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Which Navi Would You Be?

Extra-Dimensional madness (part 1)

The gentle breezes caressed the open field. A lone figure in shining green armor lay prone, face down, upon the grass. Moaning, it slowly pulled itself to its hands. Prince Chameos Nikaelovich Nova slowly took in his surroundings, confused. This isn't Aeos, he thought to himself. Where am I? What is...Suddenly, words flashed throughout his mind: "Viral Infection". ??? What on Aeos does that mean?, he thought. Gazing into the distance, Chameos saw something coming towards him. No...someONE. Well, he thought, maybe they can tell me what this place is, and what in the universe "Viral Infection" means. Not being overly cautious, though, he readied his sword, just in case..........

As the figure approched, it became silhouetted from the heavy rays of the sun behind it. Blinded, Chameos fell to his knees, and when he looked up, he saw a tall figure wearing a long white coat and hat.
"HELLO!? CAN-YOU-HEAR-ME!?"
In an instant, the Prince sprang backwards and into a battle stance and the booming voice continued.
"WHERE-ARE-YOUR-PARENTS!? ARE-YOU-ALL-ALONE!?"
It seemed obvious to the prince that he was in a place of a lower intellect, or that this person was mistaking him for a small child. Either way, he hastened a response.
"Who are you?"
The figure was startled and lowered his neon-rimmed spectacles.
"Oh. You can talk.....who am I? Why, I'm the famous Professor Fritz Replay Fandango!"
Chameos looked puzzled.
"You've never heard of me? Let me guess, you're not from around here, are you? Don't worry it, neither am I. You probably believe this, but I was accidentally slingshotted here from another dimension by an extremely inept monkey!"
"Where am I?" The prince was still disorientated and had not been fully aware of what the man was saying, "and what is....'Viral Infection'?"
"Jesus Louizus. How can that bunch of slack jawed mormots be more famous than me!? Alright kid, follow me"

Cam, the warrior prince that he was, had encountered numerous uglies and weirdos throughout his few 128 years of existence. But frankly, this guy took the cake. Was he human? Maybe a robot of some sort. Hopefully not a demon. He COULD be some sort of geneitcally-engineered experiment. Or maybe even a magical fairy from the nether-realms. Or not.

As he followed the Professor silently through an ever deepening forest, he wondered exactly where he was...

This definitely wasn't his homeplanet Aeos, that's for sure. No, not Earth, he thought to himself. It would smell a lot more like s***. DEFINITELY not that demon Apollyon's meteor.

The more he took in the trees and the wildlife, though, the more it reminded Cam of his brief stay on Earth, Aeos' twin planet. But then he had time-travelled to the past in an attempt to change the history of a certain blue robot...

Cam sighed longingly. If this WAS Earth, would he ever meet them again? Would he ever fight alongside those robots again? He hadn't been able to change history, though, and the blue one's friends and family were killed by that evil scientist's ghost. The blue one was badly injured, and was sealed in a time capsule while repairs went on inside...

"Here we are, kid!"

The statement caught Prince Chameos off guard. Following the Professor's outstretched hand, his heart almost stopped at what stood before them......................

The Prince and the Professor stopped before a flashing anomoly that seemed ripped in the air itself. Fandango was not quite as phased as the newcomer and started to press onwards. Chameos regained his bearing enough to inquire, "What...?"
Fandango turned abruptly and with a magnified rolling of his eyes behind his thick bottle glasses, patronizingly explained to his curious visitor that it was an experiment on inter-reality travel, his team was searching for ways to physically connect the two planes of existence in their world, and being in the early experimental stages, was prone to at least some accidents. The Professor finished his long winded speech after one more deep breath, "As for you, you must have been accidentily pulled into this nexus from wherever you were by my most recent experiment. You're not the first alien we've accidentily pulled in either, why just a couple days ago we met some interesting tripods, the were quite delicious actually." The mischievous Doctor then licked his lips and laughed evilly. This prompted the prince to once again draw his sword. The Professor immediately stepped back. "Whoa there little fella! I was just joshing ya. Now just sit back and relax. My good for nothing teammates and that incompetent monkey should be working on re-stabilizing the tear at this moment. Until then, you can watch the worlds fly by."
The last sentence confused the prince until his eyes finally adjusted to the flashing images in the tear, he saw numerous different worlds fly by, in some he was surprised to see pictures of characters much resembling the blue robot, each one firing at something or other with that arm-mounted cannon. "Do you see that blue boy with the one hand?"
"Bah", Fandango snorted, "Mega Man. Our research seems to show that meddling dork is a prominent figure in several dimensions, he seems to manifest himself in whatever is the apex of robotic technology in each world. Thankfully in ours we're able to keep him out of our hair usually."
"You...don't like him?" Cam wondered if the blue one of this world were as noble as the one he was familiar with, or if it were even the same one. If so, could he be be-friending a natural enemy? The name "Viral Infection" still sent shivers down his spine...The obnoxious professor broke his thoughts.
"The picture is becoming clearer! It's about damn time!"

"Turn the fluxipator doo-hickey up to ten units"
"Fiddle with those blue and yellow things a bit"
"Re-stabilize the ion flow in the thingamajigger"
"I don't know what to do, ask the monkey"
"Ooo ooo ooo AH AH AH!!"
"Um, Dominic, why did you just scream like a monkey?"
"The thingamajigger burned my finger..."
"Why don't we just activate Numberman?"
"....I don't know"
The sprawling members of the Viral Infection team scrambled around trying to rescue Fandango from the flashing hole in the adjacent wall of the lab. Someone finally had the bright idea to activate the team's personal calculator program, Numberman.exe, who's very owner was trapped in an inter-dimensional nexus. Once the green, lightbulb headed super-program was activated, it quickly organized the less technically inclined members to make a clear stable doorway, from which the tall lab-coated figure and a wary, low-tech, sword weilding stranger stepped out. Numberman greeted his master.
"Welcome back boss, who's your friend?"

Chameos, agitated at the thought of anyone hating one of his best friends, interrupted the Professor before he could answer.

"I am Prince Chameos Nikaelovich Jean-Gael Pierre Francois Nova of the planet of Aeos. I am also an official licensed Bounty Hunter, code name Sonic Boom of the Clan of the Slamdancers. I would appreciate if you refer to me as either Prince Nova or Sonic Boom."

The room suddenly grew silent. A thought flashed through Numberman.exe's mechanical brain. There was something unusual about this traveler. It was almost as if.....no, that's not possible. He could never be a PARTIAL robot.

Could he?

Fandango attemted to clear some of the confused expression floating around the room. "Cam here got sucked into the nexus during the accident, I'm sure he wants to get back home soon, but until this technology is perfected, we don't know how to do that."
Everyone seemed to understand well enough until the question of what to do with this guy came up. Ed, known by his own suggestion as "The demented one" suggested they give him 20 bucks and let him loose on the town for a few days. The blonde, spiky haired Sam, one of the two Sams on the team, suggested the same thing except that they keep the twenty. Phil, the will-holder of the hideout and official un-involved team leader, suggested the more sane approach of keeping him on the grounds until they fugured out what to do, he could sleep in the garage. Ryan, the team rationalist, made one more improvement to the plan and suggested he have one of the spare rooms left vacant by the recently quit team-members, Kamui and Mixmasta.
"So how about it, Your Majesty? Need a place to stay for a while?" Inquired the black haired thinker.
"I'm not sure..." Replied the prince, still cautious. "Can I trust you?"
The other humans began to chuckle in a light hearted, yet slightly unnerving way.
"Of course you can trust us!" Ryan explained cheerfully. "No secrets here, well, except from Gauntlet, but he's just weird"
He gestured towards the Red-headed figure in the corner, who insisted on wearing Sunglasses and a trenchcoat in-doors. Gauntlet became slightly irritated at his description. "Shadowman, throw a few shadow blades at Skullman."
Another program activated on the computer screen revealing a ninja-like figure, Shadowman adressed his master.
"Skull isn't jacked in right now."
An abrupt "Hah" came from Ryan's direction.
Gauntlet shrugged. "Next time you see him, give him a double helping of Shadow blades."
"Heh, sure thing" and the ninja fizzled out.
Phil approached the guest. "I suppose we should introduce ourselves now. You've already met Professor Fandango. I'm Phil, team leader. The guy in the brown shirt is Ryan, The guy with the big, black hair is Dominic, the one in grey is Sam, but you might as well call him Blackbelt, 'cause we got another Sam right there, the one with the wild blonde hair. The blonde guy in the blue shirt is Sky, the secretive guy is Gauntlet, the spiky haired guy is Ed, you'll want to be careful around him, the guy in glasses is Gary, the long haired hippy over there is Mike, and the blue haired guy is Lee. Did you get all that?"
"...No, not really..."
"You'll catch on soon enough, all right, Sky, show the prince to his room. We'll clean up here."

As Cam was being led through the vast hall of the compound, his head flooded with questions. He had to ask Sky. "What does your team do exactly?"
"uh...stuff...profitable stuff!" Replied the hesitant host.
"Profitable? Of course, how else would you afford a mansion like this?"
Sky remained silent as to the less-than-legal ways Phil came to acquiring their luxurious estate, the knight didn't seem like the type to appreciate their black-market tactics, and thought the simplest explanations would work best.
"What about those...'mans'?", inquired the curious visitor.
"Huh? Oh, you mean, like, Numberman, Shadowman and Skullman?"
"Exactly"
"They're called navis, you probably wouldn't be familiar with them where you come from, they're like artificial intelligence, each team member has their own."
"Like robots?"
"Sorta, except they don't have physical bodies, they just exist in the "Dream World" Our term for the virtual plane of existence created for the navis.
"Professor Fandango mentioned you were trying to link the two realities in your world..."
"Yep, it's our newest project, we want to find a physical gateway to the Dream World so our navis can pass through into this one."
"Why?"
"Why? Well, uh...you see, navis are incredibly powerful, and...well, here's your room, bye!
Sky dashed down the hallway leaving a rather suspicious Cam at the door of his new room. Putting his apprehensions aside, Cam entered the room to notice a very neatly laid out set of furniture, despite the warm, homey look of they room, a slight chill went down his spine as he stepped in. "I wonder if I should really stay here..."


Meanwhile, in the lab, Fandango was slapping his monkey, (so to speak) while Ryan and Phil examined the results of the experiment. "Think of the power we already have at our fingertips." whispered Ryan, slightly excited. "We already have access to many other worlds, full of riches and power, why not just stop and let the navis stay as they are?"
Phil scratched his chin in deep thought, "I say we stick to the plan as it is, we're Viral Infection. Until now we've exploited the internet with the power of our navis, and once we can get them into the real world, we'll be doing the same thing to a greater extent. Besides, Magicman is expressing too great of interest in seeing us in the flesh."
"I know what you mean, I think it would be a great experience for all of us to come face to face with each other for the first time."
"Do you think Prince Cam would complicate things at all?"
"I doubt it, all alone in a new world, he has to stay in line with us."

Cam sat in deep meditation on the floor of the empty bedroom. He sent his mind on a journey, through the infinite void that stretched between this strange new world and his own, searching out his friends. He flew to many different worlds, not stopping to look in, searching, continually searching for his team of fighters. Finally, after an unimaginable time in the void, but less than an hour in the real world, their spirits appeared, shapeless forms of shimmering light. The leaders of the other five Bounty Hunter Clans.

Simoriah, Clan of the Magi.
Bandit, Clan of the Six-Shooters.
Dark Panda, Clan of the Necromancers.
Sledge, Clan of the Metalsmiths.
Cirrus, Clan of the Skysurfers.

"My friends. I have been searching for you."

"What the hell?," asked Bandit.

"Ditto!," replied Sledge.

"Truthfully," Cam said, "I have no idea where we are. I just woke up in a field, and a scientist appeared and brought me here."

"And you need us because..."

"For the simple reason, Simoriah, that there is evil here."

Although no one else was speaking at the moment, there was the sudden quietude of realization.

"Screw this, I'm leaving."

Bandit reached up and pulled Cirrus, always the overcautious one, back into a sitting position.

"I sense the evil also," Dark Panda stated in his booming voice, "but not evil such as that of Apollyon. A much lesser kind, yet just as dangerous, if put to the right usages."

Dark Panda, a half-demon, rarely had his abilities questioned, now least of all.

Simoriah, always the voice of reason, spoke up again.

"What do you want us to do, Cam?"

Cam looked at her, then glanced around at the others lovingly.

"I am imploring all of you, lend me your strengths and weakness so that I may overcome this challenge. Join with me your powers of the elements!" Chameos held out his clenched fist. "Thunder!"

The others quickly complied. Only a few months ago, they all loathed and despised one another. Now, they were the perfect team, not just one member or faction, but all.

Simoriah: "Water!"
Bandit: "Land!"
Sledge: "Metal!"
Cirrus: "Air!"
Dark Panda: "Shadow!"

Simultaneously, they cried out: "All colors of the shimmering light, combining together form the purest white! Lend us your never-ending might, give us the power to rise and FIGHT!"

All of the humans in the main room of the laboratory looked around, confused, as all the lights and computers flickered on and off momentarily.

A blinding flash of light in the bedroom, and they were gone. Cam rose wearily from his position on the floor.

"Let's rock."

Sky, unnoticed, slowly walked backwards through the door and ran down the hall. He made a feeble attempt at regaining his sanity. The guys would never believe this.

Sky quickened his pace as he ran back to the base lab.

After about a minute of running Sky enters the labatory exahusted, and out of breath.
"Whats wrong with you?" said the spiked hair member know as Ed.
Barely being able to utter his sentence due to his exahustion, Sky finnaly managed to speak. "You'll never belive what I just saw...."

Heavy footsteps of the armored Prince ecohed through the hallways of the seemingly abandonded mansion.
Cam stopped in front of a picture containing a potrait of the many team members during a christmas gathering a few years earlier.
"They all seem so innocent, and carefree... but under their wrappings evil-ness shines bright."

"Oh hey cam...what are you doing here?" a voice from the dark asked.
Cam quickly drew his sword and readied himself for an attack.
"Oh wait, hold on... it's me Sam." a blond figure stepped out from the shadows, carrying a plate containing a sandwich, and some grapes.
Sam had earlier left the steril surroundings of the lab to gather himself something the consume.
Cam sheathed his sword and asked the ninja like figure a question. "Where are the other members of your group?"
Sam who has just taken a bite from his sandwich motions for Cam to follow him.

"GHOSTS?!?"

"Yeah! Big scary ones! There was a tall, bulky one, a really really big spooky one, a small, short one, a pretty girl one...!"

Ed looked at Sky quizzically. Then he burst into laughter. Everyone else soon joined in, leaving a much-flustered and embarrassed Sky clenching his fists.

"BUT IT'S TRUE!"

"What's true?"

Everyone turned, startled, as Sam walked in, followed closely by Prince Cam. After a moment of silence, Cam was about to speak when someone caught his attention.

He walked over to Gary, staring deeply into his eyes.

"Haven't I seen you before?"

"W-w-what do you mean?"

".....I'm not sure...You just look so familiar..."

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Cam walked over to what looked like the main computer screen.

"If one of ya'll is free at the moment, would you mind showing me more about these...Navis? What their names are, for instance, and how they work. I am intrigued, to say the least, and would greatly enjoy.....extending my electronic knowledge."

Fandango slumped into a large armchair.
"Ryan. RYAN!"
Ryan poked his head around the door after having left to make himself a drink.
"What!?"
"Show this bloke about the navis, will ya? I'm traumatised from all the dimesional-rift-being-stuck-in. Typical. Of all the Prime-*s that have to stowaway, it has to be THIS guy. No guns...limited intelligence......at least he can re-celibrate retroflares.......R-YAN!!"
"I'm Here!"
"Good show. You're the smartest person who isn't sitting in this chair, so I think you deserve to explain it"
By this time, Prince Cam was inspecting the computor screen with a medieval level of intricacy, as if it were the weirdest thing in the world. Ryan stepped up and pushed the power button, causing the machine to rear up and whirr with action, to which the Prince once more unsheathed his sword.
"Woah, calm down, it won't hurt you. Granted, it'll piss you off more times than the government, but you can easily take a sledgehammer to it. God knows many of them have tried"
Ed, Gary and Lee raised their heads with looks of disgust on their faces. Ed, as ever, objected,
"That knife slipped out of my hand! I was actually trying cut the wedding cake"
"Wedding cake? You don't half talk some crap" Fandango retorted.
"Don't you remember, Fritzy? You carried me over the threshold and-" Dominic was cut short by The Professor's piercing glance. Ryan continued,
"If you've quite finished re-inacting an episode of 'Married with Children', I shall continue...."

Ryan cleared his throat, preparing for a dramatic introduction. "Okay everyone, Jack in, Viral Infection, transmit!"
Ryan enthusiastically jumped up into the air and activated his handheld PET console, which made various flashing effects as it tranferred data of his navi into the lab computer. Everyone else lethargically waved their PETS a bit with the lighting effects turned down. Ryan sneered, "If you guys can't do the jack in sequence right, why even bother doing it?"
Mike yawned, "Those lighting effects gave me a seizure last time I tried, and we jack in way too much to do the intro dialogue every time, and what about when we're on a stealth mission and we don't want people to hear the big intro?"
Cam raised an eyebrow, "Stealth mission? What is it you people do again?"
Mike looked apologetic and shut his mouth as Ryan came up with an explanation. "He means when we play hide-and-go-seek with each other, it helps us practice for virus-busting when our navis have to work with the element of surprise. Anyway, I suppose you're aching to meet our other half."
The large central computer screen flashed onto Dream-World vision and several odd looking characters could be seen lined up. A thin skeletal one was seen trying to pull a large throwing-star out of his head while the purple ninja Cam saw before was snickering lightly to himself. The others were either snickering or shaking their heads. Ryan immitated an annoucer at a fashion show of some sort as he made a mock microphone of a chocolate bar he was eating.

"Our first navi is Magic Man," The blue figure snapped to attention and stepped forward. "Phil's helper is probably the most versatile, with the ability to alter the reality coding of the Dream World, Magic conjures up blue magical flames to create his various spells."
Cam scratched his forhead trying to figure out what MagicMan was supposed to be, the face of the creature seemed non-existent, and he wondered what warped law of physics was holding his conical facial appendage up, he couldn't tell whether it was a mask or a beard or a very strange nose, but he didn't feel like asking. Other curious features included the rather long arms with red crystalline orbs in lieu of hands, and the fact he was wearing a dress...
"Next up is Forte, or Bass, he can't seem to decide on a name really," A creepy, black helmeted, cloaked figure floated up to the screen. "Forte is probably the better name for him to represent his strength, this guy is probably the strongest among us, he can mow down hoards of enemies...viruses that is, with his high powered arm cannons. He's Blackbelt's navi."
"Then there's Elecman, Sky's guy." A black suited navi floated forward. "Master of electricity, pretty useful in that he can control power flow in most machinery, provided they have computer systems."
"I guess now I can introduce my own navi, Skullman." The skeleton finished pulling the shadow blade out of his skull and tossed it aside as he stepped forward. "Skully is definately the best navi around here, but the rest don't seem to agree with me. Unlike most of these other energy blasting and shadow blade throwing wimps, he uses his physical strength, he can breath blue fire when he needs to, but his best attacks are the ones where he assaults the virus with his bare bones."
"Dominic's navi is Fireman." A very tall red and grey one with a tall flame burning out of the top of his head presented himself and made a provokative pose. Ryan shuddered as he introduced him. "Ugh, Fireman weilds a lot of Fire-elemental power, but he tends to manifest it in huge, indirect blasts of heat energy which would work great against a wall, but he doesn't hit more mobile enemies as well. He's actually quite agile himself actually."
"Getting tired yet? We're halfway through with Numberman. You've already seen fishbulb head. He's basically a super-calculator, he puts it to good use by decoding the net in different ways, making his powers rival Magicman's."
"Then there's Shadowman, you've seen him already too, his weapons, as you can see, are that Muramasa and those Shadowblades, he's pretty skillfull, but not as great as Skully."
"Bombman is Ed's navi," A stout, red navi that looked like a grenade and actually had what seemed to be lit bombs for shoulders stepped up. "They're pretty similar, they're both really violent and frighteningly so. Err, as you can probably tell, his trademark is blowing things up."
Bomb chuckled maniacally as he stepped down, everyone but Ed got a little nervous. "Well, moving on to Iceman, Gary's little helper," Little was the word, as the diminutive Eskimo navi lept up, grinning mischievously. "Ice's most dangerous technique is his sense of humour, but he can freeze things as well."
"Then there's Mike's Woody." A massive navi, looking like it was made of wood lept up and shook the virtual world with his landing. "Woodman is the sole user of wood elemental skills on the team, even in the dream world you can grow trees with this guy, he's also the healer of the team, the others just have to eat his apples."
"Gutsman is the other Sam's navi." The robotic lummox lept into view. "Guts is really strong, he creates earthquakes by pounding the ground with the hammer he makes with his hands, but he has trouble directing his attacks."
"And FINALLY we have Colourman," Another bizarre character presented himself, with a large ball instead of legs and arms even longer than Magic's and a colour scheme that really made him resemble a clown. "As you can tell just by looking at him, Lee's navi is another comedian of the team, good thing, 'cause he's not much of a fighter, he gets his cronies to do most of the attacking with their fire and water elementals." Two doll-like drones hovered up, one red, one blue, and Colour patted them on the head, and spoke up. "Can we get back to resting now?"
"Why not? It's not like you guys do anything useful other than introduce yourselves to strangers anyway. All right, jack off everybody, oops, I mean out, bah."

Earlier, Cam was intrigued by the various "MegaMans" that he glimpsed through the portal. Now, it hit him again like a ton of bricks.

Iceman...Magicman...Gutsman...Woodman...Skullman...

He knew them. He knew practically all of them. Although he couldn't remember every single Robot Master from Earth, he most definitely remembered THOSE. And.....BASS?!?!? Cam wondered...could this Bass--or Forte, or whatever they called him--be changed just like the Bass of Earth? Could he be forced to fight on the side of good? Cam wasn't sure. The other Bass never got along with Enker very well, and vice-versa. But here, here there WAS no Enker. Yet, there was still the problem of those boys that controlled them. In the other Earth (if Cam actually WAS on another Earth) the Robot Masters realized their own free wills after Dr. Wily's death...

It was a bit drastic, but maybe.......for the betterment of fellow robotkind..........

"So," Cam said, friendlier than usual, "do they have any good cities to visit around here?"

The others looked at each other nervously again. Letting this mystery wrapped in an enigma loose on the town didn't seem like a very good idea, but as they grew to know their guest more they realized it would be hard to confine him to thier protection, besides, there was something different about him since Sky's ghost story that made him slightly more intimidating simply to look at.
Finally, Dominic made the decision. "Sure! We have nothing better to do, a couple of us will show you around town!"
"Nothing better to do?" rasped Fandango, "What about the portal? Our destiny!"
"Our destiny will still be here when we get back, so anyone wanna come with me and Cammy here? It's fine time for a night on the town in Arcadopolis!"

"Hmm. One moment, please," Cam said.

The others looked to him questioningly.

"I just need some time to change first."

"Oh, sure, go right ahead," Dominic motioned to the bathroom.

Cam nodded, then pushed a hidden button on his armor. In a flash of green light, it was gone, revealing the skinny teenager that previously hid beneath the bulky suit.
He pulled a pair of eyeglasses out of the front pocket of his white tunic and slipped them on.

The others gaped openly.

"What?"

"N-Nothing!"

"You act like you've never seen a skinny teenager with glasses before. So, are we leaving, or what?"

"Go on, bugger off then" retorted Fandango, "If you MUST go and get yourself rat-arsed and pass out in a pool of your communial vomit, then at least do it far, far away."
By this time, Dominic was already halfway out of the door, and Ed, Gary and Lee weren't far behind.
"Now, you look after everything here, and don't let that bumbling fool break anything, will you?" Ryan said in the kind of voice suggestive that the reciever is below the age of three years, to which the reply was;
"Ook, aah! Aah! Aah!"
Soon, the lab was silent once more, as it had been when nobody was there and Fandango steathily rose from his seat.

When they got to the garage, Dominic got into the driver seat of the big, guady green van that was their VI-mobile. Cam got into the passenger seat next to him and the other three piled in the back.
"What was it Fandango was saying right before we left, anyway?" Cam inquired.
"I dunno" Dominic casually answered, "None of us do. He's sorta, you know, British."
After a few minutes, Dominic got the old motor started, and they were cruising out into open traffic as fast as the behemoth could take them.

Cam suppressed the urge to scream. Barely. Of course, there were vehicles where he came from, but none that made his heart want to rip from his chest on a daily basis. His knuckles felt like they were molded onto the arm of the seat. All pretensions aside, the ride wasn't that bad. Sure, there was the screech of wheels every few seconds, but...it was fun after a while. Cam relaxed a bit and took in the scenery (while still holding on for dear life, of course). This really IS Earth, he thought. Everything reminded Cam so much of the nice little planet. Before he knew it, the van had screeched around a corner and flew into a parking lot. After a few moments, Cam managed to peel himself from his seat and exit the door.

The smell of ripe feces instantly assaulted him. Yep. It's Earth, all right.

"Well, guys, where to first?"

Dominic clenched the steering wheel as he anticipated the journey ahead of them. "I was thinking we'd start by checking out the ol' red light district."
Loud groaning could be heard from the backseat passengers, Cam just grew confused, "Red-light? I can't say I'm very familiar with the term."
Dominic grinned mischievously, "Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough. Let's start with a movie at the Naughtiplex Theatre."
With that Dominic sped away from the intersection with the others plotting their eventual escape.

Meanwhile, back at the hideout, the more dilligent members toiled over their data and machinery in another attempt to open the doorway to the other side.
"I think we should be concerned with the effects this world's physiology would have on the navis" Pondered Gauntlet, "Anything is possible in the Dream World, this could cause problems with the restrictions of the laws of physics in our own dimension."
Ryan theorized with him, "You have a point there...perhaps our navis will lose their powers when they pass over, like Arnold Schwarzzenegger did in 'Last Action Hero'"
"Brilliant analogy" said Phil, rolling his eyes.
Sky joined in, "For some reason, I don't think that will be a problem."
"Why do you say that?" queried Ryan.
"You guys all think I'm crazy because of my ghost sighting, don't you?"
They all casually nodded in unison.
"Well, I think it has something to do with Chameos, I did see the anomoly in his room, I think he's hiding something. But my point is that he used clearly supernatural powers in a situation which should have been impossible with the natural order of our universe, I think our laws are adjusting to him."
The interest of the others peaked, "Well, I don't say I believe you just yet," Ryan rebuted, "But the possiblity of our own reality being warped by the presence of visitors from alien dimensions is something we can't rule out. In fact, it's something we should really be worried about if two opposing physical laws were to manifest in our world, there could be catastrophic side effects we would have no defence for..."
The others gaped slack-jawed. "So...is that bad?" questioned a rather confused Sam.
"No time for the psycho-babble!" blurted Fandango, who strode over to the discussion group from his previous station at the reality-ripping machine. "I think I'm on to something! Using some of the information from the research we've already completed, I've been able to search out locations where the fabric of reality is already weakened enough to create a stable doorway without the use of so much energy. It seems there are reality "soft-spots" all around us, only problem is they seem to open most stabily into specific dimensions. Specific soft-spots for the dream world could be more rare."
"Sounds like you really are on to something," praised Phil, "So how long do you think it will take to find the right gate to the Dream World?"
"I already have!"
Then why didn't you say so at first?"
"I was gettingto it! Anyway, it was easy because the Dream World is an offshoot of our own world, it seems the only soft-spots in there open up here, so I just gave Numberman the data and had him scan the net for them, we've found 32 soft-spots in the country, there are 3 in this city alone!"
"Where's the nearest one?"
"I'm not sure exactly, but I'm having Numberman take an online version of the technology to the site right now, he should be contacting me when he finds it."
"Well, tell him not to open the door until we get there, we can't miss this!"
"Gotcha, oh Numberman!"
Numberman flashed onto the viewscreen of Fandango's PET, "Yeah boss?"
"How's the site hunting going?"
"How slow do you think I am? I'm already opening a portal!"
"WHAT?!" Shouted the members in unison. "Where are you?!"
"I'll give you a hint, the wallpaper of this site is strangely flesh coloured..."

Meanwhile, within the Naughtiplex theatre, the party group sat in the back watching "Debbie Does Dentown". Dominic watched attentively, Gary, Lee, and Ed watched, but were slightly embarrassed, and Cam just watched with fascination. "I can barely believe such a technologically advanced civilaization would use their best communications devices on something like this."
"Are you kidding?" exclaimed Dominic, "This is the apex of human advancement, when all the wars are won, all the diseases cured, we can just sit back, relax, and watch some porn!"
The others found it hard to argue with his reasoning. Other dialogue from withing the theatre could be heard as they returned to silence.
"Yikes, what's she doing now?"
"I didn't know that was physically possible..."
"Hey, what's that bright white light coming out of her ass?"
"Where'd that ugly green dildo come from? Heh, it's got flashy lights..."
Dominic chuckled, "Hah, that dildo looks a lot like Numberman......hey, waitasec..."

Cam, just as shocked as everyone else at NumberMan's sudden appearance, struggled to hold back. But no matter how inappropriate it was at that point, he just had to ask.

"What's a dildo?"

Dominic was shocked, "You mean you don't know!? You MUST be from an underdeveloped community, eh? Well-"
He was suddenly cut short as the huge Light-Bulb-Headed-Technological-Abacus-Flashing-Dildo made himself known in an extremely sarcastic fashion
"People of Earth! Make ME your leader, and I shall not harm you with my magical rays of DOOM!"
A tsunami of citizens fled from the screen, some screaming, most complaining about the film being cut short, the worker in the reel room having knocked the projector over in his angst to vacate the area. Dominic was most enraged
"Why did you have to go and do THAT!? I hadn't seen that one before! I wanted to-"
"Listen bub, you're wating your life here. You get much better results on the 'net"
"I know" said Dominic, glumly, "But Ryan won't let me on it now, so I have to do it on the sly, if ever at all, and it's really difficult to get some time to yourself in that place"
By now, Cam was in a fit of confusion and shock. Shock becuase of witnessing the most unusual mammalian birth he had ever seen, and confused because he STILL didn't know what a dildo was....

Posthumous Note: Page 2 is missing...