A Discussion at the Junction of Parallell Realities and the Potentially Existant: Possibility Vs. Probability

Name: TJ
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Race: Human / white
Eye Color: Gray-green
Hair: Messy blonde loosely-spiked mop.
Personality: Indifferent but determined, questioning.
Other: Wearing a pair of dark gray cargo shorts with a loose blue t-shirt. Has a scruffy beard and big, gray tennis shoes.

Name: Heli
Age: Timeless
Gender: Male
Race: Divine
Eye Color: Steel
Hair: Shoulder-length straight and black, sleek
Personality: Cold, caring, all the typical contradictory characteristics of a great man
Other: A being of light and dark, the twenty-third son of the Dead Planet Mother. Once carried a large sword, but has since traded it for twin handguns [though he's not much for the labors of mankind]. In past years, he went by the name Lionex. However, upon discovery of his true name, he now wears it proudly.

(yay, a reunion)

Name: Cloudrunner (or CR for short)
Age: ? (looks sixteen)
Race: Hawkeye (bird-like magic users)
Hair color/style: dark red, short and frizzy
Eye color: yellow
Skills: Elemental magic, illusion
Personality: happy, rash, loyal
Other: He lost his home long ago, but he's okay with that. He lives as a wanderer traveling worlds, always eager to meet new people or bump into old ones.

Name: Professor Maple
Age: 25
Race: Human
Hair color/style: Chestnut brown, just short of shoulder-length.
Eye color: Gray-green
Skills: Making gadgets to fight dimension abnormalities, being able to endure a great amount of taint (by-product corrupting force of dimension abnormalities)
Personality: Brash, bitter, protective
Other: He is a professor who travels and studies dimensions, while trying to fight and fix whatever dimension abnormalities he comes across.

Name: Julie
Age: 21 (woot drinking age :P)
Race: Human
Hair color/style: light brown, shoulder length
Eye color: Blue-gray
Skills: Writing, Drawing, Rambling
Personality: Quirky, Lazy, Laid back
Other: A person who knows Cloudrunner, and many others, better than they do themselves :)

Name: Ritsu Momoiro
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Race: 1/2 Dragoon 1/2 Fairy
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 180#
Eyes: Light pink
Hair: Bright pink with darker pink lowlights, cut in a cute mod-bob
Personality: Colorful and flamboyant, cheerful and incorrigible, she has, nonetheless, calmed down considerably in recent years.
Other: Has large, off-white dragon-like wings criss-crossed with a multitude of ivory scars. Wears a pair of bright blue half-rimmed glasses. Can create nearly anything out of an unbreakable, clear crystal that she can generate at will.

Name: Raziel Momoshinno
Age: 25
Gender: Male
Race: Dragoon
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 290# (all lean muscle)
Eyes: Dark blue
Hair: Blue-black, shoulder length and straight, cut to be slightly longer in the front than the back
Personality: Cold, serious, no-nonsense. The antithesis of his younger half-sister.
Other: Has pure, ivory-white dragon wings. Being a pureblood Dragoon, he has dragon-like feet with two large clawed toes in front, and one stationary claw in back.

Name: Becky Abrams (Beya)
Age: 19 (or near enough, anyway)
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Eyes: Hazel
Hair: Brown, shoulder length, in retarded little ringlet curls unless straightened

Value your senses. They are a hollow body's link to a chemical world.

Wake up, shower, teeth brushed, shirt on. Clean? Maybe. Smelled fine, though. No breakfast, loosely tied shoes, out the door.

Everything was still a haze. It was one of those mornings where you wake up tired, feeling like you haven't rested enough; the kind of morning where the lines that distinguish things are blurred and warped, melting physical objects into a flat landscape surrounding a yawning man. The early-morning mist hadn't yet dissipated, the summertime dew giving the sleek black roads a faint glow. Walking through it, he became a silhouette in plain view, then walked a bit farther, then a bit farther, to the end of the street, to the horizon, then out of view.

But let's get a closer look, shall we?

TJ, plain man walking a plain street. Inside of his chest cavity, a meaty heart beats away, sending red blood flowing through his prominent veins. His brain tingles with early-morning indifference. He was a creature of great complexity, forever trying, as the rest of his race, to piece together the world around him; the mysteries of which are as ever-expansive as the universe itself.

9:23:09:00, scratching an itch.

The brushing of nail on skin seemed loud. In fact, it almost seemed to echo in the empty streets around him. Nine-thirty in the morning and he was out of bed, walking. Where? He had no idea. It was as subtle an inclination as blinking when you lie. He hardly noticed that he was moving it all. Then, by some strange chance, he stumbled off the face of his Earth.

Dear, sweet, cruel Earth.

He was numb with sensation. His right foot sunk into the pavement, sending a surge of tingle throughout his body. It stung straight to every nerve ending, every fiber, every quark. He stumbled, indeed, into a place where nothing is, but everything is also -- where it was quiet, but only because it was far too loud. This place was called The Contradiction Kitchen fondly by those who frequented it, and nothing by those who didn't.

The world around him evaporated, leaving what seemed to be lines, three-dimensional blueprints of buildings and grass, and the one cat running along the ditch. He kept walking down this road, the same road he walked a thousand times as a child, the same road he got beaten up on in middle school, the same road he lived on since age five. Yet, it wasn't that road anymore. It was something new, something else.

His body treated these new sensations with predictable acceptance. When presented with something completely unbelievable, the human body has a tendency to, what some people call, make-believe for real; in other words, it rejects and accepts what's happening at the same time, while remaining calm.

He continued down the road. The sun never rose. The mist never faded.

After exhausting hours of trotting that left him feeling just as energetic as when he first rose that morning, TJ spotted something. A chair up ahead, at the intersection. Marie Antoinette Street would have crossed with Jaqueline there, if that were the real world. His world. The chair was right in the middle, lined with red velvet and gold.

"Now you are presented with numerous things."

A voice where there was no mouth, no tongue, no vocal cords, no diaphragm. Not even air. Sound can't travel through empty space.

"The most obvious of which is, of course, what your morning tells you about reality."

TJ didn't move his eyes from the chair. There would be no body to partner those words. He moved forward and turned around, sitting on the misplaced throne. His spirit lurched forward, atoms frantically rearranging themselves in perfect chaotic synchronization. He was standing again, where he was before, before the chair. A new body was in it, one that looked like his. One with a face similar, but shaved, and with longer, dark, thicker hair. A perfect white wing fell from his back, and then a black one, too.

"Who are you?" he asked, the most obvious question.

"What."

"I said, who are you?"

"No, what. What am I? 'Who' is asked under the assumption that I intend on giving a name, and names are silly titles for the boasting of men. 'What' is far more appropriate, given the first and foremost of the numerous things you are now presented with, which is again, of course, what your morning tells you about reality."

"You talk in circles."

"Atta boy. I'll level with you. I had a name once, though it died with the planet I was born on. My Mother called me Heli once."

There was a long silence. Raindrops frozen in time drifted in the wind, sprinkling themselves over their faces.

"What is real, TJ?" TJ pursed his lips, crossing his arms. He had the habit of putting his weight on one foot when thinking.

"The pavement, when I tap it. The wind, when it blows. Electricity, science, that's what's real."

"Then?"

"Then what?"

"What about this?"

"This obviously isn't real."

"Yes it is."

"It can't be."

"But see, it is. Do you know why I'm here, TJ? No, of course you don't, how wasteful of me to ask. I am here to widen your perception of the things around you, and, more importantly, the things that are not. You see the world as every man does, wide and in three dimensions. Therefor, I have brought you to this world, one where you can better understand."

"Understand what?"

"That everything real isn't all that is real."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that everything that isn't real, is also real. Here, I'll show you." Heli waved his hand and a goblet appeared, filled with water. He lifted his hand and drank from it, but, at the same time, his hand and goblet stayed still, never touching his lips.

"How did you-"

"Think. Choice. That's what I'm trying to say here, TJ. I had a glass of water, and chose to drink from it. At the same time, I had the option of not drinking it. Are you beginning to understand? All possibilities must be considered as reality. In fact, it's so necessary a way of thinking, that without it, you, nor any of the people in your tiny world, will ever achieve clairvoyance without it."

TJ stood silent. The breeze stopped with Heli's words.

"Why are you telling me all of this?"

Heli smiled. "Because you're the writer of this all. You and the ones like you. You made me, you made this, you're imagining my words as I say them, as they become real. Your pretend world has become so unreal that light, darkness, and everything in between has traveled to right here, in this moment, at this place. For you and whoever you bring here. You're here to change yourself, and to save the world."

"What do you mean save the world?"

"You opened this place, now you must shut it. If you don't, all realities will converge, destroying everything."

[OOC: Sorry for any errors, it's 3:30 in the am here, and I'm fighting grogginess.]

[OOC: 4:30 here. No sleep for me this fair morning. Good thing I don't work until 3, eh? Plenty of time for coffee and dancing.]

A normal morning. Up before the sunrise, a quick trip down to the public bath on the corner, back home with plenty of time for a clean change of clothing before his sister would be up. Time to start breakfast.

Ritsu's was first. She would be up soon, and she would want food right away. It was best not to keep her waiting, lest she get distracted. Two small, gray-ish brown eggs cracked into a bowl, followed closely by the milk of a domestic green dragon. Break the yolks with a fork, stir. Add cracked pepper, pink, of course, for Ritsu. Stir again. Into a heated skillet, seasoned with fresh butter from a local dragon farm (the same one where they got their milk). As soon as the bottom of the omelet began to coagulate, the heat was cut off and the skillet covered with its lid. That was how one went about getting a light, fluffy omelet.

A few moments later, a figure stumbled out of one of the adjacent rooms. Pink hair a disheveled mop, it fell into a chair at the table and rested its head on said table. He pulled a bottle of juice from the ice chest and poured a glass, which he sat before the figure. "Good morning, Ritsu."

"G'mornin' Razi..." she muttered, sitting up just enough to fit the glass of juice between her face and the table. Her messy hair still his her face, and now the glass as well, from view. "Whass fer breakf'st?"

"Omelets," he replied simply, turning back to the stove. He removed the lid from the skillet and nodded his approval at the perfectly cooked eggs contained within. He walked back to the ice chest and retrieved a few containers of pre-cut meat and vegetables, and also some cheese. The meat he sat aside for his own omelet, yet to be made. He laid slices of the soft, white cheese over the still-warm egg and it began to melt immediately. He sprinkled the chopped veggies over the cheese, folded the omelet over on itself, slid it onto a plate, and placed it in front of his sister, accompanied by a fork and knife. There was a time when he would have been reluctant to trust the girl with anything so dangerous as a knife, but she'd grown much as an individual in recent years. He was quite thankful for that.

Raziel turned back to the stove and began preparations for his own omelet. Fresh butter went back into the skillet, and the flame was turned up to get the pan hot and ready. Four eggs in the bowl, dragon milk, black pepper, salt. Yolks broken, stirred. And into the pan it went. He rested his weight on one foot, and the spatula in his hand was rested on his shoulder as he waited. When the bottom of his omelet had solidified, he slid the spatula underneath the egg mixture, loosening it. He tilted the pan slightly and lifted one edge of the omelet so that the raw egg ran underneath. He did this all around the edge, until the majority of the egg had coagulated, and then he flipped it. The egg had just a bit of brown color to it, just how he liked it. He laid his slices of cheese over top, sprinkled on some vegetables, and then added the meat. Ritsu had taken to eating mostly vegetarian of late. It was no real surprise to him; most fairies were vegetarian. Even still, any change in his sister was cause for some measure of concern, it happened so infrequently.

He carried his plate to the table to join his sister. she was eating quietly, her head hung wearily over her plate. Her juice was already gone, he noticed. She would be fully awake soon, so he hurried to eat his breakfast in peace.

A few minutes later, Ritsu finished her breakfast and wandered back to her room to get ready for the day. By the time she came back out, arms full of her colorful choices of clothing for the day, she was wide awake and chipper. Raziel was waiting for her by the door. He would walk her to the public bath, to assure she didn't get distracted and forget what she'd left the house for, and then he would go to do some shopping.

It was a short walk to the bath, but with plenty of interesting things that he had to pull his sister away from to keep her on course. When they made it there, she skipped happily off to the womens' portion of the bath, still carrying her clean change of clothes. Raziel turned to head for the market.

Ritsu emerged from the bath a while later, looking squeaky clean and quite pleased with the state of the universe. Her pink bob cut was clean, brushed, and tidy, and her cheeks had a freshly-scrubbed flush to them. For that day she'd picked out a turquoise tank top, simple blue canvas pants, cut off at the knee, and a pair of orange canvas shoes. She put the finishing touch on her outfit by clipping an orange flower into her hair, and then headed for home to drop her pajamas in the dirty laundry.

Meanwhile, Raziel was examining some particularly delicious-looking fruits at a farmer's stand. He'd already gotten a fresh gallon of dragon milk, a pound of unsalted butter, and a large bag of mushrooms that he had plans to cook for dinner.

The two siblings blinked at just the same moment, and when they opened their eyes again, their surroundings had disappeared, to be replaced by a framework of faded blue lines on a black background. They could see each other across the expanse, and Raziel had to suppress his urge to blame Ritsu for whatever had just happened. He unfurled his large, ivory white wings and flew towards his sister, landing at her side. He shot her a questioning glance, but she had no idea what exactly was going on either.

Suddenly, their surroundings shifted again. They found themselves in a place made of that same strange framework, but with two exceptions. There was a throne in the distance, not unlike the one in the Dragoon castle, with a winged man seated upon it. In front of it was another man. Raziel took his sister's hand and led her warily toward the pair, prepared to fight if need be.

(OCC: First of all, congratulations on such great and detailed posts, both of you. How can I compete? Well I'll try anyway. Man, it sure doesn't feel like 3:30 in the morn...maybe it's because it's 4:29 by the time I post this? Geez...)

Julie woke up, and it was dark everywhere. This didn't alarm her, nor did it even surprise her. It was dark in the basement, dark as a raven, but it was also cool and the bed was comfy. Therefore, she preferred sleeping downstairs during the summer. Sunshine was overrated, espeically when you were trying to sleep in until noon.

So she got up and began walking, putting her hands in front of her so she wouldn't bang into the large fan at the base of her bed (why was that stupid thing here anyway? It was needed upstairs!) or the large white pole that somehow supported the whole room. Though she'd be screwed if her cat suddenly ran in front of her feet...

But she ran into neither fan, nor pole, nor cat. She didn't feel anything, not even the carpet under her feet. It wasn't a tingly numbness, but rather a total lack of sensation. And it seemed like the bathroom shouldn't be nearly this far away...

Julie stopped. This was wrong. This couldn't be the basement, unless somehow she had glitched through a wall. She slapped herself in the face. Glitched? She had done far too many glitchy experiments on her poor old Red and Blue versions...

"But hiccups in reality, they are much like glitches, aren't they pup?" said another voice, as a professor with gray-green eyes and tinted glasses suddenly appeared as if out of nowhere, or perhaps as if he had always been there. "Whose to say reality is perfect? There are exceptions to every rule. Or rather, there are so many rules that exceptions have to made to compromise among them."

"Professor Maple, what are you doing here?" Julie asked, knowing she should be questioning his existence more than she was. Shouldn't she at least be surprised? "And I am not a pup. I created you, and therefore I'm older than you. Besides, I'm drinking age now."

"Oh, well I suppose the second is true," consented Professor Maple. "But am I really any younger than you? I am you, you know. A small part of you, but I am you."

"You came into being when I began a story on the glitches of Pokemon," Julie began. "That story fell apart, but ultimately its pieces are forming into your true story, as a dimension traveler trying to fix the universe and wipe out the dimension abnormalities. You didn't exist before that."

"Well, I suppose that's correct. I didn't exist in this form before that," said Professor Maple. "But I do not represent the world of Pokemon, or even glitches. I represent anger and frustration at a world that is imperfect. I'm a rather bad, irrational part of you, aren't I?"

"That's...an interesting way to put it."

"But you know it's right," Professor Maple answered smugly, folding his arms and pacing about. "The power of the author is the ability to divide oneself into many little pieces called characters. Each one represents in some way a part of the author, though they also have identities of their own. It may be an emotion, or a memory remembered or not, or a dream, or a desire, but it is ultimately a fragment of you wearing a mask, telling you something about yourself though its actions. Of course, figuring out that message is part of the fun, isn't it?"

Julie did not answer.

"But now we have this wondrous thing called a thread, that lets us little pieces of soul interact with other people's pieces of soul," the man with gray-green eyes went on. "Now we can learn more about ourselves and yourself, and they themselves and themselves, though I suppose it really boild down to yourself and themselves, but no matter! Let's go join them!"

A boy with bronze skin and red-and-gold wings appeared beside Julie, sitting locus-style in the air even though he would normally have to use his wings to stay aloft.

"Ya, let's go!" agreed Cloudrunner, as if he had heard the whole thing and understood it. Under normal circumstances he would not have understood it, nor even listened.

The crimson-haired Hawkeye raised his spear into the air, creating a mist that swallowed all three. When the magical fog cleared, Julie found herself on a street, yet not a street, where there was a boy with somewhat spiked blonde hair and a winged man sitting on a throne.

"Good morning, pups!" greeted Professor Maple loudly. "I've heard that you are like us!"

"Umm..." Julie began.

(OOC: Wow, that turned out long. This was supposed to be a chat with Cloudrunner, but Maple just kinda pushed his way in and took over. Go figure. I'll go add Maple's profile)

(OOC: Great posts, guys. It's awesome to see how everyone evolves as writers.)

This is it, TJ thought. The moment I've always waited for. My Deus Ex Machina.

You see, every boy, growing up, considers leaving his world behind. He fantasizes intently about other worlds, other places where there are other things. Since the dawn of time, men have been captivated by things they'll never see; unicorns, jack-elopes, and the like, all fantastic fairy tales stemming from a part of the brain that simulates unreality: the imagination. This was TJ's first physical step out of reality, but hardly his mind's first voyage into the incomprehensible.

"And so they come," said Heli, closing his eyes and grinning. There was something so familiar about the way he did that, something already imprinted inside of TJ's mind, giving him the sensation of deja-vu. Or maybe it wasn't deja-vu.

In the distance people began to surround. TJ saw their faces on the frozen drops of rain that lingered in the mist. Some smiles, some frowns, some fear, some ignorance, some power. In fact, he seemed to smell every hormone excreted by the surrounding bodies, and that's as close as one can get to tasting emotion.

"Did I bring them here?"

"In one way or another."

"What's that mean?"

"The multiplex causality nature of the universe." TJ knew what he was talking about, already. He had stumbled upon Robert Anton Wilson's theory while browsing the internet one day. It was fascinating.

"Every event is the result of every other event to ever occur."

"Exactly. Without you, that very well may have not showed up here. Then again, maybe they would have, who knows. The thing about what is and isn't, the past and future, is that when looking forward, a billion things can happen, but looking back, they could not have happened in any other way. It's a contradiction your world shares with this one, and all others."

"You're mirroring my own thoughts back at me."

"Yes, well. We'd better get this story started, my friend. All the characters are in place, our surroundings have been set perfectly. Wait, wait... Okay now."

TJ stood silent while Heli smiled on. There was so much going on, one could hardly comprehend it all at once. He managed.

"I'm hardly like you at all," Heli called back. "Hardly what you were, what you are, what you will be, and I'm a duplicate, too. Indeed, I'm your clone, Old Man, and the clone of your companion. I'm whatever you want me to be, and everything else, too."

(OOC pt 2: Leaving town for a few days. Bonnaroo! Have fun, you guys, and I'll be back soon.)

(OOC: Have fun, TJ! Tell us about the awesomeness later)

"So they are like us," comfirmed Professor Maple, starting to pace around again. "It's not quite the same, but nobody is the same so it's close enough."

"But why is everything unstable now?" asked Julie. "I mean, yesterday seemed normal. No nuclear explosions or anything to screw things up."

"Ya, I was kinda wondering about that too," admitted Cloudrunner, putting his hands behind his head.

"Well pups, the greatest things do not happen all at once," Professor Maple replied, stopping to better study the semi-frozen surroundings. "Things get set up, things build up, and finally an event occurs, but without the set-up and build-up nothing would have occured in the first place."

"So pretty much it was like a time-bomb?" asked Julie.

"Not a time-bomb exactly," answered the man with gray-green eyes. "More like...the straw that broke the camel's back. You pile and pile stuff onto the camel, but eventually the burden is so heavy that the slightest thing, like a straw, will cause it to collapse. So it's not so much one big event that's caused this, but a series of little events. Understand, pup?"

"I'm not a pup," Julie protested.

"You're a pup at heart."

"But if everthing's unstable, when what will happen to everyone?" asked Cloudrunner, gliding over to Professor Maple.

"What will happen? Anything could happen," Professor Maple answered, shrugging. "Most likely it will be something bad though. The order here is falling apart. There's not even a choir among the chaos. The effect will vary depending on the person or thing. In our case, it's apparently causing us to split."

"Split?" asked Cloudrunner.

"We're now outside of her, right?" Professor Maple went on, pointing to an increasingly nervous Julie. "I imagine that as this goes on, we'll be seeing more and more of our other friends gaining their own outside existance."

"But wouldn't that be good?" questioned the young redhead, now flying to the other side of Professor Maple. "I mean, that everyone is able to have lives outside and do their own thing? We can still hang out with each other and with her."

"But would there be anything left of her?" asked Professor Maple. "That's the question."

(OOC: Home at last. Unbearably sunburnt, but Bonnaroo was amazing.)

Drawn squares of impossible dimensions floated through the still air, like childish doodles tediously etched on every single molecule to make up one bigger picture. The world was silent flashes of blue and silver, reminiscent of florescent train lights rampaging through dimly-lit subway stations. There was something about the consistency there, the way of things that just seemed off.

Heli hopped off of his throne, his wings bursting into flurries of black and white feathers behind him. "It's not the hearts of pups you'll have to worry about," he called over. "It's the hearts of lions."

"What are you doing?" asked TJ, glancing over at the group gathered, watching.

"Relax, an old friend and his companions," Heli said, smirking again.

"I thought I brought them here."

"You did." A few seconds of silence, then he whispered, "For the universe to continue, for all parallel realities to remain, this world must end. This world is you: your trouble, your love, your chaos."

(OOCx2: Apologies for short posts, I'm trying to advance the story, but I'm afraid it won't happen until the characters get more interactive.)

(OOC: That's okay. We needed the long posts to set things up. Now we can work on the actual plot :P. I had fun at an anime convention this weekend while you had fun at Bonnaroo.)

"Whether it's the heart of a lion or a pup, they are still hearts to worry about," answered Professor Maple, trying to swat away a string of tiny uneven squares that zipped around his head like flies. "The very existance of this place is dangerous to other worlds."

"Then how are we supposed to fix it?" asked Julie.

"Well, I doubt that we could 'fix' it since it was never stable in the first place. This place is drawing fragments of existance from several other worlds. We'll probably have to destroy it," Professor Maple answered, grabbing his glasses when they started to float away from his face for no apparent reason. "But how to properly destroy it without causing chaos in the worlds it's drawing off from, that's the question." He turned to Heli. "Any suggestions, my previously winged friend? You seem to know the place."

Cloudrunner flew over closer to Heli, his expression curious.

"Ey, do I know ya from somewhere? Ya seem kinda familiar," he asked, gliding around him.

"Hey, I asked a question first, pup!" the professor protested, annoyed.

"Behave you two," said Julie.

Raziel was watching the two mysterious groups from afar, his curiosity not enough to override his better judgment and make him approach. The one on the throne seemed vaguely familiar, but how could that be possible? He'd never been to this... place (he assumed it could still be called a place) before.

His eyes wandered from the winged man in the throne to the person he was speaking to. This one also seemed familiar, but in a different sort of way. Not as though they had met before, but as though this man had had some sort of impact on Raziel's life at some point. It was a difficult feeling to explain.

"Razi, what's going on? Where are we? Do you know?"

Raziel looked down at his sister and shushed her. "Quiet, Ritsu. I don't know yet. Give me a moment."

He took a sudden step back. His eyes had fallen back on the group just in time to see the man with the familiar face's wings explode into a flurry of feathers. He dropped into a slightly defensive stance, immediately distrustful of anyone who could, or would for that matter, do that to their wings.

The two groups began to mingle soon after that. They began to speak to one another, and a boy from the second group, with feathers on his head, flew over to speak to the others.

"Razi, we aren't gonna learn anything standing over here." Ritsu said, walking towards the strangers.

"Ritsumei Momoiro, you stay away from there!" Raziel hissed in reply, still wary of approaching. Clearly the girl wasn't going to listen, and so he was forced to follow.

As they approached, Ritsu was keeping her eyes on the flying boy. He looked like fun, and she got along with fun people, so he was her best bet to find out what was going on. Raziel would never believe it, but there was sometimes a method to her madness. She crouched a bit for leverage and spread her wings, taking off with more speed and agility than one would think possible to come from such a small and awkward frame. She flew swiftly over the boy's head, nearly grazing his crimson red hair, then turned a flip in midair annd flew back underneath him.

"Hello!" she chirped happily. "Who are you? My name's Ritsu!"

Raziel stood off to the side, still not willing to trust the strangers, with a decidedly frustrated look on his face.

((OOC: sory for the lack of postage. On my second week of finals right now. Between that, getting ready for my massive birthday party next week, and work, life has been rather hectic.))

(OOC: Ah yes, finals. They are always such fun <_<. I figured it was something like that. Either that or your internet was spazzing out. Either way, it's all good. Hope you have a great birthday party beyachan! In case neither one of us is here on your birthday, Happy Birthday! XD)

Cloudrunner spun around trying to keep up with the dragon-winged girl's flying movements, which made him slightly dizzy. Once she stopped moving and he regained his equlibrium, the Hawkeye turned to her.

"Ah, hi! My name's Cloudrunner!" he quickly announced to the newcomer. "Nice to meetcha Ritsu! Ah, when did you get here? And how? I'm...not exactly sure how I got here myself."

"It doesn't really matter how they got here. The important thing is that they're here, and maybe they could help us out. Or not," answered Maple, noticing the older male being at little ways back from the group. "And who are you, my friend? Come on over! This is not the type of thing that you can sit out on!"

Julie was puzzled, but not by the appearance of the strangers. They were not strangers at all; in fact, Cloudrunner should know both of them, or at least Ritsu. Maybe it was because their meetings had taken place in the less-stable world of the AIM roleplay?

"The AIM world exists separately from the various Forum worlds, an alternate world so to speak," explained a new voice, belonging to a dark-haired man in his thirties, with a slight beard and a majestic blue cape. "I have been doing much research of such worlds, which is why you usually don't hear from me much."

"Hello, His Lord," Julie replied, sighing at the appearance of yet another one of her characters. Who knows who else might show up at this rate. "Are you ever going to tell me your real name?"

"In time," he replied.

"You always say that," Julie grumbled. "By the way, Ritsu is here. Remember her?"

His Lord turned around, noticing the pink-haired half-fairy for the first time since he arrived five seconds ago. His eye twitched.

((Julie. I love you eternally for this. xD I LOVE HIS LORD SO MUCH. Don't ask me why. ALSO! Pics from my practicals are up on my DA if you wish to view them. Shall I link thee?))

Ritsu looked up at the dark stranger, then at the girl and then back, confused. "Remember me? But we've never...met...before?" She suddenly had the strangest feeling that they had, indeed, met before. But she couldn't remember when or where or how. This man was neither a Dragoon nor a Fairy, and she'd never been off her home planet... or had she? This wasn't something she'd ever doubted before, so why now, all of a sudden? This strange world seemed to make anything seem possible.

She looked back at the man, the girl had called him His Lord, and was suddenly, severely embarrassed. She ran her fingers through her pink locks, straightening them out, as they had become tousled while she flew, and she wrung her shirttail between her hands. "Uhm, uhm..." she stammered, unsure of what to say. "...hi. You're 'His Lord?'"

Meanwhile, Raziel was staring down the whole party distrustfully. He had his wings tucked close to his back, ready to be unfurled for flight at a second's notice. He scowled at the man who'd addressed him. "I have no intention of 'sitting out' on anything. But what reason have I to trust you? I've been brought here against my will and, since you all seem to know what's going on, I have no one to blame but you."

Everyone's conversations were suddenly interrupted by a far-off screaming, which was steadily getting closer. Within seconds, had anyone bothered to look up, a girl came into view, falling from the sky and flailing about, trying to right herself. As she landed, the ground seemed to bow around her and then form back into shape, bouncing her up as though it were a trampoline. She landed back on the ground with a soft 'thud.'

"Well, at least these time-space anomalies are flexible," she said, getting to her feet. "Hello Julie, TJ..." she trailed off, laying eyes on the two dragon-wing clad siblings, "...Ritsu, Raziel. Okay, well. This is weirder than I expected. Is this normal for... wherever we are? Oh! And I'm Becky, by the way, if you've forgotten. Or Beya, if you prefer."

(OOC: I guess consider HL your b-day present XD. I'd love to see links for your art. Maybe we should have an art section? I need to upload art stuff for my chars)

"Yes, random characters and their hosts appearing separately appears to be normal in this space," Professor Maple addressed, before turning to Raziel with a perfect smile. "And being dragged here against our will also appears to be a trait of this place. Don't believe you're the only one, pup."

His Lord, upon not being suddenly glomped as he expected, actually appeared relieved at the sight of the shy half-Dragoon. Cloudrunner went back to bugging Heli about whether they had met before.

"Yes, I am His Lord," he replied calmly. "I believe we have met long ago. However, since those records have been lost, the memories are hazy even for me. I hardly recall any of my old spells."

"That's why you keep a journal about yourself while experimenting with dimensions!" rudely interrupted Maple, who was fully aware of his rudeness. "That's what I do! The corruption will ruin your memory! Anyone knows that!"

His Lord shot the bespectacled lanky man a glare. Maple just smiled back with leery eyes.

During the chaotic babble Julie walked over to Becky.

"Hi, uh, nice to actually meet you," she greeted awkwardly, as a few random triangles flew past her face. "This place seems to be unstable-"

"Seems, you say?" interjected Maple, before going back to annoying His Lord.

"...And as usual I have no say in what my characters say," she added, both amused and annoyed. "So try not to be offended by anyone, especially Maple. He likes to get on people's nerves because he's insecure and craves attention."

"Do not!" Maple protested.

Suddenly multi-colored geysers shot up from the street, showering everyone with rainbow droplets.

"And more importantly, we need to figure out how to get out here."