Hmm, I really should keep to some semblance of a schedule, but summer vacation started and Dream Live 3 came out and AIBA'S HIPS DO NOT LIE! Girls, for maximum squealing time, I want you to type "Kirakirakira" into the youtube search engine. I don't care if you don't even like Prince of Tennis, you will love this.

Disclaimer: I once had a dream where Jareth owned me and I was about to become the Goblin Queen, but I don't think that owning was mutual. -le sigh-

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"Go back! This is not the way!" A great booming voice warned from a large stone statue.

"Turn around! There is danger ahead!"

"Beware!"

"Would you lot SHUT UP!"

"Urusai!" I chimed in.

We had exited the hole/cavern/thing/cheese only to arrive in another cave, this one populated by a variety of giant talking stone heads, leading me to believe that Jareth was a closeted 70's rock music fan. Skye remarked on the similarity to a video game I didn't catch the name of. I observed that "Giant Talking Stone Heads" would be a great name for a J-Rock band. We both agreed that they were somewhat tacky and needed work were they ever to appear in a video game or manga. (Skye wanted smoother, for easier pixelation. I wanted more outlines, for easier drawing.)

"Do you think we should do what they say and go back?" I asked offhand, not really meaning it.

"Nah. Nothing to go back to." Skye replied, shrugging. "Besides, you see this in games all the time. The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches. #102 - Perversity Principle - If you're unsure about what to do next, ask all the townspeople nearby. They will either all strongly urge you to do something, in which case you must immediately go out and do that thing, or else they will all strongly warn you against doing something, in which case you must immediately go out and do that thing."

I blinked a couple times, then a few more times for good measures. "You wouldn't happen to have that entire list memorized, would you?"

"Yes."

" . . ."

"WHAT?"

"Nothing. I guess it's kinda like a manga too. If you don't go to the place you are/are not supposed to go to, then the plot is lost."

"Right. So, logically, if we keep following this path, we should come across another plot . . ."

A crystal ball rolled past our feet.

" . . . Point," he finished. "Perfect. White Materia from Final Fantasy VII."

I looked at him as if he was crazy.

"You're crazy," I informed him. "It's clearly the Shikon Jewel from Inu Yasha."

"What? It's totally White Materia."

"Shikon Jewel!"

"White Materia!"

"Shikon Jewel!"

"White Meteria!"

"Not to interrupt," a silky voice interrupted. "But you two are increasingly running out of time."

I spun around, about to tell off whoever it was for interrupting a perfectly good argument, when I saw it was.

Then the drool started to flow.

Skye looked disgusted. "Fangirls," he muttered. "You show them a bishonen, the next thing you know, there's an organized fanclub with posters and slashy doujinshi."

"Don't start! You fanboys practically started a cult over Rikku from Final Fantasy X!"

"You did the same thing for Squall!"

"Squall is the hottest thing on two pixelated legs. Rikku can't even begin to compare!"

"Ah-HEM!" Jareth broke in again. Skye and I both angrily turned towards him. Honestly, that was the second time he had ruined my argument.

"Since you two seem to be constantly frittering away your time anyway," he continued. "I don't think you'll mind too much if I take some away as well." He made a gesture, and a clock that had magically appeared when I wasn't paying attention started winding its hands forward, leaving me with all of three hours to solve the Labyrinth."

"That's not fair!" I gasped, outraged.

"All's fair in love, war, and Chinese leftovers," Jareth grinned gobinly. "But now that you mention it, perhaps I should leave you with a gift to make up for it."

He made another hand gesture, and the crystal again appeared in his hand. Jareth threw it down the hallway.

"No! The Shikon no Tama!"

"White Meteria!" Skye shouted at the same time.

"Would you cut that out? It's the Shikon no Tama!"

"White Meteria!" he argued.

"Is there something wrong with your eyes?"

"Is there something wrong with your brain? You keep switching names! Is it the Shikon Jewel or the Shikon no Tama?"

"They're the same thing, baka!"

We got a little caught up in our discussion again. Skye hardly noticed when Jareth disappeared with a cape swish that would have made Tuxedo Kamen envious. (Of course, I noticed. My bishidar no longer alerted me to the presence of a bishonen in the vicinity.) I merely sidestepped the silvery spinny thing of doom and continued arguing that 3-D animation does not necessarily make it more real. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard screams of terror and shouts of "The Cleaners! Run!" but all I did was subconsciously translate that to the Japanese "Za Crenas! Nigete!" and think nothing more of it.

I'm pretty sure that we wasted at least another half-hour arguing about the metaphysical properties of crystals and their appearances in Japanese media, but the important thing is that I won the argument, the end of which went something like:

"Yes it is!"

"No it isn't!"

"Yes it is!"

"No it isn't!"

"Yes it is!"

"No it isn't!"

"Yes it is!"

"FINE!"

"YAY! I win!"

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" . . . So how do we get out of here?" Skye asked. "Actually, the better question would probably be whether or not we have enough time to get out of here, raid the castle, and beat Jareth up."

"What! You can't beat up the bishonen!"

"Sure I can." Skye looked at my expression and sighed. "Listen Raven. Cliché #189 – The Moral of the Story - Every problem in the universe can be solved by finding the right long-haired prettyboy and beating the crap out of him."

"But he's a king!"

"All the more reason!"

We were on the verge of another argument when Skye noticed something.

"Hey. What's that?"

"It's a clock. Don't' they have any in your video games?" I sneered. Okay, now I was being childish and immature, but so was he!"

"No, they're all digital," He shot back. See! "Was this here before?"

"Donno." Then it struck me. "Oh yeah. That's Jareth's clock."

"The one he used to reorder time?"

"Yup."

"I wonder . . ." Skye mused. "Do you think we could do it too?"

"What, make a clock out of thin air? I don't think so."

"No, dummy, reorder time. We've got Jarteth's clock, so we could play with it a little."

"First off, you're starting to sound like a pervy old man playing a dating sim. Second off, I'd like to know how you propose to turn back time."

Skye held up his wrist, which also had a watch on it. "When Jareth turned that clock forward, my watch did the same."

I checked my watch. Yup, mine had done the same.

"So therefore," Skye continued. "If we turn that one back, then these should reverse too."

"Let's test that theory," I said with a dangerous glint in my eye. I walked over to the clock, and with a flick of my hammer, smashed open the glass surrounding the hands.

Skye started at me. "WHERE in the World of Warcraft did you get that hammer!"

"Hammerspace. Duh." I said casually. Then, like a harisen on an inattentive Japanese student's head, it hit me.

"OMG I CAN USE HAMMERSPACE!"

(In case of a particularly thrilling or exciting development in a story plotline (i.e. a bishonen hair flip) it is necessary to not only squeal loudly in fangirlish delight, but also ensure that the people across the street know of your ardor, and consequentially, stay at least 50 feet away at all times, thus eliminating the need for a restraining order in case said fangirl tends to annoy/scare/anger/kill others with her teeming font of otaku knowledge.)

Skye was rubbing his ears in pain, wincing at my high pitch.

"What," he started. "In the world is hammerspace?"

"Hammerspace is a extradimensional, instantly accessible storage area," I explained. "It can hold anything until a person needs it. Whenever that person lookes like they are getting something from nowhere, they're actually reaching into hammerspace and pulling out whatever they need. It's not certain whether a person must have personally put an item into hammerspace to remove it, or whether they simply need to know that it is existent in hammerspace to reach for it. Pockets of hammerspace, or something similar, exist behind some trees, tent-strings, rocks, and other small or narrow objects, allowing cartoon characters to hide behind things much smaller than themselves. Hammerspace is often used synonymously with a magic satchel; the difference however is hammerspace is an actual extra dimension where items are stored, whereas a magic satchel uses magic to either contain these items or to access hammerspace itself. Hammerspace explains why a game character wielding a sword bigger than himself does not appear to be carrying one until he actually enters combat. Not much of the nature of Hammerspace is known, beyond the surmise that it contains blunt objects in vast amounts. It's clear that the hammerspace laws of physics are fairly peculiar. This can be observed in, for example, the way that many Final Fantasy heroes are able to carry 99 Potions and 99 Hi-Potions with no trouble, but have no room to carry a 100th Potion no matter how many other items they have, or also in the way that Pokemon are stored in their balls while you can then deposit them and other items into a computer terminal. Geez, where did you think Sora stored all those Keyblades anyway?"

"That was surprisingly informative and technical," Skye stared, as if I had grown another head.

"I used to be a Star Wars nut."

"Ah. In any case," Skye shifted the topic. "Let's check out the clock."

I nodded, and reached up to the clock's minute hand, pushing it gently counterclockwise while Skye looked at his watch.

He gave a large grin. "IT WORKS! MWAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!"

This time I had to clap my hands over my ears.

Skye looked a bit embarrassed. "Sorry. I always get like this when I notice something not in the tutorials."

I gave a grin. "So now we have unlimited time, and hammerspace. This is definitely looking up."

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Jareth was doing damage control.

Skye and Raven's teaming up had increased their odds slightly, but Raven's discovery of hammerspace and Skye's creating unlimited time had pushed up their numbers to almost beyond what the chart could show on its LED screen, and now more people were betting on their surviving and even winning the Labyrinth. He had to promise more "dangers untild" and start enchanting peaches, setting up the ballroom, instructing the trash lady to set up two rooms . . . it was enough to take the cling out of a Goblin King's tights.

He almost didn't notice the rather loudly dressed sprite trying to slink past him.

"Puck?" Jareth asked. There was no reply, and the fae kept sneaking on.

"Puck." A warning now, but still no reaction.

"ROBIN GOODFELLOW!" That time he jumped at least three feet in the air.

"Robin, what are you doing?"

Robin Goodfellow slowly turned around and faced Jareth, giving a nervous laugh.

"Umm . . . you . . . that is, Titania-sama called me here . . . she said there was something she needed me to do."

Jareth frowned. What was with this Japanese craze? Was it an addiction or something? Those humans were particularly addicted to their crack and pot. Even Robin was prey to this new fad, though granted, he was seeming a bit unlike himself at the moment.

"Can I go now?" Robin shifted about a bit on his feet, obviously uncomfortable.

"Fine, fine. Go to your mistress." Jareth waved him off through the throng of fae. What was wrong with that Puck anyway?

A few muffled shouts and Titania's laughter came from the balcony, along with . . . it was either one or two high pitched voices saying "Pretty scary blonde goblin!" Perhaps Puck and Titania were now dabbling in ventriloquism?

Jareth turned back to the gaming tables, shaking his head. Perhaps a game of blackjack would cheer him up.

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Anime Lexicon:

"Jareth was a closeted 70's rock music fan": Giant Talking Stone Heads? I can pick out "Rolling Stones" (sort of) and "Talking Heads" from that, both of which were active in the 70's, along with David Bowie (and his sock drawer).

The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Clichés: Is actually a list. If you Google that long phrase and click on the first link, there is a list of clichés, that sadly, do actually happen a lot in actual video games. It makes the games more fun to mock.

White Materia: small spheres of crystalized spiritual energy used in the magic system of the role-playing game Final Fantasy VII. These spheres allow their users to cast various magics and use special abilities. Totally just stolen from wikipedia.

Shikon Jewel: I covered this before, yes? Plot point and shiny thing in Inu Yasha.

"You show them a bishonen . . .doujinshi.": Quite true. If I read a series and I want the bishies to get together, first thing I do is call my friend to see if she's already got some slash on them. Chances are, she usually does. That's why I love her so very muchly.

Rikku: Character from Final Fantasy X. Google image search for picture.

Squall: -drool-

"Squall is the hottest thing on two pixelated legs": Totally my quote. Mine.

Love, War and Chinese Leftovers: The day after we get Chinese takeout at my house, it's a free-for-all. If you haven't woken up early enough in order to eat the last of the shrimp fried rice for breakfast, then tough luck.

Tuxedo Kamen: Also known as Tuxedo Mask, from the series Sailor Moon. Should you ever watch the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (available at animesuki), you will notice his manfully skilled cape swishes.

Harisen: Basically, it's just a paper fan, sometimes used by teachers to discipline their students. If you've ever seen Fushigi Yugi, it's Tasuki's fan.

Hammerspace: I gave a pretty thorough explanation above that was totally all taken from the wikipedia article, because I'm lazy.

Sora: Main character in Kingdom Hearts.

Keyblade: Sora's sword. Why all the bad guys are afraid of it when it doesn't even have a sharp edge, I don't know. However, I do know that he has at least a dozen keyblades that can be interchanged at points in the game, thus making me wonder where the hell all those swords are stored.

Bishonen hair flip: It goes fwip and the girls all go -faint-

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Hopefully I'll get past this writer's block in the next chapter. I make no promises, I have to watch after bratlings while I'm volunteering at a summer camp. I did think of a new fanfic idea though, while watching Aladdin, thus proving I should never watch kid movies.

Reviews will be loved and hugged and squeezed and glomped. Flames will be disposed of on the Fourth of July.