Although hearing what the disembodied voice had to stay, several of the questions that were running through your mind remained unanswered. However, this no longer mattered. Following your conversation with the man you probably would never meet, your aimless travelIng throughout the endless void, came to an end.

Without warning, pain from an unknown source suddenly coursed throughout your body; it was as if you were being torn apart and blood was being drained out from your skin itself. The intensity of what you were suffering was something no person could tolerate. Eventually, your body succumbed as your consciousness suddenly vanished.

-----------------------------------------------



As you awoke, although fatigued and aching all over, you found yourself in a open library of ruin-like design. A rustic yet tranquil ambiance was present in the area as moss, grass, and other forms of greenery filled the entire room. However, what caught your attention was not the appearance of the area you were brought to, but Instead, it was the fact that you weren't alone.

Mizushima Katsuo felt like he was shot through several times by a master gunslinger wielding a trusty Colt. There was one thing he knew for sure, he was not in the Wild West, or America, or anywhere he knew. He found himself clutching onto his skateboard, with his backpack left on his back. Slowly getting up he rubbed his eyes, as he observed his surroundings. This is... What is this. he pondered to himself.

He placed his skateboard on the ground, and stepped onto it, as he rolled it around, looking at the books. Wild West... where are you Wild West books. Any library worth itself should have a Wild West book. he thought to himself, as he scanned the library searching.

Jimmy blinked at the sight before him, but that didn't change anything so he assumed it wasn't a hallucination. That's not to say he wasn't looking at something that wasn't there. It was just that whatever he was experiencing was a lot more than a simple trick of light. If he were a betting man, which he would be, had he the luck or skill to make a career out of such a profession, he would've put all his money on something hitting his head and messing up all those delicate wirings that let him experience the world as it actually was.

"Wow." He whistled and looked around at the massive shelves, and myriad of books. "If only I had the time." He picked up the nearest book, and flipped it open. The first page was blank, and the second. He went through the entire book, and found the ending was so similar to the beginning it wasn't worth reaching at all. "Or a pen. A pen would be good right about now. I don't think I'd be able to fill up all of these, but I could do a few." A frown appeared on his face as he pushed the book back into its place. "I hope these aren't all blank. Its such a shame. I wonder if their journals." He made a face like man that just had a bit of fish and couldn't really decide if he liked it or not. "Oh that would be dreadful. Whoever bought these would spend more time writing than living." He shuddered at the thought. "Pity the soul that's job its going to be to have to read it all."

There was a rolling sound, or a scratching sound. Jimmy couldn't quiet put his finger on the write description, but images of wheels moving over rougher surfaces than were ideal came to his mind. "Hey?" He called out. "Is there anyone else here, or am I getting audio signals that aren't there too?" The second part was said much lower than the first, in the off chance that he wasn't hearing things.

Hilda Maristela, Library

Well, at least the pain had done one thing. It had convinced her that this really wasn't a dream. Had she really... Died? But she didn't feel dead... That was a silly thought, really. How would she even know what feeling dead felt like? It's not like she'd had previous experience with dying, after all. But whether she was dead or not, the simple fact remained that she was in some strange new world, and that she probably wouldn't ever see her home again.

Hilda probably would have contemplated this more, had she not came to two sudden realizations. Firstly, that there were other people here. That would've been bad enough, were it not for her second realization: her clothes had changed. Whilst she liked the hat, she was not too keen on the fact that rather than the thick, baggy clothes she usually wore, her clothes were now... Tight, and... Short, too short. Her navel was showing! And her curves were being displayed far, far more than she'd ever wished for them to. Her glasses almost steamed up as her face turned bright red, the embarrassment of possibly being seen in such an outfit making her wish she was dead after all. Mumbling something quiet and incoherent, she quickly rushed off, hiding behind one of the many bookshelves in the area.

Where are they!? Katsuo thought to himself as he frowned. He rolled around on his skateboard a bit more, weaving around, looking for those great books. Disappointed he felt that, Katsuo lit up as someone called out, and he rode his skateboard towards Jimmy. As he approached he stomped on the back, kicking up the skateboard. He grabbed it in his right hand as he spun around, feeling the sweet groovy funk in his veins. He gave a quick nod to the individual, "Yo."

"Hm?" A young woman with a rather confused look on her face glanced about, seeing that the location she was in was not the same as where she should have been. The fact that she was in some kinda of super library that could only exist in fiction and not her room was another clue for the day being really out there. Pinching herself experimentally, the girl found that yes, she was not in fact dreaming and that the place was real. Shrugging and figuring that freaking out right now would just be an unnecessary waste of breath and energy, the girl decided to explore. She heard voices in the distance so she concluded that she wasn't alone. That and a rather cute girl was hiding in just the right way in front of her to give her a bit of an eyeful with the outfit she was wearing. That was enough to give her a bit of her previous good mood. "Hey there! Why are you hiding?" The San Francisco native chirped cheerfully next to Hilda.

Hilda Maristela, Library

Hilda let out a short, high pitched squeal as she heard someone behind her. Even worse, it was someone addressing her. Slowly, almost mechanically, she turned around... She was somewhat relieved to find it was another girl. Not that it made things all that much better, but she wasn't sure what she'd do if one of the boys saw her dressed like this.

...Although it didn't exactly help that it was a rather pretty girl, who most likely thought that Hilda looked absolutely ridiculous in the outfit she'd been forced to wear.

"...Wah! Um... H-hello, um, uh... I'm j-just, um... Well, you see um..." After a moment of mumbling followed by one of awkward silence, Hilda stiffly stood to attention and held out a trembling hand. In her flustered state, she'd almost completely forgotten her manners. "I'm, um, I'm H-hilda and um... Um, I d-didn't, um... This outfit, it's um... Ended up wearing it wh-when I got here and um uh um..."

So much for first impressions. Hilda was thoroughly convinced that the other girl would think she's a complete mess and best left alone.

Chuck was lying on the floor of the library, eyes closed. He had no idea where he was or what had happened to him. He could, however, feel his body aching from whatever it was that had hit him and could only vaguely recall a voice telling him some wierd, mysterious stuff. It was pretty wierd though, that he actually felt quite alright despite the pain, like his body didn't mind it as much as it should. He lay there quietly for a while, eyes shut, waiting to see if anything happened. No dice. So he decided to open his eyes and look around, see what was happening.

All he could see was the piece of paper taped to his forehead. Still lying on the floor, he ripped it off and held it away so he could read what it said. Which was: "I AM THE PRINCIPAL OF OTOKOJUKU, EDAJIMA HEIHACHI! YOU HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED AS A FIRST YEAR STUDENT IN OTOKOJUKU BECAUSE OF YOUR DEDICATION TOWARDS MANLINESS, MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE SCHOOL GROUNDS AT ONCE!" It was a strange and unsettling note. Also strange and unsettling was that he had just realized it was written entirely in japanese, which by all accounts he shouldn't have been able to read.

Chuck slowly got up, still wondering what in the hell was going on, and took stock of the situation. He was alone in some sort of giant library he'd never seen before, dressed in a strange uniform and holding a note in japanese telling him to head towards Otokojuku, whatever and wherever that was. On the plus side, he was feeling...strangely well. He was just feeling better and healthier than he'd ever had, in fact. And he could hear noises nearby, hopefully made by friendly humans. Everything was still way too strange. Rather than pick through the books, he got up and started to walk around the greenery-covered ruins, calling out every once in a while: "Heelloooo? Anyone else around?"

And the call of another individual peaked his curiosity, Katsuo glanced around as he shouted out. "Over here!" Frantically waving his free arm, he glanced around looking for the individual who called out. Then, a thought emerged to Katsuo, one of the most important thoughts. I HAVEN'T DONE ANY DISCO TODAY! he thought to himself in absolute horror. Katsuo quickly moonwalked a few paces back, from Jimmy, while holding onto his skateboard.

He began tapping his right foot as he felt the groove flowing through his body. He glanced at his skateboard as he placed it down upon the vine covered bricks. Seriously staring at Jimmy, "Do you feel the FUNK?!" As he finished his declaration he extended out his right hand as he pointed upwards, to nothing in particular as he beamed a smile. It was time to dance after all, the funk within his body told him so. Stepping to the right side, he then stepped to the left, swaying his arms he began the first series of steps of the Hustle. He quickly began doing the shoulder peps and continued doing the hustle.

"Uh." Jimmy said. "Hula." It was a good thing he didn't suffer from being self conscious, or that would've made him wince. Lips parted for something else to come out, but he stopped with the sound of someone, youngish, female(or male after a good kick in the stones,) was calling out something about an outfit. Strange eyes scanned the area around him until they latched on to the too young women. He didn't know them. One of them seemed worried about something. "Hey.." he began to ask them, either one really(they were strangers so he was impartial) if any help was needed, but got cut off by the young man in the skateboard who wanted to know if he felt the funk.

"Funk?" Jimmy paused, his eyes blinked nervously like a student that understood the importance of the test that was given out that day, and fully regretted not studying for it over the weekend. "Maybe. Is it like that feeling you get when you've been hiccuping for a long time, and there's a pause, and you have no idea if its done or not? If that's what funk is, then no, but I've had it before, in the past, that way." He pointed behind him, in case time, in this new area, was a physically linear phenomenon, instead of just were things happened. "But not now. I don't feel anything like that." He arched an eyebrow. "If your having trouble with hiccups then drinking water helps." There was a hmm sound, deep in his throat as the man started dancing. "I don't think hiccups are the problem."

There was a problem, and it was silly of him to forget about it. "Oh hey!" He said to everyone in the room, putting a little bit more into his voice in case there were any others he hadn't seen yet. "Does anyone know what's going on? Why were here? Where the exit is? Any relevant information to the circumstances at all? I don't, but I'm a pretty good witness."

Continuing the hustle he stared at Jimmy incredulously. Poor guy doesn't know the funk he thought to himself. Katsuo glanced at the man as he was looking over in a different direction. He paused as he thrusted his left foot back, stretching it behind his back. He reached for it with both of his hands, reaching behind his back. As soon as he finished that move he returned to doing the hustle. He stared Jimmy dead in the eyes.

"Funk! It is the greatest feeling in the world! The sweet mixture of rhymic jazz and the sweet soul music got together and embraced tenderly!" Dramatically pointing upwards again at nothing, he returned back to dancing. "It got the groove ball rolling ya dig? And it gave birth to the greatest genre ever! DISCO! That's right!" Speeding up his dance he beamed ear to ear, "The D-I-S-C-O! THAT IS THE FUNK! A WAY OF LIVING!" Spinning again, keeping his heels from touching the ground he noticed some figure that was being stared at by Jimmy earlier.

He cocked his head in that direction and shouted, "COME ON DOWN AND... DANCE!!!" Katsuo threw both of his arms in the air. Quickly bringing them down he glanced at Jimmy, realizing he asked some things. Wagging his left index finger, "Don't worry, just relax in the sweet groove! Let it wash through your soul!"

Wait, but what about American Law School!? I've still got the University Exam! And I'm not even sure I'm in America or not! I hope I'm in America. I could take the University Exam in America right? he thought in horror. Katsuo returned to dancing as he pondered upon the subject. Well just relax for now, you can't tell the risk anyway.

"It's nice to meet you, Hilda!" Ran exclaimed cheerfully and with a big smile on her face. Though the girl did look rather fetching in that costume, she could clearly see that Hilda was out of her depths and was rather shy despite the skin revealing garments she was clad in. "Well, if you're that worried about your appearance, I could loan you my awesome jacket. It's nice and comfortable and pretty fashionable if I do say so myself!" Thus saying that, the smaller girl began to pull off her grey jacket to hand it over to the adorable girl, showing off a white short polo shirt underneath. "Also, I'm Ran Hoshigane! Wanna be friends?" The look on the artist's face was one of unabashed friendliness, as sunny as a nice spring day.

Chuck approached the pair, glad that they seemed friendly, when one of them started to go on about the funk and dancing and disco. He looked japanese too. And he just wouldn't stop dancing. It was pretty wierd. "Hey, I'm glad there's people around but why are you dancing? Like, now and with no music? Anyway my name's Chuck, Chuck Ford, anyone know where we're at or what's going on?". As he was saying this, he noticed that a girl was offering her jacket to another one for whatever reason. Well that just didn't sit right with him, not when he had a coat he could lend instead.

"No, please, take mine, I insist" he said in what he hoped was a friendly tone, not realizing that he currently looked like some hardened delinquent. As he quickly took his long, flowing coat off and held it out in his hand, he looked down and realized that even though he was still about the same size as he used to be, his flabby body had been replaced with thick muscle to match a pro wrestler's. He also realized that he had no shirt underneath the coat. "Whooooaaaaa, I'm ripped! And I have no shirt on but who cares, I'm ripped! This is awesome! Look at me, I look like a heavyweight champ!" he mouthed off, not really caring what others thought about him for the moment though he was still holding his coat out for one of the girls to take.

Katsuo continued dancing to the inner groove as he glanced at Chuck. "Well Chuck, I have the funkiness flowing through my veins, and right now I'm hearing KC and the Sunshine Band delivering that sweet music! Though I'd enjoy a boom-box." He performed a few shoulder peps, "Just relax for the moment and let the inner groove calm you from all worries."

As Chuck discovered this newfound manliness he glanced over in that direction before concentrating on the beat once more. Dude is as manly as Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, and Billy the Kid! Though he isn't a fraction as manly as James K. Polk! He thought to himself.

The group of young individuals eventually crossed paths with one another and although it wasn’t that apparent, most of them were overwhelmed in finding out that they were not alone in the unknown world they were currently in. The rush of relief was so intense that they even ignored the fact that they had no difficulty in understanding each other’s words despite their difference in races.

With their nerves calmed and their minds unclouded by useless thoughts, an exchange of words, regarding what actually happened to them and where they were, took place. However, before they could come up with anything concrete, their conversation was put to an abrupt halt.

A loud booming roar echoed throughout the library. Instinctively, they all tried to look for whatever it was that made such a noise. Unfortunately, their efforts were wasted as they found nothing.

Silence then filled the room, but this only lasted for a few seconds. Suddenly, from above them, a massive silhouette crashed to the ground in front of them, causing a mild tremor and the formation of a small cloud of dust.

As this cleared, hidden behind all the grime and dirt was a large gorilla over three meters in size. Its fur was purple-red in color and had massive trunk-like arms. It eyes were hidden by a pair of round-shaped glasses. Such a sight would have been considered intimidating, but in this situation, it was not. Not only was it sporting a pink jacket and green, polka-dotted bermudas, it also wore a flamboyant light blue hat and had a white scarf around its neck. For an animal, it had quite the fashion sense.



Not really knowing what to feel, the group of teenagers simply remained quiet as they stared in awe – well, not really – at the oddly colored behemoth. However, things went from good to strange, then strange to bad, in a heartbeat.

The over-sized ape, without any warning, swung its muscular arms forward, catching both Jimmy and Chuck off guard. The two were knocked off their feet and sent flying, rolling across the ground before slamming into a stone wall.

The first thing Nate noticed after waking up, apart, from the change in location, was that he wasn't wearing his own clothes anymore. Instead he seemed to be wearing some kind of suit. The second thing was that his right hand felt weird, not hurt just kind of stiff. When looked at his hand in an attempt to find out why, he was even more surprised than he was about the fact he suddenly found himself in some kind of library.Not only was his hand colored red, his fingers looked segmented and ended in sharp claws.

Since his hand felt fine, he wasn't too worried about it, but he felt no desire to cause a panic in case he ran into other people. While he didn't expect to find anything, after checking his new pockets it turned out that among other things he had bandages with him. Not one to complain about a lucky find like that, he wrapped his hand up in such a way that he could still use it.

Certain that eventually someone would find him and tell him what was going on Nate decided to kill time by reading one of the many books. Unfortunately every single book he picked turned out to be empty. However just when he was wondering what to do he heard someone talking. "Does anyone know what's going on? Why were here? Where the exit is? Any relevant information to the circumstances at all? I don't, but I'm a pretty good witness." He quickly headed in the direction the voice was coming from and ended up in a room with several other people. "Hey, I take it you all just woke up here as well." However before any of them could have had any time to answer, some kind of gorilla showed up from nowhere and attacked two of them.

Isamu hadn't quite been sure what to expect when he'd suddenly gone from crossing the street in a hurry on his way to yet another training session with just his gi and his bo staff to suddenly being in a white room full of more books than he'd ever seen in his life. There seemed to be a lot of other people here too all equally confused for the most part.

After trying to puzzle things out with little success on his own he decided to just go with things and approach the two older girls nearest him, seemingly in the middle of some embarrassed conversation.

"Hi My name's Isa-"

Then, a giant funky, furious and pimptastical gorilla dropped from the sky or ceiling and began attacking.

"Best. Day. EVER."

The smallish eleven year old boy immediately launched himself at their ape attacker, shifted his grip on the bo so that he was holding it at just one end and swung with all his strength at the thing's head. The fact that he'd been able to jump high enough to reach it didn't actually register very much to him, as he was busy giggling delightedly and grinning like a madman.

There was only so much attention that someone dancing musically to disco could draw. Sure, a strange world, filled with books after what felt like a dying, dancing randomly could pull attention from that. No problem. Hell, it could snatch his focus away even when their was a skimpy dressed young woman, with ease that bordered on herculean. However, when a giant ape appeared out of nowhere, and stood in front of them, that was the exact moment, like a pullet hitting the sharpened end of a dart at the center of a bulls-eye, when Jimmy forgot all about the dancer. He, along with the rest of the world became the furthest thing from the confused individuals mind.

"Huh?" Jimmy muttered, turning away from the dancer to look at the gorilla. (he hoped the thing couldn't read thoughts because he doubted apes with a fashion sense saw being mixed up with monkeys as a compliment.) "I'm not sure which is odder, a library without books, or a gorilla with a hat"(the rest of the outfit worked fine in his point of view.) He opened his mouth again, to ask the ape(not feeling self conscious at all about talking to it) if it knew where they were, or why they were there, or any of the other questions that were bouncing around in his mind like he would be. The words never left his mouth, but instead crawled down to his gut and hid for safety. The gorilla wasn't a happy camper, or city folk, whatever. Apparently, Jimmy did something wrong, at least that's what he lacked to think since unwarranted aggression made him feel like his earlier fear that the universe was out to get him might have some merit.

Fighting was never something Jimmy did, and he never watched it on the television. He read it, or saw pictures of it, occasionally, but that, along with sex scenes, was just something you never got a good feel for from a book, but, if anyone asked his opinion on the matter, the ape knew how to fight, because the first mistake he, and he was certain a lot of others with his background, would do if he wanted to cause harm was hesitate. The damn thing didn't do that. It let him know it was pissed, and then it swung that tree trunk, or arm, at him like he had taken the thing's last banana. Of course, there wasn't time to react, much less move out of the way, and bringing up a limb for defense would've only led to a broken arm. So, the strike connected. Oddly enough, there was a flash of silvery white light that exploded into the world around him just before the impact. He went flying yes, but he didn't die, which he wouldn't realize for some time later.

At least several objects tried to stop him from his unwanted journey through the air. One of them had to have been a shelf of books, the last one, almost certainly. It was possible the books had been left on the floor before he got there, but it was doubtful. Quickly, after a few seconds of daze, he tried to get to his feet, but felt that his chest was still sore from where the limb had hit him like a truck with a lead foot on the gas peddle. "Ouch." He mumbled, getting to his feet. "Freaking jerk." He spat the world like a hot candy someone once told him was cherry flavored. "Hey!" He yelled just as someone was jumping at the ape's head. "I'm not a pinball damn it!" He bent down to grab the nearest book, ignoring all the soreness in his body, and flung it at the ape, not really aiming for anything since he doubted it would do any good, and anyways, the damn thing was too big to miss.

Katsuo did not pay any attention to the roar, and was unaware that it occurred, and as such he kept his attention to dancing, and did not look over in the direction where it came from. As the Gorilla appeared, unbeknownst to him, Katsuo felt the groove flow through his veins as he burst out in song, interrupting whatever silence may have been there. "DO A LITTLE DANCE! MAKE A LITTLE LOVE! GET DOWN TONIGHT!" He thrust out his right hand, as he spun around, glancing as the Gorilla did something that wasn't groovy.

Katsuo focused on the gorilla now, and eyed him up and down. "Baby, baby, why fight, WHEN YOU CAN DANCE!?" He extended out his left hand as he invited the Gorilla to boogy down.