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As absurd as it might have sounded, SaberCat was falling up.

With little else to do, the super-strong feline stared down at the now-ruined strawberry festival as it shrank away from him. He could barely even make out the shady caped figure that'd reversed his gravity anymore, nor the new figure that had suddenly joined him.

"HELP! ANYONE? HELP! I'M FALLING AND I CAN'T GET DOWN! HEEELP!"

SaberCat tried waving to birds and airplanes as he fell past them, but as far as he could tell he didn't get anyone's attention. It wasn't as if they could do anything to rescue him if he did.

I swear I read a comic that went something like this once. Some girl got tossed up in the air on a seesaw... then she swallowed a bird, smacked into the windshield of an airplane... landed on a rocket just as it was launching... I never did find out what happened after that. Guess I never will.

The air was already getting thin, which meant SaberCat was having trouble breathing. He was getting cold, too, and dizzy. At least his natural fur coat was keeping him somewhat warm.

I guess this is how I die. Which sucks, since I have so many regrets. I never did give Elixio the beating he deserves. I never did get to know SaberGirl... I never did finish building that replica weapon in Minecraft...

SaberCat passed out, long before he could've noticed the collision course sheer chance had put him on.

----

CLONG!

Pretty much everyone in the lower half of the Thunder Force space station heard and felt the impact, some literally jumping out of their seats. Nobody knew what it was at the time, but it certainly caught everyone's attention.

"What the hell was that?" one staff member in standard red-and-black Thunder Force uniform exclaimed.

"Whatever it was, it owes me a new cup of coffee," his companion muttered, looking at the shatter-proof coffee mug that now rested on its side.

At that moment, one of the space station's pilots spoke up over the P.A. system. "Attention, all onboard personnel. Sorry about that little bump; I'm guessing a piece of space junk must've hit us... from below... hang on a minute. At that impact angle, wouldn't it have had to come from Earth? This warrants further investigation. I'm dispatching Crew 3 to investigate the damage."

It took about the same amount of time for someone to clean up the coffee spill as it took for two Thunder Force maintenance workers in space suits to make their way to the impact site. The two privately gossiped and speculated about what might have caused the damage all the way there-- upon which the identity of the "space junk" immediately became apparent, mainly because it was still there.

An anthropomorphic saber-toothed feline was laying unconscious in an equivalently shaped dent in the hull of the space station, which luckily had not been breached by the impact. The maintenance workers exchanged glances.

"Aaaaand you owe me $5."

"Yeah, I guess a bet's a bet. I swear, not a day goes by in this job that doesn't make you go, 'Well, now I've seen everything.'"

"You think he's okay?"

"Unbelievably enough, he looks fine. But let's get him inside and to the med bay so we can find out for sure."

"Sure... uh... you want to be the one to pry him off?"

----

SaberCat's eyes blinked open. He was laying on his back on a cold metal surface, a pillow tucked behind his head, and an oxygen mask attached to his face seemed to be forcing air into his lungs.

"Finally," someone muttered. As SaberCat's vision adjusted, he saw a bunch of people dressed in red and black staring at him... while standing on the ceiling?

Letting out a moan, the feline removed his oxygen mask and sat upright. His pillow slipped out from behind his head and fell straight up, much to his surprise.

"Wait a minute, what am I... what's going on here?"

A figure dressed in blue, a quiver of arrows on his back, stepped forwards, the others stepping aside for him. "Good to see you're awake. Welcome aboard the Hub, the space station Thunder Force calls its headquarters. I'm Arrow-Kill, Thunder Force's leader. And you are... SaberCat, I presume?"

"Wait wait wait. Back up. I'm aboard a SPACE STATION? How did I get here?"

"We sort of found you unconscious against the hull, and brought you inside."

"That explains it. The last thing I remember is falling helplessly up into the sky after that caped jerk at the festival reversed my gravity."

"And that in turn would explain the elephant in the room, I suppose. We were all baffled when the station's artificial gravity caused you to fall up instead of down. We've already sent for Professor Goyle to get his input on the matter."

It was at that moment that the door slid open and one more person stepped into the room. He was wearing another red-and-black Thunder Force uniform, and for some reason was also wearing the perimeter of an open book like a ring around his neck, as if someone had broken it over his head.

"There you are, James," Arrow-Kill greeted the newcomer. "What did the Professor say?"

"I got the impression that he didn't want to be disturbed."

Arrow-Kill let out an exasperated sigh. "That's so Professor Goyle. Once he puts his mind to something, he never wants to take a break. Maybe if we give him some time he'll cool down. In the meantime, SaberCat, let's get you something warm to eat."

One of the Thunder Force grunts set up a stepladder and climbed it, bringing a bowl of hot soup and a spoon up to SaberCat. Of course the bowl was upside-down from his perspective, and after several failed attempts to spoon soup into his mouth the feline absentmindedly turned the bowl "upright"-- which resulted in a downpour of hot soup right on the head of an unlucky Thunder Force staff member.

"@#*$&@#&*%!"

Wow. This is just like that one bit from Calvin & Hobbes.

Several more attempts were made to feed the cat, but SaberCat just wasn't used to eating upside-down, and he just succeeded in making a mess. The kitchen staff were right about to give up when the door opened again and none other than Professor Goyle entered the med bay.

"...who am I kidding? Tanook was right; I'm too obsessive. Maybe it will do me some good to focus on something else for a short while. Oh, uh, sorry about earlier, James; you caught me at a bad time."

The professor and SaberCat made eye contact.

"SaberCat? Long time no see."

"Uh... ditto."

----

"...and I haven't been able to Saber down since then, either. Must be a side effect."

SaberCat was sitting on the ceiling of a special testing chamber within the space station's lab area. This chamber's artificial gravity was controlled separately from that of the rest of the station, and it was used primarily to simulate atypical gravity conditions. Outside, Professor Goyle stood at the control panel, one hand on the gravity controls and the other on a pencil hovering over a clipboard.

"Hm... perhaps that's because if your body changed too much, it might disrupt the effect. But let's proceed. I'm going to reduce the chamber's gravity gradually to zero, then increase it to normal in the opposite direction."

Goyle adjusted the gravity controls, and SaberCat gradually began to feel lighter. He jumped up, amazed at how much height he could gain from just a little push. Then he bonked his head on the floor.

"Ow!"

Gravity hit zero, and for a brief moment SaberCat was weightless. Then he was pulled towards the floor, hitting it gently. The feline knelt down and kissed the floor as he rested on it.

"Why hello there, floor. I've missed you."

Professor Goyle rolled his eyes. "Okay, magnitude of gravity seems normal; it's just the direction that's atypical. Going to continue testing to verify. Setting chamber gravity to pull to the left..."

"What?"

SaberCat suddenly found himself pulled off the floor, hitting the right wall of the chamber with a THUD. Goyle nodded, muttering something about observations correlating with a hypothesis, before adjusting the gravity again.

A few more falls in various directions later, SaberCat was on the ceiling again as Goyle stepped into the chamber.

"So what's the diagnosis, Professor?"

"I haven't gotten that far yet-- but I've got a hypothesis. Hold your arm out, please..."

SaberCat did as he was told, and Goyle used a special diamond laser cutter to snip off a sample of his fur. Taking it back into the lab proper, the gargoyle put the fur sample inside a scanner, noting as he did that it fell up just like SaberCat did.

Tense seconds later, Goyle's face brightened. "That's it! Just as I suspected!"

"What?"

"Your assailant's powers affected the gravitons in your body, reversing their polarity and causing gravity to act in reverse on you."

"Er... whatever you say, Professor... can you fix it?"

"It should wear off by itself in a matter of hours, but I might have a way to accelerate the process. One moment-- wait right there."

Goyle disappeared for a moment, then returned with what looked like a futuristic ray gun.

"This is a 'graviton disruptor'," the gargoyle explained. "Much like an EMP, it shakes up the gravitons in an object, temporarily rendering it weightless. I put it together a while ago hoping it would be useful in incapacitating opponents without harming them, but the effect turned out to be difficult to sustain. However, it is likely that disrupting your gravitons will restore their original behavior, similar in principle to demagnetizing a metal or rebooting a computer."

"Uh... run that by me again?"

"...The details aren't important. But one shot from this should fix you. Hold still."

Taking careful aim, Professor Goyle squeezed the trigger, and a blast of red and green illuminated the chamber for a split second. SaberCat felt as if he'd been tossed into the air as he was once again rendered weightless, very briefly this time, before crashing down on the floor.

Breathing in and out, SaberCat pushed himself to his feet, his head still spinning. Goyle approached him.

"Are you okay? Any side effects?"

"I think I'm fine. Am I on the floor?"

"You are indeed. It looks like the disruption tactic worked. We'll get you back to the bridge and beam you back home."

"Thanks a lot, Professor!" SaberCat cheered, playfully slapping the gargoyle on the back... and breaking him into several pieces in the process.

"Oh, uh, sorry."

Goyle's head let out a sigh. "It's okay... I've recovered from worse."

----

"Welcome back, Benny. You've been gone a while. How was the festival?"

"Let's just say it had its ups and downs."

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

As absurd as it might have sounded, SaberCat was falling up.

With little else to do, the super-strong feline stared down at the now-ruined strawberry festival as it shrank away from him. He could barely even make out the shady caped figure that'd reversed his gravity anymore, nor the new figure that had suddenly joined him.

"HELP! ANYONE? HELP! I'M FALLING AND I CAN'T GET DOWN! HEEELP!"

SaberCat tried waving to birds and airplanes as he fell past them, but as far as he could tell he didn't get anyone's attention. It wasn't as if they could do anything to rescue him if he did.

I swear I read a comic that went something like this once. Some girl got tossed up in the air on a seesaw... then she swallowed a bird, smacked into the windshield of an airplane... landed on a rocket just as it was launching... I never did find out what happened after that. Guess I never will.

The air was already getting thin, which meant SaberCat was having trouble breathing. He was getting cold, too, and dizzy. At least his natural fur coat was keeping him somewhat warm.

I guess this is how I die. Which sucks, since I have so many regrets. I never did give Elixio the beating he deserves. I never did get to know SaberGirl... I never did finish building that replica weapon in Minecraft...

SaberCat passed out, long before he could've noticed the collision course sheer chance had put him on.

----

CLONG!

Pretty much everyone in the lower half of the Thunder Force space station heard and felt the impact, some literally jumping out of their seats. Nobody knew what it was at the time, but it certainly caught everyone's attention.

"What the hell was that?" one staff member in standard red-and-black Thunder Force uniform exclaimed.

"Whatever it was, it owes me a new cup of coffee," his companion muttered, looking at the shatter-proof coffee mug that now rested on its side.

At that moment, one of the space station's pilots spoke up over the P.A. system. "Attention, all onboard personnel. Sorry about that little bump; I'm guessing a piece of space junk must've hit us... from below... hang on a minute. At that impact angle, wouldn't it have had to come from Earth? This warrants further investigation. I'm dispatching Crew 3 to investigate the damage."

It took about the same amount of time for someone to clean up the coffee spill as it took for two Thunder Force maintenance workers in space suits to make their way to the impact site. The two privately gossiped and speculated about what might have caused the damage all the way there-- upon which the identity of the "space junk" immediately became apparent, mainly because it was still there.

An anthropomorphic saber-toothed feline was laying unconscious in an equivalently shaped dent in the hull of the space station, which luckily had not been breached by the impact. The maintenance workers exchanged glances.

"Aaaaand you owe me $5."

"Yeah, I guess a bet's a bet. I swear, not a day goes by in this job that doesn't make you go, 'Well, now I've seen everything.'"

"You think he's okay?"

"Unbelievably enough, he looks fine. But let's get him inside and to the med bay so we can find out for sure."

"Sure... uh... you want to be the one to pry him off?"

----

SaberCat's eyes blinked open. He was laying on his back on a cold metal surface, a pillow tucked behind his head, and an oxygen mask attached to his face seemed to be forcing air into his lungs.

"Finally," someone muttered. As SaberCat's vision adjusted, he saw a bunch of people dressed in red and black staring at him... while standing on the ceiling?

Letting out a moan, the feline removed his oxygen mask and sat upright. His pillow slipped out from behind his head and fell straight up, much to his surprise.

"Wait a minute, what am I... what's going on here?"

A figure dressed in blue, a quiver of arrows on his back, stepped forwards, the others stepping aside for him. "Good to see you're awake. Welcome aboard the Hub, the space station Thunder Force calls its headquarters. I'm Arrow-Kill, Thunder Force's leader. And you are... SaberCat, I presume?"

"Wait wait wait. Back up. I'm aboard a SPACE STATION? How did I get here?"

"We sort of found you unconscious against the hull, and brought you inside."

"That explains it. The last thing I remember is falling helplessly up into the sky after that caped jerk at the festival reversed my gravity."

"And that in turn would explain the elephant in the room, I suppose. We were all baffled when the station's artificial gravity caused you to fall up instead of down. We've already sent for Professor Goyle to get his input on the matter."

It was at that moment that the door slid open and one more person stepped into the room. He was wearing another red-and-black Thunder Force uniform, and for some reason was also wearing the perimeter of an open book like a ring around his neck, as if someone had broken it over his head.

"There you are, James," Arrow-Kill greeted the newcomer. "What did the Professor say?"

"I got the impression that he didn't want to be disturbed."

Arrow-Kill let out an exasperated sigh. "That's so Professor Goyle. Once he puts his mind to something, he never wants to take a break. Maybe if we give him some time he'll cool down. In the meantime, SaberCat, let's get you something warm to eat."

One of the Thunder Force grunts set up a stepladder and climbed it, bringing a bowl of hot soup and a spoon up to SaberCat. Of course the bowl was upside-down from his perspective, and after several failed attempts to spoon soup into his mouth the feline absentmindedly turned the bowl "upright"-- which resulted in a downpour of hot soup right on the head of an unlucky Thunder Force staff member.

"@#*$&@#&*%!"

Wow. This is just like that one bit from Calvin & Hobbes.

Several more attempts were made to feed the cat, but SaberCat just wasn't used to eating upside-down, and he just succeeded in making a mess. The kitchen staff were right about to give up when the door opened again and none other than Professor Goyle entered the med bay.

"...who am I kidding? Tanook was right; I'm too obsessive. Maybe it will do me some good to focus on something else for a short while. Oh, uh, sorry about earlier, James; you caught me at a bad time."

The professor and SaberCat made eye contact.

"SaberCat? Long time no see."

"Uh... ditto."

----

"...and I haven't been able to Saber down since then, either. Must be a side effect."

SaberCat was sitting on the ceiling of a special testing chamber within the space station's lab area. This chamber's artificial gravity was controlled separately from that of the rest of the station, and it was used primarily to simulate atypical gravity conditions. Outside, Professor Goyle stood at the control panel, one hand on the gravity controls and the other on a pencil hovering over a clipboard.

"Hm... perhaps that's because if your body changed too much, it might disrupt the effect. But let's proceed. I'm going to reduce the chamber's gravity gradually to zero, then increase it to normal in the opposite direction."

Goyle adjusted the gravity controls, and SaberCat gradually began to feel lighter. He jumped up, amazed at how much height he could gain from just a little push. Then he bonked his head on the floor.

"Ow!"

Gravity hit zero, and for a brief moment SaberCat was weightless. Then he was pulled towards the floor, hitting it gently. The feline knelt down and kissed the floor as he rested on it.

"Why hello there, floor. I've missed you."

Professor Goyle rolled his eyes. "Okay, magnitude of gravity seems normal; it's just the direction that's atypical. Going to continue testing to verify. Setting chamber gravity to pull to the left..."

"What?"

SaberCat suddenly found himself pulled off the floor, hitting the right wall of the chamber with a THUD. Goyle nodded, muttering something about observations correlating with a hypothesis, before adjusting the gravity again.

A few more falls in various directions later, SaberCat was on the ceiling again as Goyle stepped into the chamber.

"So what's the diagnosis, Professor?"

"I haven't gotten that far yet-- but I've got a hypothesis. Hold your arm out, please..."

SaberCat did as he was told, and Goyle used a special diamond laser cutter to snip off a sample of his fur. Taking it back into the lab proper, the gargoyle put the fur sample inside a scanner, noting as he did that it fell up just like SaberCat did.

Tense seconds later, Goyle's face brightened. "That's it! Just as I suspected!"

"What?"

"Your assailant's powers affected the gravitons in your body, reversing their polarity and causing gravity to act in reverse on you."

"Er... whatever you say, Professor... can you fix it?"

"It should wear off by itself in a matter of hours, but I might have a way to accelerate the process. One moment-- wait right there."

Goyle disappeared for a moment, then returned with what looked like a futuristic ray gun.

"This is a 'graviton disruptor'," the gargoyle explained. "Much like an EMP, it shakes up the gravitons in an object, temporarily rendering it weightless. I put it together a while ago hoping it would be useful in incapacitating opponents without harming them, but the effect turned out to be difficult to sustain. However, it is likely that disrupting your gravitons will restore their original behavior, similar in principle to demagnetizing a metal or rebooting a computer."

"Uh... run that by me again?"

"...The details aren't important. But one shot from this should fix you. Hold still."

Taking careful aim, Professor Goyle squeezed the trigger, and a blast of red and green illuminated the chamber for a split second. SaberCat felt as if he'd been tossed into the air as he was once again rendered weightless, very briefly this time, before crashing down on the floor.

Breathing in and out, SaberCat pushed himself to his feet, his head still spinning. Goyle approached him.

"Are you okay? Any side effects?"

"I think I'm fine. Am I on the floor?"

"You are indeed. It looks like the disruption tactic worked. We'll get you back to the bridge and beam you back home."

"Thanks a lot, Professor!" SaberCat cheered, playfully slapping the gargoyle on the back... and breaking him into several pieces in the process.

"Oh, uh, sorry."

Goyle's head let out a sigh. "It's okay... I've recovered from worse."

----

"Welcome back, Benny. You've been gone a while. How was the festival?"

"Let's just say it had its ups and downs."