Story: Gestalt: Wild Card

I promised you all a wild card, and here it is! Based on an early option in Tainted Cube that takes things in a completely different direction. Hope you enjoy.
Oh, and Cross C helped out a lot with this one. Particularly the second half of it.

Try imagining nothing. As in, take the concept of nothing and imagine what it would actually look like. What did you see? A white, empty void? That's not nothing. After all, if it is white then there must be a light source of some kind, and the whiteness must be reflecting off something. The exercise is actually a great deal simpler than that. Not an endless sea of white. Try black. The total absence of colour. Just as a vacuum is the total absence of matter. Space is a big lot of nothing, filled with comparatively tiny baubles of matter and energy right in the middle of it all, so I suppose you could say that the Earth is in the middle of nowhere.

But this place was not nowhere, nor was it remotely near the middle of it. This place was white. What's more, this place had a ground, it had gravity, it had light, it had air. Lelouch knew each of these things in the blink of an eye, simply because… Well, he could immediately perceive each of them. No great deductions required here. Even so. He could see no horizons. He could see nothing. Nothing at all. Save seven other people. Each looking confused, save the one that was lying on the ground completely unconscious.

"Oh my goodness!" one of them yelped, a boy in a school uniform. A Japanese boy at that. Come to think of it, Lelouch appeared to be the only Britannian here, and several of them were definitely wearing school uniforms. Interesting. The boy ran towards the unconscious girl in the red silk shirt, turned her over and rested his head upon her chest for… quite a long time as it happened.

"Hey, cut that out!" said the only other girl of the group as she smacked the pervert across the back of the head. Interesting hairstyle.

"Excuse me, but… Is she breathing?" another of the boys asked, this one wearing a pair of glasses. He and two of the others leaned down, surrounding the girl. One checked her pulse, another listened at her mouth while the last examined the top of her head. "She's breathing," he concluded with a sigh of relief.

"Um…" a very small voice said. A boy. Fidgeting very nervously opposite Lelouch. "Excuse me, but… But where are we just now?"

"Good question," Lelouch said, drawing the attention of all six of the others towards himself. "I think it might be a good idea if we introduced ourselves, and then got around to saying just where we were before we arrived here. As I suggested it, I shall begin: My name is Lelouch, and I was - to my shame - skipping school that day to play a game of chess. I was returning home, on a shortcut through Shinjuku ghetto, when all of a sudden I found myself here. Now, how about yourselves?"

The pervert smiled one of those "too big for his mouth to contain" smiles, and spoke quickly. "My name is Ataru, and I was on my way home from school when this happened all of a sudden. Not much else to say, really."

After this, one of the rather normal-looking boys stood up away from the unconscious pigtailed girl and said, "My name is Tsukune. I'd just arrived at my new school, and the last thing I remember, some girl on a bike crashed into me."

"Lucky guy," the pervert mumbled.

"I'm Usagi, and I was on my way to school," the blonde-haired girl said, sniffing slightly as she spoke. "This whole thing is kinda scary, don't you think? I mean what if we never get home? What if -"

"Now, now, wait a minute," Lelouch said. "That's quite the revealing set of facts! After all, either the timezones we were in are all wildly disparate, or we have all been plucked from different points in time! For that reason, I must ask you all what country you were in when you were taken."

"Japan", all three of them answered at once. Not Area Eleven? Interesting. Lelouch nodded and said, "And myself. Was anyone here elsewhere in the world at the time?" Not a one of them said anything, looking at each other awkwardly. "Very well then, please continue."

"My name is Keitaro and I was visiting my grandmother's hotel," the glasses-wearing boy said, scratching the back of his head nervously. "My parents kicked me out, and I was hoping she'd let me stay with her."

The next boy introduced himself while Lelouch turned this all over in his head. The whole thing was so… Peculiar! What was going on here? "… And I was in the middle of class when this happened. It's kinda funny, really. The girl behind me would've probably loved to see something like this. I wonder what the class makes of me disappearing out of my seat?"

All eyes fell on the last of them to speak up. The rather small boy staring intently at his shoes. Not particularly wanting to talk to the others. Lelouch stepped forward and lay a hand upon the boy's shoulder. "It's alright," Lelouch said. "I don't think any of us intend to harm any of the others. Wherever we are at the moment you are safe, for the time being. Please. Tell us your name and where you were before you came here."

"M-My name is Shinji," the boy said. "And- And I was on the outskirts of Tokyo-3 when I came here. I remember seeing some sort of giant monster, and -"

And all of a sudden the whiteness behind the boy… there's no better word for it but "shifted". A street manifested all around him. The buildings weren't the same kind of design he was used to, but it wasn't like he knew every street in the world. Even so. Tokyo-3? He'd heard of Tokyo, but not Tokyo-2 never mind three! And then it lumbered into view. As tall as a skyscraper. It was the very manifestation of madness to behold. How could a creature so large be powerful enough to move its own body weight? How did it not overheight and die from the mass alone? An ear-splitting scream filled the air, and it took no time at all to realise it came from Usagi. The boys were all staring up at it in shock, paralysed with fear… And then they started to move. Tsukune and Keitaro stopped for the unconscious (still unidentified) pigtailed girl, picking her up between them while Ataru pulled Usagi away… And then found himself being pulled away when she started to retreat even faster than he! Shinji hadn't moved. All colour had drained from his face, as though he knew what was there without having to look.

"Shinji!" Lelouch yelled, intending to grab the boy's attention so that they could flee this… behemoth! But it became a non-issue. It simply vanished, dissolving away as though it had never been there to begin with. How very strange, but no time to dwell on that for the time being. Gather more evidence. Ask more questions. Then use the pieces to solve this puzzle, then get out of this place. "Shinji… What year is it?"

"Eh? Uh… 2015. Why?"

Suspicion one: Confirmed. The others had all crept back as though ashamed of themselves for running in a situation where it was pretty damned sensible to run. Lelouch turned to them,  deep in thought. Alright. "Have any of you heard of the Britannian Empire?"

Blank looks told it all. "I thought so," he said. "How very intersesting. It would appear that we are not only from different times, but different universes as well! Ah, but forgive me for getting ahead of myself. Are any of you familiar with the concept of -"

"Parallel worlds," Usagi said. "Yes, actually. It's a fairly common story device in science fiction."

The others all nodded on agreement, which was a bit of a relief. The last thing he wanted to have to deal with was something <i>that</i> complicated. "Alright then," he said. "Well, it seems as though we've all come from parallel universes for some reason. While we could probably work out the differences between our histories, I don't think that would be particularly constructive right at this moment. Furthermore -"

"You there! Identify yourself!"

Furthermore, he was back in Shinjuku surrounded by dead soldiers and staring up at the wrong end of a very big gun. Well, that was a rather peculiar hallucination… Then again, who knows? But it was over now, so back to business. He'd just use his Geass on the -

Except that all of a sudden there was the most powerful sensation of pain on his neck. Like it had been bitten. The shock forced Lelouch to his knees, screaming and clutching at his neck. What? What was this?

"She bit me!" a voice in his head screamed. After a moment's thought Lelouch recognised it… Tsukune? "That cute girl just bit me and drank my blood!"

"Kinky!" Ataru replied. "But probably a little too much for even my tastes, you know?"

On second thought perhaps it wasn't quite over with yet.

Lelouch was suddenly somewhere else, a tortured landscape atop a cliff overlooking a sickly sea.  His body was moving on its own, a frantic flailing as a voice not his own babbled from his lips, “My blood’s been sucked!  Out of nowhere I had my blood sucked!”  Confusion reigned in his mind and a panic took him.  But in moments he’d locked down the emotion and forcefully willed the body to freeze and calm.  He didn’t need to look down at his sleeves to know this wasn’t his body. 

“I’m sorry, I’m Moka Akashiya.” A quite beautiful girl was speaking, her face, hair, and manner serving to call Euphemia to mind,  “Although I look like this, I’m a vampire.”  Despite the declaration, Lelouch detected nothing but innocent school girl from her body language.

<i>Vampires!  You mean like the blood-sucking monst-wait! Why aren’t I saying anything? Why can’t I move?</i>

Lelouch felt the boy’s building panic along with his thought, so strongly in fact that it felt like <i>he</i> was the one in distress.

But not just him. There were other voices in there as well.

“Sorry about that everyone, I must have had a neck cramp!” one said, then internally thought “Ugh, this is so weird! What’s going on?”

“Never mind that!” said the sole female voice, accompanied by the sensation of running “I’m so late for school!”

“You know, she doesn’t really look anything like a vampire. Then again, I think I read in one of my biology books that predators often use camouflage to get close to their prey...”

But some of the other voices were a little bit distracted from this issue, and for rather good reason so far as Lelouch could tell. It was rather trying attempting to keep out the thoughts of so many other people at once, and even with his rather brilliant mind he feared he might get lost in the rising mix of identity.

For example, in one ear he heard “Are you Ataru Moroboshi? What are your feelings about this?” while several people that looked like reporters surrounded him on all sides.

In another, he could see a car pulling to a stop and an attractive woman stepping out to offer her hand to him. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, while in the background a military strike hit that same monster as before...

“Oh, my aching head,” said another female voice. Or thought. It was rather hard to tell. “Stupid panda must’ve hit me harder than I thought, even my neck hurts a bit and I swear I’m hearing voices! Hey! Put me down you old fool! I don’t wanna get married, I wanna get cured! I wanna get out of here! I wanna get - ”

And then, he saw it almost like it was through a filter. That same darkly lit room where a wall had recently been destroyed and slightly less recently a whole bunch of soldiers had shot themselves in the head. He saw a woman exiting her knightmare frame with her gun drawn, and felt a hand clutching at his head in confusion. His own hand. Under a power not his own.

“Stay where you are, I will retrieve your identification. No sudden moves! Understand!”

<hr>

What the hell?  Ranma stared at the woman pointing a gun at him, “Hey lady, put the gun down!” Hey, no girly voice!  Point.  But what was with this shattered room and was that a giant robot? “Where am I?”

“Shut up!” she barked as she got closer, “Don’t move or I WILL shoot you!”

The sound of gunfire, a scream, and a far off explosion served to draw the woman’s eyes briefly away but that was more than enough for Ranma.  He darted left and immediately stumbled.  What the hell?  He recovered and sprinted past the woman as her gun went off, battering his ears and sending his danger sense haywire.  He wasn’t moving nearly as fast as he should have been and his body felt wrong, terribly weak-- already loudly protesting even this small amount of exertion.  What the hell was going on?

“Stop! Get away from there!” She fired three times and Ranma felt hot pain graze his bicep as he juked behind the robot’s leg.

Yea no.  Definitely going to keep giant metal robot between me and you, lady.  In fact...

Ranma’s leap to climb up the towering knightmare (huh?) turned into disaster as his limbs responded sluggishly and something wonky was going on with his ki.  What the hell?!  He earned a painful bruise to his ribs for his trouble and found himself on his back, his reflexes failing him entirely.  Then the gun happy lady was coming around and he had no time to be confused.  He managed to spin on the ground and throw a kick through her shins sending her tumbling down atop him, her weapon hitting the ground well within reach.

The indiscriminate grappling that then took place was shameful.   He wasn’t in his girl form and this lady was stronger than him! A lot stronger!  But she was crap for technique which kept him ahead even if his lungs were trying to throw in the towel and his muscles were burning like he’d been fighting for a whole day rather than a few minutes.   Unfortunately, moves that he could perform flawlessly in his sleep were off, like his body had never done them before.  After the fourth mistake that allowed her to wriggle out of the sleeper hold he’d been attempting and he received an elbow to the face for his troubles, he got both feet under her and launched her away.   Except thanks to his damned weakness she didn’t go sailing very far in fact only a couple of feet and right next to-

Crap!

Ranma was up and diving between the robot’s legs as bullets ricocheted around him.  Seriously, what the hell was going on?!  What was he even doing here?  Where was pop?!  Was that girl a Tendo?  Cause if she was, he really wanted no damn part of this marriage thing!  He ignored his annoyingly exhausted body’s protests as he ran, eyes hastily searching for an exit strategy.   He lurched to a clumsy halt as he took in the bodies.  Blood and... was that their brains?- everywhere- their heads were- What the hell?  Ranma felt his gut try to heave-

<i>Uniformed men all in a row.  A voice commanding, “You people... DIE    !”  Guns went to temples and throats.  The leader insanely cackling.  Blood sprayed and the bodies collapsed as one.</i>

The only thing that kept his lunch down was his danger sense viciously cutting through the nausea and he charged at a large stack of wood managing to get his anemic flow of ki to speed the movement and work past his fatigued body’s limits.   More bullets filled the air as the crazy murder lady screamed something about traitors.  He made it over the stack but somehow caught his foot and went face first into a puddle of water on the other side that really had no business being there. 

“Why is it always water?” Ranma yelled wiping the cold, dirty, so very cold water from his eyes. Make that <i>her</i> eyes, and - And that wasn’t even remotely right. For the first time since waking up in this strange murderous place Ranma was able to catch sight of a reflective surface in the pool of water.

Staring back at her was a girl, much as expected. Less expected were the western features, that those eyes staring back were purple and, well, kind of larger. And that hair! Where did her pigtail go? Never mind that, though! Everything was wrong. The clothes were some uniform she didn’t recognise, and come to think the voice sounded a little off as well. Most crucially the face was completely different. Still cute as a button, but... Wrong!

“This isn’t me,” Ranma whispered. “I’m not me! What the hell is going on?”

“Good question,” an irate voice said from behind her. The reflection in the puddle quickly revealed the face of the crazy murder lady and, oh yeah, the gun pointed at the back of Ranma’s head. “Start talking, and if I like what I hear I’ll make this quick.”

<i>Hah! Close my eyes and bam! Hottie! My own personal Playboy Channel! Talk about stress relief!</i>

Huh?

<i>Ignore the dolt and let me control <b>my</b> body.  I can end this farce now.</i>

Oh god.  She was going insane.  Hearing voices-er Hey!  She found herself roughly jerked around as killer woman straddled her body in the cold -cold- puddle.  A-and a gun pressing into her cheek.  Stupid voices!

The dark skinned and actually rather very beautiful or really excessively hot silver haired gaijin woman had an absurdly cute expression of confusion twisting her undeniably sexy features as she looked down at Ranma.  Wait-what?  What did she just think?

<i>Now is the perfect moment!  Use Geass! Look at her and command her to give you the gun.  She will obey!</i>

<i>Wait. What? Woah. She totally will, won’t she?</i>

The lady was talking, “You’re a girl?  That’s not- but where-”

Holy crap, this was crazy!  How had pop cooked this one up?  Drugs, hypnosis...


<i>That’s right.  This isn’t real.  A dream.  It doesn’t matter.  Now- Yes! Finally!</i>

Ranma’s eyes were suddenly on fire and she instinctively closed them- or tried to.  They remained firmly open as she felt an explosion of ki within her temples which soon splashed out to leap across the short gulf between her and the woman.  Her own lips were moving and speaking without say so from her!  And she couldn’t move!

“Now-”  Her voice abruptly cut off as she managed to will them to obey.  Now just to get her body going-

And then her treacherous lips were at it again, “Haha! Now show us your tits!”

<i>No! You imbecile!</i> “... And give us your knightmare frame!” <i>*Sigh* Get out of my head, the both of you!</i>

<i>Yeah, sure whatever - Oh my god! That man is massive and I think he wants to eat me.</i>

The woman’s face had smoothed to an expressionless mask but now she smiled faintly as she calmly set her gun down on top of the wood stack.  “Yes.  Please enjoy my breasts.”  Then she leaned back and peeled open her dress’s neckline enough to reveal her bra encased chest.  The lacey purple garment was popped open next and Ranma was soon staring at two chocolate complected boobs.  She was rambling off some sort of code and pressing a small object into Ranma’s hand.

1. Ranma snaps back to her own body, just in time to be placed in front of Soun Tendo by her idiot father.
2. Ataru deals with learning about the race while being distracted by the others dealing with their own stuff.
3. Kyon and/or Usagi are finding it hard to concentrate in class with all the weird daydreams they both keep having.
4. Keitaro is waiting for his grandmother, and observing the others while he does so.
5. Shinji arrives at the geofront, panicking slightly because he's obviously going insane.
6. Something else