MiSTied: Robotech III, The Odysseus Epic (Part 2/2)
Mark Mark
[SOL Bridge. We zoom back and see a huge picture of Mike on the Gizmonic
doors. The lights are low and the 'bots are wailing in anguish! Oh, there's
also a projector screen in one corner of the set.]
TOM: No! No! Mike Nelson's _dead_!!
CROW: It must have been that horrible fanfic! Oh, the _humanity_! [Sob!]
TOM: Well, this isn't going to be the end of it! We'll find his killer if
it's the last thing we do!
CROW: Are you sure he was murdered? Maybe the fanfic was so bad that, um,
he just decided to end it all and jump out the airlock.
TOM: Crow, even an LA jury wouldn't buy a dumb story like that! No, we're
going to have to do some detective work here! [sharply] Cambot! Roll the
slides of today's experiment.
[The first slide comes up, of a woman in blue body armor. Tom starts humming
the "Dragnet" theme.]
CROW: The time: 5:02 PM. The place: Satellite of Love. Today's Friday.
My name's Tuesday. I'm a cop. Our first suspect: a woman known only as
"Jadi." Last seen issuing meaningless orders to nonexistent military units.
Motive: Obviously a member of the "Militia Movement."
TOM: Watch it with the militia jokes, Crow. Some of them have anti-satellite
missiles.
CROW: Is that legal?
TOM: [puzzled] Legal?
[The slide changes to a tall, sneery-looking man in a captain's uniform.]
CROW: Suspect #2: Rear Admiral Thomas Sadie. All that's known is that he
hates Earth. [triumphantly] And the deceased was an Earthman! Case closed!
TOM: I think we need more detail on this guy.
CROW: That's all there was.
TOM: Oh.
[The slide changes to an outline of a woman with a question mark in the
center.]
CROW: Suspect #3: Captain Arnoa Touko.
TOM: Well?
CROW: We don't know anything about her, either.
TOM: You know, I'm sensing a trend here. [dramatically] Could it be that
the _real_ culprit in this foul crime is the man who's stymied our
investigation with a profusion of no-dimensional characters? In other
words... Cambot?
[The slide changes to a huge question mark.]
CROW: Gasp! The Riddler?
TOM: _No_! Presley H. Cannady himself! Book 'em, Danno!
CROW: Hey! I'm Joe Friday. _You're_ Danno.
TOM: But I wanted to be Anna Lee from "Mystery."
CROW: Fembot.
TOM: Am not! She's just cool, that's all.
[In the middle of this, enter Mike and Belldandy from the right. They are
speaking animatedly. (Literally so, in Belldandy's case.)]
BELLDANDY: I see now! Plot -- establishment of scene -- character
development -- everything that was missing from the fanfic!
MIKE: You've got to admit, that Orson Welles was a genius.
BELLDANDY: That bit where the results of the doctored penicillin are
implied -- and the camera _almost_ shows it -- gave me the shivers!
MIKE: Yeah, that -- Oh, hey Tom, hey Crow. How's the skit going?
[He notices that the 'bots are just staring at him and trembling.]
MIKE: What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost.
'BOTS: AAAAAAAGGHHH!!!
[They run off, screaming. Mike looks at Belldandy. They both shrug.
Suddenly buzzers and lights go off...]
MIKE: Hey, we've got fanfic sign!
...*...6...5...4...3...2...1...
[All enter the theater.]
MIKE: You OK now, Belldandy?
BELLDANDY: [beaming] Thanks to that infusion of good cinema, I'm ready for
anything. I think.
TOM: Hey, how come you didn't invite _us_ to go watch "The Third Man"
with you?
MIKE: Well, you and Crow seemed to be having such a good time with your
little sketch. I didn't want to ruin the atmosphere.
> Despite the seemingly short weeks that had been spent on
>active duty, Lieutenent Kyoko Yatsumi, commander Savannah Group, had
>found herself
CROW: The newly appointed landlord at a small Tokyo boarding house!
> slowly accepting that an entire Terran summer, two
>months, had drifted by. Such shoreleaves, on Earth in fact, were
>rare, the next being scheduled for five years later.
MIKE: Y'know, that's the problem with Earth. You have to book so long in
advance.
> The Horizont
BELLDANDY: Horizont?
> she flew aboard was archaic, homage to the two
>Robotech Expeditionary Fleets. Named the Azuza, by its chief mechanic
>and primary nostalgic otaku,
TOM: [shaking] Stop it. Just stop it right now!
BELLDANDY: Tom, calm down!
TOM: I'm sorry! But I've had it up to HERE with the knowing self-reference!
> it carried a crew of four and a passenger
>compliment of seventy as they descended into Earth's atmosphere.
CROW: And burnt to a cinder on re-entry. The end.
TOM: "Apollo 13" this is _not_.
> She was wearing civilian clothes, as opposed to standard military
>onworld off-duty uniforms.
TOM: Hey, I've had this dream...
> Kyoko's shoreleave would last five months,
>if uninterrupted by
MIKE: -- the plot.
TOM: Oh, I don't think we need to worry about that.
> the call back to active duty. And with the wide-
>spreading of capital ships and redeployment and clock-shifting of the
>fleets,
CROW: Not to mention changing immigration patterns and the rising cost of
tungsten --
> that possibility seemed rather unlikely.
> Asia came into view first, covered by a thicket blanket of strato-
>nimbus overcast resulting from the weather pattern reclamation
>programs of the mid-2060's.
MIKE: Desperately trying to slow the story down, the author resorts to
bringing us the day's weather report.
> She could see the horrid blast marks to
>imprinted in China and the Mongolian Southern Quadrant. As the
>Horizont
BELLDANDY: Horizont?
CROW: Grignr?
> descended below the torrid clouds, she watched New Beijing
>and Shanghai grace her condescendingly. She wondered if small
>children, not much unlike herself at that age, would look up and see
>her, flying.
MIKE: Well, only if she jumps out.
CROW and TOM: [whispering] Jump... jump...
MIKE: That's dark, guys.
> The South China Sea quickly passed underneath them as they slowed
>from hypersonic to approach speed for Okinawa.
TOM: Oh, now he's stealing the opening from "Gunbuster."
> The overcast dimmed
>and faded out, the morning sun bursting over the coast of the Atalian
>Islands.
CROW: Aaaahh! Now the sun's gone nova!
> Once, long ago, that small chain had been raped of one of
>its sister islands, an island that had been responsible for much of
>the change Earth had gone through.
TOM: Fantasy Island!
BELLDANDY: No, the Mysterious Island. From Jules Verne.
MIKE: No, no, he must mean Gilligan's Island.
> The shuttle stopped over Hasake,
TOM: And hung in the sky in exactly the same way bricks don't...
> a new city placed as the capital
>of the Ryukyu Footchain Quadrant, just south and west of home island
>Japan. Smiling brightly to herself, she anticipated the return to
>civilianity
CROW: Sid Meier's Civilianity.
> as much as she had long for the life of the military, four
>years ago.
MIKE: But for young Shannon Faulkner, it was not to be...
>
>* * *
>
> Okinawa came into view only a few minutes later.
CROW: Meanwhile, in the _same_ _scene_! Sheesh.
> Soon, the
>shuttle had slowed to an appreciable fraction of subsonic speed and
>finally came to an approach vector along the Ryukyu SpaceBase.
MIKE: You know, I really dig those FunkyCaps. I do.
> As the
>monolithic towers of the starbase, attributed to an older Monument
>City,
ALL: [singing] Monument City, it's a hell of a town, the starbase is up and
the monolith's down...
> passed by, she could easily see the river, torn into the ground
>a century ago by a Zentraedi's warbeam, that would lead up to her
>uncle's house.
BELLDANDY: I wonder what the Zentraedi had against her uncle.
TOM: [as old lady] Oh, yes, he was always such a nice man, too.
> Since Aunt Kazumi died,
CROW: Just didn't feel like putting up with Nabiki and Akane any more, I guess.
> she had kept in touch with the one-hundred
>and five year old man. For his age, he was still very vigorous,
MIKE and 'BOTS: We know.
>almost as if he were sixty again. But that had passed, as had his
>beloved wife over the ripples of the Kanzwa.
BELLDANDY: [sniff] It's so sad!
TOM: Ye -- uh... you _are_ kidding, right?
> Her hovertaxi followed the chain of highways across Okinawa's west
>coast until they reached the suberb.
MIKE: So Okinawa is just one town?
> The trees here were not
>indigenous to Okinawa, or even Japan. Imported from what had survived
>of the Northwest American Quadrant,
CROW: ...after the devastating Punctuation and Capitalization Riots of 1999...
> it had been implanted with fern
>trees and redwoods cloned after Japan declined her seperatist
>position.
TOM: In other words, the author had no reference material for what a _real_
forest on Okinawa might look like.
> Almost five decades of war had been erased, and nature had
>rewarded humanity for their persistence in restoring balance.
CROW: [as smarmy announcer] And for Humanity, a lovely matching towel set and
a copy of our home game! Aren't they great, folks? Let's give 'em a big
hand...
> Only a few ten million people lived onworld, despite its position
>as the capital of the Confederation. To be more honest, it was the
>secondary capital; the primary construct on a neutral world orbiting a
>nearby star, AGC-1198, would not be completed for another two decades.
BELLDANDY: [despairing] Oh, couldn't he just have said "Earth: Mostly
harmless" and left it at that?
MIKE: Presley H. Cannady only turned to writing fanfics after he was fired
from his job at the Encyclopedia Britannica.
> She'd get a job, at the local ROTC center; probably even a flight
>instructor.
TOM: Maybe even selling Chevrolets door to door!
> As she looked to the sky, slowly turning to dawn, she
>could spot the star that had once been her true home, having travelled
>seventy-five years from the last point she had last seen it on the
>celestial dome.
CROW: You mean the sky?
MIKE: Let's not jump to conclusions.
> Five Redhawks forced across the sky.
>CHAPTER XI-
ALL: Yaaah!
> Three billion years ago and it was still the same.
ALL: [singing] Same as it ever was! Same as it ever was...
> You can't win
>a war nobody wants.
TOM: Unfortunately, you _can_ read a _fanfic_ nobody wants.
>-argument presented by Commander Wetherall in her memoirs, circa ET
>2208 (ASG)
CROW: alt.sex.gerbils?
MIKE: Ix-nay, Crow.
>
> I had often sat and talked with Eve, on those rare months she
>decided to join us.
TOM: [sarcastic] Oh, has the great _Eve_ decided to join us today?
> She elaborated on many opinions, but not facts.
CROW: She had been watching the Rush Limbaugh show.
>She was built on emotions, and probably feels more than any of us."
TOM: What? Where are we? Who's talking?
> For that reason, I knew that song was our best communication tool.
MIKE: I can't help but think that if we'd picked an artist other than Michael
Bolton, the aliens wouldn't have proceeded to sterilize the Earth. Oh well,
live and learn.
>-excerpted Yoshiko's Deguchi's A Look Back at Hackensack: the Life of
>the Fifth Generation Idol Singer heading, Chapter VI, pg 78.
>Published ET Mar 12, 2198 (ASG)
>
>* * *
>
>The Targus Nebulae, four lightyears
CROW: One-third the calories of a regular year!
> from the Rubian Stretch
>October 4, 2192
MIKE: Dear Diary,
>THE STARSHIP FARRAGUT WOULD SPEND THE NEXT FIVE MONTHS
CROW: No need to shout! We can hear you!
BELLDANDY: [muttering] Unfortunately.
CROW: _What_ was that?
BELLDANDY: Er, I didn't say anything.
> docked, being
>refitted, retrofitted, and stocked for the Fallsburg Task Force.
>Superdimensional Starforce Orion.
TOM: [sibilantly] Star Force... _devils._
> Of the major points in
>Robotechnology's past, the Macross Epic was the most remembered.
TOM: Okay, buckle in everyone, exposition's starting again.
ALL: [groan]
>Already, history lessons had spawned legends of Admiral Gloval and
>Lisa Hayes, Commander Hunter and Max and Miriya Sterling.
CROW: Legends of Robotech stories that were actually good!
> Somewhere,
>they existed, either as memories...
> ...or they were still alive.
> One of the great questions about the Severed Galaxy
MIKE and 'BOTS: Ouch.
BELLDANDY: What?
> was the effects
>on time. Already, since Listening Post #89's startling discovery,
CROW: [as scientist] Stuffing _instead_ of potatoes? I don't believe it!
>scientists who had observed the Gamma Quadrant with transluminal and
>superluminal vehicles had solidified
ALL: Ewww!
> their beliefs that Tirol was
>running on a different time continuum.
TOM: [as Groucho Marx] Either this galaxy is running on a different time
continuum, or my watch has stopped!
> It was as if the Galaxy had
>planted one foot in reality and the other in another dimension.
MIKE: Y'know, once when I was 11 my folks took me to that place where you can
stand with one foot in Arizona and the other in New Mexico. It was pretty
neat.
CROW: That's great, Mike.
> If
>the arms of the Galaxy surrounding the Southern Cross were indeed time-
>differential from Earth, the real nightmare lay in deciding which side
>was actually running on real-time.
MIKE: Marooned in Realtime.
TOM: Yeah, it'll be a warm day in space before the Mads ever send _that_ to
us.
> To many, that was a fascinating trivia of science and metaphysics.
CROW: [peevishly] To whom? Name one.
> To Cadet Sergeant Maria Tomas, Ganymede Defense Academy Point
>Delta, metaphysics was a waste of bandwidth.
BELLDANDY: [shaking a bit] So he described all that stuff about the Severed
Galaxy just so he could tell us it was completely _irrelevant_?!
> She was a computer-
>freak,
TOM: A superfreak! The kind you can't take home to Mother...
> but even more of a pilot. Points, heralding the title from the
>famous North American military institution and later base of several
>VT squadrons during the War of Unification: West Point, trained hard-
>core
ALL: Saaayyy...
> pilots,
ALL: Oh.
> a training section under the Alpha Armored Corps and the
>Southern Cross Calvary. Maria Tomas was the only member of the
>Robotech Defense Force present onboard this ship.
TOM: [falsetto] Okay, I'd better call roll. Well, I'm here... All done!
> The design of the Horizont had become a popular model in shuttle
>design that led to SFSS-51300 Cumberant series,
CROW: Cucumber?
MIKE: Cummerbund?
BELLDANDY: [firmly] Cumbrous. Like this story!
> Palgarant subclass,
>SDF-13 Capital class. Though the more advanced series, like the
>Celebrant, were more apt to such conditions as nebulaic navigation,
>the Cumberant still predominated in light-cruiser deployment
>capability.
TOM: See, they worked it so one component is made in every congressman's
district...
> The cadet squadron, Blue, was a subsection of the Nightmare
>Squadron, which ran most of the training sessions on Ganymede Point.
>The Cumberant carried a wide variety of Alpha's, Beta's, and Valkyrie
>contigents.
CROW: I can't think of anything to say. I'm numb.
MIKE: This reads like a Tom Clancy novelization of the instructions for
filling out a 1040 form.
> However, the primary mecha these cadets were being
>trained in were eclectic.
TOM: Eclectic Avenue!
> The VAF-4SD nontransformable VT had been
>the prototype for the Alpha's compact fighter mode.
BELLDANDY: On the outside it's just a mini. But on the inside it's a
completely different animal!
> Currently, most
>understudents handled these non-mecha fighters. However, the non-
>Protoculture Robotech mecha Maria
TOM: [Brit accent] To whom we are, by degrees, returning...
> had received was one of the most
>strangest produced.
MIKE: Insert grammar flame here.
> The Veritech /CF system pays homage to the infamous Logan fighter
>before the departure of the Robotech Expeditionary Fleet. It wasn't
>until the Pluto Veritech Fleet had been inaugerated for the last
>resort
TOM: The Pluto-Charon Rotating Restaurant, Hotel and Casino.
BELLDANDY: Huh?
TOM: It's the last resort!
ALL: [groan]
> incase the Saturn Wing's Neutron S offensive failed, during the
>Second Invid War, that the V/CF system began mass construction. Now,
>only two series of these Veritech Gamma Fighters existed, the Tazania
>and the Tazmanian.
MIKE: Take careful notes, everyone, because this _will_ be on the test.
> The V/CF-7 Tazmanian had always been the specialty of the Cadet
>Tomas.
TOM: No, not _the_ Cadet Tomas, _a_ Cadet Tomas -- didn't you hear I come in
six packs?
> Since her enlistment and eventual transfer to Ganymede in the
>Robotech Defense Force, she had trained hard with Valkyrie like
>ecletic VT. It was her home and her life, except for...
CROW: Ellipses provided by Cheryl "Double Vision" Davis.
> "Well, I'll be stationed on Rubia for the next three months at
>least, and I hear that you'll be off by Febuary, right?"
MIKE: All right! The story's starting at last. Here we go!
> The magic of
>intersteller hypercommunications allowed for realtime discussion using
>Sekiton powered relays,
BELLDANDY: [hopelessly] Oh, no!
CROW: *sigh*
TOM: I bet Presley H. Cannady can't drive a stick-shift, either.
> obviously controlled by Karbarran
>communication industries.
ALL: Oh, _obviously_.
> Calls were much more inexpensive,
>especially that she and her fiancee, Ramon Vega, were
CROW: Scheduled to fight Chun Li and Ryu.
> within the same
>local group, separated only by four lightyears. Near the Rubian
BELLDANDY: Crossing the Rubian?
MIKE: Er...
>system, the RSS Divana had taken route, and Cadet Major and senior
>"Brazil" Vega could
TOM: ...at _last_ hunt down and arrest that annoying Harry Tuttle.
> finish his last term and start his first assignment
>onboard that very vessel. It was Maria's hope to be stationed aboard
>as well, and their marriage would all but solidify that.
> "Where should we meet, Brazil?"
MIKE: [chuckling] Ha, ha! But I kid people with geographically-inspired
nicknames.
> "We were on Earth two months ago, and I haven't been to see my
>family in a year.
TOM: [falsetto] Oh, it's always you, you, you! What about _my_ needs?
> How about New Kazahk?"
> Maria wrinkled her nose, but nodded anyway. "Sounds great," she
>said semi-heartedly.
MIKE: That's kind of a neat word... "semi-heartedly."
CROW: Hey, check this out, guys. [loudly, to the screen] Presley, tell me
about "New Kazahk."
> New Kazahk was most definitely the last on the
>tourist attraction of the Confederation-Kellar alliance. A few
>spaceports, not to far from Centaurus, it had become one of the major
>crime areas of the alliance.
BELLDANDY: Wow!
TOM: How'd you do that, Crow?
CROW: Ain't tellin'.
> She had grown up on Mars, and had
>attended the Ganymede Academy for only two months when she met the
>roughneck junior that would become her betrothed. "So I'll meet you
>there.
CROW: [falsetto] I've always wanted to visit a crime-ridden slum!
> I really need to meet your parents."
TOM: Hmm, I've never heard _that_ euphemism before...
MIKE: _Tom_!
> "From what they've seen of you, I think that should be no problem.
>Gotta go, honey," he kissed his finger, and placed against the vid-
>screen. Maria did the same.
CROW: This is just like "Space: Above and Beyond," except maybe a little
better.
> The line cut, replaced by the computer-generated symbol of Arnno-
>Karbarran Sekiton Communications.
TOM: We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company!
>
>* * *
>
>Earth Orbit, Trojan Lagrange Point Gamma
>October 5, 2173
CROW: [Brit accent] Captain's log.
>
>Space Station New Frontier, the oldest permanent space platform in
>Terran history, was a landmark in some respects.
TOM: AAARGH! STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!
CROW: [getting mad] Hey, "Captain Exposition..."
MIKE: Ease up, Crow.
> Having survived
>three Robotech Wars due to its lack of any militry, scientific, or
>strategical battle, it was one of the few relics that told of a time
>before the great wars.
> Yet it still held scars.
MIKE: _Cars_? Why is there a parking lot way out in --
TOM: _Scars_, Mike.
MIKE: Oh.
> The communications facility, owned jointly by Tellenet and Arnno-
>Karbarran Sekiton Communications had long been the chief headquarters
>of both industries.
BELLDANDY: [lecturing] See what happens when you use up all your commas in the
beginning of the fanfic? You don't have any left for the end.
> Having been rebuilt to the size the great Space
>Station Liberty one held, it now included such commidities as
>artificial gravity...
ALL: Yes?
> ...
ALL: YES?!
>and a conference room.
ALL: Oh.
MIKE: That's not much of a payoff.
> "Three-billion yen, Nikkei present value,"
CROW: All right! I'll give you _anything_! Just, please, end this story!
> if anything could be
>said about a Tellenet emplyee, they were the greatest hackers alive.
>Dr. Arbatan Dul was
CROW: Named after this fanfic!
> Zentraedi and Calopean on his mother's side, and
>Centauran on his father.
MIKE: It must be hell trying to run Affirmative Action programs in the future.
> His counterpart, a four-hundred pound
>Karbarran
ALL: Karrrrrrr-BARRRRRRan.
> faced a most unlikely customer. Usually, the Karbarran,
>Ssol, was not present. However, Arbatan's usual attachee, a cetaceous
>mammal named Har'br!ns, was taken ill,
CROW: [Brit accent] You're the cetaceous mammal named Har'br!ns?
TOM: [Chinese accent] Ah, no. He died. He have heart attack and fall out of
window onto exploding bomb, where he was killed in shooting accident.
> and placed in the emergency
>water-traction section of Earthdock's xenobiological medical wing. In
>Har'br!ns' place, was Ssol,
CROW: [snootily] Ah, Mr. Loss, you're here at last. Take a seat and a memo,
would you?
> low-ranking and a boisterous members of AK
TOM: It is not a statue of the god Ptrrrrrp! It is the god Ak!
>Communications Limited. "Including transaction receipts, and unvalued
>erasing disks."
MIKE: We now join this conversation, already in progress.
> The disks had already been used. Old 3'5's,
BELLDANDY: Three foot five inch disks?!
TOM: They also get paid in the giant stone coins of the Yap Islanders.
> they had contained a
>small one-purpose virus. Every record of the transaction through the
>Nikkei Galatic Monetary Net had been erased, replaced with legal
>information backed up with more tainted cash.
TOM: ...thus defeating the purpose of erasing the tainted transactions.
MIKE: Oh, great, it's just the 23rd-century version of MAKE.MONEY.FAST.
> Cash retrieved from sources unknown.
MIKE: Y'know, that conspiracy guy in the short _said_ to watch out for the
cashless society of the future. I guess he was right after all.
> The human that stood before him accepted the money, and placed a
>small box on the desk.
CROW: [evilly] A gift for you, Ambassador... from friends you didn't know you
had.
> It was a bulkier version of the civilian
>datapad,
TOM: Hey, is that a bulkier version of a civilian datapad or are you just
happy to see me?
> but strangely enough, it came equipped with a...
MIKE: [holds Crow's beak closed]
> "Pocket synthesizer," the human spoke. "You'll have enough ca'poa
>to supply three-fifths of the Confederation and have plenty left
>over."
TOM: [peevishly] There's enough ca'poa in this _fanfic_ to supply three-fifths
of the Confederation...
CROW: [Brit accent] There's just one problem with this scheme.
MIKE: [same] What's that?
CROW: We're not doing anything illegal!
>
>* * *
CROW: [pained] Oh, _now_ what?
BELLDANDY: [starting to break down] I don't think I can take another
scene...
>
>--
CROW: Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I sense a .signature coming up!
TOM: Yes! Our long national nightmare is over!
MIKE: But are we at a logical stopping point?
CROW: Who _cares_?!!
>Gasoculture________________Nemesis of the New York State Freeway
CROW: And we have .signature! Yeah!
BELLDANDY: So we survived the fanfic after all! I guess it wasn't quite as bad
as I thought.
MIKE: That's the spirit!
BELLDANDY: But I never would have made it without you three!
MIKE and BOTS: Awwww.
[They all hug. Yes, it is disgustingly cute.]
>Presley H. Cannady | Author of the Robotech
>76725...@compuserve.com | New Era Sagas and Ravenworld
[All sit there, stunned.]
MIKE: What? _Sagas_? There's more than _one_?!
BELLDANDY: [wailing] Nooooo! [She breaks down in tears.]
CROW: Let's get out of here before the next one starts!
[All exit, hurriedly.]
>________________________________________________________________
>
...6...5...4...3...2...1...*...
[SOL Bridge. The mood is, to put it slightly, low. Belldandy is weeping openly
as Mike tries to comfort her. The bots are wandering back and forth angrily.]
CROW: Let me make a correction. I _used_ to like Robotech. Now...
MIKE: Now?
CROW: Now I hate it with the white-hot intensity of a thousand _suns_!! Curse
you, Presley H. Cannady, for crushing a young 'bot's dreams! Curse you!
TOM: [furiously] Did you notice that we got sent Act 1, Book 2, Episode 5,
Chapter 10? There must be hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of chapters of this thing
out there! You want a look at the future of fanfic? Think of a boot stomping
on a 'bot's face, FOREVER!
BELLDANDY: Mike...
MIKE: Yes, Belldandy?
BELLDANDY: I don't think I can stay any longer. Especially not if Dr.
Forrester ships another piece of the New Era Sagas up here. I'm really sorry,
but --
MIKE: [holding up a hand to forestall her] Belldandy, I don't blame you for a
second. Okay. Um... I, Mike Nelson of Happy Temps, hereby release the goddess
Belldandy from her contract. How's that?
BELLDANDY: [smiling tearfully] Thank you, Mike.
[She leans over and kisses him on the cheek, momentarily stunning him. She
then heads over to the mirror.]
CROW: Er, well... bye!
TOM: Don't be a stranger, Bell!
BELLDANDY: Goodbye! And good luck! You'll all return to Earth someday; it is
fated!
[She steps back into the mirror and vanishes.]
TOM: I don't know about you guys, but from now on I'm going to feel reeeeeal
nervous about getting dressed in front of a mirror.
CROW: Who cares? She said we're going to go to Earth after all! Yes!
TOM: Relax, Crow. Maybe she meant the satellite's orbit will decay and we'll
plunge groundward and explode like an atom bomb upon impact.
CROW: Oh. Well, that'll be cool too.
MIKE: [suddenly snapping out of his trance] You know, it's too bad Belldandy
had to leave, and we didn't get to wish for the satellite to go back home...
[Mike sits on a convenient stool, picking up a microphone that happened to be
sitting on the table. The lights dim except for one spotlight shining on him.
Cambot starts a slow zoom in.]
MIKE: ...But I still feel almost immeasurably enriched by this whole
experience. [pointing with the microphone at Cambot] What do _you_, the mad
scientist at home, think?
[Cut to Deep 13. Dr. F is watching a TV screen in the back of the lab with
great interest. After a few moments he realizes he's on and turns guiltily,
leaning over to obscure our view of the screen.]
FORRESTER: Oh! It's you, Tenchi. Ah, heh heh, I wasn't, ahem, really paying
attention. [waving a videotape mailer addressed in Japanese] I was in the
middle of enjoying your "divine" suffering, when I received this, eheh, rather
_fascinating_ videotape in the mail. No return address, curiously enough...
[Unnoticed behind him something weird is happening! Brilliant light spews out
of the TV screen and someone is climbing out of it -- a tall, seductive, dark-
skinned and silvery-haired Goddess in a slinky blue dress. She sidles up
behind Dr. F and taps him on the shoulder.]
URD: Oh, Clayton.
[Dr. F spins around and sees her.]
FORRESTER: _What_? Who --
URD: I just have one thing to ask of you.
FORRESTER: Er... yes?
URD: [furiously] How could you make my little sister cry!!
[Urd starts creating a ball of energy with her hands.]
FORRESTER: Oh, dear.
URD: Push the button, Clayton.
[As she advances on Dr. F he backs up slowly, reaches around behind him, and
pushes The Button.]
\ | /
\|/
--o--
/|\
/ | \
pschht!
FORRESTER: YAAAAAAAHH!!!
-----
CREDITS:
MSTing by Mark Sachs
Belldandy and Urd appear originally in Oh My Goddess! (aka Aa! Megami-sama),
translated into English by AnimEigo and available in video stores everywhere.
If you want to see more of them I strongly urge you to go out and watch this
show. It's keen.
No harm is meant towards Presley H. Cannady, and I sincerely apologize for
making fun of his name -- he must have endured hell in grade school for it.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a copyright of Best Brains. I'm not worthy!
I'm not worthy!
> Although this sounds vague --- it is vague --- I rather suspect that this
>last provision will turn out to be the most devastating of all, because in
>the end intelligence is the most crucial part of the battle.