Space. Endless, bottomless, topless (and everything else- less), it goes on forever. No one can hear you scream. And no one can bitch about really loud parties there, either.

And on the great ship, The Crimson Shadow, such a party was in full swing. Being about half the size of a normal Jurai battle ship, it was pretty big. But the amount of people/beings/creatures/other things we don’t really want to know about (and because this author can’t think of any more) thought that it was the only thing that mattered in the universe. All of the alcohol and other mind-altering, uhh, sorry, mind-expanding substances might have had something to do with it, but you never know for sure.

An Earth musician was playing over the ship’s speakers, someone by the name of “Eminem,” or something like that. The main cargo bay had been transformed into a dance floor, and there was about seven or eight bars serving in full force. Everything usually went nicely until someone had too much fun, and things were dispersed quickly. Earlier in the week, though, Red had installed subsonic adrenaline dampener’s in the ships speakers, so things couldn’t escalate to that level anymore. He couldn’t have his ship trashed every time he threw a party, could he?

The being known large and wide (at least in his part of the universe) as The Red Writer walked down the hall towards where all the action was. Stepping out of the door, a grin appeared on his face. There were people/beings/creatures/other things, etc. everywhere. Hanging from the roof, crawling up the walls, floating in the air, mingling on the ground. Being well over 6 feet in height, as well as being the color red from head to foot, he totally fit in. As he made his way through the ground crowd toward the bar, though, he felt a strange sensation, like the hair on the back of his neck was standing straight up. In the middle of the crowd, he stopped and concentrated his senses of hearing, sight, and smell to about hundred times the norm, doing a total room search in about a minute. * Nothing? * he thought. *I haven’t drunk anything yet, I guess maybe I need to. *

Pushing his way through to the bar (Finally!), he spied a young looking boy, maybe in his teens, walking away with a drink in his hand. Alarmed, TheRedWriter quickly strode over to the youth and seized the hand with the drink in it. Looking right into the boy’s eye’s, Red asked, very slowly, “What are you drinking, kid?”

Frightened and confused, the kid answered, “Water, sir.”

Looking for all the world like he was extremely angry, Red Walked back over to the bar, grabbed a bottle of some hard looking liquor, and strode back to the youth. “Now what I want to know now is, why aren’t you drinking THIS?” The Red Writer walked handed the bottle to the kid with a wide grin, knowing that the kid would probably experience a near-death hang over. but HEY! What the hell. The boy dropped his cup of water and in the same instant grabbed the bottle out of Red’s outstretched hand. Without so much as a “Thank you,” the kid disappeared into the crowd.

Turning back to the bar, Red saw the bar tender (a new one he had hired because he had 6 hands), gapping, staring, and pointing at something behind him. Not in the mood for a practical joke, Red ignored it. “Give me something really hard, like Romulan Ale,” said The Red Writer. The bar tender, caught in his own joke, sighed and pulled out a bottle of blue liquid that gave off a slight glow through the glass.

Pulling out a glass, Red poured himself a glass. After taking a long drink, he turned slightly to scope out the crowd *There’s some new face’s here tonight* he noted. There was 2 layers of the party going on, the top and the bottom. Both were extremely accessible to both layers. The top layer had beings who, pretty much, just wanted to chill, or get wasted. The bottom layer, well, thats where the mosh pit was going on at, if that tells you anything. Another earth band named KoRn was playing some song called “A.d.i.d.a.s.” Red didn’t know exactly what it was about, but it was loud, aggressive, and sounded cool. He turned around, with some the idea of serious drinking in mind.

Rasing the glass to his mouth for a second time, he heard a scream from behind him, causing him to drop his glass. It shattered on the floor, and the pieces were automatically cleaned up by micro cleansers. “Damnit! I thought that the Dampeners would take care of this kind of stuff!” He said as he turned around, forming a glowing maroon energy sword in each hand. But what he saw when he turned around caused his jaw to drop.

There was a huge black hole in the middle of his cargo bay.

If there ever was a time when you could hear a scream in space, it would be now. A stampede was rapidly forming on both layers of the party, and ships were leaving left and right. If ever there was a crapy party at Red’s, this would be it. Within seconds, the place was clear, and only Red was left.

“&*^* &^ $%#%&*& ^%!!!!!” Screamed The Red Writer, “There’s a *&^%^ing black hole in my ship!!” He immediately started to fly to his control room, to see if he could flush it out in hyper space, but then the most peculiar thing happened. The black hole wasn’t sucking up anything, it wasn’t getting bigger, it wasn’t even that large, but what it did scared Red more then anything. It headed right for him, at sub light speeds.

Before Red could even say the word “$%^*,” it enveloped him whole.

The world swam before Red, and it looked like he was being pulled down a tunnel of shifting lights, sounds, and textures. He was going so fast that he felt like he was being pulled apart by four Juraian warships. Summoning the power of the Crimson Dimension, he fought back with all of his strength, trying to reverse his momentum, but it was no use. It was like a moth in a hurricane, and he was the moth. The tunnel was going to take him to where ever it wanted, where ever that was...

In a galaxy far, far away...

Gohan Jr. lay on his back in a field. It wasn’t that he liked to lay on his back in the middle of a field, oh no, it wasn’t that at all. It was that he couldn’t really move. Why, you may ask? Because every time he moved, he felt pain. ( The author would just like to take the time to say, “Pain sucks.” Thank you.) Not just the usual wussy pain, like “Oww! Mommy I cut my finger!”, or, “@#$%!!! I stubbed my toe!”, but more like “OH MY GOD! I FEEL LIKE EVERY BONE IN MY BODY IS BROKEN!!!!! AHHHH!!!!!” Yes, it was more like that.

A green figure appeared next to him chuckling under his breath. (Actually, he just ran to him, but he was moving so fast that you couldn’t see it, so as far as you know, he teleported.) Extending a hand to a still not moving Gohan Jr., the Namek known as Piccolo sighed and rolled his eyes. “Get up, you big baby.” He said darkly. “Your father never acted this much like a sniveling little girl, even on his worst days, and I think your much better then he ever was.” When Gohan didn’t move to accept the offered hand, Piccolo walked away, shaking his head. Gohan could hear him in the distance, saying “I’ve been training him for 14 years, you would think that he wouldn’t need training anymore. At least not from me. I’ve taught him everything.” Gohan Jr. just groaned and kept still, trying to muster up the strength to move.

Finally gaining the energy to move a bit, he sat up. Gohan, seeing a black spot in his vision, blinked and rubbed his eyes. But the spot was still there, floating in the air. Suddenly, it sped towards him at incredible speeds, so fast that only his Grandfather Goku would be able to outrun it. In a heart beat, it enveloped him, and disappeared

*Dad never said that being a Saran would envelope anything like this! * Thought Gohan Jr. as he was pulled through a tunnel of ever changing sounds, lights, and shapes. And he was moving extremely fast, faster then anything he had ever dreamed of. Streching his arms and legs, he noticed, *HEY! I don’t hurt anymore! Maybe this isn’t so bad after all!” With that, resigning himself to whatever fate dealed out to him, he relaxed and enjoyed the ride.

In yet another galaxy, farther away then the last one, and much less populated...

Duo Maxwell sat in the Gundam DeathScythe, alone and floating in space, with only one thought on his mind.

Everything was gone.

He couldn’t believe it. Him, Trowa, and Quatre had destroyed White Fang and all of it’s leaders, including that bastard Zechs, but not before they had set off their ultimate weapon, causing a supernova and wiping out all of earth, all of the Gundam Pilots, and in a freak chain reaction, the colonies. Everything was gone, everything except him, that is. Somehow, for some reason, they had missed him, the explosion had missed him. And he wished to God that it hadn’t.

Duo’s head drooped, and he clenched his fists in rage and frustration. All of the work to save the colonies, all of the work to save earth, and for what? What was it for, what did it matter now? It was all gone, all his friends, all his loved ones. All the people they were supposed to protect, and ultimately failed, when it came down to the wire. No more joking with Heero Yuy, no more fighting for what’s right, for the cause of the people. No more colonies, no more Earth. Nothing but ash and dust. All of it, gone. All of it but him, alone in his misery. “God Damnit all, why me?!” Tears ran freely down his face, and he punched at the controls, which did no good save to hurt his own hand, “@#$%!!!” he said, and the pain cleared through the storm that made up his thoughts.

“Get a grip, man. You’ve got to do something. You cant just float here forever. Maybe someone else survived.” Then, contemplating it, he concluded, “No, nothing could have survived that. I shouldn’t even be here right now.” Taking a deep breath and clearing his face, he laughed, a strained, forced laugh. “Come on, Duo. Your so messed up by this that your talking to your self. Snap out of it. You can always hope. I mean, if I’m alive, there might be someone else out there with as much luck as me. Then I won’t be the la-,” He choked off the rest of the word, not able to finish the grisly and unthinkable suggestion.

Breathing deeply and evenly, he set course for the outer colonies, those being the only ones who would have survived, if did any. He set his scanners to operate on maximum power and range, searching for any signs of life, even the most minuscule. He sat back and closed his eyes, but he didn’t think that he would be able to relax. Maybe he never would again. He just didn’t care anymore.

Amazingly, sleep did come to Duo. As he opened his eye’s, he noticed that one of the scanners was going off, the time/space temporal anomaly scanner. It was beeping like crazy, and was going faster by the second. Turning if off, he looked at what it was he had detected. Looking over the information, he shook his head in bafflement. It looked like some kind of worm hole, but a type he had never seen or heard of. And it was coming right towards him, at sub- light speeds and rising.

Duo Maxwell weighed all of the options in his head, looked all around him, and laughed. *Well, what use do I have here? Do I stay and play protector to a dead galaxy? There’s no way I’ll make it anywhere with this much fuel, and I would have to know where someplace was that actually had fuel, food, or anything else. Basically, I’m siting in space in a high-tech tin can, waiting to die. Hmm, hard decision to make. *

Using his forward boosters, he angled the DeathScythe towards the black hole, and beyond, to see where fate would take him.

In The AFC Kingdom...

Jaf just did not believe how bad his luck had been. First, some lunatic tries to destroy the AFC kingdom by infecting the Royal tree, Ryu-oh, and now some Pokemon wannabe named Spankachu, or SPANKACHU! as he preferred to call himself, appears out of another authors Lemony infested mind and is assaulting the AFC kingdom trying to get to Princess Sasami. For what reason, Jaf didn’t know, all he knew was that Spankachu had to be stopped.

It was his fault, though, that Spankachu was even going to have a real fight, because he just HAD to be sarcastic and agree, and now that wannabe God, Shinji, had gone and unintentionally made it permanent. Ryoko was after him with, “THE MALLET OF DOOM!” and he was lucky that everybody else didn’t murder him out of principal for being stupid enough to humor that Poke-e-Joke’s terms.

As Sephiroth Strife, Nekobus, MissingNo (or MG, as he preferred to be called), and Kitz’s group were figuring out who was going to fight, Jaf was still breaking universal records in the running division. Miss Ryoko was planing to make a Jaf pancake him with “THE MALLET OF DOOM!”, and was out to teach him a lesson that would provide him with a potent reminder to watch his mouth around challenging Poke-e-roadkill. He ran, looking for some place to hide from that mallet-weilding maniac. The first place that caught his eye was, (of course), the bar. Making sure that Miss Ryoko was around, he stepped around the corner, and hid behind the wall, having a one way view of what was going on, without any danger of being seen.

As he caught his breath, he clenched his fist, and quickly remembered the large marble that he had picked up earlier. Looking back at the soon-to-be battle field, he saw Sephroth Strife grip his double-bladed staff, and saw the same sphere’s embedded into the weapons blade’s and hilt. *Of course! This is one of Sephroth’s Materia! Maybe I can use this to help out! * Brainstorming on what the different colors did, but no answer came to him. *Damn it, I can do this. Maybe it just needs a command word, or a specific thought to activate it. * With that thought, Jaf started reciting all of the command words he had ever heard.

“Shazam!” Nothing. “KA-BOOM!” Nada. “Blathering Blatherskite!” Not a thing. “Activate, damnit!” That didn’t work either. “@#$%!!” Other then killing all of the vegetation within 10 feet, nothing happened. In a fit of anger, Jaf through it at the wall. It bounced off, amazingly, hit Jaf in the stomach, and lay there on the ground. Jaf, clutching his abdomen (happy that he wasn’t hit any lower), was also laying on the ground. After catching his breath, he picked up the materia again, and slowly looked it over. Engraved on it, in small letters, was the word, “Summon.” From nowhere, a sign that said, “WATCH OUT! THIS PERSON IS STUPID!” Appeared around Jaf’s neck. Jaf just stood there, glaring death at the author. The author sweatdroped, and the sign quickly disappeared.

Without wasting another moment, Jaf said “Summon!” and............. something happened! Suddenly, a large black hole appeared out of thin air, which made Jaf scream “Holy S***!” and drop the materia. Out of the hole came, first, a large figure, maybe about twenty-eight years old. He looked about 6’8”, and extremely muscled. The strangest thing about him, though, was that he was totally red. Everywhere, all over his body, all of his clothes, his eyes (which were nothing but glowing pools of red) and his long hair was all red. He flew out, head first, rolling and tumbling, then stopped about 20 feet away, coughing up dust.

Next came a much smaller figure, though still in better shape then Jaf. He looked to be about seventeen, though he could have been younger, having no facial hair. He was wearing a martial arts Gee with some unfamiliar runes and marks on it, though what language he wasn’t sure. The smaller figure came out much more smoothly, flipping out of the hole to neatly land on his feet. Wait a minute, what was that? A Tail? The kid had a TAIL? Man, this was sure getting weird.

Strangely, the hole tilted backwards, until it was facing up wards (which meant that it looked like a black line from Jaf’s view) and then, it started growing. And Growing. And GROWING! The hole grew to be about the size of a large house, then stopped. And thats when he saw it. Two large, black objects started to rise out of the top of the hole, about twenty feet away from each other. It kept rising, until they were about twenty feet above the hole. They stopped for a second, then started rising again. Then a larger, wider object rose out of the hole between the columns. About fifteen seconds later, Jaf had no doubt in the world that the object between the two columns was some kind of robotic helmet. After that, it looked like the columns were actually shoulder spikes (and from the size of them, they looked like they probably had some weapons in them!) From then on, the robot/machine (whatever it was) kept rising out of the hole until it stood a good sixty feet from top to bottom. It was mainly humanoid in design, and had a huge double-bladed scythe in one hand that was at least eighty feet long! All in all, it looked like one huge armed and armored killing machine. The hole disappeared, and the huge robot/machine dropped to the ground, landing on its feet.

Jaf was used to unusual things, but this was really weird. In front of him, there was a giant robot that looked like it could demolish the entire kingdom by itself, a guy that looked like he had been showering in red ink all his life, and an older looking teenager that that had a strange gee, and a tail. *Maybe I should be in the bar, instead of beside it, * Jaf mused.

Loud sounds of robotics came from near the top of the large robot, and the center of the chest opened up, and formed a small platform. A young man stepped out, and fell on his knees, gasping for breath. He had a long braid of brown hair, and penetrating blue eyes. He had strong, though boyish features. *Probably a big hit with the ladies, * thought Jaf. The young man, now having caught his breath, was looking around with a look of wonder in his eyes.

“Where am I? Am I dead?” The slight quiver in his voice betraying his trepidation. “How did I get here? What is this place?” He asked.

“Your in the AFC Kingdom. And no, you’re not dead.” Jaf said with a sigh. “This is definently not the time, but I guess you’re here to join, right?”

The young man jumped down from his large robot (and why he didn’t break both of his legs only the author knows), and walked toward Jaf. “Who are you, and what are you talking about? I’ve never heard of this place. And I don’t know what your talking about.”

Around this time, the large red individual spit the last particles of dust and dirt out of his mouth, and quickly got up and walked toward the talking pair. Gohan Jr. ( Or “The Monkey Boy” what Jaf had him down for in his thoughts) was silently floating in the air, listening to the conversation between the two.

“My name’s Jaf,” said Jaf as he stuck out his hand. “And don’t worry, your not dead, other wise I would be dead, and...well, let’s just not go there. Anyway, I need to hurry this up, because I’ve got some companions to join up with.” *And hopefully not get killed by.* “Who are you?”

“My name is Duo Maxwell, and I’m a Gundam Pilot.” Said Duo, as he accepted the extended hand and shook it. As if he really noticed his surroundings for the first time, he looked around and saw the floating and the crimson colored individuals, rubbed his eye’s, shook his head, and looked again. “How are you..... ?” He said as he gaped, staring straight at Gohan. Feeling slightly uncomfortable, though he was used to being stared at, Gohan started standing instead of floating, and approached the three people talking. As he did he saw the large red man pick Jaf up by his shirt about 3 feet off the ground without much effort, and said, “All right pal’, I want to know where I am, and I want to know NOW. ‘Don’t know how I got here, but when I find out who or what caused it, their gonna pay, ohh yeah, their gonna pay.” The large red man let Jaf down, saying, “‘Name’s Kaleb Redrum, but some call me ‘The Red Writer.’ Maybe if you get on my good side, I’ll let you call me Red, but you’d have to buy me a few beers first.”

Arriving at the group, Gohan Jr. Introduced himself. “Greetings, my name is Gohan. Could someone please explain to me where I am, and how I got here?” He spoke with a very measured and calm voice, as if he would find out one way or another.

“SPANKACHU!!” Rang out over the almost deserted city. Jaf looked toward the direction nervously, as if expecting to be attacked by a rampaging Poke-e-lemon at any time. He said, “Look guys, I’m in a hurry. I hate to leave you unexpectedly or without any explanations, but I need to go. If you have any questions, go to yonder,” Here he waved his arm in the direction of Queen Aeka’s palace, “Castle, where my Lady lives, and ask for help there. Under any circumstances, do NOT break anything or anyone!” With that, he left, running off, then turned around and ran back toward them. Jaf, slightly breathless, asked Duo, “One more thing.” He pointed at the large robot. “What in the hell IS that thing?”

“That,” said Duo, “is my Gundam Mobile Suit. I use it to fight, and sneak into places I’m normally not supposed to be. It’s name is DeathScythe.”

Nodding, Jaf turned and ran back towards the site of Spankachu’s attack. The Red Writer, Gohan Jr, and Duo Maxwell all looked at each other, shrugged, and started walking towards the castle.