Charles smiled happily. "Daern's Instant Fortress wired for electricity; check. Also wired for internet with the whole tower getting essentially five bars of wireless if it's within range of any sort of signal since it's essentially a huge signal booster in and of itself; also check…"

Xander twisted and flexed until his back popped. "Furniture moved to permanent configuration or at least a more permanent configuration; check. Harry Potter magic extending the room we have available and providing heat and light, which when necessary can augment or replace the electric devices in case the micro-fusion pack goes down or needs to be refueled or something, check. Also installed were wizarding toilets and showers; thank the gods."

"Armory organized by something other than the 'stick it where it fits' principle; check." John chuckled. "Armor and weapons all up on various racks where they can be grabbed and donned as necessary; check. I've also organized the library and dvd collections. You're much more of a computer guy than I am so you'll have to set up the hardware."

"Shadowrun mission planned for picking up the other things we wanted; check," Tim interjected.

Charles nodded as he picked up the tablet where the list resided. "Hmmm; cyberdeck with neural net instead of datajacks or a neural net adaptor… Okay, I'm not sure if it'll be useful anywhere except SR but we can grab some. Smartgun armored sunglasses and smartgun circuitry for installation in all and sundry weapons, some SR armor… I'm not sure how it'll measure up against Star Wars kit, but I'm more than willing to buy some to check." He burst out laughing when he saw the "Guns, Guns, Guns!" entry with the smiley face. "Cute."

Tim shrugged and chuckled. "You seem to have a thing for guns so I thought we'd make a note to pick some more up."

"Also on the list is a trip to AD&D to pick up sorcerous abilities via stabbing from a group of sorcerers that the world in question can do without… Sounds plausible and like an excellent backup for when HP magic just isn't cutting it. Anyone seen a module where they make up a lot of the enemies?" Charles asked curiously.

Tim shrugged. "Not yet, but I haven't went through all the OGL products or anything yet either. I'd like to go after some warlocks as well because they have some really nice abilities."

"A trip to Disgaea to reincarnate to give us these abilities naturally…" Charles shrugged, "also seems feasible. A trip to one of those Final Fantasy VII fanfics where the materia abilities become skills when mastered; definite check… A trip to Skyrim for crafting abilities such as enchanting and alchemy. Also notes here to pick up an alchemy setup and an enchanting table. Someone also seems to want a staff enchanter if we can talk the Telvanni mage on Solstheim out of one."

Xander nodded excitedly in agreement with the list. "I've been playing Skyrim with all your mods, and that stuff is awesome. Even some of the basic enchantments seem like they'd be vastly useful."

Tim scratched his beard and sipped at his apple cider obviously thinking hard. "I think the replicator ought to be able to duplicate the soul gems; empty ones at least. Enchanting a weapon with Soul Trap or Fiery Soul trap would handle filling them."

"The treasury is set up also; with the massive amounts of coin sorted into multi-compartment trunks, ingots sorted into another one and various jewelry set where it won't get broken or messed up. Regular bills and suspect currency are in two separate clearly marked locations." John continued. "I had wondered what all the marble racks were for, but with you mentioning Final Fantasy VII it makes more sense."

"The medicine chest and potions racks are startlingly empty save for Felix Felicis and Veritaserum along with a few Potions of Youth." Charles thoughtfully continued going through the preparations they'd set up for their living area. "The additional electronics we'll buy on SR Earth since they have far better equivalents for LCD screens and things and far more robust computers in terms of hardware. Assuming of course we can get them to work with DVD/Blu-Ray players and game consoles from our time period."

"The library is mostly bare at this point aside from the stuff we grabbed from Flourish and Blotts and Borgin and Burkes and our game manual collections," Tim interjected. "Our entertainment center is mostly consist of what you had at your place; though why you bought so many tablets and laptops I'm not sure?" he said looking at Charles curiously.

"I was tired of having the tablets break, the laptops were a spur of the moment thing. Speaking of which I need to setup the LAN and a server section so we can download copies of our favorite fanfiction sites just in case we need a backup or a place to store fics and such that isn't the mainstream net," Charles finished thoughtfully as he nursed his beer.

"What are you thinking?" John asked with a raised eyebrow as he lit a cigarette. "I know that thoughtful look by now."

"I'm thinking that using a setup sort of like Neo in the program where Tank provides him with a room full of guns in the Matrix could be very useful but it would also take a whole lot of the fun out of this whole thing if we meta-gamed like that," Charles replied as he tossed a rubber ball against the wall and caught it when it bounced back.

The others frowned thoughtfully and exchanged looks between them.

"The universe also may not like the setup at all; I mean, someone somewhere put this," he waved his left arm with the vambrace in the air briefly, "out into the world for someone to find and play with. I'm betting because it amuses the hell out of them to watch. Using a blatantly metagaming setup for all the stuff we want and then sitting on our asses writing fanfiction or just going to hang out with Xander in Sunnydale is something I'm betting they won't appreciate." Charles flopped back onto the couch he was sitting on looking pensively at his beer bottle. "Of course if you think I'm wrong I'm willing to be overruled after a bit more prep work."

Tim shrugged. "I'm perfectly content to run around exploring and having adventures, metagaming doesn't sound all that amusing."

"Or all that fun really; I enjoy wandering around all these different worlds," Charles agreed.

Xander chuckled. "Personally; I'm glad you guys like exploring places, and that John has a really high bullshit tolerance. My life got much better because of it."

"Personally I like the pretty ones…" John looked around when everyone just gave him strange looks. "What, am I the only person who's seen The Crow?"

"I've seen the Crow, I don't remember the line," Charles replied.

"His half sister who likes to freebase eyeballs said it," John reminded them.

"How do you freebase with eyeballs? I thought freebasing was mixing heroin and cocaine?" Charles replied with a raised eyebrow.

"It's also referred to as setting things on fire and snorting them," John replied.

"What? You mean it's not about jumping off things?" Tim asked.

"No, that's base jumping," John said, puffing on his cigarette.

"Hmmm…" Xander hummed while glancing over at the thick electrical conduit ran through their home expansion. "You know what we forgot?"

"What?"

Tim jokingly asked, "Hookers?"

"A droid that could have handled all this crap for us," Xander replied, shaking his head at Tim and waved his hand at the metal sheathed insulated cable running along the walls.

"You, I've got an idea, if we're looking for servants that are worth a damn we should look at grabbing a house elf and reincarnating them once we get to Disgaea."

"I don't know whether to be intrigued or horrified; Evil Overlord Dobby says you will be making messes for Dobby to clean or Dobby will be making mess of you!" John chortled.

"I was thinking more about Winky or something but either way, I think it works," Tim replied.

"Either way, it won't be boring that's for sure," John mused.

"We have been working like house elves." Charles shook his head. "Trust our ability to plan shit out to fail when it comes time for us to actually set this stuff up."

"Okay, new plan, we grab Dobby from right before his death in the book and turn him into a hero."

Charles shrugged. "If we're jumping in that late into a canon storyline? I'm just gonna shoot Death Eaters. No need for a convoluted plan to turn Dobby into the hero; Mr. Shotgun or Mr. Lasgun can handle DE's just fine."

"Or we could make Kreacher the elf that lived. We can probably find a story where Regulus became a hero or something. I mean if we're going off the deep end we might as well do it with style." Tim shook his head. "Never mind, that's work on that after we run out of other things to do."

"I completely forgot what we were talking about," John muttered.

Charles just shook his head. "Basically we're trying to plan out what to do next… Other than sit around on our butts reading fanfiction now that we've got housing and treasure storage handled."

"Let's just go to Disgaea and get that out of the way," Tim interjected.

"Can't until we go back to SR and get our parts installed."

"Then let's just go and get the parts."

"To the Armory then." Charles said, getting up and heading into the armory after snagging a few vials of liquid luck. "What does everyone want for this foray into Shadowrun? This one will likely be longer than the last one since we have to go shopping as well as get surgery done."

"Laser and power packs, maybe some armor just so they avoid shooting me," Tim smirked.

Xander shrugged. "Just kit me out with the same stuff I took to Star Wars and one of those Echani Fiberweave suits and some of those grenades."

"Grenades," John muttered shoving some in his belt of many pouches. "Hmmm, corndogs and Mountain Dew, check. .45 with HE rounds, several extra clips, lightsaber… nah I'd cut my own head off."

"You do know we have laser weapons now right?" Charles asked.

"Yes, but the gun is loud and saves me having to yell Blam! Blam! while I'm shooting people, " John explained. "Did anyone pick up anything like a shield belt?"

"No, they suck in Star Wars," Tim said.

"I have my grenades, I have my gun, and I have Tim the immortal to hide behind as a human meat shield, I'm good," John said.

Charles grabbed a set of Echani Fiberweave for himself and threw his trenchcoat with the lexan plates and kevlar lining on over it after selecting the same weapons from his trip to Star Wars.

"Okay, to Shadowrun again!" Xander crowed and looked expectantly at Charles.

Charles blinked. "Hmmm, we have a problem. We need something to heal the after effects of this surgery. The text in the books says the ring of regeneration won't work on damage that happens before it was put on."

John blinked. "We know that they don't work that way though," he waved at Xander. "I gave him percussive maintenance to make his brain work right and he healed just fine when I stuck the ring on him."

Tim shrugged. "We obviously got a version from before they changed the wording."

"Right, objection removed." Charles opened the portal and they filed out into a deserted hallway of the hospital near the HVAC system. With a wicked grin Charles poured two full vials of luck potion into the humidifier before closing it back up and took several deep breaths.

"I'll go shopping while they're cutting you up and putting alien bioware into you," Tim said and was promptly handed want lists by everyone.

"Remember the sense-porn and the old netware pack to strap on for it!" John reminded him.

"Okay, no worries. Just make sure you get pictures of the surgery. I mean think of the scrapbook that would make."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Tim watched John and Charles toss back another round of alcohol, "So now what? You've increased your natural abilities with alien DNA, so now we go forth and raid Disgaea, right?""

"We did what now?" John asked confusedly.

"You put bioware in your body, where did you expect the enhancements to come from?"

"Well I had the doctor do that, I'm not that good," John muttered.

"From the gene lab like everything else in Shadowrun?" Xander deadpanned.

Tim shrugged as he tried unsuccessfully to keep the smirk off his face. "I'll stick to my completely unreasonable theory that they're using dragon or alien DNA for the boosts thank you very much."

Charles snorted.

"I wouldn't mind a little dragon DNA; I'm draggin' ass most mornings anyway," John said.

"We can probably find something for that."

"Any luck on sorcerers?" Charles chuckled with a raised eyebrow. "Evil sorcerers are a great way to gain the Dragon Blooded feat in 3.5e with our warlock athame from Charmed."

"Nope, though we can probably search around for home grown games, I know in my world I have a city filled with mages and sorcerers." Tim replied.

"Question; did we enhance Xander enough to survive sex with Faith?" John asked curiously and out of the blue.

Charles chuckled. "With all the knowledge of a version of BF Pierce stuck in his head? Xander is gonna have her crawling back for more."

Xander blinked and raised an eyebrow eloquently. "That's all assuming that I want to stick my dick in crazy."

"You've seen Faith, you want to stick your dick in crazy," John said firmly.

"I thought you had a crush on Buffy?" Tim asked a bit confused.

"And you played tonsil hockey with Willow causing Cordy to dump you and still haven't explained to her or went crawling on your knees for forgiveness," Charles replied to his original statement. "Judging from your willingness to stick your body parts in the mouth of someone who thought Buffy fucking Angel was a good idea? I think you already have," Charles said bluntly. Xander glared and Charles who just raised an eyebrow. "What? It's true. Willow is NOT a very likeable person as you've no doubt seen for yourself in my collection of Buffy DVDs by now."

Xander frowned. "Yeah; she's changed some, but she's still my friend."

"Everyone doesn't have my bullshit filter," Charles shrugged.

"Good fucking thing because that doesn't have a lower setting," Tim shrugged. "So let's hit Disgaea, then Skyrim then Final Fantasy. I have a feeling that we can probably make some friends by combining crap and sticking various enchants on gear."

"Actually I figure we should hit Final Fantasy first. That way we can learn all the materia based spells and reincarnate," Charles said and grinned over at John, "Hey, didn't you have a story where they had Final Fantasy magic in Disgaea anyway?"

"I don't recall doing that," John stated.

"Your fic where Xander gets cast into Disgaea, winds up healing Kasumi from cancer and teaches them to use magic and it's some sort of crossover with Sailor Moon too," Charles replied.

"I did what to who now?" Xander asked.

"If you can find it, we can use it. If not I'd be happy transporting into a world where there is a 'Dark Overlord needed' sign or something so we can just walk in and grab the reincarnation equipment. Either that or a place where the protagonist was particularly evil so that we can just stab someone for the ability to open item worlds without feeling guilty."

Charles looked over at Xander and chuckled. "Face it, you're pretty much one of lots of authors favorite characters. Alternates of you have done pretty much everything."

"I did what to who?" Xander repeated.

Charles handed Xander a tablet and pulled up the first of John's immense files of random crap. "Here; you find it and when you do you'll know; make sure to write down which chapter it is of which random files archive it is in so we can use it as a destination."

Tim shrugged. "Okay, open the portal to a Final Fantasy version where they're dead, retired or evil and starting out."

"Why? I was thinking we'd just go to a Final Fantasy VII fic where the materia actually taught the skills and buy what we wanted after Cloud was finished with his adventure," Charles replied.

"That works for me especially since heroes are typically unbelievably powerful by the time the shops sell anything worth a damn."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Charles looked around and winced. "This place sure is a shithole."

"Eh, definitely a post industrialized sort of dirt floored nightmare," Xander agreed, looking around the town warily.

"Well, lets equip everyone and get to work… It's going to take a while to learn everything from the materia after we buy them," John said thoughtfully as they headed into the item shop.

Tim looked around the shop. "Let's just hope they take gold."

The shopkeeper said, "That's all we take."

Charles chuckled and walked up to the counter and started pointing at various items. "We need five Wizard Bracelets, five sets of Brigand's Gloves, five Mog Charms, 10 Fire Materia, 10 Ice Materia, 10 Lightning Materia and 10 Restore Materia… 10 Potions, 10 Phoenix Downs and 10 Antidotes."

"I may close early today…" The shopkeeper replied as he began removing the requested items from under the counter and the shelves behind him.

John stepped up to the counter. "I'll take another five Phoenix Downs and Antidotes."

The shopkeeper shrugged and added them to the counter as well in a separate pile. "Of course sir, will there be anything else?"

Xander nodded. "I want 20 Phoenix Down, 25 Potions and 20 Antidotes."

"You might want more than that," John pointed out, "Buffy is like a lemming and some of the others aren't much better at times."

Xander frowned but then nodded. "On second thought, give me a full box of each of them."

"On second thought I may retire," the shopkeeper muttered and went to pull full boxes of the three items for the brown haired and eyed teenager.

"Give me two boxes of each as well, I want to equip Harry and its a good item stock in the pouch," John decided, "I'll put them in between the soda and corndogs so I don''t forget where they are."

Charles turned to John with a raised eyebrow then nodded when he mentioned Harry.

"Since he only eats corndogs and drinks soda it's probably a good thing he's buying lots of them," Xander muttered.

"That's why he got bioware," Tim replied.

The man came out with three cases in his arms and raised an eyebrow at Charles. "Do you wish to increase your order as well, while I have these out here?"

Charles shrugged then nodded after a moment's thought. "Sure, go ahead and up my order to a full box of each as well."

The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow in Tim's direction.

Tim said, "I'll take 5 pheonix downs. If I run low, I'll just grab more from them."

The shopkeeper nodded. "All that remains is the matter of payment."

Charles grinned and pulled out a large gold bar, setting it on the counter.

"I think we're good," the shopkeeper said after checking it's weight on his scale.

They each stashed their healing items and equipped their gear, making sure to slot the materia in the appropriate places with Charles pocketing the extras.

"Where to next? We should probably grab some other materia and I want my helmet."

"Where's the shop that sells the helmet?" Charles asked curiously.

"Black market, net stuff or at least that's how it works in Crisis. I'm guessing that we can find a black market and grab stuff from there."

The shopkeeper said, "Normally I wouldn't do this but you're such good customers that I'll make an exception." He reached under his counter and pressed a button that opened up a panel in the wall revealing a set of stairs. "Just head down the stairs and you'll find a 'legitimate' business man who can help you out."

Charles turned and headed down the stairs and the rest of the group followed.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"So, where's this cave and the magic pots?" Charles asked after they'd acquired the other items on the list.

"They give a hell of a lot of ability points for materia but we'd get those anywhere as long as the materia is equipped." Tim shrugged. "Let's just hit John's fic for Disgaea because the only time I wrote about it I used it for costumes. Besides, Faith was jumping bodies and blowing stuff up so badly that I'd be afraid to set foot in that world."

Xander looked at Tim and muttered, "Jumping bodies…" then decided that he'd just look the fic up the next time they had free time.

"Maybe there's a training course for item world creation or something."

Charles shrugged and selected the code for Dis-Guy-Eh and activated it when Xander was still in the Netherworld.

In the Netherworld Jerry the Prinny and Xander Harris stared in dumbfounded shock as a glowing portal opened right in front of them at the portal where Xander was trying to go home. Through which they could see another more muscular Xander with a really big gun hanging from a strap, as well as three other guys who were also armed to the teeth.

They waved cheerfully and stepped through the portal. "Hi guys!"

Jerry blinked. "Dood, there's two of you now."

Netherworld Xander blinked. "Yeah, looks like it."

The large muscular bearded man with a ponytail in the trenchcoat who was carrying the Imperial Guard combi-weapon smiled. "Hi, we're here to complicate your life."

"This is going to completely fuck up my fic," John complained. "He was suppose to end up in a Ranma ½ Sailor Moon crossover world and give it to Nabiki."

Charles chortled, with a big grin. "Infinite realities, your fic can continue however you want it to."

Tim shrugged. "Or you can go back to thinking this is just a bad reaction to Netherworld food once we've made some trades or something."

"I am… your creator," John told him solemnly. "I could light a bush on fire, but fuck that." John lit a smoke and pulled a corndog out of his pouch. "Corndog?"

"Oh man, my creator is a mustachioed guy with glasses… smoking a cigarette with a .45...I'm so fucked." Netherworld Xander whined.

"That was the plan," John agreed. "I was going to have you get laid repeatedly and eventually find your way home with enough power to seal the hellmouth and make Sunnydale safe."

Netherworld Xander shrugged. "Ah well, best laid plans and all that?"

Xander looked him over. "Neat… and you have minions."

Charles chuckled. "Now, what we need is the ability to go into item worlds, as well as being pointed at the reincarnation machine… Beyond that I'm not sure what we're here for, it sure isn't explosive penguins."

"Dood, not cool." Jerry poked Charles with a flipper.

"Why haven't you reincarnated him as a humanoid or something?" Charles asked Netherworld Xander curiously.

"Jerry has to reach God Prinny to do that," John explained.

"Interesting, so do you know how we can learn to send people to hell, I mean into item worlds?" Tim asked.

Charles shrugged and didn't question John's crazy world and how he chose to have Prinnies reincarnate in it.

"Special lessons from the gatekeeper," John said.

"I guess we'll have to talk to the gatekeeper and see if we can work out some type of deal. Do you mind if I ask her for training?" Tim asked.

Netherworld Xander shrugged. "It's up to her. I had to do a favor or two before she taught me how they used to do it before it became standardized."

"Are you willing to teach us how to do it then?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow, "Doing favors for Xanders is typically our thing."

"You are really not my type," Netherworld Xander said. "Creator or not, I don't think I was created for that."

"I didn't mean that kind of favor," Charles replied, fingering his rifle ominously.

"Go ask Alice," Netherworld Xander said with a shudder, while John was snickering to himself.

Tim asked, "She's the one that looks like Cordelia, yes?"

"There might be some slight resemblance," Netherworld Xander admitted.

Charles rolled his eyes. "Okay, suit yourself," he said and walked off toward Alice's location without looking back at the group or Netherworld Xander and his Prinny. "Some guys are stoopid dood," he muttered to himself.

John just waited and watched with a grin on his face.

Tim wandered over to ask Alice about training knowing that it was probably going to suck. Tim walked over to the gateway where she was standing. "I don't suppose I could talk you into training us to send people into item worlds?"

Charles was smoking a cigarette a bit away from Alice to calm down without murdering local idiot Xanders.

Alice nodded cheerfully. "Sure," she replied taking a pamphlet out from behind the counter. "Here ya go."

John bit his lip and tried not to laugh.

Tim accepted the pamphlet and looked it over. "That seems simple enough… what's the catch?"

"What catch?" she asked. "Our economy is based on people going into item worlds for equipment and Hel, why would we make it difficult?"

Tim looked over at Netherworld Xander then back at her. "Never mind and thanks." He grinned as he looked over the pamphlet.

"I'd like a copy of that pamphlet as well please," Charles said to her quietly.

"Here ya go," she said, handing him a copy.

Charles accepted it and stuck it in his pocket. "Thanks." He then wandered back over to John. "Ready to go?"

John nodded, saying nothing, because he hadn't gotten a painting done yet and was not exactly bulletproof enough to snicker in Charles' face and he was unsure if all his bits were covered by the ring of regeneration and didn't want to test it.

Tim looked up from the pamphlet and walked over not wanting to get left in the Netherworld.

Charles punched in coordinates on his bracer and waved at Netherworld Xander. "Toodles." He crafted a portal, pushing the others in his party through in front of him before stepping through and closing the portal behind him.

Tim grinned. "Well that was amusing. I'd feel sorry for that version of Xander, but I'm fairly sure that he's enjoying himself."

"Of course he will, I don't write emo crap," John said cheerfully.

Charles turned to the Xander that was in the party. "You know, some people are really lucky that I like their characters…"

Xander nodded slowly and backed away with his hands up. "Hey, I didn't do whatever it was he did to cheese you off."

"I know, I'm just contemplating shooting John and seeing if things grow back," Charles replied, heading to the kitchen and grabbing himself a bottle of beer out of the fridge.

"He's just joking," John said, while pulling out that book on shield spells he'd gotten from Harry's world, because it never hurt to take precautions.

Tim ignored the beer in favor of studying the pamphlet.

Xander shook his head. "I'm pretty sure he's thinking about shooting you."

"If that was all it took to get him shooting me… Come to think of it I was always on the other side of the Net when he got like that before," John muttered.

Charles sat down with a somewhat creepy smile on his face and Xander decided he'd rather be in another room.

"How about we try and go into the item world on that slider device?" John suggested.

Tim snorted. "How about we test it on something else first?"

"Let me find a porno mag," John said going to dig through a chest.

"You honestly want me shooting naked women?" Charles asked dubiously.

"Nah, pimps yes; naked women no." Tim chuckled. "I think I can make it work, I was thinking about testing it on one of the cans of beer but I like your idea better. Then again the standard mode has normal enemies at least according to the pamphlet."

Charles shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me, though I'm not sure what leveling up a beer would do. I think leveling something that isn't gone in three swallows might be a better idea."

"Better taste? I mean it can't make it taste worse," Tim replied.

Charles chuckled and pulled out a tablet pc that was still in the box. "Okay, I vote we either start with a tablet or maybe one of those cell phones that thinks it's a tablet first. Though we'll have to buy one of those."

"We've got a tablet with us, that's easy enough."

John spoke up, "I'll send you to the item world then." He proceeded to draw out the necessary diagrams and such.

Tim said, "That works for me."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Charles looked around the blue room with the various colored tiles warily, looking at the strange little green android shaped monsters and pumpkin headed scarecrows and such from their position atop a pillar. "Huh, this doesn't seem that difficult. Then again we are on level one of a fairly low end piece of consumer gear."

Xander shrugged. "I have no idea how this is supposed to work and the Xander we ran into in the Netherworld didn't seem interested in talking."

Tim stated, "Don't feel bad, I'm guessing he was just in shock."

Charles knelt and looked through the scope on his combi-weapon and then fired the laser at one of the android monsters causing it to disappear in a burst of pixels. "Okay, they aren't that tough here I don't think."

Xander fired also taking out another of them.

"Only twelve more enemies on this level," Charles said thoughtfully.

"We should probably look at stealing some of their equipment eventually." Tim aimed at one of the pumpkin headed monsters and shot it with his laser. "Hopefully the items they have get better as we level things up," he stated.

Charles nodded. "Seems about right to me."

The monsters started trying to get to the pillar, scrambling toward them as they continued to fire their lasers at the beasts. "Huh, I don't think any of these ones have ranged attacks," Xander said.

Tim laughed. "That makes it easier, it won't stay that way but it makes it easier."

They were eventually the only ones left standing in the item world. "I suppose that means we head to level two…"

Nine levels later they were greeted with an item boss and a group of enemies ranging from archers to more pumpkin headed scarecrows. The bow wielding item boss was standing on top of a pyramid of blocks.

Tim frowned slightly. "You just had to complain about them not having any ranged weapons earlier. Just give me a minute and I'll fix that." He teleported in behind the item boss and used the steal ability he got off the steal materia from final fantasy along with his brigand gloves and moogle charm to steal the boss' bow and shoes. His smirk was wiped off his face as the boss turned and punched him off the platform. "Shit…"

Xander opened fire on the boss only for several archers to return fire on him. The boss' head exploded a particularly messy fashion. Xander took several arrows for his trouble, luckily only one of them got through his armor.

Charles on the other hand swapped his combi-weapon to his shotgun and fired a trio of grenade rounds into the massed archers and other enemies below sending spidery bits of shrapnel flying from the impact points the deadly little grenades hit.

"That's just cheating," Xander muttered. "When and where did you get those?"

"Had Tim pick them up when he went shopping in Shadowrun; fifty year old weapons tech isn't that difficult to acquire there after all, and scanned it with the replicator to figure out how to size it right for the Imperial Guard weapon."

A slightly singed Tim teleported back to his place near the rest of the group holding the boss' bow and a pair of shoes. "Totally worth getting hit in the face."

"Yeah… lets try the next level," Charles replied after looking the bow over curiously.

The next level appeared to be a bazaar and Charles grinned. "Item Bazaar, which is good; we didn't stock up on anything while we were in Disgaea because that Xander irritated me."

Tim shrugged. "Is there anything of use?"

Charles and Xander proceeded to wander around the place and pick up food items and various sundry items. "Well, there are items here that we can use for on the spot refilling of HP and SP to use abilities plus they sell cell phones and such."

Tim laughed as he tapped his Genji helmet. "I'm not using MP and I don't care much about HP so I'm good. Wait, cell phones?"

"Yup, they sell cell phones in Disgaea that can call out of alternate dimensions like item worlds so I figure we can get some and stay in contact with people we want to talk to who are elsewhere/elsewhen," Charles replied.

"Okay, we should probably pick up a couple of those then level them up," Tim replied.

Xander nodded. "Our thoughts exactly when we had the discussion about what we might want from Disgaea."

"Let's finish up on this then go into something else amusing."

Charles nodded and paid for the various things he and Xander had selected before hopping out of the now higher level tablet.

John looked them over after they popped out. "Well, no one is missing any body parts; I'm assuming things went well?"

"Nah, it wasn't actually that bad, and hey I got a bow and some shoes out of it."

"What you're going to do with them is the question," Charles said and headed to the armory to pick up another selection of items he wanted to play with. "Hmmm, I think we should definitely do some upgrading on power packs and possibly lasers before we go too much farther. Also, our armor."

"I'm going to put them on, my old boots are worn and held together with glue," Tim sat down and swapped his old boots for the new magic shoes. "So we're upgrading someone's gun then using using the replicator right?"

"Sounds about like what I had planned." Charles grinned wickedly as he pointed at Tim after tapping his nose.

Tim snickered, "So we level up an item to like 29 or 99 and copy it right?"

John pinched his nose. "God dammit, stop breaking the world into smaller and smaller pieces, at least wait until we need to do it at any rate."

"Thems the facts, Jack." Xander grinned at Tim.

Tim shrugged. "Sorry, that's what I do for fun."

"Hey, I don't want to repeatedly go through every item we have and remove flaws. Removing the flaws once and then using the replicator to scan the near flawless item and distributing it seems like a far better use of our time and resources," Charles replied.

"Bonus; we can just scan a level 99 item and fight the item boss over and over to get legendary items." Xander chuckled.

"Exactly," Tim replied.

Charles blinked and then grinned wickedly. "I'm going to level a fucking Hard Drive… Or maybe the server equipment so we don't have to worry about failure rates and such mundane annoying bullshit! No more dead Seagate drives driving me nuts!"

"Still won't bring back your porn, man, those files are dead an gone," John told him solemnly.

Tim shrugged. "Yeah, fairly low on the list of things I'd like to jump into… but it would be useful so I'm game."

"Still better than levelling beer," Charles replied. "Then again, we could jump into the Scooby Gamers and buy an endless beer mug… And maybe con Xander and Willow or one of the others into enchanting us some other stuff."

"Okay… I'm not not opposed to that… but I think we need to level some of the best damned cider ever. Let's jump into the genji helmet, a wizard bracelet or the vambrace." Tim said.

"Can we replicate magic items?" John asked suddenly.

"I'm guessing the magical item part gets lost," Charles replied and shrugged then stuffed his ring of rapid regeneration into the replicator to scan it. "Just scanned as a ring; I think if we want to start the ACME magic item factory we need to level the replicator."

Tim grinned. "I'll send you guys into whatever item you want to try next so John gets a turn in the item world."

"I say we jump into the bracer," John said. "I've been itching to get my hands on my own personal wand of adventure since Charles got it."

Xander said, "That sounds like a great idea, except I'd rather have the immortal as a meat shield so I'm perfectly willing to send you into a nightmarish world."

"Since it won't come off my arm I'll have to be the one who sends you into the vambrace. I can't go into something I'm equipped with," Charles said with a shrug.

Xander muttered, "Fuck."

Tim laughed. "That was a good attempt though."

"One of you guys can wear my bracers of armor +4 if you want to," Charles said.

"On that note we should probably go to either Harry Potter or our home world before we chance going into the vambrace. I'd be able to live if we got trapped in Harry Potter land or my own but a dead world would suck," Tim pointed out reasonably.

"Yeah, I'd go crazy in less than a week; if we were stuck here permanently," Xander replied.

Charles nodded. "Everyone out of the tower; we'll pack it in and head to Harry Potter and set the tower up somewhere out of sight. I can study runes or something while you guys explore the vambrace. Besides if we go to the right fanfic they have ways of getting through various worlds anyway and if we get 'stuck' because the bracer breaks we can still figure out a way to take the long way home."

"Works for me," Tim replied.

Charles led the way out of the tower then shrunk it after everyone was out and reached for the controls. "Where do you guys want to go? HP-land or somewhere else?"

"Would anyone like to break Marvel with me?" John asked, "How many changes could we introduce to that fucked up world?"

"Yes, yes I would." Tim laughed.

Xander had a wicked grin on his face and was chuckling throatily.

"Where would you guys like to be at when we arrive?" Charles asked, flipping through various things on his levelled up tablet.

John laughed. "I want a copy of the symbiote before it becomes Venom."

"In other words the version that was the alien suit made for warfare not the alien race that consumed every world it landed on?" Charles grinned.

"Yeah, I'm good with that," Tim said.

Charles grinned wickedly and soon the group found themselves inside a church right behind Eddy Brock, who Charles dispassionately shot with his phaser set on stun and stuffed him into a nearby storeroom.

Tim asked, "So who are we testing the suit on?"

Charles shrugged. "I'm game, I've always wanted to kick spider man in the ass and I'm sure the suit wants to as well."

"I call Dibs!" John said with a grin.

"In that case we have have John test it, we don't need that level of insanity." Tim replied, "That's what got it into trouble last time."

Charles raised an eyebrow curiously. "No, he tried to KILL Spider Man when bonded with Brock. I just think Peter is an emo douchebag who needs a swift kick in the ass."

"That works."

"It's my idea!" John said and abruptly shut up as the symbiote flashed out of the shadows and began to engulf him. "Shit!"

Xander chuckled. "I guess that solves the whole who gets the symbiote question."

Tim laughed, "Yep!"

Charles cast Esuna and several cure spells on John and the Symbiote and relaxed back against the wall and waited for the process to complete.

"Ack! It's bonding everywhere! And I mean everywhere!" John shuddered and shivered. "I think I need a smoke and maybe a shower to cry in, give me a minute."

Charles laughed and lit himself a cigarette. "Alas poor John, we knew him well."

A tentacle lashed out from the suit and snatched the cigarette from Charles' hand.

"Pushy. He has a pack in his pocket," Charles muttered and lit himself a cuban cigar from a pocket humidor inside his trenchcoat.

"Why do I feel a huge urge to play pranks on Peter Parker?" John asked.

"I'm guessing that's because of the suit," Tim replied. "So now that we've derailed things with Venom, where are we going?"

"I plan on using the symbiote to make myself look like Ben Parker and go up to Peter and tell him he's a disappointment as a son and I never really liked him," John said.

Charles blinked. "Have fun with that, I'm going to go see a man about a dog."

"A dog?" Tim looked at Charles in confusion.

"Lockjaw, Wolfbane, some other character I don't know about?" John asked.

Charles chuckled and shrugged. "I'm sure something will come up."

"I'd rather get a werewolf girl if we're going that route," Tim replied.

"That would be Rahne Sinclair, staunch Catholic as far as I recall and dating… Cypher, I think. He may be Douglock at this point," John offered.

Charles continued wandering away and was suddenly beaned in the head with a brick thrown out of the shadows causing him to curse and blood to splatter as a huge boom exploded from under his trenchcoat.

"Mutie scum!" Came a pained voice from in the alley.

"Person who is obviously too stupid to live," Charles replied and shot him again.

Tim pulled out his laser pistol as he looked at the alley. "What the hell?"

"Human's First idiot who saw us jump out of the portal is my guess." Charles replied and walked into the alleyway with his combi-weapon in hand where the group heard a pitiful cry of pain. "Hey assholes!"

Half a dozen neo-nazi looking retards turned to face him. Several with blood on their hands and a beaten looking teenage girl laying there with blood flowing down her face.

Tim flipped out upon seeing the teenage girl and started shooting them all.

"Food," John said as his symbiote mentioned some new dietary requirements. "Brains or rather a small section of them." Leaping forward he lashed out with all four limbs, and then some as he grew some extras for the occasion, while shoving tentacles into the aural canals of the Human First members and removing something from inside.

"Eating people is stupid… We can synthesize any stuff that the suit needs in the tower," Charles said as he walked over to the girl, ignoring the stupid people with many new holes in their bodies courtesy of Tim's laser pistol.

"Hey there; you're safe now… They can't hurt you anymore," Charles said and proceeded to cast several cure and esuna spells on the girl while wiping her face clean with his other hand and a handi-wipe.

"I'm not really eating, more nibbling really,"John complained, refusing to eat anything from the corpses.

The girl looked up at them, shocked hope written all over her features which while extremely pretty had a distinct dusting of lizard-like scales along the major bones and near her hairline. Her hair resembled blood red feathered vanes more than a regular person's hair.

"Yeah, they can't hurt you anymore. You have some place to go? I know a place upstate where they run a school that can help you," Charles finished as he knelt on one knee so she didn't have to look up at him.

Xander meanwhile was vanishing the bodies left behind by the others trash disposal mission.

"That place sucks; and it gets attacked all the time. Send her to Night of the Comet. Hell we can send her, all her friends and any homeless we run across there so they don't have to put up with the shitfest Marvel is," John complained.

The girl seemed too shocked to respond verbally and threw her arms around his neck, hanging on like a limpet. Charles shrugged to himself and stood, barely noticing her weight. "Where to guys? Xavier can help with the whole trauma thing… Avengers tower might be an option but I'd prefer a different 'verse for that if we were going to use them. I can't recall the Fantastic Four being all that great with traumatized teens - or even interacting with them in the first place."

"Comet is better than those places," John repeated.

"Night of the Comet is currently nearly completely empty if not completely empty; not the best choice for a traumatized girl. Especially one who's from a city and likely has no idea how to get food," Charles replied.

"It's probably not going to be all that great until we get a lot of people there…" Tim trailed off.

"Won't be unless there's some sort of community in place."

"It's been like a week since the big game over, or a month," John said thoughtfully. "The food is still sitting on shelves and in fridges, perfectly fine… probably not the milk. Fine we'll get a motel room and order up some room service until we get a load of people who want to leave here."

"That works for me." Tim frowned as he looked down at the place where the dead were. "You need to work on vanishing everything other than wallets."

Xander shrugged. "Why should we care? We have plenty and it's highly unlikely these intellectual protozoans actually have anything worth taking."

"At any rate, we should leave before someone shows up to bitch about us littering like this," John said.

John's form shifted until he looked like a heavy set older man. "I'm going to go say hi to Peter. I'll be right back."

Xander looked around the alleyway and raised an eyebrow at John. "Littering? The alleyway is cleaner than when we showed up. Also, John - you're a dick and he's going to have even worse issues than before."

Charles passed out a pair of sunglasses to everyone. "Here, these will allow us to communicate they have a radio built into the arms. Wonders of SR and miniaturization. I haven't got the smartlink technology installed in our weapons yet so don't expect anything too great in that regard."

Xander shrugged. "I've got nothing against Peter except he's an idiot so I'll go with you."

Charles walked off, carrying the girl in his arms who now seemed comfortably asleep. "We'll meet up somewhere… I think I want to check something at the Baxter building and kick Reed Richards in the ass."

"Yeah, I rather like Spider Man, so other than telling him to become a scientist and patent stuff, I don't really need to cause him issues," Tim followed Charles.

"Excellent, remember the doorman is cosmic powered and can kick your ass, later," John said leaping up onto the wall and fading into chameleon mode.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Isn't that Rogue?" Xander asked, spotting a familiar looking hair style.

"You've watched a lot of X-men stuff haven't you?" Tim asked with a raised eyebrow.

Xander turned around to address Tim not noticing Rogue approaching behind him. "I've watched more X-women, but really Rogue is my favorite. Powerful, competent, beautiful, and doesn't whine even though she's been given a shitty hand."

Charles snorted while trying to bite back a laugh. "Also, she's behind you."

Rogue glared back and forth between them angrily. "Are you some sort of dimensional travellers?"

"Something like that," Charles replied nonchalantly.

"Then why have you just watched instead of helping?!" Rogue snarled.

"Because I only got the power to travel to different dimensions a week or two ago and where we're from many versions of this dimension exist as entertainment and even though the writers … can't write by my standards they're really popular," Charles continued, absently shifting the girl in his arms into a more comfortable position.

Tim shrugged, "We're trying to help, I mean we'd have to be complete assholes not to help people where we can."

"Feel like moving? I know of a world with zero bigots," Xander offered. "It's got plenty of space for you and… well everyone you know really."

Rogue asked, "So you're saying that your group has access to a world without all of the stupid mutant hating humans and you're willing to help us out, assuming I believe you, what's the catch?"

Charles shrugged and nodded, absently petting the feathery hair of the girl who was still clinging to him. "What's the catch? Eh, no catch really… other than we're going to be showing up on occasion and essentially camping out and we're not planning on bringing a hell of a lot of the douchebag's that seem to be the main portion of the people on this planet."

Rogue frowned thoughtfully and Xander spoke up. "It's an empty world, it's not like it's gonna cost us anything. I guess the catch would probably be how you decide to divvy up resources and stuff. Also, another catch is you probably can't get back here if you want to come."

Rogue snorted, "I'm not planning on coming back."

"That works, do you know anyone else that wants to come?"

"That's a dumb question; they don't even know it's possible so why would they want to go?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow while shaking his head. "I'm sure lots of them wouldn't mind leaving this mudball."

Xander shrugged watching the other patrons of the coffee shop warily as the others handled most of the conversation.

Rogue nodded and tapped her fingers on the table. "I think most of the people from the mansion would be interested actually. As well as several other mutant groups. I'd want to have someone check it out first to make sure you were on the up and up though, we've been burned before."

Charles nodded. "Well I don't mind playing taxi after you get the things you want to bring with you. But keep in mind the portal is only so big." Charles wrote out the dimensions on a napkin and handed it to her. "It's also circular, rectangular items that are too close to the edges may very well cause a problem. Nothing has been cut in half with it so far as I know of but I also dunno because we haven't tried taking anything bigger than a person through it."

Rogue smiled, "Do you have any proof, I mean stranger things have happened but…" she trailed off not wanting to offend them but at the same time not wanting look like an idiot if it was some joke.

"Not that I'm willing to use in a New York City diner after already having one run in with the Human's First crowd tonight. I don't need to shoot anyone else before my burger gets here," Charles replied firmly.

Rogue asked, "After?"

"Sure, if you know somewhere private and out of the way I can demonstrate the portal for you and show you around some place on the deserted world. Then you can truthfully say you've seen the place and know the portal works," Charles affirmed.

"That would help," she agreed.

John strolled up back in his normal form following the tracer in his shades. "I'm back, Peter is traumatized, and my symbiote is feeling better about the breakup."

Charles shook his head firmly back and forth. "I'm happy for you."

Xander snorted and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You sir, are a dick."

"You can't say it's not deserved; what he did was like abandoning a child. No, it was like aborting a three year old," John said firmly.

Tim sighed. "Moving, on."

"OK, what'd I miss?" John asked.

"Evidently I'm hosting the mutant exodus party," Charles replied.

"So you are taking my advice," John said cheerfully. "Just remember I am still calling dibs on most of LA."

Charles shrugged. "I don't think anyone is going to mind you claiming LA, of course that probably isn't going to stick but I highly doubt a world that easily is able to support several trillions of people is going to get argued over by a few thousand."

"If that," Rogue said softly, "I don't really think there are all that many of us that we're going to be able to find honestly."

"There are other worlds," John said with a shrug. "Trust me, there are a load of fucked up everywhere you go. How do you feel about wizards?"

Rogue raised an eyebrow. "Depends on the wizard."

"Harry has it tough and their place sucks too," John replied. "You could have neighbors who do a dozen impossible things an hour."

Rogue said, "I'd be happy to get away from the insanity of a world that hates mutants just because we're mutants, I mean seriously what the hell is the difference. The world loves the Fantastic Four but they hate mutants; I mean The Thing is a great guy but he's a living rock of destruction and they still love him…" She shook her head.

"Like I said, this world's broke, let's move all the cool people to another one," John said.

Charles sighed and finished his hamburger. "Lets get started." he dropped a 50 dollar bill on the table to cover their food and drinks and headed outside.