Otaku Wish Fulfillment Theater
Started by Scott Schimmel

Chapter 28:  Friendly skies and unfriendly skies... that, and too many
             random encounters!
By Steven Scougall


Airships, in general, are truly a marvel of engineering.  Majestically 
huge and hugely majestic, weighing in at easily more than twenty 
elephants (at least), the average airship can still float in the air, 
bobbing gently in the passing breezes.  And with a roar of engines, or 
an unfurling of sails, or engaging whatever system is used to move, it 
can propel itself easily and quickly through the air towards its 
destination, with nary a shudder.

This airship, specifically, was not quite representative of airships 
in general.  It was old, ramshackle, and couldn't travel for more than 
a kilometre without juddering slightly.  It barely stayed aloft.  But 
it went.  More or less.

"Well, this is definitely better than walking and swimming all the 
way," said Steve.  The airship jinked a little to the left, his pencil 
jerked, and his latest attempt at sketching Damien gained an unsightly 
pencil line right through the middle.  He scrutinised the picture 
carefully, sighed, and tossed it over his shoulder to join the pile of 
similarly ill-fated sketches.

"Damn," said Damien.  "That one was almost done too."  He ruffled his 
feathers indignantly.  "Can't you steer this thing straight?" he 
yelled to the pilot.

"I'm doing my best!" said Kate.  "This thing handles like a brick, 
though.  Do you want to try?" she added, desperately.

"Oh no," said Damien.  "You wanted to fly this the whole way.  You're 
flying it the whole way."

Kate grumbled and returned her attention to the controls.

The controls had been a surprise.  The airship had resembled an old 
seafaring ship, with cannons and even a decorative pair of sails.  In 
the spirit of the rest of the ship, the sails were tattered and the 
design on them faded to the point where they couldn't make it out.  
But the control room resembled something out of a sci-fi show, with 
several monitors, lots of flashing lights, a large control panel, a 
yoke, and lots of gray.  Kate had gravitated to it instantly.

Steve ignored the mild argument between the sort-of mascot and the 
pilot and looked out the window.  He watched the clouds go by, and the 
expanse of blue that was the ocean below.  It was a very boring view.  
He looked around the cabin, looking for something to occupy his 
attention.

He had the feeling that there was something wrong about the view.  He 
looked out the window again, trying to work out what it was.  But as 
before, all he saw were clouds, and glimpses of the light blue of the 
sky and the deep blue of the ocean.  There was nothing there that 
could possibly *be* wrong.

Except for the sun missing, he suddenly realised.  He'd been able to 
see it when they took off and the hour after that.  Then he'd gotten 
bored and started trying to sketch the manlike birdlike manlike bird 
that was their enigmatic sort-of mascot.  Now he couldn't see it 
anywhere, and the day couldn't have gone *that* fast.

"Say, Kate," he said.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"We're supposed to be going in a straight line, right?"

"Yes."

"And it's only been only two hours since we took off, right?"

"Yes.  What's up?  Is there something wrong?"

Steve didn't immediately answer.  He got up, walked over to the other 
side of the room, and peered out the window.  He could see the sun off 
to the side and smacked his palm to his forehead.

"Something's wrong?"

"We've been going the wrong way for at least an hour," Steve said.  He 
looked at the sun again and tried to remember the angle he'd seen it 
at through the first window, and did some fast mental geometry.  
"We're about 135 degrees off course.  More or less."

"...!" exclaimed Illyria.

"That MUCH?" cried Dan.

"What happened?" asked Ardweden.

"It's the traitor," said Scott, darkly.  "Right now, he or she is 
insidiously tinkering with the controls, putting us directly on a 
course for Xellos' hideout!"

"Or it could just be the constant shaking of the ship throwing us off 
course," sighed Steve.

"What do we do now?" asked Kate.  "This computer system doesn't even 
have a map!"

"First, stop the ship!" barked Dan.

"Excuse me?"

Dan grumbled.  Nobody in the team ever listened to him when he, their 
stalwart leader, was trying to get things done.  "Stop.  You know, 
where you hover in place.  You don't want to go any further off 
course, right?"

"Oh yeah," said Kate, embarrassed, and brought the ship to a stop.  It 
slowly sank to the water, where it made a slight splashdown and 
started bobbing up and down.

Dan got out the map and spread it over the table.  "Okay, here's where 
we took off from," he said, pointing it out with his laser pointer 
attachment.  "Here's the Isle of Bishounen, where the last seal is, 
and where we were headed."  He activated his erasable pen attachment 
and drew a line between the two points.  "This was our path.  Judging 
from our speed... hm..."  He stared at the map for several moments, 
then drew a circle.  "We could be anywhere in here."

They looked at the circle.  It was depressingly large.

"I don't envy trying to find out exactly where we are," said Steve.

"And it's not as if there's anybody around to ask directions from," 
said Damien.

A whole lot of lights and alarms went off.  The group looked up and 
saw a sign saying "Emergency!  A random encounter has been 
encountered!"  Beside it was a monitor of the deck of the ship, on 
which there were some vaguely sea-serpent like creatures slithering 
around.

"Let's go!" shouted Kate.

"But they're on the deck," said Steve.

"Yes, that's right!  They're on the deck and invading the ship!"

"They don't have hands and can't open the door to belowdecks," Steve 
went on.

Scott turned a withering glare upon him.  "Don't you *want* to defend 
the ship?  Are *you* the traitor?"

"No.  I just don't see any real reason to go up there," asked Steve.

"Whatever," said Dan.  "I'm off to kick their asses!"  He opened the 
door and dashed up to the deck.  Four other people quickly followed 
him.

"This is nuts," said Steve.  But he picked up his Chemist Sack and 
followed anyway.

"You said it," said Damien.

0_0

"That was surprisingly easy," said Dan, as he came down the steps.

"We must be getting really levelled up!" said Kate.

"Wai," said Scott, somewhat sarcastically.

"That was *too* easy," said Ardweden.

"Speak for yourselves," said Steve, and checked his Chemist Sack.  It 
was definitely a bit lighter than it had been.  "We used a few Heal 
Potions back then.  I'm definitely going to need to restock at the 
next town."

"We were trying to work out where we were and what to do," Ardweden 
reminded everyone.  "Can we get back to that?"

"Okay," said Dan.  He looked at the map, which still had the 
depressingly large circle on it, and remembered how utterly 
featureless their surroundings had looked when they were fighting the 
creatures on the deck.  "...we're really lost, aren't we."

"No," said Ardweden, "we aren't, because-"

The emergency encounter lights, signs, and alarms went off again.

"Let's go!" shouted Dan, and sprang through the doorway and up to the 
deck.  Kate, Illyria, Scott, and Ardweden followed him.  Steve sighed, 
picked up the sack, and wandered up the stairs after them, Damien 
right behind him.

0_0

"Another easy encounter!" said Dan, as he came down the steps.

"Very easy," said Ardweden.

"..." agreed Illyria.

"Speak for yourselves," said Scott.  "You're not the ones who yelled 
'PRETTY COSMIC WAI WAI SHINYDEATH OF NATURE' and had your clothes 
vanish."

Damien and Dan looked nervously away.  Steve, for his part, was 
counting under his breath.

Scott looked suspiciously at Dan.  "Did you just say something about 
my clothes?"

"Oh no," said Dan.  His gaze fell upon the map, which still had the 
depressingly large map on it.  "We'd better get back to the map-"

All the emergency lights, signs, and alarms went off again.

"Not another one!" yelled Dan, but sprang through the doorway and up 
to the deck again, followed shortly by Kate, Illyria, Scott, and 
Ardweden.

"Twenty three," said Steve, to a mostly empty room.

"Twenty three?"

"There were twenty three seconds between us arriving back in here and 
this latest encounter.  That is *way* too short for a natural random 
encounter.  Someone's sending them after us."

"You think so?"

"I'm the paranoid Sidekick, of *course* I think so."  Steve started 
searching through the control room.

"What are you-" Damien started to say, but Steve held his finger to 
his lips, then held his hand up to his ear, as if he was listening to 
something.

"Your ear?  I don't get it-" Damien then remembered what Steve had 
said, and, more specifically, what people had been saying when the 
encounters, for want of a better term, had been encountered.  "Oh, I 
see."

"Yes.  Well, we'd better get back up there!" said Steve.  "After all, 
as the Sidekick and the Chemist, my services could be useful!"

"Yes!" said Damien.  "And as a sort of mascot and a phoenix, I should 
go up there to motivate the team and provide down in case of 
emergencies!"

Steve walked over to the door and opened and closed it noisily.

Damien held up a piece of paper.  "Where do you think it is?" had been 
written on it.  Clumsily, as a wing can't hold a pencil very well, but 
it had been written nonetheless.

Steve shrugged, and mouthed, "no idea."  He sat down at one of the 
panels and stared thoughtfully into space.

Damien held up a sign.  "They're doing well," it said.  Steve looked 
questioningly at him and Damien pointed towards the deck monitor.  On 
it, the other five were battling a group of bloblike creatures.  Dan 
was making the most headway against them with his flamethrower 
attachment.

Steve stared at the computer screen in front of him, and an idea 
formed.

0_0

There was the clanking of Dan's armoured boots on the stairs and the 
door opened.  "Steve!  Damien!  Why didn't you-"

"QUIET!  Steve is looking for a bug!  Xelloss could be listening in on 
us!" said the sign that Damien held up right in front of the self-
appointed leader's face.

"Huh?" said everyone in the returning party.

"Why didn't we what?" asked Damien, making 'play along' motions with 
his wings.

"Uh... come right away," Kate hastily improvised.  "You took a while 
to show up."

No longer restrained by having to be quiet, Steve started typing 
normally.  The clack of keys filled the cabin.

"What are you up to?" asked Ardweden.

SEEING IF I CAN FIND ANYTHING FROM HERE, were the words that showed up 
on the monitor in front of him.  "Writing a log of our journey in this 
world thus far," he said normally.  "It's pretty long and complicated, 
and I thought I'd be able to make sense of things by writing them 
down."

"How far have you gotten?" she asked.

"Not very," he said.  The computer screen had a different story;  
THERE'S A LOG OF EVERYTHING THAT'S HAPPENED TO THIS SHIP, Steve typed.  
JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE, ITS SECURITY IS RAMSHACKLE AND MESSY AND 
REALLY EASY TO GET PAST, JUST LIKE I HOPED.  ACCORDING TO IT, THERE'S 
DEFINITELY BEEN SOME NEFARIOUS ACTIVITY GOING ON WITH CONSOLE #372-A, 
WHEREVER *THAT* IS.  I CAN'T FIND A MAP OF THE CONSOLES ANYWHERE.

"Hm," said Ardweden, looking around for console #372-A.  "Continue 
working on it.  It might be useful later."

"Hey, look at this!" said Dan, from the communications console in the 
corner, which conveniently had 372-A written on it in big black 
letters.  He activated the screwdriver attachment on his right little 
finger, unscrewed the lid of the console, and lifted it clear.  Right 
in front of him was a small microphone, and what looked for all the 
world like a miniature satellite dish.  Everyone stared at it for a 
while.

"If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes," said Ardweden, "I wouldn't 
have believed it."

"Rather pathetic, isn't it?" asked Kate.

SOMEONE SUGGEST LOOKING AT THE MAP AND WORKING OUT WHERE TO GO NEXT 
AGAIN, Steve typed.  WE'LL GET ANOTHER ENCOUNTER, COUNT ON IT.  WE CAN 
TALK NORMALLY UP THERE ABOUT WHAT TO DO WITH THIS BUG.

"That... uh... really large dead spider doesn't matter, guys!" 
Ardweden hastily improvised.  "We've got to work out where we are!  
Come on, let's check the map-"

Rather predictably, all the emergency lights, signs, and alarms went 
off as sea serpents, blobs, and some flying fish hopped onto the deck 
and started milling about.

"Let's go!" shouted Dan, and sprang out the door and up the steps, 
followed closely by everyone else.

0_0

"So what will we do with the bug?" asked Dan, and fired a flame burst 
at a watery blob.  It wailed and evaporated.

"No idea," said Kate, as she threw a hail of shuriken at a serpent.  
It hissed, oozed a lot of green, and collapsed.  "If we get rid of it, 
Xelloss will know we've found it and send something really big after 
us."

"But if we leave it in," said Ardweden as she kicked her way through a 
group of floating fish, "we'll get an encounter every single time we 
try to do something, and we'll have to watch what we say all the 
time."

"And Xelloss will know where we are all the time," said Illyria, and 
sliced a serpent open.

"I'm getting sick of all these encounters," said Scott.  "I vote we 
get rid of the stupid bug as soon as we get back.  SHINING SHINY 
LUVLUV WAI PSEUDOATTACKING ACTION!" she shouted, incinerating all the 
other monsters.

"Shining shiny luvluv wai pseudoattacking action?" everybody else 
asked.

"Oh gods, this is getting worse," said Scott.  "We have *got* to get 
out of here before I spout even sillier attack names."

0_0

"Yet another easy encounter," said Dan, as he came down the stairs.

"Not to mention a decision," said Ardweden.  She picked up the 
microphone.  "Hi Xelloss!  Bye Xelloss!"  She squeezed, and the 
microphone steadfastly refused to shatter.

"Allow me," said Illyria, and drew his sword.  A couple of quick 
slices later, the microphone was lying on the floor in pieces.

The monitors flickered, and the image of everyone's most annoying 
purple haired trickster priest appeared on every screen in the control 
room.

"Found the bug, huh?" asked Xelloss.  "It took you sooner than I 
thought it would.  I think that deserves some sort of award!"

There was a very loud crash as something very very large landed on the 
deck.  One of the monitors stopped showing Xelloss long enough to show 
a gigantic sea serpent coiling around on deck.

"Have fun!" said Xelloss, and waved cheerily.  "But before I go, just 
consider this - how did the microphone get on board?"  His image 
disappeared a moment later.

0_0

"How did it get on board?" asked NeoVid.

"It's really quite simple.  Ash got Crazy Jake to put it there," said 
Xelloss.  

"And you asked them that to start them fighting against each other, 
right?" Yonjuuni said.

"You got it!" Xelloss answered, smiling widely.

"But why the giant sea serpent?" asked NeoVid.  "I thought you said in 
chapter 17 we're not trying to kill them."

"We're not.  The sea serpent will be tough on them, but they'll be 
able to defeat it," Xelloss explained.  "And that chemist of theirs 
will be able to heal them in no time."

0_0

"Let's rumble!" shouted Dan.  He activated the DeathLaser attachment, 
and his suit flickered and disappeared, leaving a startled Dan 
pointing his ring finger at the decidedly unimpressed sea serpent.  
"...oops.  I'm just off to the recharge station downstairs.  I'll be 
right back."  He scurried down the stairs.

Ardweden hung back.  "What can I do against it?  It's too big to be 
taken on with my martial arts!"

Kate threw a number of shuriken, which bounced off the sea serpent's 
scales.

Illyria looked at the scales, at his blade, at the dripping teeth of 
the serpent, and notably didn't blur into a blaze of action.

Scott looked at the reluctant Ardweden, Kate, and Illyria.  "Aren't 
any of you guys going to fight?" she asked.

"...we can't hurt it," said Illyria.  "Our weapons are- damn!" he 
finished, scrambling away from the serpent's clumsy attempt to swallow 
everyone.  Its head smashed through the boards and became temporarily 
stuck.

"NOW!" cried Scott.  "COSMIC SHOOTING GENTLE STAR POWER!"  A beam, 
with lots of little glowing stars around it, blasted forwards into the 
serpent's scales.  It was followed shortly by a hail of shuriken, and 
then Illyria and Ardweden pounding on it from opposite sides.  This 
lasted only a moment before the serpent managed to get its head free 
and reared up, its eyes blazing.

A small vial arced up towards it, and the serpent reflexively snapped 
it out of the air.  It looked puzzled for a moment, then screeched and 
dove overboard.

"What just happened?"

"A vial of superconcentrated chili essence," said Steve.  "I always 
wondered what use it would be, and I just found one.  That didn't get 
rid of that monster, though.  It'll be back once it cools its mouth 
down."

"You IDIOT!" yelled Ardweden.  "You just made it really angry!"

"...true," said Steve.  "But I did buy some time."  He poked his head 
through the hole in the deck's planking.  "You recharged yet, Dan?"

"This is such an old recharge station!" Dan's voice complained.  "It's 
taking ages!"

Steve sighed.  "Oh well.  I always hoped I wouldn't have to do this 
again."  He concentrated, and the kanji for "magical girl" appeared on 
his bandanna.  The rest of the group had only a fraction of a second 
to read them, as Steve started to spin and glow and you could barely 
make out the colour of his shirt, let alone kanji half hidden by his 
hair.

Then he wasn't a he anymore, but a she dressed in a light purple 
armoured leotard and a short dark green skirt, with boots halfway up 
her calves and gloves halfway up her forearms.  She instinctively 
powerposed.  "I, am Magical Pretty Star Soldier Steph- what the hell 
am I saying?  Why am I posing like this?"

"It's automatic," Scott explained.  "Why emulate me?  I thought you 
said you'd never copy me again, back when it happened under the De 
Gemmel lake."

"You're our heaviest hitter, and the others are having trouble doing 
damage.  You're the only viable option."  Steve sighed.  "Believe me, 
if Dan was recharged I'd be emulating him."

There was a huge spray of water, and the screech of a really angry sea 
serpent.  It had cooled down its tongue and returned, and was ready to 
kick some serious butt.

"PRETTY IN PURPLE NOVA BLASTER!" shouted Steve, as a purple blast 
blasted forwards and blasted the serpent's head.  It didn't do much 
except surprise the creature and slow it down, but that was enough of 
an opening for Scott.  With a shout of "GALACTIC CRY OF WAI!" Scott 
caused several shockwaves of air to blast upwards and into their 
adversary, causing it to crash backwards into the water, raising a 
spray several times taller than the ship.

The serpent rose from the other side of the ship and struck downwards, 
mouth open and fangs gleaming.  Everyone scrambled out of the way as 
it got stuck a second time, then leaped into attacking the monster.  
Illyria managed to stab between its scales repeatedly, Ardweden struck 
it several times between the eyes extremely hard, Kate peppered its 
head with shuriken and Steve shot another Pretty In Purple Nova 
Blaster.  At the end of all that, the serpent's eyes were swirling and 
it was obviously extremely dizzy.

"FINALLY!" shouted Dan.  There was a cry of "VICTOLY!", then a mecha-
suited Dan flew up from the first hole and powerposed in mid-air.  
"Sentai Dan is here!"

"Hit it!" shouted Scott.

Dan was only too happy to do so, as he'd been missing from the battle 
thus far.  He unloaded with every weapon in his arsenal at once.  At 
the same time, Scott yelled something that could be barely heard over 
the roar of a hundred weapons simultaneously firing, but seemed to 
involve the moon.  An image of the moon appeared behind her, and rays 
of light shot out from her and homed in on the serpent's head.  There 
was an almighty explosion, leaving nothing of the serpent except 
subatomic particles drifting to the sea over a ten mile radius.

"We finally got the stupid thing..." said Scott, and collapsed to a 
sitting position.  "That Moonbeam Shatter took a lot out of me."

Steve picked up her Chemist Sack and rummaged through it before 
producing a vial of blue liquid.  "Here.  Take this, it should restore 
your energy."

Scott accepted it gratefully.  "Thanks."  She looked up at the still 
female Steve.  "Aren't you going to detransform?"

"In a minute.  I've got to heal us up first."  Steve handed out a few 
vials to the similarly drained combatants, then drank the contents of 
another.  She visibly brightened.  "That feels much better.  Time to 
detransform."  She concentrated on stopping her emulation, there was a 
piffle of light as the costume disappeared, and almost instantly 
noticed that something was wrong.

Everybody else noticed it too.

"Um, Steve," said Dan eloquently, "you're still a girl."

Steve patted her chest, just to make sure that the feeling of her body 
against her shirt was right.  It was.

"Well, crap," she said, and keeled over.

0_0

"Alright," said Dan.  "We have two things to work out.  First, is 
where the hell we are and how we're going to get to the Isle of the 
Bishounen.  Second is what on earth happened to Steve."

Everybody stared out the windows, straining their eyes for any sort of 
landmarks.  Except for Steve, who was rather shellshocked and mumbling 
incoherently.

Dan looked back at Steve, and an idea formed.  "Hey, look!" he said 
loudly.  "That cloud looks just like Leona Heidern!"

Steve notably failed to spring up and say "Where?  Where?"

"Um, Steve?  It looks just like Leona, you know!  And if you look at 
it right, she hasn't got any clothes on!"

The girls whapped him.  Well, all of them except for Scott, who hadn't 
yet worked up a proper sense of female indignation.  For that matter, 
Illyria technically wasn't one of the girls at the moment, and Steve 
didn't whap Dan for obvious reasons.  So, we'll revise that to say 
that Kate, Ardweden, and Illyria whapped Dan for that comment.  Steve, 
for her part, just sat there and stared into space.

Dan grew worried.  If Steve couldn't be snapped out of this by the 
possibility of a cloud that looked like Leona, then the neo-girl was 
in serious trouble.

"Hey," Dan suggested, "how about we deal with Steve's predicament 
first, then worry about where we are?"

"Dan?" said Ardweden.

"Yeah?"

"What about your Plot Compass?"

Dan had clean forgotten about it.  "Damn, I clean forgot about it!" he 
said.  "Where was it again?"

"If I remember right," said Ardweden, "there's a button underneath the 
sole of your left boot that was the key to unlocking it."

Dan found and pressed the button and heard a click from his left 
forearm.  He slid open one compartment and saw another compartment.  
He slid that one open and finally found himself gazing upon the piece 
of clear plastic that was his Plot Compass attachment.  There was an 
arrow pointing in almost the opposite direction they'd been going, and 
a message saying "Isle of Bishounen.  Distance: 1 chapter."

"One chapter?" he asked. "What does that mean?"

The message hastily revised itself, and now said "a really really long 
way."

"Oh.  It must be some weird joke that was programmed into this suit.  
It doesn't matter.  Kate, you're still piloting, right?"

"No!"

"Fine, fine, Damien, could you pilot, please?"

"Me?"  Damien waved his wings.  "How can I hold the yoke with these 
wings, Fearless Leader?"

"Dan," said Ardweden, "you're the only one who can easily see the Plot 
Compass anyway.  You should pilot."

"Fine, fine, geeze," said Dan, and sat down at the controls.  "How 
does this work?"  He pressed a button, and the ship lifted off with no 
juddering and started flying forwards.

"...it's just beginner's luck," said Kate, who hadn't been able to 
take off so smoothly.

"Very nice beginner's luck," grinned Dan, and took hold of the control 
yoke.  The ship almost immediately did a hard left.  He yelped in 
surprise and yanked it back on course.

After everyone had finished berating Dan for the rough ride, they 
turned to the next item on the agenda.  Namely, Steve, and what had 
happened to her.

"My best guess," said Scott, "is that somehow she overwrote her base 
male form with the base female form that the magical girl archetype 
has.  How, I have no idea."

"I didn't have this trouble when I emulated you before," moaned Steve.  
"I just detransformed normally and I was my usual male self.  What 
happened this time?"

"Those blue vials!" said Ardweden.  "Steve, what was in them?"

"Revitalisation potion," Steve said promptly.  "It boosts your energy 
drastically and accelerates your healing process to many times normal.  
I don't see how they could have-"  She broke off and groaned in 
realisation.  "Actually, yes I do.  If I was female when I took it, 
and there really is a difference of 'male energy' and 'female energy', 
then it boosted my 'female energy', and probably overwrote my base 
form like that."

Everyone stared at her.

"When did you learn all that technobabble?" asked Damien.

"He's a chemist," said Kate.  "Maybe Steve got a lot of subliminial 
chemist knowledge when he got the chemist robe and sack."

"But if we know that, how do we change him back?"

"It's obvious," Illyria said, sounding vaguely annoyed.  "Have him 
emulate me, take a vial, then stop emulating me.  That'll overwrite 
his base form with a male one."

"If my theory's right, that'd work great," said Steve, "except for one 
small detail."  She picked up the sack and held it open, letting 
everyone see the complete lack of blue anywhere.  "That small detail 
is that I'm right out of Revitalisation Potions.  I'm completely out 
and need to buy some more.  When's the next shopping trip?"

The airship suddenly boosted forwards to ludicrous speed for a few 
seconds, then stopped dead in midair.  Strangely, the extremely rapid 
acceleration and deceleration produced no horrible G-forces that 
immediately killed everyone.  It's just one of those things.

"...sorry," Dan said.  "I thought that was the 'seek out nearby town' 
button.  Instead it was the turbocharge."

"Where are we?"

Ardweden looked out the window.  "The Isle of Bishounen, at long 
last," she announced.

"Do they have any shops I can resupply at?" asked Steve.

(To be continued)


Author's Notes
--------------
Bet you thought that with me writing this chapter they'd be running 
into the De Gemmel Flying Hideout, huh?  ^_~

I had the idea for Steve accidentally overwriting his base form a 
short while after writing chapter 7, and decided I had to put it in 
sometime.  And here you are.

I had fun writing this chapter.  Unfortunately, I got to it very late 
due to writing scenes for Ultra #80 and so this hasn't been preread.  
Hopefully it's fine.

Thanks for reading.

Steven Scougall
http://www.crosswinds.net/~sscougall/
11th August 2001