Of Worlds to Fall
Chapter Thirty-Six - Lure
by Apollymi

Main Series: Sailormoon, Dragonball Z, Gundam Wing
Genre: Crossover, Romance, Supernatural
Word Count: 1,269
Disclaimers: I own nothing but the idea. All series and characters are copyright to their individual creators and distributors, of which I am not one. I make no money from this fan-created work.

Next time she got an idea in her head like giving people back their powers, she was going to have to insist that someone, though preferably not Trunks-kun, hit her... because obviously it was one of the stupidest ideas she had ever had--and she had had some real braindead ones over the years.

Not only had there been Sylphiel-san a couple of days ago, but people were starting to turn up in their area of the city ever since Sylphiel-san. She didn't know the names of half the people who had turned up, even the ones she had managed to return their abilities to.

Ranma-san and Ryoga-san, both from the same world--meaning that Duo-kun and Heero-kun were not entirely without precedent--were going to stand out in her memory for a while, if not for all the fighting between the two of them, then for Ranma-san's loud relief to be able to fight and not possibly getting turned into a girl in the middle of a fight... or Ryoga-san accidentally turned into a pig... which in turn led to more fighting between the pair again.

Tenchi-san had shown up yesterday as well, much like everyone else hovering around the area of the time machine until she was able to get downstairs to meet him and give him back his Light Hawk Wings... and that she hadn't expected. That Duo-kun was working on the mechanical side of the time machine while Heero-kun worked on the programming side of it inside somewhere... Well, that at least meant that she wasn't outside alone.

Not that she stood a lot of chance of being completely alone right now. It seemed like no matter where she turned, she either had Trunks-kun or Duo-kun right next to her. And yes, there were all the things the three of them had done that first night and last night, but there was also the fact that the two of them were the only ones who currently knew just how draining using the Ginzuishou this much was on her.

Frankly, all she wanted to do was curl up in a bed--an actual bed, with a mattress and sheets and real pillows--and sleep for a week. It wasn't going to happen, of course, not until they got out of this mess and off this insane world. It might not even happen then, depending on where they ended up.

God, she hoped they ended up on a world that had invented beds.

It had been fairly quiet since midday. The afternoon sun had gone behind some clouds an hour or so ago, and she wasn't complaining. Sunbathing was about the furthest thing from her mind. Right now, she just wanted to sit here next to Duo-kun in peace and quiet, with no one disturbing her for a few uninterrupted hours at the very least.

It had been an almost nonstop parade of people stopping here since yesterday morning. She had barely gotten breakfast divided out for the four of them, along with the other daily meals, before Trunks-kun reported hearing someone or something moving around in the street. That had turned out to be Ranma-san, and it had been fairly nonstop from there.

If she had to fathom a guess, she would say that at least fifteen people had showed up here yesterday. She clearly remember Ranma-san and Ryoga-san, because of the fighting and the changing into a girl and/or pig, but also because the pair had been the first ones to show up more or less on her doorstep. After that, she remembered Tenchi-san and the woman who had come with him, Kagome-san. She remembered faces for some of the other people she met but not names and vice versa for some of the others.

Today, there had been about six to ten more people: they were all starting to run together. She had seen at least twenty people, and she had even been able to give more than two-thirds of them back their powers in exchange for an agreement to help them fight against the Reapers.

Seriously, just how many people had Sylphiel-san told about what she had managed to do for the older woman? Better still, how had she managed to tell them all so quickly? It wasn't like there were cell phones in this world.

Still, it was warm out here, at least compared to inside. She had found a fairly comfortable place to settle herself while Duo-kun worked on repairing sections of the time machine that had been picked over by the scavengers. Some of the pieces that had disappeared had since returned; she had found a small box full of capsule-like things that she needed to show Trunks-kun at some point and the pilot's seat sitting anonymously next to the side of the machine this morning.

Duo-kun was still wearing the uniform he had shown up in. In deference to the work he was doing, he had taken off the jacket and rolled up his shirt's sleeves; the tie had disappeared with their old building, to Duo-kun's apparent relief. On the other hand, she had changed into the winter clothes she had gotten from Sylphiel-san, was wearing Duo-kun's jacket, and had one of the blankets wrapped around her legs. It made her feel older than she had any right to feel, but at least she was finally a comfortable temperature.

It was entirely possible that Duo-kun was paying more attention to her than he was to fixing the time machine. She hadn't seen anything being seriously worked on in the last few minutes. For all her protests about basically being babysat where the Carrions were concerned, she didn't mind this too much. Maybe that was because it didn't feel like Duo-kun was treating it as a duty.

Besides, Heero-kun had found a building that suited his needs for his coding. Trunks-kun was with him while he worked on what was needed to make the time machine do what it was supposed to be doing.

"Damn," she heard Duo-kun comment under his breath. Well, that was certainly heartfelt.

"What is it?" she asked quietly, though not as softly as he had spoken. She leaned closer to him, trying to see if she could spot what it was that was bothering him.

"Is there any chance you can say no to these guys?" he asked as he nodded towards the northern end of the street.

She followed his gaze. At least it was only two people this time. One group yesterday had been five people, and that had certainly been exhausting. Two was a much more manageable number, if she did end up trying. And who was she kidding? She would end up trying to give them both their powers back; she hadn't not tried yet.

Wait a minute... Yes, there were two of them. They did seem unusually close, the shorter blond all but orbiting around the taller dark-haired man.

It was the dark-haired man that intrigued her. There was something oddly familiar about him, but it wasn't like she had ever met him before.

It was the sunglasses that tipped her off, though. They certainly were as weird as Tenchi-san's description had indicated. Dark spiky hair, tall and lean... This had to be the person that Sylphiel-san had seen being dropped off a little after she and Trunks-kun arrived. Of course, he had landed in the Thunder Emperor's--no, Raitei, she corrected herself--territory.

So did that mean the hyper and entirely too happy blond hovering in orbit around the taller guy was Raitei? She shook her head slightly to clear it because that was seriously a dumb thought. No, this could not Raitei. It would have to be Ginji-san.

"I really don't think I can, Duo-kun," she replied, maybe a little sadly, pushing herself to her feet.

Well, this was certainly going to be interesting.


26 October 2012

Good morning, 6 o'clock. You seem to come earlier and earlier every day. Of course, today is going to be my weird day of leaving by 2am to get to Saint Petersburg (the Florida version) by 7:30 or 8 for NecronomiCon. I'm going to try to upload tomorrow's chapter before I leave; otherwise, you'll get two on Sunday.

In other news, I finished Utopia last night, only to find myself too tired to upload it, so it's going up today too.

See you in the next chapter!
Apollymi

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