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" fic.  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 four 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]We are 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."