She knocked on the door softly, laughing to herself as she heard the loud tinging of metal hitting metal. She loved to surprise him when he was working, it always made her laugh to hear the combinations of cuss words he came up with when he hit his head on whatever oversized machine he had come up with. She heard the heavy tromp of work boots pounding across the floor as he made his rather angry way from the workshop at the back of his house to the front door. She had to stifle a giggle when he threw the door open. His rounded face was almost completely blackened with soot and she could hardly see his eyes for all the grime on his glasses.

"Well hello there, I believe I am expected?" she giggled, grinning at him cattishly.

"Yes, my pump knot was starting to miss you," he said, a grin breaking out over his face as well. She knew that grin and started to back up.

"Don't you dare, this is a new shirt and if I get it dirty Vanessa will kill me," she said.

"Aww, you sound cranky, how about a hug," he launched forward, chasing after her as she darted under his arm and into the house. He finally caught up with her in the kitched and grabbed her, lifting her into the air in a tight two armed hug. "There, I think that's pay back enough, not like you won't get dirty anyway, we'll be working on the underbelly today," he laughed, letting her down and leading her through the back door and into his work shop.

"Oh wow, you've really out done yourself this time. What's this one supposed to not do?" she asked, looking over at him with a grin.

"Well, for your information, this one WILL open a portal to any fantasy world that is entered into it's database," he looked over at her, smirking with triumph. "I've already tested it," he said.

"And it didn't blow up? Or is that why you look like you just got out of the oven?" she raised an eyebrow, still grinning.

"No, that's from my car, I was working on it before you startled me and it backfired in my face," he growled, poking her.

"Hey! You told me to be here at this time, so I am, now you can't blame your memory loss on me," she said, poking him back. He just sighed and conceded the point, walking over to his newest "toy" and beckoning her over as well. "This beauty has already taken me on a little adventure, and the best part is, when you're in the parallel universe, time here doesn't pass, I was there and back in three minutes and I went through the whole Lord of the Rings journey," he said, looking proud.

"Well that is a feat, so I guess it's like Narnia then? No matter how much time you spend...wherever, you still come back the same age as when you left?" she asked.

"Yup, and if you die there, you'll wake up here safe and sound, but you'll still have all the scars from the wounds you got, I'm still trying to figure out how that works," he scratched the back of his head, looking like the classic "old man scientist" character from any Disney movie.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked, looking from the machine to him.

"Yeah, otherwise I wouldn't be here," he said.

"You got killed?!?" she asked, her face suddenly scared. He just smirked and held up his shirt, showing the long and very jagged scar running across his chest and stomach.

"Orc blade, not fun," he grimaces as he lowered his shirt. "But that's beside the point, the point is that it works and it's safe and I want you to help me test it again," he said, grinning evily.

"What do you mean again? It works. Why would we need to test it again?" she asked.

"Well last time I just went in as myself, but there's a function on here that can change a person's shape and even species, and I want to see if it'll work in an animated universe," he said, pulling out a sketch book of her old anime drawings.

"No, no no no, I am not doing that," she said, backing away from the book like she feared it may bite her.

"Why not? There are some very interesting character designs in here," he said, flipping through the sketches of different character arch-types that she'd drawn for them when they used to play D&D in college.

"Because I'm not running around in some wierd mech anime dressed up like a harlot for you to stare at, and you know you would," she looked hard at him, noticing the faint blush.

"Alright, what if it wasn't a mech, then you use on of your more clothed characters, how about...Inuyasha?" he grinned at her, flipping to the pages of characters she'd drawn for a feudal anime game they'd run during the college fair.

"That's cheating. Which one would you go as?" she asked, walking over to the sketch book and looking over his shoulder.

I was thinking something like Sesshoumaru, that one you drew for me, the thief," he said, pointing to a character with long black hair, a slim build, green eyes and the "traditional" thief type outfit.

"Oh, well I was gonna go as a thief, maybe her," she said, pointing to the girl that was drawn as the companion character to the one Nathaniel had chosen. She had black hair as well, but it was cut boysihly short. She had a short athletic build, very willowy and small, her eyes were different colors. One was green and the other was blue. Her outfit was like his only fitted to a woman and different colors. His was green and brown, hers was black and gray. "I still don't know how those two will work, they're modeled after an english style, early Britannia, can't really see that fitting in with feudal Japan," she said.

"Sure it will, we'll just say we're foreigners, they'll eat it up. This machine is designed to put us in the story and keep us there, and you know how anime storylines are, they always deviate from what that time was really like, the story will just take us with it and the characters will accept us, it'll be fine," he said, waving his hand as if to bat away her doubts.

"I hate it when you say that," she said, tearing out the pages and handing them to him.

"Yeah yeah yeah, stand over on that platform and put the drawing on the scanner next to it, you'll appear somewhere near on of the main-ish characters," he said.

"What do you mean, "main-ish?" she asked.

"You know, it might not be Inuyasha's group, it might be Sesshoumaru of Kouga or someone who's got a name, but isn't in every episode," he said, walking over to the control panel.

"So long as it isn't Naraku," she said, placing the drawing on the scanner. Nathaniel just grinned and started pressing buttons. The light from the scanner shined in her face for a second and then everything went black. She closed her eyes and rubbed them, trying to clear whatever damage the light had done to them and when she opened them again, she was in the forest...alone.