The Kudzu Plot
The Gate. The real professionals who studied and guarded the thing refused to call it anything else. They knew what the name on the street was, but they refused to acknowledge it. 'The Anime Gate'... what frivolity. The concept of a character that was nothing but a series of 2-dimensional drawings 'coming to life' as it were and stepping through a gate was ridiculous. That a few of just those types of people had stepped through was only a minor setback in their denial. They chalked that up as the Otherkin (or would it be Otakukin in this case?) being right about the whole 'these characters exist in different dimensions' thing.
Different dimensions? When would science get tired of that idea. Not science. Science-fiction. Wake up and smell the hard sci. It was an anime gate. A door that opened only for those who dwelt in the realm of ink and paper. It was like trying to explain Digimon to these people. They're not monsters from a virtual alternate dimension; they're monsters from the data that exists within our machines. There is no other world, but there is a world we have created. The world of real, flesh-and-blood, vibrant, living people. A world that those 2-dimensional creations could only watch stagnantly from the other side of their looking-glasses of paper, puppets to the whims of the pen and creativity of their masters.
"That's how it should be!" Tanaka Ryou shouted at the lights, helicopters, armed police, and nervous scientists gathered around the gate. Rather, they were gathered around Ryou, and Ryou just happened to be standing in front of the gate, with his hand on the lock. The bright floodlights shining down on him were exhilarating. Everything they had planned was coming together in this very moment. An age of shadows would end and a new one would begin.
"Listen son," a grizzled cop said, through a loudspeaker. "I know you think this world is pretty boring and unfair, but there's nothing on the other side of that door that's gonna help."
"You're right there," Ryou muttered, digging the key out of his pocket. Getting the key had been like when you overgrind in an RPG... they had prepared for the toughest security and had overshot their expectations of the enemy by so far that it had been a cakewalk. This moment, surrounded and cornered, was the first time Ryou had felt alive since the project had begun. Things were moving, people were looking.
"What's this going to accomplish?" the officer continued. "Your imaginary friend isn't going to jump out and throw you a party, kid. We don't know what's on the other side waiting to pop out, and we'd rather not get some kind of monster, right? There are innocents who could be in danger. How would you feel if a bunch of people died just because you got curious?"
"Didn't your higher-ups tell you anything?" Ryou shot back, calmly pushing the key into the lock. It wasn't a key in the normal sense... more like something from a Final Fantasy, stone and runic and all that. It glowed with magic energy when he put it into the lock. Who designed these things? Did magic-users have some kind of strange fashion sense or something? Was that why they always put pointless glowing bits on everything just to prove it was enchanted? Only on that side. Magic users in the real world were much more practical. "Tell me honestly what you think will happen when I open this door."
"..." the officer fell silent and Ryou could hear a quiet but harried conversation going on between a few of the suits. Then he felt a prickling sensation and knew that guns were being trained on him.
"We're prepared to make you a deal if you step away from the Gate." A different man was on the loudspeaker now, and from his tone Ryou could tell that he understood the situation a little better than the previous man.
"Let me guess, if I step away you'll spare my life? That's funny. Did you know that in the original study released by the Japanese National Laboratories the possible threat level of this object was identified as negligible? Well, that was Top-Secret so I doubt if even you'd know about that. Other than trespassing on government property I'm not really breaking any overt laws now am I? Last I checked getting shot down without a weapon just for poking your nose where it doesn't belong was only something that happens in Communist countries. And how would that look with elections coming up soon?" Ryou said, pausing in his release of the lock. If only they knew how much of a rebel he wasn't. He loved Japanese society, and he really respected the police who even now were pointing their guns at him. If only they could understand that he was doing this for them; for their futures.
"... Quite the conspiracy theorist, aren't we? Though you seem to be under the assumption that everything that happens on private property is broadcast to the populace in general," the voice replied, trying to buy back some control of the situation with further threats. 'No one's around to hear you scream?' please. Ryou had seen James Bond villains with more believable threats.
"Well, I wouldn't call it private when I've got a wire on me videotaping this whole thing and streaming it wirelessly. Do you have a family? Say 'hi' to them. This is gonna be a big night and you're gonna be part of it!" Ryou said giving them all a big, cheery smile. That caused quite a stir, and he took the opportunity to finish with the lock and plant the flat of his right foot against one of the large doors of the gate. It was tall and wooden, more like a door than a gate, the same on both sides. There was no knob to turn, just the lock.
Anyway, he kicked it open.
And then he stuffed his hands in his pockets in the ensuing silence, looking first at the open doorway and the blank whiteness of the other plane on the other side of it, and then at the gathered researchers and policemen.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"There's nothing waiting to jump out," Ryou said, both to his captive audience there as well as to those watching the news broadcast from home or at net cafes all across Japan and the world. His group's movements hadn't exactly been covert. This expose had been coming for a long time. Hinted at, feared, but never fully brought to light until that very night.
"Because they're already here, and have been sinc-"
Ryou suddenly jerked and then slammed backward into the gate, knocking the other tall wooden door open so that now both of the doors were gaping inward revealing the blind nothingness on the other side. A stunningly loud metallic noise was heard, though it was quickly drowned out by the roar of the rifle that had struck Ryou down.
The group surrounding him split in half. Some rushed to find the sniper while others rushed forward to help the fallen boy. He bet most of their vigor came from not wanting to be labeled as the ones who had tried to silence him in the broadcast. Whatever, he wasn't going to be cut off in the middle of his sentence like that, and he knew who the real shooter was. He looked up at the roof of the big building that surrounded the Gate, wondering if the camera in his hat would be able to catch the shadows just barely visible against the moon there.
"See? The Gate is meaningless. They're among us," Ryou managed, before shakily doffing his hat and dropping it to the ground in front of the gate. He then let go and fell backward into the white space on the other side of the gate, one arm to his chest.
THIS IS A LINE BREAK REPRESENTING CHANGE OF SCENE
"Sorry, I should have taken another shot to make sure," one of the shadows said to the other. It stood, shouldering the rifle that looked a little too big for it to handle gracefully.
"We should have gotten here faster in the first place. That he opened the Gate is enough of a problem without what he said," the other answered, turning away from the scene.
"Won't they seal it back up? It's not like we have to worry about others coming through... everyone who wanted to be here already is," the first shadow said doubtfully, following the other.
"Have you ever considered that, even if we know that there are more of us here, not everyone else knows? If every single person from over there realizes they're not alone and that many of us are chasing after the same thing... it's going to get very, very complicated," the other murmured.
"If that happens we'll just kill them. There's nothing to worry about," the first said confidently.
"Shut up and disappear. I'll contact you once I've thought this through. I consider tonight a failure. They were one step ahead of us. We have to make sure it doesn't happen again," the other snapped, slightly disgusted by the simplistic view of its companion.
"I. E. Banzai," the first said, then vanished into the shadows.
"I. E. Banzai," the other replied, and then took its leave as well.
Anjin's Notes
Whaaaat? I'm starting another series when I haven't worked on any of my others in such a long time? But this one's fun! As you'll probably have read in the description of the story, from here on out it's all UP TO YOU!... Well not entirely. It works like this: every chapter in your reviews please include the name of an anime you'd like to see come into this ALL ANIME CROSSOVER story. At my discretion I will choose one of the anime suggested in the story's reviews and take whichever and however many characters I choose from that anime and work them into the plot. However I MUST choose a new anime each chapter and I MUST introduce the characters from that anime fluidly into the plot while still keeping up with characters introduced before. Obviously I'm not going to force myself to mention every character in every chapter; I do intend to make this readable and interesting, but the only faction I'm going to create original characters for is the group represented by Tanaka Ryou. All the other factions (including, of course, I E which is pronounced 'EE EY' or E A... I'll explain why next chapter) are staffed entirely by anime characters.
So, once again it goes like this:
Read this prologue and review it
In your review include ONE anime title whose characters you want to appear in this story from that point forward
I choose ONE anime title from those suggested in the reviews for each chapter and include however many and whichever characters I choose from that particular anime in the plot of this fanfic
I am required to introduce at least one new character/anime each chapter, but am not required to mention every previous character each chapter but will rather follow the flow of the story as far as that goes. Please let me know in your reviews which characters you want to see more or less of so I know who to give key roles to (once I've introduced them... demanding certain characters be introduced in certain ways is a no-no)
Realize that I reserve the right to interpret the characters in light of the setting and story. I will try to retain their personalities but might mess around with their canon a bit if it doesn't fit well. Also I will ignore all existing canon relationships because I enjoy doing that.
Now you may be thinking 'what if he's never heard of any of the anime we suggest?' Ha. Try me. I hereby guarantee that I will be able to provide.
So start reviewing/requesting so I can get started on my next chapter! Remember that these first few requests are key since right now I have almost 0 characters to work with so I'll need to pull quite a few cast members from the first few anime to fill things out whereas later shows will probably only get one character as the cast starts getting bloated.
Let's see how far I can take this before the plot spirals beyond even my control! I don't think it'll happen, I think I can ride this kudzu out to the end! Come along and see!