This is a very random idea I got while reading Fruits Basket the other day. My mom and I were discussing how the characters would react to me and my friends, and it expanded to other anime and manga. This is what I came up with.
"I feel ridiculous." Sara stated flatly. "Are we almost done?"
"Just about…" Beki replied absently, adjusting the pentacle of stones in front of her one last time. "We just have to say the spell, and I'll be thoroughly humored, okay?"
"Fine." Sara grumped, sitting back on her heels. "So why do you get to be in the middle?"
"Because I wrote the spell." The other blond answered smugly. "You start, Diana."
"Eastern Maid, bless us here." Diana intoned obediently, eyes closed in concentration.
"Southern Warrior, erase our fear." Sara responded reluctantly from Diana's left.
"Western Mother, hear our prayer." Came Nicole's quiet contribution.
"Northern Crone, take us there." Stephanie added, grinning like a maniac.
"We call to thee, Above and Below." Beki concluded, head bowed over folded hands. "Hear our plea and make it so!"
For a moment, nothing happened. The candles flickered, casting odd shadows and making the polished stones glow red.
Then the candles flared brightly and died, plunging the room into near-complete darkness, lit only by a thin trail of blue light on the carpet.
"What's going on!" Sara demanded, scooting away from the steadily brightening light behind her. "Is this supposed to happen!"
"I don't-" Was as far as Beki got before the area inside the circle flared whitely and all five teens vanished.
"Ooh, shit!" Beki exclaimed, flailing wildly at the air around her. She was not dressed to go swimming…
Since she was doomed to fall anyway, the blond gave up on trying to fly and instead plugged her nose, managing a good deep breath before cannon-balling into the pool below her.
After a few seconds, she hit bottom and pushed as hard as she could, kicking for all she was worth. As soon as she broke the surface, she took several gasping breaths and managed to shake most of the water out of her eyes. She could see well enough to swim to the pool's edge, at any rate.
Damn, this thing is big! She thought, finally reaching the relative safety of the edge. She groped across the smooth tile for some kind of handhold, and encountered a leg instead. Looking up sharply, she found herself staring into a face she knew very, very well.
"Q-Quatre?"
Stephanie landed with a soft thud on a convenient stack of tumbling mats, jarring every bone in her body.
"Owie…" She complained tearfully, sniffling a little. "My poor, abuseded fanny…"
Standing slowly, Stephanie took the time to inspect her surroundings with mild curiosity. On the very long chance that Beki's spell worked, she certainly hadn't expected to end up in a storage room.
Well, She thought cheerfully, adjusting her shirt, no sense staying here. She strode purposefully to the door, grabbed the handle –
And almost yanked her arm out of its socket.
The door was locked. She'd have to wait for rescue, then, however long it was in coming. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too long; she hadn't so much as munched on a carrot stick since breakfast, and her stomach was beginning to protest her neglectful eating habits.
The sound of footsteps in the hall outside caught her attention, and she gladly turned to the door again, grabbing the knob and rattling it. The footsteps stopped, and Stephanie smiled to herself.
"Hello?" She called, trying her best to sound helpless. "Is someone out there? I can't get the door open. Can you help me?"
Someone on the other side of the slab muttered what sounded to Stephanie like curses, and she bit back a giggle. The panel slid into the wall, revealing the doorknob's strictly ornamental function, and Stephanie was suddenly eye-to-eye with the man of her dreams.
"Heero!" She exclaimed, stepping forward – and found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.
"How the hell do you know that name?"
Diana was pissed. Weird things had happened to her in the past, and weird things were bound to happen to her in the future, but this… this was just plain ridiculous.
She seriously hadn't expected the spell to work; very few of Beki's harebrained schemes did. She'd expected to indulge her sister and go to bed. That's why she was dressed in a Cowboys' jersey, boxers, and not much else. Because she hadn't expected to be visiting spaceships.
Muttering obscenities at her dimwitted older sister – wherever that idiot was – she made her careful way to what looked like a set of lockers, hoping one might contain clothing close to her size.
Two of the five lockers were securely fastened with heavy deadbolts of some kind. Of the three that weren't, one contained spacesuits and helmets, and another a lot of tools. But the fifth contained uniforms, one of which just barely fit her. The pants were a little snug around the hips and the shirt was a bit on the loose side, but Diana was used to wearing boys' clothes. She could apologize to Undine later for stealing his uniform.
Metal grating against metal alerted her to the arrival of the probable owner of the ship, and possibly even Undine himself. The sound of cursing soon reached her, as well as what must have been someone fumbling with an unwieldy burden.
"Dammit, woman, you left your clothes in the middle of the walkway again!" A young male voice growled, sounding oddly familiar to Diana's ears.
"You know damn well I hate that shade of blue." A woman replied hotly. "Everything that color on this ship is yours."
"That is not." The man replied, floating into view with his helmet under one arm, Diana's jersey held loosely in his free hand.
"Holy shit!" Diana exclaimed before she could stop herself. "You're Chang Wufei!"
"Mmm… Featherbed." Sara mumbled, smiling sedately. She wasn't quite sure what had happened after the floor in Beki's room started to glow; all she knew and cared about was that she was in a featherbed. A nice, big, soft featherbed.
Sunlight streamed through the open curtains to her left, filling the room with streaks of shadow and light. Aside from the bed, the only furniture was a large wooden wardrobe across from the door, a nightstand, and a stool. She fully intended to investigate the wardrobe and its contents. Just as soon as she felt ready to leave the featherbed. It might be a while.
Especially since someone had been kind enough to cover her with a down quilt while she'd been asleep. It was very comfortable, surrounded by all those feathers, and not even curiosity would drive her out before she was ready.
Voices drifted back to her from somewhere beyond the door. One sounded vaguely familiar, although she really couldn't be bothered to figure out where she'd heard it before.
Giving up on the whole thinking thing, Sara contented herself with drifting back into featherbed-induced sleep.
All things considered, it could be worse. Nicole wasn't quite sure how, exactly, but it could be. After all, she'd only appeared at the apex of a circus tent, fallen twenty feet, and been caught by a clown. And no matter how much clowns scared her, she'd rather be caught by a clown than fall to her death in a circus tent.
Besides, this was one clown she could forgive his profession and freaky pants.
"Are you all right?" Trowa asked, finally able to put her down now that they were out of sight of the crowd.
Nicole nodded mutely, marveling at the fact that Beki's spell had actually worked, even if the placement was a bit off.
"Good." Trowa, apparently, really was a clown of few words, because that was all he said for the next five minutes. Nicole herself much preferred his silence to the babbling of Sara's chosen pilot, so she just sat there being grateful until something started ringing.
It turned out to be some kind of video phone, which Trowa immediately answered in complete silence.
Nicole found to her astonishment that she could hear what was being said on the other end, and that she recognized one of the callers.
"- not really very tall, though. She's quiet, so don't expect to find her by the screaming." Beki explained in her usual fast and random manner. "Oh, and if you haven't found her yet, you'd better quick, 'cause my little Nicole's afraid of clowns. Also, don't let anything purple near her. She and purple don't agree. So when are you bringing her to Q's place?"
"Soon." Trowa said, hanging up.
"We should call Heero next." Beki said cheerfully. "We really should have called him first, but I forgot there was a chance he'd kill Stephanie. Guess I was really worried about Nicole showing up in a circus. Just goes to show… And you can get in touch with Wufei and Duo right? Because I fear for Wufei's health the first time he calls my sister 'woman.' She'll rip him to shreds, martial artist or no."
Quatre just smiled weakly and dialed Heero's portable unit. His new houseguest seemed to talk continuously, without even pausing for breath, as she marveled over the appliances and electronics and commented repeatedly on things she really shouldn't know.
"And by the way, thanks for the clothes. Mine were soaked so bad… I hope my boots don't shrink…"
The unrelieved black ensemble she'd worn into his pool was drying right now, leaving her to wear his clothes until they were done. Since his pants were a few inches too short for her, she'd chosen a pair of khaki shorts with a wide leather belt and a light blue tanktop that stretched across her chest, revealing the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra.
"I just hope people start showing up here soon; I wanna meet Heero sooo bad… What's he going by these days, anyway? A lot of fans think he's most likely to take the name Odin Lowe now that the war's over, but I think he'll either stay Heero or choose something totally out of the blue, like Michael."
"Um…" Quatre managed before she was off again on another subject, and wandering out of the room to boot. He turned back to his phone, which had finally managed to connect, with a sigh.
"Probably not for a few days." Hilde sighed, watching something behind the comm. screen. "We can't just up and leave the scrapyard like this."
"I know," Quatre replied sympathetically. "But I really think it's best we get these girls back where they came from. Especially since Miss Beki has decided she has first rights to all my clothing and books."
"Aw, is poor Quatre having girl troubles?" Hilde teased, grinning. "If all else fails, you can always lock her in a closet."
"Hilde!"
"Looks like the gang's all here!" Duo announced, bounding down from his lookout point above the front doors. "Two cars just pulled up, and 'Fei's in one of 'em!"
Trowa rolled his eyes at the hyperactive brunette's antics. It had been bad enough when it was just Duo; now the two blonds who'd fallen from the sky had joined in. Three teenagers with ADD… his day couldn't possibly get any worse…
"Rebbekha Lynn Herbst!" Someone shouted, and the front door banged open. "Your stupid spell dropped me in a spaceship in my boxers, you bitch!" The dark-haired girl in the doorway yelled, stepping inside and glaring around her. "Now get out here and take what you've got coming!"
"DIANA!" One of the blonds – Beki, if Trowa recalled correctly – exclaimed at the top of her lungs, attacking the newcomer from behind. "Diana, my lovely, lovely, idiotic little sister, did you get to meet Wufei yet? Is he really Sally's partner? They're not doing anything, are they? Have you noticed that we're anime characters now? Isn't that awesome? We have hammer space now! Are you wearing Wufei's uniform!"
With each question, Beki got louder, and the tic in Diana's eye became more pronounced, until finally the younger girl turned and dropped, pinning her sister to the floor.
"Shut up, you crazed freak! Having that ass call me 'woman' all day long is bad enough! I can't handle this!"
"Hello, Diana." Trowa's mystery lady, Nicole, said calmly, as if she was used to such extreme displays. "Sara's in the kitchen."
"Thanks!" Diana exclaimed, suddenly all sweetness and light as she jumped off Beki and skipped off towards the kitchen. How she knew where it was, nobody knows for sure.
"Where did that woman run off to now?" Wufei demanded, stalking into the mansion with Sally Po a step behind him, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"If you mean Diana, she's in the kitchen with Quatre and Sara." Beki answered, picking herself up off the floor. "How many times has she smacked you for calling her 'woman'?"
Sally burst out laughing and Wufei scowled, testifying louder than words that he had indeed been smacked for his chauvinistic ways.
Haha! F34r my randomness! I'll try to get chapter two out soon, but I'm not making any promises. You know how I am; burst of words, then nothing for a month or two, then a chapter, then a month of silence, and so on and so forth. Meh.