A-KO: losses
Let us consider the universe.
Okay, too big. Let us instead consider a certain building on a motion picture studio lot, located somewhere within the wastes of the Otaku Wars.[1] The studio is the Inevitable Outcome Productions main shooting lot.
At one particular time, the recent past, a sixteen year old girl was leaning back in her chair in the hairdresser's room, relaxing as two locks of her lavender hair were twisted into her distinctive ringlets. She stretched as the haircare droid did its work.
Just then, another sixteen year old girl with firey red hair strolled into the room, whistling as she looked over a thick script.
The lavender haired girl opened her eyes to the whistling, and noted her despised arch-nemesis' arrival. "Ah. Eiko. Nice to see you again," she said without sounding very convincing.
"Hey, Biiko," Eiko Magami said absently.
"Is that the script for this new feature?"
Eiko nodded. "I picked up the other copy for Shiko ... you didn't get one yet?"
Biiko Daitokuji gestured at the haircare droid. "I only got here half an hour ago, and this has been keeping me busy. An interesting design concept ..."
Eiko's innately generous and kind-spirited nature warred with her certain knowledge that Biiko would eventually twist the offer into an insult, and there'd be a fight, which would get Shiko (who took her demand that they stop fighting quite seriously) upset, before she sighed, and silently held out a copy of the script.
Biiko's innately vicious and mean-spirited nature warred with her desires to know what the new story was about and to handle something that would eventually come into Shiko's possession, before she glowered, and silently took the script.
"Rather heavy," she murmured.
"Megacrossovers tend to be."
Biiko examined the title. "Ani-mayhem: The Motion Picture?"
"Ranma, Tenchi, El-Hazard, BGC --"
"Ooh, hardsuits ..."
"-- Armitage, Dominion --
"Tanks, this is good, this is good ..."
"-- Yuugen Kaisya, and us. Oh, and the Goddesses show up in the final scene, but they're just lost."
"I guess it was inevitable," Biiko murmured, flipping through the pages. "I'm just surprised that, considering the director, he didn't try to bring in the Sailor Senshi from Ms. Purvis' unofficial expansion ..." [2]
"Page 45."
Biiko checked page 45, and stared. "Those sex-droids from Armitage get powerups from Washuu, and ... that's *twisted*." [3]
"It's just a good thing that they didn't get around to it until the second set came out, with us in it," Eiko continued. "I haven't had a lot of work lately."
"Excuse me?" Biiko bit out. "Which one of us actually got to be in Zen's `Long and Winding Road', and which one of us was relegated to being mentioned in passing as a new prospective fiancee for Ranma, who's only interested in him because of his female form? The idea," she added, sotto voce, "me being interested in that. Redheads *aren't* my type. In any event, you have NO cause to complain, you little harridan! You get *cameos* at least!"
Dead silence.
"Harridan?"
"I felt like a change from the usual `bitch' and `slut', but I'm not *quite* ready to start calling you `breeder' yet," Biiko explained calmly.
"Oh well then," Eiko replied, holding onto her hair-trigger temper through the use of reserves of willpower that she had never realized that she possessed. Biiko tried and failed to hide her deep satisfaction at this. Eiko just glowered at her.
"Want to run lines?" she finally asked.
"Might as well. Which page?"
Eiko flipped through the script. "Our first scene together is on page 71."
"Right. Ahem. `A-Ko! Today is the day that you're going to die!'"
"`B-Ko, do you have any idea how old that line's getting?'"
"Why do you say that? I don't think I've ever actually used that particular --"
"No, but Ryoga, Ayeka, Largo, and Jinnai have used it in the scenes that lead up to this one. I suspect it's intended to remind the readers that this situation is fundamentally absurd."
"Very well then. `The oldest of tricks are those which work best. AKAGIYAMA MISSILES!'"
"`Yawn. You do realize that --'"
"Is that the best yawn that you can do?"
"It's not supposed to be a real yawn, you sex-crazed megalomaniac, it's a sarcastic yawn!"
"Sex-crazed WHAT? Eiko, if I could get out of these --"
"You mean you can't?"
"What? No, the cycle still has fifteen minutes to go."
"I see ... Anyway, getting back to the script." Eiko yawned dramatically. "`You do realize that C-Ko won't be happy about this?"
"`Hah! I shall dry the tears that she will weep at your funeral with the warmth of my embrace -- and together we shall know true fulfillment.'"
"`When are you going to get it through your lavender-tressed head that C-Ko's not *like* that?'"
"`Insolent fool! I shall --' And then the dimensional portal opens up, and we both stand there looking at it as though nothing like this has ever happened to us before."
"*Has* anything like this happened before? Most of the crossovers that we've been in have just plopped us down in the other series' world."
"I don't believe so. In any event, who should come striding through the portal but Kunou Tatewa-- oh, right. Personal name first, family name last. Tatewaki Kunou. With whom we both SAY WHAT?"
"Well, it's understandable. After all, Kunou has more than superficial similarities to Mendou and Rei from Urusei Yatsura, and we both know who Kei-kun was patterned on, right?"
"Ah, yes. It does make sense ... if one accepts the unlikely idea that I would *ever* be attracted to a male ..."
"Biiko -- you were. Unless you want to start blabbering about Kei-kun using pheromones, just deal with it. You like guys!"
"I do *NOT*! I ... I simply appreciate Kei-kun's feminine side."
"And what side would *that* be? The guy is a major hunk! An alpha male! You just can't bear to admit that you were *wr-rong* about something like that ..."
Biiko reached up to her shoulder to tear her clothes off and reveal the Akagiyama Power Suit ... and fortunately remembered at the last possible moment that she wasn't wearing right then. "Well, at the very least *I* am only attracted to those who appreciate --"
Eiko began to laugh hysterically.
"Wretched Woman!" Biiko shouted over Eiko's giggles. "Breeder!"
"Y-you can't even get it through your h-h-head that Shiko isn't *gay*, and --"
"How can she possibly *avoid* being homosexual if she's from an exclusively female species?" Biiko interrupted.
Eiko's laughter stopped in mid "ha", and the "h"ing noise continued for several seconds as her mouth hung open. Birds flew past, chirping noisily.
"Dear Goddess, you *are* a twit," Biiko muttered, placing a hand over her eyes.
"Take that back," Eiko said.
Biiko lifted her hand, staring at her eternal adversary quizzically. "When have I ever recanted --"
"Take that *back*."
Biiko blinked in confusion ... and then a slow, dangerous smile crossed her classically beautiful features. "Why, Eiko-chan ..." she cooed. "Could it be that you're ... uncomfortable with the idea that your best, dearest friend in all the world actually --"
"SHUT UP."
"-- wants to get in the undies she took such pleasure in shouting about on a certain shopping expedition?"
"SHUT UP YOU BITCH!" Eiko shouted. "How *dare* you talk about Shiko like that!"
Biiko raised an eyebrow as she successfully fought the impulse to grin in triumph. "Dear me. You can't accept Shiko as she is ... I wonder how long it will be until she finds out, and whose arms she will run to when she does --"
Eiko leapt off her stool, coming down hard enough to smash her footprints into the floor. She grabbed Biiko's lower jaw in a tight grip, stilling her voice.
Her eyes were full of fury as she spoke in a low tone. "Three dumb mistakes, Biiko. One, you let me know that you couldn't move around. Two, you didn't pull off your clothes, so I know that you don't have the Power Suit. And three ... you really shouldn't have said such vicious, *filthy* things about Shiko. Now ... I'm gonna have to punish you."
Biiko couldn't open her mouth, so no gasp came as Eiko tore her dress off, leaving Biiko clad only in her lacy unmentionables. But her eyes expressed her stunned amazement well enough.
"You filthy, lecherous witch," Eiko hissed. "This is the sort of thing that you'd do to Shiko, isn't it? Isn't it!" She tightened her grip on Biiko's jaw, forcing a yelping noise from Biiko. Eiko smiled savagely, and transferred her grip to Biiko's throat. "Isn't it?"
"Eiko ... don't do this," Biiko said with greater calm than she felt.
"Why not? Isn't this the sort of thing that you'd do to Shiko if you ever got your filthy depraved hands on her?" Eiko sneered as she traced the lace on Biiko's brassiere.
"Yes, quite probably ... but you shouldn't do this ..."
"Why the *hell* not?"
Biiko took a deep breath. "Because you're supposed to save Shiko from the wolf, not turn into it."
Eiko's hand froze.
Biiko measured time by her own heartbeat.
Suddenly, Eiko released her grip, and stepped back, looking very confused. "I -- I -- I was going to --"
"You lost your temper, Eiko, that's all. Good people do things when they lose their temper that they regret afterwards. It's the regretting that makes them good people," Biiko said quietly. "I should know. I don't regret anything."
Eiko stepped backwards, towards the door. She turned as if to run away ... then paused, and turned back to look at Biiko, a small fragment of the fire that her eyes had blazed still burning there. "Don't you *dare* tell Shiko anything about this."
"One has some honor," Biiko said loftily.
Eiko turned away again, and ran out of the room. Biiko heard the sounds of her breaking things as she did.
She waited a moment, then reached up to shut off the hairstyling droid. Her weapon bracelet glimmered as she did so. Author's Notes
This bubbled up from the darker parts of my unconscious -- the same place that gave me a lot of my very early successes -- after: a)watching all four Project A-ko videos (other than the two Versus), b)reading Henry Cobb's "Promises", and c)buying Dream Park's Project A-ko role-playing game. (The idea, revealed in its pages, that B-Ko "remembers" A-Ko's protecting C-ko from *her* as A-ko rescuing C-Ko from a wolf was especially influential.)
There's a lot more going on in Project A-Ko than meets the eye, of course. Anyone who doesn't think that there's as much subtext in, say, Cinderella Rhapsody (my favorite, BTW) as there is in a typical Xena: Warrior Princess episode has really missed the point, possibly of both.
*Please* don't interpret this as a "Chris hates A-Ko" #FanFiction. I don't hate A-Ko. If anything, I empathize with her, as I've got a temper that's damn near as bad as hers. But one of her problems is that she is more than just a little *over*protective of C-ko, and yet tends to undervalue her at times. (That would certainly seem to be supported by the conclusion of "Project A-Ko: Final")
By the way, I have no intention of *ever* writing "Ani-Mayhem: The Motion Picture", so don't hold your breath.
Ah, the endnotes.
- [1]In the event that you're not familiar with the Otaku Wars, they can be summarized in three words: GRIT on AFSM.[4]
- [2]Available at http://www.netcom.com/~jetwolf/anicards.html
- [3]Technically, the makers of this story *could* get away with this, since one of the cards from the expansion set that I've seen clearly shows the two sex-droids from Armitage III that look like Sailor Mercury and Sailor Mars.
- [4]I am aware that that's one word and two acronyms. But it would be silly to say "in ten words: The Great Ranma Insanity Thread On alt.fan.sailor-moon."
Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light.
"I am not a very nice person anymore."
- Rand al'Thor, "Crown of Swords"
http://www.ualberta.ca/~cdavies/hmpage.html
