O Most Wonderful!

Two

Jess picked her way delicately through the thick forest, her bow constantly clutched in her left hand so that a bolt could be drawn back at a moment's notice. A rustling in the shadowy trees to her left pricked her ears with her sharpened sense of danger. Gasping, she drew, spinning so that the glowing tip of her energy arrow pointed straight towards the centre of the noise. She narrowed her eyes at the foreboding greenery, her fingers taut against the glowing magical energy. There. Deep in the dark shadow, something moved.

'Whassup?'

The loud voice, right next to her ear, made her yelp slightly and lose control of her fingers. The magical bolt few off, out of control, into the unseen, moving shape. She followed it with her eyes, horrified, as it slammed into the bushes. There was a startled squeak, and the Jackalope fled, panicked, from its noisy breakfast. Jess' expression crumpled into a scowl of intense irritation as she turned to face the smirking Cavalier.

'Kinda jumpy, aren'tcha?' smiled Bella before Jess could breathe a word.

'Kinda,' growled Jess.

'Jess, would you just chill out?' added the brunette, 'you're making the rest of us really nervous.'

Jess sighed. 'We don't know anything about this Myra, OK, Bella? Just that it's dangerous. I need to keep my wits about me, and I can't do that with you bothering me.'

Bella arched an eyebrow and tutted. 'Only trying to be friendly.'

'Yeah, right.' Jess turned from the brunette sullenly, briefly taking a silent headcount of the others behind her. Somebody was missing. Again.

'Where's Presto this time?'

'Call of nature,' replied Bella, nonchalantly.

Jess felt her fists bunch voluntarily. 'You let her go off on her own? Without telling me?'

'She's very shy,' answered the Cavalier, 'I'm not just gonna yell out that she has to pee, poor kid...'

One of these days, Arabella Montgomery, one of these days...

'What if something happens to her?' snapped Jess in response, 'What if Myra gets her?'

Bella opened her mouth to reply but Jess cut her off, angrily, already storming after the young Magician's trail. 'I'll go get her. You guys just... stay put. Don't go wandering off alone. Not here.'

She stalled, frowning in worry at little Frankie's hurt expression.

'You mad at us, Jess?'

She allowed the little girl a small, soft smile.

'No, Frankie.' She moved the smile up to reassure Sean. 'I just need you guys to take care of each other in this place, OK?'

'Hey.' Chris reached out a muscular arm and squeezed Jess' shoulder. 'Don't worry about us.'

Jess nodded at her friend and smiled wider. 'I'll be back in five minutes.'

---

Leaving the others together on the path, Jess pushed into the thick undergrowth, following the trail of snapped twigs and crushed leaves that Presto had left behind. The foliage around and above her was thick, and the trail patchy, and a couple of times, Jess got a little disorientated and had to trail back a few yards. Eventually, she pushed her way through into a small clearing. The green robed Magician was a few feet up a fruit tree, clinging to the trunk, desperately trying to knock a few purple fruits from a branch that remained ever so slightly out of her reach. Jess stifled a smile. Good old Presto! Bella must have been whining about her empty stomach for the last couple of hours. Jess was just about to step forward and help Presto when the Magician dropped from the tree and turned to face her.

Jess gasped silently and stepped back, melding herself into the green undergrowth. The Magician in front of her was built like Presto, dressed like Presto, hell, even had the same thick glasses, unmanageable russet hair and bad teeth as Presto... but it wasn't her. It was a he. Jess watched him from her camouflaged position as he gazed up at the elusive fruit, scratching his head. It was uncanny. He even moved like Presto. Jess narrowed her eyes. Those robes were exactly the same. There was a large tear on the left sleeve. Jess remembered how annoyed Presto had been with herself when she'd ripped her sleeve climbing up a crevasse two months ago. And the scorch mark on the bottom hem... Jess recalled the accident that had caused that. Ever since then, Presto had left it to somebody else to light the camp fire with sticks, and kept her magic out of it. Jess could feel herself beginning to panic. It was as if this boy was wearing Presto's clothes. Nightmare situations began to play themselves out in her head - Presto lying helpless and hurt in a ditch somewhere while this stranger, whoever he was, stripped her. Jess screwed up her mouth, trying to force the images from her mind.

It might just be another Magician... another very clumsy Magician. You don't know that he's taken anything from Pres...

The stranger pulled a cone of green fabric from his belt, and held it open, running his fingers over the rim and muttering a spell, pausing slightly to think up a rhyme for 'fruit picker'. The hat. He jumped back from it a little as a small monkey scampered from the hat's opening up the tree, and began to pick and eat the fruit for itself. He had Presto's hat!

A wave of red rage crackled through Jess, lighting the bolt in her fingertips as she flew, screaming, from her hiding place towards the startled boy.

---

Deep in the heart of the forest, the figure chuckled to itself, and looked from the image in one small looking glass to the other.

---

The bespectacled girl that had stolen Presto's robes and hat pushed herself against the tree, flinching back from the magical bolt that was aimed squarely at her, screaming in terror over Hank's barrage of angry questions.

'Where is he? What did you do to him? Who are you? Where is he?'

'Augh!' The girl tried to push herself further into the tree, her windowed, amber eyes flitting from Hank's face to his bow in panic. 'Somebody help me! HELP!'

Hank felt himself softening a little. She even screamed like Presto. The poor girl had to be petrified. But then he thought of how frightened his friend must have been when this interloper stole his weapon and clothes, and his glare hardened again.

'Who are you? Are you Myra?'

'I'm not... I'm...' the girl gulped. 'Where did you get that bow?'

Hank's fingers tightened around the bolt a little more. 'Oh no you don't. You've already got Presto's hat.'

The girl's face became a picture of Prestolike confusion. 'What? Whose hat?'

'Presto!' snarled Hank. 'The boy you robbed. Remember?'

'I didn't rob any boy,' gasped the girl. 'I'm Presto.'

Hank aimed his bow at the girl's face, causing her to scream again. 'Liar! What's your real name?'

'Ed... Edna Greene,' stuttered the girl, close to tears with terror, 'it's a terrible name, so when I started doin' magic tricks, I called myself The Amazing Presto, and it just... it kinda stuck. Please don't hurt me.'

The girl flinched further as Hank squinted at her. That was Presto's story! How did she know it? She really did look like him. In a branch above the girl, the monkey that the hat had produced decided that it didn't like the fruit it was eating, and idly hurled the half chewed food onto her head. The girl didn't dare raise her hand to brush it away, but watched Hank, miserably, as the sticky mess slid down her unkempt, dark red hair. Blinking, Hank stepped back a little, lowering his bow. The hat never backfired like that for anybody but its unfortunate owner.

'Presto?' he gasped, staring at the girl. 'What happened to you?'

Dark, strong hands slung a Bo Staff across Hank's throat suddenly, taking him by surprise, holding him prone.

'You happened to her,' growled a low male voice in his ear. 'Now I think it's about time you told us who you are, and how you've gotten hold of Jess' bow.'

Hank frowned, trying to turn to face the large Black youth who still held him fast.

'This is my bow!' He struggled, fruitlessly, against the staff against his windpipe. 'Who's Jess?'

'She's our leader,' muttered the new Presto.

'A Ranger,' added the muscular lad, 'Blonde. Pretty girl. You'd have noticed her when you stole her weapon.'

'I didn't steal anything,' protested Hank, 'ask Presto! He... She knows who I am.'

Presto just shook her head, confused.

Hank blinked. 'Presto? You know this guy...' he attempted to indicate to the strong youth behind him, '...but not me?'

'I never met you before in my life,' answered the Magician.

'But I know you!' protested Hank, 'You're Presto! Give or take a couple of chromosomes. I used to walk to school with you every day back home!'

'If that were true,' snarled the youth behind him, 'then we'd all remember each other. I used to do that walk too...'

A light went on in Hank's head, suddenly. The hat. The staff at his neck. The female Ranger. This was all sounding far too familiar. Maybe it wasn't just Presto who had changed.

'You'd meet Jess on the way,' he suggested, tentatively, 'and a couple of kids who lived opposite her.'

'Oh, so now you know Sean and Frankie too, huh?'

Sean and Frankie... Sean and Frankie... In the depths of his memory, Hank recalled a moment, way back in his past. Sliding a beaker of milk over the kitchen table towards a tiny Sheila. Watching his mother pour tea for a heavily pregnant Frances O'Brian.

'If it's a boy, they're gonna call him Robert,' Sheila had confided. 'If it's a girl, Daddy wants to name her after Mommy.'

'They're gonna call a baby "Mommy"?' he'd asked, and Sheila had laughed, spitting milk.

And now that he came to remember it, his own parents had always wanted to name a daughter Jessica.

'This Jess,' Hank continued as his notion began to evolve into a theory, 'did she break her ankle when she was six jumping off a table?'

'How do you know that?' asked the boy behind him.

With difficulty, Hank turned his head so that he could look at the tall, Black youth holding him fast.

'You and she used to see each other all the time at school,' added Hank with growing confidence, 'but you both thought the other was too cool to want to hang out with you until you got to be good friends with Sheil... with Sean.'

The youth frowned, equally perturbed and astounded.

'It turned out neither of you were as popular as you expected. Other students find Jess kinda preachy, and as for you, well... they're not used to Black kids. Especially not Black kids who beat them in every field.'

The boy stepped back, astonished, finally releasing Hank.

'Who are you?'

Hank held one hand up in a peaceful gesture, rubbing his throat with the other.

'Let's just say, I think I might be more lost than ever. I have a feeling me and your Jess might have wandered through a portal somewhere by accident, and... swapped.'

Presto shuffled over to stand by the male Acrobat.

'Whaddaya mean, "swapped"?'

'Oh my God.'

Hank turned automatically to face the owner of the sardonic, female voice, standing at the edge of the clearing. He wished immediately that he hadn't.

Dammit, Dammit, Dammit.

He... she... shouldn't look like that! There should be chainmail in the places that there was now smooth, white skin. Steel boots should not reach up to the mid-thigh, Gauntlets should not be cut like long evening gloves, tunic skirts should not be that short, and, most importantly of all, breastplates should definitely not be shaped like THAT. Not unless they were for a Valkyrie of sorts.

The black haired girl noted Hank's horrified expression with amusement, curling a lip cruelly and giving him the once-over.

'Since when did Jess become a boy?'

---

Eric found a quiet corner in the clearing from which he could watch the proceedings with a detached amusement. He had grown tired of the female Ranger resolutely ignoring him all the way back to the spot where Sheila, Bobby and Uni were waiting for them, and had since decided that if that was the way she wanted to play it, he could be just as good at ignoring her.

Sheila had screamed at first, of course, and even now that the story had been explained she was watching the blonde newcomer with uncomfortable, untrusting eyes. Bobby and Uni both appeared utterly astounded. Diana was probably taking Hank's sudden alteration the easiest, and had sat the blonde girl down to ask her a series of questions in the attempt to determine where exactly the portal she had accidentally stumbled through had been. The girl, apparently called Jess, could not have looked more miserable. Hank always had hated being lost and disorientated, Eric recalled, particularly in woodland. It was so... Unrangerlike. He had always taken tracking and orienteering on as his personal responsibility, even though back home he'd had no better sense of direction than the next person. And when he failed at something he took the responsibility for... well, he never spoke to anybody about it, but Eric could tell that it cut him up. And if that girl was him, then she was more lost than ever, in the most glaringly obvious way. Eric noticed from his corner that Jess wasn't making eye contact with anybody. She was throwing confused little glances at everyone, running her eyes over their newly altered bodies, then looking away, suddenly. The girls seemed to particularly intimidate her, especially Sheila. Jess would turn her head slightly, look the Redhead up and down quickly, then turn back and sigh. She never once looked at Eric. In fact, she seemed to be going to pains not to look at him.

Eric was almost glad. Jess' appearance was more than a little disturbing. She was pretty. Really pretty, with long, tanned legs, a slender torso and waist length, golden hair. Her outfit looked like a cross between Hank's old tunic and Sheila's dress - it was still studded leather over the shoulders, and dark green, belted fabric down to the mid thigh, but then it stopped. The female Ranger had no leggings, and her boots started just over her knees, so no matter which way she sat, the eye was drawn to a flash of pink skin on her lower thighs. Eric's comment the first time he'd seen her that Hank had turned into a girl had actually been meant as a joke. He had simply noticed the matching hair colour and outfit. But then she'd stared at him in horror, and he'd seen past the legs and the full lips, seen those bright blue eyes through the golden fringe, looked deeply into them, and Oh God, it was Hank. Dear God, those were his eyes!

'Greetings, young ones...'

Jess jumped at the sight of the Dungeon Master appearing from behind a tree stump, getting onto one knee and readying her bow before her brain had chance to work out who the stranger was. Undeterred, the mystical midget stepped calmly towards her and put a friendly hand across hers, stopping a bolt from forming as he did.

'You must be Jess,' he said.

'Du... Dungeon Master?' gasped Jess, 'is that you?'

'In this world, yes.' DM treated her to an enigmatic smile. 'I imagine that your Dungeon Master has... more hair?'

Jess nodded, sadly. 'I got lost, DM. Just like you... like she warned me.'

'You gotta help her, DM,' added Diana.

'You gotta help Hank, too,' piped Bobby as his unicorn bleated an agreement.

The Dungeon Master sat down next to Uni, tickling behind her ears.

'Alas, this confusion appears to be the work of Myra. And Its logic is lost on me.'

'What do you mean?' worried Presto, 'and besides, I thought this Myra was a person, not an "It".'

'Myra is many things,' explained the Dungeon Master, 'since It exists in many realities simultaneously. It lives as one being in all of the dimensions that It keeps portals, and since It exists in both this world and Jess', It is both male and female...'

'Wait just a minute.' Eric wandered over to join the others. 'You said this thing has a portal to Earth. So It must exist there too, right? Now I don't know about you guys, but I'd have remembered an All Powerful Hermaphrodite Portal Keeper if I'd ever seen one before.'

'Myra works in different ways on different worlds,' replied DM, calmly. 'I believe that the phenomena that you Earth people refer to as Kismet, Sod's Law and Deja-Vu are all down to Myra's tinkerings. It's been known to work on a bigger scale there, too. You have a place called... The Bermuda Triangle, I understand. That's Its main playground. It may even have been Myra who brought the six of you to me in the first place...'

'What?' chorused the kids.

Eric and Jess spoke over each other.

'I thought that was you...'

'But we've been in the Realm for months! I can't stay stuck in the wrong Realm that long again!'

'So Myra's a Baddie, huh?' asked Diana.

The Dungeon Master sighed. 'As I said, It is many things at the same time. Sometimes It does things simply to amuse Itself, sometimes Its actions are for a greater purpose. And sometimes that purpose is good, sometimes evil.'

'Maybe...' muttered Jess, 'maybe if we find Myra, we might be able to persuade It to swap me back with your Ranger, and send us all back home. I mean, It has to be interested in us at least. Otherwise it wouldn't be playing with us like this.'

The Dungeon Master nodded. That may be the best idea, Ranger. Although I am afraid that Myra hides Itself even from me. I can give you no guidance on this matter.'

'Helpful as ever...' tutted Eric

'I have another warning, however...' continued the Dungeon Master.

'Another one?' sighed Presto. 'I mean, how could this situation possibly get any worse?'

DM stood up, dusting moss from his robe. 'It appears that Venger has shown some interest in your excursion to the Forest of Myra...'

An audible groan went up from all the kids, Jess included, at the mention of their Arch Nemesis' name.

'Aw, not Venger too!' whined Bobby.

Eric buried his face in his hands in irritation. 'You mean we gotta face a Transvestite and a Hermaphrodite to get Hank's Sex Change reversed...? Ye Gods, is my analyst ever gonna hear about this one...'

'I understand,' continued DM once their complaints had died down, 'that he and Myra have certain scores to settle with each other as it is...'

'Huh...?' whispered Jess, incredulously, as The old man wandered behind a large rock.

'Well, this should be a blast,' groaned Diana. 'Literally.'

'Did you say "he", DM?' Jess cried out to the spot where DM had, seconds ago, been standing. '"He"? "He"?'

'See?' grinned Eric, delighted at his own joke, 'Jess is laughing already!'

Nobody else laughed, and the distress on Jess' face as she turned from the now deserted rock to look at the others in horror even made Eric's expression fall.

'What is it?'

---

Hank met Bella's eyes for the first time since they'd clocked one another in the forest. It still wasn't right. None of it was right, not Bobby and Presto as girls, certainly not Diana and Sheila as young men, and definitely not this long legged, Valkyrie breastplated slender brunette with Eric's eyes. But worse than that, worse than everything, was the mental image that was now lodged in his brain.

'Tell me,' he pleaded, 'tell me Venger isn't a... a She.'