Hello.  My given name is C-ko, but I'm not the C-ko Kotobuki that you may be
familiar with.  I'm her alternate self from another world.  As Magami intends
to put me in his story, Project: S-boy, he's asked me to tell you all a little
about myself.  I refused.  Several loud arguments (and broken walls) later, I
Finally relented, and here I am.  Hope you're all happy.  My story, however, is
a long one, and I haven't finished it up yet.  Hell, I've got better things to
do than sit a freaking keyboard all day.  Writing's *supposed* to be Magami's
job.  Ahh, screw it.  Let's get going.  My history splits off from your C-ko's
starting from my sixteenth year, when the war started, and the nukes started
falling...

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

   The small blonde girl was awakened from her innocent dreams by a large hand
on her shoulder.  Slowly, her eyes opened, and came in focus on a huge woman's
homely face.
   "D?" C-ko asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.  "What are you doing here so
late?"  She yawned and stretched.  "I'm still so sleepy."  She started to close
her eyes again.
   "Princess, we must go now," D said urgently, shaking C-ko's shoulder again.
"Our lives are at stake."  She picked up the girl and began carrying her toward
the window.
   "D!  What are you doing?" C-ko demanded, fully awake now.  "Where are you
taking me?  I want A-ko!"  She began to wail.
   D quickly clamped a hand over C-ko's mouth.  "Forgive me, Princess, but we
must leave immediately.  I'll explain everything later."  Ignoring C-ko's muf-
fled protests, the heavily-muscled woman carried the girl bodily out the window
and into a nearby parked car.  As soon as D released C-ko in order to drive,
the frightened girl's wails began again.  D suffered silently as she navigated
her way through Graviton City's streets to the Spaceship Hotel.
   D carried the struggling C-ko inside the downed ship, and announced, "I have
her, Captain."
   Captain Napolipolita's slurred voice came over the intercom.  "Excellent
work, D.  Bring the Princess to the bridge so we can get out of here."
   "At once, Captain."  D escorted the now-more-or-less-subdued C-ko, still
clad in her yellow bunny pajamas, to the main bridge and seated her in a chair.
The captain went over to her and bowed.
   "Please forgive us, Your Highness.  We recently received word of an impend-
ing nuclear attack on this city, which is now only minutes away."  As the cap-
tain spoke, crewmembers were scurrying to and fro, frantically preparing for
liftoff.  "We have just enough time to leave before that happens.  I thank all
the gods of Lepton that we finally repaired the engines."
   "Captain?" one of the crewmembers interrupted.  "The ship is now ready for
launch.  Your orders?"
   "Launch, of course!" the captain snapped irritably.  "Get us the hells off
of this doomed planet!"  The captain made sure that C-ko, who had not spoken a
word, was strapped in securely, and made her way to her command chair.
   "What about A-ko?!" C-ko suddenly burst out.  "I can't leave without her!
I wanna be with A-ko!"  She begain wailing once more.
   "Your Highness, please!" D atttempted to calm the hysterical girl.  "We only
had time to get you.  Please..."  D continued her vain attempts to quiet C-ko
down as the ship rose quickly into the air.
   A few moments later, Captain Napolipolita commented, "Looks like we left
just in time."  A bright flash filled the viewscreen, and everyone shaded their
eyes despite the anti-glare filters built into the screen.  Gradually, the
light died, to be replaced by the familiar mushroom cloud.
   C-ko stared at the scene unblinking.  "A-ko...B-ko...Mari...Asa...Ine...Ume
...Ayumi-sensei."  She paused a bit longer and added, "...Kei.  Goodbye."  She
sniffled.  "Goodbye."  She turned in her seat to D and the captain.  "I hate
you," she announced.  She turned away and refused to speak to them again.

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

   Captain Napolipolita knelt before her princess, her everpresent bottle
clutched in one hand.  "Please, Your Highness.  Please forgive us.  We had no
other choice.  You must realize that.  If we had taken the time to retrieve all
your friends, none of us would have made it out."
   The girl, dressed in a flowing gown, stared straight ahead and refused to
speak, as she had every other time the captain had attempted to apologize over
the past two months.  C-ko had done little more than sleep, eat (with little
appetite), and sit staring out at the stars for hours on end.
   The captain gave up once more and rose to her feet.  Sighing in frustration,
she took another pull at her bottle and began to walk slowly toward the door.
   "Captain, there is an emergency," a voice from the intercom said.
   "Another one?" the harried captain grumbled.  "We're already stuck in orbit
around Earth, thanks to those damned engines.  What else can go wrong?"
   "The orbit is decaying, Captain," the voice replied.
   Napolipolita slumped against the wall.  "I *really* didn't want to hear
that," she muttered, tossing the remainder of the bottle's contents down her
throat.
   The voice continued.  "Without engine power, the estimated time to involun-
tary touchdown is 11.45 Earth hours, Captain."
   "Tell the engineers to step on it," the captain ordered.  "And to search for
alternate methods to correct our orbit."
   "Yes, sir."  The intercom went silent.  Napolipolita turned back to C-ko and
made a quick bow.  "I must return to the bridge, Your Highness.  I shall return
once this problem is taken care of.  Farewell."  The captain left the room, and
Anat, the crewperson assigned to care for C-ko, returned.
   The next several hours were busy ones for the crew, as they struggled vainly
to correct their stricken ship's orbital path.  C-ko, still mourning for her
dead friends, was only vaguely aware of it.
   Several hours later, D rushed into the room.  "The ship's going down!" she
babbled incautiously.  "We must bring the princess to a place of safety."  C-ko
offered no resistance as she was hustled to a small room and strapped into an
overstuffed acceleration couch.  D and Anat strapped themselves into similar
couches, and they all waited for the impact, which wasn't long in coming.
   C-ko awoke first, and looked around at the room's debris.  Unstrapping her-
self, she carefully made her way across the floor's slight slope to where she
remembered Anat to be.  What she found horrified her.  The mountings on Anat's
couch had been poorly maintained, and it had broken loose in the crash.  C-ko
stared down at her temporary governess's crushed remains with mixed horror and
fascination, until D came up and gently turned her away from the sight.
   "Come on, Princess," D said sadly.  "Let's get out of here."
   C-ko suddenly turned away from the big woman and vomited on the floor, tears
springing to her eyes.  "D," she choked out.
   D was beside her princess instantly, offering her a handkerchief.  C-ko took
it, wiped her eyes and mouth, then handed it back.  D dropped it on the floor
behind her.  "It'll be all right, Princess," D said comfortingly.  "You'll see.
I swear we'll get you off this planet and back home where you belong.  Where
you'll be safe.  I swear it."
   "D," C-ko repeated, not even hearing the woman's words.  She gestured to
where Anat's body lay, concealed behind the couch that had failed her.  "Was it
like that...for A-ko?"
   D, finally understanding the nature of C-ko concern, searched for an answer.
"No," she finally replied.  "I'm sure that...your friend died...before she was
even aware of it.  She probably never even woke up."
   "But A-ko's real tough," C-ko said.  "You think...maybe she lived?"
   D concealed her reaction.  _For her sake, I hope not,_ she thought to her-
self.  "I don't think so, Princess," D replied reluctantly.  "A nuke makes a
very big explosion.  Nothing can survive it, if they're too close."
   "Oh," C-ko said.  "I guess there's no hope."  C-ko's head bowed, and D saw
the tears splattering on the floor.
   "We need to go," D finally said.  She gathered up the sobbing girl and took
her to where the crew was gathering to abandon the crippled vessel.

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

   C-ko sat next to D among the survivors of the crash.  D had taken command of
the decimated crew due to the death of Captain Napolipolita.  Drunk, the cap-
tain had neglected to fasten her restraints, and had been splattered over the
bulkhead upon impact as a result.
   Most of the survivors were injured in some way.  D herself now wore a sling
on her right arm.  She had dislocated her shoulder in the crash, but had sim-
ply snapped it back and attended to her princess before dealing with it any
further.
   D was poring over a map, attempting to determine just where on Earth they
were.  After some time, she finally determined that they had crashed somewhere
in the former state of Nebraska, in what used to be the United States.  D felt
a bit of satisfaction that she had taken the time to learn English, along with
the rest of the major Earth languages.
   C-ko was attempting to put order to her thoughts.  She had finally admitted
to herself that A-ko was gone for good, and there was nothing C-ko could do
about it.  She was just about ready to go on with her life.
   Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of engines.  C-ko looked up as
sound grew louder, and the pitifully few survivors who were still able-bodied
reached for their weapons.  D stood up, hefting a huge blaster one-handed, and
stood protectively by her charge.
   D's communicator bleeped.  D activated it, and the face of one of the per-
imeter sentries appeared on its screen.  "What is it?" D asked.
   "A large group of locals, mounted on motorcycles," the sentry replied in a
hushed voice.  "There are also several larger vehicles, and two combat mecha.
They all appear to be heavily armed, and heading your way."
   D looked around at the encampment's defenses and sighed.  She was about to
respond to the sentry again when the picture fuzzed and went blank.  A few min-
utes later, the first of the group of humans came around a bend and into sight
of the camp.  As more of them came around the bend, one large, ugly man moved
his machine forward and grinned evilly at the band of alien women.
   "[Gentlemen, we hit the jackpot,]" he leered.  His followers laughed coarse-
ly.  "[Bring up the mecha.]"
   As the two combat machines, stolen from the US arsenal, came forward, the
bikers spread out.  Meanwhile, the survivors were putting the finishing touches
on their inadequate defense.  All too soon, the leader of the bandits ordered
the attack.
   The battle, while spectacular, was woefully one-sided.  The mecha were al-
most impervious to the few weapons that had been able to be salvaged from the
spaceship's wreckage, and fought unchecked until D, in a heroic charge, made
her way to the nearest one and succeeded in destroying it.  Unfortunately, the
spy-turned-leader was caught in the explosion as the mecha went down.  Her bro-
ken body was hurled through the air and landed amidst the remaining survivors.
C-ko ran to her side.
   "D!" the girl shouted as she knelt beside the dying woman.
   "Princess..." D said, clasping C-ko's small hand.  "Forgive me."
   "D!" C-ko repeated, crying.  "Not you, too."
   "[Ugh,]" a voice interrupted.  C-ko turned to see the leader of the bandits
standing nearby, along with several of his henchmen.  He gestured at D.  "[That
one we don't need.  Get the other one out of the way.]"
   As two bandits came forward to grab C-ko, D managed to push herself to her
feet.  "[Don't touch her!]" she snarled, staggering forward.  The two men
backed up in the face of D's fury.
   The leader, however, was made of sterner stuff.  He leveled his shotgun at
the advancing woman and pulled the trigger.  D was thrown off her feet in a
spray of blood by the blast.  Somehow, she got to her feet again, only to get
blasted to the ground again.  A final load of lead shot to the head ensured
that she would never rise again.
   "[Tough bitch,]" the leader commented.  He turned his attention to C-ko, was
was still standing there, tears of horror streaming down her face.  He poin-
ted at her with his weapon.  "[That one's mine.]"

   I refuse to write any more of this night, other than to say that I truly
learned the meaning of fear and degradation.  What I've written already should
more than give you the idea.  Now, if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to de-
stroy something.  I'll write more later.  Oh, yeah.  Magami's asked me to ask
you for C&C.  Later.

Kent Magami
Second Deacon of Ryoga, Tracker of the Wandering One
Co-founder and High Priest of the Holy Order of A-ko