Not having visited for an extended time, Karl wasn't sure what he'd find at the Rangers Coffeehouse, it was the hub of the alternate reality that is the Fanfic Universe, after all. Would it be deserted? Crowded? A nonstop party? A quiet place where temporarily unemployed fanfic characters could keep up with events? It was all that, and more. He'd forgotten the size of the place, and the population of fanfic characters to occupy it. "I really should have asked Gertie about the place," he thought yet again. "She was here with Hawnurra and everybody else during the Platos." "Remember, you promised me a thimble of espresso?" Gadget nudged him in the back. Karl jumped slightly, for there she was, nearly his own height! She looked puzzled for a moment, then explained, "You didn't know? everybody entering the coffeehouse is sized to fit. It saves time." "But, have I been shrunk, or have you been enlarged?" He stammered, not knowing what to say. "What difference does it make? Unless you want to study the mechanism itself, which is fascinatingly simple but based on technology that I need my cheat-sheets to follow - besides, I promised not to tell. It's supposed to make the Coffeehouse more mysterious, or fun, or something like that... Now, about that espresso?" "Let's see if Dyglo wants to come in, he had a little problem with a size-changing spell a while back.. This could be interesting to watch." Anyone wishing to add to this story start is welcome to do so! Add a few lines, or a few paragraphs, and we'll see where it goes! Karl --------------------- "Hmm, doesn't look too big...either that or it's still far, far away..." Dyglo walked towards the Coffeehouse in eager anticipation of espresso, cappacino, and several other caffinated drinks that were awaiting him. He stopped about ten feet away from the door. "Okay, it still looks small. Hmm, I guess I'll see what's going on in the upper floors, I guess." The dragon started walking towards the building. Suddenly, the world got really big really fast! "AAAACCKKKK! I LIKE THIS DIMENSION! I DON'T WANNA GO TO ANOTHER ONE!" Dyglo curled up into a small ball, trying his hardest to stay in this dimension, which he was going to do anyway. "Idon'twannagoIdon'twannagoIdon'twannagoIdon'twannago!" he was chanting to himself. "Excuse me for a moment Karl. I guess someone's got to calm him down," Gadget remarked. "I know just the person too." Gadget entered the coffeehouse and came out with a squirrel who is recognized by people who attended the Plato awards. "Okay Emmy, here's the story... well... part of the story. Actually, it's sort of a summary of the part of the story. But would that be short enough? How about a-" Karl politely interrupted. "What she's trying to say is, there's a dragon out there who's had some traumatic shrinking experiences. I guess the shock of suddenly being reduced in size set it off. Do you think you could help out a little?" "Sure. You two go on in. I'll handle it. I'm also the Coffeehouse's resident psychiatrist." Karl and Gadget entered and headed for the refreshments. The squirrel walked over to where Dyglo was curled and struck up a conversation. "Welcome to the Coffeehouse. First timer, eh? You should've seen how Officer Kirby reacted on his first time here." Dyglo looked up at Emmy. "I don't wanna leave this dimension! I like it here! You can't make me go! I don't wanna!" "Nothing's going to happen. You get adjusted every time. I don't know why it took so long for it to adjust you though." "You mean, I'm not going to another dimension? Hooray!" Dyglo was back to his normal self again. he stood and stumbled back a bit. "Hey! I'm big again!" The dragon took a step forward. "Now I'm little!" He began hopping back and forth. "Big! Little! Big! Little! Big! little! Big! Li-oof!" Apparently Emmy had had enough of that. She tripped Dyglo and he went sprawling in the dust. Dyglo -------------------- "Well, my concept of modern psychiatry just took a trip into the twilight zone," Karl said quietly, "But Dyglo seems to be rational enough at the moment." "It seems to follow the ancient logic that works so often with highly complex and sophisticated but intermittantly malfunctioning equipment." Noted Gadget, "Rap it sharply in just the right place, and it starts working. I like to call it The selective use of excessive force." "I like it, the term has a certain poetry to it." "Thank you." "Don't mention it." "Too late." By this time, Dyglo had dusted himself off, and received a "look" from Emmy as he edged toward the resizing field. Looking slightly disappointed, the miniaturized dragon entered the Coffeehouse. Emmy followed, then passed them heading toward the back room office area. "I'll let them know we've got more new customers!" She called over her shoulder. She hurried back to her manager's office and passed the word. "Gadget's here! The real one, not one of those wannabe types! She's with a small-time fanfic writer and a dragon, at -" She looked at a monitor, "Table 17!" Karl ------------------- A young woman with long brown hair (who ISN'T Natasha ^_-) walks into the coffeehouse. She doesn't wield a sword, but instead... a book with a commanding title?..."You've Got to Read This," the book proclaims, and, if Julie wishes to pass her Creative Writing class, it's probably correct. "I've already read that stupid "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver," Julie moans. "Has anyone else read that? And did anyone BESIDES me think it was really not very good? The teachers all think it's brilliant..." She rolls her eyes. Gadget and Karl wander over, trying to be sympathetic. "Golly, what else are you reading?" the mouse asks. Julie thumbs through the book. "A Distant Episode" by Paul Bowles, "Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, a Dying Cat--" "Cat? Where?" Monty pops up from nowhere and looks back and forth nervously. "That's the title of a story she has to read," Dyglo replies. Monty glances at the dragon. "Oh. All right, then." Julie doesn't like being interrupted. Karl quickly urges her to continue, in the hopes that she won't bring out her Magic Sword (TM). Julie bites her lip. "...a Dying Cat, a Traded Car" by John Updike, and "The Man to Send Rain Clouds," by Leslie Marmon Silko. Has anyone even *heard* of these stories before?" Julie looks annoyed. "Of course I've heard of them!" Gadget replies, too quickly. "You just *told* us the titles, didn't you? But...uh...I have to go...work on some quantum mechanics right now, so I can't talk about them right now." She quickly runs off. Julie sighs. "Okay, fine..." She curls up in a chair. "Guess I'd better get to reading... unless someone else wants to distract me?" she finishes hopefully. She orders a bowl of Cheerios (mm, dinner) and gets to reading, mumbling something about no one posting during the weekends--what, do these people have LIVES or something?... ---------------------- Julie couldn't taste her Cheerios because she was being particulary distracted by a deconstructionist text that had Jimi Hendrix performing before the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. She couldn't understand a word of it, but then if it was understandable it wouldn't be so hot diggedy-dang PROFOUND! Would it? Oh, school's just started and already I feel overburdened! she was thinking, sometimes I wonder what I was asking for when I picked this major! And then, as young students are wont to do, whether they wont to or not,which they usually do, Julie began to dream and woolgather. Just as Jimi and the Emperor were about to emerge from the bureau drawer with all the neckties she fancied she heard the voice of one upon whom her heart was set. "Prepare for trouble!" That wasn't it. "Make it double!" That was it! Julie looked up slowly, wondering if maybe she wasn't hallucinating. It couldn't be . . . "To denounce the evils of truth and love!" That wasn't what she wanted to hear. "To extend our reach to the stars above!" THAT was what she wanted to hear! "Jessie!" "Ja--" Then their eyes met. Oh, now what have I done? Julie thought instantly, blushing like mad, he's LOOKING at me! Criminy! "James, will you PLEASE say your line?" Jessie said with some irritation. Then she saw. Uh-oh. What was this strange feeling surging through her? This inexplicable, indescribable emotion tugging at her heartstrings? Could it be . . . no, it couldn't! But might it not be . . . jealousy??? "James, snap out of it THIS INSTANT!" Jessie shouted, waving her hand before the ensorcelled, enraptured, zapped,enchanted, pixilated, prefabricated, and floxinapaucinahillipillificated stare of her poor, soul-enslaved partner. Little circles where spinning around his irises. Such as they were, anyway. Jessie followed her partner's gaze and saw the Enemy. The Heartbreaker. The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy. Zoe mu sasagapo. Or whatever. What if this total stranger, of whose existence they had both been completely ignorant just a moment before . . . what if. . . what if she were to STEAL James away from her? What if she turned him from his dedication to a life of Crime and E-vil and reformed him completely, making him Every Girl's Dream? No. I won't let it happen she thought. "Come . . . CLOSER" Julie commanded, beckoning to James with her hand. You'd think he were attached via a yo-yo string. He was there in an instant. "Dames." A shadowy figure in the corner returned the newspaper he was reading to in front of his face, where it shielded him completely. "Dey may be shy, but dey all gots dem Magical Female Powers(tm)!" "The Enduring Man-Child" ------------------------------- It was disgusting, Jessie thought. There were James, her partner in crime, and this . . . this . . . WOMAN acting out the "Thumper" scene from Bambi. You know the one. Where Thumper is in paradise, his head in in the lap of this si-reen who is stroking his hair. Or ears. However, James didn't have ears like that, so Julie was having to stroke his hair instead. His long, luxurious hair. Everyone in the Coffeehouse was in awe of what they were seeing. Even Gadget, the Supreme Mistress of Magical Female Powers(tm) wasn't so naive that she didn't understand what THIS was about. "So she's finally found someone," Gadget said softly, "I hope they're happy together. And that this improves Julie's temper somewhat." And with that she was back to work on her idea for a multidimensial necktie drawer, something that had always been in the back of her mind. She wondered where it had come from. Jessie didn't like this one bit. He's beyond reasoning with at this point she thought. How can I distract him? AHA!!! And an evil gleam came into her eye (she had another one, but the gleam was only in one) and she snapped two of her fingers. There was one sure way to win back someone! "James!" she threatened, "if you do not come to your senses this instant, I swan to you that *I* will find someone else as well! Do you hear me, James? If you do not break free of the spell that Terrible Woman is holding you under, I promise you that I will desert you for the FIRST male to walk in this door! Do you hear me James? I mean it!!!" "DUUUUH!" James managed to articulate, looking ecstatically up at Julie's beaming face. ************************************************* The Enduring Man-Child was making his way happily along the road to the Rescue Ranger Coffeehouse. So innocent! So simple! So trusting! So uncorrupted! (Well, he had been corrupted once before, during the short time between his getting cable and the cancellation of Duckman, but that all seemed like a bad dream now.) He skipped along with bare feet and missing teeth like a child from some long distant and long forgotten time, like The Crazy German Kid in Tom Sawyer who lost his mind memorizing Bible verses for Sunday School and was therefore exempted from all the responsibilities of life, and spent all his time skipping barefoot through the clover, the honeybees he stepped on stinging his feet to such an extent that they were the size of pumpkins. O, sweet Innocence! Who would not change places with this sweet and mysterious child! Who could know what was going through that brow, now completely sealed off from the world you and I must live in? Probably laughing at the rest of us for how he's living off our tax dollars, the welfare queen! But anyway, The Enduring Man-Child, like a Second Coming of this Child from an earlier era, was skipping along through the rustic countryside to the Rescue Ranger Coffeehouse. Neither did he know what had been happening up to this point. Poor sweet, innocent victim! "If you do not break free of the spell that Terrible Woman is holding you under, I promise you that I will desert you for the FIRST male to walk in this door! Do you hear me James? I mean it!!!" "LA-la LA-la LA-la LA-la!" the happy Man-Child sang as he approached the entrance to the Coffeehouse, and as fate would have it rollicked innocently through the front door at this very moment. "Eeuh!" Jessie exclaimed instinctively. "What were you saying?" James managed to say at last in answer to the once familiar voice. "You were going to do what?" "Let me think this over a little, okay???" she said after a moment's hesitation. Jessie looked at James in Julie's lap. Then she looked at The Enduring Man-Child. Then she looked at The Enduring Man-Child. Then at James. Then at Man-Child. James . . . Man-Child. James . . . Man-Child. James . . . Man-Child. James . . . Man-Child. Gad. Oh, what am I worried about? she decided at last, this poor guy will be so intimidated by my adorable beauty that he'll run like blazes, but I'll still make my point to James! Turning to the Man-Child she opened wide her feminine eyes and GAZED upon him. "Hi there, handsome!" she said, sinisterly, "you're mine!" Man-Child was totally, completely out of his element here. "Take me! I'm yours, Hon!" he said, and jumped into her arms, inadvertently crushing her quite flat. "Meowth! Get off of that human, Human!" said Meowth, who had just now entered, having become worried about the welfare of his two nincompoop companions. "Oooh! You have a kitty! Can I pet the kitty? Pleeease?" asked Man-Child. And he looked most irresistable. "Ugh! Get . . . OFF . . . me . . . you . . . ANVIL!!!" came the bewitching voice from beneath him. "Yoiks! NOW how are we gonna nab that Pikachu?" Meowth wondered quite logically. You . . . you guys know Pikachu?????" Man-Child exclaimed in delight, "he's so KEEN!!!" So that's how to get to him! thought Jessie, while she still had oxygen flowing to her brain. Then to Man-Child she said, with some difficulty, "as a matter of fact, I am quite good friends with Pikachu, and if you don't get off me this instant it will HURT PIKACHU VERY MUCH." "Hurt . . . Pikachu?" Man-Child asked, tears now flowing copiously from his guileless eyes. "Oh no! NO!!!!!!!!" and he got off Jessie at once. "Is that you or a fritter?" Meowth asked her sarcastically. "Cut the comments and get me up from here!" she commanded him loudly. With James out completely (thanks to Julie)and Man-Child in tears (thanks to Jessie) this took a while. "Thanks for NOTHING!" Jessie said to Man-Child when she finally re-entered third dimensional reality, "you wereSUPPOSED to make James jealous but he's still putty in the hands of that . . . that . . . VIXEN!!!" "WAAAAAH!!! Pikachu is SAD and IT'S ALL MY FAULT!!!" Man-Child said, continuing to bawl like nobody's business. "Hey! You leave him alone!" Jessie turned to face Julie who had temporarily dropped James (who was as yet unaware, his eyes still white and glowing). "He's a true-blue fan of your show, and you torment him in this way??? Why you, I'll . . . " and she unsheathed her Magic Sword(tm) from wherever she had been keeping it. It's a MAGIC sword, people. Work with me here! Seeing the sudden formidability (formidableness?) of Julie, who was now a veritable AMAZON OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, Jessie was in no spirit to fight. "Very well!" she said, "you've won for now! But Team Rocket CANNOT be broken up! You think you have James all to yourself, BUT WE WILL MEET AGAIN! I SWEAR IT! Come on, Meowth." "Wait!" Julie ordered, causing the two villains to freeze in their tracks. Then turning to Man-Child she said, "Man-Child,please listen very carefully. You DID NOT make Pikachu sad. Do you understand? Pikachu is ALL RIGHT. Jessie LIED to you. You don't have to cry any more. PLEEEASE listen to me!" Man-Child's bawls eventually reduced to sniffles and he looked up at Julie carefully, fearing that he had misheard her words. "Pikachu is NOT sad? And it wasn't my fault?" "Man-Child, Pikachu is very very HAPPY and is grateful to you. Understand? Pikachu is NOT mad at you. Pikachu LIKES you!" "Pikachu is HAPPY again? Pikachu LIKES me??!!!!!!!!!" And soon Man-Child was bouncing about the room in pure joy. "Foxglove, would you come here for a minute?" Julie called to the bat who, like everyone else in the room, had been watching these events entranced. Foxglove at once flew up to Julie. "Here. Take your number one fan over to the snack bar and take care of him, will you? And, oh! Man-Child, don't forget THIS!" and she abducted the unsuspecting Meowth from the floor and handed him to Man-Child. "MY kitty?" Man-Child asked, his eyes full of innocence. "Yes. YOUR kitty. And Meowth," she said to the hapless animal, "enjoy your new life. I'd have taken you myself but we're trying to keep Maggie single." "JUST YOU WAIT, YOU GOODY-TWO-SHOES!" Jessie said, shaking her fist in impotent rage as she left the building, "you may have won THIS round, but it's only Round One! My boss is actually David Rockefeller, the Secret Ruler of the World, and just you wait till I tell him and he gets all his FREEMASON and BANKER buddies over here! We'll show YOU! We'll show the Rescue Rangers! WE'LL SHOW ALL OF YOU!!!" And shrieking this horrible threat she was gone. Julie got to turn her attention once more to James, while Foxglove tugged on Man-Child's sleeve and said, "C'mon Man-Child, come sit over here with J.A.M. ane me. It'll be all right." "Ooooh, you pretty kitty!" Man-Child said to the hapless Meowth. "Just wait till you meet your three stepbrothers who, judging by their previous behavior, will welcome you to the family by making you the object of some of their more unnatural predilections (not that I know what that means or anything), at least until they get used to you. Now PURR!!!" And he bonked him on the noggin several times, in what he thought was "petting" his new friend. Meowth thought it better described as "assault and battery," however. "Euh, I SAY!" It was Major-General Hannafield of the Royal Welch Lavaliers, who was making his predictable Sunday morning appearance at the Coffeehouse door. "I was just passing by and thought perhaps your establishment might be a good place to purchase a new mouth. Have you any in stock?" "Nah. We're fresh out," said Dale, who had finally emerged from the bathroom, "try the mouth machine down the block!" "Euh well, dash it all, cheerio, pip-pip and all that sort of rot!" said the Major-General who, tipping his pith helmet gallantly, disappeared at once. "Anybody seen my collapsable jigsaw I bought at Loewe's" the Palomino asked. No one had. "The Enduring Man-Child" -----------------------------