Bubblegum Chakram
By
Chris Davies
Chapter One
Knock
knock knock.
The
most powerful magician in the modern world paused in her preparations, and
muttered a choice oath. She instructed the vast astral computer she had spent
the last month building to save her work, and then logged out. Pulling a
bathrobe over her skyclad body, she stomped over to the door to her sanctuary,
and peered through the peephole.
Unfortunately,
the visitor was one who would not be put off by pretending that she wasn't
home. So the magician let out an annoyed sigh, and pulled open the door, not
releasing the safety catch.
"Hello,
Priss, is something the matter?" Nene asked, trying to be as calm as
possible.
Priss
cocked an eyebrow at her. "Is something the matter? You didn't make it to
the weekly meeting last night, kiddo. You're damn right something's the
matter."
"Weekly
meeting?" Nene asked, blinking. Then, "Oh sh-- shucks, that was
last night, wasn't it?"
"Oh,
yeah," Priss said, nodding smugly. "Sylia started to make dire
comments about Rule Number 8, so I covered for you. Told her that you'd told me
that you couldn't make it, but that you had stayed in touch."
"Gee,
thanks, Priss!" Nene said cheerfully. She'll want something.
"Yeah,
now could you pay me back by telling me what the hell's going on? I mean, I did
just stick my neck out for you."
"I'm
entertaining a pair of Swedish stewardesses," Nene told her.
"YOU'RE
WHAT?"
"Flashback,"
Nene said, flushing.
"?*TAHW
ER'UOY"
",sessedrawets
hsudewS fo riap a gniniatretne m'I"
".uoy
rof tuo kcen ym kcits tsuj did I ,n--"
Time
reasserted its normal flow. "--n, I did just stick out my neck for
you."
"And
I really appreciate that, Priss, but nothing's going on, I just forgot, that's
all." Nene hoped that the immense headache that she always felt after
releasing that particular macro wouldn't last long. She hoped that she'd never
need to use a flashback of longer than five seconds.
"Uh-huh,"
Priss replied, obviously not convinced. "Well, you might wanna call Sylia,
and give *her* your explanation."
"I
will," Nene assured her quickly.
"Right,
I'm outta here," Priss said, and headed off. Nene quickly closed the door,
dropped her robe, sat down in the center of her living space and began the work
again.
Today,
she was creating a macro to allow her to place and retrieve objects in astral
space. Thus, she was experimenting with the limits of her ability to project
her consciousness into the astral plane, in order to be able to send her
physical form there as well. That was the reason for her nudity -- it was hard
enough to send her body where she wanted it to be, let alone something
with only a tangential connection to her flesh and bone.
Okay,
the fact that this was one of the few truly sunny days Mega-Tokyo had
enjoyed for a while also contributed to it, along with Nene's desire to have a
full body tan. Her window was set to filter out the UV rays that were dangerous
to her skin while she "worked".
She
logged into the computer again, and began to adjust the parameters. Nene's
hacker-sense told her that she was on the verge of a breakthrough, and so she
paused to carefully examine every section of code. It felt almost right.
From another folder, she pulled up the source code of her
"conjuration" macro, which she had discovered in the first few days
of having her toolkit. Several of its sections -- dealing with pulling an
object into and through the astral -- had been essential to the development of
her "storage" macro. She reviewed it just as meticulously, and then
gave herself a nod.
The
conjuration also functioned as a safety net. She set her
"contingency" macro to activate it, targeted on a woman of her exact
characteristics, bringing her to her apartment, if within five ... no, two
minutes of the activation of her next macro, her body was still in the Astral.
Nene had "teleported" by conjuring herself to a familiar location
once before, and her stomach still twinged at the memory of vomiting up
everything she'd eaten in her life (or so it had seemed) in the wake. But
better a bit of discomfort than an eternity trapped in another dimension.
Nene
let out a long sigh. It was time.
Holding
the icon of the macro in question firmly in her mind, she began to slowly exert
her will, pressing down on it with --
KNOCK
KNOCK KNOCK.
The
macro shattered as Nene's attention was drawn away from it for a fraction of a
second, and the only thing holding it together -- her will -- went away. Hours
of effort ruined.
"GO
AWAY!" Nene shrieked.
* * *
"Of
arms and the warrior princess I sing, of her desperate struggle to save that
which she once did despise from the scorn of Ares. Of the metal of Hephaestus
... no, no, no. Too many syllables."
Xena
looked down from her horseback with a weary look on her face, to see Gabrielle
stumbling along a few feet behind Argo, scribbling on a sheet of parchment.
"Are you still at that?" she asked.
"Gotta
keep doing it 'til I get it right," Gabrielle staunchly replied.
"Gabrielle,"
Xena sighed, "writing about that particular adventure is worse than
pointless, because nobody's going to believe it. Armor that no weapon could
penetrate? Weapons that could cut through anything? C'mon!"
"Nobody
asks the bards who tell about Hercules and Iolaus killing the Hydra for proof
of those deeds," Gabrielle pointed out.
"That's
because that happened years ago! This was only last week! You're going to get
laughed out of anywhere you try to tell that story."
Gabrielle
smiled in a way that said, "Sure I will. When Athena kisses Ares and the
Muses applaud."
Xena
shook her long black mane of hair irritatedly. "And if you ever told this
story at any royal court, the king would immediately demand to know where he
could find such fearsome arms, and I doubt that he'd look fondly on the
knowledge that we destroyed every scrap of the metal of Hephaestus that we
could find."
Gabrielle
suddenly found the ground to be very intriguing at that point. Xena blinked.
And then a look of utter horror spread across the Warrior Princess' face. She
hopped down from Argo's back, and grabbed Gabrielle by the shoulders.
"Gabrielle," she said, drawing the last syllable of her companion's
last name out until it lasted nearly five seconds.
"It's
just a butter knife!" Gabrielle said in her own defense.
"Give."
"You've
been using it to spread butter on your morning biscuits ever since then, and
you never noticed, so --"
"Give!"
"But
--"
"Gabrielle,
give me the butter knife, NOW!"
Gabrielle
pouted. "I don't have it. It's in the saddle bag with the rest of the dishes."
Xena
released her iron grip on her partner's shoulders, and strode over to where
Argo was patiently waiting. A few seconds of rooting produced the spreading
knife in question. Xena stared at it with anxiety all over her face.
"Gods, Gabrielle, do you have any idea how dangerous this thing
is?"
"Oh,
yeah, a real menace to breakfast spreads everywhere," Gabrielle muttered
sarcastically.
Xena
wordlessly bent to the ground, picked up a rock from the road they were
traveling on, and started to methodically saw at it with the mildly serrated
edge of the butter knife.
A
few moments later, half of the rock fell to the ground, while Xena showed the
smooth edge that her cutting had left behind. "You see?" she
asked Gabrielle. "And for another thing --"
"Oh
... LEAVE ME ALONE!" Gabrielle shouted.
* * *
The
power of an untrained magician can be a truly frightening thing. Since the
magician doesn't know that certain things are impossible even with magic, there
is no reason for him or her to hesitate to attempt them.
The
power of an angry magician can also be a truly frightening thing. Since the
magician may be too angry to think things through clearly, his or her power
will attempt to think for him, finding "creative" ways to accomplish
his or her will.
The
power of a magician who is both untrained and angry is enough to
frighten an unprepared god.
* * *
The
knocking ceased, and Nene relaxed, slumping to the floor. Whoever it was had
obviously given up gone away.
Geez
I'm tired, she
thought. I haven't been this tired since I OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT!
Nene
forced herself to her feet, fumbled her way into her robe, and skittered over
to the door, flinging it open.
There
was a tall woman standing there, with long, black hair and intensely blue eyes.
She was wearing a ... leather swimsuit, or something like that, which had metal
stitchings, along with a pair of bracers on her forearms and tight fitting
boots. In her right hand, she held a butter knife. There was a circular object
fastened to her waist.
She
was looking around at her surroundings with a baffled expression when she
finally looked directly at Nene. For a second, her face was just as baffled as
it was when she looked at the hallway, but then her eyes narrowed, and her nose
flared.
She
didn't need to do that last bit, I was intimidated enough by the eyes ... Nene thought through her terror.
The
mysterious woman stepped forward, and Nene stepped backwards reflexively,
letting her into her apartment. "Now, now, I think you should just calm
down and let me know --"
The
woman began to say something in a language Nene didn't even begin to recognize,
gesturing with the butter knife as she did.
"I
know, I know you're upset, but --"
The
woman continued to speak over her, and pointed the knife at her. Nene reached
out to gently move it away from her, smiling in a way that she hoped wouldn't
be taken for panic. She yelped as her finger came away bloody, and promptly
popped it in her mouth.
The
woman blinked as she watched Nene do that. A bit of the anger went out of her
face, replaced by a guarded suspicion.
Nene
rationalized to herself. I could have summoned a demon. I could have sent
Priss to hell. I could have --> She looked past the woman for one
moment, and winced as she saw the small pile of motorcycle leathers that were
piled outside her door. I did ... she's gonna kill me ...
However,
before that could happen, Nene was going to have to figure out exactly what had
gone wrong. Which in turn meant that she would have to explain matters to the
woman she'd brought here in Priss' place. Nene opened up her toolkit, and poked
around in it until she found her Translator utility. Configuring it to give the
woman the ability to speak Japanese instead of enabling Nene to speak whatever
language she spoke took a few seconds, but she implemented it fairly quickly,
and awaited the results.
From
the sound of her voice, Nene deduced that the woman asked a question, in her
original language.
Nene's
brow furrowed. What's wrong here? A quick diagnostic revealed that the
problem was that the woman possessed a huge amount of inherent magical
energy within her, and that Nene's utility hadn't been able to overcome the
instinctive defenses that she raised against any form of magic, friendly or enemy.
Obviously,
the only thing to do would be to startle her so that the defenses came down.
For a moment, Nene wondered what the best way to go about doing that would be.
She thought about all the startling events in her life -- learning that she
could do magic, becoming a Knight Sabre, being kissed by --
Of
course!
Impulsively,
Nene hopped up to give the woman a kiss on the lips. The woman jerked back,
startled, and Nene activated the utility again.
"What
in Hades are you doing?" the woman barked.
"Okay!"
Nene enthused. "Now we're getting somewhere! So, who are y--"
"Wait
a minute. What language am I speaking? This isn't Greek."
Nene
blinked in surprise. According to the documentation, most people who were made
the subject of a Translation utility didn't realize that they weren't speaking
their normal language. Combined with the magical energy she'd discovered in
this woman, the fact that she did recognize that fact made Nene rather
intrigued.
"Um,
we're speaking Nihongo," Nene explained quickly.
"Nihon?"
the woman asked, clearly startled.
"You've
heard of it?"
The
woman nodded, almost absently. "Lao Ma taught me a bit about the barbarian
peoples of her part of the world ..." She suddenly shook her head.
"That's not important! How did I get here?! And more importantly, where's
Gabrielle?"
"I
... um, I'm not sure exactly how you got here --" Just a little white
lie, Nene assured herself. "-- and I don't even know who you
are, much less who this Gabrielle person is ..."
"My
name is Xena," the woman replied, her eyes narrowed, almost as if she
could tell that Nene wasn't telling her the whole truth.
Nene
was too busy contemplating fainting at the idea of having summoned a fictional
character to life to be bothered by that sharp-eyed gaze.
* * *
Gabrielle
stared in dumbfounded horror at the empty air where Xena had been up until a
second ago. I didn't want her to leave me alone that badly!
She
jerked back as a naked woman appeared in that space, her right hand clenched in
a fist and lifted up, with the knuckles facing towards Gabrielle. For a long
moment, there was silence.
"Nene?"
the woman said, her eyes looking from one side to another. She then looked down
at herself, and let out a hollow shriek. "Bar bar bar bar bar bar bar bar
bar bar bar bar!" she yelled in some barbarian tongue, looking around
angrily.
Her
distraction gave Gabrielle a chance to get a closer look at the strange
visitor. Her eyes were shaped in a strange, exotic way that reminded Gabrielle
of those of Niklio, the healer who had helped her when Xena had ... been dead.
But they were a strange, reddish-brown colour, and the woman's skin was shaded
much like Gabrielle's own, instead of the tanned, beige colour that --
"Bar
bar!" she shouted, suddenly noticing Gabrielle staring at her. "Bar
bar bar bar bar bar bar bar bar bar bar! Bar?!"
"I'm
sorry, I don't know what you're saying. Don't you speak Greek?" Gabrielle
asked.
"Bar
bar bar bar bar bar bar?!" Gabrielle realized, after a few moments, that
the woman had changed to a different language. All barbarian languages sounded
more or less alike to her, though, and it still didn't make a lick of sense.
Gabrielle
tried to use some of the Gaelic that Xena had taught her. "I no get what
you say?" she managed.
The
woman was clearly becoming quite irate. "Bar bar bar bar bar!" she
shouted, walking toward Gabrielle, and pointing her finger at her in an
aggressive gesture.
The
bard slid her Amazon staff into a ready grip, and gestured defensively. The
woman sniffed, and gave the appearance of one who viewed her opponent as non-consequential.
A
short demonstration of Amazon staff-fighting technique later, and the woman
stumbled back, her hand clutching her bruised cheek. "Bar bar," she
grumbled.
"Had
enough? No? Come on, I can take you easily!" Gabrielle bluffed. Inwardly,
she was slightly concerned. She'd hit the woman with just enough force to knock
her senseless. Whoever she was, she was obviously tougher than the average thug
employed by the people she and Xena usually wound up fighting. She was watching
Gabrielle warily, looking for any sign of weakness. Like an angry wolf.
Like
Xena.
Gabrielle
nodded to herself. "Look ... I can't understand you, and you can't
understand me, but aren't you getting a little cold like that? I mean, it is pretty
close to Solstice. Wouldn't you like some clothes instead of running around
naked all the time?" She gestured to her own, comfortable green
halter-top.
The
woman gazed at her, confusion and suspicion all over her face.
Gabrielle
decided to take a chance. She slowly moved her staff out of ready mode, and,
never taking her eyes off of the stranger's, set it down little ways away. She
then pulled at a corner of her skirt, and lifted her eyebrows in what she hoped
was a universal expression of inquiry.
Understanding
dawned on the woman's face, and she seemed to let go of her own ready stance at
the same time. But not all the way ... Gabrielle had seen enough warlords to be
able to tell a partial relaxation of one's guard from a full one.
A
truce, then, instead of real peace.
She
pointed to her face, and said "Gabrielle," in a slow, easily audible
voice.
The
woman nodded, and jerked her thumb back at her chest. "Priss."
"Very
nice to meet you, I'm sure," Gabrielle muttered. "And I really hope
one of Xena's spare tunics won't be too large for you ..."
To
Be Continued.
Author's Notes
In case you didn't know, the
origin of the term "barbarian" is in Ancient Greece, where it
referred to all peoples whose native language was not Greek. Instead, it
sounded to them like "bar bar bar bar ...". See any of the ancient
plays -- for example, in Sophocles' Agamemmnon, Cassandra, the doomed seer of
Troy, initially only speaks Trojan, represented by "OI OI OI OI OI"
with interjections of "Apollo".
It should be obvious that this
is going to be lighter than the usual Bubblegum Crisis fair. While grim moments
are common in Xena -- as the most recent episodes clearly show -- they are
outnumbered by much more cheerful ones.
"Bubblegum Crisis" was
created by Toshimichi Suzuki and others, and brought to North America by
AnimEigo. Xena: Warrior Princess was created by Robert Tapert and Sam Raimi,
and distributed worldwide by Universal/MCA. This story, while incorporating
elements of motion pictures held under copyright by others, is copyright 1998
of Chris Davies.
Nobody sue me, okay?
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