"You have *got* to be kidding..." Mamoru said finally.

Dionysus looked at the, for lack of a better term, "stoned" body of Aoshi and shook his head. "Nope, I'm not. I have a hard time believing it myself, but all I can tell you is that is what I think has happened." He glanced at the other men in the room. "Stop looking at me like I'm crazy! I remember exactly what Ce-ko forced into my mind. The thought transfer knocked me out for almost a whole day. I was lucky I woke up in time for Hendrix."

"So the Otaku are at Woodstock?!" P-kun exclaimed. "Where the hell does that come from? What are the Creators tripping on? Why would they send the Otaku to WOODSTOCK?!"

"P-kun! Calm down!" Omi cut in. "You'll give yourself a heart attack at this rate. All I want to know is why these three," he motioned to Aoshi, Mikagami, and Sanosuke, "came back like this."

"Can you tell us anything, Kagetsuya-san? Messiah-san?" Dionysus asked.

"Like I said before," Kagetsuya said in a bored tone of voice. "We don't really know what happened. We were going to meet Mercy and Nyx when Nyx attacked Mercy. Then we got pulled to some muddy place with lots of people and loud music. I assume this is the ‘Woodstock' you are referring to. Then, we were back here."

"Something is forcing the Otaku to time-travel against their will," Eagle said as he plugged his equipment into an open computer terminal. "I haven't been able to isolate the source yet. I can handle creating Roads to the Pillar, time travel is out of my league though."

"Do you think whatever is causing this is another of the Otaku? Maybe a new way to play the Game?" Orion asked.

"This isn't ‘Where In Time Is Carmen SanDiego'!" Mamoru snapped. "It isn't safe to play around with time. Serious things can happen before you even know it."

BEEP BEEP. BEEP BEEP. BEEP BEEP.

The sound startled everyone in the room. "Whose beeper is that?" Yohji asked. "I know it's not mine."

"Oh, it's mine."

TBC...