***

    "*Revenging Characters! I am Captain Wyrm of MONForce, and would like
to discuss terms for your surrender,*" came the message from the
_Marathon_'s captain.

    The Yamato, SDFs 1, 2, 3, and 23, the Invid and Zentraedi forces were
still within the throes of paralysis out of having the VERY large
dreadnaught appear straight out of Nowhere (exactly :). It certainly looked
very imposing, the size of Demios. And like all large warships, it was
apparent that a VBFG was sitting in its nose somewhere. The million-dollar
questions, sitting on each of the crewmembers' minds, were: What is the
VBFG? And how powerful is it?

    Unknown to the Invid and Zentaedi, as well as the rest of the Revenging
Characters' crew, there was a silent interloper within each of these two
fleets' computer systems. The intruder slipped silently past the
sorrowfully-inadequate security systems; not that they could do anything
about it if they had known. The interloper was in its own home turf...

    Very suddenly, the flagships of both the Invid and Zentraedi fleets
fired at each other and on some surrounding cruisers. Very quickly, the
admirals of the both fleets were arguing avidly that it was the other's
fault, and the temporary truce against each other was broken rather
thoroughly. A full-scale battle against each other was on full-force.

***

    "YES!" The two Wyrms grinned at each other and highfived.

    A redheaded Betty screeched with shock and disgust as a deranged
happyface appeared on her screen. "*Hey, cutie! Whacha doin' after work?*"
the Insane-stage Rampant AI named "Alpha Centauri" asked lecherously.

    "GETAWAYFROMMEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!" the Betty screamed and pulled out a
MALLET, and turned her terminal to scrap.

    "*Eheh-heh-hehhhh. No pain, no gain...*" he croaked.

    "CENTAURI!!" Wyrm-k ground out with frustration. The happyface started
and turned a SEG toward him. "How many times do I have to tell you; don't
bug the redheaded Betties!"

    "*Uh...Right.*" <*Disengage Cute Redhead Subroutine*>

    "Did you do what I asked?" asked Wyrm-k.

    Looking alouf, the AI nodded toward the fighting fleets. "*They're
goin' after each other tooth-and-nail, right?*" he asked rhertorhically.

    Wyrm-k watched the battle a few minutes, then grinned. "Yep, just like
we planned."

    Leela appeared on another screen and looked toward the action. "It
worked, I see," she commented.

    "Yep," Wyrm-k announced.

    Adam-chan bodyslid in and took a look at the battle. "So the plan
worked, I take it." Wyrm-k rolled his eyes.

    "Phase one is," Nitro confirmed. "We'll see if phase two worked in a
minute."

    "Okay," Adam-chan said as he grabbed a teapot off the passing
tea-trolley and heated herself, turning back into a male. "Now, how do we
make them try to jump, or warp as the case may be?"

    Wyrm-k looked toward the BOB/Betty team at the Tactical console. They
were standing at attention, and the commander gave a satisfied nod. With a
grin, Wyrm-k told him, "Watch!"

***

    The crews of the Yamato and SDFs watched in disbelief as their comrades
fought amonst themselves. Both sides of the umpteenth Invid/Zentraedi war
were taking heavy damage, and it was unlikely any ships from either fleet
would be in battle readiness by the time they were done, dispite frantic
pleas from the humans.

    No, if anyone was going to fight the MONDF _Marathon_, it was going to
be the human fleet.

    Before anything else could be done or said, the _Marathon_ began to
hail them. "*Revenging Character Fleet, we cannot stand any more waiting.
Surrender now, or prepare for all-out battle!*" grated Wyrm-k over the
channel, then cut out.

    Down below, Frosty-Usa saw the Yamato begin firing its shock cannons.
She also observed the SDFs firing their own beam cannons as well. They
arced toward the _Marathon_. Both species of blasts raked the bow of the
giant before them, making the surrounding space glow with waste energy
within minutes. The assault continued for a minute, and stopped. When the
haze cleared, the crews stood agasp at the dreadnaught in front of them.
Their shots had not even scratched the ship's hull.

    Frosty-Usa and the generic author glanced at each other. Smiling,
Frosty-Usa remarked, "Things are looking up. Keep fighting! Drive the
Animates back!" The tide was turning.

    Within the bowels of the _Marathon_, large gears and actuators began
grinding at each other, and slowly but surely, the entire split down the
center of the _Marathon_ began widening, revealing a set of softly-glowing
red lenses at its base.

    The generic author looked up from his control console, reporting, "The
Yamato and the SDFs are powering up their main guns. They're preparing to
fire."

    Frosty bit her lip. The wave-motion gun on the Yamato and the main
reflex guns on the SDFs were among the most powerful megaweapons in the
known universes. Very few weapons could even approach their destructive
capabilities.

    The machinery stopped spreading the two NDF beam culminator forks. The
_Marathon_ now looked like a stag beetle with its mandibles open; very
meanicing, especially with that ominous glowing at the base of the fork.

    The five ships fired their cannons in precision time, snaking toward
the _Marathon_ hungrily and slamming against its tough hull. The flash
caused them to look away...

    The _Marathon_ shuttered a bit, and shimmered slightly.

    ...and when they turned back, they found that the _Marathon_ remained
pristine after their volleys.

    "NO WAY!" the crews shouted together.

    "*Way,*" came the brief response.

    Arcs started building between the prongs, accompanied by a fierce glow
from the lenses at the back. It was building up quickly to firing.

    The generic author grinned. "That seems to have spooked them!" he
remarked, "They're powering up their engines to retreat!" A few seconds
later, he added, "Well, well. Their sublight engines seem to be sabotaged;
they're powering up their FTL (5) engines."

    A few minutes later, as the _Marathon_'s main gun crackled and glowed
more ominously, the SDFs vanished. "The SDFs have initiated a Fold. Yamato
is about to initiate a Warp-jump," came the report. "They'll have critial
energy in five seconds, four, three, two, one, now!"

    The Yamato was still there.

    "Wha...?" Frosty observed.

    "Strange. They should've built up the energy by now..." the generic
author murmured, and checked the readings. "Hmmm. They _have_ built up the
energy; in fact, in a few minutes, they'll go critical. Wait, they're
disengaging the engine, but it's still building up power." The side of the
Yamato ruptured, causing it to shudder and then the battleship began
listing chaoticly about. "They've overloaded. The Yamato is adrift."

    The Omega-Cannon flashed in a huge gout of energy, which immediately
fizzled out just a short distance from the nozzle. A sign unrolled just
below the cannon as it cammed shut again. [*BOOM!*]

    Wyrm's voice sounded once again over the waves. "*Psyche!*" Then the
holographic generators disengaged, revealing that in fact the hull of the
_Marathon_ was in dire shape. A small explosion rocked the ship, and the
_Marathon_ itself began to drift toward Fredworld.

    The two craft drifted by each other, the Yamato floating off into outer
space, and the _Marathon_ plunging down toward Fredworld. The remaining
Invid and Zentraedi ships were so badly damaged that they were barely
maintaining life support. Four reflex power plants were also amongst the
flotsam.

    Frosty-Usa called up the _Marathon_. "Wyrm! Wyrm! Do you read? What
happened?"

    The image of Wyrm-k appeared on the screen a little carboned, aricid
smoke hanging heavily in the bridge air. Everone else on the bridge
appeared to be in a similar state. "*Hi!*"

    "Wyrm! Did your shields fail or something?" Frosty asked.

    "*Or something,*" Wyrm explained. "*We don't have any shields.*"

    "No shields?"

    "*Nope! No Omega-Cannon; no primary weapons; no secondary weapons. I
hadn't installed them yet,*" Wyrm told her.

    Understanding dawned on the diminuative mayor's face. "A ruse."

    Wyrm nodded. "*Permission to land and make repairs, Mayor?*" he
grinned, scratching his head.

    "Granted."

(5) FTL: Faster Than Light. Don't build a starship without one. ;)

***

<A FEW HOURS LATER, FRED-TIME>

    Captain Okida, Admiral Hayes, Captains Hunter, Sterling, and Bilkowitz,
Khylon of the Zentraedi and S'phin'li of the Invid were very pissed. They
had a right to be; they had been seriously had. They were lead away in
binders to the prison levels as prisoners of war.

    Frosty-Usa was amazed. The Wyrms had faced down the mightiest fleets
that Fred had ever seen (well, it was the only fleet it had ever seen, but
ANYWAY) with an unarmed ship; a very large unarmed ship, but an unarmed
ship. "So, how'd you do it?"

    The screen flicked on, revealing a once-again bedraggled and
deranged-looking happyface, archetype of the AI Centauri. "Part of the
credit goes to Centauri here. Been hitting on Leela again, I see..."

    "*Yep!*" the AI replied euphorically. "*I sneaked into the computers of
the Invid and Zentraedi flagships and implanted a small program for them to
fire their weapons at each other.*"

    "Their deep-seated hatred of each other did the rest," Wyrm-k
explained. "You have no IDEA how rabidly hostile the Invid and Zentraedi
are toward each other. They're as close as you can come to natural enemies
as you can get."

    Frosty raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you worried that the program would
be found? Surely when they find the spurious program Centauri inserted,
they'll realize it had been a misunderstanding."

    The Wyrms smiled simultaneously.

    "No. In fact, we were counting on it," Wyrm of Gallifrey explained.
"The suripitious program that Centauri added just made it worse. They
blamed each other for messing with their computer systems to make their
fleet fire first, thus shifting any blame onto the other."

    "Mike should've chosen his forces more carefully," Adam observed.

    "It's called, 'Doing your homework,'" Wyrm-k added. "Mike didn't do it,
so he's paying the price."

    "*Anyway, I also sneaked into each SDFs computer core and added another
program to alter the fold parameters just the tiniest bit,*" Centauri
continued. "*Enough to make them leave their reflex power plants behind on
their next Fold. I also disabled the command links to their sublight
engines.*"

    "Forcing them to Fold out," Tycho added.

    Frosty laughed, "Leaving them helpless!"

    "*As for the Yamato, I locked down the throttle-out actuators and power
coupler controls,*" Centauri explained with a manic grin. "*The
throttle-out actuators lowers engine power, while the power couplers link
the engine to the warp initiators and wave-motion gun. So when they next
throttled-up the engine, they weren't able to shut it down, nor could they
shunt the power elsewhere!*"

    "Ie, BOOM!" Adam mimed.

    "Couldn't they just escapte by sublight?" Frosty-Usa asked.

    "The wave-motion engine is a binary-mode engine; it powers both FTL and
sublight travel," Wyrm-k pointed out. "If they couldn't engage the power
couplers for the Warp, they couldn't do it for sublight travel.

    "Now, onto more important matters," he shift topics. "We suffered grave
damage from the wave-motion and reflex blasts. The hull's tough, but not
that tough."

    "Amazing that any material can survive those weapons," Frosty commented.

    "It's made out of the same stuff as a TARDIS's hull," Wyrm of Gallifrey
grinned. "Even _without_ shielding, it's extremely tough."

    "Anyway, all our resources and manpower are welcome to you. It's the
least we can do to thank you."

    Wyrm laughed. "We'll only need your resources, just your manpower and
compressed frame of reference. I brought MON with me." At Frosty's
questioning look, Wyrm-k elaborated, "It's hull isn't the ONLY way the
_Marathon_ resembles a TARDIS!"

***

<MEANWHILE, IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERNT REFERENCE FRAME>

    Mike Loader, AKA the Mysterious Trenchcoated Figure, stepped up behind
Eddie and examined the elfen figure that he had cornered. "Ah, Skywise!" he
said with a wicked smile. "Nice to see you. I hear you've joined up with
the Middle Of Nowhere Force, eh?" A laugh escaped his lips. "If you're
here, then Wyrm _was_ watching me. I'll have to congradulate him on that.
Too bad he can't do a thing about it..."

    "_That's_ where your wrong, Mighty Troubled Fella!" shouted Wyrm-chan
as the rest of her team charged them. "The MONForce is here, and you're
goin' DOWN!"

    Mike laughed. "Ah, Wyrm! You're finally...What the?" Mike paused at the
rapidly approaching figure. "You're a girl!"

    "No shit, Sherlock!" Wyrm-chan quipped and burried a punch powered by
half-Zoalord muscles into his gut, flinging him like a rag-doll to the
wall. The concrete cracked around him. If he was a normal man, he would be
dead, but Mike was part of the Revenging Characters now, and had aquired a
few animate properties.

    "Urrgh!" Mike groaned as he extracted himself from the wall. "So, they
got you, eh?" he grinned. At her questioning raise of an eyebrow, Mike
elaborated, "They must have finally caught up with you and splashed you
with some Nyanniichuan."

    Wyrm-chan's bewildered look became a grin of understanding. "Wrong. I'm
Wyrm-chan, the embodiment of Wyrm-sama's anima," she explained. "And now
I'm gonna Kung-Fu all over you to get that plot-hole back that you swindled
from him."

    "Hey! I swindled that plot-hole, fair an' square!" Mike pointed out.
"It's MINE NOW AND I'M NEVER GIVING IN BACK!!!!
MUHAHAHAHAAAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" The MTF fell silent as the others stared at
him and bigsweated. "What?"

    "Were you always this meglomaniacal, Mike?" asked Padibast.

    Mike looked introspective for a moment. "Er, no. Oh, I just HATE it
when that happens...No matter, EDDIE!"

    Eddie stepped forward and cracked his knuckles. Wyrm-chan swallowed and
retreated a step. "Ho-boy!" she whimpered.

    Skywise drew his sword. "WYRM-CHAN!" she shouted, worry in his eye.

    Eddie defeated him easily. He grinned widely as he stood over the
defeated Skywise (+.+). Wyrm-chan looked up at him and gulped. Eddie turned
his grin at her.

    "Shrug THIS off, Laughing Boy!" Wyrm-chan shouted, powering her attack,
"Erste Schritt...Zweite Schritt! DRACHEFANG!!!" The ki formed within her
palms and shot forward in an intense beam of strength. Eddie held his hand
out and absorbed the power. "Damn!"

    Padibast rushed forward, her bikini armor *ting*ing in the light.
Although it only covered a tiny fraction of her body (mainly the
naughty-bits :), it protected better than full battle armor. Padibast
extended the energy sabre on her left arm gleave and slashed at Eddie. He
grinned and soundly vanquished her. Padibast smashed into the wall dazed.

    Sailor Mak saw the formidable performance of Eddie, her eyes frozen
wide in awe of his easy victories. Jadeite ran up beside her and said.
"Sailor Moon, hurry! Let's combine our attacks!" he suggested.

    "Huh?" Sailor Mak shook herself out of the daze, and then realized that
she was acting like Usagi again. Steeling herself, she aggreed, "RIGHT!"
and reached for her tiara. She lifted it up and held it out. It turned into
a bright glowing disk as the background music started to play. Sailor Mak
spun around in place, holding up the tiara. Finally, she drew back and
shouted, "MOON...TIARA...ACTION!!!!" With that, she let it fly.

    Jadeite drew the cold energy around him, the air started glowing with
the energy. Finally, he shouted, "COLDFYRE WAVE!!" and let it loose onto
the tiara. They hit and combined, the attacks merging together into an even
more powerful and cool attack.

    In a single move, Eddie defeated them. (@.@  @.@)

    Mike laughed in his patented Evil Bad Dude Menacing Laugh (tm) (each
sold separately). "You'll never beat him, Wyrm-chan! He lives off ego!"
Then he looked around. Wyrm-chan was nowhere to be found. "Huh? Where did
ya go?"

    "Right here!" Wyrm-chan called, leaping in great bounds toward the
still-open plot-hole. In fact, she was almost there. "Fighting with the
Omnipotent Otaku Thing might be nice, but he ain't our target! Sucker!"

    Livid, Mike shrieked, "Stop her, you idiots!"

    Elated, Wyrm-chan wound up, collapser in hand, a straight line between
her and the gaping mouth of the plot-hole. "Too late!" she shouted and drew
her arm back.

    "*ako! This is Dragon-Mage! Come in!*" beeped her communicator.

    "Yeah, what is it, dm?" Wyrm-chan asked, frustrated in being distracted
in her moment of triuph.

    "*Get away from the plot-hole! Something else is coming through!
Repeat! Get away!*" came Wyrm-k's frantic warning.

    "What are you talking ab--" Wyrm-chan was interrupted as a loud
rumbling from the mouth startled for a moment. Then she was bowled over by
a mess of Animates screaming in fear. "uhhhhh..." she moaned.

    "It's coming!...not going back in there!...I know we're super martial
artists, but going up against a battleship?!" the crowd murmured, each of
its members looking various shades of pale.

    Mike bellowed over them, "WHAT ARE YOU COWARDS DOING BACK HERE?!"

    They said nothing, just pointed toward the plot hole's mouth. A shadow
decended over them as a canteliever shape emerged from the entryway. About
a klik wide, it barely fit through the plot-hole.

    Mike stood agape, then smiled. He laughed maniacally. "So, they're
finally bringing out the big guns, eh?!" He turned to Eddie and commanded
him, "FEED! FEED OFF THEIR EGOS!"

    Eddie tried to feed off ego, but looked at Mike after a few seconds and
shrugged.

    "What?! There's no ego to feed off of?! How can that be?!" Mike Loader
ranted.

    "Mike, you're ranting again," said a waking Skywise.

    Mike stood still and counted to ten. "I'm better now. But this is
impossible; I built Eddie to take advantage of this kind of otakuness."

    Wyrm-chan looked at him pale in face. "Mike, this isn't an authoral
construct."

    Mike blinked. "Eh?"

    "It's not even on our side. It's not on your side either. It's on its
own side," Wyrm-chan explained.

    "Who is it then?" Mike asked.

    "The Pfhor!"

*****************************************************************************
End Log 3

Notes: For those of you who've payed "Marathon" (by Bungie Software), you
knew this was going to happen, right? ;)

                           ---------------------
-wyrm/dm(AKA Tom Jefferys; Time Lord for Hire, "Have TARDIS; Will Travel.")
      <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu>           <JEFFERYSTR@rascal.guilford.edu>
   Member of the AFSS    {MOUNTAIN DEW ROCKS!!}    Vidboi (Marathon Pfhreak)
             Depraived Kawaii Thing of the First Order, Martin
   =<SIG>= Wyrm-chan @_@ H-Wyrm @_@ Ten @_@ Chibi-Usa @_@ Azusa =</SIG>=
=<^_^>= R1/2#_#BGC#_#Sailor Moon#_#Dr Who#_#Star Trek#_#Monty Python =</^_^>=

   Currently operating at <wyrm@middle.of.nowhere.void> for the time being

"I gotta lot of great ideas! Trouble is, most of them suck."

Childras, the <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu> Mailbox Deamon
Still trapped in Eternal Crystal and loving it!