell!

Could
you blame a guy like me?!

"Not
caring at all that they might actually like to be treated kindly . . .!"

I'd
like to think that I am an experienced and well-trained metahuman warrior.

And
in truth – with no false modesty – I am well-trained and experienced.

But
DAMN . . .!

Nothing
I had ever encountered in all my years prepared me for THIS woman!

Or
was she . . .?

"You
have no sense of tact whatsoever!  No
respect for people's feelings . . .!"

I
focused my mage-sight on what I had to assume was Hiromi's sister Negako.

The
result . . .

OH
– MY – DEAR – GOD!

Shit!  No WONDER people tended to think of this
woman as a goddess brought to Earth!

With
that mana node of power – or WHATEVER it was! – infused into each and every one
of her cells . . .!

Never
mind the knowledge and battle skills I sensed she had.

She
was like a living LIBRARY of battle knowledge forced into the body of a twenty-something girl from Japan!

No
one I knew of was anything CLOSE to what this woman was like!

Who
on Earth would . . .?

"Are
you quite finished, Hiromi?"

Both
Hiromi and I jolted on hearing Negako's question.  As I looked on the newcomer's face with my
own eyes, I was quick to sense the flash of annoyance there.  "One-sama no baka . . .!" my host
then spat out before she turned to get back to her homework.

As
I gazed on Hiromi as she moved to sulk, I then felt Negako's dark eyes focus on
me for a moment.  "Come,
Douglas," she bade.  "Hiromi
once again refuses to allow herself to properly see what people are truly
like."  As I heard a hurt snarl from
Hiromi, I was quick to sense the bare fleck of a smile cross her sister's
face.  "You have expressed concern
with Mizuho and her being bonded to the Staff of Gihan.  Despite all my knowledge and experience,
there are things concerning that type of device I cannot properly teach
her.  Your experience with metahumans of
various types will be of great benefit to her. 
We will discuss this matter over lunch. 
Follow me."

I
felt my legs move to her command before I could think to do what she asked.

Damn!

What
the HELL was I getting myself into here . . .?!

To be continued . . .

[Bob Schroeck]

Wow. This is coming out faster than I can read it, with my schedule as it is these days. I'm trying to keep up, I really am...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Pyeknu]

LOL!  Take your time, Bob.  Since I'm stuck at home with nothing to do, I might as well write.

[robkelk]

Quoting from the first part of chapter two:

. . . I just simply couldn't help but remember Ikari Shinji and Soryu Asuka Langley.
Innocent kids that had been forced by Fate to become warriors.
How many times was I going to run into this sort of thing . . .?

If you want to show how bad this is, you could add Henrietta, Rico, Claes, and Angelica (from Gunslinger Girl), and Fate Testarossa (from Lyrical Nanoha) to the list - both stories have appeared in the "NanoSteps" thread.
--
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

[Pyeknu]

*nods*
Thanks for reminding me of that, Rob.
Oh!  Just remembered that Henrietta and her fellow GG girls are actually replicated on Haida with Avalonians (though they actually appear as adults on that ship) as part of the "plank owner" crew.
Definitely would do something about this in Part 3.
*thumbs up*

[Pyeknu]

Just a quick modification to Part 1 when Doug learns Henrietta's name:
**** **** ****

"Wow!  He's roughing it, isn't he?" the
guardsman – I spotted her name, CROCE, on her tunic – who had talked to
me earlier said as she exchanged a look with the medic.  Gazing at her – even under her camouflage – I
was struck by a big sense of déjà-vu.

"That he is,
Henrietta-chan," the medic answered.

I then blinked.

Henrietta . . .?

Could this actually be the
counterpart to a certain cyborg I met some dimensions ago?

If she was . . .?

Wait!

They were talking in Japanese
. . .

[Pyeknu]

And a little add-on to Part 2:
**** **** ****
And while all the military
people I had met gladly admitted that these two kids had done a world of good
by building Haida and her sisterships . . .

. . . I just simply couldn't
help but remember Ikari Shinji and Soryu Asuka Langley.

Not to mention Henrietta,
Rico, Claes, Triela and Angelica from the Social Welfare Agency – I still
snorted every time I remembered that particular clandestine group – not to
mention poor kids like Fate Testarossa and so many others . . .

Innocent kids
that had been forced by uncaring adults to become warriors.

How many times was I going to
run into this sort of thing . . .?

[Pyeknu]

Also had to modify Henrietta's reasons to Doug in Part 1 as to what they were doing back at Niagara on a weekend; Infantry Soldier TQ3 training plus the Soldier Qualification course is 17 + 4 weeks in the Canadian Forces, so the girls aren't fully graduated from the Valcartier Garrison and the Land Forces Québec Area Training Centre just yet (the last full week of May will be their final week).
Edit:  Plus since they'll be serving on a starship, they'll go to the Canadian Forces Fleet School in Halifax, Nova Scotia for the five-week Naval Environmental Training course.
Return back to 1st Battalion, The Canadian Guards will be 1 July 2011 (Dominion Day).

[Pyeknu]

. . . which shows that Niphentaxians also read fan fiction stories!
Enjoy!
**** **** ****
Local Date and time:  Monday 10 May 2011, 1:06 PM EDT
Location:  Manchester, Hillsboro County, State of New
Hampshire, U.S.A.

"Do you have to
go?"

The woman now moving to
prepare a small overnight bag paused before she took a deep breath.  "I have to," she admitted as her
deep blue eyes started to tear.

"He won't know
you," the elder mother of all Avalonian-Americans living in the Granite
State's largest city, Diane Long, stated as she gave the younger woman a
knowing look.  "He's probably still
just learning the basics of our dimension; he's only been here for just a
day.  Of what interest would you have in
him, Donna?"

The woman paused before she
seemed to collapse on herself before she gazed on her host.  "Did you ever have strange dreams
before, Ashi'cha?" she asked, falling back on the classical
Sagussan term for "elder mother" to indicate how serious she
was.  "Dreams about worlds you can't
really understand . . . yet knew deep in your heart were real somewhere?"

"That's
impossible!" another of the girls who had come to stop their sister from
racing across two states and an international border to get onto a military
reservation not far from the Honeymoon Capital of the World to meet up with a
traveller from another dimension. 
"How could you have possibly dreamt of Colonel Sangnoir?!  He's . . .!"

"So did we – Terran and
Avalonian alike – believe about the Star Trek universe, Kelley,"
Diane sagely noted.  "Not to mention
the Battle Royale universe."

The other women winced, many
scowling on being reminded of that particular dimension, where thousands of
innocent children had been made to kill or be killed as part of some perverted
army project to produce the classical Japanese samurai in modern times.  "Okay, so this character from a fan fiction
series some guy created years ago actually is real!" one of the
other girls then noted.  The news about
H.M.C.S. Haida's new guest had got out over the Avalonians' closed-net
version of the Internet within minutes of Colonel Douglas Q. Sangnoir, UNMPF
actually walking aboard the UNEDF flagship. 
"But Diane's got a point, Donna! 
What the hell would you be able to do to help this guy
get home?"

"Something that might
help in ways others wouldn't be able to help him," Donna said.

"How so?" Diane
asked.

With a tired yet amused
smile, Donna reached over to pull up her iPod. 
Clicking that into her ghetto blaster, she flicked around the song
selections until she got to one particular piece of music.  Tapping the control to start the replay, she
held out her hand as a fast guitar beat began to echo over the speakers.

"This."

Time, time, time,
See what's become of me,
While I looked around
For my possibilities?
I was so hard to please!

But look around!
Leaves are brown,
And the sky
Is a hazy shade of winter!

As the others gaped at the
mini-snowstorm now draping their sister's hand in white, the girl
christened with the name "Donna Mary Sangnoir" on her creation
smiled.

"I've not
been able to do this before," she confessed as the others
stared at her.

Silence . . . except for the
music, of course.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then . . .

"How . . .?" Diane
finally demanded.

A sigh.  "That, hopefully, my 'brother' will be
able to answer . . . "

[Star Ranger4]

But Doug hadn't played I'll play for you for her yet! well, it was that or making a "Lucy, you got some 'splainig" to do sort of joke. Given the seeming preference of the Niphixians for a) earth women of b) semi fictional stock I am thinking we should have seen someone based of that most famous and talented (in both senses of the word) comedienne by now.

bah. Nebber mind Fred. Part of me is loopy from sleep deprevation thanks to a little somethings called Phoenix from the Ashes and Avalonians and Questors. WHich I started ... dang. Just to tease you further I'm gonna claim 72 hours ago. I dont *think* I've slept for more than 4-5 hours total since I started reading?

Oh, and the Playe for you? It was using that to grant what he thought would be temp defensive powers to Lisa Vanette that awakened her own latent mage gift, rmemebre?

Meh. Then again, it looks like just having him close enough for DM to sense him seems to be allowing his meta gift to jump start hers. Was that what you were trying to imply here? Personally I feel like I'm kinda getting overloaded on exposition at this point (one of the things that ultimatly sent me off to read PftA) and need some action. or maybe an internal rant from that one person who seems to be the avatar for the enemy forces they've sent in so far ranting about why is Doug such a hot button to THEM they'd send her here, the avalonian's connection to the Tea'a... or maybe its Deanette Rayburn + whatever Vlad wazzizname really is they'r fraid of.

EIther way its pretty clear that even the type of 'celestials' Doug loves to hate are afraid of this particular 'skien' and maybe you can use the shadowy figure who arrived back in chap 2 to provide us a bit of background on why. Oh, and even with what I've read so far the 'exposition' scene featuring Hexe made no sense at all; in a way it was trying to understand all that that pushed me over the Phoenix deep end. I'm kinda of the opinion that exposition like that is supposed to help the reader understand a bit better for people like myself (who while I've read the Senior year dont recall reading much more, couple chapers of twenty years after at most) who have little/no recollection or knowlege of the source, not confuse them more.

also, which one comes next? The Questor Saga: The Dark Lady and the Black Crow or The Angels of the Era of Eternity? or are they sorta concurrent, detailing events that are semi occuring in parrallell ell elll ell Lol?
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Pyeknu]

bah. Nebber mind Fred. Part of me is loopy from sleep deprevation
thanks to a little somethings called Phoenix from the Ashes and
Avalonians and Questors. WHich I started ... dang. Just to tease you
further I'm gonna claim 72 hours ago. I dont *think* I've slept for
more than 4-5 hours total since I started reading?
Do I need to put a warning on those stories to ensure people don't do this to themselves when they read it?
also, which one comes next? The Questor Saga: The Dark Lady and the
Black Crow or The Angels of the Era of Eternity? or are they sorta
concurrent, detailing events that are semi occuring in parrallell ell
elll ell Lol?

Well, that depends on how my muses run, so I can't answer that.

[Bob Schroeck]

I still think we need to kick your muses back in the direction of "Lonely Souls", but that's just me. Plus, I'm not going to try and derail your current muse; I know what happens if someone tries that.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Pyeknu]

Well, if you can kick my muses in that direction, Bob, all the world to you.  Right now, I'm looking at four weeks with an IV stuck in my arm, so - once I get a PICC line put into me on Monday - I'll be back typing away.

[Star Ranger4]

Do I need to put a warning on those stories to ensure people don't do this to themselves when they read it?
(snip)
Well, that depends on how my muses run, so I can't answer that.

Dunno about the warning part.  I do suffer from the occasional bouts of obsessive behavior, this might have been a case of one of those attacks.  I suppose NORMAL people wouldn't be quite so afflicted.
As to the other, I was more referring too  a "the events in story A come before Story B and therefore should be read first" thing, not 'which one are you writing next'.  In fact, from looking and noting that both are a) occurring at least for the moment in different parallels, and b) being written semi-actively in parallel, means that until and unless you cross the streams they should be considered as happening in semi parallel and can be read as such.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Pyeknu]

As to the other, I was more referring too  a "the events in story A come
before Story B and therefore should be read first" thing, not 'which
one are you writing next'.  In fact, from looking and noting that both
are a) occurring at least for the moment in different parallels, and b)
being written semi-actively in parallel, means that until and unless you
cross the streams they should be considered as happening in semi
parallel and can be read as such.
That's right.  Once the crossover ended in A&Q, the crews of HMCS Haida and USS Enterprise go their separate ways.

[Pyeknu]

By the way:  Would THIS be the way the Tazmanian Devil would speak: 

"If you so young, why you so wise?" I asked with my Tazmanian Devil voice.
Even if I can't really write humour, I would like to inject little in-jokes in the script.

[Bob Schroeck]

Sounds about right. It's not like there're a lot of samples of intelligible speech from Taz to draw from.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Pyeknu]

Thanks.
I also made Doug a fan of the late Nipsey Russell; he does a drawled "Right . . . " straight out of Wildcats.

[Pyeknu]

For everyone's comments before I do the entries for Part 2.
Fred
**** **** ****

The
Loon and the Ladies from Avalon
Concordance
by
Fred Herriot

**** **** ****

WRITER'S INTRODUCTION:

In a reflection of what Bob
does for the main Step stories in Drunkard's Walk, I decided to expand on my own
writer's notes by making a separate page to act as a sort of concordance to
further explain what is being written in this story and how it relates to my
own work, both in the Phoenix From the Ashes universe and elsewhere.

As Bob does in his
concordances, entries will be grouped per part and ordered by their appearance
in the story text. However, as this is
crossing over with my own work, I'll start off with a synopsis of PFTA to better give
everyone a review of what let up to the situation Doug encountered when he woke
up after his latest world-gate jump.

Enjoy!

Fred

**** **** ****

THE STORYLINE OF THE PHOENIX
FROM THE ASHES UNIVERSE

Based somewhat on the
universe of The Senior Year, a fanfic series written by myself and my
friend Mike Smith in the 1990s, Phoenix From the Ashes is a three-way
crossover series between Urusei Yatsura, Ranma ½ and Ikkitosen. As I stated in the writer's notes for PFTA,
the story occurs at the end of the Yatsura manga timeline (the "Boy
Meets Girl" storyline depicted in manga episodes #354-364), at the time
Shampoo was introduced into the Ranma manga timeline (as depicted in
manga episodes #31-36) and sometime after the arrival of Sonsaku Hakufu at the
Nan'yo Academy and her fight with Ryomo Shimei in the Ikkitosen manga
timeline (as depicted in manga episode #6).

PFTA itself is set in the early
summer of 2010.

The basic plot of PFTA
is this:

Set as a sequel to Gregg
"Metroanime" Sharp's Bet story "Crippled," we find
Saotome Ranma paralysed thanks to Shampoo in Nerima General Hospital. There, he meets Moroboshi Tariko, a volunteer
nursing assistant who is also a student at Tomobiki High School along with her
twin brother Ataru, adopted twin sister Hiromi and adopted older sister Negako
(who is the grandmaster of the Moroboshi Clan's school of martial arts, Saiko
Jinseijutsu-ryu). Learning what Ranma
had endured over the years of his training trip with his father, Tariko
arranges to have Negako look in on him.
In doing so, Negako discovers that Ranma now has a fractured soul and is
also linked to two other souls. With the
help of the Avalonians – a race of female humanoid bioroids that the Moroboshi
siblings helped liberate from their masters four months before the start of PFTA
– Ranma acquires three "twin" sisters of his own: Kanami (his "true" twin sister,
whose soul was sheared away from Ranma's thanks to the Neko-ken training),
Kikuko (the soul of the young woman who had drowned in the Nyanniichuan spring
at Jusenkyo 1500 years ago) and Miiko (the reborn soul of Liú Yan of the Latter
Hàn, who – like so many others from his time period – found his living spirit
trapped in a magatama earring Ranma would later find when he and Genma were
fleeing from China).

As Ranma is healed by Negako
and moves to form a real family with his new sisters, he learns several things
about his parents. Genma was seen as muyokoshi
(meaning "useless filial child," a term I learned about from Don
Granberry's fanfic Comes The Cold Dragon) from the Hayashi Clan, though
Ranma's paternal great-grandmother Chiaki is still alive. Thanks to a pre-nuptial agreement signed
between the Hayashi family and the Saotome family before Genma married Nodoka –
which demanded that all of Genma's and Nodoka's children be raised
"properly" – the seppuku agreement that Genma forced on Nodoka
promising that Ranma would return a "man above men" effectively allowed
Chiaki to "bring Ranma back" to the Hayashi family. Of course, Kanami, Kikuko and Miiko were
"brought back" as well, effectively rendering Genma and Nodoka
childless.

Atop that, Nodoka and her
family had engaged in a decades-long deception concerning their own
ancestry. It turns out that Nodoka is
the granddaughter of Professor Henry W. "Indiana" Jones Jr., a
"stain" on the Saotome Clan honour which had to be hidden at all
costs (I based this on the fanfic Suikoden One Half by MadHat886). Unfortunately, the rejection of such earned
Nodoka's relatives the wrath of the Ark of the Covenant (which Indiana saved
from the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark), the Holy Grail (which
Indiana protected from the Nazis in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
and the Crystal Skulls of Akator (which Indiana shielded from the Soviets in Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), guaranteeing they would die
between their 40th and 50th birthdays (save for those who did
acknowledge Indiana as their relative).
Not wanting to have anything to do with such a lie – not to mention
Nodoka's warped attitudes demanding Ranma be a "man above men" as
well as her refusal to acknowledge the claims Kuonji Ukyo and others had for
Ranma's hand in marriage – Ranma flatly renounces Nodoka when they meet for the
first time in a decade in his Nerima General Hospital.

As Genma and Soun – even in
the face of Happosai's return to their lives thanks to Negako, leading to the
revelation that Ranma's father and Akane's father did not have proper masteries
in Musabetsu Kakuto-ryu – try to do anything they can to force Ranma to renounce
his grandmother, Ranma's interactions with Ataru's sisters eventually won him
the interest of Ryomo Shimei (birth-name:
Sebone Mimoko); it was Mimoko's cousin Do Kazua (the reborn Dèng Dang;
he was the brother-in-law of Mimoko's past-self Lu Méng) who helped with
Ranma's trauma care after he was cut down by Shampoo. That – along with Mimoko's cousin Shikuko
(also known as Ryofu Hosen) and her lover Noberu Miyako (a.k.a. Chinkyu Kodai)
taking passionate interest in Moroboshi Ataru – served as the bridge to allow
all the toshi of the Seven Battle Schools of Kanto to reunite with their reborn
emperor (Moroboshi Hiromi, in her first life, was Liú Hóng, the Xiàolíng
Emperor of Hàn), thus completely wrecking the "fate of the sacred
bead" that drove toshi to re-enact the critical events of the last years
of the Latter Hàn Dynasty and the start of the Three Kingdoms age which is the
primary theme of Ikkitosen.

As this is happening, Ataru's
past relationship with a certain Oni warlord's daughter comes back to haunt his
family. Six months before the start of PFTA
(around the time of the first Yatsura movie Only You), Ataru
learns thanks to a wedding crasher from the planet Noukiios that his
"wife" Lum was actually (in her soul) an Avalonian clone-bioroid
replica of hers named Henso. Thanks to a
terrible curse unleashed on Lum by the Old Lady of the Oak Forest asteroid (as
seen in the third Yatsura movie, Remember My Love), Lum – along
with her best friends Benten, Oyuki and Ran – had their very lives
stolen from them when Henso (along with Kamen, Mienai and Damasu; they are the
clone-replica bioroids modelled after Lum's friends) was first woken at the
prompting of the expat Vosian bounty hunter Nassur five years before PFTA.

Since the Niphentaxians (the
Avalonians' masters at the time) were seen as the Urusians greatest allies, the
pressures of galactic realpolitik prevented Nassur from exposing the
Niphentaxians dirty little secret to the outside galaxy. Thus, Lum and her friends – in Avalonian
bodies – were forced into exile on the Noukiite colony world of Okusei, where
they befriended many of the reborn Flower Youth of Noukiios (all of whom are
modelled after the Koihime Muso versions of the many heroes and warriors
of China's Three Kingdoms age as depicted in The Romance of the Three
Kingdoms).

On learning the truth about
his "wife," Ataru symbolically divorced Henso, and then travelled to
Okusei to see to it that a fractured element of his soul and the two other
souls within his mind could be given lives of their own. Ataru gained three sisters: Negako (the spirit of the Saiko
Jinseijutsu database of ninjutsu fighting knowledge that Ataru had become
the 57th host of when he was six years old), Hiromi (the living spirit of Liú
Hóng) and Tariko (Ataru's true twin sister, whose soul was sheared off from her
brother's thanks to Negako and Hiromi being in his mind). After realising there was a whole RACE of
beautiful women being held as literal sex-slaves by a race of sycophant mimics
that actually worshipped Lum (and later Henso) as a living goddess, Ataru and
his sisters helped the Noukiites and the Yehisrites (both of whom are galactic
superpowers in this universe; Lum's homeworld of Uru is a middle power)
liberate the Avalon bioroid factory and all the Avalonians from the
Niphentaxians. This effectively cripples
the Galactic Federation of Planet-states (the alliance of small and middle
powers that Uru, Fukunokami, Neptune, Elle and other worlds are a part of) and
sees Earth placed under Noukiite protection, thus effectively allowing the
strange events that had rocked Tomobiki for months to finally come to an end.

However, thanks to the
Yaminokuni prince Rupa (from the fifth Yatsura movie, The Final
Chapter) coming along to claim his bride, Henso was kidnapped from Uru and
taken to Yaminokuni to be married.
Kamen, Mienai and Damasu – aided by the Urusian Imperial Round (I based
them on the Imperial Uruseians from Lew Burton's fanfics Just A Dream
and Still Dreaming from the 1990s) and the Niphentaxians – tried to
kidnap Ataru to help rescue Henso . . . but found themselves stopped thanks to
Tariko and her new girlfriend Kanami.
This attempted "invasion" of Tomobiki prompts the nations of
Earth to officially form the United Nations Earth Defence Force. Based on fifty star battleship/carriers built
by two young toshi, Ki Tsukihana (a.k.a. Kogetsuei) and Hakaru Ayami (a.k.a.
Jun'iku Bunjaku), a ten-ship force travelled to Yaminokuni – augmented by
several thousand toshi under Hiromi's leadership and a Canadian armoured
brigade group mostly crewed by Avalonian volunteers – to set a trap for the
Urusian Imperials and the Niphentaxians by making it look as if Earth supported
Rupa's desire to marry Henso.

End result: The total defeat of the Imperials and the
Niphentaxians.

On returning to Earth, Ranma
reconciled with Nodoka and saw to it (with Hiromi's help) that Genma was
forever publicly shamed for all his past actions concerning his son (not to
mention frozen as a panda, rendered as weak as a kitten, then banished to
China). Nodoka welcomed Ranma's sisters
as her daughters . . . and even got the chance to form a family bond with
Indiana Jones; she would later come to adopt the Hayashi name herself. Ranma elected to go to the Nan'yo Academy
alongside Mimoko. Kikuko had, by then,
formed a Nujiézú marriage bond with Shampoo; both would go to Nan'yo. Kanami would remain with the Hayashi
siblings' grandmother in Tokyo's Taito Ward, though she maintained her
relationship with Moroboshi Tariko.
Miiko would fall in love with Koeru Kumomi (also known as Choun Shiryu)
and attend Seito until the spring of 2011, when both transferred to
Nan'yo. Kuonji Ukyo – after having her
own honour restored thanks to Ranma renouncing the Saotome name – would
eventually fall in love with Mago Tsueko (a.k.a. Sonsaku Hakufu). The Tendo sisters would – thanks to their
father's refusal to acknowledge what happened to Ranma – renounce all family
bonds with him and be "brought back" into the family of their late
mother, the Miyamoto Clan. Akane and
Nabiki would transfer to the Yoshu Private Academy to allow the former to forge
a relationship with her new sensei, Ebisu Kyoko (a.k.a. Koshaji). Nabiki and Kasumi themselves become lovers
with two of the original Avalonian crew of Hiromi's flagship H.M.C.S. Haida,
Acting Sub-lieutenant Ikusawa Kyoko and Ordinary Seaman Sasagawa Narumi
respectively. And Hibiki Ryoga – who had
been badly affected by Ranma's near-death at Shampoo's hands – would reconcile
with his rival . . . and then, thanks to Mousse, got an Avalonian twin sister
of his own after he was exposed to the waters of the Nyanniichuan in Hibiki
Yoiko, not to mention become the boyfriend to Haru Asumi (a.k.a. Chohi
Ekitoku)!

Five months after the events
in PFTA (as depicted in the story Avalonians and Questors), an
accident with an ancient alien super-weapon known as the Staff of Gihan
propelled H.M.C.S. Haida (with a very short crew and Moroboshi Hiromi
and friends aboard for the Christmas holidays) into the universe of the United
Federation of Planets in the year 2371, where they encountered the U.S.S. Enterprise
NCC-1701-D under Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
There, they helped ensure the Battle of Veridian III (as depicted in the
movie Star Trek - Generations) would turn out much better. Along the way, Hiromi and her friends
discovered that thanks to a fan of the manga series Battle Royale from
Phentax Two, the cast of that story had their very souls yanked through the
dimensional veil into the PFTA universe at the time the Noukiites and Yehisrites
came to liberate the Avalon bioroid factory.
Thanks to the help of Inada Mizuho (the Staff's current controller) and
Moroboshi Negako (who later came with friends to search for Haida aboard
U.S.S. Arizona), ALL the participants of The Program were
restored to full life as Avalonians, then allowed to settle down across
Japan. Mizuho and her friends from
Shiroiwa Junior High School (the stars of the original Battle Royale),
along with a class from Shikanotoride Junior High School (the stars of the movie
Battle Royale II - Requiem) all elected to become freshmen students at
Tomobiki High School.

And now, it is the late
spring of the year 2011 . . .

**** **** ****

PART ONE

Senshobu-jinja
The name of Sakurambo
Sakura's shrine is never given in Urusei Yatsura. While I was writing episodes for the Anime
Add-venture, I remembered that many of the high schools located in Tomobiki
took their names from the six days in the Japanese calendar which indicate what
luck people would have. The two parts
that combine together to make the word "Senshobu" are Sensho
(written ??, literally
meaning "first victory") and Senbu (written ??, literally meaning "first
burden"). In essence, the name
implies either a balance between good and bad luck, good luck for the length of
the whole day or bad luck for the whole day (all depending on interpretation,
of course).

Tomobiki-cho,
Nishitokyo-shi
Tomobiki's
location is never properly given in Urusei Yatsura. According to some sources, Tomobiki is a part
of Nerima (which is where Ranma 1/2 is set). However, starting from The Senior Year
side story "Furinkan Spring," I placed Tomobiki in the city of Hoya
west of Nerima on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line.
That city united with the city of Tanashi in 2001 to form the new city
of Nishitokyo (literally "West Tokyo").

Would-be
Zoroastrian warrior-priestess
In
the Battle Royale novel, Mizuho is depicted as living in a fantasy world
where she (as the "Warrior Priestess Prexia Dikianne Mizuho") was a
servant of the God of Light, Ahura Mazda.
The manga expanded on that by revealing that Mizuho was also an avid fan
of Dungeons and Dragons. Upon
being reborn on the Avalon bioroid factory and gaining control of the Staff of
Gihan, Mizuho believed she (and her friends) had been spared the ugly fate
facing them all in The Program thanks to Ahura Mazda's personal favour. Thus, on her being adopted by Sakurambo
Sakura, Mizuho began to explore real Zoroastrian doctrine, thus making her the
first true Japanese Zoroastrian.
The
Staff of Gihan

The
Staff appeared in the TSY story "Great Father Ataru Stage Two -
Remembrance." There, thanks to it
being controlled by one of the Guardians (a behind-the-scenes group that
ensured that no threat to the Church of Lum would ever succeed), the Staff – on
learning that the "Holy Friends" of Lum, Nassur and Benten, had a
child named Junba – unleashed a "doomsday protocol" that killed THREE
BILLION hardcore believers on Phentax Two.
I repeated this theme in Lonely Souls when the Staff learned of
the "death" of Lum via Moroboshi Ataru; the same result
happened. However, in LS, the
Staff would eventually wind up in the hands of Ataru's youngest sister in that
story, Saeru Hinako (in my writings involving the Sister Princess cast,
I always give them family names).

"Moshi-moshi."
"I
will be there in ten minutes, Sakura."
Click. Dial tone.
Negako's
curt and abrupt nature comes from her very origins as a living database of
ninjutsu knowledge collected over hundreds of years in a virtual
"library" of battle skills and experience. Since ninja as a whole have to be very calm
and collected when doing a mission, Negako effectively decided that learning
how to emote as normal people do is a horrendous waste of energy, so she
doesn't bother with it. She does feel
emotions, of course . . . but would only express them with either a slight
increase of pitch in her voice, a quirk of her lips or the classic
tendon-twitch over her eyes.

You're
In The Army Now, Mister Loon
Derived
from the classic military marching song You're In The Army Now, of
course.

Leopard
2 and M1A1 Abrams tanks
Being
a paramilitary officer – and having been based for years in England as part of
Warriors Alpha – Doug would recognise a lot of things of a military nature
virtually on first sight. Since this
story is set in 2011 and since both the Leopard 2s and the Abrams were
introduced in the 1980s, he would be familiar with them.

Leos
were normally diesel-driven machines
The
power plants used by Canadian Leopard 2s (nicknamed the "Leo") in the
PFTA universe is a modified gas turbine that – while having the same
power as the Honeywell AGT1500C turbine powering the Abrams – was rendered environmentally
safe by both Avalonian and Niphentaxian technologies, reducing the machine's
carbon footprint to absolute zero.

Combat
stop
One
of my earliest military experiences was being given the chance to drive a
General Motors Canada Grizzly AVGP (Armoured Vehicle, General Purpose) while
participating in a MILCON (Militia Concentration) in the summer of 1985. The NCO in charge of my group at that time
warned me not to do a "combat stop;" in other words, hit the brakes
hard and cause the vehicle to screech to a halt. Unfortunately, when he called out to me to
stop (having to repeat same instruction twice over the noise), I did . . . and
nearly pitched all the other passengers out the top hatch at the back of the
vehicle!

Wonderful
constitutional in the boonies
I
love the use of the word "constitutional" when used to describe a
brisk walk; I picked it up from one of my favourite novels, Harry Turtledove's Guns
of the South.

The
actual pattern of their camouflage shirts and pants — not to mention their web
gear and even their boots!
Henrietta
Croce and her friends wear the current Canadian Forces camouflage pattern,
known as CADPAT (Canadian Disruptive
Pattern), when they're out in the field.
The pattern that normally is used at CFB Niagara in spring is the TW (Temperate
Woodland) pattern. CADPAT also comes in
WA (Winter Arctic) and AR (Arid Region) patterns. And yes, even the web gear (the harness
soldiers wear to carry kit like extra ammunition) and the boots are done in
CADPAT pattern to better help people hide themselves.

One
with a simple design of dark sides with a pale middle the same width as the
flag's height, a stylised maple leaf placed there.
The
pattern of the National Flag of Canada is designed using a heraldic concept
called the Canadian Pale, which implies a central vertical band the same
width as the height of the flag itself.
Thus, the white central of the Maple Leaf Flag forms a perfect square
with the red maple leaf charged (or placed) on the centre of the field.

Yep. Black maple leaf on the turret.
Canadian
Army tanks always have a black maple leaf on the turret to mark them as
such. All Canadian Army field vehicles
are either camouflaged or painted a medium green shade. Using any bright colour such as white or red
would be a big no-no in this case.

A
shake of the head as a "too-cute-for-words" smile crossed her
camouflaged face.
Henrietta
and her friends camouflaged themselves because they were simply unsure as to
what sort of person just popped into their dimension. Of course, once they got within close range
of Doug and could use their empathy to scan him thoroughly, they realised he
was pretty much a friendly and thus approached him peacefully.

"You're
just outside the city of Welland in Ontario," the soldier then said. She waved to where I believed was the west
according to the sun's position in the sky, and then she waved northeast. "Niagara Falls is about fifteen
kilometres that way."
Canadian
Forces Base (CFB) Niagara is located in Crowland Township of the old County of
Welland; these days, the territory is divided between the Cities of Welland and
Niagara Falls in the Regional Municipality of Niagara. The base borders are as such:

NORTH: The Welland River between the Welland Canal
south of Port Robinson to the west and the line midway between McKenney Road
and Morris Road in Niagara Falls to the east.

EAST: The line between McKenney Road and Morris
Road south from the Welland River to Lyons Creek, along the creek east to
Montrose Road, then south to Netherby Road.

SOUTH: The line of Netherby Road from Montrose Road
west to the intersection of Doan's Ridge Road in Welland, northwest to the
intersection of Miller Road, southwest and south to the line of Netherby Road,
then west along Netherby Road to the line of the Canadian National Railway
track running parallel east of King's Highway 140.

WEST: The line of the Canadian National Railway
track running parallel east of Highway 140 north from Netherby Road to Buchner
Road, then northeast on Lyons Creek to the line of Matthews Road, then north on
Matthews Road to Schisler Road, then west along Schisler Road and East Main
Street to Farr Road, then north to just beyond Becken Crescent, west to the
Welland Canal, then north to the Welland River.

"A
unit worthy of its hire."
This
is based on the title of William J. Patterson's memoir concerning the Canadian
Guards, A Regiment Worthy Of Its Hire:
The Canadian Guards, 1953-1970.

"Sometimes
frowned on by the boys in the Vandoos, the Royal Canadians and the Patricias,
but they do their job and take pride in it."
Here,
Doug speaks of the three full-time infantry regiments that were active when the
Canadian Guards were formed in 1953, the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR),
the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) and le
Royal 22e Régiment (R22eR, also known as the
"Vandoos"). Many people
believe the reason the Guards were forced onto the Supplementary Order of
Battle (in effect, disbanded in all but name) in 1970 was that a regiment
formed in 1953 had no right to take precedence over regiments formed in 1883
(the Royal Canadians) or 1914 (the Patricias and the Vandoos), regardless of
the fact that the Guards, as ceremonial protectors of the Sovereign, had
historical precedence on their side.
This prompted Hiromi to recommend the new Guards have a fully bilingual
battalion (1st Battalion) assigned to Haida at CFB Niagara, a
French-speaking battalion (2nd Battalion) based at CFB Valcartier in Québec and
two English-speaking battalions (3rd and 4th Battalions) based at CFB Halifax
in Nova Scotia and CFB Chilliwack (east of Vancouver) in British Columbia
respectively. This is why Henrietta and
her friends are training at the Land Forces Québec Area Training Centre
in Valcartier for their Soldier Qualification (the Canadian Army's
environmental course) and trades training.

One
honkin' HUGE starship to boot!
I
borrowed this from words spoken by then-Chief of the Defence Staff of the
Canadian Forces, General Rick Hiller, when he – in pressing for new equipment
for the military after deployments to Afghanistan post-9/11 began – used "honking"
to describe how big certain pieces of equipment (such as the Boeing CC-177
Globemaster III) needed to be.

The
Regional Municipality of Niagara
In
1970, the counties of Lincoln and Welland in Ontario were amalgamated into a
regional municipality, which is a county-level government formed in a
high-population zone to allow more centralisation of essential services such as
policing. At the same time, the
twenty-six municipalities that existed in both counties at that time (11 in
Lincoln County, 15 in Welland County) were amalgamated into twelve larger municipalities
to streamline local government. The
territory of Crowland Township (as noted above) in Welland County, for example,
was split between Welland and Niagara Falls.

I
assumed she was Navy given her nearly-black work dress uniform
What
Sasamoto Narumi wore is known as Naval Combat Dress in the Royal
Canadian Navy. Known properly as Number
5 Dress, this includes a black waist-length zip-up work jacket, black trousers,
a dark blue button undershirt with long sleeves, Gore-Tex boots and either
beret or baseball cap. The NCDs are
designed to be flame-retardant.

A
very nicely-designed unit tag with the word HAIDA in orange-gold on a dark blue
field surrounded by ship's rope and topped by a British-type naval coronet,
three maple leaves at the badge base
Before
the unification of the Canadian military in 1968, sailors who wore the
square-rigged dress in the Royal Canadian Navy wore a black ribbon emblazoned
with their unit name in gold on the base of their sailor caps. After 1968, the only times sailors wore unit
patches was when they were allowed to put on a knit version of the ship's badge
over their name tags on the work jacket (not to mention wear baseball caps with
their ship's name and pendant number).
With Haida's commissioning, the crew borrowed the Canadian Army
concept of using a short-form shoulder title on the epaulette slip-ons (like CG
for the Canadian Guards) to identify their ship when they aren't wearing their
NCD jacket. The shoulder badges are done
in Haida's official ship's colours of dark blue and gold.

Gemini-class
shuttle from Battlestar Galactica
This
is the name I give to the Colonial shuttle that served as auxiliary craft on
the Galactica and her sisterships from the original 1970s television series.

The
twin-headed thunderbird ship's crest of Haida
The
official crest of H.M.C.S. Haida is described properly as follows: Blazon Or, a base barry wavy azure and
argent, a thunderbird of the Haida tribe with wings displayed sable. In normal English, this means that the badge
is gold overall, with wavy blue and white waves at the lower end of the badge
(simulating water), a black twin-headed thunderbird (or "thunder river
bird" as it's sometimes called) rising from the waves.

"Even
if we are polyglots."
The
Avalonian crew of Haida speak the following languages fluently: Sagussan (or Avalonian), Japanese, English
and French. A polyglot is normally
described as someone who can speak and interpret four or more languages
fluently.

An
honest-to-goodness Mass Hug of True Love
Watch
the opening music of the first Sister Princess television scene to see
what I mean by this. That scene comes at
the very end of the opening music.

The
Welland By-Pass Channel
The
Welland Ship Canal connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario west of the Niagara River
once went through the heart of the city of Welland. Due to its sharp curves and a SWING BRIDGE
that left little room to manoeuvre just south of downtown, the Saint Lawrence
Seaway decided to build a wider and deeper channel to the east of Welland's
urban area, thus allowing a near straight-line to connect the old channel from
Port Robinson to the north to Port Colborne in the south. The By-Pass was opened in 1973.

Rose
City of Ontario
Welland's
nickname. There is also an official
"City of Welland Rose," which is a beautiful flower that is an
eye-catching blend of yellow, red and orange.
You can visit the Welland city hall website to see pictures of this
particular flower type.

"Or
is it still Canadian Forces Maritime Command?"
The
name of Canada's naval service officially reverted back to the Royal
Canadian Navy on 16 August 2011, which is about two months ahead of this
story.

RUMINT
I
am a fan of the action/adventure stories based on the real-life experiences of
Commander (retired) Richard Marcinko USN, also known as the "Rogue
Warrior." In his books,
Marcinko loves making use of short-form abbreviations in the narrative (with a
handy glossary of terms always at the back of the book). This is one of them.

Medical
Division, Executive Department
The
ship's company of any Canadian warship is divided into "departments"
controlled by one of the senior officers.
Each department is then divided into "divisions" which serve
specific crew functions. The Executive
Department of any Canadian warship, which is controlled by the Executive
Officer (XO) or second-in-command, is the group that handles all matters
concerning discipline, health services and personnel administration
issues. Other departments on a standard
Canadian warship include the Deck
Department (the ship's boatswains), the Combat Department (the operational controllers), the Engineering Department (the technicians
and mechanics), the Supply Department
(the logistics personnel) and the Air
Department (the supporting aircraft staff for ships that can carry aircraft).

Deck
A12 Aft
H.M.C.S.
Haida is formed of a main hull of twenty decks numbered from 1
to 20, fifteen superstructure decks above Deck 1 (numbered from A1 to A15) and
twelve superstructure decks below Deck 20 (numbered from B1 to B12). Since the upper superstructure is split into
forward and aft blocks, locations on Decks A1 to A15 have to also indicate
which part of the superstructure they're in.

Battle-name
This
is the phrase I coined to describe the name toshi used that was derived from
their past-selves' given name and style name (if they had them).

So
what was she doing on a Canadian starship?
Hiromi's
explanation for this is simple: If she
took the Japanese Starship Yamato as her flagship, she would offend all
those the Japanese Imperialists hurt before and during the Second World
War. If she took the United States
Starship Arizona as her flagship, she would offend everyone who really
don't like Americans. If she took the
People's Republic of China Starship Zhèng Hé as her flagship, she would
offend everyone who don't like the Chinese.
If she took the Republic of Korea Starship Paekbom as her flag,
she would offend the Japanese and most likely the Chinese. As many people across the planet have little
issues the Canadians, Haida won by default.

Besides,
I AM Canadian and am very proud of that fact!

Are
the humans of his Earth as long lived as Vosians or Avalonians?
Vosians,
on average, live approximately 500 years Earth-time. Avalonians, on average, live approximately
800 years Earth-time.

"Natural-born
or fate-gifted?"
These
are Yizibajohei terms to describe metahumans from other worlds (as I noted in
writer's notes to The Doctor Is In).
Yizibajohei usually describe themselves as Gifted (and yes, that is
always written with a capital "G").

"Her
battle-name amongst those like her is 'Ryuko Kyorei.'"
Hiromi
utterly refuses to allow any toshi to address her by the normal Japanese name
used to indicate her past-self, "Reitei." It's either "Kyorei-sama" or her
given name.

The
Mandate of Heaven
In
Mandarin, this concept is known as Tianmìng (written in Chinese as ??, literally meaning "destiny
of Heaven"). The classical Chinese
philosophical concept that determines if a ruler of a nation has the blessings
of the Heavens to rule over his/her people; unlike the Western concept of the
"divine right of kings," those who seek the Mandate of Heaven must
comport themselves properly to be respected as such. This is how Doug later realised Hiromi was an
emperor in her past life.

Shu
Hàn, Cáo Wèi and Dong Wú
The
Three Kingdoms that were formed in China after the final fall of the Latter Hàn
Dynasty in 220 C.E. Shu Hàn was first
formed in 221 C.E. as a response to the founding of Cáo Wèi the year before
from the last central elements of the Latter Hàn. Dong Wú officially broke away from Cáo Wèi in
229 C.E. These days, Shu Hàn literally
"lives on" in the students of Seito High School. Cáo Wèi is personified by the students of the
Kyosho Academy. And Dong Wú lives on in
the students of the Nan'yo Academy.

Nánmán
The
catch-all phrase meaning "southern barbarians;" back in classical
times, if you weren't Chinese, you were a barbarian. In Ikkitosen, the Nánmán are
personified by the students of Nanban High School under Kashira Emi's
leadership.

"Great
warriors of ancient Ireland"
In
PFTA, I theorised that there were other "resurrected warriors"
beyond the toshi of the Three Kingdoms active on Earth. The spirits of ancient Ireland that Hiromi
references here are the characters from the Ulster Cycle of Irish myth, as
shown in stories like the Táin Bó Cúailnge (literally "The
Driving-off of the Cows of Cooley" though normally translated as "The
Cattle Raid of Cooley"). Those from
Ireland are normally addressed by the Irish Gaelic word gaiscíoch (which
literally means "man of prowess" though this word is normally
translated as "warrior").

Megatokyo
in 2037 with the Knight Sabres
Doug's
time with Sylia Stingray and her friends was shown in Drunkard's Walk II.

Nekomi
in 1997 with the Norns and their friends
Doug's
time with the Norns and their friends was shown in Drunkard's Walk V.

Tokyo-3
in 2015 with Shinji, Asuka and Rei
Doug's
time with the Evangelion pilots will be depicted in Drunkard's Walk VI.

"Hiromi-san,
why do you keep doing this to yourself?"
Unlike
other toshi, Moroboshi Hiromi has only been resurrected once since the death of
Liú Hóng in 189 C.E. In the 1,821 years
between the end of her first life and the effective start of her current life
in 2010, Hiromi's spirit was forced to literally watch as those of his/her
countrymen were reborn again and again (on an average of twenty
reincarnations), forced to relive their lives and fates again and again. While she doesn't have any real memories of
watching such things happen – Negako removed them from Hiromi's soul before she
was given her own body – the echo of that experience (and the resulting guilt
over what Hiromi did and did not do in her first life to prevent the
"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" from starting up in the first place)
is still firmly etched in Hiromi's soul and haunts her to this day.

Other
toshi such as Kumomi have – over the incarnations – come to view Liú Hóng in a
much different way than what history sees him as. By the time the current generation of toshi
were born, the being known to them only as "Reitei" was a living
symbol of what their past-selves had once enjoyed before the start of the
Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 C.E.: A
time when all of them lived under one ruler and in one house. Thus, when Reitei actually "came
back" in the person of Moroboshi Hiromi, even the most skeptical and
selfish toshi was glad to acknowledge her as their reborn emperor.

"Shiryu-dono
. . . "
Whenever
Hiromi addresses a brother or sister toshi by battle-name, it always is with
the suffix honorific "-dono."
In effect, Hiromi is calling Kumomi "Mistress Shiryu."

Major
General Helene Diedmeier a.k.a. "Wetter Hexe"
As
Doug possesses paramilitary rank in the UNMPF, I felt it only right for Helene
to have the same thing. My reasoning for
making Helene a two-star general is this:
A major general/rear admiral is, in the American sense of the term, the
senior peacetime rank a serviceman can achieve. Those who become lieutenant generals/vice
admirals or generals/admirals in the American armed forces are said to be
"temporarily promoted" to those ranks to match the positions they are
assigned to and – on retirement from active duty – are allowed to finally
retire at the higher rank. And since the
UNMPF is a small force compared to regular army formations around the planet,
having someone at a three-star or four-star position really doesn't make any
sense.

Professor
Albus Dumbledore's friend Fawkes while I spent a year being the Defence Against
The Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts some years and dimensions ago
Doug
encountered Fawkes and everyone at Hogwarts in Drunkard's Walk VIII.

A
Chinese fènghuáng perhaps . . .?
Unlike
those toshi possessed by the power of haoryu (people such as Hiromi's
spiritual cousin Koro Sonami), Hiromi has a spirit that doesn't take over her
mind when she loses control over herself . . . and also soothes those close to
her such as Sonami (see PFTA Part 43 to see what I mean) when they're
taken over by the dragons within them.

Tengsei
Fans
of The Senior Year will know this planet by the name Jiyu. In TSY, this is a Zephyrite colony
world and the name itself is Urusian in origin; it was an explorer from that
planet that discovered this world a long time ago. Due to the Moroboshi siblings' past troubles
with the Urusians, Hiromi does NOT address this planet by the Urusian name and
will gladly shout down anyone who does so in her presence.

Land
of the Morning Calm
This
is derived from the Korean word "Choson" (written as ?? in Chinese characters). The characters that go into this name
literally mean "morning calm."

Eta
People
who are knowledgeable in Japanese culture will recognise this name as the term
applied to what are known as "burakumin" these days. Of course, Hiromi doesn't care to support
such idiotic beliefs, so she can say the name with a straight face.

When
I first created the Noukiites for the TSY story "Arrive
Reiko-chan," I devised a character-encoding system based on Korean han'gul
which runs this way (as I described in Writer's Note #3 in Part 1 of Long
Way Home):

CONSONANTS: K/G=NG, N=CH/J, T/D=CH', R=P', M=T', P/B=K',
S=H. When NG falls before a vowel, it is
silent. Mid-syllable sounds G, J, D and
B aren't used in common Noukiite.
DOUBLE
CONSONANTS: KK=NG,
TT=CH', PP=K', SS=H, JJ=N
MULTI-CONSONANT
SYLLABIC END SOUNDS: KS=H,
NJ=CH', NH=S, LG=K', LM=T', LB=P', LS=K, LT=CH, LP'=P, LH=N, PS=M.
VOWELS: A=U, E=O. I and Y stay the same. The different types of O (O and O) and U (U
and U) do not matter in this case.
DIPTHONGS: AE=UO (WO), OI=EI, OA (WA)=EU, OAE (WAE)=EUO,
UI=AI, UE=AO

Chilli
pepper in Korean is written as koch'u, which is encoded as eta in
Noukiite. The pronunciation, however,
would be a little closer to "eh-dah."

"I
will see to it personally that Ryoko-chan will not speak to you for a
MONTH!"
Morokuzu
Ryoko is the real name of the young toshi known as Shokatsuryo
Komei. She was first introduced in
the Ikkitosen manga in chapter #46.

"Whoever
did that deserves to be shot and pissed on!"
Typical
vulgar military saying when it comes to something that is a very serious no-no,
especially in the eyes of senior petty officers and sergeants.

"And
thus, effectively crippling the alliance of local galactic powers . . . "
This,
in the universe of The Senior Year, is a quasi-League of Nations
alliance called the Galactic Federation of Planet-states. When Mike Smith and I devised the universe
for TSY, we realised right away that Takahashi-sensei really never did
much to describe what the universe of Urusei Yatsura was like beyond
Earth. Mike and I – since we both wanted
to bring in some heavy hitter powers like the Vosians (Nassur's people),
the Yehisrites (a warrior race that is the TSY analogue to the
Klingons in Star Trek) and the Zephyrites (a very theologically
spiritual race akin to the Bajorans in Star Trek but with FAR MUCH MORE
military power) – elected to make peoples such as the Urusians (Lum's
and Ran's people), the Fukunokami (Benten's people), the Neptunians
(Oyuki's people) and the other races introduced in Yatsura smaller in
size of population, number of colony worlds and overall military power. This allowed Mike and I to, along the way,
explain WHY the Urusians would want to invade Earth in the first place; rival
powers to the Galactic Federation – in hopes of destroying the alliance once
and for all – were preparing to move in (as Doug will later discover in Part 2)
on Earth and Lum's people decided to head them off at the pass. The introduction of peoples such as the
Zephyrites – and the revelations concerning the true power of the Urusians –
provided some of the story conflict that rocked people's lives in Tomobiki in TSY. In effect, to borrow a phrase Hiromi used in
the Anime Add-venture, the Urusians and their allies formed "a federation
of lies" which is unworthy of any respect whatsoever.

"The
ch'uokyek of Noukiios and the ib'f of Yehisril"
The
ch'uokyek were introduced in the Anime Add-venture storyline The
Emperor's Army, which is where I first came up with the UNEDF. The ib'f were introduced in the TSY
story "What Price For Love?", the story where I introduced the
Niphentaxians and the Avalonians. As
spirit-dragons, they are akin to humanoid celestials as Bob envisaged in Drunkard's
Walk, but are more influenced by animal logic than human emotion.

"An
abandoned starship construction satellite they found in a dead solar system not
too far from here . . . "
That's
the Sagussan starship factory satellite that was located by the Daishi'cha
in the TSY story "Great Father Ataru Stage Six - Auction."

"They
were willing to allow us to take control of THIRTY Class M worlds — again,
using the Star Trek term — in many solar systems to the galactic 'west'
and 'south' of us that they had no use for anymore."
This
particular territory harkens back to my TSY and Sailor Moon
crossover story Lonely They Who Guard, which postulated that Beryl and
her servants were once Seifukusu nobles who were disowned of their houses and
declared "The House With No Name" for their behaviour concerning the
Moon Kingdom during the time of the Silver Millennium (which I set
approximately 1,000 years ago). The
frontier territory of the Seifukusu Dominion closest to Earth, in the reality
of LTWG, was once the territory of Beryl's House.

"Husband,
aren't you . . . who's this?" she then asked as she gazed on me.
I
blinked. Shades of Ten'o Haruka and
Kaio Michiru!
Hiromi
was gay.
And
if her being that way was accepted in her current position . . .!
Like
all Avalonians, Hiromi and Mioko are bisexual, not lesbians.

She
gave me a classical kung fu-like salute with her hands, though it was the right
fist into the left palm and not the other way around.
The
right hand-in-left fist was the military salute in old China, as demonstrated
in anime such as Soten Koro and video games like Dynasty Warriors.

Given
the sprinting jackrabbit insignia over the kanji ?? for
"Tomobiki" . . .
The
Tomobiki High School sports teams are known as "Usagi" in
Japanese. I use the term
"Jackrabbits" when I describe these teams in English.

But
WHY on Earth would someone go out and name a high school of all things
after the concept of bad luck descending on a person's friends?
The
word "Tomobiki" (literally meaning "attracting
companions"), denoting the sixth of the six-day lunar cycle known in
Japanese as the Rokki ("six brilliances") or Rokuyo
("six weekly days"), can mean several things. For funerals, Tomobiki is a VERY BAD day to
have them. However, for weddings,
Tomobiki is the BEST day to have them.
No doubt, this was one of Takahashi-sensei's many in-jokes that she used
in Yatsura.

"Lord
Colonel Sangnoir"
Hiromi
is often in the habit of addressing people by the terms "lord" and
"lady" when she starts talking in what Doug starts calling
"Hiromi-speak" in Part 2.

"The
Hana family of Rishiri-to"
The
late Moroboshi Nagaiwakai's family as first indicated in The Senior Year. For the most part, they were descendants of
Vosian colonists who crash-landed in northern Hokkaido centuries before. By the time Nagaiwakai herself was born in
the early part of the 20th century, the Vosian psionic powers were all but
bread out of her DNA; all she possessed was the Vosian lifespan and her ability
to recognise a potential husband (which she did in Moroboshi Kokeru, who was
named as a nod to the young son of Ataru and Miyake Shinobu that appeared in
the Yatsura manga episode #13, "We Are The Children"). In the PFTA universe, Nagaiwakai died
of loneliness some years after Kokeru (who was a kamikaze pilot) killed himself
in shame for not having died for the Showa Emperor during the last years of the
Greater East Asia War.

"The
Kasuga Clan, a family of powerful onmyo-ji"
In
my recent writings whenever I use Moroboshi Negako, I had Kurumi of Kotetsu
Tenshi Kurumi be the one to give the Saiko Jinseijutsu the name
"Negako" (written as ??,
literally meaning "child of wishes").
In Long Way Home, when Ataru and his siblings go to honour all of
Negako's former hosts, they go visit the Kasuga Shrine in Yokohama, which was
introduced in Kotetsu Tenshi Kurumi 2-shiki. One of the side stories of Long Way Home
was Negako taking Kasuga Nako under her wing to awaken her powers . . . so that
Nako – who is hopelessly in love with Kurumi (whom she knows is stored in an
old air raid shelter under her family shrine) – would win the Steel Angel's
heart on her awakening after decades in storage to save her from killing people
in World War Two.

The
Promise of Bunka Go-nen
When
I first introduced the concept of the Saiko Jinseijutsu in the "Tiger
Saga" storyline of The Senior Year, I made it to be a totally evil
being that would destroy anyone that got in its way of seeking what it
desired. Over time – which I first
hinted at in the TSY side-story "Children of Eternity" – I came
to see this human killing machine in a new light. Thus, in recent years, I devised the concept
of the Sacred Promise of Bunka Go-nen, where would-be hosts of the Saiko
Jinseijutsu would swear a life-binding magical oath to do anything to help such
a being become its own person. In the
history of hosts for Negako, Ataru is the last one in line.

Elder
Mother
The
spiritual leader of a group of Avalonians or Sagussans. This concept was first introduced in The
Senior Year in the character of Noa (whom I based on the labor pilot from
the anime series Kido Keisatsu Patlabor). Though seen as a very important person in the
community, the Elder Mother is usually NOT the elected village leader.

She
also had a wedding band of some sort on one finger.
As
noted in the PFTA side-story "A Nice, Quiet Place," Takanashi
Naoko became bond-mates to Redet Henso.
Both are now engaged to be married, so Naoko wears a special ring made
of Urusian tiger-gems with a diamond in the middle, which is embossed on a
holder shaped like a Canadian Navy ship's crest. Technically, Naoko's ring marks that she is a
bonded woman . . . though Avalonians would be able to sense out such a bond.

Kamioka
Shinobu
Shinobu
is a minor character from the dating simulation game Ojosama Express,
which was released by MediaWorks (the same company that did Sister Princess)
in 1999 for the Sega Saturn. This is the
same game where I got the character of Yamaguchi Seina from.

This
girl actually helped Data's daughter during their contact? Wasn't Lal dead?
This
happened in Part 3 of Avalonians and Questors, "The Return of Lal."

"Passcode
is 'S-H-I-N-O-B-I-4-E-V-E-R.'"
When
she came to live full-time on Earth after her exile on Uru, Redet Henso began
disguising herself as an Earth woman and came to call herself "Nomade
Shinobi" in reflection of what Henso (and Lum in the real Yatsura
universe) did in the manga story "Even Though I Wait For You" (manga
episode #27). In that story, Lum/Henso
disguised herself to prevent Ataru from being embarrassed when his male
classmates drummed him into supporting their efforts to put down Mendo Shutaro
(who, by then, had captured the heart of every girl in the class with his looks
and charm) . . . but said plan fell through when the girl Ataru's classmates
tried to get to help out got herself sick from eating too much thanks to the
money she was given to date Ataru.

"Access
the files marked under the sub-folders 'Grand Prix' and 'Pretty League.'"
This
hints to the two games I used to get characters to flesh out Haida's
Avalonian crew in PFTA and A&Q, Zenkoku Seifuku Bishojo
Grand Prix (literally "National Sailor Suit Beautiful Young Lady Grand
Prix") and Doki Doki Pretty League.

The
former of the two games is an adult visual novel that came out in 1996 from the
now-defunct Lyceen group which attracted my eye while I was in Korea thanks to
the excellent artwork. Some of the
characters in Grand Prix such as Takanashi Naoko, Yoshino Tomomi and
Ikusawa Kyoko got recycled into a proper dating simulation game named Find
Love in 1997, which was released for the Sega Saturn. One of the more interesting points about Grand
Prix is that it's the first video game to come out of Japan that displayed
full-frontal nudity without any sort of censorship.

The
latter of the two games was released in 1998 by XING for the PlayStation
platform. A mixed dating and sports
simulation game where the player serves as the manager of an all-girls junior
high school baseball team, Pretty League had no obvious hentai elements,
but does show the girls in hot pants-like baseball shorts.

The
Dragon Jade
A
magical crystal that was the focus of the attention of many toshi in the second
Ikkitosen anime series, Dragon Destiny. It is said to have the power to change a
toshi's fate and could be used to control any of the haoryu possessing senior
toshi such as Koro Sonami and Mago Tsueko.
In PFTA, the Dragon Jade was used to remove the souls of 31,738
toshi (all but two of them having lost all memories of their first lives) which
were trapped in a magical forest north of Nanban High School (the concept of
which was introduced in the fourth Ikkitosen anime series, Xtreme
Executor).

Recreation
Flats
A
"flat" in the Royal Canadian Navy is a hallway close to a major
location inside a ship. Other such flats
I've noted in my stories include "Sick Bay Flats" (right next to the
ship's medical station) and "Regulating Flats" (right next to the
office of the regulating petty officer, the man in charge of disciplinary
matters).

Weather
deck
The
external (exposed to outside environment) part of any ship.

Main
gun Turrets A and B
Like
all warships built and manned on British Royal Navy traditions, the lettering
of all main gun turrets on Haida starts from A and advances from the bow
aft AND starts from Z and decreases from the stern forward. Since Haida has eighteen triple-gun
turrets, their locations on the ship's hull are as follows (using phonetic
letters):

BOW
Alpha
- Upper forward weather deck
Bravo
- Upper forward, superfiring over Alpha
Charlie
- Lower forward weather deck
Delta
- Upper port forward weather deck
Echo
- Upper starboard forward weather deck
Foxtrot
- Lower port forward weather deck
Golf
- Lower port forward, superfiring over Foxtrot
Hotel
- Lower starboard forward weather deck
Juliet
- Lower starboard forward, superfiring over Hotel
AMIDSHIPS
Romeo
- Upper port aft, superfiring over Sierra
Sierra
- Upper port aft weather deck
Tango
- Lower port aft weather deck
Uniform
- Lower starboard aft weather deck
Victor
- Upper starboard aft, superfiring over Whiskey
Whiskey
- Upper starboard aft weather deck
X-Ray
- Upper aft weather deck
Yankee
- Lower aft, superfiring over Zulu
Zulu
- Lower aft weather deck
STERN

Defence
Research and Development Canada
Short-formed
always as DRDC, this is the sub-department of the Canadian Department of
National Defence (DND) that is in charge of all scientific and technological
research needs for the Canadian Forces.
DRDC has units located in Halifax (known as DRDC Atlantic; there is a
branch office in Esquimalt in British Columbia), Ottawa (both DRDC Ottawa and
the DRDC Centre for Operational Research and Analysis), Suffield in Alberta,
Toronto and Valcartier. DRDC Suffield
was the laboratory that created CADPAT.
In the PFTA universe, DRDC Niagara is tasked to deal with all
space technological research.

Starship
Fleet Maintenance Facility Merrittonia
This
unit, known in Navy shorthand as SFMF Merrittonia or SFMF-M, is Haida's
shore-bound second-line maintenance facility.
With main offices on the east bank of the Welland By-Pass Channel,
SFMF-M is also responsible for the surface starship dock that was built on the
southern end of the grounds of CFB Niagara, set on the border between Welland
and Niagara Falls to ensure neither city would have bragging rights as to which
would be Haida's official home port city. Much to the awe of many, Ki Tsukihana was
inspired by the scene in the 2009 Star Trek film when James T. Kirk saw
the U.S.S. Enterprise was being built in the Iowa cornfields to build
such a facility, which makes the ground dock for Haida the largest
physical structure in the Niagara peninsula.

Like
Rena's voice was pure Kyushu
In
Avalonians and Questors, I set Shikanotoride Junior High School in the
Shinkogakura section of the city of Nagasaki on Kyushu.

"The
Great Emperor"
Much
to Hiromi's annoyance, Mizuho ALWAYS calls her by her title in her first life.

"The
Master's Final Mystery"
As
an Avalonian, Mizuho can perceive the Te'a. Since Avalonians as a whole believe that
mortals are NOT supposed to know what lies beyond the Veil of the Te'a
(as Seina will describe to Doug in Part 2), Mizuho refers to this concept by
such a title.

A
country-made version of Sailor Moon's magical sceptre grown to battle-staff
size
Doug's
meeting with the Sailor Senshi will be depicted in Drunkard's Walk S.

The
Storyman
This
is the name-song for Chris de Burgh's sixteenth studio album, released in 2006.

****
**** ****

[robkelk]

The twin-headed thunderbird ship's crest of HaidaThe official crest of H.M.C.S. Haida is described properly as follows:  Blazon Or, a base barry wavy azure and argent, a thunderbird of the Haida tribe with wings displayed sable.  In normal English, this means that the badge is gold overall, with wavy blue and white waves at the lower end of the badge (simulating water), a black twin-headed thunderbird (or "thunder river bird" as it's sometimes called) rising from the waves.

For those who have trouble envisioning an emblem from its heraldic description, I present this image from http://hmcshaida.ca/]the HMCS Haida website:(In this universe, the starship is the second RCN ship to bear the name.)--Rob Kelk"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects ofthe same sovereign, servants of the same law."- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Pyeknu]

Thanks, Rob.  I think I did provide a link to Haida's website so people could see the ship's crest, though . . .

[robkelk]

It's possible that you did, but the forum software stripped it out...?
--
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