A Farscapian Comedy of Errors (part 2)

John Crichton

Okay, where did I lose control of this situation? Where?

I mean, here I wake up to two Chianas giggling, four sheets to the wind, and an armor wearing fairy flittering about, looking vexed. Tinkerbell here calls herself Elvaraniel and tells me that in a former life (or Changeling whatchamacallit) she'd been an Amazon princess?!

What is this, Fantasia meets Xena: Warrior Princess? Am I going next to see somebody with a war whoop like Chiana's who throws around a metallic frisbee and has a young blonde woman named Gabriel who has the hots for her?!

Did I take a harder knock to the head than I thought?

And then there's this question about me being in some kind of caverns? In a dragons frellin' lair?!

"What's a dragon?" the Chianas ask together, curious. They then blink and giggle even harder, finding their duet hilarious!

I wish I did.

"Big fire breathing horny toad," I mutter, keeping a wary eye on Little Blue the Pixie. "Likes to kidnaps princesses and hoard treasure."

"Ah, and chain said princesses naked to walls," mutters the fairy woman, sounded a bit disgusted as she looks back and remembers something. "And speaking of Dragons, I sense two wyrms crawling about beyond this section of the Caverns. . . . but the Cold Iron in this chamber is throwing off my senses. Can't locate...."

She continues, muttering in some kind of pleasant, liquidy language that my translator microbes cannot follow!

Shee-it, this has gotta be a record for strangeness for the Uncharted! Either I've lost if finally (always a worry of mine ever since coming through the wormhole) or.....

Hey, maybe something like Star Trek is going on here? Yeah, that one episode where Kirk's ship got caught by that floating giant Apollo head and.... Yeah! The one where the Greek Gods turned out to be aliens with amazing powers to fool the primitives back in ancient Greece and stuff! Maybe this Tinkerbell's species visited my Earth back in the early years during Robin Hoods time and.....

Oh frell, I'm not actually thinking that something from Star Trek can actually happen?

....

Welllll, then again it beats the dren outta the idea of being nuts!

But....if this fairy is real then maybe this nonsense about dragons being about.....

Oh shit. My God. Maybe the ol' saying of "Here there be dragons" ain't such a crock after all?

Well, still think that Tinkerbell (what is her real name?!) is a bit tinked still, thinking that this is a cave, but with my luck. . . .

Well, got Winnona, but I sure would feel better with Elmer Fudd's spear and magic helmet!

...

Can almost hear Harvey, that Mental Clone of Scorpy left over from that thing that he put in my head to get my wormhole equation, sneer at that product of Saturday Morning Cartoons. Thankfully, he stays away (for a change). Guess he figures that best course of action is to let me concentrate on the here and now instead of chatting away with me....

And what in the Hell is up with that music!? Sounds like something I heard somewhere....something that sure would do for a horror movie!

Yeah, with Feral Hungry Hippy's brothers and sisters running around it's sure like Dawn of the Dead hereabout. Throw in the dude that likes to suck brains out through a sippy straw and....

?

Wait, where is that bastard that knocked me out, anyway? He'd attacked us. I go out and when I wake up I have militant fairy woman and twin, stoned Chianas.

Maybe I'm dreaming and if I slap myself hard enough I'll wake up back in my bed on Moya. Yeah, I'm sure that....

....

That'about the time when the feral hippies decide to make a housecall. They look rather hungry and it takes a bit of . . . persuasion from Winonna, Chiana's pistols (her usual one and one holdout I wasn't aware of given to her twin) , and a few fireballs (!) from the pixie to get them to desist. One cuts me a bit with some knife....

....

Nothing fatal, but it hurts like frelling Hezmanna!

No, I'm not dreaming. It hurts too much to be a dream.

"Crichton, you're hurt!" one of the Chiana's cries, seeing the cut. The other one looks just as alarmed, and comes towards me a step behind the first one.

....

Oh good grief, I can't tell one from the frelling other! At least the shock of the zombies snapped them out of their laughing spell and my injury put off any bout of arguing that might have come up about why they looked like each other and stuff like that.

Kinda can figure how I would react in a similar situation....

How in the Hell are there two Chianas? But before God answers (not that He ever did before now, but given events of today I'm not discounting anything)....

"Here, let me heal that," the Little Lady in Blue says softly, and by some kinda . . . glow from her hands I feel the cut along my arm stitch close and disappear without a trace, healed.

Wow.

"Drad," one Chiana whispers (gotta do something about trying to tell one for the other for now . . . and probably figuring out which one is real and which isn't here soon).

Waitta minute. Braineater shows up. I black out and come back to see two Chianas. If there are two Chianas running around now, did somehow D'Argo.....?

"Howda do that?" the other Chiana whispers, clearly impressed herself.

"Healing magic, of course." the flying woman replies, clearly puzzled that we'd ask. "Surely you'd know that, considering your weaponry! Which. . . . I clearly must apologize to you over that. Clearly I was mistaken about you all being ill equipped for the Caverns, if that last battle is any clue!

"But why don't I feel any magick from them?" she says softly, almost too soft for me to hear.

"Huh?" both Chianas blink.

Hoboy, we got a lot of back and forth coming up here to sort things out. But first....

"I'll explain later," borrowing a line from an old PBS scifi show I caught some of at a Science Fiction convention. "But first things first. Appology accepted . . . uh . . .'fraid I didn't catch your name. Mine's John. John Crichton. This....well...at least . . . one's called Chiana."

"That'd be me," both Chiana twins say, blinking and looking at each other, tilting their heads in reaction.

"Ah, dopplegangers." the pixie says softly, nodding. "That evil mage must have summoned one from a mirror realm and...."

She then rattles off a quasi-techno babble (magical babble?) explanation that sounds disturbingly familiar. Kinda like the older view of the "Many Worlds" theory of Quantum Mechanics. Bottom line, the pixie is saying that BOTH twins are real enough, just one is from a parallel world....reality....

Uh, right.

"So we're both Chiana," they say to themselves, looking at each other, smiling.

They've got a look in their eyes. Something like what I saw sometime the few times she (uh "my" Chiana) talked to me privately about her brother. Something like love of family is happening here.

...

Sure beats the alternative, from what the fairy woman tells us. Them being at each other's thoats, hating the other with killing hatred.

....

Okkayyy! Well, with ME calling it, they flip a coin and one decides to (for now) to use my nickname for "my" Chiana (whichever one that be). One's going by the moniker of "Pip" and the other by just plain "Chiana".

They've got a lot of things to still work out, but somehow....I figure that for THIS case they won't mind sharing . . . . most things.

D'Argo, if he's still alive, that might be something that might . . . . Then again, Chiana (and Pip) were a bit . . . er. . . .kinky on some matters. Wonder if they'll try to talk D'Argo into....

Dren, let's just drop that line of thought, okay. Not really comfortable with business that's not my business! Still rather embarassed about those few times I walked in on Chiana and D'Argo when...

.....

Well, I at least mention the possibility about D'Argo, and the bittersweet smiles that Pip and Chiana have over this situation (lost their former bedmate/love but gained a sister deal) snaps into twin dropped jaws, stunned. Then they break into a LOT of excited questions for me and the pixie. The pixie didn't have any answers about D'Argo (hadn't seen him), but at least conceded that if the mage (or whatever that wacko was to use some kinda gizmo to get Pip here . . . don't want to argue with the pixie right now) summoned one doppleganger, then another might be possible...

"We gotta find him, John!" Pip cries, looking desperate.

"If there's a chance that he's alive then we've got to save him!" Chiana adds, ganging up on me and the pixie (who's name is Elvaraniel , a lot better sounding name than "Tinkerbell" by far, as I see it).

Elvaraniel doesn't look like she is easy to shove around, tiny or not, but says she'll help us. Says it's her duty, even before her becoming a Fey (?).

"I still revere life, whether infant or the elderly," she says softly. "I shall put aside my Quest to slay the dragon because your friend is perhaps in dire danger from that madman who nearly killed your friend."

And for that, I am SO very glad she stepped in and helped instead of standing aside like 9/10ths of the pukes out here in the Uncharted....

As for me, I am NOT going to let Big D down if he's still alive and kicking!

Besides . . . . the pixie adds something that kinda gets me wanting to move out of here quick like! Being that this IS a pixie (with some kinda mystical, magical powers at her beck and call), then her warning of her feeling a "wyrm" (read a BIG and powerful dragon able to cast magical spells) is approaching, I'm not going to blow her off.

If there is an alien species who call themselves pixies who visited Earth to give us our legends of 'em, then maybe some other aliens like dragons did as well....

Or not. But I am NOT taking a chance, given my luck, thanks!

"Believe me, Pip!" I say as we rush out of the Pilot Den through another exit AWAY from this dragon approaching. "You need a THACO from *AD&D to hurt one, even with our stuff!"

"What's *THACO?" Elvaraniel asks, perplexed. "AD&D?"

How am I going to explain AD&D to a real pixie?

I look at the Pilot to shout a warning and advice, but don't bother. Seems he's slipped back into a catatonic state AND besides.... I can't carry him along with us! He's frelling attached to this ship!

"Hope that the Dragon doesn't like Pilot meat," I mutter, sighing. "Be our luck if he gets eaten and this ship environmentals die...."

Leave a bad taste in my mouth, but right now if D'Argo is somewhere aboard I and the others gotta rescue him!

Soli'tril Jones, Chiana, and the other Champions arrive mere moments after the others had slipped off. The male elf is holding his Detector wand, pointing it at the various bodies, and even Pilot.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

*AD&D- famous (or infamous) roleplaying game, games involving dice, imagination, story telling, and luck. Games are set usually in medieval fantasy settings

**THACO- an AD&D term standing for "Throw Armor Class Zero". It's a target number a player uses to determine whether or not a character's melee attack has a prayer of hurting an opponent.

1. "The Key Component is near....but seems to be on the move," he says softly, staring at the corpses of the PK zombies, worried.

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