Otaku Wish-Fulfillment Theater
Started by Scott Schimmel

Chapter 20: Bits and Bytes... That, and We've Voided Our Warranty!


^_____^

	"I wonder what my theme song sounds like."

	The five adventurers plus one mascot turned to Kate.  "Huh?" Dan
asked, blinking at her.

	"Each hero always has a theme song!"  The ninja paused to tap a
finger thoughtfully against her chin.  "I wonder if Mitsuda or Uematsu
is writing the score for our adventures."

	The six stared at Kate for a long moment.  She stared back at them. 
A leaf skittered by, blown on a convenient breeze.  "What?" she
demanded.  "We've already run into the one-line NPC, fetch quests and
side games... what makes you think there's not a four-disc soundtrack to
go with it all?  There might even be plushies of us!"

	Looking at Scott, Ardweden fought down the urge to smirk, "Or KiSS
dolls."

	Having missed Ard's half-controlled giggle, Scott rolled her eyes. 
"Kate, you know we all consider you a dear, dear friend.  But you're
heading further around the bend the longer we stay here.  We don't WANT
to be in a RPG, remember?"

	"I bet no one's done fanart of me," Damien sniffled, wiping at his
nose with a feather.  "They always ignore the mascot."

	"...You all are completely loopy!" Scott declared, planting her
fists cutely on her hips.  "Do you remember our home?  You know, that
place where we don't fight for our lives every five minutes?  Where I
look like a guy and Illyria looks like a girl -- okay, never mind, he
still does -- but still!  It's like you all are actually having fun
here!"

	"Scott, do you need a nap?" Steve asked, all sugar and light.

	A half-mile away, birds took to the skies, startled from their perch
by the anguished squeals of a magical girl.

	Having released her tension, Scott flopped to the ground with a
tired sigh.  "Sorry, guys.  But this is getting so frustrating!  We try
to get ahold of a Seal, and either it gets taken out from under our
noses or we get pulled into some sidequest with another person from our
world or SOMETHING.  At this rate, we're never going to get out of
here!"

	Kate dropped to rest on her heels, patting Scott gently on the
shoulder.  "It's okay!" she assured her, sounding completely genuine as
she did.  "So what if it does take longer?  This is a pretty neat place,
so we might as well enjoy it while it lasts!"	

	"Are you ever pessimistic?" Dan wondered aloud.

	"If I am, it's not for long!"  Kate hopped to her feet and flashed a
'V' sign.  "After all, what could possibly go wrong?"

	The group inhaled one sharp, collective breath.  It was only after
they were assured a bolt of foreshadowing... er, lightning wouldn't be
flashing across the sky that they released them.  "Don't DO that!" Steve
snapped at Kate, still looking warily around the forest.  "Annnnyways,
we just got another Seal, right?  And Ard, Dan, and Scott all made sure
to touch it to make sure whoever the Seal was linked to got their power
boost.  We know where Illyria's Seal is, and that it's safe, so we've
just got to worry about finding two more!"

	"I guess," Scott whined.

	"And at this rate, we'll probably find the next Seal within the next
day or two!  I bet we've already finished all the fetch quests, too!"

	A foreshadowing cone fell off a nearby tree and bonked Steve in the
head.  Pine cone, foreshadowing cone, whatever.

	As the flash of light faded and the seven found themselves in a
foreign locale, they all turned to glare at Steve.  "Don't DO that!"
wailed the group, save for Illyria.  He instead carefully withdrew his
katana, bapped Steve across the head with its flat, then resheathed it.

	"Ow," Steve whined as he rubbed at his head.  "Sorry."  As he gave
the only partially sincere-sounding apology, he looked around the new
locale they'd found themselves in.  "What... the..."

	His sentiment was matched by the rest of the party.  Wherever they
were, it certainly wasn't a forest.  Cute, quiet little villages and
forests tended to be mutually exclusive, at least in the middle of the
hamlet's plaza.  It took a moment of staring around before Dan and
Ardweden snapped their fingers in mutual realization.  "De Gemmel!" they
both cried.

	"But... didn't De Gemmel get, uh, destroyed?" Steve asked,
skritching his head thoughtfully.  "What's going on?"

	Being the leader, Dan bravely walked over to the nearest building
and valiantly peeked around the corner of the door.  "Hello?  Anyone
there?"

	The rest of the group watched as he stepped through the door,
nervousness growing as he failed to return.  "Should we go after him?"
Scott asked, nibbling on her fingernail.

	"However we got back here, it's obviously beyond our control," Kate
mused.  "I know it'll be a risk, but if we split up, we might end up
being scattered further."

	Steve, Ardweden, and Damien all nodded and proceeded cautiously
through the door.  Scott, meanwhile, had latched herself onto Illyria's
arm while she wailed about how she was SOOOO SCAAARED.  With a sigh,
Illyria and Kate picked up the fearful girl and carried her through the
door.

	"This... is a really big house," Kate marveled as they looked at the
vista on the other side of the door.

	"It's Illyria!" Dan said as he returned at a jog from around a
nearby building.  

	"Please don't call it tha-"

	"We know, we know," the group interrupted.  

	The sound of approaching footfalls drew their attention, and they
turned to see an elderly man hobbling along the cobblestones.  "The
'Welcome to Illyria' guy," Steve recalled, folding his arms.  "This is
definitely weird."

	"I designed this game, and all I got was this stupid T-shirt!" the
grandfatherly man griped at them before he moved on.

	"..." blinked the group.

	"H...hey!" Kate cried as she ran after him.  "Would you say that
again?"

	"I designed this game, and all I got was this stupid T-shirt!"

	"Oh my God!" Kate squealed, looking around in panic.  "We're in the
programmers' room!  How'd we get in here?"  She ran to the nearest door
and opened it, peering through it.  "That desert canyon is through that
one... this one has a train car... all the places we've been are through
these doors!"

	"So how do we get out?" Dan asked, confusion growing.  "How did we
get here?  Did we do this?"

	"Way to be a leader," Scott muttered under her breath.

	Ard flashed Scott a chiding look before she replied, "We didn't
really do anything, so it has to be something someone else did."

	There was a short pause before everyone said in agreement,
"Xelloss."

	"Great," Kate moaned, leaning against a wall.  "He's found a way to
send us in here, and is free to gather the rest of the Seals while we
look for a way out."

	"There has to be some way out," Damien mused, looking around. 
"Maybe if we find the Oracle of Delfi?  That's a likely place."

	"The Oracle of Delfi!" Steve crowed, pointing off in a random
direction.  "The answer lies there!"

	The other five nodded at Steve and tried the nearest convenient
door.  As they filed through into whatever locale lay beyond, Damien
sighed.  At least he'd stopped molting.

?_?

	"I'd forgotten just how WEIRD Ef Ephimel was," Dan panted as he
collapsed on the ground.

	"You really don't look THAT bad," Ardweden assured Damien.

	"They burnt off my feathers with their flame wars!" he sobbed. 
"It's not fair!"

	After only seventeen attempts at different doors, arches, and
windows, Our Heroes had found the Shrine at Delfi.  As with all the
other rooms, two or three shadowy figures could be seen waiting around
to impart some of their wisdom or gripes upon anyone who dared approach
them.

	Having peered through the door at the end of the room, Kate returned
shaking her head.  "The Dan Woods are through there.  If there's any
sort of fix in the shrine, it's in this room."

	The group nodded and began slowly looking around the stone-walled
temple, inspecting every niche and carving with the utmost care.  After
several uneventful and silent minutes, a thoughtful 'hmm' from Ard drew
everyone's attention.  Noticing everyone had turned towards her, she
explained, "It looks like there's an outline to a door here.  Should I
push on it?"

	"I guess so," Dan said hesitantly, peering at the nearly-invisible
seam.  "That wasn't in the Shrine in the real world, was it?"

	While Scott bemoaned the fact that people were considering the
fantasy universe "the real world," Ard leaned against one side of the
stone door.  It did indeed move, and ended up doing so quickly enough to
dump her unceremoniously through the dark doorway.

	"...Ard?" Kate fearfully asked, wondering if she'd been sent to
another locale on their journeys.

	"I'm okay!" came her voice.  "It's another room in the shrine, and
it looks like something's in here!  Come on!"

	The six filtered into the tiny chamber, which was barely big enough
to hold them, a bank of gem-encrusted carvings on the wall, and one man
who looked suspiciously like a differently-colored version of the
'Welcome to Illyria!' man.

	"What do you think we do with this?" Kate wondered aloud.

	"Maybe this guy knows!" Scott said hopefully, turning to the
stranger.  "Hi, we're new here.  Would you mind helping us out?"

	The man smiled at them, the picture of innocence.  "3... 2... 1....
Reset!"

!_!

	"Hey, look!" enthused Dan Mastriani.  "It's the Bludgeons and
Flagons ride!"

	How a group as disparate as this one had ended up at an all but
abandoned carnival in the middle of nowhere, even they weren't sure.  It
was almost as though they had been dropped straight into the middle of a
story by an author too impatient or too unskilled to dwell very much
upon the niceties of backstory and continuity.  But of course, that
would be silly.  And it wouldn't have changed the fact that the six of
them were there.

	"I don't even like amusement parks that much," Steve Scougall
remarked.  "I have no idea why I'm at one. Particularly one that's not
even on the same continent as my home."  Conveniently, he was largely
ignored.

	Scott Schimmel was gazing wistfully at the ride Dan had pointed out.
 "I used to love that cartoon when I was a kid..."

	"Me too.  Hey, do you remember the video game?"

-_-

	"Don't DO that!" the group yelled at him.  Yes, including Illyria.

	Ard rubbed her temples and turned away from the programmer.  "Forget
it. I'm just pushing something," she said as she pressed on the nearest
gemstone.

	Before the rest of them could yelp for her not to try anything, a
poof of smoke appeared around Damien.  When it cleared, he was blinking
in surprise at the return of all his feathers.  "Hey... neat!  You fixed
me!"

	Kate furrowed her brows thoughtfully.  "Or she reset you.  We'd
better leave before one of us gets reset and we lose all our
experience."  The group nodded, and she lead the way out.

	"We're really in the guts of things," Dan pondered out loud.

	"Ewww, guts."

	"...right, Scott.  Anyways, this could actually be a good thing! 
Maybe we can find information about what Xelloss is planning, and get
the jump on him once we're out of here!"  Dan bapped his fist into an
open palm and nodded.  "Let's split up!  There's gotta be more of these
doors here, and at least one of the rooms will have plot information in
it!"

	After a moment's pause, they agreed.  Steve and Ard walked towards
the far end, Damien and Dan started poking around the wall nearby, and
Kate, Illyria, and Scott headed for the entrance.

	"I'm a little worried," Kate admitted.  "You can really screw things
up by messing around in places like this without the right codes."

	Scott looked over at her.  "The right codes..." she repeated
thoughtfully, frowning slightly.  She poked ineffectively at a stone
block, grumbling.  "Everything in here looks like a door.  Del needs to
get a new decorator."

	Illyria placed his hand on the wall and pushed experimentally; a
stone block turned revealing a room beyond.  "..." he cheered.

	Kate poked her head through, then withdrew it with a sharp nod. 
"All clear!  Let's try it out!"

	"Sure, Kate, let's just..." Scott trailed off as Kate pushed the
first button she saw.  "Oh.  You really meant 'try it out,'" she
grumbled as she stormed over the the ninja and pried her hand away from
the buttons.  "We can't go around pressing every button we see and why
are you two looking at me like that?"

	Blink, went Kate.  Blink, went Illyria.  Finally, the bishounen
withdrew his katana and offered it to Scott to serve as a mirror. 
Blink, went Scott as she stared at the flat of the blade.  "I have
purple hair.  How did I get purple hair?"

	"I think I palette-swapped you," Kate offered hesitantly.  "And
your, uh... outfit..."

	"...I HAVE PURPLE HAIR AND A BLACK LEATHER FUKU!" Scott squealed,
flailing her arms around wildly.

	"Um... let me try again," Kate offered as she attempted to stifle a
giggle.  Push, went the button.  Blink, went Kate and Scott.  "..." went
Illyria as he examined his newly Sephiroth-silver hair.

	"This is fun!" Kate squealed as she advanced on the buttons again. 
"...Hey!" she yelled as the two advanced on and immobilized her arms. 
"This isn't fair!"

	"Can you hold her still?" Scott asked Illyria.  At his nod, the
magical girl cracked her knuckles and advanced on the panel.  "And so it
begins."

>.>  <.<

	"Do you think we should be watching these instead of trying another
room?"

	"Yes.  Pass the popcorn."

	Steve and Ard kicked back in their La-Z-Boys and turned up the
volume with a convenient remote.  "Put it on 'The Puu Mecha Battle," the
sidekick suggested, shoving a handful of puffy kernels into his mouth.

	Ard raised the remote and did as asked, then sat back to munch on
her own popcorn as the FMV for the boss battle played on the monitor
before them.  "I think we got the good room," she grinned.

	"Wow," Steve commented, his eyes getting a little larger as he
watched.  "Whoever rendered this had to be really lonely."

	Blinking in confusion, Ardweden leaned a little closer to the
screen.  She promptly yelped as she saw just how the females of the
group reacted whenever they landed after a jump.  "We did NOT look like
that!" she squealed, pushing fervently and randomly at the remote. 
"Even Mai doesn't look like that!  And STOP LAUGHING!"

	"HAHAHAHAHA... ha... hey, what's this?"

	Both of them leaned in towards the screen, confusion now present on
both faces.  "I don't know what it is... wait... there's Dan, he's in
some strange room, and a torch... just landed on him.  Ouch.  And
Scott's flying down... wait, that's Illyria!  Okay, this is during when
we got all our powers switched.  Neat!"  Ard beamed, adjusting the
brightness and contrast just a squitch.  "We get to see what they did!"

	Steve grinned as well, but it quickly faded.  "Wait... if they did
something important enough to warrant a FMV... why didn't they tell us
about it?"

	"That... is a very good question, Steve." 

	The two sat in silence as the movie progressed, expressions growing
incredulous as they heard Dan's voice quietly intone, ""If what's in
that picture is true, then eventually, one of us is apparently going to
betray the rest of the party to Xelloss.  But I can't make out who it's
supposed to be."

	"...I think we should get back to the main room," Steve quietly
said.

	"Yeah," Ard replied, sounding slightly stunned as she turned the
screen off.  "I can't believe they didn't tell us they saw that...."

	The two left the room in silence, looking at anything but each
other.  Actually, Steve found himself looking at himself.  He blinked. 
The other Steve blinked.

	"Uh, I think we may have screwed something up," came Dan's voice
from inside the center room.  "Do you guys see anything weird out
there?"

	The two Steves blinked at each other.  Ard peered at them curiously,
then yelled over, "Uh... I think you found a duplication button, or
something."

	"Hey, a duplication code!  Neat.  I wonder what other ones we can
come up with."

	A panicked look spread across Ard's face, which was matched by the
three new entries to the main chamber.  At least, it was initially
matched, then they maintained it while Ardweden facefaulted.  She stared
at Kate, Illyria, and Scott while attempting to pick her jaw up off the
floor.  "You guys look... different."

	The newly-blonde and polyester-wearing Kate grumbled as Scott and
Illyria dragged her from the room.  "We got a little carried away," she
offered for an explanation.

	"I... see..." Ard said weakly as she stared at the black leather and
silver hair on opposite sides of the ninja.  "The new looks are...
interesting.  Yes.  Interesting."

	Scott shook her head, grumbling.  "Never mind.  Did I hear Dan
talking about codes?"

	Ard nodded weakly, and watched as the three ran towards the door
that lead to Dan and Damien's location.  She then turned towards Steve,
who was eying down his duplicate.  "I'm going to see what's going on. 
You... just take care of this."  She ran off, leaving the duo behind.

	Steve nodded slowly, then drew his Nerf sword.  The doppleganger
drew his.  A version of 'Duel of the Fates,' performed entirely on
kazoos, started playing in the background.

	"There can only be one," he grinned, thrilled at the chance to face
down someone he actually had a chance to defeat.

@_@

	"STOP!"

	Dan and Damien turned from the wide bank of consoles on the wall
before them.  "Huh?"

	Looking at the spaces for alphanumerics to be entered in, Scott and
Kate nodded at each other knowingly.  "Dan, can I see the last Seal we
got?"

	Dan handed the item in question over, a confused expression plain. 
Palming the flat Seal, Scott explained, "Look at the interface... it's
like a Game Shark or Game Genie!"

	"And this has to do with the Seal why?" Dan eloquently asked.

	"Because..." Scott flashed the gold oval at them, grinning widely,
"it's a Nintendo Seal of Approval, and they specifically tell you not to
use those!"  She slapped the seal against the console, and folded her
arms confidently.

	Amazingly, this show of bravado didn't keep her plan from working. 
As the light faded, the seven of them found themselves once again in the
forest.

	"That was easy!" Scott cheered, clapping her hands together.

	"Yes it was," Damien mused, looking around.  "That sure was a
pointless side event, wasn't it?  It's not like anything even happened."

	Steve and Ard flashed knowing glances at each other, then smiled
somewhat sadly.  "Yeah, nothing happened.  We should be going, huh?"

	The seven set into motion, moving towards any clue they could find
about the next Seal.  That, and hair dye.

	"I think you look kind of cute as a blonde, Kate."

	"Shut up, Dan."
	
^______^

Author's Notes: Thanks to Kate for giving me the doppleganger line,
which ended up inspiring the entire thing, and thanks to Delfina for
prereading. And can't you just taste the metacommentary?

-Illyria