and after finishing my latest purchase and reading some of the Naruto threads here, I had a horrible idea.
---
I am a warrior, or at least I was supposed to be. I had not finished my training when the Enemy attacked. It was not a surprise, they had been spotted long before they could reach striking distance.
The problem, in the end was as always the sheer numbers of Enemy that we faced. No matter how many we killed there were always more. We is perhaps the wrong word, for I never saw them myself. I had been awakened early when the attack began, and was moving out of the training area when the weapon struck the facility.
I do not know what kind of weapon it was, only that when I regained conciousness I was no longer in the facility. I was no longer anywhere I recognized. No matter when I looked I could find no trace of the Enemy, or of my people.
I came back here, to where I had first arrived and contemplated. It was possible, probably, that I was halucinating, despite the safe guards. However, every check I ran came back clean. So here I wait, sleeping, hoping that my people will come that I might be rescued, or the Enemy, that I might truly become a warrior. It does not seem likely though. The war was savage, no quarter would have been given or asked.
I have computed the probabilities and it is 91.76% likely that all but a few scattered pockets of either side still exist. Also, knowing the doctrine employed by both the Enemy and my own people, it is 95.32% likely that
hunter-killer squadrons were sent to ravage every part of our respective realms.
So I wait, for a very long time. One day I hear the sounds of foot steps approaching my resting place. Bipedal foot steps, a number of people are coming near. This is impossible, there is no trace of a high tech civilization anywhere, I have looked. As subtly as I can, I try for a better look.
***
Naruto ran easily up the path beside Jirya. The frog-hermit was not watching the trail they were following too closely. Rather he was searching for traps, or signs that some of their prey had left the path.
The main trail wasn't hard to follow, there was only one ninja ahead of them, along with a group of bandits and the surviving women of the small village that had lain at the foot of the mountains.
Naruto figured that he knew why they were taking this path. Jirya had been telling him about it the night before they had spotted the smoke rising from the villiage. A few narrow paths wound their way into the foothills around here. Several of them lead to some kind of ruined fortress.
No one knew who had built it or when, but it was of a style unlike anything found on the continent. The local people were afraid of it, and no one else cared enough to explore. The bandits could be fairly certain that they wouldn't run into anyone.
"Oi, Ero-sennin! we're catching up aren't we?"
Jirya didn't bother to glare at his student. It would have been wasted anyway.
"Hmph, yes, they're maybe twenty minutes ahead of us. If they haven't left any more surprises."
"Hey I beat those guys all on my own. They were horrible." Naruto growled back.
"Yes, but we don't know what that ninja might have done."
A little less than twenty minutes later they rounded a rocky outcropping and found their quarry. A loose semi-circle of ragged bandits stood between them and a group of hopeless looking women.
Behind both rose the bulk of the strange ruins. Short and broad compared to the castles and forts Naruto was familiar with, it was almost completely covered by short stunted trees and other plants.
The ninja was standing on a large piece of rubble, off to one side. He had a kunai ready in one hand, the other hidden behind his back. His forehead protector was heavily scratched, obliterating any trace of his home village. A missing nin then.
Naruto yelled at his opponents. "Hey, let them go!"
The other ninja laughed. "Why would I want to do that? They'll bring me a good price at a brothel I know. You aren't going to beat me little brat, nor are you old man."
"Huh, you can't be much of a ninja if you've got to use thugs like these to fight for you! A ninja is supposed to protect people!"
"Protect people! You've got to be the dumbest kid I've ever met. Tell you what, I'll leave you alive so you can watch what we do with these tonight." The missing nin sneered down at Naruto. "Now, let's settle this."
Everyone was surprised by the clear feminine voice that spoke next.
"Yes. Let us."
***
I watch the group of people gather about. They seem agitated about persuit, a group of refugees perhaps. They are armed strangely though, with primitive melee weapons. There are no needlers or man portable energy weapons in evidence. Perhaps that is why I was not able to find them. I was looking for the wrong sort of civilization.
I do not know their language, but I recognize bits and pieces. It does not take me long to realize it is a decendent of Japanese. They do not speak much, but I am capable of extrapolating much of the vocabulary from what they do say.
Eighteen minutes after the first group arrives, two more people round the corner of the trail. Judging by the postures and reactions of both groups, these are the chasers. They pause for a moment, and begin to
speak. I follow the conversation as best I can, revising my vocabulary and come to an unpleasant conclusion. I check the condition of the women with the first group.
Their body language indicates fear and pain. They are afraid of both those with them and those who are chasing them. It is obvious, their protectors have failed, and they have been captured by their enemy. It also seems obvious that the youngest of the two persuers, a blond boy is intent of rescuing them.
I reach my conclusions quickly, and as the fight is about to start, speak.
***
Everyone froze for an instant, trying to find the speaker. The voice seemed to be coming from the ruins, but that didn't necissarily mean much.
"In the absense of specific, lawful orders, I must act of my own volition and follow the precepts of my service as best as possible. As such I cannot allow you to further harm these people." The voice was firm and unyeilding.
The missing nin was splitting his attention between his two visable opponets, and trying to track down the source of the voice.
"I'm not going to be intimidated by a voice. Show yourself!"
"I am two zero point five four meters behind you. I am not hiding, nor am I attempting to intimidate you I merely wanted you to move slightly farther away from your victims."
The trail errupted into violence in that moment. Great roars of thunder overlapped one another as something tore through the bandits and the missing nin, ripping them to small, bloody rags and shreding the ground beneath them.
Jirya leavered him self up off of the ground to peer over the
rock he had found cover behind. He was completely focused on the ruins, which were moving. Tearing free of the plants that had buried them.
Naruto was still standing where he had been, his arms raised reflexively to protect his face. The boy looked wide eyed at the remains of the bandits. "Wow! How did you do that? That was so cool! Who are you?"
***
I consider them both, the old man and the younger. The younger who was determined to protect people he hardly knew. I come to my decission. It is in the end the only decission I can make. I focus on him, and speak.
"Unit Niner-One-Seven-Three-HNT of the Line reporting for duty Commander."
---
I realize HNT isn't speaking with the precision she ought to, but I was worried it might give away too much too early.
F
--
#4 "Many people tend to have a nasty tendency to carry grudges to the
grave. Specifically, yours. And they'll come back yearly just to do
the Meposian Dance of Joy on it. Besides, nothing bad ever happens to
Kasumi or Mihoshi, does it?" - the Guide to living in an Anime Universe

Needed to de-stress, and this seemed like such a wonderful bad pun to pull ...

Nightwish is hard to interpret, and most of their stuff sounds too depressing for the Loon, but I think this one might mean something, if not as a power song, then as sort of an anthem. It speaks of a long journey, love and leaving (all of which looks to fit), with the occasional religious overtone (and we all know what that means). Beyond that, I don't know: I leave it to you to interpret, and find the truths I missed.
*/ Nightwish, "Bless The Child", 6:12 /*
I was born amidst the purple waterfalls.
I was weak, yet not unblessed.
Dead to the world. Alive for the journey.
One night I dreamt a white rose withering,
a newborn drowning a lifetime loneliness.
I dreamt all my future. Relived my past.
I witnessed the beauty of the beast"

Where have all the feelings gone?
Why has all the laughter ceased?

Why am I loved only when I'm gone?
Gone back in time to bless the child
Think of me long enough to make a memory
Come bless the child one more time

How can I ever feel again?
Given the chance would I return?

I've never felt so alone in my life
As I drank from a cup which was counting my time
There's a poison drop in this cup of Man
To drink it is to follow the left hand path

"Where have all the feelings gone?
Why is the deadliest sin - to love as I loved you?
Now unblessed, homesick in time,
soon to be freed from care, from human pain.
My tale is the most bitter truth:
Time pays us but with earth & dust, and a dark, silent grave.
Remember, my child: Without innocence the cross is only iron,
hope is only an illusion & Ocean Soul's nothing but a name...
The Child bless thee & keep thee forever"

Talking Heads - "Road to Nowhere"
Well we know where we're goin
But we don't know where we've been
And we know what were knowin
But we can't say what we've seen
And were not little children
And we know what we want
And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out
We're on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Takin' that ride to nowhere
We'll take that ride
I'm feelin' okay this mornin'
And you know,
We're on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go
Chorus
Maybe you wonder where you are
I don't care
Here is where time is on our side
Take you there...take you there
We're on a road to nowhere
We're on a road to nowhere
We're on a road to nowhere
There's a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
And it's all right, baby, it's all right
And it's very far away
But it's growing day by day
And it's all right, baby, it's all right
They can tell you what to do
But they'll make a fool of you
And its all right, baby, its all right
We're on a road to nowhere
*********************
Ozzy Osbourne - "Road to Nowhere"
I was looking back on my life
And all the things I've done to me
I'm still looking for the answers
I'm still searching for the key
Chorus
The wreckage of my past keeps haunting me
It just won't leave me alone
I still find it all a mystery
Could it be a dream?
The road to nowhere leads to me
Through all the happiness and sorrow
I guess I'd do it all again
Live for today and not tomorrow
It's still the road that never ends
Chorus
Ah ah
The road to nowhere's gonna pass me by
Ah ah
I hope we never have to say goodbye
I never want to live without you
Chorus
**************
A pair of possible gate songs, although I suspect Doug would be wary about a world that Ozzie's version brings him to. The talking Heads version is more upbeat.__________________
I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

Or more precisely, trying to remember a particular fic so I can find out if it were ever completed. Hopefully someone here can clue me in.
Details: "Magic Knight Rayearth" story. Hikaru returns to Earth from Cephiro -- except it's the wrong Earth. She doesn't have a dog named Hikari, she has a twin sister. She and the other Knights were friends, but one's dead now. And she's just come out of a long period of hospitalization, and as time goes on, it seems more and more likely that her time in Cephiro was a bizarre delusion/dream, and she begins to settle in to her "real" life again.
Until, of course, Bad Things start happening, her powers reawaken, and the other Magic Knights come after her -- with the one who was dead spontaneously resurrecting to house the spirit of her off-world counterpart.
Can anyone recognize this fic and point me at it? Thanks.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

At work, at least, anyway. I must have downloaded something at some point that threw up a red flag, because when I went to check the latest updates this morning, I got the big ol' "Access Denied" screen. Either that or whoever supplies the filtering software decided to include TTH in its latest list of subversive or unprofitable sites.
Weirdly enough, though, I can still get to ff.net...
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

I don't know if non-admins get the little statistics report at the bottom of the forums list. According to that, we are coming up soon on the two millionth visit to the forums. That's just frickin' unbelievable.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

One of the current fanfitcion staples seems to be sending a character back in time to do things over differently, and in Naruto this is often done via some flavor of doubletalk by Kyuubi after all or most of Naruto's friends have bought it... but really, why would Kyuubi do such a thing the way these stories all seem to suggest, when she could aim it so SHE's sent back into her own body, shortly before being sealed, and escape that battle to take revenge another day? The challenge would be to make a story of it... and what happens to Naruto anyway? Is he stuck in a newborn body, possibly without even knowing until its brain developes enoguh to host an older mind? does he physically travel to that past, but with it altered no longer has his passenger? Does changing the past not even change his present, so the kitsune who was trapped is still trapped, and hella mad about it, while Naruto has to explain why he fell out of the sky and knocked Yondaime off Gamabunta's nose just before he could fire up the sealing jutsu he'd invented? I think I kind of like that last idea, actually... not that I have any concept of where it could go.
Beesides, I just managed to get a tiny bit of TXY mojo rising again, so I'm not going to start anything new.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

I was born amidst the purple waterfalls.
I was weak, yet not unblessed.
Dead to the world. Alive for the journey.
One night I dreamt a white rose withering,
a newborn drowning a lifetime loneliness.
I dreamt all my future. Relived my past.
And witnessed the beauty of the beast.

Where have all the feelings gone?
Why has all the laughter ceased?
Why am I loved only when I'm gone?
Gone back in time to bless the child
How can I ever feel again?
Given the chance would I return?
Why am I loved only when I'm gone?
Gone back in time to bless the child
Think of me long enough to make a memory
Come bless the child one more time
I've never felt so alone in my life
As I drank from a cup which was counting my time
There's a poison drop in this cup of Man
To drink it is to follow the left hand path
Why am I loved only when I'm gone?
Gone back in time to bless the child
Think of me long enough to make a memory
Come bless the child one more time
Think of me long enough to make a memory
Come bless the child one more time

Where have all the feelings gone?
Why is the deadliest sin to love as I loved you?
Now unblessed, homesick in time,
soon to be freed from care, from human pain.
My tale is the most bitter truth:
Time pays us but with earth and dust, and a dark, silent grave.
Remember, my child: Without innocence the cross is only iron,
hope is only an illusion and Ocean Soul's nothing but a name...
The Child bless thee and keep thee forever...

-- Nightwish, Bless The Child
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

Another short from the 'Quoth the Raven' line of WoD/somethingorother crosses
---
For most people, one 'end of the world' in progress was the sole event of that type that they'd get to notice.
Liam Crowley was not most people.
That isn't to say that he was particularly enthused about the event at hand. No. You could say that he wasn't very happy about it at all, which, in his own words, would be one of the few vestiges of sanity he'd managed to retain over the years.
He'd be the first to admit that he'd lost a few recently. After all, putting himself in the path of a just launched nuclear warhead with the faint hope that his Gremlin spirit taught Gift of causing technology to malfunction would manage to stop it from obliterating an island full of war refugees as part of an overly ambitious and blatantly sociopathic government employee's plot was not something one could consider even marginally sane.
Even for the definition of sane held by somebody who routinely bartered with spirits and spent a fair bit of his time as a raven.
Apparently, though, he hadn't died as a result of that particular suicidal stunt. Hell's bells, it had actually worked ... somewhat. The resulting malfunction hadn't caused a nuclear detonation, but the explosion had been something to see nonetheless.
He'd seen it from point blank range, and blacked out.
Next thing he knew, he was waking up in downtown Tokyo ... nine years before he'd left his original Gaia.
He'd spent some time in Japan way back when he was 'just' another Corax trying to make a living by playing courier, information broker, and whatnot ...
... though he hadn't really gotten along with the Tengu branch of his breed too well, it had not been the most uninviting place he'd ever stopped at. Not by far.
He'd hoped that this was it, and he'd get a chance at putting his life back into some semblance of order ... hmm ... maybe buy some dot com stock in preparation for the end of the Millenium boom, even. Seemed like a nice way of making a tidy profit.
Unfortunately, fate had a way of getting _in_ the way of plans like that for him.
... and due to an awkward chain of events that he'd likely never let himself live down, he'd started living at a shrine of all places.
"... what are you waiting, for?!"
And then came _that_ development.
"In case it's escaped your notice, this is really not my sort of thing," Liam grumbled. He flicked open the latches.
With a flutter of wings, a six-inch-tall girl with black wings sprouting from her back landed on his shoulder.
"Please! I can feel ..." the girl sobbed. "She was injured. I beg you, help her!"
"Alright, alright. I said I didn't like it, not that I wouldn't do anything," the man swept the spirit from his shoulder. She shimmered, shifted, and turned into a raven that soon joined another, circling up ahead.
Meet part of the 'awkward chain of events'.
Liam Iskander Crowley was a self-professed coward. In truth, he merely prefered to choose his battles ... and he'd been more or less gearing up for something like this for a while now. Ever since he'd found out that the shrine owner's granddaughter had _that_ sort of night job.
You could say that he knew his brand of luck all too well.
The taint was unfamiliar, the circumstances ... oddly, he felt sort of at home. Other than the ridiculous outfits, that is.
He hefted the tube, inspected both grip and optical sight, then did the same with the stachel full of rune-inscribed rounds.
He flicked the fetish-feather hanging from his jacket's collar to renew its warding effect from the intense cold that would have normally brought even someone with his unnatural constitution down in a matter of hours, if not minutes.
Liam Iskander Crowley was a self-professed coward.
Nevermore was meticulous, scheming, ruthless, and he had yet to find someone who couldn't be brought down by an RPG-7 fired grenade enhanced by bound minor spirits. Or half a dozen of them, anyway ...
He gave a last shrug to Deimos and Phobos, and started off towards the source of the mystical emanations in the area.
---

Yuuichiro? Who's that?
Yup, a Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon/WoD cross.
Anyway, I blame whoever pimped Armored Core on the forum way back when. I think it was CD. I got Nexus just a month or so ago, and my wires got crossed when I considered Liam for obvious reasons. Raven and all. Hence the above.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm