A tale inspired by recent events.

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Project A-Ko: Sidelines
By Jack Staik, Bookkeeper-At-Arms
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Gods, she was magnificent.

Ichiro watched as the graceful red-haired girl leapt over the soccer
field, seeming almost to fly. As she landed, her foot slammed through
the chest of the giant battle-mecha that awaited her.

Ichiro dove aside as four more battle-robots charged across the playing
field, these designed like great metallic panthers, diving for the girl
who was punching her way out of the great war-machine she had just
demolished.

With a swift kick that would have been the envy of any of the team, the
head of the first panther-mecha seperated from its body, and smashed
into another panther-mech, shattering it with a deafening explosion. The
shrapnel destroyed the other two machines.

>From above came the cry of "AKAGIYAMA MISSILES!!"

"Not again!!" the red-haired girl cried, leaping strainght up.

The miniature missiles slammed into the ground where the girl had
previously stood, ripping apart the ground in a mass of explosions.

"Ugh!" came the grunt from above. Ichiro looked up, to see the
red-haired girl and a lavendar-haired girl who wore what looked like a
dominatrix outfit trying to strangle each other in mid-air.

"Dammit, B-Ko!" the red-head yelled. "It's bad enough you trash our own
school all the time, you gotta trash the boys' school, too?!?"

"It's all your fault, A-Ko!" B-Ko yelled back. "If you'd simply let me
kill you, then nothing would get trashed at all!"

B-Ko twisted suddenly, and A-Ko found herself on the receiving end of a
judo throw - straight down, propelled with super-human strength.

"YEEEEEE!!!" she cried before slamming into the ground, knocking all the
soccer players off their feet.

Ichiro was the first to the side of the impact crater, where he saw the
beautiful red-head stagger to her feet. 

"Are you all right?" he yelled.

"I -" A-Ko began to speak.

"AKAGIYAMA MISSILES!!" came the cry from above.

"- gotta go!" she finished, dashing out of the crater in a blur of
barely-subsonic motion - instants ahead of the missile barrage.

"You can't escape *ME* that easily, A-Ko!!" B-Ko cried, swooping down
toward her prey.

Ichiro watched the girls zoom out of sight, only to re-appear briefly as
B-Ko was propelled backwards by what appeared to be the cover of the
manhole in front of the school, thrown at nearly-supersonic speeds, A-Ko
in pursuit, running through the field as a blur and gust of wind.

A-Ko Megami and B-Ko Daitokuji were notorious for their epic
super-powered catfights that at times had laid waste to huge portions of
the city. The alien invasions actually did less damage than those two.

Ichiro sighed. Perhaps he could wander by the girls' school sometime...

He shook that thought from his head. Like many boys, he had a crush on
A-Ko Megami. But, as he looked around the ruined school lot, he really
couldn't consider her to be dating material.

After all, a force of nature is better viewed from a distance.