This is a work of fanfiction. Superboy, Knockout, Tana Moon, Rex and Roxy Leech, Triad, and Jason Blood are all copyrighted by DC Comics and are not used with permission. Project: A-ko, A-ko herself, B-ko, C-ko, Asa, Kei, Graviton City, Graviton High School for Girls, the Akagiyama 23, and the Spaceship Hotel are all copyrighted by Soeishinsha/Final-Nishijima and Central Park Media and are *also* not used with permission. Olkon is my character, but I don't care what you do with him. Dress him in a tutu--he deserves it! :) This story may be posted and distributed freely--just don't monkey with my text, especially this heading. Got it? Good. I like comments, so send any you might have to David Outram at hkoutram@hsonline.net Flames shall be treated with the derisive laughter they deserve. Thank you.

Project: S-boy
Chapter 7
The Conjuction

Kag materialized in the open space before his master's stronghold. As always,
he paused a moment to admire the fortress's magnificent hideousness. _Enough,_
he sighed finally. _Time to face the music._ With a determined air, the in-
jured demon limped through the entrance portal, the guardsdemons saluting him
as he passed them. Within a few moments, Kag arrived before his master's
throne.

"You do not bear her corpse," Olkon noted. "Explain yourself."

Kag swallowed nervously. Olkon rarely took failure on the part of his minions
well. "She had a companion, my lord--the Chosen One."

"The Chosen One," Olkon repeated, scowling. "You do not have her, either.
Correct?"

"No, my lord," Kag confessed. "Either one of them my squad could have handled,
but both together"--he shook his head--"they were too much."

Olkon's misshapen face twisted in rage. "Silence!" he thundered. "To the hea-
vens with your excuses!" Kag blinked at his master's use of profanity. Olkon
continued, "What of the spell of submission my Book was supposed to have laid
on her? Didn't you attempt to Command her in my name?"

Kag quailed under his master's anger. "Y-yes, my lord, I did!" he stammered.
"She shattered the mental link! Her will--it's too strong for the spell."

Olkon roared in rage. "Incompetent!" Kag was sent flying across the chamber
with a vicious backhand. "Weak-minded fool!" As Kag got to his feet, one of
Olkon's tentacles whipped around his throat.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't give you over to my torturers to play
with," Olkon growled. He punctuated his words by tapping the choking demon
forcefully between the eyes with the tip of another tentacle.

From this close perspective, Kag noticed that the tapping appendage was the one
that the Chosen One had damaged, still unhealed. This reminder of his master's
vulnerability bolstered his confidence a trifle. "I...know where...the Chosen
One is," he choked out through his constricted throat. "I can...find her again.
Just...give me...another chance...a larger...force."

Olkon let Kag drop to the floor. As the lesser demon sat there, wheezing and
massaging his throat, the greater one said, "Very well. You have served me
well in the past, and you are correct--the Chosen One *is* formidable. She
would not be worthy of her status otherwise. You have your second chance. A
force of thirty demons will be provided to you."

Kag stood up, ready to thank his master profusely, but Olkon interrupted, mov-
ing to stand nose-to-snout with his minion. "Do *not* fail me again!" Olkon
growled. "Is that understood?"

Kag stepped back and bowed humbly. "Perfectly, master."

"Good." Olkon waved him away. "You are dismissed. Make your preparations."

"Yes, master." Kag bowed once more for good measure, and hurried from the
archdemon's sight.

After Kag left, Olkon retired to his scrying chamber. He squatted at the edge
of the pool and peered into its murky depths. "The Conjunction begins," he
murmured to himself. "Kag had *better* retrieve my Book within a few days. If
I fail because of him..." The demon lord's voice trailed off as he continued to
stare into the water.

*******

The nameless demon was in the middle of a pitched battle with a surprisingly
formidable human when he received the call to break off the search for the
Chosen One. It seemed she had been located in another dimension, and the de-
mon was now needed to join a strike force that was assembling in that realm.

The demon's opponent took advantage of his momentary distraction to launch a
powerful spinning kick that sent the netherfiend crashing into a stand of
trees. Rising to his feet again, the demon glared at his diminutive, but
troublesome foe. She seemed so weak at first, standing barely half the fiend's
ten feet of height. The demon had envisioned having an entertaining time with
the young woman as he interrogated her for the Chosen One's location. Now, half
an hour later, the battered creature was beginning to seriously rethink the
wisdom of that approach. _Time to go,_ he thought.

The fiend began the gestures required to open an interdimensional portal.
The woman he was fighting, expecting another attack, leapt into a nearby tree
to make some distance. Raising one small hand, she began shouting, "Shishi..."
The demon paid her little attention at first, caught up in his own spell, until
he noticed the azure battle aura surrounding his foe, and realized that she
was about to do something nasty. He sped up his spell, uttering the final syl-
lable just as the angry woman snarled, "...Hokodan!" A sizzling ball of ki en-
ergy shot from her extended hand and exploded against the demon's torso, hurl-
him through the just-opening portal.

The woman stared at the portal with her smoldering green eyes, her rage at the
demon undiminished. After what he had attempted to do to her, she refused to
rest until he was dead at her feet. Leaping from her tree, she landed lightly
on her feet and ran through the portal, which disappeared immediately behind
her. A few inches of her blond ponytail fell to the ground, severed by the
portal's closure.

*******

The rising sun over Graviton City, burning through the clouds from last
night's rain, found B-ko Daitokuji in her workshop, laughing maniacally, shou-
ting, "Found it! Found it at last!" She was sitting before the monitor of a
computer that was methodically scanning each dimension as her newly-built
Dimensional Doorway Device, as she had named it, located it.

The first world she had found had been little but primordial slime, so,
chortling to herself, she had labeled it Universe A. The second had been a
technological wonderland that B-ko ould have dearly loved to explore further,
had she not had other business, so she had labeled it Universe B. The third
had been an enkless untouched wilderness, breathtaking in its beauty. Smi-
ling at the appropriateness, B-ko had labeled that one Universe C. After
that, she simply continued the alphabetical designations. When she reached
the end of the romanji alphabet, she started over with Universe AA and contin-
ued from there. And now, finally, in the 107th universe, Universe DC, she
had found Superboy's homeworld.

Still giggling, B-ko stood up and stretched, her muscles stiff from hours of
disuse. She glanced at her watch. _Another sleepless night,_ she thought
with a grimace. _Oh, well. No time for a nap now. I've got a hostage to
capture._

Yawning, she made her way to her storage room and donned her Akagiyama 23 bat-
tlesuit. Taking a spare helmet to replace the one A-ko had destroyed, she
returned to her workroom. Once there, she initiated the process that would
open a portal between her workshop and a museum in Superboy's Hawaii, where
there was a thin spot in the dimensional wall.

As she waited for her machine to warm up, she took the opportunity to look o-
ver the plans for her new battlesuit. She cursed as her eyes refused to fo-
cus on the diagram. _This will never do,_ she thought angrily. _I won't cap-
ture anybody unless I'm fully alert._ Sighing, she rose from her CAD station
and crossed the room to a locked cabinet. She unlocked it and removed some-
thing from within its interior. She looked at the small bottle in mild dis-
gust. _I hate taking these things, but it's the only way right now._ The le-
vel of the pills in the bottle indicated that this had been the 'only way' for
some time already. She took the bottle with her to the small washroom that
connected to her workshop and ran some water. When she returned, she looked
much more alert.

Checking her battlesuit plans again, she made a few quick corrections and
stood up. "This will be my best one yet," she chortled to herself. "A-ko,
Superboy--this time you'll both *die*!"

Satisfied, she checked her DDD. It was ready for her departure. Securing
her helmet, B-ko stepped through the arch that defined the portal. With a
flash of light, she disappeared.

*******

Miko settled herself in the chair placed before the screen of her vidphone.
Knockout had finally gone to bed, after a long night of dancing, giving her
roommate the privacy she needed to make this call.

She punched the necessary buttons, and after a few moments, the face of who
looked to be an older version of Miko appeared on the screen. "Hello, Miko,"
the older woman greeted her, a serious expression on her face. "I was about to
call you myself."

"You were?" Miko asked, surprised. "What for, Mother?"

Before the woman could reply, she was interrupted by a series of crashes coming
from behind her. The raised voices of two women in battle could be heard over
the line. Miko's mother winced at a particularly loud crash and rolled her
eyes.

"They're at it again, huh?" Miko asked rhetorically.

Miko's mother aimed a glare at someone offscreen and replied, "Of course they
are. They don't let a single morning pass." She sighed. "Would it be dishon-
orable of me to wish that one of them have a heart attack and spare me this
nonsense?"

Miko smirked and commented, "I think it would."

"Hm. Pity," replied the older woman. "Well, we're drifting off the subject.
I performed a reading earlier this morning. It's started."

Miko's face darkened. "The Conjunction?"

Miko's mother nodded. "Exactly. Even now, the boundaries between the various
planes of existence are weakening. People will begin to cross these boundaries
soon. Some may already have."

"How do you mean, exactly?" Miko asked.

The older woman went into lecture mode. "As the barriers weaken, they become
more permeable. Holes will begin to appear at random in space, and if one
isn't careful, one can easily step through to another world. Eventually, the
holes will widen, and join together. The dimensions will begin to merge, com-
bining elements of them all into one. At this point, the one called Olkon will
cast his spell, and gain the power to rule the conjoined universe."

Miko sighed. "Most of that I know already, Mom. You could have stopped after
'step through to another world.'"

"Don't be impertinent," her mother snapped. "You need to have all the informa-
tion you can get to have a chance of stopping Olkon's plot."

"It's going to take more than information this time, Mom," Miko commented.
"Which brings me to why I called you in the first place. I've found the Cho-
sen One."

The other woman's face brightened. "You have? Excellent! Your chances have
improved already. Who is she?"

"An American who calls herself Kay," Miko replied. "I've befriended her
already, but there is a problem--she doesn't speak Japanese, and I can't speak
English well enough to communicate with her effectively."

Her mother nodded. "That does prove a problem, but a solvable one. I'm going
to send you an artifact that will allow you to communicate with her. It should
arrive later today." The older woman smiled. "The wonders of modern technology.
In my day, you would have had to wait at least a week."

Miko smiled back. "Thanks, Mom. I owe you one."

"Just stop that devil from taking over the universes," the older woman said.
"There is one more matter--Olkon's Book. The prophecy indicated that the Cho-
sen would have it in her possession. Does she?"

Miko shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't seen her carrying it around, anyway."

"You must find out its whereabouts," Miko's mother said. "At all costs, it
must be kept out of Olkon's hands. It is the key to his plan. I can feel it."

Miko nodded, knowing that her mother's intuitions were usually right on the
mark. "I'll do my best, Mother. You can count on me." She yawned. "I'd bet-
ter get to sleep soon. I had to fight Kag again yesterday evening, and work
right after. I'm pretty beat."

Her mother frowned. "You should find a better way to pay your bills than un-
dressing for complete strangers."

Miko scowled at the screen's image. "Mother, we've been over this before. It's
as good a way as any to make money, I'm good at it, and I enjoy doing it. 'Nuff
said."

Her mother sighed. "I just worry about you, Miko. You have too much of your
grandmother in you."

"Look," Miko said in irritation, "I 'preserved my purity' long enough to take
over the duty. What I do now is no further concern of yours, okay? Now if you
don't mind, I really need my sleep."

"Very well," came the response. "But this isn't over."

"I didn't think it was," Miko sighed. "Bye."

"Bye." Miko cut the connection, and stood up. _Damn Mother anyway,_ she
thought, stalking to the bathroom to ready herself for bed. As she showered
and brushed her teeth, she continued her thought. _Why does she have to bring
that up every time we talk? What is so wrong about my lifestyle?_ She shook
her head in irritation, beads of water flying from her short brown hair. _Ah,
screw it. I'm too tired to stay angry._ She stepped out of the shower stall
and reached for a towel to dry herself. Yawning again, she stumbled into her
bedroom and collapsed onto the sheets, not bothering to put on her nightie, and
quickly fell asleep.

*******

The short blond woman glanced at the end of her ponytail in irritation, then
dismissed the damage as irrelevant. Instead, she concentrated on her fallen
opponent, looking for signs of movement as she approached him. There were
none, and she came up next to the inhuman body unmolested. She nodded to her-
self, finally satisfied that the demon was dead, and examined her surroundings.

She was in a grimy alley that the rising sun was unable to fully illuminate.
Trash spilled out of a dumpster set five feet from her position, which she dis-
missed after a cursory scan. Peering into the shadows, she discovered that she
was not alone. "Who's there?" she demanded.

"Good eyes, cutie," came a nasty voice from the shadows. "Not that they'll
help ya now." The owner of the voice whistled, and a loading door behind the
woman slid up to reveal six people, all male and dressed in gang colors. Seven
more emerged from the shadows to her front, including the owner of the nasty
voice, who stood staring at his prize lustfully. Other gang members surrounded
her, keeping a safe distance for now, alternately looking at her and the fallen
demon.

"What the hell is that thing?" one asked, glancing nervously at the corpse.

"Who cares? It's dead," came the reply. "But if you'd rather have that, go
right ahead. Be one less to share her." Loud laughter accompanied the remark.

"All right, shut up," said Nasty Voice, who appeared to be the leader. He
turned toward the trapped woman, who glowered at him in anger. "Okay, beauti-
ful, how do you want it? Easy or hard?"

"I dunno, man, she don't look scared," another ganger interupted. "She's
armed, too."

"Shut it, I said!" the leader snarled. "If you're so damn scared, then get the
fuck out of here. I don't need no damn cowards."

"Hey, I ain't a freakin' coward, all right? Just pointin' it out."

"Yeah, fine. But you better not wimp out." Nasty Voice returned his attention
once again to the woman, who had not moved in the interim. "Just so you know,
there's thirteen of us to one of you. Don't try anything stupid."

The woman was well aware of the odds. She smiled tightly and asked, "Stupid?
You mean, like this?" With this, she leaped into the air and landed feet-first
on the face of Nasty Voice, immediately felling the two gangers next to him
with lightning-quick blows to the stomachs. As the two collapsed to the
ground, retching, someone shouted, "Get her!" and the entire group rushed her.
She took a moment to tear off the headband that restrained her hair, revealing
another one beneath, which she also tore off. After removing several more, she
hurled them at her onrushing opponents, causing several of them to fall to the
ground, screaming in pain. The six remaining gangers paused only a moment at
this, then attacked, pulling weapons from their hiding places. The young woman
had only enough time to unsheath her own pair of combat knives before they were
upon her.

She could immediately tell that she was the best fighter here, and her blades
were superior to those of her opponents, but she knew that she couldn't hold
off six determined foes in hand-to-hand combat forever. As she desperately
parried and dodged the wild strikes of her enemies, she pondered ways to get
out of this.

She immediately ruled out a repeat of her ki blast; she would be caught in the
explosion, too, and while she cared little for her own life, she refused to
waste it on trash like her opponents. The Breaking Point was also useless
here; her foes pressed her too closely to risk taking the time to locate said
point on any of the nearby walls or ground. Then she remembered the technique
that old woman had shown her the year before, when she was wandering the ruins
of China, in mourning for her husband. Still desperately holding off her
attackers, she tried to remember how it went.

"Kashu Tenshin Amagurikan!" The phrase sprung to her lips as her mind found
the right trigger for the technique. Her arms became blurs of motion, her
knives sliding easily past the guard of her foes. All six fell back, slumping
to the ground in sprays of blood.

The woman rose from her combat stance, pulling a cloth from her backpack to
wipe the gore from her blades. "Should've maintained that technique better,"
she commented to herself, sheathing her blades again. "Didn't realize how use-
ful it could be...."

As the young martial artist methodically searched the bodies of her fallen ene-
mies for useful items, one of them, the nasty-voiced leader, opened his eyes.
Seeing his erstwhile victim's back turned toward him, he grinned evilly and
reached into his jacket. His hand emerged gripping an old-fashioned American
...38 caliber pistol. He silently swivelled the barrel to point at the woman's
exposed back. _Die, bitch._

There was a sharp crack, and the gang leader's gun slipped from nerveless fin-
gers as he slumped back to the alley's grimy surface, blood already pouring
from the small hole visible in his forehead.

The scowling woman reholstered her .45 and bent to retrieve the .38 from the
ground. "Moron," she muttered to the leader's corpse. She checked her new
pistol's action and sniffed in disgust. _Even had the safety on,_ she thought
contemptuously. _What an idiot._

She stowed her newly-aquired weapon in her backpack and spent a moment readjus-
ting the pack more comfortably on her shoulders before stepping towards the
mouth of the alley. _Well, C-ko,_ she thought to herself. "Why don't we find
out where we wound up?_

*******


Superboy and C-ko strolled down the sidewalk, Superboy looking hiding his bore-
dom behind his shades as C-ko stopped to press her face against the display
window of every second or third shop they passed. He was beginning to regret
agreeing to distract C-ko from worrying about A-ko's illness. While C-ko was
cute, she could be more than a little grating on one's nerves after a while.
Superboy wondered how A-ko had been able to tolerate being C-ko's best friend
for over ten years.

He was distracted from his thoughts by a tap on his shoulder. He turned around
to see a boy about his own physical age, wearing a yellow shirt and a headband.
The boy slipped a map out of a side pouch of his backpack and held it in front
of Superboy's eyes.

"Excuse me, but could you tell me how to find the Tendo Dojo?" the strange boy
asked. "I'm sure it's nearby...."

Superboy shrugged. "Wish I could help you, dude, but I'm kinda new around here
too." He turned to C-ko. "Hey, think you can give him a hand?"

"Sure!" C-ko exclaimed, reaching for the map. "I'm great with maps! I'll find
it for you, for sure!" She peered at the map that the stranger handed her,
then looked up with a puzzled expression. "Um, this is a map of Tokyo...."

The boy sighed. "Let me guess--this isn't Tokyo, huh? So where am I now?"

Superboy hesitated a moment before answering, "Graviton City."

"I see," the boy replied with resignation. "Sorry to bother you." He passed
by them as he trudged off.

Superboy and C-ko stared after him as he made an abrupt right turn into a shop
doorway, then exchanged a glance.

"Weird," they said in unison.

The boy paused suddenly in the middle of the shop. "Graviton City?" he asked
himself. "Where the hell is that?" He spun on his heel to demand further de-
tails from the two teenagers that had tried to help him, and tripped over a mop
bucket, spilling it. He landed in the puddle of water with a small splash.

Superboy and C-ko started as a sudden commotion broke out in the butcher shop
they had just passed. As they turned back toward the noise, a small black pig-
let darted out of the doorway, his tiny hooves scrabbling for purchase as it
made a full-speed ninety-degree turn. As the panicked swine shot past the two,
a burly man wielding a huge cleaver ran out of the shop, shouting, "Get back
here, little pig!"

C-ko watched the piglet dash for safety, then turned pleading eyes to Superboy.
"You gotta save that little piggie! Don't let him get hurt. Please?"

Superboy sighed and stuck a foot out as the burly butcher passed him. As the
big man fell to the ground, the teenage hero extended his tactile-telekinesis
to ensure that the cleaver landed well away from anyone else.

"Oops, sorry about that," Superboy said insincerely as he offered the butcher
a hand up.

The large man batted Superboy's hand away and got to his feet by himself, grow-
ling at the extremely innocent-looking boy. Seeing that his impromptu cut of
the day had made good its escape, he retrieved his cleaver and stomped back
into his shop, muttering what Superboy could only assume to be uncomplimentary
references to him the whole distance.

"Well, C-ko, how 'bout that? Not bad, huh?" Superboy commented, turning to
her, only to find her gone. "Hey--where'd you go?"

He discovered the blond girl crouching in a nearby alley, cuddling the little
black pig to herself. As he approached the pair, he noticed that the piglet
was wearing a yellow and black bandanna around its neck. _Now why does that
bandanna look familiar?_ he wondered to himself. He came up beside C-ko and
said, "Hey--don't thank me or nothing."

C-ko responded by practically thrusting the pig into his face and exclaiming,
"Isn't he cute?! I'm gonna name him Wilbur, just like the one in the cartoon!"

"Uh, yeah, C-ko--that's great," Superboy said, pulling back a bit so he could
focus his eyes on the pig. As he did so, he saw the swine's own eyes open
wide, then narrow in rage. Abruptly, the newly-named Wilbur leapt from C-ko's
hands onto Superboy's face, scratching furiously while emiting squeals of pure
anger.

"Hey, the the hell off me!" the surprised Superboy shouted. He finally man-
aged to grasp the squirming bundle of rage and pried him off his face, exten-
ding his tactile-telekinesis to hold the little pig paralyzed. He handed him
back to C-ko, saying, "You better hold on to him tight--I don't think he likes
me." He glared at Wilbur, muttering under his breath, "First Krypto, now Wil-
bur. What the hell do animals have against me?"

"C'mon, Superboy--let's take Wilbur home!" C-ko said, already skipping out of
the alley. "I'm sure he's starving."

'Wilbur' completely missed the sympathetic glance Superboy gave him as he al-
lowed himself to be carried away by this strange girl. _So, who's this, Sao-
tome--yet another fiancee in your harem?_ the pig thought. _Yes, I know who
you are now, Ranma. I won't be fooled by your stupid disguises any more.
Graviton City, indeed...But I'll play along for now. I don't know what your
game is, but I vow by my love for Akane that you won't get away with it. Just
you wait, Ranma...._

As C-ko skipped merrily toward her house, she heard her new pet making an odd
sound. It almost sounded like someone chuckling.

*******

Who knows where this fanfic will lead?