((Written in collaboration with the fabulous Just Jack))

"OH MY GOD. What did you do this time!?" Jack, the five-foot-five haystack of bones in muddied peasant clothing snapped at her companion as he shucked several inches of the same sludge off his tunic. "I hadn't thought Genghis Khan would be so unfriendly," he responded, sighing as he looked down at the wreck his wardrobe had become. "I'll never get this off." Jack smeared dirt from her brow so she could get a better look at the brass contraption encircling her wrist. A tiny green light blinked synchronously with the pulse just over her radial artery, the sensor plate beneath it ready for her waiting fingerprint. In vain, she searched her person for a space to wipe the grime from the pad of her thumb, but when she found none, she licked it and set it fast against the mechanism. A sequence of neon blue holographic numbers that projected several inches above the device made her groan. "What did you do?" Jack repeated. "Nothing!" "Nothing?" Jack snapped out a hand and grasped a greasy tuft of her companion's jet hair, tangled and soiled as hers was, and yanked his face closer to her technologically-equipped wrist. "Look at these coordinates, Ollie! You must have created a parallel universe. Though' I'm not detecting any paradoxical anomalies in this time stream."

"I said nothing!" he grunted when she grabbed his hair. "Ow! Hey! STOP!" his nose wrinkled up when it came too close to the display on her wrist and his eyes screwed up in an attempt to make sense out of the too-close and too-blurry set of coordinates on display. "I didn't do any of that, all I did was hit a few buttons and-" he stopped and reached back behind his head to slap at her wrist.

"And let go of my hair! You know how much I hate it when you do that!"

When the buttons on the contraption didn't cooperate, she bashed at it with her fist. A smoky cloud appeared over Oliver's head. "It isn't?" The cloud suddenly burst into flames, then rained down paper ash onto her companion. "Oh, crap" I think that was the Declaration of Independence." Realizing then that they were in the middle of a crowded square, Jack quite nearly climbed onto Oliver's shoulders as someone in a suit of armor passed. "OH MY GOD. THE ANDROIDS HAVE DESCENDED! WHERE IS YOUR PHASER!?"

"Did you just incinerate the Declaration of Inde-freaking-pendence"!" he exclaimed, eyes wide while his arms flapped uselessly at his sides when she climbed him like a human jungle-gym in an attempt to escape the armored individual who passed them by. "There aren't any androids here!" he shouted, slapping her on the arm and shoving a pointy finger into her face. "Cool your jets, lady! You're drawing attention to yourself!"

"Wait," he added, "You had my phaser last!"

"I" I can't be expected to keep track of all your things! I just pushed buttons!" she mocked nasally. Ice blue eyes attached, magnetized, to a handsome passing he-elf. "Well hell-loooo, blondie," she crooned, licking a distinctly soiled palm to smooth her muddy black cowlick. The Kin paid her no mind. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Well maybe if you could stop ogling the local color for five seconds and help me figure out why everything is all" you know, it's making that sound. The one it's not supposed to make," this was followed by a series of wheezing and buzzing noises. "That doesn't tell me anything! It sounds like space has a cough or something!" he reached out and ruffled her hair and turned, marching through a rather diverse crowd that seemed to not care that two very loud, dirty people suddenly appeared out of thin air.

"No androids?" Jack accused him from behind. Suddenly, she hooked his collar and grabbed his pasty white chin, aiming his gaze at an electric marching humanoid contraption of some kind (and smearing him with extra dirt in the process). "I knew it! You created a paradox!"

Hooked and grabbed, he made a yelping sound and flailed wildly with one arm. Several members of the crowd had to lean out of the way. The crowd had officially acknowledged them, it was a great step forward. "I didn't create anything!" he snapped, reaching up to peel her fingers away from his chin. "This is clearly just one of those planets that's just...yes," he stopped when he saw the metal man marching down the street and his eyes nearly fell out of their sockets when he saw the lumbering minotaur that towered above the rest of the crowd.

"Quick!" he turned around and threw his arm over her shoulders and dropped to a crouch, yanking her down with him. "Don't panic," he whispered. "But there's some kind of monster with the android. This. Is. Bad."

"Shhhhhh," she shushed him a little too loudly, bony, creaky-knuckled finger pressed hard against her lips. Edging sideways in a crawl, Jack snuck through the forest of legs, stopping only when a gasp above them had her realizing she had inadvertently stuck her head between a gentleman's ankles. With a bright grin, she waved up at him (or his codpiece). "Hello! We, uh' come in peace?" The man's heel came down, and though she swung out of its direct trajectory, it caught her by one of her sharp cheekbones. "OW!"

As the cruel alien (native") stomped away fuming, Jack pouted and rubbed at her cheek. Gaze swinging back to Oliver, she stuck out her lower lip. "We are agreed that the arc of space and time can be affected by infinitely small and precise actions and reactions, correct?"

He winced when she was struck by the heel of that angry and rude manalien and shrugged when she turned to him. "Did we" I think we did. But don't pin this on me! I didn't create," cue dramatic hand gestures, complete with a wide arching sweep of his arms to indicate the very world beneath their feet, "this!"

"I'm pretty sure this is all your fault."

"ACTIONS AND REACTIONS, OLLIE," Jack defended passionately, her arms over her head in a just as passionate "W." She was very loud for such a small person. "You know what this is" I know what this is all about." With a mighty stomp, she stood upright again, spine crooked as she bent over and jabbed a finger at him. "This is because you wouldn't buy me those M&M's in 1964. Why wouldn't you buy me those M&M's, Ollie!?"

"M&Ms"!" he exclaimed, jumping back up to his full (and unimpressive) height. "This has nothing to do with candy you insane person! You crazy face! You-you!" he pointed at her and struggled with another word to describe her mental health. "You trout-faced, pillow-stealing, horse riding squash! Get over the M&Ms! We were being shot at by alien cat-men with an army of robo-dogs!"

"Oh, just?" she abruptly grabbed his wrist and pulled. "Forget this. I will not die here." Arm stiff and poised before herself like a cowcatcher, Jack began shoving through the crowd at full-tilt, dragging her male companion behind her. "FOR TUCHANKA!"

"There you go with the FOR TUCHANKA!" he had to shout it too, it was infectious. "Where are we going?" of course, he was perfectly fine with chasing after her or rather, being dragged behind while she cleared a path for them.

A bystander in overalls yelped as the pair rocketed past, quite nearly toppling his wheelbarrow of ripe turnips. "To' THE FUTURE!?