(Also copious thanks to MExum65008 and Luriko-Ysbeth for the Shattered-Land ideas)
In the sibilant backwash of roaring vortices of chaos-drawn space lies a single, stagnant place. Tranquil as cairn moss, the things that hover uncertain between true life and oblivion lie sleeping; torpid for now, ravening dulled by indifference.
Within the lifeless waters of this horribly still place, a creature that is one and yet a conglomerate of many creatures hovers over a prison with neither walls nor bars. It has long forgotten what or who it was. Not that it matters.
The creature gropes for the prison with disparate and disjointed grasping limbs, sucking with many broken-toothed mouths at the unyielding surface, mindlessly hungry for the warm flesh warm soul tucked so snugly within. It is, of course, an unsuccessful effort. Five hundred thousand times this nameless thing has searched the prison over to find an opening, any opening at all. It would have given up its search and forgotten the object entirely if it had not been for one thing; the lingering aroma of old pain older fear that sifted from it like a miasma that was sweeter than honey to the creature outside.
And so it remained, in this lone tideless pool in a Tide-wracked universe, a soulless thing thirsting forever for the forbidden blood of a single forgotten prisoner.
Kurama sat up in bed with a groan. That damn dream had come back again, as it did every spring. His mouth felt like he had been sucking sand all night; gritty and sour. Muzzily he ran his fingers through his tangled hair and yawned hugely. He would not be getting back to sleep tonight, not with those unsettling images haunting the backs of his eyelids. He wished that Hiei was with him; he'd outgrown teddy bears years ago and he needed something to hug. He wrapped his arms around his knees with a sigh and let his mind wander, eyes finding patterns in the shadows sliding over the furniture. Here and there, he saw hints of his nightmare that highlighted his early-morning loneliness. A slim body dancing in patches of false-dawn light, leggy as a cheetah and smoother than silk. A shirt hung over a chair provided the figure with batlike wings, an art project in progress on his desk gave it the semblance of a battered hat. A scarf blowing in the breeze from the partially opened window suggested a flowing ponytail. The breeze itself brought near-inaudible, ghostly whispers of a half-forgotten voice. He watched the shadow dancer for a timeless time, and then something startled him badly; the dancer turned to face him, and a marble that he had found in his garden lent a cobalt glint to a shadow eye. Help... whispered the breeze.
"Kuronue!" Kurama gasped, and then it was gone.
The first rays of dawn turned the glint back into a plain blue marble; the shadows were just shadows. Birds twittered sleepily outside, warming up for the day. Kurama shivered, donned his bathrobe, and went out to the garden to let the fresh air clear his head. The dew of new grass chilled his toes, but he barely felt it as he drank in the cool morning air, sweetly scented with the first cherry blossoms of the year. The sun rose slowly in the east in a blaze of vibrant colors, bringing with it the Love of Spring. Kurama could feel it, the enormous but infinitely gentle force that pushed life back into the world with slow, deliberate pressure. The warmth was coming back early this year. Soothed a bit by the peace of his garden, Kurama knelt and gently fingered the new russet-green leaves of his rose bushes. A burst of fiery ki behind him announced Hiei's arrival. "You're going to get thorns stuck in your feet if you're not careful." He remarked matter-of-factly.
Kurama gave a small snort of amusement, swivelled around and wrapped his arms around his firebaby, holding him very close and leaning his head on the smaller boy's chest. Hiei wasn't quite sure what to make of this; there was obviously something bothering the Kitsune, but Kurama didn't seem inclined to discuss it. So instead he stood there in silence, combing the fox's tangled hair with his fingers and enjoying the tranquility.
Several hours later, Kurama was still feeling haunted and morose as he ambled through the pine forest with Hiei. He couldn't get either his nightmare or the predawn shadows out of his mind; never before had such a nebulous figure pleaded to him for help, and Kuronue was long dead, gone wherever departed spirits go. He'd probably already gone through four or five reincarnations by now, anyway. Yet still a sense of foreboding haunted him. Something was going to happen, he just knew it.
Hiei by now was feeling a tinge of worry; He'd never seen Kurama quite this moody before. He had asked the fox what was bugging him during breakfast, but Kurama had told him that he'd had a bad dream and that it was nothing to worry about. Hiei wasn't too sure about that. Come to think of it, Kurama got this way every spring, but never this bad. He wondered what dreamtime horror had so rattled his lover.
In silence they left the woods and entered the park. Kurama perked up a bit at the sight of the flowerbeds; the time of crocus and spring iris had passed, but all sorts of daffodils and tulips were in enthusiastic bloom, and tiny sprigs of grape hyacinth poked their indigo cones up around the larger plants. Hiei sighed softly with impatience and stood quietly by as Kurama examined the display. Sometimes he wondered if there were a dryad or two in Kurama's ancestry. Hiei didn't have time to get seriously bored, fortunately. Yuusuke and Kuwabara arrived, looking very pleased with themselves. "Hi there, guys." Kurama said with a welcoming smile. "You look like you've been trawling for muggers again."
"Gotta do something to keep in shape." Kuwabara laughed.
Yuusuke and Kuwabara had discovered a new team sport just after Christmas- vigilantism. The Harlequin had given them a couple of marvellous new weapons to play with, and they had done so with wild abandon. There was not a single mugger, rapist, thief, arsonist, or gang member in the entire district that did not scream a lot and run away whenever they saw the pair walking down the street.
"So, what's been up with you lately, Kurama?" Yuusuke asked. "We haven't seen all that much of you lately."
"Exam week." Kurama replied with some distaste. "I've been studying so hard that the subjects have been branded into the backs of my eyeballs, and it's going to be the same again starting Monda-aaah!"
Kurama reeled as a flood of images suddenly deluged his mind. Again he saw the dark, stagnant place of his nightmare, the taste of chill, brackish sand in his mouth. Fossilized fear ran up his backbone like a frozen spider and again a shadow begged for help.
"Kurama!" A distant voice called. "Are you all right?"
"You aren't getting epileptic on us, are you?" Asked another familiar voice.
Only one person could be so tactless in a situation like this, and the knowledge guided him back to reality. Kurama found himself leaning heavily on Kuwabara's shoulder, trembling with a new urgency. "Something's going to happen." Kurama gasped. "Something terrible, if we don't do something."
"He's right," a new voice came from behind them, making Kurama start in surprise, "Koenma needs you guys right now, if only to get the Piper calmed down."
"Hi, Botan," Yuusuke said, "what's going on?"
Botan shook her head and manifested her oar. "I don't have time to explain. Come on!"
Something was wrong with Interspace this time; it twisted under their feet like a gigantic snake and roared with the sound of a storm-tossed ocean. Much to the Spirit Detective's relief, it did not break under their weight, though it did sag and tremble like overburdened rubber. When they did arrive in Koenma's study, they could instantly tell that some disaster had happened; the air was so full of nervous tension that one could almost cut it into bricks and build a wall.
Koenma himself was seated at his desk, shuffling through the stacks of paperwork and fidgeting with his pacifier. "Ah, you're here," he said, looking up from his work.
"Hey, guys, glad you could make it," Someone else said from on top of the drapes. "I nearly didn't."
They looked up. Perched atop the curtains was the Harlequin, playing straight Solitaire with an unmarked deck. For once, the God of Chaotic Silly wasn't smiling- a very bad sign. "What's going on here?" Yuusuke asked.
"Both the Ningenkai and the Reikai are in deadly peril," Koenma began, standing up on his chair, "A very important spirit has been kidnapped by evil creatures of the Shattered Lands, and-"
"Tell them the truth, you misbegotten son of a yellow monkey." The Piper growled from the far corner of the room.
The Spirit Detectives got something of a shock when they saw the huge monster- he was extremely pissed off at something. His glossy brick-red hide had darkened to the shade of old blood, and his faceted obsidian eyes glittered with internal fire. He was reclining in an intricate coil in the corner, sharpening one of his massive katanas, drawing the whetstone over the blade with a hair-raising screech. George stood by holding another one of the swords, obviously scared out of his socks at being this close to a big, angry predator. The only thing that kept the poor Oni from bolting was the end of Piper's tail, which was wrapped firmly around his ankle. "Go on," Piper grated, barely suppressed rage filtering through every syllable, "tell them. It's not a good idea to lie to your agents."
Koenma deflated visibly. "It's like this; the outlying provinces of the Reikai have been giving my father a lot of trouble lately, and he's been in a really awful mood for weeks. I recently got a message from him that says he's going to hold a big inspection when he gets back, and if there's any loose ends, no matter how small, I'm in for a real spanking! And as if that weren't bad enough, you can just bet that the Ningenkai will feel the backlash of his temper. I've managed to clean up all the troubles but one; there's one last lost soul somewhere in the Shattered Lands-"
"Which you expect me to find at High Tide. High Tide!" Piper bellowed furiously, interrupting the nervous demigod. "In the space of a few days, a week at most, the Shattered Lands will be a chaotic deathtrap! Already the orbits have shifted and the Free-Roamers have gone to ground for the season- as I should be doing right now! I have already risked my very existence just getting here, and I refuse to risk the lives of others in such a foolish expedition. Besides, that spirit has been where it is for many years, and three more months should not make a difference."
"But Lord Enma will be furious!" Botan pleaded. "There's no telling what he might do."
Piper was unmoved. "Enma has had temper tantrums before, Koenma has had bruised buttocks before, the Ningenkai has had natural disasters before. All three have survived these tribulations easily. The misplacing of one Chimera spook is not worth the demise of a team of promising young people. I will not go."
Chimera! The word made something go click in Kurama's mind.
"Cool it, Piper," Kuwabara said to the fuming monster. "Just what is this 'high tide' thing, anyway?"
Piper sat back with a sigh of exasperation. "During the spring months- March, April, and May, life must be pushed back into the worlds. The Hub does this, sending out incredibly enormous pulses of life force like the trunk of a tree returning sap to the outermost twigs. The pulses increase in power steadily through March, and by mid-April they reach their full strength and highest frequency. In the Three worlds, which are a lot stabler than the Shattered Lands, this means that your gardens are blooming like crazy. The Shattered Lands, however, are tossed about like pebbles in a tidal wave, and are totally impassible. We Free-Roamers call this time High Tide, for the sheer rush of life force that sweeps through everything, for good or ill. It is also very close to mid-April now, and as for the state of the Lands themselves... Just see for yourselves."
Piper pulled out the map of the Shattered Lands that Harlequin had given him at the Christmas party some months ago and activated it. He hadn't been exaggerating the problem. Shards of strange realities hissed and whirled in extremely eccentric orbits around the Three Worlds, little clusters breaking off from the main rings to dance in tight spirals and roulettes through the system like drunken tornadoes. Waves of them whirled strangely in Escherized ripples in and out of the Interspace cables, some eddies ripping out of the rows and getting stuck in rocking backwashes behind the main Worlds. There was no rhyme or reason at all behind the glittering display; it was like watching an animated Pollock painting, or maybe the Harlequin's chromatic slacks.
"And this is just the start." Piper murmured. "Sometimes I wish that the Netherworld hadn't been destroyed; things were a lot stabler then. In a few more days, the Lands will become impossible to navigate- even now you would have to stick your sense of self-preservation on a shelf somewhere to do so. Even if we leave immediately, we would have only a very small chance of getting out alive, much less locating and returning with the Chimera."
"Damn, what a mess." Hiei said as a couple of shards collided and exploded violently. "I'm willing to wait another three months."
"Same here." Yuusuke agreed.
Kurama, however, had something else on his mind. "Koenma, would this Chimera spirit be about this tall, with bat wings, blue eyes, gray-black hair, and a beat-up old hat?"
Koenma shuffled around in the stacks of paper until he found the dossier. "Let's see... Yeah, that's him. He answers to the name 'Kuronue'. It says here that he was last seen robbing a palace in the Makai in the company of a Silver Kitsune."
Kurama promptly turned around, grabbed Piper's topmost shoulder straps and hauled his head down to eye level. "We're going after him." Kurama said in a flat, final tone. "Now."
"Kurama, don't be stupid!" Piper yelped, trying to pull away and failing. "According to that bit of paper, Kuronue's been wherever he's been for well over a century. Three more months will make no significant difference in this matter. If we get wiped out trying to get to him now, he will stay where he is forever!"
"I'm willing to take that chance." Kurama said quietly. "Kuronue was one of my best friends. I'm not going to lose him again."
"You're going to force me into this, aren't you?" Piper said with a groan.
"You betcha."
"Very well, I'll take you to look for him, but if we get killed along the way, I am never going to talk to you again. Anyone else want to follow us on this fiasco?"
Hiei stepped forward. "Where Kurama goes, I go."
"I'll come, I'll come!" Harlequin shouted, leaping off the curtains and scattering cards everywhere. "I've always wanted to see a Universe playing 'Twister' from the inside!"
"I admit that I'm curious about this Kuronue guy," Yuusuke said, "it's been bugging me ever since Yakumo tried to rebuild the Netherworld on our turf."
"And I'm not going to let you guys hog all the fun." Kuwabara declared. "I'm up for a little adventuring. It's more interesting than studying for the history final, anyway."
Koenma, meanwhile, had been fishing around in his desk drawer. With a grunt of triumph, he pulled out a small device, which he handed to Yuusuke. "Here," he said, "this should help you find Kuronue. It's a tracking device tuned to his ki. Happy hunting!"
Piper gave him a look that could have withered a thornbush. "When this is over, you and I are going to have a talk. One way or another. Come on, people, let's get going before this little twerp gets any more bright ideas."
The trip through Interspace was unsettling- it took longer than it normally did, and faint rainbow ripples ran up and down the spectrums around them. Weird, unearthly music whispered around them, and half-formed figures gibbered and beckoned from a distance. With some relief, they burst out into a place both still and dimly lit. There was no sky, just an area of blackness overhead, and the bleak ground was nothing more than barren dark stone with a few crags and weathered formations here and there, interspersed with the occasional still, deep pool. It was absolutely silent, the air hanging dully like ancient drapes.
Harlequin sniffed disapprovingly. "Not exactly a party joint, is it? Just where are we, Piper?"
"Bone Man's Office." Piper replied calmly, and then plucked the tracking device out of Yuusuke's hands and tossed it into a nearby pool.
"Hey!" Yuusuke protested as the gadget sank out of sight. "What did you do that for?"
"Koenma slipped us a ringer." Piper said. "That was a tracking device, all right; one set to track us. The gods have always been curious about the Lands, and waste no opportunities to find out about them."
"What?!"
"Oh, it's quite true. There's a great deal of power and treasure to be had in the Lands, and that sort of thing always attracts the wrong kind of people. Besides," Piper said with a disapproving sniff, "this is my turf. I'm not about to have a bunch of claim-jumping deities messing about and destabilizing the whole works."
"Then what about him?" Hiei said, jerking a thumb at Harlequin.
"I'm already unstable." 'Quin replied, and turned into a purple marmoset to prove it.
Our heroes set off across the barren terrain towards some goal known only to the Piper; in time, a tiny golden glow in the darkness became visible, shining elusively among the jutting rock formations that dotted the landscape like public sculpture. Every so often, something nightmarish would stick its head out of a pool and watch them go by with deep, curious eyes. Eventually, they came to a wide, rough-hewn monolith on which perched a perfectly ordinary steel-and-formica desk; the glow that they had been following for the past ten minutes turned out to be a reading lamp. Working at the desk was an elderly blue-skinned and white-haired Oni wearing a patch over one eye. After a moment, he looked down at them, smiling when he saw Piper. "Hi, Piper. What do you need this time?"
Piper snorted. "I don't come here all that often, Alexander. Is Spargenox in?"
Alexander shook his head sadly. "Sorry, no. The boss left three days ago to repair the anchoring on Golganoth and Ionia- he may not be back until High Tide is done with. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"We need a good spirit trace on a certain misplaced soul, a Chimera by the name of Kuronue."
"No problem. The equipment and the ledgers are all in the shed way over there. If you would follow me..."
Alexander spiralled down out of view, as though he was descending a spiral staircase. This was not exactly accurate; to the horror of the Spirit Detectives, Alexander was a giant centipede from the waist down- instead of a chair, he used a long pole thrust into the stone behind the monolith. On the ground, he was as long as Piper was, but stood no taller than Hiei. He scuttled off towards the distant shed in a fluid motion of smooth coffee-colored chitin, hundreds of jointed legs moving in perfect sine waves underneath. Piper and the others followed with some show of unease from the Detectives.
Kuwabara leaned over to Piper and muttered: "Piper, just what is this guy?"
"Chimera." Piper replied, unconcerned.
"Chimera?! He doesn't look anything like Kuronue." Kurama said, looking askance at their guide.
Harlequin chuckled at their confusion. "Kurama, the word 'chimera' is a very old one; the original root word -loosely translated- meant 'spare bits'. The race is not an old one by a long shot. They were invented quite by mistake by the sorcerers who lived during the Makai's Golden Age well before the Netherworlders crashed the party. The Chimerae were very popular as bodyguards, pets, watchdogs, slaves, and um... curiosities. Their construction became something of an art form up near the end of the era, and the more complex the mix, the better the people liked them. I'm afraid that sort of thing didn't work very well for the poor creatures; rather a lot of the Chimerae were fragile, psychotic, stupid, or all three at once. The simpler mixes, such as the batwinged humanoids and Oni-centipede crossbreeds managed to survive the disaster and spread all over the place. I've even found the silly things as far away as Greece."
They had reached the shed at that point. Inside the building was shelf after shelf of heavy leather-bound grimoires, the floor littered with crates of arcane paraphernalia. Alexander dug into a nearby crate and after some rummaging, came up with a device that looked like a cross between a compass and a skeleton watch. "Found the tracker," Alexander said, "and now for the trace."
He handed the tracking device over to Hiei and pulled a thick, dusty book down from its shelf and began flipping through it. Inside were long descriptive passages written in a strange, alien script, each passage accompanied by a small, leaf-shaped flake of colored light. "Let's see," Alexander murmured, tracing the script with one finger. Kekko, Kiroushi, Kourin, Kynn... Fellas, I hate to tell you this, but Kuronue isn't in here."
"What?!" Our heroes chorused.
"These volumes clearly list every single lost dead dude in the entire system!" Alexander said with some agitation. "If he's not registered here, it means that he's still alive somewhere."
"Right!" Kurama snapped, grabbed Piper's harness and set about dragging the monster out of the door. "We're going to find him this instant and-"
"Kurama!" Piper cut him off desperately, toeclaws skittering over the stone. "We don't even know where to begin looking!"
Kurama let go with a curse. "Is there any way to learn?"
"There might be." Alexander put in, flipping through a book of spells. "We'd need someone who was fairly close to the creature, a friend or a lover or something."
"Speaking." Kurama replied.
"I, too, have been acquainted with him." Hiei surprised everyone by saying.
"Oh, that's right," Kurama muttered, remembering something, "Kuronue did have our children by you, didn't he?"
"Nani?!" Kuwabara gasped, unable to believe his ears. "How... What.. Did you.."
Harlequin fell over, howling with laughter. "Oh, what a picture! Hiei pregnant with twins! Did you bottle or breast-feed them, Hiei? Or maybe- aaarrgh!"
Hiei did not like to be laughed at. Blushing furiously, he zonked the laughing god with a fireball.
"Well, that'll better our chances of getting an accurate trace, at least," Alexander said diplomatically, "if you two would step over here, please..."
Kuwabara, slightly sickened, leaned on Yuusuke's shoulder as some serious spellsay occurred some distance from the group. "How did he... they... I mean, yuck..." He whimpered.
"Koorime can breed same-sexed. They don't need a guy or a girl specifically, just a partner." Piper said, dipping a still smouldering Harlequin into a nearby pool. "This is a good thing, considering that the Koorime tribe generally consists of females obsessed with racial purity. Hiei is an exception, seeing as he actually had a father."
"All the same, bleah."
Perhaps half an hour later, Kurama, Hiei, and Alexander returned, the Oni holding a tiny sliver of swirling blood-and-tangerine light. "This should lead you right to him," he said, slipping the shard into the tracker. "Haul out that map you've been boasting about and have a look."
If anything, the Shattered Lands were whirling about even more crazily than before. The tracker seemed to know what it was about even in that mess, and a spike of red orange light pointed unerringly to a small, dull-grey Land that circled sullenly in the backwash of the Ningenkai... "Three times curse it," Piper grunted sourly, "he's stuck in the Glen of the Damned."
"Wonderful." Yuusuke groaned. "Come on, let's get him out of there before something eats him."
"You sure you want to do that?" Alexander asked, examining the map and then pointing to an ivory-tinted Land hovering between vortices of Interspace cables. "We're here; the Glen is way the hells over there. That's a real hazardous route to take right now, since the Nightmare has recurred again and the middle orbits have broken up."
"We don't have much of a choice in this matter," Hiei said with a sidelong glance at Kurama, "this idiot fox will go though hell and high water to get his old partner back."
"You'll see enough and more than enough of both." Alexander conceded. "You're all quite mad, you know."
"Whatever took you so long to figure that out?" Harlequin said, going cubist and following Piper and the other into Interspace.
"Where the hell is this?" Yuusuke asked, trying to focus on the new surroundings.
It was like walking through a thick fogbank; the eyes refused to register depth perception. The air had a curious underwater quality to it, and it rippled slightly when they moved too quickly. Pearly white it glowed most dreamily luminous, and angular silver gleams drifted lazily through it like tissue paper on a languid breeze. A soft sound of glass chimes tinkled through the air- mirrors dancing the last waltz in freefall.
"We call this place Analogue Mirrors," Piper said softly, "you can see who you are in other dimensions here. Walk softly though, and make no sudden moves. This place is quite unstable at the best of times, and I'd rather that it didn't break while we're in it."
"Sound reasoning." Yuusuke replied.
They walked in silence from then on, watching their otherworldly reflections. Yuusuke saw in passing one of the gleaming silver mirrors a tall, young, dark-haired man, dressed in ancient Chinese robes. The Chinese pictogram for "ogre" had been tattooed on his forehead, and a long ponytail hung over one shoulder. The reflection flickered over the breath-thin surface and was gone, leaving Yuusuke to wonder who that bright-eyed stranger was.
Kuwabara paused and stared at his reflections, for there were two; the images sifting and decanting from one to the other. One was an extremely tall and powerful brown-haired young man dressed in white; his long coat had the word "bad" written on the back, and he carried a huge cavalry blade over one shoulder. The other image was considerably shorter. There was a look of almost terminal rage and confusion on that face, dark eyes glaring at something other than Kuwabara. He was dressed in yellow, carried a large backpack and a red bamboo umbrella on his back, and wore a yellow headband patterned with short black stripes. For some reason, the image of a small black piglet was superimposed mistily over the boy in the mirror. "Weird." Kuwabara muttered, shaking his head.
Harlequin strode smugly down the milky halls, grinning at his reflections. There were dozens of them, and only a few of them were recognizably human. A one-eyed priest with turquoise blue hair mocked a belligerent redhead carrying an iron fan; Duo, the boy with the long braid whom they had met during Harlequin's Christmas party painted "Kick Me" on the back of a huge robot. A tall man in his twenties wearing the traditional garb of a swordsman wielded a wooden sword, an expression of cretinous nobility on his face. One of the most unexpected images was Jin, caught in the act of raiding a cookie jar. What every one of these images shared were the slightly manic eyes and the insolent smirk of the accomplished goofball. The air around them shimmered with echoes of unheard laughter.
Kurama smiled back reflexively at his reflection; the resemblance was all but perfect. Perhaps a few inches shorter, the image of a blue-eyed redhead stood resplendent in archaic swordsman's robes. The only thing that marred that gently smiling face was a vicious cross-shaped scar on one cheek and a strange pain that haunted the eyes, hiding behind a genuinely sweet nature. This was the face of a man who would not only help with the laundry but would also assist in kicking invading ninjas out of the garden.
Hiei glared around at the mirrors with some suspicion. He didn't know exactly how thin the worldwalls were at the moment, but he'd had some bad experiences with magic mirrors in the past. Most of the images were harmless- short peevish people for the most part, a few junkyard dogs, a big striped cat or two, the tall, stone-faced guy with the gun fixation from 'Quin's Christmas party; nothing to concern himself about. Thus, he was unprepared for an image that manifested itself right in front of him, forcing Hiei to halt and stare. The person on the other side of the rippling silver gleam was propped up on a stone, glaring over the horizon, deep in his own thoughts. Hiei shifted his weight uneasily; something about this image was wrong... The motion attracted the attention of the figure on the other side, who glared right into Hiei's eyes.
Piper scarcely paid any attention to his reflections. He'd seen them before and had even talked with a few of them in his past travels. He was far more interested in getting to the Glen and back without getting them all killed. Yuusuke interrupted his ruminations on this subject with a very important question. "Hey, Piper, can any of those mirror guys see us?"
"No," Piper replied with a shake of his head, "such an event would be most unusual, even for this time of year. Why do you ask?"
"Because Hiei and his reflection are glaring at each other."
Piper swung himself around with a yip of alarm. Sure enough, Hiei stood face to face with an almost exact image of himself, air rippling furiously in tempo with Hiei's growling. In perfect unison, they raised a fist to strike the phantom cold...
"Hiei!" Piper barked as the twinned fists rushed forward, "Stop! Don't do th- Oh, crap!"
As the blows reached their goal, the fabric of space and time warped impossibly around each other and, unable to bear the strain of the impossibility occurring within it, Analogue Mirrors fragmented around them with an unbelievable sound of shattering.
Yuusuke awoke on a hard, cool surface somewhere where the air was warm, the gravity light, and the illumination was softly silver. As his bleary vision swam back into focus, he realized that he had landed on a familiar Land, that place that was made all out of crystal. A world of flat glassy plains and huge crystal formations that sailed silently forever under an endless nightscape. The two gemlike moons were twin crescents cupping a waterfall of bright stars between them. A few feet away, Harlequin rolled onto his belly with a groan. "Ooooh. That's the last time I fly commercial. Is everyone still extant?"
With a long series of moans and whimpers, the others hauled themselves into sitting positions. "Let's see," Kuwabara said, clutching a throbbing skull, "there's Yuusuke and Kurama and that annoying clown guy and Piper and... Uh oh. Guys, there's two of Hiei."
Sure enough, sitting up at exactly the same time, rubbing their heads with exactly the same motion, and wincing identically at exactly the same headache were Hiei and a very close analogue. The moment they caught sight of each other, they began to bristle up and growl ferociously at each other, two tigers on a hill preparing for the attack. Fortunately before any fights could start, the newcomer was hauled eight feet into the air with his arms pinned behind him and a very firm grip clamped onto the long monkey tail that extended from his butt.
"And what is this?" Piper said, examining his struggling captive with great interest. "A strange creature of short stature, a long fuzzy tail, scary hair, silly armor, and miserably bad temper. Hello, Vegita."
"You!" Vegita snarled in a voice much like Hiei's, only made harsher from a lifetime of shouting too much, "You're dead! I blasted you clean into another dimension!"
"Quite true," Piper replied calmly, "but where do you think you are now? My dear boy, I've been jumping from dimension to dimension since before your great-grandfather was an evil gleam in your great-great-grandmother's eye. Do you really think that another crash translation would jostle me?"
Before Vegita could come up with a suitable (or printable) answer, Harlequin bounced into view, full of mischief as a truckload of ferrets. "Hark! I have heard the voice of an old acquaintance! Hi, Veege! Hi, Veege! Hi, Veege!!"
With a screech of terror, Vegita wrenched himself free of the Piper's grip and took refuge on the monster's topmost shoulders. Piper gave the trembling stranger a surprised glance, and then turned a glare on the Harlequin. "All right, you psychotic mime," he sighed, "I have fought this little horror before. He fears absolutely nothing and would happily fight to the death to prove it. Yet still he hides trembling on my back at the very sight of you. What did you do to him, Harlequin?"
'Quin shrugged, slightly embarrassed as everybody turned a suspicious look on him. "Oh, nothing much."
Group glares from everyone made him sag slightly. "Oh, all right, so I dressed him up in a cute little pink tutu."
"And?" Piper grated.
"...I made him dance Swan Lake."
"And?" Growled Yuusuke.
"...As the Swan Princess."
"And?" said Kurama.
"...On national television."
"And?" Hiei hissed.
Harlequin winced. "...On Opening Night."
His voice trailed off uncertainly into a silence rife with outrage and shock. He shifted his weight uneasily from foot to foot. "I'm not gonna get off easy for this one am I?"
"'Quin, that goes completely beyond the pale, even for you." Piper said at his most disapproving. "Hiei, are you still willing to maim this joker at the slightest provocation?"
Hiei's only answer was the metallic-silken sound of his katana sliding out of its sheath.
"Vegita, would you like a free shot at this creep?"
Vegita growled, small crackles of energy crawling over his skin as he powered up. Harlequin dithered nervously at the prospect of being mauled by two pissed-off firebabies. Piper grunted in satisfaction and set Vegita on the ground. "Sic 'em."
'Quin took off screaming over the horizon with both of the little monsters hot on his heels.
"Feel free to take a break, kids." Piper said, settling himself to the ground as the explosions lit up the skyline. "I have the feeling that this is going to take a while."
"Jyaoh Ensatsu Kokuryuuha!!" Came faintly to their ears, followed by an impressive pyroclasm that illuminated the crystal formations for miles around.
"Ka me ha me ha!!" Followed not far behind, lending a spectacular brilliance to the display.
The Spirit Detectives found nothing wrong with Piper's advice, so they arranged themselves comfortably on a nearby formation to watch the fireworks. Yuusuke was a little curious about their guide's acquaintance with Vegita, so he leaned over to Piper and asked: "So, you've fought that little guy before?"
Piper nodded, checking the tracking device for imperfections. "I visited his home dimension once. Nice place, if a bit disorganized. Vegita and his kind were a prime example of that. The Saiyins were never very numerous, but they made up for that lack in sheer destructive power. Just one of their juveniles could wipe an entire planet clean of its native civilization in under five years. That was their species' stock in trade until someone meaner than they were blew up the planet out of self-defense. There were very few survivors, of which Vegita is one of the strongest. He's even worse at controlling his temper than Hiei is, but not nearly as bright. He lets his muscles and his arrogance do most of his thinking for him, but that's normal for the last surviving member of the royal family of any species."
"Great." Kuwabara said. "Another short, evil-tempered badass to deal with. Are we going to have a lot of trouble from him?"
"I doubt it." Piper replied. "Once he realizes the fix he's in, Vegita will jut have to swallow his pride and deal with it. He's a xenocidal maniac, but he's not entirely stupid."
Kurama only listened with half an ear to the discussion going on around him; his mind was full of images from another time. So Kuronue still lived, somewhere out there. He could still remember every detail of his old partner. The narrow, sharp-featured face with those bright eyes dancing with mischief. The heavy cloud of his long, dull-black hair that hung in silky tangles after he had bathed. The soft rush of air from the black bat wings, fanning them both when the summer's heat grew too oppressive. That long, lean, lithe body that had fit so well with Kurama's own when they slept together, filling Kurama's nostrils with his warm, musky scent. Gods, how he had mourned that Chimera, had missed him down through all those weary years. Kurama felt a stab of anxiety then; he wasn't sure how Hiei was going to react to this. The little Koorime was very possessive of the people he loved, and Kurama's own love for Hiei was most intense. There was no knowing, no telling, how this problem would work out, not until they found Kuronue and saw where his affections lay. Kurama shook himself firmly to rid himself of the ghosts of the future. Speculation at this point was useless.
Not long afterwards, Hiei and Vegita returned, dragging what was left of Harlequin facedown by the ankles. "That was fun," Vegita said, dropping 'Quin's ankle and wiping his hand on his breastplate, "now send me back to my dimension. I have important things to do."
"Can they wait three months?" Kurama said, rising to his feet and stretching. "We have a problem of our own to deal with right now."
Vegita waxed wroth. "No! I demand that you send me back immediately! You will do this or-"
"Or what?" Yuusuke cut in. "Piper's the only one who knows how to get around these places You blow him up again and we'll all be stuck."
"You shut up, you pathetic weakling!" Vegita raged. "This is none of your affair!"
"On the contrary," Piper told him, bending double to look the surly Saiyin in the eye. "You, the useless prince of a dead world and its nearly extinct race, are an intruder into our affairs and have no business commanding my services as though it was your right. We have wasted enough time; within a few days, this set of dimensions will become true chaos, absolutely deadly to any outsider. Already the madness has spread from the Hub, stretching its tendrils to the outlying Lands. We will finish our errand, and then return to our homes. There will not be enough time to return you to yours before Interspace is impassable. I will not force you to join us, Vegita, but you will not survive here alone. Am I clear?"
Vegita glared at them in impotent fury. If any of these creatures were speaking the truth, he was in deeper trouble than he had ever been in before. This, he realized with an inward snarl, was definitely not his day. Though he hated to have to follow these weirdos around like a tourist, he had no choice. "All right," he grated, "but if you are lying to me..."
"Can it, Monkeyboy. 'Quin, pull yourself together and let's get out of here." Kuwabara nudged the charred heap with one foot, ignoring the Saiyin's enraged sputtering.
"Monkeyboy?!"
Harlequin rose dramatically out of his own ashes, flaming phoenix-style and whistling "She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain When She Comes". They ignored him, too.
The next world-fragment they arrived in was beautiful to look upon, but it made Piper and Harlequin very nervous for some reason. "This looks like one of the Seasonals." Harlequin said to Piper.
Piper nodded. "I think we may be on the verge of a Roulette in the Lands. Kids," he said to the rest of the team, "stick close. This is one of the Lands that only turn up during High Tide and is thus more dangerous than the usual bunch." With that, he pulled out his map and tried to find just where they were in the scheme of things.
Vegita and the Spirit Detectives weren't paying much attention, being far too busy trying to make sense of what they were seeing. The sky was a rushing river of azure, streaked here and there with gold and creamy white, and the atmosphere underneath was tinted faintly orange. A stream off to their right cut through soft gold-edged gray grass, bubbling and fizzing and smelling strongly of champagne. A walking forest of graceful trees formed of magenta crystal meandered over the meadows, singing softly in wind-chime voices and stopping occasionally to embrace each other. A constant sifting of sparkling ashes drifted from pure golden flowers of flame that nestled among the branches covered with amethyst leaves that tinkled when the wind caressed them. Slender, long-horned creatures with coats of greenish-white cornsilk picked their way leisurely among great low-lying patches of the most breathtakingly beautiful flowers that any of them had ever seen, grazing occasionally on the walking trees. As they watched, one beast stumbled over something in the grass and fell into the center of a flower patch and disappeared with a cry that sounded like clogged plumbing.
"What the hell?" Vegita said, and went over to the plant bed to solve the mystery; the others following closely.
Prying up a thick mat of greenery, he uncovered something extremely odd: There was no ground underneath the blooms. The root system was thick but bare of dirt, and floated on the updraft of an unbelievably deep hole in the world. Peering over his shoulder, Yuusuke made an observation.
"Those are stars down there, aren't there?" He said through a suddenly dry throat.
"A globular cluster, I think." Kurama said, very quietly. "I saw a picture of one on television once. Vegita, please put the flowers back."
Hiei, however, was fascinated. "Is that what space looks like from the outside?" He asked Vegita, who had to be nudged in the ribs before he would answer.
"Yes." The Saiyin replied, half-mesmerized by the sparkling starscape. "What kind of planet is this? This sort of thing just isn't possible!"
"Out here it is." Kuwabara told him, edging nervously away from the hole. "Put the flowers back, Vegita. I'm getting vertigo."
"We'll all get worse than that soon enough," Harlequin said, coming up behind them, "we have to get to the next jump point within the next few minutes or we're as good as mulched."
"What?" Yuusuke said, looking around for any danger.
"Over there." Harlequin pointed off to the south, where ugly rust-colored clouds were boiling over the horizon with incredible speed. Every few seconds, gleaming black lightning forked through the billows, and a scarlet fog brushed the ground beneath them. "This place is called Red Rains, and it's murderous death to anything living- acid rain at its absolute worst. Come on!"
They ran back up the hill they arrived on, where Piper was waiting for them impatiently. Thunder like a tyrannosaur's roaring shook the air as they took off across the landscape at a gallop, avoiding the flower patches as best they could. Black lightning lanced down around them as the storm gained on them, turning anything they struck into a dead-brown skeleton of what it once was. A great jangling wail rose from the walking forest as the red rain fell on it, quickly silenced by the burning onslaught of the deadly weather. A thick, copper-salt smell blew sickeningly around them, the scent of poisoned blood as the grass and flowers died practically under their feet.
"Almost there!" Piper called encouragingly to the others as hissing spatters of deadly liquid started to shower down around them.
Too late; Kurama and Kuwabara shrieked in pain as a gust of rain caught them, causing them to stagger and fall toward a denuded world-hole...
Before they could fall into the icy depths of outer space, Yuusuke, Hiei, and Harlequin managed to drag their stricken friends upright again and guide them into the cool, singing tunnels of Interspace.
They tumbled out into a blessedly still, flat area devoid of evil weather. Piper didn't waste any time, though, and started pulling the rapidly dissolving shirts off of Kurama's and Kuwabara's backs while they howled in agony; the acid rain had eaten right through clothes and skin alike, leaving white bones exposed to the air. In a flash, he pulled out a small pot of cloudy green paste, which he spread liberally over their wounds. With vast groans of relief, they collapsed in their friend's arms.
"Red Rains," Vegita said, watching in wonder as the green healing salve closed the gaping holes in Kuwabara's and Kurama's bodies. "That's nasty stuff. Are the rest of these dimensions as bad as this?"
"Some of them are worse." Hiei said, running comforting fingers through Kurama's hair.
"And we're in one of them." Piper said, standing up and flexing his green-smeared fingers nervously. "Get Kurama and Kuwabara back on their feet; we've got to get out of here right now."
Nobody was going to argue- They realized to their shock that Piper was actually scared. His normally glossy red hide had a grey tint to it, his eyes were dulled and nervous, and there was a definite tremor in all four of his hands, which kept twitching toward the hilts of the long knives he kept in the harness straps of his lowest shoulders. His long tail whip-cracked in impatience to be gone, the sharp report making Yuusuke jump as he hauled Kuwabara upright.
"Um, Piper," 'Quin said worriedly, "just where are we?"
"Akira's Nightmare." Piper replied and moved off, forcing the others to scramble to catch up.
"Doesn't look like a nightmare." Kuwabara muttered, rubbing a still-sore shoulder.
"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Hiei said, steadying a shaky Kurama, "Take a good look around. This place feels all wrong."
Hiei spoke truth. The place was wrong. They were in the heart of an incredibly huge metropolis, with buildings so massive that they were a quarter of a mile square at the base. The windows, and there were thousands, were brightly lit for the most part, but they were also as empty as the heart of a miser. Separating the towering edifices were layer upon layer of four-lane streets, spotlessly clean and devoid of any sign of life. It was late at night- at least it felt late. The street lights were shining too brightly for there to be much in the way of darkness, but it sure wasn't daytime. Yuusuke looked up, trying to see the sky past the peaks of the skyscrapers, and hauled up short with a curse. "Guys, the sky's missing!"
"There is no sky here." Piper said ominously. "Just oblivion."
Yuusuke shuddered and looked away; the bottomless void sucked at the eyeballs like a sinus headache.
The worst part of it all was the silence. Any normal city, even around four 'o' clock in the morning, always has some sound to it; the gurgle of the sewers, the ever present noise of traffic, the brainless barking of someone's watchdog. This city was totally, eerily silent. Not even a breeze was present to stir the still air. It made them all nervous, especially Vegita, who was sorely tempted to blow something up just to break the monotony.
They soon came to something both familiar and sinister in its ordinariness: a playground. Just as tidy and well-lit as the rest of the city, it seemed almost unreal. There was a slide and a swing set, of course, and a sandbox full of silver-grey sand. A few well-pruned trees stood stiffly here and there, and a basketball court lay to one side, forlornly empty.
"Damn." Piper murmured, real worry seeping into his tone. "Tatsuo's starting his rounds. This way, kids, and hurry!"
As they turned away from the park, Yuusuke decided that he'd been kept in the dark long enough. "Piper, just what is this Land all about?"
"It's Akira's Nightmare." Piper replied, unwilling to talk.
"Akira and Tatsuo" mused Kurama, "I've heard those names before. Wasn't there an animated movie called 'Akira'?"
"I saw that once." Kuwabara said. "Not a nice cartoon."
"There is, or was, a place in space-time where that movie was real life, once." Piper told them, relenting. "Some time ago it fragmented and a part of it got stuck in the Shattered Lands. This part. As you might recall, Tatsuo sold his body to an experimental laboratory for a goodly sum of money. They did some horrible things to his brain. The scientists gave him power, vast amounts of it, but he was too old for the treatments, and far too unstable already from a bad childhood and drug abuse. They could not train him to use his powers because they did not understand them, either. In the end, it drove him mad. He destroyed the city and everyone in it, and followed that up by destroying the entire world." Piper sighed deeply. "Tatsuo still haunts this place, hunting down his favorite victims and killing them in disgustingly graphic ways. When he runs out of those poor souls, he goes looking for any lost Free-Roamers that might be around."
"Like us." Harlequin put in matter-of-factly.
"Yes, like us. We call this place Akira's Nightmare not only because it is a horror to haunt dreams, but it also recurs every Spring. Every year, Tatsuo destroys it utterly, and every year at High Tide it comes back to repeat the cycle. What's more, this place follows this deranged lunatic's rules and no one elses', so don't expect to be able to make use of your own special powers."
As if to illustrate that point, a shriek of utter horror shattered the oppressive quiet, only to cut off abruptly in a terrible wet bursting noise. A soulless, malicious laugh echoed chillingly over the city, and then the silence prevailed once again.
Harlequin shuddered. "Piper, please tell me we're getting close to the Glen."
"I think so." Piper answered.
"Good! Let's go get closer."
Akira's Nightmare was a labyrinth. It had once been planned on a grid like any other city, but the deranged mind of the resident lunatic had caused serious disturbances in the way things worked. Buildings were misplaced and distorted here and there; one was upside down, and another had been turned around through the eighth dimension so that it was nearly a mile high, but only a foot or so wide. Yet another had been crushed flat, and a viscous gray fluid trickled from the windows like tears. Every so often another howl of terror would ring across the dead city, inevitably ending in a nasty gristling noise or a wet explosion. Once, they heard gunfire instead of a scream, but it ended the same way. The laughter that followed each kill was getting progressively more and more insane as the madman glutted himself on murder. It wasn't long before our heroes came across some real physical evidence of Tatsuo's haunting; the pitiful remnants of a human being, smeared thinly across the street and up the side of one skyscraper- a livid splash of bloody gore, shattered bone, and worse. Kuwabara had to stagger off to one side and throw up, and the others, even Vegita, were close to following him.
"Sweet Inari..." Kurama choked, looking away.
"Yechh." Was Hiei's contribution.
Harlequin fell over in a dead faint.
Vegita, however was distraught. He may have made his living by outright genocide, but he'd never done anything as ugly as this. "What kind of monster... I only ever blew them into another dimension. I never tried to paint the landscape..." He gulped, trying to keep his last meal where it was.
"Let's not waste any more time." Yuusuke said grimly. "I don't want to end up like this poor loser."
Nobody was going to argue with that. They stepped carefully around the mess in the road, and set off down an alley at a fast trot. They came across a lot of other victims, but weren't willing to look too closely; Tatsuo had gone easy on that first one, compared to these.
"Over there!" Kurama called suddenly, pointing to a blot of wavering air at the other end of the street. "Is that the jump point?"
"Yup!" Piper replied. "Full speed ahead!"
As one, they picked up speed, glad to be almost out of this mess. Unfortunately, just before they were within range, Tatsuo himself appeared between them and escape, forcing them to haul up short. He was young; far too young to have been driven so far around the bend. He was about Yuusuke's age and height, but his features and hair resembled Hiei's. He wore only a smudged white T-shirt and shorts, with a cape fashioned from a piece of red awning cover. His eyes were totally mad, wide and unfocused and bloodshot, and his smile was the most evil thing that our heroes had ever laid eyes on. Vegita panicked and tried to blast the boy clear over the horizon, but all that came out was a fizzle and a flash of weak light. Tatsuo giggled and raised a clenched fist, and Vegita gave a wheezing cry of alarm as an invisible force began to crush him, squeezing the air from his lungs and bending his bones to the breaking point.
It was Piper's turn to panic as the others found themselves similarly powerless. He swung himself around, jaws gaping as twin jets of fluid from his venom glands spurted out and drenched Tatsuo from head to foot. Tatsuo gave a bellow of fury and pain as the corrosive liquid dissolved his front; distracted, he lost his hold on Vegita, who sank to his knees gasping painfully.
Our heroes didn't hesitate to leave. Kuwabara scooped Vegita up under one arm and ran after the others as they stampeded down the street towards the jump point. A yowl of insane fury heralded disaster behind them as Tatsuo turned his destructive strength in a new direction. A howling whirlwind blew up around the fugitives, and the Land itself started to crumble around them. The skyscrapers came apart in chunks, dissolving before they hit the ground, and great cracks opened up in the road as Tatsuo's mad laughter roared around them on the wind. The violent air grew thick and heavy as treacle around them, sapping the strength from their limbs and forcing every movement into a slow-motion parody of itself. The dissolution of the road under their feet accelerated, however, great lumps of tarmac falling away into naked grey void. Kuwabara and Kurama weren't up to this; already weakened from the storm in Red Rains, their steps faltered badly, and the land gave way under them. They would have fallen forever into the nothingness that gaped hungrily below them if it hadn't been for Harlequin, Yuusuke, and Hiei, who caught their flailing arms and pulled them out of danger.
They were almost to the portal...
With a deadly crack, the last of the roadway disappeared, and everybody grabbed onto the Piper, whose long wings beat frantically to keep them airborne. Reaching out as far as he could, one finger brushed the ethereal membrane of the jump point-
A flash of lavender-blue light and a sensation of impossible speed later, they fell eight feet out of thin air to land with a thump in a place where the sky was green and the grass was blue. Piper struggled into a fighting crouch to see if anything was going to try to eat them, but nothing presented itself. "Take five, guys," he said breathlessly, "I think we're safe for the moment."
Everybody took the chance to pass out cold from exhaustion right then and there.
Kurama crawled out of sleep as though it were a deep, dark pit. He lay there for a few minutes with his eyes closed, savoring the feeling of not being chased by certain death. It was almost astonishingly pleasant. The sun was warm on his body and the air was fresh, sweetened with the aroma of crushed grass. Someone was snoring loudly nearby, almost drowning out the birdsong. Something tickled Kurama's nose, and he opened his eyes to meet the cold gaze of two grotesquely bulbous gold-green insect eyes. He nearly had a heart attack before he realized that a large butterfly had perched on his nose; nothing more. Sitting up and waving the brightly-colored insect off, he took a look around him. Yuusuke was curled up on his side nearby, out cold. Kuwabara was flat on his back under a tree, vibrating the branches with his snores and occasionally scratching his crotch. Kurama shook his head with a smile. What a messy sleeper. Harlequin was hanging by his knees from a branch, smearing pistachio ice cream all over his torso in his sleep. "Weird." Kurama muttered, and looked around for the other three members of their party. He couldn't see them, but the unmistakable buzz of Hiei's happy purring was clearly audible even above Kuwabara's noise. Kurama clambered to his feet, wincing as a sore spot on his back protested; he still hadn't quite healed completely from Red Rains. He set off among the trees, following the purring, and soon came to a clear spot where he found Piper coiled loosely, giving both Hiei and Vegita a backrub. Vegita's battered armor lay discarded off to one side, pitted with acid burns and spiderwebbed with cracks from the crushing force of Tatsuo's will. Vegita himself was flat on his front, looking as though he wanted to thump Piper one for his impertinence, but maybe later. After he'd finished. Yeah. Definitely.
Hiei, however, was shamelessly enjoying himself, purring up a storm as Piper's fingers expertly smoothed knotted muscles and realigned vertebrae with small popping noises. Kurama smiled affectionately at his firebaby and knelt down to scratch Hiei behind his ears. The moment that Kurama touched him, Hiei wrapped his arms lovingly around Kurama's waist, laid his head in his lap, and buzzed louder than ever. "Good morning, Kurama. How's your back?" Piper said softly so as not to disturb the others.
"A little sore, but otherwise fine. That healing ointment's good stuff." Kurama answered, running his fingers through Hiei's hair.
Piper nodded. "I'm thinking about giving the recipe to Yukina. I've a feeling that you kids will need it more than I will."
"Hmm."
There was a krink as Piper pressed down on Vegita's spine. The surly Saiyin gave a grunt and relaxed still further into the grass with a sigh of what sounded suspiciously like pleasure.
"What are you doing?" Kurama asked. "Aside from giving free backrubs."
"Noting similarities and differences." Piper replied. "I haven't seen two analogues this perfect since Cloning Constantly blew up."
"Where?"
"Another Shattered Land. The inhabitants of Cloning Constantly made their living by genetic manipulation and duplication; basically, they could clone anything and gene-tailor it to match a buyer's wishes. Their last and greatest project was a creature so powerful that it could destroy whole solar systems on a whim. Just as the clients showed up to pay for the beast, the poor stupid thing got a migraine and annihilated itself, its owners, and the entire Land."
"Ouch." Kurama said. "But why bother with comparisons? Hiei just looks a lot like Vegita, is all."
"I like to see the small details." Piper replied. "It's a bad habit that I picked up from Issola. I've found, however, that it makes it easier for me to figure someone out. See this," he said, tracing the lines of Hiei's and Vegita's shoulders, "Vegita is a bit coarser and heavier around the arms and upper back; his hands are less limber. Hiei, however, is a great deal more flexible- as I'm sure you've noticed."
Kurama went bright red in the face and concentrated on getting the tangles out of Hiei's hair.
"Hiei shares his graceful physique with martial artists, acrobats, and dancers; all smooth hard muscle. Bruisers like Veege here tend to bulk up and get beefy- they tend to make up for their lack of speed or agility in strength and firepower. Swordsmen also have greater concentration and discipline; I've only ever seen a true professional lose control once, and that was because she'd just fielded seventeen thousand volts of electricity." Piper ran firm fingers up Hiei's spine, making it crackle, and waved a cautionary finger in Kurama's face. "Beware the dancing kind, Kurama. Speed, grace, and control count for a great deal in a pitched battle."
The lecture was suddenly cut off by a scream, a crash, some more screaming and a flare of energy. Then Harlequin sailed over their clearing with his pants on fire, landing in the brush with a thump some ten yards distant. "What the hell was that?" Vegita snarled, hopping up into a fighting stance.
A storm of cursing tuned the air blue over where Yuusuke and Kuwabara were. The others stood up for a look, and saw Yuusuke inventing swearwords and rubbing some new bruises; Kuwabara was slumped against a tree, looking both charred and stunned. Harlequin, his fundament still smoking slightly, came out of the bushes scowling with annoyance. "What happened over there?" Kurama asked him.
'Quin made a face. "Some of my ice cream melted, splashing Kuwabara, so the big dip got up and rattled the tree. I lost my grip on the tree, fell on Yuusuke, who took offense in the worst way. My pants are never gonna be the same again. Does he always wake up like this? If so, tell Keiko to buy some fireproof nighties!"
Vegita gave a disgusted snort and tried to stand up straight, but stopped with a pained grunt halfway there. Piper eyed him speculatively and gave him a sharp jab that sent off a chain reaction of pops and snaps all up and down his backbone. With a look of bliss on his face, Vegita toppled over into the grass.
"That should hold him for a while," Harlequin observed with a laugh. "C'mon, let's go get Yuusuke calmed down."
"And maybe throw a bucket of water on Kuwabara. He looks like he needs it." Kurama said.
"And you should go sit in one, clown." Hiei said. "Burning buttocks smell funny."
Yuusuke was in an absolutely foul mood. Being woken up out of a sound and much-needed sleep by a falling ice-cream-smeared deity was not the way he preferred to start the day. Kuwabara was not in a good mood either; getting dripped on and then caught in the backblast of a poorly-aimed Rei Shotgun wasn't any more preferable a wakeup call. To say the least, they were both in a poopy state of mind. "Right," Yuusuke growled, flicking an inquisitive katydid off of his sleeve, "let's check the map and get out of here. No offense, Piper, but I'm getting really sick of the Shattered lands."
"Hear, hear!" The others chorused.
"All right, all right." Piper soothed, digging out his map. "Hiei, if you would go prod Vegita into motion again, I'll check our location."
Hiei ambled back into the clearing where they'd left the Saiyin, and found his analogue still flat in the grass. He nudged the recumbent doppleganger carefully with one foot. "Come on, Vegita, we're about to leave."
Vegita sat up with a frown and reached for his armor. "Will the next place be any better than the last two?"
Hiei shrugged. "I don't know. Either we'll come out in the Glen of the Damned or get chased by giant carnivorous pickles or something stupid like that."
Vegita stared at him a moment. "You're serious, aren't you? About the pickles, I mean."
"Welcome to the Shattered Lands, where things are done differently and more often. Now let's get going before they send Confetti-Breath the Wonder Goof after us."
Vegita gave a snort of laughter and eyed his battered armor sourly; scorched, cracked, and pitted with slagged pockmarks, it was nearly useless against a determined attacker. What the hell, he probably wouldn't need it anyway. He was tougher than any pickle, even giant carnivorous ones. So thinking, he followed Hiei back to where the rest of the group were, leaving it behind for the weeds to climb over.
There was something very wrong with Interspace. It had gone all pink and smelled of peanut butter. Something about it moved Harlequin to declare in rolling tones: "The Great Truth rings to the farthest stars; Heaven is paved with granola bars."
Yuusuke was unimpressed. "Go renew your poetic licence, 'Quin. I think that one has expired."
"Eat spam and mope, Ferret." Harlequin replied cheerfully.
Yuusuke would have answered this with a real zinger if they hadn't tumbled out into a drearily familiar Land at that point. Sere, grey, and heartbreakingly gloomy, the Glen of the Damned was strangely quiet; even the wailing breeze was absent. The corpse-trees were lifeless, totally unaware of their presence.
"We made it!" Kuwabara shouted in relief. "Woo-hoo! Let's find this Chimera guy and go home."
"Never thought this dump could look so good." Kurama agreed. "Give me the tracker, Piper, so I can find Kuronue."
Vegita, however, could not understand why they were so happy to be in a place that gave him the creeps. "Where the hell are we this time?! Don't tell me you wanted to come here."
"We're in the Glen of the Damned- one of the original Hells. This is what this whole misadventure has been all about, Veege." 'Quin informed him. "One of Kurama's oldest buddies got stashed here by one of their enemies a while ago. When Kurama found out that his friend was here, he bullied Piper into coming after him, despite the seasonal difficulties."
Vegita looked at him as though he had grown antlers. "That human forced that monster into doing this?!"
'Quin shrugged philosophically. "Kurama's not precisely human, and Piper's more easily bullied than he looks. Hey over there! You guys found that Chimera yet?"
Kurama and Piper looked up from the tracking device. "According to this thing, we're close." Piper called back. "We think he may be in the lake."
"Let's go, then." Yuusuke said, and they all started off towards that unappetizing body of water.
On their way, Hiei noticed something strange. "Where are the zombies? They should be swarming us by now, and not one of these tree-things has given a twitch since we arrived."