[donaldscrankshaw] Donald: Crossing Over: Part III

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Posted by Donald:
Crossing Over: Part III
http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/1210650712.shtml


   The Rest of the Story: The whole story can be found [1]here.
   This is Part III of my [2]CRFH fanfiction. It's also the part where I
   reveal what's actually going on to the readers, although I keep the
   characters in the dark for a while. For those familiar with CRFH, the
   timing of events happens immediately after April's Secret.
   As always, all the characters, the world(s), and the events referenced
   belong to Maritza Campos, copyright 1999-2008. Only the events of this
   story belong to me.
     _________________________________________________________________

                               Crossing Over
                                 Chapter 3

   Dave yawned and blinked his eyes. What had happened? The last thing he
   remembered he had been lying in the grass, certain he was going to
   choke to death. Whatever he was lying on now, it was soft and
   cushioned, and he wasn't choking, although he felt groggy and weak. He
   tried to look around him, but everything was blurry, like he couldn't
   bring the world into focus. A face hovered close by, however, one with
   curly brown hair and blue eyes, and a rough, calloused hand held his
   own.
   "Marâ Margâ¦" he mumbled, his mouth clumsy and unable to form the
   name.
   "Shh. It's okay. I'm here. Youâyou're going to be all right."
   "What the�" It wasn't the doubt in the voice that shook him, but the
   timbre of it. That wasn't Margaret's voice. And the hand holding his
   was much too big. He pulled his hand free and pushed himself back,
   bumping his head against the cushioned arm of what he now realized was
   a couch that he was lying on. A startled meow reproved him, and the
   weight he hadn't even noticed on his stomach departed as Chester leapt
   to the floor. By the time he had managed to sit up, his back propped
   against the couch's arm, he was able to see clearly. The guy kneeling
   next to the couch was big, with more muscles than Dave had ever dared
   wish for himself. He had brown hair and blue eyes, but he was
   definitely not Margaret. He looked concern, unduly so for a stranger.
   There was another guy behind him, this one tall and wiry with blond
   hair and a goatee, and he was watching Dave with a wary expression, as
   if uncertain what Dave would do.
   "Calm down, Dahlia," the brown haired guy said. "I know it's strange,
   but we'll get you back to normal soon, I promise."
   "Who the Hell is Dahlia?" Dave said. "And who are you?"
   "Youâyou don't recognize meâusâat all?" he said uncertainly.
   "I've never seen you before in my life. Although..." Dave took a
   closer look at him. Now that he had calmed down a bit, he could see
   that there was a similarity to Margaret. Not just the hair and the
   eyes, but the shape of the face, the nose. "You do look enough like
   Margaret to be her brother. But you can't be; her whole family's
   dead." A brief spasm crossed the guy's face, but then it relaxed into
   a look of concern.
   "I don't know a Margaret, but my name's Mark."
   "And I'm Adam," said the other one. "And you are?"
   Mark gave Adam an odd look, one Dave couldn't read. "My name's Dave.
   And my cat there is Chester. C'mere, Chester." Chester leapt into his
   arms, eager as always to be with his soul-mate. "What am I doing here?
   What happened to me? I remember being stung, but if that had been a
   bee I'd either be in a hospital or dead right now."
   Adam smiled. "I'd guess that was a tranquilizer dart or something. We
   found you in the hands of the Satanists. They were performing some
   ritual in their apartment."
   "Oh, God. What the xhlemphregomfortness were Steve and Waldo up to?
   Haven't they tried to feed my soul to demons enough times?"
   "Uh, yeah," Mark said. "Could you wait here a moment? Adam and I need
   to talk about something."
   "Sure. Thanks for helping me out, by the way. I like my soul where it
   is."
   "Uh huh. Adam, let's go to the kitchen for a moment."
   Dave watched them walk away. Something about Adam seemed familiar,
   although Dave couldn't quite place it. Not just how he looked, but
   something about how he moved, lightly, and ready to spring in any
   direction. Kind of like April when she was nervous. Dave shook his
   head. If they knew Waldo and Steve, then they were probably at the
   college. In fact, looking around the apartment, the layout was very
   similar to his own, or the girls'. The furnishing was sparse and
   functional, as was usual for guys rooming together. It was not quite
   the environmental disaster area that Dave's apartment tended towards,
   but then they didn't live with Mike. Still, move a few things around,
   add some completely unnecessary decorations and frip-frappery, and it
   would look just like the girls' place. He must be in the same
   building, then, which was odd, as Dave thought he had met most of the
   tenants. He didn't really know them all, but he'd seen them around by
   now. He glanced back at Mark and Adam, who were in an intense but
   quiet conversation, and wondered what they were talking about.
   "Well, his mind is just as screwed up as his body!" Margaret exclaimed
   once they were out of earshot of "Dahlia."
   "Are you sure she's Dave?" April asked. "If she thinks she's been a
   girl all her life, maybe it's because she has."
   "I'd agree if he didn't remember most everything, even if it's all
   twisted around. Demons stealing his soul, Chester, Waldo and Steve,
   all the stuff I told him about my family. Only now all those things
   happened to Dahlia, Chelsea, and Mark. The memories are fake, but
   accurate."
   "Well, what do you want to do about it? We have to tell her, right?"
   "What do we say? Hey, Dahlia, you're really a guy named Dave whose
   been turned into a woman by those Satanists, and in the process your
   mind got all screwed around too. He's not going to believe that."
   "If it's really Dave, weirdness and altered states of reality should
   be normal for him. Though⦠he'll probably freak out at first. That's
   standard Dave reaction to most anything strange and frightening. Of
   course, once you get him past the freaking out he's good to kick butt
   up until the point he collapses from pain and exhaustion."
   "Even then he doesn't stay down. Once he regains consciousness, he'll
   get back up and do it again," Margaret said with a fond smile.
   "Believe it or not, he really is the toughest guy I know."
   If you two could just get your act together, you could actually be
   happy together, April thought, but there was no point in rubbing salt
   in old wounds. "So we're agreed? We tell her?"
   "Him, not her. Are you sure about this? If we screw up his mind worse
   than it already isâ¦"
   "If it is Dave, I don't think that's possible."
   "Point. Okay, thenâ¦"
   "Guys," they heard a voice behind them. "I appreciate the help and
   all, but I really ought to be going." Dahlia was standing in front of
   the couch, Chelsea in her arms. She still looked a little wobbly.
   "Wait a moment, Dahlia," Margaret said. "We need to talk to you about
   something important."
   "Huh? What is it? 'Cause I'd like to go lie down in my own bed for a
   while. I feel like my head's about to fall off."
   "Where do you live, Dahlia?" April asked.
   "I live in this building. At least, I think this is the same building.
   I'm on the floor just above Wendy and Stella."
   "Okay, I'm just going to be directâ¦" Margaret began.
   "No you aren't. Let me handle this, Margaret," April said.
   "Okay, but if you don't get to the point quick, I'll do it for you."
   "Ooookay. Dahlia, have you ever seen a blue mushroom?"
   "Oh God, I hate those things. Don't tell me you've had a blue mushroom
   trip, too."
   "Yes, we have. And you know how sometimes in those hallucinations,
   things can be completely weird, but it seems like it's exactly the way
   it's supposed to be? But really, it's that your brain can't remember
   the way things are supposed to be, so you just accept the
   hallucination"
   "Uh-huh. What are you getting at?" Dahlia asked.
   "Well, we think maybe you're experiencing something like that right
   now."
   "You're saying this is a hallucination?" she said. "You're kidding.
   Where's the superhero outfits? Where's Hell? This is just too ordinary
   for an hallucination."
   "Yeah, we're not saying this is an hallucination. What we're thinking
   is that you actually do know who we are, you just aren't remembering
   us correctly."
   "Huh?"
   "This Mark guy you mentioned. He's a real gun nut, really good with
   martial arts, very reluctant to let people get close to him?"
   "Yeah. Do you know him?"
   "Sort of. This is Margaret. She's a real gun nut, great martial
   artist, doesn't let people get close to her. Do you see where this is
   going?"
   Dahlia frowned prettily. "No, not really. Are they related?"
   "No, Dahlia, they're the same person."
   "That's crazy," Dahlia said, hugging Chelsea so close she mewed.
   "You're not making any sense. You're saying, you're saying⦠what?
   That this is a blue mushroom trip and Margaret's really Mark, he just
   looks like a woman?"
   "No, you idiot," Margaret said, interrupting. "I am a woman. You're
   the oneâ¦"
   "Hold on, Margaret," April said, putting a hand on her arm. "No, it's
   more like when we were hooked up to the machine, where we thought we'd
   been friends with the kids from the Sci-Fi club for months."
   "Hey, how did you know about that?" Dahlia said, wide-eyed.
   "I was there. So were you. Well, sort of. The point is that our
   memories had been altered, we were remembering things differently than
   how they had happened. We think the same thing is happening to you
   here. This Mark you're remembering is really Margaret, you're just
   remembering her as a guy. When, in fact, she's a girl and she's always
   been one."
   "That can't be. Mark and I had⦠weâ¦" Dahlia was blushing bright red.
   "If he was really a girl, then that'd mean I was a lesbian, and I'm
   not. Mark can't be a girl."
   "You're not a lesbian, Dahlia," Margaret growled. "Because up to an
   hour ago, you weren't a girl."
   "Wha??"
   "Subtle as always, Margaret," April said with a sigh. "What we're
   saying is that you're actually a guy named Dave, and Waldo and
   Steveâthe Satanists you were calling Wendy and Stellaâturned you into
   a girl and somehow mixed up your memories to boot."
   "That has got to be the craziest thing I've ever heard," Dahlia said.
   "And I live with Rose. I am a girl and I've been one all my life.
   You're making this up. Did Michelle put you up to this? It'd be just
   like her."
   "Yes, it's crazy," Margaret said. "But is it crazier than what we get
   mixed up in daily? Crazier than getting your soul stolen by Satan and
   ending up sharing it with a cat? Crazier than living with a
   werecoyote? Crazier than being a mutant freak with laservision?"
   "Mutant freak?! I may have lived through some strange stuff, but I'm
   not a freak! Laservision? You really are crazy! If I had laservision
   I'd have blasted down that door by now." Dahlia said, angry, but she
   seemed scared too. "With or without it, I'm leaving. Don't try to stop
   me, or Mark will wring your necks."
   "Okay, go," April said. "Your apartment is next door. Look around and
   then tell us that everything's like you remember it."
   "I won't be telling you anything, because I won't be seeing you again.
   Good-bye, ladies," she said. She crossed the kitchen floor, skirting
   wide of both girls, whipped open the door and went out, slamming it
   shut behind her.
   "Well, we flubbed that pretty bad," April said.
   Margaret shrugged. "There wasn't any gentle way to do it. Once he
   realizes we're telling the truth, he'll be back."
     _________________________________________________________________

   This is a 1,943 word excerpt of a 17,474 word story.
   For reasons probably having a lot to do with the Japanese manga Ranma
   1/2, transgender stories (where one of the characters literally
   changes sex) are all the rage in webcomics these days. Aside from the
   numerous webcomics with it as a premise, a lot of otherwise normal
   webcomics have TG stories ([3]It's Walky!, [4]The Order of the Stick!,
   even Sluggy in a print story). College Roomies from Hell is not one of
   them: instead, CRFH has a TG universe, an alternate reality where all
   of the cast members are the opposite sex. This has only appeared in
   the [5]daily comic once, but the cartoonist initially created, and
   fleshed out, this universe in the forums. This story is based on a
   cross over between the normal CRFH universe and the TG one, but for
   the first couple of chapters I teased my readers with the possibility
   that this was in fact a TG story. Aside from being a good gimmick for
   getting webcomic readers to read my story, it kept them from what this
   story is really all about. Which I'll tell you as soon as we get to
   that part, somewhere around July.

References

   1. http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/chain_1207529833.shtml
   2. http://www.crfh.net/
   3. http://www.itswalky.com/d/20031116.html
   4. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0234.html
   5. http://www.crfh.net/d/20050401.html