~
"Lyrissa told you t' meet me?" Remy LeBeau stood in front of us leaning casually on a light post.
"Yeah." Said Merton. "Do you know where she went? She said she told you about the people trying to get her."
"She did. Somet'ing about some pirates. Said her brot'er would be comin' with his friends." He shrugged.
"That would be me." I stepped forward. "So where is she?"
"'Ere's what I know." He stared at us with red on black eyes. "'De pirates be first takin' her to 'de Xena world. 'Dat's all I know. From 'dere you'll have t' pick up 'de pirates trail."
"Merton can you do that?" asked Cass.
"Sure. Every one that travels with in the space-time continuum leaves a trail; I guess you could describe it as foot prints. We just have to set the orb to find them then trace them."
"One last t'ing." Remy stood ready to leave. "She be a mutant y'know; in your real time where you come from. She wanted me to tell you 'dat."
"A what?" Merton's jaw dropped slightly. "Did you just say
she's a mutant?"
"Oui." He answered. "'De chere be powerful too. Fire comes
naturally t' her."
"We'll discuss that later." I gave Merton a look. "So you
said Xena dimension?"
He nodded. "I gotta be leavin' now. For all you know 'de chere might've escaped already. Like I said, 'de fire comes strong."
Merton seemed interested in the whole fire thing, but Remy had already disappeared down the foggy street. He sighed and looked at me, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Is that possible?" I asked him.
"There are two possibilities." He held up his index finger. "A: she gave herself powers from the orb, which is likely. B: evolution is taking place in our world."
"And the likelihood of that?" Cally looked at him expectantly. "You are a genetics major."
"About an eighty percent chance of that." He squinted, thinking. "which leaves twenty percent saying that she got the powers from the orb."
"Um, guys." Cass interjected, looking around. "Remember what Ly said about hanging around corners? Let's just go to the next place and get her back."
"Like you're really worried about being pick-pocketed." Merton said sardonically. "You just wanna meet Xena."
"That's part of it." She grinned sheepishly. "But also, we're on a deadline."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Muttered Merton. "But if we meet Gabriel I've got first dibs."
This earned him a whack on the head from his wife.
*~*
(A/n: Writers block sucks! And right now I have a major case of it, so I'm just gonna babble in this A/n until I get an idea or my brother decides to kick me off the computer; which ever comes first. Ok? Ok. Good.
Let's see…I still don't know what's gonna happen in the king Arthur one. I'm drawing a total blank. And I still have no idea where dimension pirates came from. I don't even know what they look like yet, which means I'm not gonna be able to describe them. The only thing I know so far is that they don't look human exactly. I think I want them to be sort of plasma-ish, or maybe to look like taxxons from Animorphs (bus sized centipedes, for those of you who never read the books). And then of course there're the worlds they need to travel to. I'm having a bit of trouble with that too. So far I've got X-men, Xena, Pleasantville, Charmed (much to Merton's delight), and, and…I d'know! I can't do Buffy or Angel which I know sound ideal, but I never ever, ever watch Buffy or Angel (I sorta outlawed them to myself when the first came on the air. I don't know why though.) So sorry all you Buffy worshipers. I swear, there are just no good fantasy worlds anymore! I was thinking Harry Potter but I had to discard that one after I realized that Tommy ad Remus just really don't match up, and I hate the present world of Harry Potter, with Harry Ron and Hermione. I only like the marauders. I'm getting off subject aren't I?
Ok, then…new subject! Wait, I can't think of anything! Darn it! Arg! HEY!!!!!! Breakthrough! I think I've got an idea. If the pirates are made of plasma they could leave traces in different worlds, confusing our hero's and heroines! What about that? Hmm…I'll have to go work with that. It probably won't turn out right anyway. Jeeze…and I just remembered, Cass is supposed to be having a baby too! Merde! I've gotta leave now and write all this down on some post-it-notes. I'm soooo not organized.
*~*
Merton gets excited over some pretty weird stuff. Take the time the Pleasantville Strangler was brought back to life, or when I bit Cass. He gets all jumpy, a funny little grin crawls over his face, and he's got some sort of really weird insane laugh that he does. Well when he was able to bring us down in the Xena dimension right on the pirates trail he did all of that…times ten. We all arrived standing together in the same little huddle we'd left New Orleans in. Merton was in the middle of us all and came down sitting. He looked dazed for a second, before feeling around himself. His hand ended up covered in some clear slimy stuff with a slight red tint to it. First the insane grin sprouted, then the laugh, and then he got really hyper for a minute like he'd had a total adrenaline rush. Cally waited for him to calm down before actually asking him what he was screeching about.
"Can't you see!" He let the stuff slide from hand to hand. "This is some sort of plasma, from a body!"
"Ok." Cally scrunched up her face. "This means?"
"Well no one in this time period had plasma for skin! This had to have been the pirates. And," he sniffed it tenderly. "It smell charred. Which means Lyrissa must have burned them with her, quote un-quote 'powers'. And from this we can deduce that they were here and in a struggle."
"So we've just got to find more of that stuff?" I asked.
"Well we don't know if the dropped anymore." Merton held the stuff like it was a baby. "Ergo, we have to save this sample so I can test it when we get back home."
"Actually, I talking about finding more of it so we can find Lyrissa."
"Tommy! We're dealing with creatures of an ecto-plasmic background, and you want to find your comic book dating sister! I've got the finding worthy of the noble prize and you want to find a seventeen year old. Get your priorities straight man!"
"C'mon plasma boy." Cass grabbed his arm and made him follow us.
"Be careful!" yelled Merton, squeezing his hand around it.
"Cass, info?" Cally said. "You're a Xena fan right?"
"Yeah," Cass looked around the road where we'd landed. The only things on it were us and a poster that had been tacked to a tree. She looked at it closely. "Well the signs says something about Rome and their new empress, Livia. She was Xena's daughter I think."
"You think?" Merton raised an eyebrow. "What d'you mean, you think?"
"Gee Merton, the show only went off the year like nine years ago, and all my memorabilia is only 3000 miles away back in Pleasantville. So yeah, I should still know every single detail about the show." She answered dryly. "And yes, I'm pretty sure she was Xena's daughter. Before she reformed she was Livia of Rome, then some saint or something reformed her. But during her times as Livia evil conquered the land."
"My Greek Latin isn't very good, but that says something about a reward for Xena's head." Read Merton.
"Which means Xena's gotten out of the ice coffin already." She stuck her tongue out at Merton. "See I haven't forgotten everything."
"Just 99 percent of it." He shot back.
"Ok you two." I took Cass away from Merton. "Just give us as much info as you can."
" I can't tell much more until we get some where. We might be in an episode or…" Cass grinned. "Cally your mother didn't give us that damned book for nothing. Give me that!"
She tossed her the small book and she started flipping through it. "Season six, it's the episode where Livia reforms back to Eve. If we play our cards right we won't even meet up with them. I remember there was a battle in a temple somewhere."
"Knowing our cards, we will meet up with them." I said.
"Livia…" Merton rubbed his chin. "she was that really hot Roman warrior on the show wasn't she?"
"C'mon Cass, let's walk ahead. If we stay to close to my husband here, we might end up slipping on testosterone." Cally rolled her eyes.
"Hey I've had some really bad experiences with that stuff!" he called after them. "You've never heard the cave man story!"
"Just focus." I turned to Merton. "any more plasma stuff?"
"Not that I can see, but the orbs just saying keep going down the road." He shrugged. "We just follow the trail until we find a portal."
"Can't you analyze the plasma and find out wear they went? Or something like that."
Merton gingerly placed a portion of the stuff on the orbs surface. It sat still, unmoving as Merton whispered a few words. When he finished reciting what ever it was the stuff started to move around. It formed a shape that I didn't recognize, but Merton obviously did because he went through his three steps to becoming insane process.
"what is it?"
"Cally, Cass!" Merton ignored me and yelled down the road after the others. "we're getting' ready to leave. The Merton express leaves after I explain."
"Explain what?" asked Cally. She glanced thoughtfully at the shape of the plasma. "Hey, that's a pentacle. It's sort of a witches symbol."
"Correct." He looked at me intently. "Ok Tommy I need you to tell me every TV show or comic book your sister ever liked."
"Um, X-men, Spiderman, Star Trek, Star Wars, Friends, Popular, Sabrina the Teenaged witch…"
"Uh…no." Merton interrupted. "Continue."
"Well, she's a sci-fi freak. Andromeda, Jack of All Trades, Charmed…"
"That's it." He nodded. "Cass, Cally…quick synopsis if you will?"
"Of Charmed?" Cally cocked her head, thinking. "It was about three witch sisters…"
"…The charmed ones." Said Cass. "They usually just vanquished demons…"
"…And an occasional boyfriend." Interjected Cally. "Remember Cole?"
" Almost vanquished." Corrected Cass.
"Ok, you two are scaring me now."
"Very funny Merton." Cass shot him a look. "let's just go. We'll look in the book when we get there."
*~*
(A/n- I'm soooooo sorry this took so long to upload. My PC crashed, and I had to wait for my dad to fix it. Luckily none of my docments were lost so I didn't have to type this over again. Also I've been on vacation for awhile so that played a part in the late uploading as well. I hope all you people out there haven't lost interest because now that school's starting up soon I'll be writing a lot more. (it'll help me avoid homework!) I'll also probably have another story out soon about vampires. (I've just recently finished the Vampire Chronicles, and right now I'm working on L.J. Smith's Vampire Diaries). I started writing it while I was riding back from South Carolina, and since that was like three weeks ago, it should be ready soon.)