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A girl with long, slightly wavy brown hair gathered under a black cowboy hat glared at her computer screen. This was the second time in three days her sister had hidden her Internet Explorer bookmarks. The brunette frowned. All right. If her sister wanted a war, she'd get one.
After going upstairs to her room and digging through all of her boxes of Grand Champions, the green-eyed brunette found what she was looking for. Catnip.
"Liz! Elizabeth Lee!"
The girl winced. Ooo. Her mom had used her middle name... that meant trouble. "Yes, Mom?" Liz called down sweetly.
"Your sister's going to take you to school today! So hurry! She doesn't want to be late for college!"
"Like I've ever made her late," the girl muttered. She sighed and dug through her closet for a skirt. As much as Liz hated wearing skirts, the school she went to insisted that all girls wear dresses. The girl walked over to her older sister's room and started rummaging through her closet. "Perfect," she said with a grin. One of Jen's black skirts was clean. It was really wrinkled, so Liz decided to put it in the dryer...
"Coru... did you wash my dragon shirt? The one I let you borrow?" Priire shouted.
The redhead paused. "Um, yeah! It's in the dryer. Let me go get it."
"I don't want it if it's wet!"
Ippin laughed. "Hah. You'll get it any way I find it!" The girl stuck her head in the dryer to retrieve the shirt...
ZAP!!!
"Where the...?" the brunette gasped. "This is not Jen's skirt." She held up the black shirt with a red dragon on it.
"Coru! I need that shirt!"
The brunette glanced around. She was pretty sure her name wasn't "Coru". "Umm... hey, my socks!"
A blonde girl with her hair up in braids burst into the room. "You sure take your time, little sist..." The pair stared at each other in confusion. "Who are you?"
"I'm Liz," the brunette introduced herself. She would have held out her hand, but one hand was full of socks, and the other had a shirt in it.
"Priire. What are you doing here? And where's my sister??"
Liz's eyes were wide. "You're... Priire?"
Priire nodded. "That's the name. Why?" Her eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
"You can't be...I have got to be dreaming!" Liz backed up. "This is not real."
Another girl was walking down the stairs behind Priire. "Hey, Priire. Who's this?"
"An intruder, Yuki. I think she's up to no good." Priire looked ready to fight.
Liz watched the girl identified as Yuki with surprise. Her hair was blue. Not any normal shade of dyed blue, but an almost natural-looking bright blue. She was even more surprised when Yuki unhooked a metallic tube from her belt and light a real, honest-to-God lightsaber. "Wait! I'm from Earth! I'm here by accident!"
"Elizabeth Lee, I am not telling you one more time. You'll be late if you don't get out in that car right now!"
Ippin looked severely confused. Where was she? And why was she here? The redhead reached out with the Force to get a sense of her surroundings and ended up with a headache. That could only mean one thing. She was on Earth. The girl looked around. There was a door. She'd just sneak out it...
"Elizabeth! Get your skirt on and go!" a rather pretty older woman shouted. Ippin waved her hand around, using the Force to make the woman believe that Ippin was "Elizabeth".
It worked, but not exactly perfectly. The woman insisted on walking Ippin out to the car and shoving her in.
Ippin sighed. "I have a headache."
The girl beside her grinned. "That's okay... hey, you're not Liz."
"No..." Ippin tried to think of some way to convince this blonde that she was "Liz". "I'm..."
"You're Sailor Yavin! Ippin! Coru! Guardian of the Space/Time Dimensional Gates! Priire's little sister!"
It took Ippin a moment to process all of that. "What?"
"How did you get here?" the girl gushed.
"I was getting a shirt out of the dryer," Ippin explained. "There was a loud zap, and I ended up here. Who are you?"
The blonde paused. "I'm Priire. Or at least, I created her. Call me Jenny." Then she fired off on another track. "I bet you and my sister fell through the dimensional rift that exists in all dryers."
Now Ippin was really confused. "What??"
"Well...where do you think that lost socks go?"
Ippin laughed. "Yeah, I can believe you're Priire. But I have to get back to my galaxy. And I have to find a way to get your sister back."
The blonde sighed. "Am I going to forget all this?"
"Nah. But how long will it be before Liz is really missed?" Ippin asked.
"She's supposed to be at school in..." Jenny checked the clock. "Forty-five minutes."
Glancing around, the redhead asked if there was anywhere slightly more private that she could transform. Jenny nodded. She pulled out of the driveway and went down the road a little way. The blonde turned the blue Maxima down a dirt road and traveled down it until she got to a secluded clearing. "Here's a good place."
Ippin got out of the car and looked around. "No one'll see?"
The blonde shook her head. "Nope. No one comes down here." She paused for a moment, then waved at a passing four wheeler. "Almost nobody."
Muttering something about Priire and revenge, Ippin shouted out her phrase and transformed into Sailor Yavin.
"Wow! The Big Time Stick!"
Yavin grinned and posed. "Yup." Waving the Time Staff around, Yavin created a dimensional portal. "Hey!" The guardian shouted as Sailor Pluto blocked her way.
"I'm sorry, Yavin," Pluto smiled gently. "You can't go home this way."
"What??" Yavin's eyes grew stormy. "Why not?"
Pluto shrugged.
"I know!" Jenny laughed. "Because you traded places with my little sister and you have to get her back!"
Yavin frowned. "Then can I please talk to Priire?"
While the two Time Guardians were talking, the blonde was have an animated discussion with herself over the possibility of her actually writing the story she apparently thought she was in while being a part of it. It annoyed Yavin so much that the fiery redhead clobbered the other girl with her staff.
"Ouch!"
"Lemme get this straight," Liz said as she stared out from under her cowboy hat. "I'm stuck here until we figure out how to get myself and this Ippin chick home?"
Yuki nodded. "Basically. Kairiku has a theory that we've got to recreate the exact conditions. She may be a genius, but this will take her a while. In the meantime, you can stay here with us!"
Suddenly, everyone heard extremely loud and vulgar cursing. Yuki slapped her hands over Liz's ears. "Priire!" the ice senshi exclaimed. "Can't you behave yourself?"
Even the martial artist was slightly cowed by the glare Priire spitted her with. "What happened?" Yuki asked, removing her hands from Liz's ears.
"It's that..." Priire bit off another curse, "Miss Gorgeous," the ex-mercenary finished in a sarcastic impression of the princess. The blonde's mouth turned up in a snarl.
Yuki winced. "What happened?"
"She's all fingers," Priire growled. "And all of those fingers were all over my boyfriend!" Priire licked her lips. "I'm going to kill her," the woman shouted again as she stalked off.
Liz's eyes were wide. "Wow. Who's this Miss Gorgeous, and why does Priire hate her?"
"Miss Gorgeous is actually Princess Kirei of the Beautiful Tribe," Yuki explained. "It's a real place! The people there are all beautiful. Miss G came here for training."
"Isn't she too old?" Liz questioned, putting some of the Star Wars knowledge she'd reluctantly gleaned to use.
Yuki nodded. "She is. But there's some kind of exception because she was trained a little on her homeworld. Unfortunately... like Priire said, Miss G is all grabby. She wants every man in the place to fall at her feet." Her ice-blue eyes narrowed. "She really should keep her fingers off Ben and Kousotsu."
"Ben? Kousotsu?"
Yuki explained the relationship of the two women and the two men as Priire stalked back. "Red pepper, catnip, honey... why do I get a feeling that you aren't trying to feed the world?"
Liz fingered through the items. "Lemme guess, you're going to torture her?"
Priire's smile was answer enough.
"All right..." Yuki said, standing up. "Then I'm just going to leave..."
Neither noticed the ice senshi walk out. They were far too busy planning.
Jenny and Ippin were crossing what Jenny called the infamous bridge. "It's like... Spaghetti Junction, only in North Carolina."
Ippin looked confused, so Jenny explained as she sped up. "It's really confusing. The signs are all deflicted and stupid. Oh, and people are idiots." She glared at a passing motorist.
"This is worse than flying with Priire!" Ippin moaned as Jenny swerved in front of another car.
"Really?" Jenny grinned. "I take that as a compliment." She reached over and turned on the radio. A song with an accent more pronounced than her own sang out from the back speakers of the car. "Whee!"
"That would not be my word for it," Ippin muttered.
"Is that Miss I'm-All-That-And-A-Bag-Of-Chips?"
Priire snorted. "You've got a good eye," she said sarcastically. Princess Kirei was all over one of the padawans. "Look, I know for a fact that Miss G will be in here for about a half hour. Will that give you enough time?"
Liz frowned. "I don't know. You said this chip'll get me into her room?"
The other girl nodded. "I... I can distract her..." An evil grin came over Priire's face.
"I know that look," Liz laughed. "Usually it involved my sister and mass destruction."
Priire nodded. "Something like that. I can keep her in here as long as you want. Whenever you're done, contact me on the comm unit I gave you." Turning from Liz, Priire flagged down Kendren. "Hey! You, with the bad dye job!"
Kendren rolled his eyes. "What do you want, Priire?"
"Where's Kousotsu?" the braided blonde asked. "He and I were going to go practice!"
Kendren frowned. Priire knew for a fact that Kousotsu was off somewhere else. "I... don't know?" he offered.
She nodded. "That's okay! I'll just get Yuki to help me." Priire paused and over-dramatically sighed. "But I don't know if she'll do it. It's an awful thing... even for someone as good as Yuki is with a lightsaber."
By this time, Kendren had realized that Priire was planning something. He knew that unless he wanted to be pulled in, he had to leave as fast as he could. "Uh... there she is!" He pointed. "Bye now."
"Yuki," Priire sang out, flagging the other girl down. Then, in a low whisper, she quickly explained to her friend what was going to be happening. "I don't know," Yuki said a bit loudly. "It sounds dangerous."
"Aw, you can do it!" Priire exclaimed, grabbing Yuki's arm. "Get your saber and let's go."
Off to the side, a very beautiful woman had heard the whole exchange and decided to follow the pair.
"This is my town," Jenny announced to Ippin as they drove through. "It's boring as heck."
Ippin laughed. "It looks exciting enough."
The other girl shook her head. "Trust me. It isn't!" Jenny made a show of thinking. "Hmmm. Do I want to go to college and get snapped at by my piano teacher? Or do I want to spend the day with an intergalactic traveler? That's a tough one."
Ippin laughed again. "You really are Priire, aren't you?"
Jenny shrugged. "Sometimes. Hey, let's go to the Palace! I have free tickets."
"Like a real Palace?" Ippin asked. "Earth has real palaces?"
"Probably not like the ones in your galaxy... this one's a colonial governor's palace built by Lord Tryon. It burned down except for the stables..." Jenny blushed. "Oops, sorry! I volunteer there, and we have to talk to tourists a lot."
The redhead shrugged. "It's fascinating to me."
"Good!" Jenny proceeded to inform Ippin of the Palace's history as they drove there. When they arrived, Jenny got their passes and took Ippin in through the front gate. "Isn't it beautiful?" Jenny sighed.
Ippin looked around. In front of her was a large brick building with a golden seal on the front. She could smell things cooking and flowers blooming. Somewhere out of sight, she could hear a fiddler playing music. The rustle of wind off the Neuse River blew salty air through the seas. "Wow."
"Wait until you see the insides! And the gardens!" Jenny grabbed Ippin and led her through the second gate to where a tour was about to start.
Yuki stood at one end of the large practice room with Priire at the other end. The ice senshi was stretching, while the senshi of defense was checking her equipment. "Try not to hurt anyone," Priire said sweetly as Kirei walked in.
"I wish to participate!" the beautiful woman declared.
Priire's body language marked her as a dangerously lazy fighter. Kirei was obviously ignoring this. The ex-mercenary turned away from the woman and slid a rubber grip over her glove. It was designed to help novice lightsaber handlers keep a better grip on their weapon. For Priire, it had a different use... not one she was going to disclose to Miss All-That-And-A-Bag-Of-Chips, of course.
Yuki flicked a finger towards the radio Priire had brought in. "Follow Me" by Uncle Cookie came on as the senshi lit her saber. The snap-hiss of her blade was followed by Miss G's blade coming on.
"Think fast!" Priire shouted, turning on the pair. Four quick bursts from the blaster she'd drawn as she turned barreled toward the two. Yuki moved only slightly to block two of them. Kirei was caught completely off-guard as the bolts flashed around her.
Priire was still moving and firing her weapon. A blaster bolt sizzled into existence and scored on Miss G's shoulder. The beautiful woman shouted in surprise and brought her lightsaber up to parry a blast. Crossing her left arm over her right as she dove, Priire fired low, keeping Yuki on the guard and making the Jedi dance. From where she had landed, Priire sent a few bolts towards Miss All-That. The woman managed to block them as Priire turned her weapon toward her senshi-friend. As Priire came up off the ground, she doubled the fury of her bolts.
Yuki laughed and parried a blaster bolt towards Priire. The blonde grinned at her and pointed one of her blasters up in the air, catching the stray bolt on the backside of her hand that was protected by the rubber grip.
Beside the Hothan princess, Kirei fumed. She was getting the feeling that she was being set up. Annoyed, she moved her saber in a blur of light, picking off the bolts before they moved past her.
Priire noticed this, and responded by relieving her other holster of its burden. Now she could easily fire at the two targets. The blonde's keen mind operated both weapons separately, causing each of her opponents to pay more attention to her.
Showing off a bit, Yuki flashily parried the bolts her friend sent in her direction. Miss G, on the other hand, parried one of the bolts towards Yuki. The senshi had to move quickly to avoid being singed. Instead of sending the other woman a dirty look, Yuki composed herself and focused on Priire, attempting to anticipate her next attack.
In another part of the Jedi Temple, a brown-haired figure was creeping through the halls with a backpack full of things that she and others had collected. The brown-haired girl waved the chip Priire had given her. When the door opened, Liz slipped in.
With a quick look around, the girl familiarized herself with the room. Then, she pulled a bowl out of her pack, trying not to spill the pudding in it as she reached for the pillow that graced the bed in front of her.
Jenny laughed as she tripped over her own feet. "Sorry, Simon!" she apologized to the fiddler. The blonde had found the source of the music that they'd heard earlier. A man in eighteenth century clothing was teaching a group of tourists various colonial dances.
"You looked silly before you tripped," Ippin commented. Jenny grinned at her and waved at Simon as the pair left. "Besides, where do they come up with names like 'Mr. McGee's Maggots'?"
The blonde's grin grew. "I don't think that's exactly the name... but I get the point. Some of them are crazy. You ought to see the Morris dancers!"
Ippin shook her head. "What about lunch? I missed breakfast, falling into the dryer and all."
"Do you like Chinese?" Jenny offered. "There's a couple of good restaurants near Wal*Mart."
Ippin shrugged. "Sure!"
Even though most of her attention was centered on Yuki and Miss G, Priire still noticed Liz slip into the room. Before Annika cornered the brunette, Liz gave Priire a thumbs-up.
A smile crept across Priire's mouth. "Yuki," she said, her voice nonchalant. "Could you go get me some water?"
Yuki nodded, shutting off her lightsaber.
"And for me," the other woman asked. "Should we wait for her?"
Priire shook her head. "No, we can keep going." Suiting actions to words, Priire snapped off three quick bursts from her weapon. By this time, a small crowd was watching. Because of the people, Priire attempted to keep the stray blasts to a minimum. However, someone had switched on a forcefield around the area, making Priire feel more free to fire.
The look in Priire's eyes when she turned her attention to the other woman was calculated to frighten her. Miss All-That took an involuntary step backwards. Priire had on her best sabacc face, complete with almost totally-blank eyes.
"Are you trying to frighten me?" the woman hissed.
Instead of acknowledging, Priire fired her blaster with precision that would have been deadly had the blaster not been powered down. Miss G twisted her saber and her body, failing to connect the former with all the blaster bolts aimed at the latter. The woman just wasn't as good at blocking as Priire was at hitting. The final blow came when Priire fired at Kirei's hand and knocked the woman's lightsaber out of it.
Priire caught the saber as it came down. She walked very slowly over to where the more beautiful woman was standing. Speaking so softly that the other had to strain to hear her as she took the saber, Priire said, "You might want to be careful, Kirei." Deliberately, Priire flicked the setting on her blaster to full, then twirled it around her finger and slapped it into its holster. "If you don't keep your hands to yourself, they might get burned."
The woman rolled her eyes. "What can you do to me?"
Priire's eyes glinted, but she didn't answer. "Hey, Liz!" she called, turning her attention to the girl in the cowboy hat. "I was thinking of asking Nom to go down to the cantina and knock back a few! Wanna come?"
Liz's eyes lit up as she remembered that anyone of any age could go into bars in the Star Wars world. She was about to agree when Annika grabbed her arm. "Don't go! When Priire says 'knock back a few', she means people!"
Priire did her best to look innocent. "That's okay. Hey, maybe you could show me something about these Earth weapons I got when we went and found Harry."
The brunette tipped her hat back and affected an accent. "Wal... I maght be able t'tell ya sumthin..."
Priire looked confused. "Again, with help files?"
"Show me the guns," Liz laughed. She seemed amused at the joke Priire didn't get.
The blonde shook her head. "This way."
The most beautiful princess from a planet of beautiful people stepped into her room. Kirei paused for a moment as something felt wrong. Shrugging it off as nothing, she collapsed onto her bed. That braided ruffian Priire seemed intent on hounding her, and it was doing horrible things to her manicure.
Something sticky and cold oozed around her head as the Princess laid down. With a screech, she jerked up right. There was pudding in her pillow! Annoyed, she reached for a towel to mop the mess out of her waist-length brown hair.
She walked over to the mirror and glared at it. Not only was there pudding in her hair, but the towel was apparently covered in some kind of briar. She was getting angrier as she stalked over to her shower and turned it on. Kirei noticed the strange color of her shower before stepping in, however. Closer examination showed that someone had put Kool-Aid in her showerhead.
Angry now, the beautiful woman turned on her sink, running water to wash some of the pudding out of her hair. Unfortunately for her, the person who had been so industrious had also switched the cold and hot water. Kirei discovered this after burning her hands on the hot water.
Kirei stalked around her room, discovering more of these juvenile practical jokes as she did. Vengeance, she swore.
"Ooo, a 410!" Liz laughed. "My sister hates this weapon. She says it kicks and makes too much noise." The girl grinned out from under her cowboy hat as she reached for another gun. "Colt 45... Priire, where did you get these??"
Priire shrugged, with a grin on her face. "Well... we were stuck on Earth for a long time trying to find this guy..." She shook her head. "It's a long story. Suffice to say, I got a job and got armed!"
"Wow..."
"I do have one question..." Priire grinned and held up some assorted shells. "How do these work? Can you show me?"
Liz grinned. "410, good buddy!"
"Don't you mean 10-4?" Priire asked.
The brunette smiled and held up the shotgun. "This is a 410. Thus... '410, good buddy.' "
Priire still looked confused.
After Liz had shown her how to load the "antique projectile weapons", Priire took a few practice shots. "Arg, this does kick," she commented, clearing the breech on the 410.
"What did I tell you?" Liz asked. "You sound just like Jen." The pretty brunette sighted down the barrel of the .22 she had and fired. "All right! Eight out of eight!"
"I would like to know the reason behind the use of such primitive weaponry," a black-haired woman stated. "They seem cumbersome and unwieldy."
Liz blinked. "Umm... they're all we have. I like 'em."
The black-haired woman shrugged and flipped her hair behind her shoulder. "I did not say they were not enjoyable. They merely seem less efficient than the other weapons we have."
"Goddess at four o'clock," Priire muttered under her breath, gesturing at Kirei.
Liz glanced over her shoulder. "Uh oh." The brunette scratched an itch on her neck with her middle finger. "Should we leave?"
Priire nodded sharply. "Let's hit the cafeteria."
Ippin and Jenny were hitting the buffet at the Great Wall for the third time. "I'm addicted to wonton soup..." Jenny laughed.
Ippin would have replied, but her mouth was full.
"Girl. Bring me a bagel."
It took Liz a minute to realize that the haughty, annoying command was directed at herself.
"Don't do it," Priire muttered. "Don't take Kirei anything."
Liz just smiled. "Service with a smile!" A few minutes later, she presented the bagel to Kirei.
"You bit my bagel!" the Princess exclaimed.
Liz tipped her cowboy hat back. "That," she smiled, "is why I'm smiling."
"Ippin! Ippin!"
Ippin looked confused. "Kairiku?"
Wiping duck sauce off her hand, Jenny pointed at a comm unit. "Try that button."
"Yes?" Ippin asked, activating the comm.
Kairiku's worried face came over the comm with lots of static. "You've got to get back to Jenny's house and jump in her dryer!"
There was a long silence. "Are you sure you have the right number?""Yes!" the odango-ed genius shouted. "The conditions will be perfect for you to get back here in... exactly 12.34 minutes!"
Ippin nodded and shut off the comm. "Jenny..."
"We might have a problem... it takes thirty minutes at the very least to get to my house from here." Jenny looked worried.
"That's okay," Ippin told her with a smile. "I'm the Time Guardian! I can just zap us back there."
"What about my car??"
"Uhhh... well, I'll zap myself back there, and you can drive your car back?"
Jenny looked disappointed. "It'd save gas if you just zapped the car back..."
"Do I look like a taxi service??"
ZAP!!!
"Coru?" Priire asked. "It is you this time... right?"
Ippin nodded. "And Jenny is a lot like you... I'm not sure that's a good thing."
"What?" Priire looked confused.
"Never mind... just don't ask me to zap a Blue Maxima anywhere."
Priire didn't look any less confused.
"Liz?" Jenny asked about thirty minutes later. "It is you this time... right?"
The brunette nodded. "Uh huh. Do you want a Pepsi?"
Jenny started to mention something about how odd it was that one would be watching TV and drinking Pepsi after just being dragged into another dimension... but decided not to mention it. "Sure."
