The dimension called Aon- outside of our current measurements of time. The main kitchen of a troop of an army- or rather a troop of THE army on the planet Magnamud.

They'd be there all day! The young lady was NOT pleased. The higher-ups usually left the 'citizens' to go about their business, aside from the near-constant "monitoring" (was that the word they used for spying nowadays?) to prevent insurrection, and the random jobs they were given every so often (which ranged from squire to moving target practice, both in rank and length of duty). But there were worse tasks for a slave though. Better to be in the kitchen and forced to service the army, than it was to be in the barracks and forced to service the army. Apparently, she wasn't attractive enough for that. Which was great, in an insulting sort of way.

 After being roughly escorted to the gloomy hallways- "Keep walkin' b*tch! Or I'll kill ya!" being the guard's exact words- Ro was shoved into the kitchen.

Upon 'entering,' she saw an old, old woman in the room as well. Apparently aged somewhere in her later forties (you'd be surprised how much a planet's average life expectancy drops when said planet is attacked and the surviving citizens are enslaved).

"Now get cookin' b*tch! Or I'll kill ya!" the soldier drolly added, shaking his fist for emphasis. Which made him resemble nothing so much as a large, armed child. "Oh, and wash your hands b*tch! Or I'll kill ya!!" he said, sitting down on a chair by the door and yawning.,

"Hello." the old woman greeted, more or less ignoring the guard, as she began stirring a large, metal pot, with the scent of beef- or at least something that smelled like it- wafting from it and around the room.

"Uh, hi. Listen, you seem to be a regular here, so I'll just step out of your way and..."

Before Ro could finish her sentence, the old woman's smile interrupted her. The old woman grinned and said

"Heh heh. I love it when the cute ones think they're smart."

Offended, but slightly amused, the young woman asked what she could do to help out. But her respite of amusement proved to be brief. Tired. She was just so tired. Tired of being spied on. Tired of being looked down on. And tired of just being a slave. But what could she do about it? It was the nature of things...

"Wondering why, are you?"

"Huh?"

"Your thoughts might be private, but your sighs are quite loud. And I meant, that you're wondering why we are what we are. And why we're ruled by these foreigners." the old woman intoned, pointing to a slab of meat for the girl cut up with a nearby knife. Ro then rolled her eyes skyward as she walked over to the large slab of stinky pinkish-green meat and began hacking at it.

"Oh, please. Don't tell me you believe that 'there was a time when we weren't slaves and the skies weren't always brown, and blah blah blah' nonsense like my grandfather did."

"Us old people know a lot more than you might think." the old woman informed, now stirring the large metal pot counterclockwise.

"Yeah," Ro responded, continuing to slowly hack away at the large, boneless mass of...stuff, "but you also have bladder control problems short memories and go bald, so I'll just believe what I see, thanks." Ro quietly let out another defeated sigh.

Hm. It seems their robbing us of our history is almost complete then. What a shame... Girl...let me tell you a story..."
 

It was the battle of his life. It was him, against that big, hairy son of a b*tch. David vs Goliath, all over again. For pride. For glory. For honor. And for his bottle of saké!!

Maru the squirrel dashed at his foe, Brand, the large gray and white wolf, launching himself at his opponent, and effectively knocking the bottle of saké out of his mouth. Maru then quickly scurried away, carrying the small bottle of alcohol between his teeth with relative ease. Brand had taken it a few minutes earlier, and then given Maru a look that said something like "If you want it bad enough to come after it, then go ahead."

Which was actually about the same look Iwa gave the copilot, when he came back from the cockpit area to tell her that the Brand and Maru needed to be on a separate section of the Chinook.

"Go ahead and try," she said, waving her hand in the animals' direction, "but don't blame me if you lose a foot or an eyeball or something." she said, squinting one eye to add emphasis.

A few feet away, Cody, Guy, and Crimson were all sitting together.

"Hey Guy," Cody began, "You wanna hear a joke?"

"No."

"Good. So this duck walks into a pharmacy, and he goes up to the counter and says 'got any grapes?' and the pharmacist guy is all like 'uh...no. This is a pharmacy, we don't have grapes.' So the duck waddles out of the pharmacy, but he comes back the next day. And he walks up to the counter again, and he says, 'got any grapes?' And the pharacist says 'No. I told you yesterday. This is a pharmacy, we sell drugs here. Now do you need something or not?' The duck walks away and leaves the pharmacy."

"Does this joke have a punchline?"

"Just a minute. OK, so the duck comes back the next day, and he walks up to the counter. And he asks, 'got any grapes?' and the pharmacy guy snaps, he's all like 'God damn it! No God damn it, we don't have no God damn grapes!! And if you come in here again and ask me, I'll nail your God damn feet to the floor God damn it!!!' So... the duck comes back the next day. And he walks up to the counter. And he says 'got any...nails?' And the pharmacy guy is all like 'No....why?' and the duck says 'Cause....got any grapes?'"

At this point, Cody began a long fit of laughter, and Guy just blinked, his facial expression not changing at all. Crimson laughed, but really for no other reason than how unaumusing the jokes must have seemed to Guy. That and the swearing.

As all the fighters on the aircraft either listened to music or chatted amongst themselves, or in Inspector Volpe's case, looked around for women to flirt with, Kumori was in the back of the aircraft sleeping. Which was funny, because she was actually unconsciously levitating a foot or so above the floor as she slept. More interesting though, was the dream that she had...

Yip Wai Lim and Christa Smith traipsed through the forest where Wai Lim had mad his temporary home.

"How much longer to the airport?" asked Christa, swatting a fly away from her face.

"Don't know. Maybe 3 hours if we keep this pace," Wai Lim causally answered, quickly punching the fly and knocking out of the air. A dew seconds later, a loud clap was heard from the sky. Christa and Wai Lim both looked upward, only to be greeted by the sight of dark, ominous clouds.

"Great."

But then, a different noise was heard. A slight humming, like the sound of some running engine. A form began to appear in front of them from over the tops of the trees, as it descended from the clouds above. And ask the clouds, and the sky itself darkened, and a bolt of lightning jumped from one cloud to another, illuminating the sky for a brief moment, the identity of the object was revealed.

The brief moment when lightning sparked, was enough for the two- Wai Lim and Christa- to see what the ominous object was. It was an airship. And it was big. Intimidating too. And the only thing that informed the two that it wasn't the flagship of some powerful army- or perhaps it informed them of the exact opposite- was the crest located under the nose of the massive shuttle: a metal skull wearing a sinister grimace upon it's 'face,' and wings sprouting from it's sides.

 "What happened then?" the girl asked, genuinely intrigued by the old woman's story, whether it was true or not.

"He threw away the sword."

For nearly an hour now, the old woman had relayed her story to the younger woman. Telling her about how the planet was fairly peaceful once, and how people weren't randomly used for target practice. Telling her about how the invaders came through giant rifts, arriving right in front of the capitals of the most powerful countries. How they immediately began killing when people refused to surrender. About how the armies of one called Naar quickly crushed any that stood against his will, and even those that didn't. About how anyone older than seven or eight years old was killed on sight, so that no competent resistance movement could b organized. And the old woman told her about how she, at six years old, saw the last resistance movement fall, as the hero Lone Wolf and his men were surrounded by an Army of Night. That, however, was where Ro started getting a bit confused.

"What? He did what? Why?!"

The old woman tossed some purple, slimy, sluggish, amphibious creature into the large metal [pot, while continuing to stir it. The creature screeched loudly as it was boiled alive.

"Sorry little fella. Just doin' my job." she said apologetically. "Oh, your question? Ah, yes. He tossed Sommerswerd, the only weapon on the planet that could defeat Naar's chosen, into one of them Shadow Gate things." she spoke, as she unceremoniously whacked the little dying creature over the head with a large spoon to stop it's squealing.

"But that doesn't make sense..." Ro protested, poking at the slab of carcass she had been cutting- it hand changed color to range, and she could sworn she had just seen it move. "...why didn't he jump through too?" The elderly woman shrugged.

"I guess he felt he would be able to serve his purpose better if he was seen as a martyr and not a coward. And, had anyone else who'd sseen what had happened gotten away to tell about it, instead of being killed by the troops as they were, it might have worked."

"So...where did the sword end up? And was that was really the last resistance movent?" the young girl questioned, a hint of pride in her voice. It was good to know her people had fought for their freedom once, regardless of success. And regardless of how complacent they were in the present.

"The sword? Could be anywhere. Maybe Dazarian.... Anyhow, there are rumors of some small groups to the far, far south who've found out who they truley are, but Lone Wolf's was the last movement with a shot at changing anything."

Ro continued to work silenltly for a few minutes, until another question found it's way into her mind, and she asked:

"Dazarian? Where's that?"
"Oooh...well that's a whole different story. But what the heck, we've got time..."

Kumori sniffled a bit and felt her eyes begin to water, as the dramatic scene played out in front of her.

"This movie is so sad! Who'd have thought the ship would start to sink? I mean, I've seen this movie like twenty times, but...*sniff*...every time, it's just..." Kumori wiped a tear from her eye, as her date- and favorite movie star- put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her. She looked over at Fei Long and smiled. Fei Long then quickly removed his arms from Kumori's shoulders, and in one smooth, swift motion, he ripped off his shirt, exposing his well-muscled chest. Kumori's eyes widened in shock for a moment.

"Why...why did you do that?"

Fei Long shrugged. "I dunno, it's your dream."

"Wha...oh...OOHH!" Realization hit Kumori as she looked around the movie theater, seeing that she and her date were the only ones there. "Hehehe..." being her exact words, as she wore a twisted smile on her face.

 "Kumori..." a low whisper came from the the back of the theater. Kumori removed her head from Fei Long's chest, and loosened the vice-like grip in which she had his waist, and, a little miffed to be honest, looked behind her.

"Hello?"

...There was no answer. Kumori shrugged and turned back to Fei Long, only yo see taht he was gone. Now she was standing in a grassy feild, with the sun beating down on her.

Masking her shock and fear with genuine anger, Kumori looked around for any sign of the person who disrupted her from her date. "Hello? Hello-oooo?" With the carefree smirk she had been wearing a minute ago now replaced by a confused frown, she kept looking around. She was actually a bit startled when she the same whisper as before...

 "Look up."

Kumori instinctively casted her eyes skyward. Black. The sky was pitch black now. She suddenly felt herself falling...falling...

"Curiouser,and curiouser..."

"Ouch!!" Kumori landed on her butt, in what was apparently a dark, creepy forest. The full moon that hung ominously in the dark sky wasn't quite bright enought to light a way into or out of the forest. It just provide enough light to let her see that her surroundings were dark and creepy. And as a white rabbit skipped along by her, she heard the sound of someone clearing their throat. She looked up, and quickly jumped back a meter, as her eyes met up with another pair. Had they been normal eyes of course, Kumori would have stared into them, and searched for weaknesses and secrets. But she couldn't quite concentrate on these eyes quite long enough to do that.
 

 Maybe if they weren't glowing and chaging color...and the fact that she couldn't see anything but his eyes and a grin didn't help anything either. Sorta reminded her of that Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland though.

"Hello Kumori."

"..." Kumori was now in her fighting stance, with her left arm drawn to her body for protection, and her right free to attack.

"Oh! Yeah, the whole dream thing. Allow me to explain a little...as you've probably guessed by now, I'm not part of your dream. I'm actually at the tournament area, physically speaking. Hm... this'll be a lot easier if you know some of what's going on. You know about the whole Nine Essences thing?"

"..."
"..."
"......some."
The thing with the glowing eyes grinned. "Good. Then I won't have to go over the whole story..."

A large spotlight shined down on both Christa and Wai Lim. After a few seconds though, the light was turned off, and as Yip and Smith's visions returned, they saw that they were no longer alone.

"Who are you?" asked Christa, not bothering at all to hide the hostility in her voice as she immediately switched into a fighting stance and stepped in front of Wai Lim.

"The man who's flying you to the tournament. Now get in." Bison said, not moving at all from his cross-armed stance a few feet in front of them.

"How would you like a punch in the face, jackass?" Christa replied, tensing up her muscles a bit. Bison didn't move an inch, or even blink. Completely ignoring Christa, Bison directed his full gaze at Wai Lim.

"Boy. Let us say, that if someone were chasing you through these woods, and they had been keeping a faster pace than you..." Bison grinned a sinister smile. "..Well...let us just say that walking six miles to an airport woulnd't be the smartest thing you could do. And, if one of you was delayed by that 'someone,' the other of you would be delayed and miss their flight, and the tournament. Meaninf she would have to be killed by Akuma later instead of sooner, assuming she could ever find him again." Christa began to protest, but Bison resumed speaking before she could get her first word out. His grin suddenly disappeared.

"Believe this, if nothing else. I don't usually repeat myself, but I wish to make this much perfectly clear: To make it so that your flight leaves early and that Man Sei is picked up and dropped two inches in front of your faces would take me exactly two telephone calls. And I WILL do it if you don't get on that ship.. So stop fooling yourselves with the illusion that you hold some sort of power here."

With those words, Bison dematerialized right in front of Wai Lim and Christa. Now that he had teleported away though, they could see that Bison's airship was now landed, much to the dismay of the trees it had killed in doing so. Christa and Wai Lim looked at each other, shortly before he started walking towards Bison's ship. They both knew Bison was only acting in his own best interest, and this just made things more convinent for him, but they didn't have much choice.

'Running, again. This has got to stop sometime...' Wai Lim continued to think, as he borded.

"So...you're here to protect us?" Kumori asked the pair or eyes, who actually didn't seem like a bad person- if he WAS a person- after she'd talked with him for a while.
"Well...not exactly. You know that whole 'blah blah blah' about you guys felt drawn here by something? That's me." the thing revealed, his grin growing in pride.

"So we would've ended up here even if Mr. Volpe didn't pick us up?"
"Yeah...well...most of you. What's-her-name would've gotten killed by...um...that guy. You know who I mean...big Asian guy...bad hair...I believe he exploded...?"
"Man Sei?"

"Yeah, yeah. That sounds about right. Anyway, it's my job to make sure you get to the tournament alive, and in as few peices as possible. After that, you're no longer my responsibilty. I've all ready sent out the beacon, and just about all of you are on your way, so my job is pretty much done all ready."

"Oh...well you're not doing a very good job! That girl could've gotten killed back there!"
"No, she couldn't have. Trust me."
"..."
"..."
"...Okay. You're lucky you caught me in a good mood..."

Bison's men quickly kicked Wai Lim and Christa out of the door of the airship. Luckily, it was only a ten foot drop, and both of them managed to land on their feet.

"The master said you should be walk to the tournament from here." the man shouted down to them, a superior smirk on his face. After Christa showed a rude gesture or two (of four) in rapid succession, the door was closed. Wai Lim and Christa then looked around, and found themselves in what appeared to be a crowded marketplace, full of stunned on lookers...

Victoria Enid slowly moved her knives a few inches away form Zero 1's throat.

"So that's the story, huh? Well I believe some of it, but about the..." Zero 1's fist quickly and sharply impacted with Victoria's temple, knocking her unconcious. He had figured with Victoria's knives drawn back a few precious inches away from his neck, attacking her in the fraction of a second when she had let her guard down, that he might have been able to pull it off without getting himself killed. And it worked. And now, that he had narrowly averted death, pulled his car up to the airport, and had subdued his 'kidnapper,' he looked over at the young woman as he summarized the sum total of all that he was feeling.

"Crazy b*tch..."

"So how'd you get this whole big responsibilty then? Watching over a bunch of people you don't even know? Seems kinda odd..."

Kumori couldn't really see his shoulders, seeing as how if anything other than his eyes and his occasional grin existed, it was concealed by the darkness of their surroundings. But she knew his was shrugging.

"Nah. A little while after all the psychic powers kicked in, I just sorta knew. Not gonna be easy though... you guys... I mean, you're not the best incarnates the nine have ever had..."
"Meaning what?" Kumori interrogated, putting her hands on her hips in a manor in which she was not accustomed to doing. (it's not every day that some stranger tells you that you and your friends suck)

The thing with the glowing eyes backed up a few inches as Kumori approached a few. "What I mean is... Well, first off, you guys usually meet up much more smoothly. The nine of y'all meet up about every 500 years...just as differnt people. But this time...I mean..."

"Mean what?"

"Yeesh. Moody. Anyway, I mean only five of you are on this helicopter-thing, whatever the h*ll it is, and it's a good bet that at least seven or eight of you don't know a thing about what's really going on. Plus you couldn't tell when I was in your own mind... Not to mention the fact that none of you who know about the essences even knows which of the nine you are..."

"No, no, no. Wait a minute. What do you mean every five hundred years? You mean we're all immortal or something?" The thing with the glowing eyes burst out into a fit of laughter. Kumori, of course, took this to mean 'no.'

"Heh heh...immortal! Hahahahahhahehehha....whooh. That was a good one. The essences, I guess, if you wanted to put a label on it, would be immortal. But they're not really living things you see...well they sorta are, but... Anyway, if one of you dies, another person somwhere takes your place. The humans chosen are only with the Nine Universal Essences for nine years. The clock started ticking on the 9th of September, this year. If the nine don't find each other within that time...well, that's never happened before."

"How old are you?"
"...what?"
"You said they...we meet every 500 years, correct? But how would you know about the previous meetings unless you were...?"

"Heh heh. Very good. But no, I'm not old. I just remember stuff that never happened to me."
"I see..."
"Well, I gotta go. It's been almost forty-five seconds I've been here."
"...45 seconds? But..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know" The thing with the glowing eyes said, with what Kumori imagined was him waving his hand in dismissal. "It's a whole big Temporal lobe, R.E.M. sleep thing. Well, one of you guys just got knocked out, so I gotta go. I'll be around the tournament area if you need me. Don't find me, I'll find you. Hope you and the other 8 don't die or anything...because that would sort of reflect badly on me... You know about the corrupter, right?"

"Well gee, thanks! Hehe...wait...the what?"
"...you DON'T know about the corrupter?"
"...nope. Is it important?"
"Yes!! I thought you said you knew about the nine essences!?
"Well I do know! ...some of it."

The thing with the glowing eyes let out a loud sigh.

"Okay okay...to put it simply quickly something will try to turn some of you guys evil so you all kill each other, and/or take control of you. Not always a person, not always human, not even always around. Gets stronger as the nine of you get closer together. Needs pure evil to trigger it's full power. But beware, and stuff. Ask Iwa. Might have been in that book she read."

"...Okay, bye! Oh, wait!, wait! I don't know your name!"
"...TS"
"Tee-ess?"
"Naw, naw, the letters, T-S."
"Oh. Okay. Nice to meet you TS. But stay out of my dreams! I could have been...I don't know, in the shower or something."

"Heh heh. Nice to meet you too." TS, or his eyes at least, began to dissapear along with the dark forest, which didn't seem quite so creepy anymore.
"I leave you...with a gift..." As the forest vanished, Kumori found herself in a room full of fuzzy little kittens and puppies.

Man Sei was too angry to speak. The stench of the Yip was everywhere. As he stood in front of Bison, he attempted to quell his rage by relaxing his muscles and jaw, and slow his brething to an even pace. He then tried to speak as calmly as possible. It didn't work.

"YOU DID WHAT?!!?!" he screamed very loudly, clenching his fists so tightly that he drew blood. Bison had given assistance to his most hated enemy, and the enemy of his entire family. Worse tet, he had let the hated one slip by him. Bison had brought that inferior wretch and his whore aboard when Man Sei was at the other end of the ship, training for his inevitable fight with the Yip. This sort of blatant disrespect would NOT be tolerated, and this matter would be cleared up NOW.

Bison 'stood' in front of Man Sei, hovering a foot or so above the floor of the V.T.O.L. aircraft. He was not moving an inch. He was not smiling. And he was NOT impressed by Man Sei's anger, or his gall.

"I need not explain myself, to you, nor anyone else. Ever. But I will, this one time. I have them a ride because it is more convienient for me to have him at the tournament area now, than to have him get there later. Now leave my presence before you get yourself killed." Bison turned around with his back to Man Sei, and began exiting the room.

That was the last straw. Man Sei silently crept up behind Bison, as his hand errupted in a flame of purple energy, which quickly formed itself into the shape of a blade. Man Sei then quickly ran up behind Bison, leapt into the air, and cut him clean in half, watching Bison's lower half drop to the ground, and his upper half float for a moment or two before doing the same.

Or at least that's what he figured would happen. But Bison was nowhere to be seen, and his Natural Selector move had connected with empty space. Man Sei looked around. Nothing. Nobody esle was there...

"PSYCHO CRUSHER!!!!!!"

 Out of nowhere, Bison flew through the air surrounded by a blue fire, plowing into Man Sei, setting him ablaze and knocking him into a wall. Before Man Sei could get up, Bison lifted him up, by his chest. With his glowing hand only a few inches above Man Sei's heart, Bison coldly glared into the younger man's eyes.

"Tell me, boy...why is it that you wish to die?"

Man Sei spit in Bison's face, covering half of it with his blood in the process. Bison grinned. He then efortlessly tossed Man Sei across the room.

Man Sei recovered in mid-air, instantly chanelling his remaining energy to produce a hailstorm of fireballs, turning the metal floor of the room red with heat. THE FLOOR.

Bison's feet sharply impacted with the Ma boy's head, dizzying him, and guiding him to the ground. He didn't get up this time.

Juli and Juni began entering the room as Bison was leaving it. "Take him to the infirmiry. I still have plans for him." he said, wiping Man Sei's blood from his face with a disgusted look.

The two girls grabbed Man Sei and began carrying his limp body to the medical area of the ship.