Take 3. First Pegasus completely messes up the FFML address
(calling it fanfic@fanfic.comfanfic), an error that was probably a
sympton of the technician deleting my attachments. Next, I
entrust Compuserve with the task of delivering these as
attachments. It fails.
And now, I'm trying them in message. I've gone through the
*entire* fanfic, and formatted them to 75 chars per line, in the
vain hope that it will actually come out right when I send this.
I hope it does, otherwise I'm going to be doing some serious
frustration-venting.
Oh, by the way, don't reply back to here. Use the address
I've included (both at the start of this fanfic, and the start of
Part 2 (Chapter 5)) Thanks.
Anyway, asides from that, enjoy the fanfic.
Terence Fergusson
-- Stranded in an Anime-free College
-- and wondering why he's tempting fate
(or, more to the point, the DBTFH
(1 Black, 1 other; a 1/7 black creature;
cannot be blocked by walls; tap to
enchant author with +3 productivity/-4
toughness until end of turn)) by posting
this.
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Terence Fergusson (nc005390@newcol.demon.co.uk)
Books/Bubblegum Crisis/Sailor Moon
"Boomers and Youmas"
Part 1 : "Running Man"
Both Bubblegum Crisis and Sailor Moon are copyrighted by their respective
copyright owners. Any material used from Bubblegum Crisis or the original
Sailor Moon series are not of my own creation, and I take no credit for it.
Thank you for not suing me.
Ian Robinson, Chronos, and all the Books-related stuff are presumably
copyright Terence Fergusson aka Me. This fanfic, excepting those scenes,
characters and other stuff that belongs to the two aforementioned series,
plus any other anime, manga or general fiction, is mine.
Story notes: /.../ designates thoughts...
*...* designates stressed words...
Any other strange symbols *should* be self-explanatory.
I used to distinguish between English and foreign languages in the Books
stories, but have refrained from it this time due to a new development in
the timeline. All will be explained.
This takes place a few months after Ian found himself in Ranma 1/2.
And now, the feature presentation... ^_^
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PROLOGUE
Now was his chance.
A swift elbow to the gut downed one of his captors, and while the others
were distracted, Ian broke away from them and belted down the corridor,
diving into a side room, and slamming the door behind him.
He lost no time in drawing the heavy wooden beam across the door, locking
himself in. In a few seconds, he had retrieved his confiscated belongings;
his brown leather jacket, with his pulse-laser pistol still hanging out of
its inside pocket, and his leather backpack, complete with rations and
various camping equipment. He had been fortunate to be still conscious
when he saw the guards taking his stuff in here.
The guards had lost no time either. Already shouts were ringing
throughout the dungeon, and they were trying to break down the door. A
crack had appeared in the middle of the beam holding the door closed, and
it was growing with each attempt they made.
A glance at his watch gave him ten seconds to go. He counted down under
his breath, looking fearfully at the door. It wouldn't do to have it all
end with a crossbow quarrel in his back.
Bingo! The stopwatch trilled triumphantly at him, and started counting
down from 24:00:00 again. But something was wrong. No bluefire portal had
appeared this time to whisk him away. The door was almost open now, and he
could hear heavy armoured footsteps approaching from elsewhere in the
dungeon. What could have gone wrong?!
There was only one answer. The portal hadn't appeared in this room.
Which meant he had to break through the knot of guards outside. Cursing
his luck, he drew his pistol, and aimed at the door. He had less than a
minute to do this right.
The door chose that moment to finally give, bursting open as the beam
snapped in two. But before any of the guards could enter, Ian let loose a
volley of laser fire, scattering some, scorching others. Cries of
"Sorcery!" swept down the halls, and for a brief moment, a space opened up
in the corridor.
It was enough. Ian burst into it, firing sporadically into the midst of
the guardsmen, keeping them at bay. /Only twenty seconds left,/ he
thought, as he took another hasty glance at his stopwatch, /then it's over,
one way or another./
There! To his right, at the end of a corridor, was a flickering wafer-
thin portal of bluefire. No one else seemed to have noticed it. Probably
because no one else *could* notice it; these `gates' seemed to be attuned
to himself only. No matter. It was his only escape, and even that would
disappear in about fifteen seconds....
Following some sort of survival instinct, Ian ducked. A crossbow bolt
whistled over his head, clattering to the floor when it hit the stone wall
in front of him. At least one of his guards had the courage to fire at a
`wizard'. Ian didn't know how much longer his luck would last. He just
put his head down, and ran all the harder.
It came as a surprise to the guard when the fugitive simply vanished into
thin air. /Mind you,/ he thought, /he is a wizard./
But neither he nor his comrade could figure out where their last crossbow
bolt had gone.
--**************--
Once again, Ian felt the sheer acceleration, as his body went faster and
faster, sucked into the blue light, taken towards his next destination.
The speed was making him feel faint, but he knew it would be over, in just
a few... more... seconds....
--**************--
In another time, place, and dimension, there was, or rather is, a town
named Bath. It is one of many on an island named Britain, which itself is
just one of many nations on this blue, green world that its inhabitants had
named Earth. It is important to remember that although Ian was a native of
this town, he is nowhere near it at this present time.
There is, in one of Bath's many streets, a bookstore. It is named
"Books".
It's a late Sunday evening. In fact, the phrase "it was still a late
Sunday evening" would be more appropriate. An angry thunderstorm dominates
the sky. Lightning is striking from the heavens, vividly illuminating the
inside of the bookstore, if only for a few moments.
Inside is a complete mess. Books have been strewn all over the floor.
There are many different types of books here. At least one of each, one
would say. By every author who has ever lived.
However, one of them has no author. It is lying on a shelf on the only
bookcase that is still standing. It's open to a page near the beginning of
the book, except it's obvious from the size of the tome that many pages
have already been covered.
Now, the page that it's on has finally been finished. A new chapter is
starting. The page turns by itself, revealing a pair of blank sheets.
And then, they begin to fill....
--**************--
CHAPTER 1 - There's No Police Like The ADPolice...
DAY 1
It is unfortunate that Ian's predicament carried several rules. One such
that applies here were those governing the gates that Ian used to enter
other realms and dimensions. Realms and dimensions better known to him as
*books*.
The gates followed strict patterns. For instance, they only appeared
once per twenty-four hour period; a fact that Ian already knew, and kept
track of. After they appeared, they only kept open for sixty seconds,
forcing him to hurry if he wanted to leave or, as so often happens, escape.
They were one-way as well; as soon as Ian left a portal, it would snap
shut behind him. No one else could use the portal, or indeed even see it.
However, the rule that applies the most in this situation is the one that
dictates where he goes *to*. No matter what realm he ended up in, whether
science-fiction, fantasy, or present-day, the place he ended up would
always have similarities to the place he came from. Therefore, it was of
little surprise, but worrying, that he found himself running out from the
portal into a corridor of a jail.
A police officer looked up from where he was sitting. His eyes focused
once on Ian and his dishevelled appearance, and then on the pistol still in
Ian's hand. Ian followed the man's gaze to the weapon, and then grinned
sheepishly. He made to put the gun away.
Sadly, it was taken as an aggressive move by the inexperienced officer.
Ian dove to one side to avoid a barrage of bullets, only to have his head
bounce sickeningly off a cell bar. He slid to the floor, only vaguely
aware of his surroundings. He faintly heard the guard shout for
reinforcements, and felt a sharp pain in his wrist as the pistol was kicked
away from him. /Why does this always happen,/ he thought frustratedly, as
he slipped slowly into unconsciousness.
--**************--
He woke again in a slightly familiar environment. A jail cell. With,
fortunately, himself as the only occupant. The reason it was familiar was
simply because this morning he had been sitting in a dungeon, awaiting his
execution on suspicion on sorcery. As if appearing from nowhere in the
king's courtroom actually counted as such. He was just lucky that they'd
left him his watch, and that the timing of his escape had been perfect....
He realised that his backpack and pistol had gone walkies again.
Probably been confiscated by those bloody police officers. And he could
feel a headache coming on. Bloody headache, bloody police officers, and
bloody fate. It *had* to be Fate; there was no bloody force powerful
enough to keep him alive yet still keep him in trouble. At the very least,
someone really had it in for him up there, otherwise he'd have been out of
this by now. And he didn't mean the jail.
Ian had been trapped in these `books' for about eight months now. Eight
months since a freak storm sent him scurrying for cover. And since it had
been Sunday evening, almost all of the shops were closed, which was a pity,
because he had been caught in the middle of town.
He hadn't noticed at the time, but it had been eerily quiet in the street
where he found the one store with a light on; a bookstore.
It had been his curiosity, as usual, that had gotten him into trouble.
A few subtle hints led him to a secret door in the store, which had opened
to reveal a vertical pit as a room that would never, under the normal laws
of space and matter, have fitted into the small confines of the bookstore.
He remembered the door slamming shut, and the stairs going around the
pit collapsing, forcing him up to the top of the cylindrical chamber. And
then a portal hovering just feet away from the end of the stairs, made of
red fire; not the blue he'd seen since. The only red portal he'd ever
seen. He now suspected that that would be his ticket home. Yet all he'd
encountered so far were made of bluefire. Sometimes he thought he'd never
find a way home...
The eight months of constant leaping, running, fighting, as well as the
interspersing moments of blissful sleep or simple unconsciousness had all
taken their toll on Ian. He hadn't had a good night's sleep in ages, and
his clothes were ragged and torn. His light brown hair was unkempt, and
the T-shirt he wore had a whole number of different stains on it; the
primary ones being grass and dirt. His leather jacket was badly creased,
and in some places, rather dirt-encrusted, but had somehow managed to
survive most of the punishment that had been dished out to it. The pale
blue jeans he wore had become even paler, and frayed at the knees. Ian had
once worn trainers; they were the first to go, having been subjected to
deep water, acid, and heat to name a few, they had finally succumbed. He
now wore brown lace-up boots, which happened to be a lot more resistant to
damage.
However, all that changed nothing; Ian was looking forward to the next
time he would get a decent hot meal, and maybe some coffee. Perhaps a nice
bath, and a shave even. He hadn't had hospitality like that since...
/No. I'm not going to even think about that. I am not going to even
consider the word `man...' that genre./ Ian looked around fearfully. /It
might return to haunt me./
As he sat on the only bed in the cell, mulling over his current
situation, the sound of electronic locks being disengaged came from the
door. Ian rose to his feet as a smartly dressed officer entered. His
blond hair was neatly combed, but the moustache didn't hide the frown he
wore openly.
"Ok, you," he said gruffly. "Follow me."
Feeling in no mood to argue, Ian got to his feet, and trundled after him,
nursing his throbbing head.
As he walked along, something occurred to him. The officer had spoken
Japanese. Damn it, the bloody officer had spoken to him in Japanese. Ian
had no problem with understanding the language; since his last escapade in
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", he had picked up a very handy
organism named the Babel Fish, that enabled Ian to understand any spoken
language. That was not the problem. The problem was, that the fact that
Japanese was the common language here meant that there was a severe
likelihood that he'd stumbled into what was for him, the worst place he
could ever have imagined. He knew he was in hot water - that metaphor
seemingly apt - the moment his line of thoughts had even *strayed* near
that word; a word belonging to a genre of books that just meant trouble to
Ian.
"Manga," he muttered under his breath.
Ian had had a lot of trouble with Manga. Back when he was in Uni, a
friend of his had tried to get him into it. However, being a student of
English Literature meant that although Ian spent a lot of time reading,
most of it was directly attributed to the course. And Manga, in Ian's
opinion, wasn't English, and probably wasn't Literature. Despite this,
he'd managed to get acquainted with some of the more popular manga and
anime. Lucky for him.
The trouble had started a few months ago, when the portal had taken him
to the city of Tokyo. He hadn't known it at the time, but he'd ended up in
the world of "Ranma 1/2". There, Ian discovered exactly what the
disadvantages of living through a severe pounding were, and what it was
like to live in a world where everyone seems to misconstrue everything you
do for the worst possible thing.
Oh, and what it was like to be in a place where everyone was a better
fighter than you.
To top that, Chronos had mounted a severe attack against Ian at the time.
Ian had just decided to spend a few days with the Tendo's, accepting their
hospitality, and more to the point, their baths and hot meals. And not
only had he had to put up with the normal - ( /Normal?!/ ) - activities,
he'd also had to put a stop to Chronos's plans in that book. Which had
almost lead to a confrontation with the big guy himself. Herself.
Whatever he was. That bloody shadowy figure that stalked him calling
himself Chronos was beginning to get on his nerves.
Since then, Ian had harboured an intense dislike for Japanese comics
where the characters could take a great deal of punishment (i.e. lived to
deal with the pain of recovering), and where a great deal of chaos and
mayhem happened. On the other hand though, it had been the last time he'd
had a chance to really clean up...
/Well,/ he thought, /maybe I'll be lucky. I mean, just cos I'm in Tokyo,
it doesn't mean it *has* to be Manga./
They came to a halt by a specific desk in a large office area. The desk
was vacant for the moment, but the police officer escorting Ian pushed him
into a nearby chair. "Wait here," he ordered, "the Sergeant will deal with
you shortly." The officer turned and then went his separate way.
/Leaving me unguarded, eh?/ thought Ian as he watched the man go. But
then he took a closer look around. The room was filled with police;
although most of them appeared to be desk-jocks, there was no way he would
be able to slip out of here unnoticed. Besides, the guys still had his gun
and pack. He couldn't leave without those.
He was startled out of his thoughts by the approach of the large
dark-haired man in uniform. He looked about in his thirties, and didn't
seem happy to be here. A name-tag proclaimed himself as Detective Fraser.
He sat himself down at the desk, and produced a blank form, which he
started to fill in after giving Ian a searching glare.
"Name?" he barked.
/Well, if you're going to be like that..../ Ian bit back a sarcastic
remark, figuring he'd do better if he started to think up a story now.
He'd talked himself out of worse than this, hadn't he?
He cheerfully ignored the fact that he had also talked himself into
worse.
"Ian Robinson."
"Age?"
"Twenty-one."
"Job?"
Ian thought about this for a moment. Job? What *was* his job here?
An idea sprang to mind. Maybe there was a way outta here, and an excuse
to get his gun back.
"I'm an inventor. Self-employed."
Fraser grunted at that. "You got any ID? You look a little young to be
out working for yourself." He turned up his nose. "You also don't look
like one of those techheads. Heck, you don't look like you've had a bath
in weeks!"
Oops. He hadn't thought of that. Especially about his appearance. His
mind raced as he thought up an excuse.
"I'm sorry, Officer, but I didn't bring any identification with me. In
fact, I wasn't planning on going out today. And as for my appearance..."
He tried a wry smile, but it felt odd on him under these circumstances.
"I've really just been living on caffeine for the past week. You know how
it is, you get a project, you spend days and nights on it, hardly
sleeping."
He received a suspicious glare. "Care to explain how you got into our
jail? And why you threatened one of our officers?"
/This had better work,/ he thought, as he got the final kinks out of his
story. "I'm sorry if your officer thought I was threatening him. I assure
you I made no aggressive move. I'm sure the officer concerned told you I
had appeared from nowhere? He was telling the truth."
That provoked another glare. /Looks like I hit the nail on the head.
Guess they didn't believe the poor sod./
"I was testing an invention of mine. A small matter-transporter. I
guess it's still got a few bugs in it. I guess I'm lucky I'm even alive.
Had I materialised inside a wall...." Ian let his sentence trail. The
portals seemed to do a good job in so much that he'd never found himself in
*that* situation. However, the thought had occurred to him. If a portal
could open up five-hundred feet in mid-air, who says they couldn't
transport him into the middle of Ayer's Rock?
"Where d'ya live?"
/Uh-oh./ Perhaps the story wasn't as watertight as he had originally
thought. He didn't know where the hell he was, and a wrong answer here
could really have him up against the wall. /Well, guess it's time to
really wing it./ "I'm still in Japan, aren't I?"
That seemed to irritate Fraser further. "Yes, of course. Why shouldn't
you be?"
Ian laughed. It was hard, but he managed to pull it off without seeming
too nervous. "With the number of bugs apparent in my invention, I would
probably be lucky to be in the same continent!" There was a flaw in that
argument, but if he was lucky....
He received yet another glare, and a raised eyebrow. "I thought faulty
equipment usually have shorter ranges?"
/Damn./ "Have *you* made an intensive study of quantum mechanics?"
Fraser hesitated. "Not as such, what are you getting at?"
Ian grinned. It was probably a mistake, but he did so all the same.
/There might be a chance of me getting out of here, after all!/ "Well,
then you probably don't understand just how complex Matter Transportation
can be. You see, it's like Chaos...."
"I don't want to hear some crackpot explanation. Argh! You're wasting
my bloody time!"
/Well, at least it seems he's bought my story about the invention. Good
thing too. I don't know a *thing* about Chaos theory..../
Fraser furiously filled out the rest of the form and filed it away.
"Just get outta here, will ya? And make sure you don't come back. And get
a bath, you stink worse than... Just go, ok?" He pointed towards the
door, and started to get up.
"Waitta sec."
Fraser rounded on him. "What is it?!"
"My stuff? The gun-like device is another invention I'm working on. I
think while I was tinkering with it, it might have caused the calibration
of the Matter-Transporter unit to...."
His gun and pack were flung at him. Ian wondered where they had been
stashed. "Just go, willya," Fraser yelled back at him. It seemed that he
really couldn't stand Technospeak. Which was fine, since Ian couldn't
either.
"Ok, ok," Ian replied placatingly. Shouldering his pack, and sliding his
laser-pistol into its familiar place in his inside pocket, he turned and
made for the exit.
Maybe it was going to be a good day after all.
--**************--
A few desks away, a red-haired woman looked up from her computer at the
young man leaving the building. /So that's the guy the officer on guard
duty was babbling about. Wonder what he did to get Fraser all upset.
Well, I guess no one will mind if I just sneak a peek at his file..../
With that thought in mind, Nene Romanova went back to work.
--**************--
Once outside, Ian kneeled down and checked his backpack. Everything
seemed to be there, but there was also a curious addition. Sticking out of
his shield generator was a single crossbow quarrel. The ShieldGen had been
sitting there awaiting a much needed charge; it was difficult to find a
suitable charger outside of Titan.
/Shit! That was lucky! That almost killed me!/ He tentatively removed
it from the piece of equipment, and was rewarded by a shower of sparks.
/Damn. I'm not going to be able to get that fixed in a hurry. Guess I'm
back down to one mistake, and I'm history./ He smiled ruefully. /"Luck"
is my middle name,/ he quoted. /Mind you, my first name's "Bad"./
With a sigh, he hefted his pack again, and took a look at the city. It
seemed to be early afternoon. Plenty of time to find some abandoned
warehouse and bed down before the next portal. /Now,/ he thought, /which
way to the docks..../
--**************--
On the other side of the city, a group of thugs were having an altogether
more unpleasant encounter.
"Look, man," said the ringleader, "what do you want?"
Their little ambush on the figure cloaked in shadow hadn't gone well. It
had been following them for about ten minutes now, before they decided to
find out just what this guy thought he was up to. A sort of a show of
force to demonstrate to their unwitting pursuer just who he was dealing
with.
Yet despite the fact that they had firearms, and had eventually been
forced to use them, the guy had simply stood there, not seemingly harmed at
all. If it was a guy. Anyhow, one of their number was down on the floor,
hit by some sort of weapon the guy had. It now seemed obvious who was
performing the show of force.
Cloaked in shadow wasn't just a metaphor in this case. Even when the
person stood under a streetlamp, his entire body seemed just a black
outline, literally something that light couldn't penetrate. It was enough
to spook anyone.
A heavily modulated voice came from within the silhouette. "I have a job
for people like you. If you perform well, you will be rewarded."
The ringleader licked his lips nervously. He was a tall man, lean, not
as big or as broad as some people. His following had come from his
fighting skill and his mastery of tactics. Not that strategy counted for
much on the streets, but it sure helped. He had jet black hair, his face
unshaven. An intimidating sight in a dark alley. But now, something had
intimidated *him*. He didn't like that.
One of his friends sidled up to him, and whispered in his ear. "Come on,
Max, let's just go. This guy gives me the creeps."
Max waved him off. "What kind of job?"
"There is a certain target I want taken care of. He somehow manages to
evade me. I will provide equipment to help you take care of him."
"Max, let's get out of here! You saw what he did to Kyle...."
"And the *reward*?"
"You get to keep the equipment." And then, as an afterthought, "As well
as your lives."
At that, one of the gang panicked and ran. He got three paces when a
green bolt hit him in the back, taking him out completely. Max kneeled by
his fallen comrade and checked his pulse. Nothing.
"So," came the voice, "do we have a deal?"
"Yeah," Max replied woodenly. "A deal." /Just as soon as you turn your
back, man. Then you'll get what's coming to you./
"Good. Good. You are called Max, right? Well, Max. You may call me...
Chronos."
--**************--
End Chapter 1
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