Disclaimers at end of fic.

The previous part of this was posted under a [Azumanga/???] tag.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 1.2 - The Dancer and the Soldiers

It was late in the day when Sakaki woke up. If she'd had the choice she
probably wouldn't have - she had slept blissfully, and she
subconsciously knew there were some horrible truths to wake up to.
Still, she eventually had to rouse... the ground was hard, and the
discarded Coke can she was lying on was making things difficult for her
right shoulder.

She opened her eyes and gazed upwards. Buildings hemmed her in on either
side and beyond them hung the bluest sky she could remember.

For a moment Sakaki wondered why she felt so helpless. Then she
remembered.
"Chiyo!"
She sat bolt-upright and started looking around, before scrambling to
her feet and running around in circles trying to find her small friend.
"CHIYO-CHAN!"
No answer. The alleyway she'd found herself in was empty apart from her.
"CHIYO-CHAN! KAGURA!" Sakaki screamed despite herself. "YOMI, TOMO,
AYUMU! FATHER! MOTHER! SOMEBODY!"
Her voice echoed up and down the alleyway, up to the sky where the gulls
might have heard it and not particularly cared.


A quarter of an hour later Sakaki was sitting by the wall, trying to
wipe the tears out of her eyes, but they wouldn't stop. She'd made it
out, but the enormity of the situation had hit her. Almost everyone
she'd ever known was gone... and in her panic, she had practically
murdered Kagura. She couldn't get the vision of Kagura slamming against
that door out of her head. She told herself over and over that she
hadn't meant to do so, but the possibility that she'd abandoned Kagura
to die tore at her heart - and was only made worse by the possibility
that it wasn't just Kagura, and all her friends and family were dead.

The only light in the situation was that Sakaki was sure she'd managed
to rescue Chiyo - even though she was nowhere to be seen. She'd given it
some thought, and decided that at least Chiyo had to be somewhere
nearby, wherever this was. She was almost sure she'd not let go as they
were falling, at least up until she'd passed out.
Sakaki checked the pockets of her gakuran. Naturally she didn't have her
purse, though one pocket had about 200 yen she'd intended to put in the
vending machines, and her emergency plasters which she always carried
in case she was bitten. The other pocket had her watch in it. It was
still running but oddly it now read 2:30 AM, which was definitely not
local time.
She strapped it to her wrist and looked around... and saw something she
really had not expected to see.


When Sakaki was younger she had periodically taken trips to Kyoto to
visit her grandparents, until her grandfather had died and her
grandmother moved to Tokyo to be with her daughter and son-in-law. But
before that, her grandparents had lived only a street away from a large
shrine which had several white-blossomed trees in the grounds. It was a
popular flower-watching spot.

Then high winds took down a tree. Not one to waste good wood, the
shrine's priest decided to make souvenirs out of it to sell. It became a
wide selection of good luck charms, love charms, knickknacks and - in
the case of one of the larger boughs - long staffs, for those who wanted
to spend more money and not get something completely tacky.

A lot of care had gone into these staffs. The wood was perfectly smooth,
well balanced, and at one end a pattern of white petals had been carved
and dyed onto them. But one staff in particular had appealed to the
young Sakaki. By sheer coincidence a cluster of knots in the wood had
come together to make it look like a pair of kittens were playing with
one of the petals.
This made it a must-have item for the little girl, even though she
barely had the strength to hold it up without it wobbling. Her father
had remarked that she might be strong enough to actually use it when she
grew up, but this had not interested Sakaki very much. She just wanted
to own it and it spent the years between then and now in a corner of her
room, standing above her collection of cat memorabilia.


And now it was inexplicably with her in this strange, deserted alleyway.
Sakaki picked it up, running her fingers along the smooth wood. It was
as tall as she was now and felt a lot lighter than she remembered -
still somewhat weighty, but bearable. She didn't know how it got here -
hell, she didn't know how /she'd/ got here - but she was glad it came,
especially when she saw the cute picture that had attracted her to this
staff in the first place. It lifted her spirits a little and raised her
confidence, even though she had no idea how to use the thing.

As much as Sakaki wished she could do something for Kagura and her
friends, she knew she couldn't, and the guilt was gnawing at her
fingers. But she could still find Chiyo.


Sakaki stepped out of the alleyway and looked around. She'd found
herself in an abandoned street. It was not badly kept, it looked like
there had been people here recently, but there was nobody else here now.
The buildings were relatively modern, and there were a lot of signs in
English around - Sakaki was from Tokyo so that was not unusual, but the
signs here were usually correctly spelled and punctuated. A chill wind
was blowing, which made her glad she was wearing this gakuran and not
her normal gym clothes.

She wondered if she was in a western town - somewhere in England or
America. She wasn't ready to dismiss that as impossible, given what had
happened to her today. Sakaki was more worried about why it was so quiet
anyway. No cars, no people - it was giving her a dreadful feeling she
thought she'd felt before.

The girl quietly headed down the street, keeping a brisk pace and
sweeping her eyes around, looking for any signs of life. A figure in a
shop window caught her eye, but a second glance revealed it was just a
cardboard cut-out of a robot, whose speech bubble said he wanted manga
and trading cards. A peek behind it revealed a dingy shop with colorful
manga on the walls and display cases behind a large counter. A shop for
otaku then. Not of much interest to a lost connoisseur of Cute. Then
again, they could have some of that delightful Tokyo Mew Mew manga in
or, Sakaki thought, maybe there could be somebody there who could help
her.

She opened the door and stepped into the shop, jumping slightly when a
bell jingled in the silence. The place was deserted.
[Hello?] she called in Japanese. [Anyone here?]
No answer. She decided to try some English. "Is any one here? Hello?"
she said, quietly praising Yukari-sensei for terrifying her into extra
studying. There was no answer though, despite Sakaki's 90% in spoken.

She took a look around the shop. Nothing really interested her, although
she did see Mew Ichigo on the cover of a DVD case. It was called
something other than Tokyo Mew Mew though, and it was in the Reduced to
Clear bin with a $1.99 sticker on it. She left it there, as she didn't
have much use for DVDs right now, and started to go through to the back
room.

"Excuse me? Is any one there?" she asked, wishing someone would say
"yes" this time... or even better, "Hai!" But the back room was
uninhabited - and quite a mess. Apart from the carelessly piled stock,
there were also plenty of discarded fast-food wrappers and even a half-
eaten hamburger and carton of French fries on a desk next to a computer.
The computer's screen had a game running on it, one of those shooting
games Westerners seemed to like. The text at the top of the screen
suggested the map had restarted nearly a dozen times without any of the
players scoring a single point, and the last piece of in-game chat was
completely unintelligible to her. "<thrillho> hey hav al U guy5 gon
AFK?"

Sakaki gulped and her eyes darted around - he had an intensely bad
feeling now. She hastily moved back into the shop itself and glanced out
the window, only to see something terribly cute. And she hated it.


Yomi once said [Sakaki does anger as well as Tomo does math] which was
pretty accurate. (She'd know what she was talking about, as Yomi was
accomplished in both subjects) So when the end of Sakaki's staff swept
into the head of a squat, inky shadow creature it was like Tomo doing
Advanced Statistical Calculus. Sakaki was slow to anger but had finally
reached her limit.

She snarled in rage as the thing shot sideways and thudded into a wall.
She'd never been so mad at anything so cute in her life but she didn't
press her attack, instead giving the thing a moment to get up. She
wanted to question it.
[Hey!] She tried to get the thing's attention. [You'd better tell me
where Chiyo-chan is, or...]

It didn't even wait for her to finish her threat. As soon as it was on
it's feet it ran and leapt for her, claws reaching for her face. She
raised her staff and hit it with the middle, knocking the thing to the
ground, and then lifted the staff up and slammed it on the creature.

There was a dim flash of light and it vaporised, exploding into a shower
of both green balls of energy and yellow and blue orbs. Sakaki stood in
the middle of them, and a rash of conflicting emotions hit her. Dismay
that she'd killed something, satisfaction at destroying one of those
things, amazement that it had been so easy. It had been really easy, and
she wondered why she'd been so afraid of them.

Then one appeared in the corner of her eye, slowly walking up behind
her. Another was just ahead of her, and as she straightened up she saw
others on the rooftops and canopies, in the shops and beneath the tables
of the sidewalk cafe.
They were everywhere, there were a LOT of them, and she remembered she
was afraid of them. Nearly a dozen now, fixing their pale eyes on her,
and more to come. Sakaki noticed these ones did not resemble cats at
all... they were the same size and build as the ones that had appeared
at her school but they lacked the tail and cat ears. Instead they had a
pair of antennae, making them look like insects.

Insects. An infestation, overwhelming by sheer strength of numbers. She
couldn't fight that. She could barely fight at all. And she had to find
Chiyo-chan.

Sakaki made a break for it, shooting for the spot where there were the
fewest monsters. She slammed one over the head to knock it out of the
way and dashed past it, hoping to outrun them. The street was clear
ahead of her, and given that she didn't know where she was it was as
good a direction as any.

The creatures ran after her - their stumbling, shambling gait was
nowhere near fast enough to keep pace with her, but it didn't matter. As
some of them fell behind and dropped out of the chase, so others
appeared from the buildings on either side of Sakaki and joined the
crowd. Overall she was gaining pursuers.

Sakaki rounded a corner and ran for a t-junction - which had someone
standing in the middle of it. A boy with wavy black hair, wearing a gray
cloak. He was facing away from her though, and wasn't aware of the crowd
closing in on him.

Sakaki yelled [Look out!] and he turned to face her. She caught sight of
a serious face that quickly became dismayed as he looked behind her, and
as she ran past him he scrambled after her.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" He yelled at her. "I JUST GOT AWAY 
FROM THESE SHADOWS!"
"Sorry." Sakaki replied, feeling sheepish.
"Do you have any idea how long I've been running and fighting these
things for?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

Sakaki heard him grunt and quicken his pace to draw up beside her.

"Well, there's no point in separating now, they'll follow both of us."
he reasoned, somewhat annoyed. "Where are we going?"
"I don't know. Away from here." she replied.
"You don't know where we are?"
"No, I've not been here before."
"Great." He groaned angrily. "I haven't either."


They rounded another corner and emerged into the city square, a nice
grassy area surrounded by shops and the government offices. It was
deserted apart from a statue of a man standing victoriously over a dead
bear.

The boy turned his face to Sakaki.

"We need to lose these things or fight them. We can't keep running."
"We can't fight them," Sakaki replied. "They just keep coming."
"They eventually stop," he replied. "I've fought them off." Sakaki took
a long look at him, and he continued. "It took a while, but they
eventually stop appearing if you show them they can't get to you." He
tried to look confident, but Sakaki thought she saw reluctance in his
eyes.

She thought about it for a moment and tightened her grip on her staff.

"OK. What do we do?"

His reluctance seemed to grow for a moment as he reached inside his
cloak and drew out a long sword. As he did so Sakaki caught a look at
his clothes - it looked like a school uniform. A sky-blue blazer worn
over a white shirt, with a tie and black pants. The blazer was open and
it and his shirt were torn in places.

"Stay close to the statue. Don't run off. We'll try to watch each
other's backs."

Sakaki nodded in agreement and they ran to the figure with the bear,
stopping at the statue's feet.

"By the way..." the boy said while the monsters closed in. "What is my
ally's name?"
"Sakaki."
"Good to meet you. I'm Fakir, and you're the first person I've seen for
hours." Despite his anger, there was a relieved tone to his voice.


The first of the monsters reached the pair and neither Sakaki nor Fakir
hesitated. Each brought their weapon down in a vertical swipe that would
have driven the things into the soft grass or cleft them in half if they
hadn't immediately been destroyed.

Then another three attacked, and the pair found themselves splitting up
a little. Sakaki stayed somewhat stationary with her back to the statue,
poking and swiping at the things as they came near, but she was amazed
when she saw Fakir fighting. He wasn't just quick, he was graceful. That
sword looked big, but he seemed to have a great understanding of both
his and it's momentum. He spun, twisted and swung precisely and every
movement was calculated to increase the power of his strikes. Sakaki
looked completely clumsy next to him, though she managed to hold her
own.

Yet even as three, four, five of the creatures were killed so more
arrived to replace them. Sakaki and Fakir found themselves increasingly
harried. Then one of the shadows made its way though Sakaki's defense
while she was swatting another one away from her. Its claws raked at her
left thigh - it didn't even draw blood, but an aching pain shot though
her leg and she felt her knee and ankle buckle. Sakaki stumbled sideways
and lost her balance, falling and cracking her shoulder against the
statue's pedestal.

"Eyah!" Sakaki's cry got Fakir's attention and he ran over, dispatching
the monster menacing Sakaki and turning his attention to one that was
creeping up on her, but the swarm's attack seemed to be suddenly
intensifying as if the monsters had suddenly smelled blood. For her part
Sakaki tried to help, but her leg was numb from the thigh down and the
pain in her shoulder was enormous. She couldn't use both hands or stand,
just sit against the pedestal and wildly swing her staff with her
working arm.

Three of the things leered over her and Sakaki desperately swung at
them, wishing she could get all three at once with a wide enough swing.
Unfortunately they were just out her range and the tip of the staff only
clipped the shoulder of the foremost one. Her eyes grew wider as she saw
all three ready themselves for a pounce.

Then there was a series of loud cracks from somewhere and two started
shaking wildly - thrown about by streams of what looked like fire and
electricity. After a moment they vanished in a flash. The remaining
creature ignored its neighbors' fate and took a leap for Sakaki, but it
was a leap into her shoe as she kicked out with her good leg. All it did
was knock the thing back, but then a stream of fire caught it and it
exploded.

Sakaki tried to sit up a little and took a look around. The area
directly around her was clear. A loud repeated crack came from her left
and she looked over to see a man in combat fatigues aiming an assault
rifle at another monster. Small bolts of what looked like electricity
shot from the barrel of his gun - it took a couple of seconds of
repeated fire but the thing was obliterated, bursting into a shower of
those green balls of energy and the hard yellow and blue orbs.

The soldier ceased firing and quickly looked around. There was someone
else on the opposite side of the battle firing bursts of flame from a
single-handed gun, a figure dressed in blue, green and black with a
white R and a star on the back of his jacket. The two had caught the
group of monsters in a pincer and come out on top, and now the park was
littered with specks of green, blue and gold from the balls they had
left behind.

Fakir saw that the fight was over and ran over to Sakaki, kneeling
beside her.
"Are you hurt?"
"I think so." That was an understatement. Her shoulder was in severe
pain and her leg completely numb now. Fakir caught a look at her
shoulder and squirmed despite himself.
"That doesn't look good."

"Well, what have we got here?" someone said, and Sakaki looked up to see
the man in fatigues standing over them. He looked and sounded American
and was entering middle-age - he seemed to be in good shape but his face
was rough and craggy, and his hair was graying and receding slightly.
Yet his eyes seemed remarkably alive, even though they looked tired, as
if a cheeky young man was trying to escape through them. "A pair of
heroes, huh?" he said, slightly mockingly. "Well, I can't blame you for
trying." He kneeled down next to Sakaki and shooed an annoyed Fakir
away. "We've got to be quick, but let me have a look at that. What
happened?"

Sakaki told him about how the thing had hit her, and that she'd fallen
into the pedestal.

"Right. Point to where it got you," he instructed. She did so and he
looked around, grabbing one of the green glowing balls on the ground. He
put it in her hand. "One of those things gets you, you get some of this
stuff. They block the nerves up or something, makes you numb. This stuff
clears them up."

Sakaki nodded and pressed the ball against her thigh. It was warm, but
didn't have an immediate effect.

"Tell me when you think you can walk," the soldier said, "we'll take
care of your arm at the bar. For now..." - he unclipped the strap of his
rifle and adjusted the buckle enough to make it into a makeshift sling -
"put your arm in this." Then he looked up and saw the other man was
wandering around, gathering up the gold and blue orbs. "CARL!" he yelled
angrily. "I told you to stay on watch!"

"An' I heard you O'Neill!" the other man - Carl - yelled back,
continuing to gather orbs. The soldier - O'Neill - frowned and muttered
under his breath.

Fakir, who had been watching, was starting to get frustrated. "Listen...
who are you?" he demanded. "What's going on?"

"Later, kid," O'Neill dismissed Fakir. "We're going to get somewhere
more secure and wait for extraction. You can hear all about it there."
He looked at Sakaki. "Can you walk yet?"

Sakaki nodded. Her leg had pins and needles now but it was getting
better and she could move it. The green ball had dwindled away to almost
nothing though, but she had the feeling it'd finished its job.

"Great. You..." O'Neill motioned to Fakir, "help her up, support her if
she needs it." He turned to Carl. "We're moving!"

Fakir took Sakaki's good arm and helped her up. She stumbled slightly
getting to her feet and looked up - to see one of those creatures
standing over her. It towered over her...
She panicked, shrieked and tried to raise her hands, but one was in a
sling and the other was held by Fakir. So she lost her balance again and
would have fallen if Fakir hadn't caught her.

"Hey, hey, easy!" O'Neill tried to calm her down. "There's nothing to be
afraid of. Take another look."

She looked up and saw her mistake - none of those monsters had worn
jackets, jeans or a green t-shirt. It was a black man, not a monster -
actually the first she'd ever seen in person. It was the man O'Neill had
called Carl, and he looked a little aggravated and offended, but said
nothing.


The next few minutes were like a dream, for Sakaki. O'Neill walked ahead
of her, Carl watched the rear, and Fakir helped her stumble along. It
was extremely awkward because Sakaki's bad shoulder and her bad leg were
both on her left hand side, so Fakir couldn't support her hurt side very
well.
Fortunately it didn't take long for her leg to come back to life. By the
time they reached their destination and O'Neill rapped on a door she
could walk without support, and could look up and see the sign above
said door.


"MOE'S TAVERN"


The door was opened by grim, broadly built man. He wore a heavy flak
jacket, combat pants and a green bandanna, from which small tufts of
blond hair and a short ponytail peeked out. He was a little younger than
O'Neil but seemed much more serious. He was also aiming a large shotgun
at them.

"Oh, it's you." He lowered his shotgun and stepped aside.
"Nice to see you too Drake," O'Neill said caustically as he stepped
inside, followed by Fakir, Sakaki and Carl. "We found some heroes out
there. You know how to pop a shoulder back in, right?"
"Well, yeah." Drake replied. "So do you."
"Yeah, but I've always been bad at that kind of stuff. Best not to
chance it." O'Neill walked over to a chair and almost fell into it,
sighing.

Sakaki stepped into the bar. It was dark, dank and cool, and there was
an unpleasant smell that was intermingled with a very strong scent of
coffee. There was something hideous behind the bar, but Sakaki caught
herself this time and did not assume it was a monster. It was just the
barman - a short, skinny and quite ugly person in an apron, clutching a
shotgun in his hands. He seemed quite alarmed to see everyone, and was
keeping his distance. And next to him... there was a baby playing on the
bar. A little girl in a blue baggie. She had unruly blond hair with a
blue bow in it and sucked on a red pacifier. She was currently engaged
in a prime example of unsanitary cute - playing with a picked egg. She
was rolling it around on the bar, giggling at the way this slippery,
funny-shaped ball moved. Then she brought the palm of her hand down and
*splat!* Egg went everywhere. The bartender only reacted by getting her
another pickled egg from the jar.

Because of this it took a while for Drake to get Sakaki's attention. He
eventually got it by clicking his fingers and yelling [Hey, over here!]
He'd seen this kind of behavior before after all, just with a different
fixation.

[Oh? Sorry...] Sakaki looked at Drake and - somewhat surprised - asked
[You can speak Japanese?]
[I've done a lot of work in Japan,] was the reply. He pulled at the
collar of her gakuran and smirked a little. "Looks like we have a rebel
here, guys."
"How do you figure?" Carl asked.
Drake was about to reply when Sakaki spoke up. [I don't usually dress
like this,] she said, somewhat abashed.
[Oh?] He shrugged and just replied "never mind," to Carl, before turning
his attention back to the gakuran. [We need to take this off. This a t-
shirt? I'll need to cut the sleeve open as well.]

It took some time for them to get the gakuran off without hurting Sakaki
too much. O'Neill just rested his eyes while Carl watched the door. On
the other hand, Fakir started impatiently pacing around, and went to
stand over O'Neill.

"Right," he said coolly, "we're somewhere safe now, so maybe you can
tell us where we are, and who you are."

O'Neill opened an eye and looked at Fakir for a moment, before sighing
and sitting forward. "Fine. I'm Colonel Jack O'Neill, United States Air
Force." He extended an arm toward Drake and clicked his tongue. "Drake?"
"Huh?" Drake looked up from trying to cut open Sakaki's sleeve with the
tiny scissors on his Swiss Army Knife. "Oh. Drake Anderson, mercenary -
and doctor, apparently," he added grumpily.
Then O'Neill motioned to Carl, who said "Carl Johnson, representin'
Grove Street Families."
"There you go." O'Neill said. "As for where you are," he pulled a wad of
folded paper out of his inside pocket and dumped it on the table, "up
until a few days ago we called this world N15-E22-1. Now we know it's
called Springfield, but I guess not for much longer."

Fakir looked confused, and took a look at the paper. He didn't recognize
it as a starmap, but that's what it was. "What? What do you mean, 'this
world?"
Sakaki spoke up. "You're aliens."
"Aliens?" a strange, croaky voice rasped. Sakaki turned and saw it was
the barman. "I dunno. You guys are pretty short on weird noses and bumpy
foreheads."

Something about that made O'Neill smirk. "Not all aliens are like that.
But yeah, I guess we're aliens, because we're not from *this* Earth. But
we're all humans from *an* Earth... and so are you two." He nodded at
Fakir and Sakaki. "This isn't your world."
"So why are we here?" Fakir asked.
"Because you're either very lucky, or VERY unlucky," came back the
Colonel's bitter reply.

And with that O'Neill got to his feet and walked behind the bar, opening
up the chiller and grabbing a few bottles of beer.

"Duff? What the hell? Got any real beer Moe?"
"It don't get much realer than Duff." Moe replied.
"We're on duty, O'Neill," Drake said, admonishing his teammate without
turning away from Sakaki's shoulder.
"You want one then Drake?" O'Neill asked.
"Yeah," Drake replied, "but not while we're on duty. Save it for the
ship." O'Neill shrugged and sighed, but put his beer down.
"I'll take one," Carl waved to get O'Neill's attention. "I ain't never
been on duty."

O'Neill shrugged and came back from behind the bar, handing a bottle to
Carl. He then offered one to Fakir.

"Want one?"
"No. Stop stalling and stop avoiding it, I want to know what's
happening. What are those things?" Sakaki watched Fakir stare down
O'Neill, and for a moment it looked like he had cowed him, but Sakaki
suspected there was more to it than that.

"O'Neill doesn't like talking about this," Carl then said. "He's sick of
telling the story."
O'Neill just nodded and pointed to Carl. "The banger has it right. You
want to take over Carl?"
"Me? Hell no. I don't know all the details anyway."
"Drake?" O'Neill asked, turning to his remaining teammate.
"I'm a chiropractor today, not a storyteller," Drake just grumbled.

O'Neill sighed and put his beer on a table. "Okay, fine." He sat at a
table and leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him and his elbows
on his knees. "Those things... well, some people call them the
Heartless." There was a tone and tempo in his voice there that suggested
he didn't like the name much. "I don't know why, I figure they must have
plenty of hearts after all the worlds they've destroyed."

"They destroy worlds?" Fakir asked.

"Oh yeah," O'Neill replied. "They like to kill people, take their
hearts... you probably all saw that. But what they're really after is
your world's heart. They get that, and you're screwed. Completely
screwed. Reality starts to rot away."



Sakaki sat quietly and thought about the attack back at her school, and
her corrupted classroom. Rotting was a good way to describe it.

"So everything, and everyone, and everywhere I've ever seen is gone?"
O'Neill just nodded quietly.
"But..." Moe the bartender was the next to speak. "Those things are
here! What's gonna happen here?"
"Well, they started the main attack about three hours ago, and this is a
very big world. I don't want to guess, but this place will probably be
going all purple and gooey in... hm..." O'Neill looked at his watch. "An
hour?"

Everyone looked at him in horror.

"It could be more," he added optimistically. "It doesn't matter though.
We have about half an hour until our pickup arrives."

The room fell silent, apart from the giggling and gurgling of the baby.
Fakir sat down in a chair while Carl finally opened his bottle of beer
and took a drink.

"So we're just waiting to be rescued then?" Fakir asked. He sounded
frustrated.
"Yep, that's it," O'Neill responded. "Try to relax, save your energy. We
might have trouble getting on to the ship."

Sakaki frowned as Drake finished cutting though her sleeve. An hour
until this world was killed, and Chiyo-chan was out there somewhere.

She saw Drake making a close inspection of her shoulder. [Hm, you're
lucky,] he told her, [this is a very small dislocation. The pain is
going to be the worst thing about it.] He looked up at her face. [That's
good, by the way.]
He took her hand and pulled her arm away from her body, making her
quiver and wince as he moved her shoulder. [Sorry, but we don't have any
anesthetic, it was all in the Infernus,] Drake said, [but it'll be over
soon.]

It was at that point where Fakir's cloak started to quack. A surprised
look jumped onto his face, and he leaned down and took a look in an
inside pocket.

Sakaki watched as an angry yellow duck was lifted out of his pocket.
Fakir started to say "Oh, sorry..." but it nipped at his thumb and he
let out a yell, throwing the duck up into the air so he could grab at
the pecked digit.
The bird fluttered over to the bar and quacked angrily at Fakir several
times, drawing stares from everyone. (except Drake, who was trying to
concentrate.)

"Okay, now I have a question for you," O'Neill said. "Why did you have a
duck in your pocket?"

Fakir actually looked embarrassed, and paused before replying. "She's a
pet, of sorts." That just seemed to make the duck madder and it started
rapidly quacking at Fakir.
It got so enthralled in its quacking that it didn't notice the baby
crawling up behind it, until the little girl had grabbed  its tail
feathers.
The duck "waaaak"-ed and fell backwards. It sat up and shot a glare at
the baby who, chastised, offered it a peanut from one of the bowls as an
apology. It declined the offer, so the baby selected a better peanut and
offered that instead. No go. Then the baby, in one final offer, pulled
her pacifier out of her mouth and jammed it in the duck's beak. That
seemed to placate the duck, or at least really surprise it.

Sakaki was so intent on watching this she never noticed what Drake was
doing, at least until he asked her [right, hows that?] She looked at her
shoulder, and saw that while a lot of it was bruised it all lined up
better now. It still hurt a lot, but much of the pain was gone and she
could move her arm more freely now. She started carefully pulling the
gakuran back on, as cutting open the sleeve of her t-shirt had revealed
her shoulder and a bra strap.

[It's much better. Thank you.] Sakaki glanced at her watch - 3:15 AM -
and looked at O'Neill. "When did you say they were going to come for
us?" she asked.
"Twenty-five minutes now," he guessed, shrugging his shoulders.
"Okay. I'll be here." And with that she made for the door, getting
halfway though by the time Carl grabbed her good shoulder and pulled her
back.

"Hey! Where the hell do you think you're goin'?"

Sakaki tried to look fearless, but he still intimidated her a lot.

"I need to find Chiyo-chan." She tried to move through the door again,
but Carl was a lot stronger than her and held her in place with one
hand.
O'Neill was now on his feet. "Get away from the door," he ordered.
"Nobody is going outside until our transport is here. You are staying
here and staying alive."
"But Chiyo-chan must be out there! She's just twelve years old." And
with that Sakaki quickly told the others about how she'd fallen though
the chalkboard with Chiyo in her arms. "I have to find her," she
concluded, "I'm supposed to look after her."

The others looked sympathetic, and Fakir got up from his chair. "If
someone's out there, I'll help you find her."

But O'Neill wasn't going to change his mind. "Sit down, shut up!" he
told Fakir, and then he turned to Sakaki. "You're not going out there,
it'd be pointless. Think about it... is Chiyo the kind of girl who would
leave you unconscious and alone in an alley and wander off by herself?"

Sakaki didn't even need to think about that. "No, she wouldn't."

"Then she's probably not even in this world," Drake solemnly said. "If
you were separated when you were falling, she could be anywhere, on any
world. You won't find her in twenty-five minutes."

Those words scooped out Sakaki's will, and she thought about Chiyo - all
alone, hopelessly lost and beyond her help. she didn't cry in front of
these people, but avoiding it was the hardest thing she'd ever done.



Twenty minutes later a long, oblong shape appeared in the skies above
Springfield. It was slightly pointed at one end and squared at the
other. The entire object was pure white, apart from a red stripe two
thirds along its length.

It drew level with the tops of the buildings and hovered in place,
before letting down a circular disc that settled in the far lane of the
street. Drake and Carl were the first ones out of the bar, running ahead
to the disc to secure the area. They stood on either side of the disc,
watching the street.
O'Neill stood in the door frame, with his rifle ready. "Okay, you need
to make it to the elevator there. That ship is going to attract every
heartless in the area, so make it quick. We'll cover you. Moe, you and
the baby first, then Sakaki, then Fakir."

There was a round of gunfire. Carl had opened fire on a heartless with
his uzis, shooting searing bolts of flame at it. He didn't hit but it
seemed to dissuade the thing from advancing further. Yet heartless were
emerging from all the other directions, and there didn't seem to be any
limit to them.
O'Neill's face fell. "Shit. Okay, go now!"

Moe ran out into the street, carrying the baby and his shotgun. A
heartless seemed to appear out of nowhere and started chasing him, but
it was rewarded with a blast of ice to its face, delivered from Drake's
shotgun.

Sakaki then ran for it, shooting for the safe spot in between the two
guns. A dark shape reared up on her right hand side but she had enough
strength to jab at it, sending the almost-weightless creature directly
into Carl's line of fire. She saw bolts of electricity zip past her from
behind, but quickly decided not to worry about what O'Neill was shooting
at. She ran on, feeling like this two-lane street was a marathon, and as
she reached the elevator she saw Carl turn one of his uzis on her.

"DOWN!" he commanded, and Sakaki dove for the lift. She heard the heavy
cracks of his gun firing and felt the fire sizzle its way past the back
of her head, impacting on something only a foot or so from her. Her
landing was less than perfect, but she didn't aggravate her previous
injury and was able to scramble halfway to her feet just in time to see
Drake try to bat an attacking heartless away with the stock of his
shotgun. As he did so Sakaki saw something - no, two small things -
shake loose from the barrel and fall to the ground.

The creature fell onto the street and Drake leveled his shotgun at it
for the final blow, but instead of it shooting ice it just shot regular
shells which did nothing more than send said heartless skidding along
the asphalt.
Drake gaped and stared at his weapon for a moment before yelling "Damn!
The materia!" Sakaki was a step ahead of him however and was already
looking around near his feet, searching for the small items he'd
dropped. They turned out to be small orbs, one green and one blue. Both
felt perfectly smooth and the green one was chilly to the touch. There
was another loud boom from above her as Drake fired off another shell,
knocking back a heartless that was heading for him, and Sakaki tried to
pass the gems to him.

"Here!"

[Thanks,] he replied. Sakaki swung at the heartless Drake had hit, while
he clipped the wayward gems back onto his shotgun. Then he came out
blasting again, and in the absence of any immediate targets Sakaki
turned her attention back to the doorway.
Fakir was already on his way over, though he was taking a while because
he was carefully avoiding any heartless that came his way. His twisting
and spinning almost seemed like dancing to her, despite the fact he had
a duck nestled in the crook of his arm, but his strikes were almost
savage now.

He reached the elevator and jumped on. Now there was only O'Neill to
worry about, but there was a crowd of heartless at the door to the bar
now and O'Neill was nowhere in sight. Sakaki was relieved when she saw
sparks of electricity come out of the doorway - he was still in there,
but had been forced backwards into the bar.

"O'Neill!" Drake yelled. "Come on, get out of there!" Even with Sakaki,
Fakir and Moe's help Drake and Carl were both hard pressed to defend the
elevator. They couldn't cover O'Neill's escape, and sending Sakaki or
Fakir over to assist would have defeated the point of the last two
minutes. Sakaki heard O'Neill shout something back, but couldn't make it
out.
Then she heard a shout from above them.

"GET HIM TO BACK UP INTO THE BAR! I'M GOING TO SUMMON!"

Sakaki looked up at the ship and saw a man dressed in black, standing at
the circular hole the elevator had disconnected from.
Drake looked up and his jaw dropped. "Damn, this too? O'NEILL!" Drake
roared, "GET FURTHER BACK INTO THE BAR! LEON'S DAMN BIRD IS COMING!"
There was a grunt from the bar - it sounded like "Shit!" but the gunfire
muffled it.

Sakaki then saw a spark of electricity on the ground. It grew rapidly,
becoming a ball of glowing energy, and then a bolt of lightning streaked
down from the sky and there was an almost-blinding flash. When Sakaki
was next able to open her eyes without seeing spots, there was an
indescribably huge, green, leathery bird in the air before her. Energy
crackled around its wings, coursing its way up toward its beak.
She watched in amazement as it rocked its head backwards and then
forwards, and a hemisphere of crackling electricity appeared outside the
door. It stayed there for a moment, electrocuting the heartless crowded
there, and then started to shrink to the size of a soccer ball, before
exploding in another bright flash that forced her to avert her eyes.
When she looked back, the bird was gone, and so were all the heartless
it attacked.

After only a moment's hesitation O'Neill came sprinting out of the bar
and made for the elevator. As soon as he was on the platform Sakaki felt
it start to move, and it rose up into the ship above them. Heartless
clustered on the street below them, but they couldn't follow the
floating platform up, and merely futilely jumped after it.



The interior of the floating ship closed around the group and Sakaki's
jaw dropped. The interior was as brilliantly white as its exterior, and
spacious. The walls of the ship must have been very thin to leave so
much space. There were forward-facing seats along the port and starboard
walls, tables in the center and a large TV screen on the wall.

Carl immediately ran off toward a door in the fore wall, and Sakaki
turned to see a man standing near her. He was tall, with longish brown
hair and a serious demeanor. There was a diagonal scar on his forehead,
coming down between his eyes. He wore a white shirt underneath a black
leather jacket and had black pants. An odd-looking sword hung at his
waist - there was something strange about the handle - and a symbol that
looked like a roaring lion hung from a chain around his neck.

"Welcome to the Illumina," he said. "I know what you're thinking, and
we'll have some answers for you soon, if O'Neill hasn't given you any
yet." With this he shot a stony glare at O'Neill, who was already
strapping himself into one of the seats.

"Relax Leon," O'Neill said. "I already went over the basics with them."
"That makes a nice change then."

Drake was also getting strapped in to a seat. "Hurry up and sit down,"
he told the others. "We're not out of danger yet." Sakaki, Fakir and Moe
complied, as they were alarmed by his words, but Leon just stood where
he was.

"Relax. We may still be here, but I checked the scanner - we're safe.
There's no sign of flying heartless on this world, or large ones."
"Who said the danger was the Heartless?" Drake replied. "Did you see
Carl heading for the cockpit? Remember being with him in that shuttle?"

Leon stared at Drake for a moment, and all the color drained out of his
face. He dove for a seat just in time, as the entire ship tipped
backwards forty-five degrees and it jolted forward, a sharp shudder
shaking the hull when the engines suddenly fired.

Sakaki felt the G-force pin her into her seat, and for an unusually-
lengthy minute she was the most frightened she'd been all day, which was
saying something. Gravity quickly died away and for a brief moment
Sakaki experienced weightlessness, though the force keeping her in her
seat prevented her from enjoying it. Then gravity seemed to reinstate
itself, realigning itself so that down was once again down, and the
pressure pushing her back died away.

She sat up, amazed at her own survival. She could hear Fakir moaning
behind her, Drake grumbling behind him. Leon was on the opposite side
for the room, halfway into a seat, sprawled against the wall. He shot
O'Neill a dirty look and asked "Why didn't you stop him taking the
helm?"
"He gets trigger-happy if he doesn't get to drive every so often," was
O'Neill's frustrated reply.


Sakaki turned to the window beside her and looked out - blackness,
interrupted by infrequent specks of light. She was in space.
She didn't gasp, or scream, or laugh. She was too exhausted. She just
stared out the window at the beautiful scene before her, awed and
overcome and tired by the day's events. It was incredible... and yet the
view made Sakaki uneasy. It almost seemed like there were too few stars
out there - the void was a void, and not just a poetic name.

She heard gasps from Fakir and Moe, and got out of her seat to see what
the fuss was. They could see the earth from Fakir's  seat, and it wasn't
like they expected.

An entire hemisphere was taken up with just one town. The United States
of America covered an entire hemisphere, and this single town was spread
out over the entire country. The other cities of the USA were at its
fringes, toy towns compared to the enormous small town that dominated
the view. The other countries were crammed into the other hemisphere -
six and a half continents shuffled down there, as if they were only
important in their relation to the town. Sakaki tried to look for Japan,
but it was so tiny, wedged in between China and Australia, that she
could only guess at its position.

"That's not what the world looks like," Moe said, "I've seen pictures!"
"It's what your world looks like," Leon said. "Any pictures you've seen
are of an illusion - a reflection of the Original Earth." he pointed at
the hemisphere-sized town. "That town was the most important place in
that world, and its size on the globe reflects that."
Nobody was prepared to argue about that. They watched as the world
started twisting and warping. The land distorted and turned purple, and
the seas started to recede. All the clouds dried up, the forests died
and the grasslands turned to parched desert. And then the world passed
out of their view as the ship flew away from it, leaving the dying world
behind them.

Silence reigned for a long time, and then Fakir asked "Did that happen
to my world?"
"Probably," Leon replied coldly.



The silence returned. Fakir fell deep into thought, trying to avoid
conversation - so far conversation had only turned up ugly truths, and
he didn't want any more. The duck sat on his lap with a concerned look
on its beak. Leon and O'Neill set off for a door to the back of the
ship, while Drake unloaded his shotgun and started cleaning it. They had
been here before, and knew not to interfere when new arrivals wanted to
be alone. Sakaki sat curled-up on her seat, feet on the edge of it and
arms wrapped around her knees. They had figured out that the seats could
be rotated to face the tables, and most of them had done so.

Moe sat next to her holding the baby. She was dozing peacefully,
apparently unaffected by the day's events.

"Her parents were back there," he said sadly. Sakaki perked up her ears.
"She's not yours?" she asked.
"Nah. One of my best customers got me to look after her. He had some
crazy scheme about getting into the black market, didn't want to bring
her along for, y'know, obvious reasons."
"He left his daughter with his barman?" Fakir asked, in disbelief.
"Hey!" Moe got sharp suddenly. "We get along fine, so why not?"

There was silence again, and Sakaki tried to break it.

"What is her name?" she asked.
"Maggie," the barman replied, and there was a clatter from further up
the room. Drake had dropped his shotgun, and was staring at them with a
haunted look in his eyes.
"Ma, Maggie?" he asked, and then the shock that had overtaken him passed
and his eyes cleared. "No, I'm..." he seemed to be lost for words, and
just added "sorry." He leant down and picked up the gun.
"You okay, Drake?" Moe asked.
"I was just thinking of someone else for a moment," he replied. "Never
mind." And with that Drake got up and left for the back room, unwilling
to continue the conversation.

Sakaki watched him leave. Some other Maggie had really mattered to him
once, and now she was gone - it didn't take a Chiyo to figure that out.
And just a glance at his gait made it clear how awful he felt about
that.
She realized that everyone around her was unhappy - like her they had
lost everything. She didn't know who O'Neill and Fakir had lost, but she
could see the losses in their reluctance and anger. But they had fought
today, not just to save themselves or to help a friend, but to help
almost-complete strangers.

Her lids drooped, and she felt like going to sleep, but she decided
against it for the moment. Sakaki was realizing how big a debt she owed
to these people, and decided she had to do something before she could
sleep tonight. She got up and went though the door to the cockpit.

Carl was in the pilot's seat, a large molded seat in front of a two-
handled joystick - which he casually operated with just one hand. Sakaki
was quite intimidated by him... she'd never met a black person before
and wasn't sure how to talk to him. Heck, at her school just getting a
girl from Osaka had been a major event.

He turned to look at her. "Hey. Somethin' up?" he asked.

'Well,' Sakaki thought to herself, 'talking to him in English might be a
start.'

"I, you see... ano..." she sighed, and bowed to him. "Thank you for
saving me earlier, and... I'm very sorry for mistaking you for one of
them," she managed. She still felt bad about offending him back then.

She kept her eyes on the ground, until she heard him saying "Hey, hey,
don't do that. Lift yo head up." She looked up, and he continued "It's
okay, a'right? No problem. You'd had a *bad* day."

Sakaki nodded mutely - she really, really had.


End Part 1.2 - The Dancer and the Soldiers




Hm. Not as good as I would have hoped. In retrospect it was maybe a
mistake to force O'Neill to do the exposition.


I'm going to start doing some non-spoiler character profiles/comments
for each part. In order of appearance

Sakaki (Azumanga Daioh) - The tall schoolgirl with the granite exterior
and the pink fuzzy interior.
RE: Carl - It wasn't my intention to portray Sakaki as racist, just
ignorant but eager not to offend.

Fakir (Princess Tutu) - Fakir is someone who takes responsibility and
makes decisions for others, but who doesn't seem to appreciate being
given instructions by others. At best you could call him bossy, at worst
dictatorial. In any case he takes his responsibility very seriously and
is willing to put his own life on the line, although he does fear death
and does not enjoy fighting.
I wanted to make his native language French or German, but decided it
would complicate the language barrier just too much.
He's in a bad mood here, and clashes with O'Neill, the authority figure.

O'Neill (Stargate SG-1) - An extremely experienced soldier with a
cynical attitude and a sardonic sense of humor. Outspoken and short
tempered. Has a tendency to buck authority. Doesn't like his authority
being bucked.

Carl "CJ" Johnson (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) - I'm anticipating
that this could be a controversial choice. Carl is (or at least my Carl
is) fit, strong, extremely skilled, he offers help freely and he values
family and friends very highly. He is also incredibly amoral, greedy,
vindictive, reckless and irresponsible. Be his friend and there are few
who'd watch your back more closely, get in between him and something he
wants and you're smoked. He's also foul mouthed. No idea if I should let
him cut loose with that.
The clothes he's wearing are how he's dressed in my current game.

Drake Anderson (Read or Die) - Underutilized and under appreciated, this
big mercenary got though ROD and RODTV simply by doing the little he
gets to do very well. He's a grump, but not completely cold.
It seemed very likely to me that he'd know how to re-set a shoulder.
He's probably done it to himself a few times.

Moe Szyslak (The Simpsons) - Even though I've spent a lot of time over
the past five years writing about The Simpsons, I've never given the
ugly, lonely barman much thought. "Moe Baby Blues" suggested I make him
Maggie's guardian instead of Homer or Marge.

Maggie Simpson (The Simpsons) - A cute baby girl. Despite her proven
ability with firearms (both real and sucker-dart) she won't be fighting
heartless any time soon.

Duck (Princess Tutu) : A duck. I'd rather call her Ahiru, but if Fakir's
native language is English here it just doesn't make any sense. Don't
worry if you prefer the name Ahiru, I have something in mind.

Leon (Final Fantasy VIII/Kingdom Hearts) - The cold leader of Traverse
Town.


Thanks for reading. C&C strongly appreciated. The next part will be 2.1
- Refugees





DISCLAIMERS

All characters, names and concepts related to Azumanga Daioh are the
creation/property of Kiyohiko Azuma, Genco, J.C. Staff and ADV
All characters, names and concepts related to Princess Tutu are the
creation/property of Ito Ikuko, Hal Film Maker and ADV
All characters, names and concepts related to Stargate: SG1 are the
creation/property of Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich, Jonothan Glassner,
Brad Wright and MGM.
All characters, names and concepts related to Grand Theft Auto: San
Andreas are the creation/property of Rockstar Games.
All characters, names and concepts related to Read or Die are the
creation/property of Kurata Hideyuki, Sony, Studio Deen and Manga
Entertainment.
All characters, names and concepts related to The Simpsons are the
creation/property of Matt Groening and FOX
All characters, names and concepts related to Kingdom Hearts are the
creation/property of SquareEnix and Disney.
Good thing Tarzan's not in this or I'd have to disclaimer him seperately
from KH.

This fanfic is a non-profit work created purely for
recreational/boredom-diffusion purposes, the author does not claim
ownership of anything contained within it.



             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'