Disclaimer: This parody is a work of fan-fiction, and is distributed
purely for it's subtle political effect.  A-ko and all related
characters are copyrighted by Soeishinsha/Final-Nishijima and Central
Park Media and are not used with permission.  All original material is
copyright 1996 by Henry J. Cobb.  Permission is granted to browse and
redistribute this material, but not to modify it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Project A-ko: "Promise" Chapter II: "Tuesday, Review"
  By Henry J. Cobb

C-ko and A-ko were skipping through a meadow on their way to a picnic.

C-ko had packed all sorts of yummy things, peanut butter pickles, sweet
and sour yams, bittersweet popcorn.  She hoped A-ko liked it.

"That looks like a good spot," C-ko suggested.

"Mind if I cut in?" A hand with impeccably styled lavender nails came
down on A-ko's shoulder.  A-ko was spun about, shoving C-ko rudely
aside.

As C-ko sprawled on hands and knees, she saw that A-ko's simple shirt
and shorts had been replaced with an elegant crimson dress, her fiery
locks swept up in elaborate curls.

B-ko, dressed in pastel blue finery, danced with A-ko, a few feet above
the ground.  Each step took them a little higher.

"Wait!" C-ko cried, "Don't leave me!"

The couple paid her no notice, their eyes bright on each other.  As they
rose, a grey fog began to obscure the verdant meadow.  As they lifted
higher, the scene dimmed.  The dancing pair became the only lights, one
red, one blue, now distant sparks.

As they faded away in the distance, C-ko was left in darkness.  The
ground gave way under her and she fell ... out of bed.

Later that morning, C-ko pressed the doorbell again. "A-ko, A-ko, wake
up!, wake up!"

Finally A-ko appeared at her window.  "Sure, just a sec, I'll be right
down."

Minutes rather than seconds later, A-ko stumbled out the door of her
house and took C-ko's hand.

"Gee A-ko, you look awful.  Did B-ko hurt you last night?"

"No.  I'll be OK."

"We'll be late, if we don't hurry up."

"Yeah, a run will do me good."

A-ko picked up the pace, towing C-ko behind her.  She maintained a quick
gallop up the switchback road, but did not attempt to cut across the
curves.

As they passed B-ko's Limo, C-ko waved with her free hand, but there was
no response.

There was no fight in front of the school that morning.  This wasn't too
unusual and usually forbode a rather spectacular afternoon brawl, but as
A-ko and then B-ko walked into the classroom they both looked somewhat
beat up anyway.

Most unusual of all, A-ko and B-ko did not taunt or speak to each other
at all that morning and even C-ko seemed subdued.

At lunch C-ko pulled out her greatest masterpiece ever, a meal like no
other.  She had even drawn a realistic woodland scene on the rice
through the use of various household cleansers.

"Here A-ko, you made lunch yesterday, now it's my turn."

"No thanks", A-ko declined C-ko's primary means of expressing her
affection, "I'm really not hungry today" and then retreated back into
her own thoughts, after a final "But that is a cute rabbit".

As the class settled in after lunch one of the students whispered "What
happened, did C-ko finally accept Kei's proposition or what?", a little
too loudly.

C-ko stuck her tongue out at the gossip, she didn't know what a
"proposition" was, but she knew she wanted nothing to do with Kei.

At that moment the student glanced over in her direction and blanched
bone white.

Whats on my tongue?, C-ko worried, looking crosseyed at the offending
member, then she glanced up and saw the expressions A-ko and B-ko were
throwing at the unfortunate one.

The students became very quiet after that and the class settled down

[Miss Ayumi asks question pointedly of A-ko and B-ko, C-ko gets weird
answer]

As the bell rang, Miss Ayumi announced "A-ko, B-ko, C-ko, I want to see
you at my desk after class"

The other students quickly fled.

Miss Ayumi closed the door and returned to sit at her desk.  "A-ko,
you've never been a star student, but you've been very distracted today,
is there something you'd care to talk about?"

"No, ma'am."

"And you, B-ko, what is this?  Did something happen between you two?"

C-ko caught the glance A-ko gave B-ko, it was pure fear.  What
happened?  C-ko agonised, but Miss Ayumi did not seem to notice.

"No ma'am", B-ko said

C-ko could feel the wave of relief that washed over A-ko at this reply,
but did not understand it.  Did A-ko do something to B-ko?  C-ko
dismissed the thought, her friend could never be so monstrous.

"I see", the teacher said to her charges, "that will be all for now."

As A-ko and C-ko walked down the hill, A-ko stopped to look over the
bay.

Summoning up her courage, C-ko blurted out "What's wrong?  What
happened?  Is it my fault?  When I asked you to promise not to fight,
was that the wrong thing?"

A-ko silently pondered the question for several minutes.  Finally, just
as C-ko started to sniff back a tear, A-ko replied "No.  You asked for
the right thing, I've just been doing it wrong".  She took C-ko's hand
and continued, but this time with a lighter step.

Back at home, C-ko tuned to the nation's favorite animated paramilitary
magical girls TV show, Marine Moon.  C-ko must have seen the entire
series about three times now, but she didn't remember the episodes and
so each was a new delight as it cycled back around.  This afternoon they
were rerunning the origin episode.

"But mother, I do not wish to become a royal marine", the princess
wailed.

"It is a family tradition, dear." The queen explained, while shoving her
daughter onto the shuttle.

The shuttle quickly arrived at the "Lunar Naval Academy for Girls",
where the princess was greeted by Luna the cat, whose rank was indicated
by both her forehead stripes and the name on her flea collar as
"Sergeant".

The story of Marine Moon's first day at the academy unfolded, until it
was time for "Marine Moon will be right back".

The first commercial advertised a familiar product, but there was
something different about it.  "One, one, two, three, four" C-ko counted
on her fingers.  Yes!, it was new, she had to go.  She knew who to take
and who else?  She knew the pain of isolation, it was time to end it.

Back on the TV, Marine Moon was sleeping through another of Sergeant
Luna's lectures.

"And so, with our new doctrine of Operational Maneuver From Orbit(OMFO),
we do not bother to build up an elaborate infrastructure on the planet,
but simply drop in the Marines where they are needed and support them
directly from the fleet in orbit." 

Marine Mars pinched Marine Moon awake.

"Yeow!"

"Yes, Marine Moon, you have some comment to make about the fleet's
mission during OMFO?" Sergeant Luna inquired.

Thinking quickly, Marine Moon tried to quote Mahan as best she
could. "It is to move as one, in one massive stroke, seek out and
destroy the opposing naval forces!"

"That's very imaginative" Luna noted.  "Naturally, if the fleet did pull
a Halsey Maneuver during OMFO, the Marines would be left scattered in
small packets without mutual support, reinforcement, fire support or
resupply.  Now drop and give me twenty."

"Waaaahhh!" Marine Moon wailed.

At the estate that night, a waxing moon cast blue shadows across the
lawn.  Inside a single figure sat and watched.

On the screen, A-ko sat in a dark corner, her hands in chains.  A door
opened, casting some light on the scene and B-ko entered to stand before
the captive. B-ko was grabbed, kissed, returned the embrace and ran
away.

The sitting figure stabbed down at her console setting the parameters for
the next run through.  Camera #5, infrared, display B-ko's respiration
and heartbeat.

What was she trying to do?, B-ko mused, as ghostly figures played out
their dance with superimposed line graphs.  Who does she think she is?

Hours later that evening, B-ko was still playing with the tapes, single
stepping the frames through the kiss sequence, she considered how some
of them might make a very amusing, very personal, screen saver.

She was interrupted from this flight of fancy by a sharp intake of
breath at her doorway.  She punched the off button, too late she knew,
and spun to address the only mortal that would dare sneak up on her.

"Father, it's not like what it looks like."

"So, it seems that I, Hikaru Daitokuji, have not lived up to my fatherly
responsibilities.  I will deal with them later, but first we must
destroy every copy of these tapes.  Have you considered what would
happen should these images be acquired by one of my enemies?"

"No father, I'm sorry.  I was only thinking of myself, having A-ko over
like that."

"There dear, It will be alright, if we just erase all evidence of this
visit."

$Id: promise_chp2.txt,v 1.7 1996/09/07 19:43:03 hcobb Exp $