Author's Note:
Some of what follows may not completely make sense. I have a habit of using my name as the name for the main character of stories, then going back and changing it later to an appropriate name. Over time I got into parodying myself a little. This story takes place at the end, after every unpublished, scribbled note and/or story or even fanfic to date, whether or not they will see daylight, and so my character Charm has lived through literally hundreds of adventures, including most of those on my web publishing accounts. From these he has amassed wealth, power, treasure, enemies and allies, and has created a retreat in a mountain surrounded by the characters who seem to keep cropping up in my stories. Dekar from an old Lufia fanfic, Sailors Venus, Pluto and Saturn from Sailormoon fics, Ambriel the wingless elf, even 87-MLE the cybernetic pony-anthro, and all the gang from Slave Fighter Alleywise. And, of course, there are (at least) my two favourite two love interests for Charm, Nikki Silk and Sillabub. Sailor Luminos was created in my first Sailormoon fanfic, called 'Sailor Ecliptos,' where I surprised myself by writing a truly vicious character obsessed with killing Charm. In this current story, they have been at war for several years, each mobilising the resources of entire countries in epic battles. But since Luminos is a Sailor Senshi and basically good, she has not allied with any of his enemies (who are evil), and there was one very heartwrenching moment when they turned in a united truce against Sef, a demonic sword in command of an army.
…
Okay, so I got a little lost in nostalgia there. I'm sure you'll pick it up as you go. Please enjoy my first concerted effort at a humour story. Much love.
Charm.
Introduction—the GATHERING.
An unlikely dogbone-shaped Satellite revolved slowly above a blue-green planet. The computers were running at full speed, giving off important-sounding clicking noises as it processed the life signs miles below it. And locked onto one as rockets fired, propelling it towards the signature that marked the target.
A conversation could be heard, broadcast through a public address system on what appeared to be the bridge, as it was lined with control panels and monitors. The voices were modulated, disguised, it seemed, even though there was no one on the empty Satellite to overhear them anyway. It was almost as if they were... preparing for something.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Of course I am. I'm being funded a great deal for this experiment."
"Run me through the subjects again."
One of the voices sighed. "Fine, but this is the last time!"
There was silence for a few moments. Then, a sniffling noise could be heard.
"Look, you don't have to cry, I was just—"
"You're so mean to me!"
"This isn't doing a lot for our invincible villain image—"
"Why can't you be nice and pay me a compliment sometime? I try sooo hard, and—"
"Shut up! We need a ninja and a magical girl to begin with. Over ten exposure periods (they're marked 'Episodes' on the experiment outline, you'll notice) others will be introduced. It's important that we don't have too many subjects at once, or we'll overload their small brains with too much stimuli. First, we'll pick up the ninja. We want a good experiment, so our target is the Hokage of Konoha village, the most powerful ninja in that country! And female," the voice added.
There was another pause. "Are you sure this is... ethical?" the second voice asked, in the tone of someone testing the waters. "It seems kind of... cruel. I mean, forcing them to watch—"
"Nobody can intervene if nobody knows. And it's all in the name of science. So the Satellite is cloaked with technology from half a dozen worlds, and the only thing entering or exiting are the camera feeds. One comes here, one gets emailed directly to the author so he can write this—"
The speaker the voices were emanating from abruptly exploded, crushed by the toppling Fourth Wall into a million pieces. Silence reigned again on the bridge.
After a few moments, a couple of small robots wheeled over to the wreckage. Slowly, they began to repair the speaker.
MEANWHILE; IN KONOHA VILLAGE...
Charm scratched his head, staring hopelessly at the complicated symbols on the mission scroll he held. "Gomen, Gondaime-sama... boku no nihongo no yonde ga sukoshi warui desu. Sono kanji o wakarimasen desu yo."
"Then I'll explain it in English," Tsunade shrugged. "You've already shown me that your capability is above Genin level, but you're still new in this village. This mission is your first service to us. If you complete it, then you'll be accepted as a full Konoha Shinobi."
Charm sighed. "Fine. If I can't do anything about it, I'll take what you can give me. What's it say?" He knew his Japanese needed polishing, but the few months he had spent in this weird village on this strange world had left him able to competently communicate verbally at least. The nuances of Kanji were escaping him, but what could be done other than puttering away at his study?
"You're going to use Henge no jutsu and have lesbian sex with Shizune while I watch and masturbate," the Hokage told him.
Charm nodded slowly. "Ah-huh. Can I just ask you to repeat that please? I think I must have accidentally left my brain turned off."
"It says so right here," she confirmed, pointing out several incomprehensible characters. "Just pull the bell-rope behind you to call her."
"I'm... not going to have sex with Shizune," Charm told her frankly.
"Ah, I see. So you're not willing to give your 'all' to the village?" The Fifth paused, eyeing him critically. "You disappoint me."
"I'm disappointed in your complete as—"
"Silence! Anyway, I'm joshing you."
"No, really?" he sighed. He could smell the sake on her breath. "So. What's the mission?"
"Escort. Nothing extravagant, don't get your hopes up," she added, stealing the look of sudden interest that had appeared on his face.
"You do know one of my careers is a bodyguard for royalty where I come from? My title was 'Princess Guard,' and I was known for—"
"Urusai. You're as boring as a Hyuuga. From either house," she added as his mouth opened to make a smart comment. "Make sure this team," she passed him another scroll with three Genin faces on it, "gets to the Sand Village. Their sensei is busy on another mission and will meet them there."
Charm blinked. "I'm escorting ninja?"
"Ironic, ne? One of them is a spoilt brat, but that's the closest you'll come to a princess." She stood up, and Charm tried not to feel intimidated by the powerful woman. He also tried not to look down her top, but that was much harder. Cleavage a full foot deep, he decided, was excessive. He didn't like her swaying bouncy hypnotic yummy breasts.
Well... he didn't dislike them...
"Don't misunderstand me," she hissed, coming out from behind her desk and leaning over him, eye to eye. Charm's Shinobi training came to his aid at that moment, allowing him to perform Remove-Nosebleed-Evidence no jutsu without any visible hand seals. She didn't seem to notice. "I don't like you. I don't trust you. But you fought Ongaku Kirei to a draw when you arrived, so your power could be useful. Prove me wrong, and I'll apologise later. But if you decide to desert and become a missing-nin... I would welcome the chance to put a price on your head."
Charm gulped. "Gotcha. Can you stand back up please?"
Tsunade glanced at him, then down at herself, then at his crotch. "Ah." She straightened up, crossed the room to the bell-pull and rang it twice. "Shizune!" she called out the open door. "Bring a bucket of cold water!"
At that moment, a circle of the roof above Tsunade began to glow. Both Shinobi stared at it, unsure how to react.
"Gondaime-sama? What's going on?" Charm asked from a defensive crouch.
"I... I don't know," Tsunade admitted. "I don't sense any Chakra, and glowing alone isn't too dangerous..."
A shaft of light shot down from the spot on the ceiling, a cylinder perhaps a meter in diameter. It fully encased the surprised Hokage. "Nani?"
"Hokage-sama? Daijoubu?" Charm was at a loss. What could he possibly do here?
"Hey! I can't move!" Sure enough, the Hokage's limbs were immobilised. Her fingers twitched but no more.
A voice emanated from the colourful light. "Forget everything you have seen here, peon. Computer- acquire target."
Now Charm was taken aback. Computer? He hadn't heard that word since he had left his companions in their home base, back on Earth! They were dealing with technology, not magic, here!
Coincedentally, Tsunade had been frozen with both hands close together. With visible strain, she managed to put her forefingers together. Her eyes swung to regard Charm.
"Gondaime-sama! Get yourself out of there!"
"KAWARIMI NO JUTSU!"
Charm didn't understand why his vision blurred then. When it regained focus, Tsunade was tossing him a sarcastic wave from outside the field. He was now the one held immobile inside it.
"Nani! Kore ga... Tsunade-hime... YOU B(PHRRP)! CALL YOURSELF THE HOKA—What was that?" he asked, suddenly distracted mid-rant. The field had laid some sort of censor over his curses.
"Scan completed. Subject identity confirmed- Gondaime Hokage Tsunade. Acquiring target," a monotone voice announced.
The aspiring Genin's form rose into the air, fading as it went and disappearing entirely before it hit the ceiling. The light vanished immediately, and Tsunade sat in silence for a minute or so.
Then she smiled. Good thing I got shit-faced before I called him in, she thought happily. Otherwise I'd probably be really worried by this. Humming to herself, she sat down at her Hokage desk, throwing away the scroll dabbed with random brush-strokes in a rather poor imitation of Chinese characters. That had been a good idea, a nasty touch to make him feel a little more indebted to the village for accepting him in a world where he couldn't even communicate...
"Ah, Shizune. Don't worry about the water. Fetch some sake, today we'll have a celebration!"
The medical kunoichi sighed. "Everyday is a celebration, Tsunade... sama."
"And don't you forget it!"
MEANWHILE; ON THE DOGBONE SATELLITE...
There was silence on the bridge. A sense of embarrassment hung in the air as Charm staggered out of the docking bay after his accelerated passage into orbit, taking a few steps into the control room before passing out face-first on the metal floor.
The voices waited until they were sure he was unconscious before they began to speak.
"That's female on this world?" one asked hopefully.
"Uh... Yes!" the other answered, just a little too quickly.
"Nice try. Charm's from Earth, and definitely male from the company he keeps."
"Then..."
"Yeah. We fucked up. He's not even a ninja."
There was silence for several more minutes. When one did eventually speak, it was in the careful tones of one making a risky proposition.
"However... we may be able to make this work. Obviously we underestimated the female ninja's skills... but our proposed second subject..."
"Ah..." The voice was suddenly thoughtful—as far as could be told through the extreme distortion. "Possibilities..."
"You might want to push that button."
"The 'Dismemberment Filter?' The one that broke the paper shredder when the rat slipped and—"
"Yes, that one. This is likely to get interesting...
MEANWHILE; SEVERAL WORLDS AWAY...
Sailor Luminos cursed. She had broken into Charm's mountain retreat after all this time, only to find that her arch-nemesis wasn't even there! It had taken days to get through the security, and then the labyrinth itself... the treasures he had obtained in countless adventures had spilled out of one strongroom into the corridors, and into other rooms, until the entire extinct volcano was honeycombed with tunnels, conference chambers, guest rooms, control nodes, martial arts dojo's, and for some reason, several completely separate closed ecosystems mimicking lush rainforest…
A whole mountain's worth of stealthy movement, dodging cameras and hiding from Charm's more-than-competent associates. She had risked her life to come this far, only to overhear that he had been away for over half a year and no word of his return had been received. She pulled herself back into the shadows as one of his many comrades entered the room, a petite blonde girl who, for some reason, was carrying a massive, jagged iron sword casually propped over one shoulder.
"Nikki Silk," Luminos mused silently. Possibly the only person in the world who had been on nearly as many adventures as Charm himself, it certainly would be a blow to his small empire if she were to die right here. Not to mention the personal satisfaction she would get from destroying such a... girl, who had managed to thwart her assassination attempts on Charm several times without mussing her perfect maneBut the thick blonde hair hanging to her knees was all she could see as the warrior crossed the room, unwary in this sanctum, and she couldn't bring herself to raise her bow against someone who was practically Sailor Venus' doppelganger.
Also, that sword was kind of large.
Sailor Luminos didn't make a sound heading back to the door. In fact, her stealth was so accomplished that she nearly made it through the door before sudden blurs appeared before her. She had two arrows in the air without blinking, certainly on edge in a place like this. Her shots passed through two suddenly resolved figures- identical figures.
"Shi-shimatta!" Luminos gasped. Zan and Zu, the Arena fighters! They could see into the dark places, the shadows, because they used them! She threw herself back into reality, spinning a little too slowly to face Nikki as the blonde girl stood on tiptoes to bring the pommel of her bastard sword down on her head. Her last thought was a curse to Charm for encountering so many damn beautiful fighting schoolgirls.
Sailor Luminos woke a short time later in a dark room. There was no point panicking yet, she didn't know where her weapons were. Right, Lumi. Inventory and synopsis... unarmed, throbbing headache, something heavy on wrists, probably chains. On further inspection, chained to a mattress. Correction, a very large four-poster bed. Make that securely fastened. Chained up in—yes—Charm's personal master bedroom, complete with several magical swords of varying size on racks around the room, and armour on stands. Mountain full of beautiful girls and mysterious warrior men, most of whom were sure to have scars on their faces and very dark pasts, all knowing I'm here, all with reasons to hate me.
Luminos shivered. Personal status— extremely turned on. What kind of sick people are these, anyway? This is torture, in a miniskirt!
It was several more minutes before anything happened, and it was certainly not what she expected. As Luminos lay on the undeniably comfortable bed contemplating her rather limited options, the roof quite suddenly disappeared. Despite all logical reason telling her that Charm valued his privacy above all else, and his bedroom would be in the very heart of the mountain, it looked like sky above her...
A crackly, modulated voice suddenly boomed through the room. "SAILOR LUMINOS! (it said) WIELDER OF THE LIGHT! HERO OF HERO'S BLOOD!"
"Could be," Luminos admitted, not wanting to give too much away.
There was a pause, then a crackly, modulated sigh. "Look, we were going for drama but you've stolen the moment. Want out of here? Plus a free crack at a completely unarmed Charm? With no magic power?"
The sudden grin on the fighter's face was like the sun coming up. "Deal!"
The voice sounded uncertain. "Wha- are you serious? There is a catch..."
"I don't care. He dies, I'm happy. Do it. Get me out of here."
"No, seriously, stop it, you're scaring me. You sit through five phases of our experiment. Do that, we'll let you go. That's the price for this opportunity. Still up for it?"
"Didn't I already say yes?" Luminos retorted. She smiled even wider as the chains around her wrists and ankles fizzled out of existence, and she felt herself lifted, her bow and silver quiver flying from a trophy rack of its own to her grasp. "Oh, yeah!"
ON THE DOGBONE SATELLITE...
When Charm regained consciousness, he found himself alone in a metal room. Further inspection revealed that he had been shifted to a space station—a satellite.
One common room. Dormitory-style sleeping quarters. Highly advanced technology that produced food and other essentials. Absolutely no apparent exits. A theatre, stripped bare of any comforting amenities, that could have been designed for only one purpose.
Fan fiction viewing.
A distorted voice came over a hidden P.A. system as our hero took his bearings. "The second one was slow, and the equipment needs a test run. In future, you will learn to do this of your own free will, but for now..." Alarms and klaxons began to blare throughout the Satellite.
Charm's head snapped up in horror. "Oh, NO! There's a... FANFIC SIGN!"
Limbs moving against his will, manipulated by a Mysterious Power (tm), he made his jerky way into the theatre. The doors, reinforced steel-titanium alloys, bolted fast behind him.
He was trapped.
The voice addressed him again, from the theatre speakers. "There are only three rules. First. Thou shalt not break the Fourth Wall. Second. Thou shalt not try to leave the theatre while the fan fiction is playing, on pain of an extremely violent death. You and a select few others will be subjected to obscure fanfiction by 21st century authors."
"Isn't that banned by international treaty?" Charm was almost in tears. Despite slaying any number of evil lords, an antichrist or two, and once attempting to drink Bacardi and tequila shots simultaneously through his eyes, nothing in his travels had prepared him for this. Pure evil was at work here. All in the name of science.
"You're no longer on Earth. We're out of 'international' authority. You may view your pretty little world from the bridge when the experiment is over."
"Hey, wait! What's the third rule?" Charm shouted before the voice could fade.
"Third. Thy updates shalt be punctual as the reader's patience is only so thin... eth." The Magic Voice (tm) disappeared, as crash of the Fourth Wall collapsing over the speaker blotted out all other noise.
Charm looked around the room. No weapons, and his superpower was being completely normal and accomplishing great things. He was alone here. "Well," he said to himself, "there's no way out of here. I'll just have to watch for now. It can't be too long anyway, I've read a lot of fanfiction before..."
48 HOURS (AND A SUPER-EXTENDED-EUROPOP-DANCE-MIX OF CHIBI-USA'S 7TH BIRTHDAY') LATER...
Silence is not working. Boredom and the horrific effects of bad fan fiction writing have taken their toll on the poor hero, who now sat surrounded by the multiple personalities he had developed in a desperate attempt to retain his sanity. Because it was Charm, of course, one of them wore a sailor uniform with her hair in pigtails. The creepy guy with the long greasy hair kept sitting too close to her, and every so often she would scream and punch him in the head. This would be followed by a full minute of swearing in Japanese, before she moved to the next seat in the row and the sequence began again. Charm had long since decided he was probably better off, overall, keeping his attention on the fanfic than even noticing the others.
"I have it!" Charm shouted suddenly. "It's obvious. The way to get through this myself sane is to riff!"
"To WHAT?" a voice demanded right behind his ear, making him jump.
"Panties?" the creepy guy asked conversationally.
"N- NANI DATTE KA? BAKARO BAKA—"
"Hey, you're right! Oh, man, we can tear these fics apart!" Charm almost turned to look at this voice, but caught himself at the last second. Support was good, but that didn't make it healthy. After all, each one of these was one aspect of his personality, emphasised and fluffed out to create a full person, and no one really wants to see that. The fact that one aspect of his personality was a fully-equipped Japanese schoolgirl was disturbing enough...
"We'll still have to suffer through them, but now we'll be sane when we get out!" he replied instead, without taking his eyes from the screen despite the horrific images.
"— KUSO NEZUMI DA! KURAAAAAAI! CHIN NO ATAMA GA—"
"I hope we get out," the supportive voice muttered in his ear. "These guys are freaking crazy."
Charm paused before replying to that. "Please don't take this the wrong way, I know you are a sympathetic manifestation and all, and truly appreciate the support. Don't be offended by my telling you this, but please, please fu(PHRRP) off and die!"
"Panties?"
"—SHIINE, ERO ETCHI HENTAI BAKA NA—"
Spontaneous wit and sarcasm at the ready, Charm prepared himself for his first 'riffed' fan fiction, ignoring the varied reactions to his new determination.
One by one, they fell silent… but they all winced in unison when Ami appeared on the screen with a banana.
SHIP'S LOG.
Episode 1 Stats
Words Archived: 3285
Fics Exposed: 0
Subjects Collected: 2
Subjects Damaged: 1
Subjects Remaining Sane: 5
Expected Course: Maintain Earth Orbit.
Next Episode: Administer Experiment— Single Dose, Subject Collection x 1.