"Zankoku na tenshi no teize, madobe kara yagate tobitatsu, hotobashiru atsui patosu de..." A short, brown-haired girl bounced around in her chair, her headphones turned up all the way. "Omoide wo uragiru nara, kono sora wo daite kagayaku..."
         The girl seated across from her at the table banged her head against a book repeatedly. "Will you just shut up? We're never going to get this research paper done!"
         The girl with the headphones ignored her and continued to sing at the top of her lungs, not noticing how everyone in the library could hear her. "Shounen yo SHINWA NI NARE!!"
         A third girl groaned and began snapping her pencils in half in frustration. "Cheryl, tell me again why we asked her to help us do this?"
         "Because," her friend answered, making sure the girl with the headphones couldn't hear her. "We figured we could just dump all the work on her and goof off."
         "Zutto, ne mutte--what?" The girl yanked off her headphones. "What was that I heard?"
         Cheryl blinked. "Um...nothing, Meeshy. Nothing at all." She coughed and attempted to change the subject. "We need to go look for a couple of books to fake as sources--er, I mean, to use for reasearch, right Michelle?"
         "Unfortunately," her friend lamented and pushed back her chair. The three dragged themselves over to a dusty, cobwebbed corner of the library, where the reference books were located. The task ahead of them looked long and boring, and they fervently wished to be elsewhere. "Hey, what's this?" Michelle picked up an old, dusty-looking book with an ancient-looking engraved cover.
         Meeshy, being the resident expert on crusty old books, snatched it from her and carefully turned the first page. "This is the story of a girl who gathered the Seven Seishi of Suzaku, and acquired the power to make every wish come true. The story itself is an incantation. Whoever finishes the book shall receive this power. As soon as the page is turned, the story will become the truth and begin..."
         Cheryl scratched her head. "You know, that sounds oddly familiar...wait, don't turn that page!!"
         It was too late. Meeshy had already flipped the page, and the library had disappeared from around them. It was replaced by a forest, done in cheap, hastened hunter-green tones that looked like they were painted on with a sponge. The three girls scratched their heads in confusion, wondering where on Earth they might be. Michelle smacked Meeshy in the head. "Thanks a lot! Now we've been sucked into some screwy book-world like in FY!" To her surprise, the blow had sent her friend careening across the forest into a tree, where she paused briefly before crumbling to the ground.
         Cheryl sweatdropped profusely, then stared at the sweatdrops in fascination. "Anime sweatdrops? Wait a minute...that only happens when we're in SM:TMT! But this sure doesn't look like Tokyo..."
         "That's because it's not!" a cheerful voice piped up. The three girls turned to the source of the sound and spotted a tall, rather pretty young woman wearing a pair of jeans and sneakers. "I'm Belldandy, a goddess! I'm here to fulfill your wish!"
         "What wish?" Michelle asked suspiciously.
         "Why, the mental wish you three made while in the library! It's dangerous to wish in threes, by the way. Shakespeare, you know. You all wished you were somwhere else. And since I'm filling in for L-sama while she's on vacation, I thought this place would be satisfactory."
         Cheryl's eyebrow began to twitch. "L-sama? L-SAMA?! So that means we're in the SLAYERS world?!" She turned and began to beat the Magikarp out of Meeshy. "This is all YOUR fault!"
         "Wait a minute, Cheryl," Michelle said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "This might not be a *bad* thing..."
         "But we're stuck here! Without our BiC pens! And with no way of getting back!!"
         Belldandy piped up once more. "I did think of that possibility," she said. "So I decided to copy one of L-sama's sacred scripts and give it to you to help you survive here." She whisked out three leather-bound books and handed them to the three.
         Cheryl flipped open her book to the first page. 'The Rules of Anime'? THIS is one of L-sama's sacred scripts? Bah!" she snorted derisively.
         Belldandy smiled and flashed the 'victory' sign. "I hope you have fun during your stay here!"

         Suddenly, the three girls found themselves standing alone in front of a village inn, with a ragtag team of bandits bearing down on them. Meeshy gulped and hid behind her friends. "I've got a bad feeling about this..."
         "Fire...ball!!" A blazing sphere of light spiraled into the midst of the bandits, blasting them into bits of charred flesh. The camera cut to a view of the inn's front doorway, where a short, flat-chested sorceress stood, nodding proudly to herself. "That makes bandit gang #152,378 I've bagged for the day."
         The three girls stared in ultimate adoration, not at the sorceress herself, but at the blue-skinned chimera behind her. "Could it be...?"         "Is it...?"
         "ZEL-SAMAAA!!!" they screamed in unison, charging at the doorway of the inn, knocking over the surprised chimera. "HE'S MINE!!"
         "No way!" Michelle cried, tugging on his arm. "I saw him first!!"
         "You did not!!" Meeshy exclaimed, grabbing his other arm. "He's MINE!!"
         "You're both mistaken. He's MINE!!" Cheryl joined in the fray, a large cloud of dust kicking up around them as they fought over the confused chimera.
         Lina & Co. stood standing in shock, sweatdrops gathering all around. Zelgadis yelped and tried to escape from his hyperactive captors. "Aren't you guys gonna help me out here?"
         A wicked giggle escaped from the Trickster Priest floating above, who waggled his forefinger at the chimera. "Ah, ah, Zel-kun...sore wa himitsu desu!"
         BlinkBlink. Meeshy's attention was immediately drawn away from the struggling chimera as she heard the incredible voice of Ishida Akira. "Xelloss-sama!!!" she shouted happily, leaping ten feet into the air and glomping onto the surprised Mazoku.
         A figure in a white cape was standing atop one of the tables, her blue eyes sparkling with their usual super-sugar-hyperness. "How dare you soulless fiends attack such a true defender of peace like Zelgadis-san!! I shall punish you with the hammer of justice!!" Amelia leaped down from her table and into the fray, kicking up and even larger cloud of dust.
         Lina Inverse was developing a rather nasty twitch in her eyebrow. "Grr...Burst Rondo!!" Four pairs of eyes blinked at her from a now-charred cluster of people. She dusted off her hands. "Okay...now would someone mind telling me what's going on here?!" She pointed at Cheryl, who was valiantly trying to brush the ashes from her clothing. "You. Talk."
         The girl pointed at the charred chimera on the floor with impatience. "That's Zel. He's one of my favorite anime guys."
         "Mine, too," Michelle chirped in. Cheryl punted her out of the way. The third girl waved from her spot in Xelloss's arms. "Gomen, Zel! I'd be down there, too, but evil guys get extra points, so..."
         Zelgadis coughed up a cloud of smoke and edged away from the girls. "Who are you scary people? And what are you doing here?"
         "It's all her fault," Michelle told them, pointing an accusing finger at Meeshy. "She hasn't seen FY yet, so she didn't know not to open the book, and then we got dropped here by Belldandy since she's filling in for L-sama and now I guess that just makes us a bunch of anime fans stuck in an anime world without our psycho-author BiC pens."
         Everyone sweatdropped. Zelgadis scratched his head in confusion before finally deciphering exactly what that meant. "Whoa! You mean you guys are otaku?" He slapped a hand to his forehead. "We're doomed!!"
         BAM. Cheryl pummeled the chimera into the ground with a large wooden mallet. "Rule #1 of anime: Mallets are easy to wield despite their ridiculously large size. Remember that."
         Gourry was staring off into space with his usual stupid, glazed-over expression. "I don't get it. So what does all this mean?"
         "Well, as long as we're stuck in the Slayers world, we might as well have some fun with it," Michelle whispered to her friends, who nodded in agreement. "So basically this means you guys are stuck with us!" she announced, to the dismay of the entire cast.
         Meeshy was flipping through her copy of 'The Rules of Anime' while perched on Xelloss's shoulder. He wasn't enjoying the attention very much, to say the least. "Wonder if there's anything in here that talks about getting us some $$$..."
         Michelle waved the matter away. "Ah, don't worry about that. I swiped a pan-dimensional wallet from some Washu character that I ran into last week. It can get us anything we want. There's even a house in here."
         "A portable house? Sugoi!" Meeshy continued flipping through the book, ignoring the fact that Xelloss was no longer there anymore and that she was now suspended in mid-air. Right as if on cue, she noticed exactly how far away the ground was and screamed as she went crashing to the floor.
         The Trickster Priest materialized before her, giggling with apparent amusement. The fallen girl twitched angrily and chased after the Mazoku, toasting him with a Dil Brand. Xelloss coughed up a little puff of smoke and grinned. "Arigato!"
         Meeshy smacked her hand to her forehead. "I'd forgotten that Mazoku LIKE pain...
        

         Meanwhile, the goddess Belldandy was cowering before the tall, golden-haired woman that was royally chewing her out. "I can't believe you let those psychotic fanfic authors into one of MY worlds! Do you know how horribly they are going to screw up my storyline?!"
         Belldandy flinched and edged away from the Lord of Nightmares. "Gomen nasai, L-sama...I was just trying to fulfill my duties as a goddess...and they seemed so harmless at the time!"
         "Like hell they're harmless..." L-sama snorted. "Haven't you ever read one of their fanfics? They're crazy! They bring chaos wherever they go!" She paused. "Hmm...wait a minute, this might not be so bad after all. Chaos is good, and it attracts more viewers."
         "And if they get into trouble, you can just kill them off!" Belldandy helpfully added.
         "Great idea! I'm glad I thought of it. This might actually work out!"
        

         Lina Inverse stretched out in the soft grass, her stomach nicely full, and closed her eyes. The sun was very nice, as it usually was, and she decided to take a nap, as she usually did. Gourry was a few feet away, stupidly trying to sharpen the Hikari no Ken on a grinding stone and scratching his head in confusion when the stone got sliced in half. Zelgadis was strangling Xelloss while Amelia tried to break them up. It was a usual day, except for...
         The three otakugirls were looking through their copies of the 'Rules of Anime', learning which rules might help them out and make their stay in the Slayers world more interesting. It was already apparent that they all had a degree of mastery over sorcery, but, being the curious anime fans that they were, they wished to know more about what L-sama might have in store for them. Michelle was making faces at her book. "I think we ought to cross out numbers 3 and 4..."
         "As well as #13. 'Naughty tentacles are a fact of life'? Not while I'm around," Cheryl commented. "And what's with #41?"
         "Hey! #41 is a definite fact! Especially in Slayers!" Meeshy protested. "What about Naga, hmm?"
         "...."
         "How come half of these rules don't apply to us?" Michelle complained. "We are nowhere NEAR Tokyo, and mecha doesn't exist in Slayers, so that leaves out numbers 7, 10, 11, 12, 18, 31, 38, 42, 49..."
         "Hey, hey, wait!" Cheryl protested loudly. "I LIKE mecha. Why can't we have any of that here? It doesn't say THAT in the rules, does it?"
         "Well, uh, no..."
         Cheryl began to laugh evilly and rub her palms together. "Bwhahahaha...#11, here I come!!"
         Michelle sweatdropped and turned the page. "You know, I just noticed something...there are all these rules for villains here, and we haven't seen a single villain since we've been here. Well, except for Xelloss, of course," she added quietly, ignoring the dirty look Meeshy gave her.
         Suddenly, right on cue, a loud rumbling sound echoed throughout the forest. Cheryl smacked Michelle in the back of the head. "Oh, great, look what you did now! You just had to say it, didn't you?" The three girls turned to see what sort of crazed monster was going to attack them this time...and stopped, their eyes growing wide with horror. A tiny white rabbit-looking-thing peered up at them from the ground,
         the jewel on its forehead glinting in the sunlight. "Puu!"
         "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!" They clutched each other and screamed in terror, grabbing the attention of the other characters. "AAAAAAAAHHH!!! GET IT AWAY!!!"
         Amelia glanced down at the little Rayearth mascot and shrieked with joy. "Oh, it's so kawaii!"
         "Kawaii? Mokona, kawaii?! What's the matter with you?!!" Cheryl shouted at the little princess. "It's scary! Kill it, kill it!!"
         "Why would you want to hurt such a sweet, adorable little creature?" Amelia asked, patting Mokona on the head. "It's so ka--" She was cut off by another loud rumbling noise, this one more earth-shaking than the first. "What was that?"
         Meeshy gulped. "Uh-oh..." From the bushes poured forth an entire herd of sickeningly cute white rabbit-looking-things. Which were coming straight at them. "I don't believe this!! It multiplied!! We're doomed!!!"
         The entire group turned and fled from the herd of Mokonas, which were baring their teeth and making savage "Pu! Pu!" sounds. Lina started toasting them with fireballs after one dared to chomp on her delicate (bwhahahaha...yeah, right) toes. The others followed suit.
         All except for Cheryl. She snatched Michelle aside and swiped her pan-dimensional wallet, pulling out of it a huge blue and white EVA. "Muahahahahaha..." she cackled as she swung into the cockpit and took hold of the controls. "You shall now pay for your crimes against otaku, Mokona-clones!!" Everyone sweatdropped as Cheryl pulled a Godzilla impression and went around stomping on the little mascots. "BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
         Michelle took this opportunity to glomp onto Zel while the others went off and let Cheryl have her fun. Meeshy glanced at the now-mushed Mokonas and sniffed disdainfully. "Lovely. And where did all those things come from, anyway? Don't tell ne that there's some idiot megalomaniac trying to knock us off with outlandishly insane plot devices!"
         "Looks that way," Zelgadis commented, trying to push his devoted otakugirl away. "Why do these things always happen to me?"
         Michelle laughed evilly and patted him on the head. "You've got rule #21 working against you. And besides, you've got a major Tenchi Masaki syndrome going on in our world."
         "Gee, lucky me," the chimera grumbled under his breath.
         Meeshy and Lina were discussing the identity of their apparent new enemy. "Who would be evil enough to send a horde of sickeningly cute little mascots agains us? Not one of the usual Slayers villains, no..."
         Lina turned to the Mazoku priest beside her. "Hey, Xelloss, any ideas?"
         "Sore wa himitsu desu!"
         The sorceress groaned. "Of course..."
         Cheryl finished her stomping and strutted proudly back to the others, her EVA tucked safely back into Michelle's wallet. "They didn't stand a chance," she declared, flopping down onto the grass. "Mou...all that fighting made me hungry. Hey Michelle, do you happen to have a kitchen in that pan-dimensional wallet of yours?"
         "Well, there's a kitchen inside the house," she replied, digging through her wallet and pulling out a miniature version of a Barbie (TM) playhouse.
         Cheryl stared at the tiny plastic house in utter awe. "THAT'S your special house? That little thing?!! How exactly do you expect us to fit in there?"
         "Sore wa..." Michelle began, then stopped herself as she saw the others cracking their knuckles and growling. "Uh...I mean, I'm gonna do this." She pulled an adorable red ribbon out of her wallet and tied it to the little house, simultaneously fastening a cheap plastic watch to her wrist. "Parallelu, parallelu, real house ni nare!!"
         Cheryl and Meeshy covered their faces. "Why us..." The others just stared in amazement as the tiny plastic Barbie (TM) house turned itself into a huge, badly-decorated cottage. Michelle flashed the victory sign and ran into the cottage, closely followed by her friends.
        

         Meanwhile, in some dark and scary throne room, a dark and scary person cackled with a dark and scary laugh. The person peered into a Crystal Ball (TM) and smirked. "So it seems they have defeated my Mokona clones. They're smarter than I thought, those three otaku. Which isn't saying much for them." He snapped his fingers and the ball began to glow with an eerie iridescent light. "I'll have to find another way to lure them here, it seems. But I think I shall have some fun with them first." He held up an evil-looking pen as the camera zoomed in on it, the word 'BiC' showing clearly on it. He threw back his head and laughed. "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!! AHAHAHA*hack, cough*HAHA*cough, cough*..."

         Michelle stared warily at the green-colored sludge in her soupbowl, sniffing at it expirimentally. The others were seated around her at the kitchen table, similar expressions on their faces. All looked up at Xelloss questioningly. "What IS this stuff?"
         The Trickster Priest was grinning annoyingly, his chef's hat tilted on his head and an apron reading 'Himitsu' tied at his waist. "It's chicken soup! The breakfast of champions!" He peered closer at the sludge and sweatdropped a bit. "Well, at least I THINK it's chicken soup. It should be okay, just as long as you don't ask what kind of broth that is or where the chicken came from..."
         Amelia sweatdropped. "Jeez, you'd think after being alive for 1000-some-odd years he'd have picked up on how to cook somewhere."
         Gourry poked at his soup with a hesitant spoon. To his surprise, the soup gurgled and ate the spoon in response. "Augh! I think mine's ALIVE!!"
         "Mine just blinked at me!" Zelgadis exclaimed, jumping out of his chair.
         Amelia screamed in terror as her soup leaped out of the bowl and proceeded to chase her around the house, laughing Kodachi-style. The others clutched each other as their soup followed suit. "AAAAAAAAHH!! KILL IT!!" Cheryl screeched, reaching for her EVA in Michelle's wallet.
         "No! Not in the house, you dolt!" Michelle shouted, pulling her wallet out of Cheryl's reach.
         "Augh!!" The shriek came from the red-haired sorceress herself, who was effetively Burst Rondo-ing one of the soup monsters. "How dare you, you hentai!!"
         Gourry was busy beheading the other soup monsters with the Hikari no Ken, wielding it like one would swing a reaper, and whistling a happy little tune. Everyone sweatdropped as he finished killing off the last one and grinned dumbly, feeling rather proud of himself. He flexed his nicely-shaped muscles. "Finally, my talents are put to some good use!"
         "I could think of a better use," Meeshy murmured under her breath, ducking Cheryl's incoming fist. They were interrupted by the sound of annoying, high-pitched music, seemingly coming from outside. "What's that?"
         The group rushed out the door and stopped short, their mouths dropping open in surprise. "What the..."
        

THE END (for now, anyway)

By Meeshy (with The Rules of Anime)
Back to the Sailor Moon: The Missing Truth index page!
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