SMA Story

[InuKun]

You just stumbled upon something King KrisRix had once thought of as funny. (If you question why King KrisRix is King, as Achmed The Dead Terrorist would say..."I kill you!")

For those of you that were a part of the original forum, you may recall this story.

Till the End of Time

By: InuKun

Dedicated to all the members of the Sailor Moon Abridged (SMA) forum (Old and new)

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Prologue

Hard to believe that it’s been this long, yet here I am, an old man seemingly about to retire from this universe. It seems like only yesterday that we managed to gain control of the Cosmos and declare it all in the name of King KrisRix and Queen WhipOfAlchemy. My great-granddaughter always enjoys it when I tell her stories of the adventures we had long ago, and of the trials each of us faced in our lives. From the collapse of the Empires on earth, to fighting alien monsters bent on resisting our might, everything we did, was for the honor and glory of the crown.

I suppose some of you are wondering what the purpose of these stories I’m sharing with you are. Well, perhaps it will provide some insight into the actions of those who were loyal to the King and Queen, as well as for me anyway, a chance for closure with some old wounds that I never had the courage to face up to in person. But above all, I wanted it to be in writing, that I am proud of everyone whom I looked upon as comrades, because they gave me support when I needed it most, and never turned a blind eye to each other. After all, they were the best friends I could have ever asked for, and they always knew how to bring a smile to the faces of everyone.

There are many in the immediate court who’re not only loyal to the crown, but indeed, loyal to the friendships they had acquired. I think it was Eric, the Court Jester, who had made everyone laugh the hardest in those early days, especially to his mistakes, which started the craze of “I made an Eric!” whenever someone made a mistake in a discussion. He currently still serves as Senior Court Jester, and though I’m not to be on the Court much longer it seems, everyone is still going strong, and enjoys the bonds that feel like a family, in many respects. For me though, time is running down, like the springs of a clock which hasn’t been wound in ages.

I warn you. The stories found within contain horrifying details of events that happened along the way, and of the battles we fought so bravely and nobly. Therefore, if you have a weak stomach, please don’t continue. However, if you are a member of a resistance group, please turn yourself in so that we may educate you on the truth of your false ideals using hypnosis. You’ll find yourself to have been enlightened after just a couple of hours with an educator in our services team. If you want to learn more about the Royal Court and its beloved leader King KrisRix, then please continue along.

You’ll find that as you read each story, which has been given it’s own chapter, you’ll have a chance to look at history through the eyes of one who was there, rather then second-hand accounts and thoughts by so-called “experts” on what we meant by any particular action or statement.

Our first story, will look at when the entire group which formed the Original Royal Court, found themselves by an unusual set of circumstances, on a flight from New York’s JFK Airport, bound for London. It follows the theory of Steven King, regarding time travel, and the truth of the problems faced with traveling through time. The flight itself, would start a pact which eventually would lead to the formation of the monarchy, and an alliance between its members.

For those of you who purchased the children’s read-a-long version, you will know it is time to turn the page, when you hear a member of the Court pronounce with delight “I made an Eric!” Let’s begin now…

[InuKun]

Story Number One
Chapter One
In the Beginning

Megami33 sat on her suitcase in line, bored due to the overwhelming number of passengers still ahead of her waiting to check-in for their respective flights. ”Shit! I’ve got better things to do than stay in this line just to check-in!” she thought to herself. She’d already been in line for over an hour, and by the looks of things, she had at least another hour to go, just to be able to check-in for her flight to London Heathrow. But she had to be at the conference the next day, as she’d been informed that the series she’d been working on; was to have a pilot airing on Cartoon Network in the UK, before airing in the States. However, she would still have to convince the UK board of directors, to give her show a chance. As she sat there trying to run over the meeting in her head, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning to look, she saw KrisRix and WhipOfAlchemy standing there with their cases, and many irritated passengers behind them. “Kris, just for the record, I don’t have any Funyun’s on me. So, don’t try taking them, as there’s none to take in the first place.”

“WHY DOES EVERYBODY THINK I’M GOING TO TAKE ALL OF THEIR FUNYUN’S?!” KrisRix said out loud in a strained voice. “Probably because you’ve been known to take my Funyun supply in the past.” Megami answered calmly, whilst angrily glaring at Kris from behind her shades. “And you don’t need to yell. I’m right here.” “I WASN’T YELLING AT YOU! I WAS JUST TALKING OUT LOUD!” Kris then took a deep breath, and Megami and WhipOfAlchemy both covered their ears, knowing full well what Kris was about to do. “THIS IS YELLING!!!” Megami just sat there, wondering why the police hadn’t shown up yet, given the ruckus that was forming in front of her. “Okay! I get the idea! Just stop it before you get us all in trouble!” “As if we aren’t in trouble already” she then added under her breath.

“Just as long as you understand.” Kris grinned, rubbing her hands together. “Say Whip, don’t you think it would be easier for us to lighten our loads?” WhipOfAlchemy, who’d been trying to stay neutral, looked over at Kris with a puzzled look in her eyes. “What do you mean?” “I mean, let’s give Megami our cases and have her carry them whilst we go and get something to drink at Starbucks.” “Great idea! Hey, thanks Megami for volunteering to carry our bags.” With that, Whip took her 74 pound case, and put it on Megami’s lap, who immediately struggled to get the case off her legs before they were crushed. Kris then turned to Megami. “Would you like us to get you anything?” “Well, besides getting this case off of me, can you get me a Venti Strawberries and Cream Frappuchino?” Megami’s voice sounded really strained. However, Kris simply put the other case down on top, resulting in Megami having two heavy cases on her lap. “We’ll be back in a bit with your drink Megami. Thanks again.”

As KrisRix and WhipOfAlchemy walked off, Megami began to wonder if it had been such a good idea for her to have invited both of them along to accompany her to London. That thought didn’t have long to ponder, as she still had the issue of the cases being on her lap, slowly crushing her beneath. This would pose a problem, as the line was starting to move quickly as 12 new bays opened up at the counter. Given she couldn’t move, and was receiving the wrath of the passengers behind her for holding them up, she wondered just what she’d done in life to deserve this.

An individual who’d been ahead of Megami in line, and had taken on the full onslaught of Kris’ yelling, turned when he heard the latest commotion behind him of passengers yelling at someone to "MOVE IT!". He noticed that Megami was having a hard time with all the cases, and decided to offer some assistance. Walking over, he lifted up both bags that had been weighing her down, and put them on the floor, before extending an arm to help her stand up. “Are you alright?” he asked. Megami looked up. “Thanks. Yeah, I’m good. Just couldn’t move with those cases on me.” The young gentleman picked both cases up again and moved them forward to where she should have been at that point, setting them down and grabbing his own case and carry on wheeler again. “Don’t worry. You don’t have long to wait now before you can be free of the cases.” With that, he gave a nod. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m up now. Enjoy your flight though, miss.” Walking over to the check-in counter, the gentleman handed over his passport and proceeded to get checked in for his flight.

Just as he finished checking in, having received a Departure Management Card and given his bags to the TSA for screening at the CT-X machine, the gentleman turned around to see Megami was now struggling to get all the bags over to the counter. He turned to the TSA agent. “Excuse me for a moment.” Walking straight over, he picked up the two heavy cases that KrisRix and WhipOfAlchemy had dumped with Megami, and helped carry them up to the counter for her. “Thanks again.” She said as she tried to catch her breath from all that lifting. “Don’t mention it.” Turning, he went back over to the TSA checkpoint and grabbed his carry-on bag, much to the annoyance of the TSA, who told him off for leaving his carry-on bag unattended. “Sorry about that, but at least it helped an individual out. Besides, you saw me the whole time and I didn’t go out of sight of it.”

As Megami handed her passport over to the lady at the counter and told her where she was headed, the agent informed her of something unexpected. “Miss, there are three individuals tied to this ticket group. I’m going to have to ask that you wait until they arrive, as I need to check you all in at once.” “Well, they’ve gone to get a drink from Starbucks, so they should be back soon.” Megami was hoping that the agent would cut her a break. “Miss, I’m sorry, but those are the rules. If you like, you can go look for them, and then join the line again to check in later on. Though you’d have to take all the bags with you. We can’t allow the bags to be left unattended for security reasons.” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Oh come on. That’s unfair!” As luck would have it though, Megami would get a little bit of good luck at this point, for Kris and Whip had returned. Seeing her up at the counter, they made their way over and handed the agent their passports. “Sorry we’re late. Megami here had insisted that we go and enjoy a nice drink at Starbucks.” Kris explained. “Good news Megami! We’re back!”

“And how is that good news, exactly? Other then knowing I don’t have to walk around the whole airport searching for you in order to get checked-in.” She gave a quick sigh of relief. “So, where is it?” Whip looked at Megami questionably. “Where’s what?” she asked. “Where’s my Venti Strawberries and Cream Frappuchino?” Kris and Whip exchanged worried glances with each other. “Wait! When did you ask us to get you something?” Kris was trying to remember if Megami had asked them for a drink at Starbucks or not. “Y-you mean, you forgot my drink?!” She pretended to get all teary-eyed, hoping the two of them would feel guilty for having forgotten her drink. “Don’t you have a heart?” she asked.

Kris and Whip stared into Megami’s teary eyes for a moment, unable to say anything. Perhaps a feeling of guilt was flowing through them. “Nope! I still don’t recall you having asked for anything when we went to Starbucks. In fact, I could have sworn that when I asked, you politely declined; saying you’d rather wait here with the bags in line, then go with Whip to get the drinks. I’m sure I offered to stay here whilst you both went, but you simply insisted that you stay here. You should have told us when I asked that you wanted something, instead of telling me that you didn’t!” Kris explained, serving only to annoy Megami that much more. However, the complaint would have to wait, as the ticket agent was trying to get their attention.

“Okay folks. You’re checked-in on Vacation Airlines Flight 918 with service from JFK to London Heathrow. You’re in 35A, B, and C respectively in Freedom Economy, so you’ll get a little extra legroom for the flight. The flight will depart from Gate 12 at 6:40 this evening, currently scheduled to depart on time. Be sure to check the Departure Monitors for any changes though. Now, I’m just going to need you all to take your checked bags over to the TSA crew over there and drop them off for screening. After that, feel free to head over to the line for security before heading to your gate. Enjoy your flight now.” As the three of them gathered their bags and took them over to the TSA crew, Megami muttered under her breath. “I’ll get you for this Kris.”

Another headache was about to hit the three of them, as given the afternoon rush of passengers getting ready to fly that evening, the line up for security was massive. Megami almost wept simply from thinking that she once again, had to line up for an hour or more. “Don’t worry Megami.” Whip whispered in her ear. “We can tell you all about what happened at Starbucks and how we got coupons for free drinks on a future visit as a result, while we wait in line.” That did it. Megami looked over at Whip and told her “I don’t care! Just don’t talk to me right now!”

Meanwhile, the same gentleman from before was just walking out of Starbucks, and was headed past the line, walking alongside of it, pulling his carry-on case behind him. He walked right passed Megami and the others, and though she noticed him, she didn’t say anything. He made his way to the front of the line, and went over to a set of screeners who weren’t serving anyone it seemed. “Wait! How did he?!” she thought, only out loud. “What?” Kris and Whip had both heard her, and wondered just what Megami was talking about. “Well, I was wondering why there are screeners up there who aren’t screening passengers, unless they walk up to them out of line.” “What do you mean?” Kris asked. “Up there, to the right side. See? There’s a screener there who isn’t screening anyone unless they walk up to them out of line!” Whip looked in interest, as another person walked up out of line and managed to get screened. “Hang on. I’ll go check.” she said.

It was a good distance to walk, and seemed much shorter visually, then it actually was. When WhipOfAlchemy arrived at the front, she got her answer right away from a sign posted there. Walking back over, she got back in line and gave a straight face. “Well?” Megami asked. “What?” “What’s the verdict?” “It’s for Airport and Airline Employees only.” Darkgargos who was standing behind the trio, looked over his boarding pass. “So, they bumped me up to Business. That was certainly nice of them.” he thought.

Just over an hour later, Megami finally could sit down at the gate and rest her legs. Looking around, she saw quite a large crowd of people at the gate, seemingly preparing for the flight to London. A couple of Gate Agents arrived and logged into the computer, programming the information screen behind them with the flight information, just before the crew arrived to be let down to the aircraft. Outside, the rays of sunshine from the setting sun, could be seen reflecting an orange hue against the nose of the 747 outside; which was currently being loaded with cargo and fuel. Megami looked out and thought of the meeting the next day, running potential questions and answers in her head. “Damn, how many people do you think will be on this flight?” Kris asked, impressed seemingly at the large crowd hovering by the gate. Up at the podium, passengers were continuously walking up, asking for upgrades or seat changes, and being issued new boarding passes.

When the Gate Agents were finished with those requests, one of them picked up the intercom phone. “Paging stand-by passenger InuKun. Please come up to the podium at this time.” Megami looked over to see the gentleman from earlier walking up to the podium. “Here’s your ticket Mr. InuKun. You’re in seat 1A.” “Cool, First Class again. I’m glad I can use the benefits in this job.” He put the boarding pass away in his jacket pocket, before showing her his company ID badge. “Well, we’re just about to start boarding.” As InuKun started walking over to the gate, he saw Megami and her traveling companions sitting down. He quickly walked back over to the Gate Agent. “How full is First for the flight today?” he asked. “Let’s see. Including you, there are 3 passengers for First on the flight. So it’s still got room for 9 more.” InuKun glanced one more time in their direction. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor?” he asked. “What do you need?” InuKun then explained to her his request.

As Megami continued running over thoughts for the meeting tomorrow, Kris and Whip were busy watching anime on Whip’s portable DVD player. They paid no attention to the pre-boarding announcement, or to when the announcement came that the airline was ready to board all First and Business Class passengers. As Darkgargos and InuKun both boarded the flight, they made their way to their respective seats, with Darkgargos having to climb upstairs to the upper level section of Business Class. It wasn’t until one of the Agents walked up to the three of them and asked if they could follow her up to the podium for a moment, that they became concerned.

“Is there something wrong?” Megami asked. “Oh no, there’s nothing wrong. I just was going to offer the three of you some new seats.” Shrugging their shoulders, the three of them followed her up to the podium and handed her their boarding passes. Entering some information into the computer, she waited as the printer issued three new boarding passes. As she handed them over, she smiled. “There you are! Seats 1F, 2A, and 2F. You’ve been upgraded to First Class for tonight’s flight.” “WHAT?!” the three of them exclaimed out loud, in complete shock at the news. “Wait! Why have we been upgraded?” Whip asked. “Does that even matter?” Kris replied. “We’re going to travel in First!” As they regained their composure, the three headed over to the gate and proceeded to board the flight. Turning left at the door of the aircraft, they came upon a wide, open space with giant, leather flat-bed seats inside individual private bays; each with a 32 inch TV screen at the front, and a sliding electric door to ensure privacy in flight.

“Welcome aboard.” The purser smiled as they walked into First and looked for their seats. InuKun, who was already seated, was busy looking over the menu with the door open, but not visible to them right now. As they took their seats, they each were handed a menu for their meals, and gave their orders to the purser. It was as this was completed that the screens in front of then came on, to show the airline’s safety video. Whilst the video played, the doors were latched closed and soon afterwards, the aircraft began to push back from the gate. Throughout the airplane, people waited with anticipation as the aircraft completed the push, and soon got underway, taxiing along until it lined up, ready for take-off.

Within 20 minutes of pushing back from the gate due to congestion, the aircraft finally positioned itself on the runway and began to increase power to the engines, before rolling forward and increasing speed until it rotated and left the ground. As the aircraft climbed over Queens and changed course ready for the trans-Atlantic flight, little did anyone know that the aircraft would be returning a short while later to JFK, but to a New York different to this one.

[InuKun]

Chapter Two
Scary sometimes tastes sweet.

It had been only a few minutes since the aircraft had taken off, and was currently climbing through the thin cloud layer over the Long Island, as it passed over Republic Airport; and in Economy, TevaTan was already regretting the seat assignment given, as a young 5 year old sat behind her and proceeded to continuously kick the seat, seeming to enjoy kicking something for the flight. “Great. I’ve got an annoying brat behind me.” she thought. It would only take a couple more kicks, before she got mad and undid her seat belt, and turned to look at the young boy behind her. “Listen you little snot-nosed brat. If you kick this seat one more time, I’ll make sure you don’t have working legs anymore in your life. Do you understand me?” Sitting there, wide-eyed with fear, the child simply nodded his head, before burying his head in his hands and started crying. “And stop crying, dammit!” As if scared by her, the young boy screamed and wailed even more.

Teva looked at the middle-aged gentleman beside him, hoping that he was the kid’s father. However, he saw the expression on Teva’s face and before a word was spoken, denied what she was wondering. “He’s not my kid. Not sure who the parents are, but they aren’t here. In fact, they probably just decided to ship him off because they couldn’t love and care for someone so horrid.” He turned his attention to the young boy. “Look kid! If you don’t stop crying, I’m going to introduce you to my fist. Now stop crying and act like a man!” The young boy paused in his sobs for a moment and looked up at the strange guy. “My mommy said I should never talk to strange men.” Teva nearly laughed, given the thought of such a thing. “I think the only thing he wants is for you to be a good little boy. So do us both a favor. Sit still and shut up, so that we can relax. I doubt he wants to treat you to anything naughty.” she answered. The gentleman glared daggers at the young brat, before glaring at her over the insinuation that he was a pedophile. “Do you mind? I don’t think that’s funny.” he calmly replied.

As the young brat calmed down, the flight attendants came around in Economy with drinks for everyone. As Teva ordered an Orange Juice for herself, she introduced herself. “I’m TevaTan, by the way.” The gentleman nodded as he took a sip of coffee. “Maxskate2001.” “Rather unusual name, isn’t it?” “It does the job. Besides, it’s really just a cover name for me. I would tell you my real name and all, but then I’d have to kill this little kid to make sure he doesn’t squeal it to everyone.” “Well, if that’s the case, go ahead. I’d love to see you shut him up for good.” “SSHHH! Too many witnesses.” Maxskate replied.

Meanwhile, up in First Class, Megami was trying to figure out how to work her seat, whilst Kris and Whip walked over and started talking to her. With Kris taking a sip of her water and Whip already on the fourth glass of champagne from her own private bottle of Pol Roger, Megami pressed the bed button on her control console. All of a sudden, she heard a motor kick in as the foot rest swung up and her seat started moving forward. After traveling a few inches, the back started to drop, and after about 45 seconds, she lay down flat, as the motor stopped. “Okay, how do I get this back up?” she asked, given she couldn’t see the controls any more which were on top of the armrest. InuKun overheard the question, due to being only 6 feet away along with the somewhat loud voice it was asked in, and took out his remote and began typing a text message, which he sent over to Megami’s screen. However, they couldn’t see him as he’d closed the door to his seat.

Have a friend press the release button above the remote, and get them to hand you the remote. Then just press the bed button again, and that will return the bed to it’s upright position. The message had appeared without warning on Megami’s screen, and Whip noticed and reached over, pressing the release button and handing Megami the remote. The screen however, didn’t say who the message was from. Once she was sitting upright again, Megami took her Coke that had been brought over, and started to drink away. She looked over the various array of buttons on the remote and elected to hit menu. The screen popped up with a selection of options, which included watching videos, listening to music, Internet access, and communicating with other passengers on the aircraft. “Who was that message from?” Kris asked teasingly. “Heck if I know. It didn’t say.” “Select your inbox. It probably will tell you there.”

Megami selected her inbox, and whilst it did state that she’d gotten the message, it didn’t say who the message was from. Over in 1A, InuKun sat back and got ready for dinner, knowing that his appetizer would be arriving shortly. Indeed, one of the flight attendants walked over and let Kris and Whip know that they were about to begin with the meal, to which they took their seats. Megami just kept thinking that this was the life. She’s never traveled in First Class before, and figured that she could get used to it very quickly. As she relaxed, she pressed the door button, and watched as the door slid closed, and grinned. “A chance to get those two to leave me alone.” she thought.

A moment later, Megami heard a knock and opened the door, to see the Flight Attendant there. “Good evening Miss. I’ve come to get you ready for dinner.” “Ready how?” “Napkin, table cloth and cutlery.” “Oh, thanks.” She watched as everything was prepared, along with a salt and pepper shaker set being put down for her. “And now, your appetizer of peppered beef in endive.” The young lady handed her the large dish, with what normally would be construed as a main meal to her. “Wait! This is an appetizer?!” “Yes.” Megami pondered in her mind what the main course would look like. “I’ll be back shortly with your salad.” With that, the flight attendant left allowing Megami to pick up her knife and fork, and dig in.

Kris had elected not to eat anything, but Whip was busy enjoying her appetizer of Brie cheese in a filo purse. Both InuKun and Darkgargos had selected the sautéed stuffed shrimp with water chestnuts, carrots, and zucchini, though in different portions due to the class each was traveling in, yet Dark was comfortable none the less. As the full plate salads were distributed in First, Whip was quick to ask that hers not have the peppers included and Caesar dressing, which was no problem. In the Business and First Galleys, each purser went over the order one again. Both classes had the same items, but with Business having smaller portions.

TO BEGIN
Join us in a sampling of appetizers:

Sautéed stuffed shrimp with water chestnuts, carrots, and zucchini
Peppered beef in endive*
Brie cheese in filo purse
Apple vinaigrette dressing

SALAD

Fresh seasoned greens with tomatoes, peppers and hot gingered scallops
Caesar or soy vinaigrette dressing

MAIN COURSE

Filet mignon with béarnaise sauce*

Lemon grass breast of chicken with red curry sauce
The above entrees include your choice of:
Oven-roasted paprika potatoes, chicken rice, or steamed rice
Stir-fried Oriental vegetables or sautéed green beans and carrots

Hawaiian-style steamed snapper with shiitake mushroom
Blanched broccoli and steamed rice

DESSERT

International cheese selection
Camembert, Bavarian Blue and Gouda cheese

Fresh seasonal fruit

Häagen-Dazs ice cream with sundae toppings

Warm bread and butter pudding


PRIOR TO ARRIVAL

Ham, cheese and scrambled eggs in egg crepe with pork sausage
Hollandaise sauce

or

Fresh seasonal fruit with creamy yogurt

*Today's menu features beef from Australia.


FEATURED WINES
Your flight attendant will inform you of today's selections.
Some of these wines may only be available on selected flights.

CHAMPAGNE

Billecart-Salmon 1997

Pol Roger 1996

WHITE WINE

Joseph Drouhin Rully 2002, Chardonnay

Pierre Sparr Alsace 2002, Pinot Gris Reserve

Kunde Estate Sonoma Valley Kinneybrook Chardonnay 2001

Hogue columbia Valley Pinot Gris 2002

RED WINE

Chateau Rauzan-Segla Margaux 1999

Sacha Lichine Nuits St-Georges 2001, Pinot Noir

St. Supery Napa Valley Merlot 2000

Estancia Pinnacles Monterey Pinot Noir 2001

Sandeman's Porto will be offered during the main meal's dessert.

STARBUCKS coffee will be available throughout the flight.

Megami had made an interesting order for dessert, however, the purser was able to get her request seen to with very little difficulty.

“Right, so Megami will be having a Filet mignon with potatoes and greens, Whip would like a lemon grass breast of chicken with stir-fried vegetables, KrisRix has requested nothing, and InuKun will be having the lemon grass breast of chicken with chicken rice and Oriental stir-fry. For dessert, Whip requests the fruit, InuKun would like the ice cream, and Megami will be having a sinful triple-chocolate cake. Let’s get these orders ready then.” Up on Business, Dark’s purser reviewed the order. “Lemon grass breast of chicken with potatoes and ice cream sundae for dessert.”

If any of you are getting hungry just from reading this, I haven’t finished yet.

As each finished off their salads, the flight attendants came round and collected their plates. Megami turned in utter shock as a large plate was set down in front of her, with a very large portion of Filet Mignon on it. “There’s no way I can finish this!” she thought to herself. Still, she started, and as soon as she took a bite, forgot about the size of her portion. She trembled as the taste traveled from her taste buds, to her brain, and shuddered. “Damn, that’s the best I’ve had in a long time! I don’t know if I’ll have enough room for dessert.” Still, she continued eating without hesitation. By the time she was done, she had only a few moments to relax before the flight attendant returned and asked her if she was ready for dessert. “Probably in a few minutes. I’m still getting over just how large the portions were.” “Yes, the portions are rather large. Well, let me know when you’re ready.”

Throughout the flight, shutters started to close as the sun set beyond the horizon, and nightfall hit. The pursers dimmed the overhead lighting to allow everyone to relax. Although most of the passengers weren’t willing to relax after the Captain suddenly came on the intercom with an odd, yet rather special announcement. “Ladies and Gentlemen, a very good evening from the flight deck. This is Captain Reynolds speaking. I just wanted to let you know that we’ve had reports from Air Traffic Control along with other flights in the area, that an aurora borealis has been seen along our flight path up ahead, and we’re expecting to fly right into it on our current flight path. So, if you’d like to enjoy, feel free to look out the windows when we reach it. Normally, the aurora borealis isn’t visible this far south, so it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for many of you.”

Megami however, was starting to feel tired from all that eating, and closed her door, before dropping her seat down into bed mode. Several people throughout the aircraft decided to take a nap, rather than watch the aurora borealis event outside; and in just a few short hours, those who had slept, would be in some respects, ever so glad that they had.

[InuKun]

Chapter Three
It’s Your Lucky Day

At the rear of the Economy section, Usagi had just woken up and couldn’t see her brother next to her. “He must’ve gone to the bathroom.” she figured. But after a few minutes, he hadn’t returned. Getting up, she looked around to see the once full cabin, was now entirely empty it seemed. “H-Hello?” she called out, hoping someone would hear her. She heard no response. Pressing the call button to try and get an attendant, nothing happened when she did. Other then the roar of the engines outside, it was completely quiet. She left her seat and began walking around, to see such an odd sight. Headphones, wallets, keys and other items were on the seats, but she saw no one sitting there. She came upon one seat that was able to send her falling backwards, screaming. Teva and Maxskate, who’d both been asleep, got up and ran back to the rear section, failing to notice that even the young boy wasn’t there anymore. As they reached Usagi, Teva asked her what was wrong. “Where is everybody?!” Usagi asked. “What are you talking about?! They’re all right-” His words were cutoff as Maxskate looked around, and saw that all the seats were apparently empty, save for personal belongings in the seats. “What the hell? What’s going on here?” He glanced at one of the screens which showed their current position, which was about 300 miles off the east coast of Newfoundland. “You two wait here.”

Maxskate ran to a galley, finding it empty save for food and personal belongings of what he assumed were the flight attendants. He then ran forward, screaming out to anyone who could hear him. Which at this point, was everyone still on the aircraft. “What do you want?” Another gentleman asked as he stood up, rubbing his head, annoyed that his nap had been disturbed. The tall, muscular figure just looked at Maxskate, waiting to hear what his problem was. “Okay, where is everyone?” Maxskate asked. “Dude, what the hell are you asking such a dumb question for? They’re right here as you can plain-” He looked around, as a few others popped up their heads amongst the rows of seemingly empty seats. “What the?!” As everyone back in economy wondered what was going on, Darkgargos was upstairs in the upper section of Business wondering not only where everyone was, but why there was no answer to the continuous knocks on the flight deck door. Finally, hearing the noise from below, he elected to go down and see if anyone could explain just what was going on.

Up in First, things were no better, with Megami, Kris and Whip all wondering what the racket futher back in the plane was all about. Maxskate came up and asked the girls if they knew where everyone was, to which they had no idea. InuKun woke up and pulled out his earplugs before releasing the door and getting out of his seat. “Okay, what’s going on?” he asked. After being told that almost everyone on the flight had disappeared, Inu thought that this was just some kind of joke, and walked into Business Class’ lower cabin, only to see that what Maxskate had told him, was seemingly quite accurate. He popped his head back into the First Class Galley, to see personal belongings all over the floor, including something that caught his attention. He walked over and picked up a silver double-edged key from the floor. “Why the hell is this out on the floor?” he wondered to himself, knowing all too well what the key was to.

“What is it?” Kris asked, having looked into the galley. “What did you find?” “If what I found is what I think it is, then I’m wondering just what the hell has happened here.” he answered. “I’ll explain in a moment what it was I found.” With that, he went back into Business and looked at Maxskate. “How many are in Economy?” he asked. “I don’t know. But why are you so interested.” “Get everyone to the Upper Level Business, which is up those stairs. I’ll explain everything that I can, once we’re up there.” InuKun then watched as Darkgargos came down the stairs. “Hey, what’s going on? There’s no one upstairs!” Dark explained. “There’s very few down here, by the sounds of it. You might as well go back up, because everyone’s coming upstairs.” Inu answered quickly, before coming over to the stairs and making his way up them.

As InuKun got upstairs, he saw that indeed, no one was in the galley or in any seats. Just personal belonging strewn about. He made his way to the front to a solid door marked NO ENTRY and took the key he’d taken off the galley floor, inserting it into the lock. At that moment, Megami, Whip and Kris got up there. “Hey! What are you doing? Why are you trying to break into the cockpit?!” Whip asked out loud. “I’m not trying to break in.” InuKun reached into his jacket pocket and took out his company badge, which identified him as a pilot, and handed it to them. “My name’s InuKun. I’m a First Officer with Vacation Airlines, though most would know that as a co-pilot. That item I found in the galley downstairs was the Purser key to the cockpit. It allows the purser access when the door’s lock is in the Locked, Key Accessible position. With that, he heard a click and took hold of the plate sticking out of the door, before opening it outwards.

The cockpit was running off of autopilot and flight director, but with no crew at the controls. An oxygen mask sat on the Captain’s seat, along with their ID’s and company wings. As InuKun walked inside and sat down, he looked over everything, noting that none of the readouts showed any irregularities. “What the hell happened here?” he wondered out loud to himself. He proceeded to put a headset on and listened for a moment on the radio. Hearing nothing on the current frequency, he made a call. “This is Vacation nine eighteen. North Atlantic Control, do you copy?!” There was no response. He then switched to 121.5 and repeated the call, with again, no reply. After 4 tries, he switched to the second radio and tried again with no response. He then set radio one to speaker and transmitted over radio two, only to hear himself over the speaker in the cockpit. “Well, I don’t know what the hell is going on. We’re transmitting, as the second radio is picking it up. But someone else should have gotten it on this frequency!”

“Maybe the person is away from their desk?” Megami and Darkgargos had made their way into the cockpit. “No, that’s impossible! I’m transmitting on 121.5, which is a worldwide distress frequency. Every air traffic control facility and military base, regardless of nationality, worldwide monitors this frequency 24 hours a day.” “Do you have any suggestions then?” Dark asked. InuKun sighed. “Well, if we keep going as we are, we’ll reach London, but if no one is answering on any frequencies, I don’t want to be entering London’s airspace blindly like this. It would be like walking across a 24 lane highway that is heavy with traffic, but with each of those vehicles still doing an impressive speed and without time to stop before hitting you. And apart from Boston and Montreal, the closest airports we can land at are JFK, Newark, Ottawa, Toronto, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington Dulles. All of which even at this hour, are heavily congested.” InuKun grabbed a small binder from a case and started looking through it. “But I’m going to have to limit that a bit more, so we only have a choice of JFK, Newark, Philly, Baltimore and Washington.”

“Um, just out of curiosity. Why are you dropping those other airports?” Megami asked, to which InuKun held up the binder. “The reason is that I’ve only got Instrument Approach plates for those airports in here, save for Logan, which I wouldn’t touch if my life depended on it!” InuKun then picked the handset up from the center console. “Attention everyone. I’m sure that like me, you’re all wondering just where everyone has gone, and just what exactly is going on here. Before I get into that, I’d like to say that my name’s InuKun, and by some odd turn of events, I’ve gone from being a passenger on tonight’s flight, to being your pilot. Now, I am certified to fly this aircraft, and indeed, I only flew this very one this morning back from Tokyo. But what I need is for everyone to understand that you aren’t alone. Look around. There are others in the same situation at the moment.”

InuKun paused for a moment to regain his composure. “I would like each of you to, one at a time, take this chance to introduce yourselves to each other. I think in the long run, it’ll help each of us keep some sense of calm. In the meantime, I do have something that I do need to say. I’ve been getting no response to hails on the radio, even from an emergency frequency that is manned 24/7. I’ve crosschecked the radios, and they are working properly. However, in light of this, I have to make a decision. Because London Heathrow is a very heavily congested airport, second only to Atlanta worldwide, I’ve decided our best option, is to turn around and return to JFK. We don’t know what the situation is yet, and although I’m sure you all had things to do in England, they’re going to have to wait. I don’t want to risk everyone’s safety with flying blindly into London’s Triple Class B airspace. JFK I can handle even with Radio problems, as all three airports are close to each other, whereas London’s three airports are spaced apart in such a way that you can’t see aircraft approaching or departing the other airports. It will take about 3 hours to turn around and land at the airport, so just sit back and talk amongst each other. I apologize for what has happened, and I assure you once again that if I had an answer as to what was going on, I’d tell you. For now though, just hang tight.” Inu then released his finger from the handset button and looked over the controls again.

Megami, who wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear that she was going to miss the meeting, just sat down in the seat behind the Captain's and started crying. Inu turned around and put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey listen. I know you and everyone else must be scared and all, but I’m going to need you to stay strong.” He reached into the case and pulled out a packet of Kleenex, offering them to her. “I know it’s not much, but it’s all I can offer up here.” She took one of the tissues out and started to wipe away her tears. “It’s just, I had a very important meeting that I needed to attend in London.” She explained in between tears. “Well, do you want to talk about it? It’ll hopefully get your mind on other things.” Dark sat down in the chair opposite Megami to listen as well, given he agreed with Inu on that, and keeping their minds on other things would certainly help.

“Well, I’m an animator, and I’d just finished producing my own anime called Tamer, and I was going to have it shown on Cartoon Network in the UK before having it air in the States.” Inu and Dark both looked on as she described what the story of Tamer was about. (Sorry everyone, but in respects to Megami’s wishes, I’m not saying anything about what it’s about; other than it being the most awesome show you could ever want to watch.) As she finished, Inu looked on. “Do you have a copy with you?” he asked. “Yeah, I’ve got one on DVD. Why?” “I was wondering if the others might like to watch it whilst we’re on our way back to New York. It’ll help keep their minds somewhat at ease, I think.” Inu then twisted a dial on the dash until it read 250. Dark looked over and asked what that was. “Oh, that’s the heading selector for the autopilot. It tells the autopilot what heading to fly.” As Inu answered, the aircraft started into a slight roll, and Dark and Megami both watched a screen as it showed the aircraft changing course until the compass needle was at 250 degrees. “Right, all that’s left is to dump some of this fuel, and start preparing to land.”

“Dump fuel?” Megami was a little concerned. “Isn’t that bad for the environment?” “Well Jet A Fuel, which is what this aircraft runs on, will break up and evaporate before it reaches the ocean. It’s just really a high grade kerosene. But unless you want to hold for a while before landing at Kennedy, it’ll have to be dumped so that we can safely land. Otherwise, we risk the aircraft being out of balance and breaking up upon touch down. Unfortunately, there’s no way to remove the balance issue since what causing the balance problem is all the cargo in the hold. We can’t dump any of it because the cargo doors won’t open in the air. And the only way to open them is from the outside. Normally a 747 could at about 12, 000 feet do it, but Vacation's policy is that the doors may only be opened from the outside on the ground. So corporate maintenance saw to it that every aircraft met that policy.”

Whip and Kris suddenly walked in. “Hey Meg, I hope you don’t mind, but we took the liberty of introducing you to everyone on your behalf.” Whip mentioned as she came in. Megami looked up at her. “Please tell me you didn’t say anything bad or embarrassing about me.” Whip and Kris both looked hurt at that comment. “Aww, come on Meg! You know we would never treat you badly.” “It’s because I know how you two treat me, that I’m worried!” Megami answered sternly. InuKun then muttered an addition to that. “No, you just leave two heavy bags on her lap and leave her alone after making a scene in front of everyone at check-in.” Kris looked over at InuKun. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?! Cause if you’ve got something to say, then say it to my face!” InuKun held up his hand. “Alright, I think everyone here needs to just calm down, and certainly I won’t be able to calm down with all this commotion.” He then went back to looking over the controls, whilst Whip took Megami’s arm and started tugging on it. “Come on Megami. You’ll be safer with us than with this creep.”

As the three stooges left, Dark looked around the cockpit as Inu rubbed his eyes to try and help clear his mind. Dark then saw something that caught his eye. A traveler’s Chess Set was sitting inside one of the crew’s chart cases. “Hey, you wanna play a game of Chess while we wait?” Inu looked over as Dark pulled the small board out. “Yeah, the autopilot will be fine for the next few hours. But I don’t know the rules.” “It’s okay, I’ll teach them to you.”

Out in the cabin, Maxskate and Usagi both walked up to Megami. “Um, we were just wondering if what your friends had told us about you was true.” Usagi asked. Megami suddenly got a cold chill up her spine. “Crap. What did they say?” she asked, almost dreading the answer. “Well, Whip said that you’d been living in a cardboard box all winter until you finally went up to her and begged for mercy and asked Whip to let you stay with her.” Megami clenched her fist and grinded her teeth. “Why that little…” “So I take it, she wasn’t quite correct in her story.” Maxskate replied calmly. “Not quite correct? She’s nowhere near correct! I never did any such thing!”

Back inside the cozy cockpit, Dark and Inu had set the board up in the center block underneath the thrust controls, and Inu was looking over everything. “Right! Let’s just go over the rules one more time, and then we can get started.” He then picks up on of his knights. “Now, how does the racehorse move again?” Dark sighed before volunteering his answer. “It’s not a racehorse. It’s a knight!” Inu looked over the piece again. “Well, where’s the knight then?” Dark was getting annoyed at this point. “Well, he must’ve fallen off!” “He’s not much of a knight then, is he?!” Inu then put the knight back down on the board, of which he then pointed at one of his rooks. “And that one’s called a Rook?” Dark was clearly annoyed, as anyone could tell upon walking into the cockpit at this point. “Yes.” “Why, does it nest in trees?” “No, it’s a castle.” Inu pointed at it again. “But it’s called a rook?!” “Yes, some people call it a rook.” “Well, which people? Blind ones?” After thinking for a moment, Dark decides “What the hell?” “Yes.” “Oh, I see. But the castle can move, right?” “Yes.” “Even though it hasn’t got any legs.” Dark just shook his head in disbelief at where this was leading. “Yes.” “It’s not very likely, is it?” Inu then holds up a Bishop. “And this… This is also a Bishop, you say?” “Correct.” “And he bends sideways.” Dark sighed once more. “Correct.”

“Well, there’s no surprise there. Wonder what the Church is coming to these days. Right, now let me get this sorted out. Now the bent priest, stands next to the Queen.” Puts the Bishop down and picks her up. “And the Queen, goes in every direction.” “That’s right.” InuKun then put the Queen down and gave a very concerned look to Darkgargos. “And they let children play this, you say? I mean, it’s pretty strong stuff, isn’t it Dark! I mean, Knights taking Pawns, and apparently if a Pawn goes all the way, he turns into a Queen!”

Dark had just about had enough at this point. “Shut up Inu, and play the game!” “Oh, okay. Sorry about that.” Dark sighed, putting his head in his hands. “Hey I know! Let’s pretend that I’m James Bond. And you can be one of the Bad Guys from the films, like Q or someone, and if I loose, I have to die!” There was a moment’s pause, before Dark’s head slowly rose up with a smile on his face. “Fair enough.” he answered with a nod.

Just what will happen on their way back to New York, and will InuKun have to die should he loose the match against Darkgargos? Tune in next time to find out.

[InuKun]

Chapter Four
Awesome is as awesome does

AN: Damn. We’re already this far into it. It just goes to show how awesome everyone on SMA is. Just continue being yourselves. This one isn’t a very long chapter admittedly, but it gets the build up going to the arrival back into Kennedy.

Megami stood dumbfounded over the insinuation that Whip claimed she had spent the past winter in a cardboard box. She was even more shocked that anyone could have even believed the story in the first place. “Whip, why did you tell everyone something that wasn’t true?” Whip looked at Megami with a puzzled look on her face. “Uh, what are you talking about? I didn’t actually introduce you, Kris did.” Discovering the error, Megami apologized to Whip before turning her attention to Kris, who was sitting there with a facial look of pure innocence and trust. “Kris, not only did you fail to get me the drink I wanted at Starbucks whilst we were waiting in line, but you also made me deal with your luggage. To top it off, you fabricated such an obvious lie to everyone here, and made it seem as if Whip had said it.” Kris gave her a smile as she looked up from her seat. “It was actually Whip who said it, but I told her to say it as a joke, so I’m not the guilty one here.” Kris tried to correct Megami’s opinion of the situation, but it didn’t quite go as planned.

“But you still told her to say it!” At that moment, a muscular gentleman intervened. “Alright ladies. I think at the moment, this isn’t really the time for such things. We still need to be able to get down safely and that’s going to take everyone being calm and trusting each other. Not only that, but I honestly think that the guy at the controls right now must be under enough stress without getting anymore stress added to him right now.” Moonlight Knight wasn’t himself, in the best of moods right now, given he had a connecting flight for Athens, in order to partake in a sporting challenge in three days time. “I think for now, we should at least put some trust in the work of our new pilot, since he seems to be the only one here who can fly this plane. So until we’re back on the ground, could you save the arguments?”

InuKun and Darkgargos had yet to actually start the chess game however, as InuKun was still just glancing at the board, being completely silent and appearing to be in deep thought. Finally, the tension broke, with a question from Inu. “Am I black, or white?” Dark’s reply to the question, reflected the annoyance in his tone of voice. “YOU’RE WHITE!!! YOU’RE THOSE ONES THERE!!!” He pointed to the rows of white pieces. “THE ONES NEXT TO YOU!!!” “Oh, right.” “NOW MAKE YOUR MOVE!!!” Dark then sighed once more. He was, quite honestly, nearing the point of willingly wrapping his hands around Inu’s neck and squeezing with all his strength. Inu looked over at Dark. “All right, all right. Don’t hustle me now.” He then leaned over and looked over his pieces and spoke out loud to himself, whilst keeping one ear listening to the dead silence coming through the headset, just in case a transmission got picked up on. “Okay, right. This is it. What would Napoleon do? Loose the Battle of Waterloo, that’s no good to me! Right, this is it. Only one thing for it.” He then took hold of one of his Pawns, and got ready to make the first move. In a strong and powerful voice, Inu made his very unusual move.

“Attack, attack, attack! Over the top boys!” He started randomly moving his chess pieces around the board whilst making machine-gun noises. “Argh! I’m hit!” He said as he dropped a Pawn and took hold of another. “Oh, the blood! Oh, the horror! I’m getting out of here!” He started hopping the Pawn along with his left arm off the board. “Shoot that Pawn!” To which he shot at it with his right hand, shaped into a pistol. As the mayhem on the board continued, Dark just watched, with a completely emotionless expression on his face. “Right, everyone! Follow me!” Inu said as he picked up the Queen and started moving her forward. He then put her down and picked up the Queen’s Bishop. “I can’t follow you! I’m a bishop! I can only go sideways!” With that, Inu continued the machine gun antics with his voice for another moment before stopping.

Dark, just sat there watching. When InuKun had finally stopped and gestured the board to Dark, it became apparent that Dark for some reason, wasn’t at all bothered by what had just transpired. “That’s your move then, is it?” he asked. “Yep. Get out of that one, Patraeus!” InuKun said with confidence in his voice. Dark simply nodded and looked over the board for a moment. He then took hold of his Queen, moved it to the side of the board, then forward, then sideways. He continued moving in an erratic fashion for a few more seconds, before finally putting his Queen back down, and scooping up all the pieces, except for InuKun’s king, which remained untouched. He then looked at InuKun with a large grin on his face. “Checkmate!” he said triumphantly. “Darn!” Inu said, whilst snapping his finger and thumb. “Well, shall we play something else now?” “What would you like to play?” Dark asked. InuKun thought for a moment, and then got an idea. “Hey, what about Poker?” Dark shrugged. “Yeah sure.” He didn’t feel like holding InuKun to that bet right that moment, due to the situation they were in.

Back in Business, things had seemingly calmed down once more, much to the relief of some passengers. Megami had apparently forgiven Whip and Kris for the wrongs they committed in her intro as well as the Starbucks incident a few hours earlier at the airport, and was busy getting a coke from the galley at the rear of the cabin. Moonlight Knight was busy chatting with outlaw star and Whip about how he’d been planning on going to a sporting event in Athens, whilst Kris snuck downstairs and into the First Class cabin to grab something. It wasn’t until Megami walked back into the cabin and glanced around, that she noticed Kris was missing. She just shrugged it off, figuring that Kris was either in the cockpit or in the lavatory. Either way, it would be some peace and quiet for now.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite what Megami had hoped it was. Down in First Class, Kris walked through the open door to Megami’s suite, and opened the overhead bin. Taking out Megami’s case, she opened it and took out both Megami’s laptop and a DVD. With a grin, she put the case back and booted up the computer. “Great! It still works.” She thought to herself. She loaded the DVD and made sure the disc was what she hoped it was, before taking the disc out again and shutting the laptop down. She then headed over to the First Class galley and noticed on the wall, a cupboard door marked Audio/Visual. “Perfect!” She opened the door and looked inside at the various electronics. A DVD Player mounted within was labeled Channel 1 All. Opening the tray, she took the DVD that was in there out and replaced it with the DVD she’d taken from Megami’s case. Once the player had loaded the disc, she was about to hit Play, when she noticed a button on the player marked Master. “I wonder what this does?” she wondered as she pressed it, followed by the Play button.

Up in Business, everyone was talking when all of a sudden each of the video screens came up with the same video feed, and sound for the feed was broadcast over the PA system. When Megami heard the sounds and glanced at one of the screens, she nearly dropped the coke that she was drinking. The animation project that she’d been working on for Cartoon Network, the very reason she’d been traveling to London in the first place, was being somehow broadcast throughout the entire aircraft for everyone to watch. There was only one possible explanation. “KRIS!!!” she yelled as she turned to run back downstairs.

Meanwhile, InuKun and Dark were busy getting into their game of poker, with several bills of various amounts, sitting on the center console. “Right. I’ll wager another five bucks.” Inu said as he took a five dollar bill out of his wallet and put it down. “I’ll see your five dollars, and I’ll raise you another fifty.” Inu looked over his hand. Well, that’s cleaned me out.” Dark nodded in understanding. “Right! What have you got?” Inu looked at Dark for a moment. “Three pairs.” With that he put all 6 cards down. This just served to confuse Dark yet again. “What do you mean ‘Three Pairs’?! You’re only allowed five cards!” InuKun then discovered his error. “Shit! Er, two pairs. Well, two and a half pairs.” He took one of the cards, stood up, put it down on the seat, and that sat on it. Dark, having noticed, sighed.

“Stand up!” “No.” “Why not?” Dark wasn’t in the mood for this. “I can’t stand up, because I’ve got a hernia!” Inu’s reply, shallow though it was, he hoped would work. “No, you haven’t.” “I have. You see, all this excitement has given me a hernia!” “LOOK! STAND UP OR I WILL GIVE YOU A HERNIA!” Dark shouted. “All right, all right!” Inu then stood up and took the cards he was sitting on, and put them down on the console. “Shoes.” “Oh, don’t be ridiculous Dark.” “I saw you fold them up and put them in there! Besides, I’m not angry. It’s just we’re playing with only a partial deck here.” “Fine!” Inu took his left shoe off and held it upside down in order to allow gravity to pull the pair of folded cards out.

“Right! Let’s get on with the game!” Dark said as Inu sat down. “Right. So, what have you got?” Inu asked. Darkgargos looked at Inu with a smirk before laying his hand down. “Five kings!” InuKun looked at the cards for a moment, before admitting defeat. “Damn! You get me every time!” As Dark giggled and took his winnings, he asked Inu what he wanted to play next. “So, what’s next? Seven card stud, or Crazy Eights?” Inu shrugged. “It makes no difference to me! I don’t know the rules!” Dark quickly shuffled the deck. “Right! One card slam it is then.” He took the top card from the newly shuffled deck, and put it down. As they looked at the card, Dark gave out a gasp. “Twelve bucks!” He then held out his hand, waiting for InuKun to pay him the twelve bucks that he apparently was now owed.

“Good grief! It’s no wonder that they tended to shoot each other on those river boats!” Inu said as he took out his emergency $20 and waited for Dark to give him change.

More to come, so keep reading. *Gets strangled by the readers.* Also, what will Megami do with this latest troublesome incident at Kris’ hands? Keep reading to find out.

[InuKun]

Chapter Five
Final Approach to Hell

Megami reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around, a hunting instinct within her having fired up. She knew her target, but she just had to find it. Her blood boiled with rage and the only thing which could calm that rage was getting her hands on Kris’ throat, and she was intent on finding Kris, no matter the consequences at this point. She went up to First Class and scoured the cabin, looking for any sign that Kris had been there, and she found it once she got to her seat. Her laptop case was sitting on her seat, and when she looked, she discovered that the DVD of her program Tamer* was indeed missing. “Well, at least she didn’t burn a copy.”

Kris on the other hand, had heard Megami charging down the stairs and had quickly looked for a place to hide. Noticing a latched panel in the floor, Kris quickly lifted it and got inside, not knowing just what was beneath, apart from luggage. After closing the panel, Kris felt around and found a small box next to the ladder. The lights came on to show Kris was standing just a few feet away from a set of luggage containers which were locked down to the floor. Upon reaching the floor, a quick glace around had Kris eying a small electrical box with ‘DANGER! Maintenance Access Only!’ written on it. Curious, she looked over the box before deciding to open it. Inside, a barrage of wires going in different directions could be seen, each with a bar-coded tab attached to it. She looked at the wires and wondered just how Maintenance could tell a single wire from another before she reached her hand in and gave a gentle tug on a rather thin wire, which broke off in her hand. “Whoops! I hope that wasn’t anything important!” she muttered as she shoved the wire back in and closed the box up again.

Megami however, had just arrived at the galley and noticed that the latch handle for that floor panel was stuck upwards. Knowing that Kris was probably hiding from her at the moment, Megami lifted the panel up and noticed the lights in the hold were on, with Kris’ shadow appearing in one corner. She watched from above for a second before poking her head down. “Kris! I found you!” Kris turned around after cringing her shoulders and saw Megami’s head poking down through the hole. “Ah, crap! Uh, hi Megami! Nice day today, isn’t it?” Kris tried to sound cheerful and innocent; however it wasn’t going to work this time.

“Cut the crap Kris! Why did you show everyone my project?” Megami asked furiously as she started to make her way down the ladder. “You knew damn well that it wasn’t meant to be shown by anyone until after it was reviewed by Cartoon Network, which was the whole purpose behind me travelling to Britain, not to mention inviting you and Whip along! So, why did you do it?!” As Megami reached the bottom of the ladder, she slowly started walking towards Kris, who was still smiling and acting as if she had done nothing wrong at all. “Why did I do what?” Kris replied. “Why did you show everyone Tamer?” Kris then looked at Megami with a puzzled look. “What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything of the sort!”

Whether or not Kris had considered any potential problems with having pulled that out wire, one was quickly developing which everyone was unaware of. Up in the cockpit, a circuit breaker popped, unnoticed by InuKun, who had finished the games with Darkgargos and was busy trying to use a handheld E6-B to calculate data for the flight computers, given he wanted a back up plan just in case, for his selected approach to Kennedy for when they arrived. Darkgargos had left the cockpit for a moment to get a drink from the galley, seemingly alright with knowing the aircraft was under InuKun’s control.

InuKun, having completed entering the information, tuned into New York Approach to see if any of their frequencies were active. Again, they weren’t. With a sigh, he contacted the passengers in the cabin. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I just wanted to let you know that we’re currently about 20 miles east of Kennedy, and given the fact I have still no contact with Air Traffic Control or anyone for that matter, I’m going to do a low approach into Kennedy signaling that we have an emergency. Once we’ve landed, we’ll use one of the escape slides to exit the aircraft. Hopefully then we can figure out what happened. For now though, I ask that you all start taking your seats and buckling up. This may be a little bumpy. Thanks.”

Kris and Megami faintly heard the transmission through the access panel and looked at each other. “Truce until we’re on the ground?” Kris offered. Megami sighed, knowing that she probably would be calmed down by the time they were back in New York. Extending her hand, Megami shook hands with Kris. “Truce, for now.” With that, they made their way to the ladder and quickly back up into the galley. Closing the floor panel shut behind her, Megami then ushered to Kris to start walking, as they needed to get upstairs before anyone got worried, particularly Whip, who was wondering just where the two of them had gone. As Kris and Megami got upstairs, Whip saw them and waved them up front. “Where were you two?” Whip asked. “Down in the cargo hold, trying to kill Kris.” Megami answered, glaring at Kris.

The 747 began its descent as InuKun took control away from the autopilot. He, along with everyone else on board, would soon be in for a shocking surprise. As everyone finished buckling up, InuKun lined the aircraft up with the Initial Approach Fix for the approach, a fix in Oyster Bay, which would bring the aircraft in for a smooth landing at Kennedy. He turned on the Landing and Taxi lights, than reached over to lower the landing gear. As he released the lock and pushed the Gear Lever down, he watched in surprise as the system reported that the main gears were down, but that the nose gear hadn’t dropped. “Huh?” he thought, before retracting the gear to try again. Once the gear lights signaled that the gear were once again retracted, InuKun tried again, still with no success on the nose gear light. Normally this would require him to do a fly over of the airport to allow tower officials to inspect the aircraft, but given it was nighttime and the lack of radio communication, that would be difficult. Not to mention that just because the gear is down, doesn’t mean it’s locked and will hold the weight of the aircraft upon landing. A risky decision lay before InuKun, and one in which he knew the lives of everyone on board depended on his judgment. Should he risk a nose gear collapse and drag the nose along the runway, or abort the approach and hold somewhere for a while. He re-checked the fuel levels, which showed all tanks had around 28 minutes remaining before starvation after the earlier fuel dump.

Electing to gamble on a faulty sensor for now and see how things go, InuKun passed the Final Approach Fix and began the descent to the runway. Having no radio ability, InuKun opted for a visual approach at first, but that proved problematic as he got to 3000 feet, and saw nothing but pitch blackness everywhere. Not even Manhattan was lit up, which was unusual. He glanced out towards LaGuardia and Newark Airports, to see they were pitch black as well. He could not see anything, let alone a runway or airport beacon. “What the hell?!” he muttered, before electing to abort the landing and travel to the holding point he’d selected, at the DUNBO Intersection, located over Glen Cove on Long Island.

The passengers, who’d been hoping to get on the ground, became disappointed as they first heard the engines increase power, and they felt themselves climbing back up. Outlawwolf cried out “What is going on? Why aren’t we landing?!” Judgement915 explained to everyone that they should keep calm and that InuKun probably would have a good excuse made up shortly for everyone as to why they didn’t land. “It’s probably weather in Chicago.” He joked. No one laughed, especially when InuKun came back on to explain the seemingly grim situation to all the passengers.

“Okay everyone. I’m at a complete loss for words. There’s no airport, no nothing out there. No Manhattan, no JFK, nothing! It’s like civilization has disappeared from the tri-state area. I’m currently holding just a short distance north east of where Kennedy should be, and if you look outside, there’s nothing there. No lights, no aircraft, no moon. And we aren’t in clouds, so I can’t dismiss it as a cloud problem. It looks like we’re back to square one. But I have some more bad news. When I was lining us up to land at Kennedy, as I lowered the landing gear, the nose gear unit, which sits up front, came back as not having lowered properly. So there is a chance that the nose gear is malfunctioning and when we do land, it’ll be a hard nose landing. However, there is also the chance that it could just be a faulty sensor on the gear which is causing the problem. Either way, we can’t tell until we do land.” As InuKun explained it, fear took over and everyone’s faces reflected a grave concern that they might not get out of this one alive.

“The problem is that we are holding right now so that I can discuss this with you all, however, we are now limited on time due to fuel. I want you all to understand that once I commit again, that will be it. There won’t be another go around the next time. If I’m to land, it’s a one-shot, because I’m flying blindly towards JFK. I’m going to hold for a few more minutes in order to finish setting everything up and recalculating the approach and landing speeds, but I wanted to let you all know the current situation as it stands right now.” With that said, InuKun disengaged the PA system and sat back to clear his head. An aircraft which is designed for a two-member crew to land it, and he’s going to have to not only land it on his own, but with no way of knowing whether he’s at the runway or not.

TevaTan suddenly walked into the cockpit, having undone her seatbelt. “Hey.” She said, rather calmly. InuKun turned around and nodded whilst taking a deep breath. “Can I ask you something?” She was rather nervous at this point and unsure as to what would happen. “Yeah, go ahead.” InuKun wiped some sweat off his brow and glanced at the instruments quickly before turning back to her. But the question Teva was going to ask was something InuKun couldn’t know the answer to. “Are we going to crash?” InuKun just exhaled and took another breath. “I don’t know. I’ll do my best to get us down, but with nothing to see and no radio beacons to guide us in, it’s going to be tricky. I honestly have no idea if this will work or not, but we’ll see. If I can just get something on the ground to show me a runway or even just a long enough highway at this point, we’ll be good. But I can’t-” InuKun paused for a moment as a thought passed his mind. “It just might work.” He said aloud. “What? What might just work?!” Teva was curious to see just what InuKun had in mind.

He quickly looked up at Teva and smiled. “We’re going to skud-run into Kennedy.” She had no idea what skud-run meant, but like everyone else, she would soon find out. InuKun turned the PA back on. “Everyone, I think I have a solution to our latest problem. But I’m going to need everyone’s help. I need a volunteer in the cockpit and everyone else to buckle up and assume the brace position in their seats. This maneuver is risky, and could be deadly, but given the situation, it’s our best option. I’m going to do what we pilots call a skud-run into Kennedy. Put simply, we’re going to be flying only a short distance, about 100 feet, above the surface. That will give me a better look out with the lights, and I’m going to have us in slow flight at the same time, in order to get the aircraft to move safely at such an altitude. But I need a volunteer up front to help me out with some of the work that is needed to carry out this move. Do I have any volunteers?”

InuKun looked to Teva who glanced back in the cabin, to see that as of yet, no one had made a move to volunteer. In fact, everyone was more uncomfortable with the idea. But then, as if to get back at her for all the trouble she’s caused earlier on, Megami suddenly stood up and nominated KrisRix for the job, which seemed to get the winning approval of everyone else on board, except Moonlight Knight, who felt Kris shouldn’t be subjected to such torment. “Why are you picking on Kris?” he asked. “She’s been picking on me since before we even got on the flight! Besides, it’s her punishment for showing Tamer without my permission!”

“FINE! I’LL DO IT, IF THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY MEGAMI!!!” "Yes, it does, actually!" Megami replied with a smirk and a giggle. Kris then stormed forward as Teva got out of the way and entered the cockpit. “Alright, so what do you want me to do?!” she asked as she looked over at InuKun. He cringed for a second before motioning to the empty seat next to him. As Kris sat down, he instructed her on how to fasten the four belt harness and then explained what he needed her to do. “I need you to flip the gear lever here when I tell you to, and let me know when the gear lights go from red to green. At the same time, I want you to keep an eye out the windows for any buildings or lights that you can see, I’m going to be looking constantly up and down to make sure we don’t loose too much altitude and that we don’t hit any terrain. Start from the left side, and just run your eyes along the horizon, then sweep back. If you see anything, let me know. Understand?”

“Yeah, I understand.” InuKun then nodded and began the sharp descent, until they were 500 feet up. At that point, the terrain warning alarm came on, and InuKun slowed the descent until they were only 120 feet above the ground. Kris scanned the horizon but couldn’t see anything save pitch darkness outside. After a couple of minutes, InuKun asked Kris if she could see anything yet. “Nothing yet.” “Alright, but let’s go ahead and drop the landing gear, as we should be close by.” Kris nodded and pushed the lever down, before she continued scanning. Suddenly she thought she could see something reflecting the light off the aircraft, on the right side. “WAIT! I think I see something off to the right!” InuKun looked quickly over and saw it as well. He banked the aircraft a little to let more light shine there, and the sight was something to behold. It was the Main Control Tower of Kennedy. He tilted the nose down a little to look around, and saw 31L painted below them to the right.

With a quick turn of the rudders, avoiding the wings dropping, InuKun lined the 747 up with the runway and brought it down to 8 feet, at which point, he put the engines at idle and pulled back slightly on the yoke to allow the 747 to safely stall and drop down softly on the runway, before bringing the aircraft to a crawl. As he exited the runway and stopped for a moment, he looked around to see that no one was around, and no emergency vehicles were even to be seen coming towards them. In the cabin, everyone cheered when they realized that the airplane had safely landed. But InuKun wasn’t paying attention to the applause. His concern related to the fact that no one was there, which for Kennedy Airport, would be unheard of, no matter what time of day or night. “Where is everyone?” he wondered. He brought the power back up a little and began taxiing the aircraft back towards the terminal they’d just left from earlier that day. What made things even more confusing for InuKun, was that even when they arrived at the terminal, it was empty of aircraft, which he knew was impossible given how there are flights constantly in and out of JFK 24/7 with Vacation Airlines. As they pulled up to Gate 12, InuKun turned the handle next to him sharply, in order to steer the aircraft into the gate without any marshal assistance. “Same gate we departed from as well.” He commented to Kris as he proceeded to park and shut down all four engines.

Undoing his seat belt and whilst showing Kris how to undo hers, InuKun then walked into the cabin and looked around. “Right. Let’s go downstairs and use one of the emergency escape slides to get off this bird. As you can all see, it’s pitch black out, so we’ll use this flashlight to look around. Everyone stick together though inside the terminal. For some reason, I’m not really comfortable at the moment here.”

“Why would you say that?” Maxskate asked. “Look outside and tell me what you see, or rather, what you don’t see.” InuKun replied. “Well, apart from no lights anywhere, I don’t see anything wrong.” Whip explained. However, InuKun’s response simply got everyone worried again. “We just landed a 747 into a major international airport which is constantly congested, without saying anything to the airport or air traffic control, and made our way nonchalantly here to this gate, without anyone coming to check up on us and see what the problem is. Normally, you’d find police, fire and rescue vehicles clamoring to the scene. Yet, as you can all see, nothing. No one’s out there. No aircraft, no ground vehicles, no ramp employees walking around. Hence my concern about being here right now.”