A Funny Thing Happened

((Guys, no one is at the table except us RPers (and now Kari). If there are others around they are completely on the other side of the building. And Took, where did you get the cappuccino? ))

I couldn't think of all the characters I had whom I had destroyed their childhoods. There were too many. But the most pressing matter on my mind was that Le Loup Noir was here, looking for a Sith Artifact (and a couple other things no doubt), when I had never written for him other than his introductory post. That meant he was unpredictable. I did not know the depth of his character as much as I would like to. I had no idea what he would do if he found out his authoress was in town.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I looked up at Kari and gave her a slight smile. "Just some water for me, thanks," I said, figuring I would need it. Plus water was free. I was not sure what kind of currency she would accept and I only had a couple paper dollars in my pocket.

"I'm thinking this is after the Time Rift, um, events," I said. "Since Maria is here and all. And seeing that I saw Grump earlier, I'm guessing this is around the same time as A (Slightly) Less Normal Life. Perhaps." This was really all just guesswork on my part. Oy.

P.S."Brooklyn!"

A Funny Thing Happened

Kari looked at those gathered curiously, wondering if they were some kind of a club that had codenames.

"Water please." I managed to squeak out. I worked hard to keep my cool, reassuring myself that Kari had know way of knowing that I was...well, me.

"Alright." Kari said, snapping back into waitress mode. "I'll be back with your orders ASAP."

A Funny Thing Happened

The girl scuttled off and I turned my attention back to the group. Kari probably thought we had lost our minds. But then again, maybe we all had.

"You saw Grump?" I sputtered. She nodded. Creepy. No, LUCKY! They got to see their characters, mine were... I dunno. Still in Virginia or something, I guessed.

A Funny Thing Happened

"I'm Nathanael, aka Bookwyrm, Booky, Robin, etc., etc.," I introduced myself after requesting some water from Kari. "Does anyone have writing materials with them? I was thinking maybe we could create a character, one lacking a tragic backstory or any other reason to dislike us, and give them the ability to get us back to Earth."

The door of the C&P slammed open and Drake stalked in, followed by Cordelia.

"Oh, great. This looks like trouble," I groaned.

"Drake! Don't just walk away from me! We are two weeks behind on orders. The customers are complaining. Some of them are going to the Monstropolis to get the books they need. We're losing money. Either tell me why you aren't doing your job or I quit. I'm not going to continue letting our customers down," Cordelia snapped at Drake, barely holding her voice under a yell.

"You want to know why I'm gone so much, why I'm not spending time hunting down every single obscure book for everybody and their brother in this town? Because I'm fighting a war. And I'm losing. Dragons all across the multiverse are being wiped out. So I'm not really that worried about losing business," Drake snapped back.

"I haven't written that yet," I whispered to the others. "I thought about it, sure, but never actually wrote anything about the Dragon/Dragonslayer war."

I gazed at my characters, amazed at being able to see them, even though their conversation was worrying me. I had originally created Drake as a kind of super-powered version of myself, but had changed that almost as soon as I started writing about him. I was relieved to see he looked nothing like me, despite having similar builds and coloring. It would have been difficult to explain to Drake why I looked exactly like him.

Restart

Roxanne could have almost grimaced when Jonathan announced their relationship. But her apprehension for how her brother might take this was stunned when all the sudden Nickolas started laughing.

Roxanne's mouth hung open at this, her preconceptions of how this might be received stunned. "Nick . . ." she started to say, but her own voice seemed to make him laugh harder. It was devoid of any real humor, but the response alone made her angry. "Nick, why are you laughing!"

Nickolas shook his head, stifling his mirth with a tight sneer. "And I thought it was just Gil," he said softly, almost to himself. "That it was just him that was lying to us. But I guess you had me fool too." He looked at Roxanne with such a dark intensity that she diverted her eyes.

~~~~~~

"Why?" Nate asked suddenly. He frowned at Alyson, his anxieties taking stride now with what was happening. "I know where she is, Allie," he snatched the paper back up and jammed the finger at the story's photograph, "She's with him!"

He was starting to connect the dots now that he had a moment to process, and the old phrase you should never believe what the newspaper tells you didn't fly anymore with this one.

"Where is he?" he demanded abruptly. "Where does he live?"

~~~~~~

Mary Jane looked curiously where Chase placed his ball, completely confused how their chemistry teacher had anything to do with bowling. She walked up to the door, though, but held on to her ball. "We're going bowling with Mr. Rosentinbrug?" she questioned, wondering why he didn't just say that. But that didn't explain why he put the bowling ball on the welcome mat.

A (Slightly) Less Normal Life
Chase brightened way more than was probably reasonable. If there was one thing he loved doing, it was gushing about the exploits of the Fountain Fellowship.

"I'd be delighted to tell you everything I know about them!" he said. "I'm Chase Ramsey, by the way, former history professor at Ditto Monstropolis University, and my specialty is the history of the Fountain Fellowship."

Nessie cleared her throat, though it was a bit muffled due to her mouth being full of a grilled cheese sandwich. She swallowed quickly and gasped out.

"Uh, Uncle Chase, what about the manuscript? I thought we were looking for a translator."

Chase slapped his forehead. "Oh, that's right! I nearly forgot!" He smiled apologetically at Jakov.

"I have some other business to attend to, but I'd still love to meet with you. Here..." he started slapping at his pockets, finally managing to find a wrinkled business card tucked away in his suit jacket. He held it out for Jakov.

"Here's my address. Go ahead and drop on by any time tomorrow, if you're still in town. I should be home. If not, just leave a note on the door with how I can get a hold of you."

****

In Ditto Autobot City, Warpath looked over the shoulder of the radar operator worriedly. They were monitoring the approach of the three stasis pods, and the pursuing Autobots.

"They're not gonna make it in time," Warpath muttered. He activated his comlink.

"This is Warpath. Scramble Air Team to intercept incoming targets. Divert from populated sectors if possible. If ya can't move 'em, vape 'em." After receiving the acknowledgment from the Air Team commander, Warpath barked orders to the communications officer.

"I want emergency crews standing by near their possible landing spots. Clear all air traffic. Only ones allowed near those pods are Air Team and ground crews, understood?"

"Yes sir!" the officer replied. Activating a wide-range frequency, she contacted all the other Autobots in that area.

"All Autobots in Sector 2, clear the skies. Hold your positions and allow Air Team full access to incoming targets. Repeat, only Air Team is permitted in the air in Sector 2."

A Funny Thing Happened

I nodded absently to Isabelle, sitting up straighter when Nathanael asked about the paper and pencil. I was about to say something rather sarcastic (as I'm prone to do when I'm nervous or annoyed or just plain bored), when Cordelia and Drake walked in.

"Oh look. Cordelia and Drake," I deadpanned. Nothing could surprise me now. I hoped.

"Maybe we should ask them for help," I suggested, half-getting out of my seat.

----

A (Slightly) Less Normal Life

Jakov took the card slowly, wondering if this was really wise. Could he afford missing one more day of the search for possible information on Maria and his former master? He realized he know was extremely curious to find out how Cei had survived. Jakov had left him for dead. No one could have lived through that beating.

"Thanks," he mumbled as he pocketed the card. "I'll be sure to stop by . . . if I have the time."

----

Restart

Jonathan gulped when Nick started laughing.

"Hey man, I wanted to tell you but . . . I didn't exactly know how you'd take it. I mean, when Gilbert found out we were doing a research project together, he almost went through the roof." He grimaced and took a slight step away from Roxanne. "Dude, I totally didn't mean for it to go on this long without telling you."

----

Alyson sighed, digging out her cell phone and handing it over to him. "I told you I had his number," she said. "You must be more out of it than I thought. Here. Call him. And talk quickly, he might hang up on you." She leaned back in her chair. "And I think he lives in some fancy hotel. I don't quite remember the name for it. I might have it somewhere here though." She began rummaging through her big purse again.

----

Chase grinned. "Nope. This is my version of bowling. We go to all our teacher's houses and give them bowling balls. It's an awesome, completely nonsensical prank. It's fun."

He pointed at the ball in her hands. "Try it. I'm going back to the truck. You see that house next door? Believe it or not, that's the Principal's house. Walk up to the door, set down the ball, and then run back to the truck as fast as you can. It's a great rush, trust me." He winked and jogged back to the truck, getting in and then waving at MJ through the window.

P.S."Brooklyn!"

A Funny Thing Happened

Drake and Cordelia came in and I slowly recovered from the shock of seeing Kari in person. "I'm Sweeetlilgurlie. Also known as Sweeet. Which I guess is what you can call me."

I brightened at Ryan's suggestion. "Yeah, maybe they know how to get through the fountain and find our pool!" The possibility of going to the Wood Between the Worlds hadn't occurred to me until that moment, but admittedly, it would be awesome.

((It came with me from Earth ))

Funny Thing

I still wasn't sure exactly what time period it was, but I was sure that Sholi (my most tortured and most powerful character) would be long gone by then. It suddenly struck me, however, upon hearing Booky's thought-of-yet-unwritten story coming to life, that I had a though-of-yet-unwritten story of my own involving a very powerful being and another person with similar powers (and much cause to be angry at her author). And since I hadn't written it down yet, I wasn't sure exactly how powerful or vengeful she might be.

Still, how hard could it be to get to the Wood between the Worlds? Even if she was out there, I wouldn't be around long enough to meet her.

A Funny Thing

Nathanael did have a point. But I didn't have much time to ponder the profundity of that since Ryan was already half-way out of her seat, looking at the two people who had just walked into the Cup & Platter.

"Wait--" I said. "WBTW is also Crisis, right?" I said, a little confused and wishing desperately I had intently read that role-play thread. I edged away from Lightsaber of Doom.

A Funny Thing Happened

I looked over at Isabelle, confused myself for a minute. "What? Oh no, the Wood Between the Worlds is inside the Fountain. Like, you go in the Fountain to get there. It's that place in the Chronicles of Narnia. The World Between the Stories is an RP that's a sort of prequel to the RP Crisis in the Snow." I glanced at Nathanael and Sweeet to make sure that was right.

I considered Sweeet's suggestion for a moment, then shook my head. "Even if we could find a pool to Earth, it wouldn't be our Earth. It would be the Earth some of our characters are originally from." Pausing, I glanced over at Drake and Cordelia once more. "They might have a book on this sort of thing though," I said, more to myself than anyone else.

Even as I walked over to Drake, thinking he was probably in a better mood than Cordelia, I wondered if this was the smart thing to do. After all, who knows if they could figure out who we really were. Still, I knew we had to get home before Le Loup Noir figured out what happened and came to kill us all. I really wouldn't put it past him.

Tapping Drake on the shoulder, I tried to look pleasant and not like I was shaking out of my shoes. (Then I realized suddenly that I wasn't wearing any shoes. No wonder my feet hurt.)

"Um, excuse me?" I asked hesitantly.

P.S."Brooklyn!"

A Funny Thing Happened

I nodded. "Yep. It goes Dark Side Rising, The Wood Between the Stories, then Crisis in the Snow." I frowned. "Amë is gonna be so mad at me for not posting in Crisis."

I followed Ryan when she got up and decided to let her do the talking. It seemed to me that I froze up when talking to characters. But were they really characters? Were these real people? I was rather confused still.

(Slightly)
<Shono to Warpath> he said over the comlink <I'm right under the falling objects but I'll pull off> "Darn that old robot is always ruining my fun" he muttered to himself as he pulled out of sector 2.
---
Scrappy replied "Well duh! did you glance at the book she's holding? Of course you wouldn't know about that particular cult" he said narrowing his round optics skeptically.
---
Kale turned to Matthew "Now were is he going?" she asked and he replied with a sigh "I have no idea" he then said "Well lets get back to our objective; Teaching you how to fly my interceptor!"
A Funny Thing
I had been in the middle of creating currancy for ditto town so I infact had some coins that I had been creating and thats what I planned to pay with, "A book eh?" I asked "Well realms would be the place to look then" I said with a nodd to Booky.

A (Slightly) Less Normal Life

Katie tilted her head to the side, almost twisting her body all the way around in order to read the books in Miss Lucinda's hands. "The . . . Books . . . o' . . . Ascension." She straightened. "So she wants to learn 'ow to fly. That ain't nothin' strange. I can fly too." She grinned proudly.

P.S."Brooklyn!"

A Funny Thing Happened

I was still confused, but I nodded and made some understanding noises. I really didn't want to keep asking because a) I was pretty sure I was the youngest except for maybe nerd but b) Boys don't count.

However, the aforementioned nerd produced some coins out of nowhere. Unless that was Canadian funny money, it was something else. Well, duh. But I wasn't thinking about that.