From alt.pub.dragons-inn Mon Sep 4 22:44:39 1995 Xref: netcom.com alt.comics.lnh:8614 alt.pub.dragons-inn:8680 rec.arts.comics.creative:4080 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!not-for-mail From: robotech@gxl.woodtech.com (Robotech_Master) Newsgroups: alt.comics.lnh,alt.pub.dragons-inn,rec.arts.comics.creative Subject: SG/LNH/APDI [AU]: Team M.E.C.H.A. #65: The Grand Tour, Part Five Date: 2 Sep 1995 20:55:15 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway Lines: 471 Sender: nobody@cs.utexas.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: news.cs.utexas.edu The day dawned bright and new over Generica, and Andrea stood at the top of the tallest tower in the mansion to watch it. No matter how many times that sun rose, she never got tired of it. It was a beautiful sight, and helped remind the unicorn side of her that nature was still out there, just a little ways beyond the city. That, by itself, was enough to make the day more livable. The cleanup of the old mansion was nearly complete. The rooms that they would be living in were spotless, and the rest of the house had been given sort of a cursory scrub-down. All the traps they'd disarmed during the course of the exploratory expedition had been repaired and re-armed, ready to be activated at a moment's notice (for just in case). Now, at last, she and her "family" could take some time off. They had been planning the trip to the wilderness for quite some time. Just the four of them--Andrea, N'graytha, Jay, and Sheryl. They would get back to nature and enjoy the scenery, perhaps even make contact with the unicorn herd they'd met during the trip back to Generica after Andrea had discovered her dual nature. It would be absolutely WONDERFUL. As she stood there, breathing in the brisk Generica morning air, Andrea gradually became aware that something was wrong very close by. Well, maybe not WRONG per se, but certainly not quite right. As the feeling of unease grew, Andrea looked around, tried to see where it was coming from. She let her unicorn senses come to the fore, searching, pinpointing... There it was--down in the yard in front of the mansion. It was some kind of a shimmering distortion in the air, and it was growing. Andrea swore, and dashed into the tower and down the stairs. The first thing Summer realized was that she was really disoriented. She felt nauseous, kind of like she wanted to throw up. This was kind of odd, since she was currently the head of a giant robot, which couldn't vomit and wouldn't have HAD anything to vomit if it could. *Where AM I?* she wondered. *What happened?* She looked around, slowly taking in the panorama that surrounded her. It was an old city of some kind, vaguely European-looking, built on low, rolling hills that sloped gently down to a deep blue bay. It looked like it had come straight off of some picture postcard, an image of a place that no longer existed in the modern world. Turning around, Summer also noticed the large, medieval mansion that Bahamode Sigma was standing in front of. And the two women, one of whom was wielding a crossbow, who were standing at the front door. *Uh-oh,* Summer thought. "ooogh," Spectrum groaned. "Dorothy, I don't think we're in Kansas any more..." 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A Story of High Technology and High Fantasy (And never the twain should meet, eh?) The Grand Tour, Part 5: alt.pub.dragons-inn By Chris Meadows, with help from Lawrence Brown and Mason Kramer Mike shook his head groggily. What had just happened? He remembered, they were fighting the Grangers, and then--blank. Maybe there was something, but he couldn't quite make sense of it. As his vision cleared, he looked over the panel gauges. Something was wrong, and in moments he understood what it was. "Power has dropped way below minimum levels," Mike realized. "Spectrum?" A groan was the only response. "We're running on the capacitors' residual charges!" Summer said. "We have to go to emergency separation!" She triggered the command, and Bahamode Sigma broke apart, thrusters automatically firing to bring each of the components to a safe landing. Sally and Phobos touched down to one side of the rest of the group, while Summer shapeshifted into her human form and dropped to a rather wobbly landing on the ground. "Is everyone okay?" Summer asked. Spectrum moaned, having face-planted into the dirt after being ejected, then tried to stand up. "Ooh...I think I'd like to be a Pepper, too," he muttered, shaking his head. "Whoa, wait a minute. What happened? Where are we?" "Everyone--quick! Shut down your mecha, the computers, everything electronic!" Summer said urgently. "What? Why?" Mike asked. "There's no time for discussion, just do it!" Startled by Summer's vehemence, Mike quickly powered down the command Bahamode, and tapped out the command sequence that would force everyone else's mecha to transform to motorcycle mode and do the same. As the lights went out on the dashboards and control panels, Summer turned to Pinto Sally's standard Garland bike. "You, too. And Phobos, Spectrum--turn everything off in your armor suits, fast!" As everything powered down, Summer sighed in relief. "Whew...that's better." "Hold everything!" The two women who had been standing in the front door came running up. Summer looked at them, scrutinizing them closely. There was something about them, especially the dark-haired, dark-garbed one with the crossbow, that was eerily familiar. But surely it wasn't--it couldn't possibly be-- "Andrea?" Summer asked hesitantly. Andrea pulled up short, nearly dropping the crossbow. "What--? Who are you?! And how do you know my name?!" "I--that is--" Summer stalled for time. Looking closer, she could see that this Andrea looked subtly different from the one she'd known back in Terrania. It was hard to describe the difference. They both looked young, perhaps in their mid-to-late twenties, but the Andrea that Summer knew had kind of a mysterious, timeless quality that this one did not. "Do you work for Raykor?!" Andrea asked, cocking the crossbow. "No, we've never heard of him!" Mike said, pulling off his CVR armor helmet. "We don't even know where we are!" "Sister, lower your weapon," the blonde woman behind Andrea said. "I sense no evil here...only confusion, and...strange magic." Andrea glanced at the woman. "Are you certain, N'graytha?" N'graytha shrugged. "No more than I am certain of anything." Andrea sighed. "That's not very reassuring." Nonetheless, she lowered the weapon and regarded the motley crew arrayed before her. They were wearing some kind of strange metal armor, and both it and their machines were like nothing she'd ever seen before. They'd changed from a huge golem-like figure into several smaller figures, and then into wheeled things--carts? She hadn't ever seen a cart with only two wheels and nowhere to hitch the horse, though. Mike climbed off his bike and took stock of the situation. The rest of the team seemed okay, if a little groggy. But Summer was acting a bit...odd. She was looking all around, sniffing the air experimentally, almost as if she were looking for something. And her eyes were glowing faintly. "Summer? Mike asked. "Are you okay?" He did a bit of looking around himself. "Where ARE we? How did we get here?" "I don't know how you came," Andrea said, "but you're in the residential area of the city of Generica on the world Nexus." "Nexus...Generica...why does that sound so familiar?" Summer wondered. She dismissed the thought for the moment; it wasn't important right now. "We jumped dimensionally..." she said slowly. "...though I expect it might be more correct to say 'multiversally.' This place seems far too...different from ours to be altiversally-related." "Different?" Mike asked. "I can't explain it, don't ask me to...it just...feels different." Summer paused. "Do you remember what happened during the battle?" "We were fighting the Grangers, Spectrum arrived, and then--" "And then we merged, mentally." Summer said. "But it was all of us this time, not just me and Spectrum." She quickly summarized what had happened, as she remembered it. "And so, here we are." "Whar are th'Grangers?" Pinto Sally wondered. "An' Zwarghoff? Are they close?" Summer shook her head. "I think we must have miscalculated; they aren't in this universe." "What?" Sally asked. "How d'yew know that?" "I just...know." Summer tried to find the right words. "We all gained our powers in the same hyperspatial blast. I never realized it until now, but I think we have some kind of... affinity. Just as clearly as I can see you standing in front of me right now, I can sense that they're not in this universe." "Well, that's all jes' fine an' dandy, then," Sally fumed. "Whyn'cha'll jest join up again and give it another try?" "It's not quite that simple," Summer said. "For one thing, that mental gestalt link is kind of draining. I don't know if any of us are ready to go back into it this soon. For another, we don't have the proper reference point from which to make another dimensional jump. In truth, I don't even know if we could jump back to the Superguy altiverse from here without knowing more about where we stand." "Then how ARE we gonna find them?" Sally wondered. "Are we stuck here?" Summer shook her head. "We aren't stuck. I can sense a great deal of dimensional instability in this portion of this universe; this world would seem to be named 'Nexus' for a very good reason. When the time comes, we will leave this world by opening a new dimensional gateway or stepping through one that is already here." She looked around, as if assensing the locations of the nearest dimensional anomalies. "Besides, if we did miscalculate, it could not have been by much. A few decimal places, perhaps. Wherever the Grangers are right now, it can't be TOO far away. We'll get there." "Well, how d'yew know so much?" Sally asked. "Did yew swallow a dimensional guidebook or somethin'?" Phobos opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted. "Hey, lay off of her," Spectrum said, leaning against a tree until he could regain his balance. "This situation is hard enough for all of us without some superpowered Hee-Haw refugee causing more trouble." Spectrum removed his helmet, running his hand through his hair in irritation and fatigue. Sally turned on him. "Causin' trouble? Now yew look here, mister high an' mighty, if somethin' weerd is goin' on, Ah think that Ah have a right t'know 'bout it." Spectrum choked back a reply, his expression blanking and a string of drool dribbling off the corner of his mouth. "Urk..." "Oh, dear..." Dr. Science sighed, quickly producing the spray syringe he'd habitually carried since Pinto Sally had joined the team. He hurriedly injected Spectrum with the antigen he'd concocted to neutralize the effects of Sally's boosted pheromonal system. "I should have realized that this might happen." Sally blushed. "Oops. Sorry 'bout thet." "Hey, hey, both of you, stop it," Mike said. "I'm kind of curious as to what's going on here myself. Summer, how DO you know so much? For that matter, why did you tell us to turn all our equipment off just now? You didn't seem to know all this when we started out." Summer hesitated. "I...I don't know. I just...KNOW. There's something very powerful about this place...I can't tell exactly what it is, but it's kind of scary." In the background, Sarah Conner wove a spell of true-seeing, and gasped at what she saw. "Summer--I don't understand why, but...you're magical!" Sarah gasped. "I am?" Summer asked. "This is new." "Yes...I see it too," Adam Douglas said, calling up his own magical senses. "Sort of a glowing aura all around you." "I wonder if it's my nanites..." Summer thought aloud. "They are more directly connected to my hyperspatial powers...perhaps they're feeding me these things that I suddenly find I know." "It could be that in this dimension, technological items take on magical properties," Dr. Science posited. "'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,' doc?" Spectrum asked. "In this case, delete the 'indistinguishable from,'" Dr. Science replied. "Any sufficiently advanced technology IS magic." "Scary," Phobos said. "I wonder what my stuff is...according to Dr. Science, it was halfway magical already." "No wonder you had us turn all our equipment off," Mike said. "We don't know what the effects of using such advanced technology in a place like this. It might cause some kind of catastrophe." "There is quite a lot of magic here," Adam Douglas said, looking around. "I don't know if I would necessarily call it stronger than in our own world, but it does seem to be more plentiful." "Well," Mike said. "It seems like we're going to be depending on magic rather than technology for a change." "Well," Phobos drawled, "At least we aren't TOTALLY helpless there..." Andrea cleared her throat delicately. "Excuse me," she said, "but if you're quite finished discussing how you got here and what 'here' is like, I would rather like to know a few things myself. Things like who you are, what you're doing here, and how you know my name would be nice for starters." "Um..." Summer began, uncertain exactly where to start. Her nanites, she noted wryly, were being most silent on this issue. Before Summer got too far into her explanation, Andrea had made up her mind that these strangers could be trusted. As a thief, she'd had to develop the ability to assess peoples' character from just a few moments of interaction, and having the magical senses that came from her dual nature didn't hurt either. When Summer paused to take a breath, Andrea interrupted to suggest, "It's going to get rather warm out here soon...why don't we move this discussion inside? I imagine that Jay and Sheryl will be eager to meet you as well." And so Team M.E.C.H.A. trooped into the huge manor in which Andrea and her friends now lived. They walked a bit slowly, as they were still kind of enthralled by their surroundings. This was the kind of place that you read about in fairy-tales and fantasy stories--even more so than Terrania. Phobos had never seen its like; nor, he suspected, had anyone else. Even Sarah Conner was fascinated, and she'd spent enough time in Terrania to feel like a native of it (which she actually was by birth, anyway). They came into a nicely-furnished sitting room, with plenty of couches and chairs for everyone to sit down. "Please, be seated," Andrea said. "Your story sounds fascinating, and I'd like to hear more of it." Mike, Summer, Adam, Sarah, Lincoln, Dr. Science, Phobos, Spectrum, and Sally selected chairs. Andrea noticed that Spectrum sat as far away from Sally as he could. Just then, a small unicorn came bounding into the room, followed by a boy just a bit younger than Summer. "Hey, what's going on?" the boy asked. Andrea grinned, and glanced over at the visitors. "Team...meka?" she tried. "Team M.E.C.H.A.," Mike offered. "Ahem, yes. Team M.E.C.H.A., this is my apprentice, Jay, and this is Sheryl. Jay, Sheryl, these are..." She introduced them, one by one, but Summer was no longer paying attention. "Ooh!" Summer gasped. "A real, live unicorn!" She was off the couch in an instant, kneeling next to Sheryl a moment later. "Can I pet her?" Sheryl snorted her distaste for such adulation, but Andrea grinned bemusedly. The last young girl she'd introduced Sheryl to had braided her mane and tail. She hadn't been able to live it down for weeks. Summer looked into Sheryl's eyes, ran a hand along her neck, and smiled, but showed no inclination to start braiding, so Sheryl decided she liked Summer after all. She inclined her head and offered an ear to be scratched behind. After introductions had been made all around, Summer once again began to explain their predicament. Andrea found it a bit hard to follow; N'graytha doubly so, but they got the gist of it. It seemed that their enemies had somehow tried to throw them into another world, but had instead been thrown themselves. Team M.E.C.H.A. had tried to follow in order to bring them back, but had miscalculated their jump and ended up here instead. "Anyway, I know that they have to be somewhere near here, maybe only a few worlds away from this one," Summer finished, looking up from where she sat on the floor next to Sheryl. "All we have to do is figure out how to get from here to there." "Which may not be easy," Dr. Science noted. "We need to find out more about the dimensional mechanics of this particular pocket of reality, perhaps determine a way to exploit them to take us where we need to go. This leads to something of a dilemma, as it seems patently obvious that the state of science in this world has not advanced far beyond the dark ages." "Um, excuse me, doc, but why would science be the only answer?" Adam Douglas asked. "Don't you think that, to reverse what we were talking about earlier, a sufficiently advanced magic could be indistinguishable from technology?" "Perhaps theoretically..." Dr. Science said. "But then, I've always been somewhat hazy on magic as a concept." "Do you know of anyone who might be able to help us?" Summer asked. "Hmm..." Andrea considered. "What about 'Raelf?" N'graytha suggested. "They know so much more than we do about dimensions of reality..." Andrea snapped her fingers. "Perfect! We'll go and ask them." "Do you think they could help us?" Mike asked, deciding that asking who they were would probably be premature. "Oh, undoubtedly," Andrea said. "If they're still around, anyway...it's been weeks, or maybe months since we saw them last." "Hm." Mike thought about this. "Okay. When can we go and see them?" "Right after lunch, I think," Andrea said. "Hungry?" "I don't know about anyone else, but dimensional travel ALWAYS makes me hungry," Adam Douglas said. "'Always'?" Sarah asked. "But you've only done it one time." "Yes, and that makes it one for one, so far," Adam replied, then finding it necessary to dodge the pillow Sarah playfully heaved at him. Andrea grinned. "Very well, then, come with me. I know a wonderful little inn not far from here. Oh, it might be best if you were to leave that armor you're wearing behind; the other townsfolk might find it just a trifle strange." Mike nodded. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm not sure that they'll find our blue jeans and t-shirts any less strange, but I guess they'll at least be less threatening." "Yeah. I guess I'd better take off my suit, too," Spectrum decided. "Um...you don't have any lemurs around here, do you?" "What?" Andrea asked, not certain that she'd heard right. "Never mind, just checking." Not much later, the eleven humans and one unicorn headed down the street toward the Dragon's Inn. Conversation was rather subdued, generally along the nature of, "Wow! I've never seen anything like this before," and "Would you look at that?" Circumstances had turned Team M.E.C.H.A. into accidental tourists. Spectrum strode alongside Adam. "Adam, what did you mean, Summer is magic? Am I magic now, too?" Adam raised an eyebrow at Spectrum. "You've always been magic. Everyone has some potential for magic. Some people just happen to have more than others, that's all." "Come on, Adam, you know what I mean." "Well, you remember what Dog said, about magic and your abilities to summon energy?" "Yeah?" "When I look at you, my friend, I see a ticking time bomb with enough potential to blow this place sky-high." Spectrum hung back, shocked at his shamanic friend's blunt reply. As they walked down past the fountains that lined the Generican street, Summer dropped back alongside Sarah Conner and Adam Douglas. "This is just amazing, isn't it?" Summer asked. "Yeah," Sarah said, and Adam nodded his agreement. "And I thought that *Terrania* was something else." "What do you think about our hostess?" Summer asked, indicating where Andrea walked far ahead at the front of the line. "Isn't it funny that she looks and sounds so much like the Andrea in Terrania? Why do you suppose that is?" "I don't know," Sarah admitted. "This Andrea looks about the same as our own Andrea, except her hair isn't quite as long and she doesn't dress the same. But she *acts* differently." "Yeah. Andrea of Terrania acts all old and wise, though she doesn't LOOK that much older," Adam pointed out. "And she's always doing that 'mysteriously disappear whenever you aren't looking' schtick. Makes me nervous. What's worse, I never could figure out how or why she was able to do it. Even using my magic senses, she always just looks like a normal human being." "She keeps her aura tightly damped down," Sarah Conner said. "I can tell she's doing it, and it kind of scares me, because I know you have to be pretty powerful to do that kind of thing as successfully as she does it." "What about THIS Andrea?" Summer asked. "Can you read her?" "Hmm...you know, I hadn't thought of that," Sarah realized. "Let me see..." Her eyes unfocussed for a moment. "Hmm...hello. That's very interesting?" "What do you see?" Summer asked. "Her aura...it shows signs of strong magic, all right, but there's also something else. Something strange." Sarah paused. "I'm not as good at reading auras as Ari--she's been doing it longer--but I can tell you this. Andrea's aura has some striking similarities to N'graytha's...and to Sheryl's!" "The unicorn?" Summer gasped. Sarah nodded. "That's what I see..." Adam Douglas blinked. "I think you're right." "But what does this mean?" Summer asked. "There's no way to tell, really," Sarah said. "I'm not experienced enough to interpret the signals--they're kind of muddled. But I can tell you this...her aura is very, very close to what I've been able to see of our own Andrea's." Summer nodded, and thought about the time she'd met Andrea in the Dreaming at Samantha's wedding, and the glow she'd had all around her, especially at her forehead. In the front of the procession, Andrea had been pointing out parts of the city to Mike, but now she stopped for just a moment and looked thoughtful. Her unicorn's hearing was much sharper than that of a normal human, and she'd just overheard a rather interesting conversation with herself as the subject. Now Andrea understood why Summer had so clumsily dodged the issue of how she'd recognized her at first. Andrea didn't know much about dimensional travel, but her travails with her younger sister's curse had taught her that an individual's aura was typically very distinct, and similarities did not usually happen without some reason. Had these people known some future version of herself? After a few moments' thought about it, she resisted the temptation to ask. She was probably better off not knowing. "Is something wrong?" Mike asked. "What? Oh, no," Andrea said. "I was just thinking about something for a moment. Now, if you look over there, you should just be able to see the Bismanian Quarter..." WILL TEAM M.E.C.H.A. MAKE IT THROUGH TO THE NEXT WORLD? WILL THE MIGHTY MUDDY POWER GRANGERS SURVIVE IN THE LOONIVERSE? WILL THE LOONIVERSE SURVIVE THE MIGHTY MUDDY POWER GRANGERS? IS THE ALT.PUB.DRAGONS-INN ANDREA A YOUNGER VERSION OF THE ANDREA FROM THE SUPERGUY ALTIVERSE? YOU MAY FIND OUT EVENTUALLY, IF YOU TUNE IN AND START READING SUPERGUY (and alt.pub.dragons-inn, and LNH) -- Chris Meadows aka | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co. Robotech_Master | on the Superguy Listserv (bit.listserv.superguy robotech@woodtech.com | Now with a brand new World Wide Web homepage! chm173s@nic.smsu.edu | http://www.woodtech.com/~robotech/index.html