Since Richard got so upset about all the revenges being wish-fulfillment,
Zen decided to explore that a little.  This one is your fault, Richard.

Enjoy it! ^_^

C&C is, as always, most welcome. ^_^


"Passing Zentence - The Dark Side of the Farce"
-----------------------------------------------



"Wish fulfillment," he calls it.  Wish fulfillment...

A year ago, he might have been right.  A year ago.  Before the truth.
Before the coming of understanding.

If given an opportunity to trade your comparatively mundane existence for a
more exciting and interesting life, would you do it?  You'd jump at such a
chance, right?  Who wouldn't?

The chance to get off this godforsaken planet...  to get away from
everything that reminded you of what you had already survived.  Everything
that reminded you of the fact that you HAD survived;  that you were still
alive while those that you had loved had died.

The chance to meet and work with your favourite anime characters of all
time;  the chance to help people - to make a difference.  The chance to
play with toys that, even given the rapid pace of technological
development, would never have existed in your reality - not within ten
times your life span.

Even better, you'd have the chance to learn at an astonishing rate;  to
soak up knowledge and skills like a sponge absorbs water.

Now imagine being granted near immortality to enjoy it...  Nanites that
repair any injury, that keep you free of disease, keep you young and
strong.  Nanites that make you virtually indestructible.  Ponce de Leon's
fountain of youth in a micro-robotic package.

And the 'curse'?... The infamous Nyanniichuan?  Better to be a pretty girl
than an ugly guy, surely.  A pretty girl can still get a date with a girl,
if she cares to try hard enough.  Even the 'nanite complication' could be
helpful... imagine being doused with hot tea and shifting back into male
form in THAT outfit.  The nanites would spare you that particular
humiliation at least.  That could certainly be thought of as a paradise.

Wish fulfillment indeed.

Be careful what you wish for.  You may get it.  An age old axiom.

Faced with the choice, would you toss away a wish?  Or would you presume to
have the arrogance to make your wish so well, so wisely that you could
avoid the unpleasant consequences... at least you'd get more of the good
than the bad.

No, better you should throw that wish away - given the choice.  The most
promising of visions, the most carefully thought out of plans can go
horribly wrong at a moment's notice.  Light drives away the darkness, but
eventually, the light will burn out, and the darkness consume all.

But what, you ask, could spoil this picture of paradise?

Well, you have friends, right?  At least one or two.

Would you still think that it was paradise if you could never see any of
them again?  If, for all practical purposes, everyone that you had known...
everyone that you cared about... (everyone that was still alive that is)
became no more than characters in some story?  That they would come to have
no more reality for you now than your current companions had before the
revenges took place?

Mayhaps you might.  You could make new friends in this reality, couldn't
you?  It's a big galaxy, after all.  You have your own ship.  You can go
anywhere - visit all the planets that you've only read about - only been
able to visit in your dreams.  Until now.  With your nanite enhanced life
span, you could visit a LOT of them.  Where would you go?

Maybe you would go to Zarathustra and mine sunstones with old Pappy Jack
Holloway.  Visit Downbelow or Pell.  Take a vacation on Risa with Counselor
Troi and the rest of the Enterprise crew.  Maybe drop in on Gallifrey to
say "hi", or hang out in the Cantina in Mos Eisley.  You could see what the
summers were like on Pern, or share a drink with Wendel Urth, or Lazarus
Long.  Trade for spices on Nickeldepain.  So many possibilities.  So many
people to meet, so many places to go.

Except... that no one is ever glad to see you.  More to the point, the very
mention of your name sends them scurrying off screaming in terror.

All the jokes aside, for they were funny before this became your reality,
the Lovely Angels were given their dreaded nickname for a reason.

The Dirty Pair.  Certainly, they always solve the case;  they always get
their man.  The Mounties would be proud.

But they have a curse.  A cloud that follows them around.  Where ever they
go, whatever they touch, destruction follows.  Ships, cities, sometimes
entire worlds are destroyed.  And it is never their fault.

Do you think that helps?  Do you think that it would make you feel better
if you knew that all the lives that were lost, all the damage, all the
horror was just a fluke - a freak accident?  That knowledge might keep you
sane - it might even allow you to accept the risk.

But what if it happened *every* *single* *time*... If everywhere you went,
the four horsemen of the apocalypse were riding in your shadow - letting
you take the credit, or the blame, for their work?

That's fine, you say.  That is the Pair.

But you forget.  They are the ones that trained you.  You are the only one
to survive that training - the only one.  Just as they are often the only
ones to survive their missions.  Does that suggest something to your sleep
fuzzed mind?

Whatever curse followed them now follows you as well.  Your name and your
image are inextricably bound up with theirs.  The Dirty Pair just became
the Terrible Trio, whether the three of you are together or not.

Do you begin to understand?  Do you SEE now why they HATE that name with
such passion?  Can you feel their rage, their frustration?  Can you
understand how completely alone in the multi-verse Yuri and Kei have been?

That's the trouble with archetypes.  They are always alone.  And the
archetypes of chaos are even moreso.  Always been a loner, you say?  There
is a nobility in loneliness.  But you've never REALLY been alone.  You may
think of yourself as always on the outside looking in, but when it comes
down to it, you have always had people that you could talk to.  People that
would listen.

When they were just anime characters, Kei and Yuri's problems with romance
seemed funny.  They were gags.  But as the reality sinks in, they aren't so
amusing anymore.  What makes it even worse are the memories that they
unlock.

You get close to a person.  Really close.  The person dies.  You heal.
Eventually.  Partially.  Such wounds never disappear altogether.  After
some period of time, you get close to someone new.  And that person dies.
Horribly.  Violently.  Just like before.  Friend or lover, none are immune.
And despite what the Central Computer may say - despite all the empirical
knowledge to the contrary, you know.  That it IS your fault.  That YOU
killed them, as surely as if you had put your plasma gun to their temple
and pulled the trigger.

Everyone you care about - everyone you love - and worse, everyone that
dares to care about or love you.  Doomed.  No exceptions.  No reprieves.
Only your partners and you manage to survive.  And you *always* survive.
You're a near immortal, remember?

So now you've built a reputation.  You are a part of the legend, the mythos
of the Dirty Pair.  Wherever you go, your name and your reputation have
gone before you.

Your co-workers revile you.  They want nothing to do with you.  You, after
all, are the reason that people tremble in fear at the mention of the 3WA.
You are the stain on THEIR records that can never be washed out.  YOU are
the expression of relief on the faces of their clients when those clients
learn that they have won their game of Russian Roulette; that they have
been spared YOUR 'assistance'.

The people that you've been sent to help hate you.  They'd rather face
their problems alone than accept your aid.  But so great is their terror of
you that they do not tell you that.  Sometimes they bend over backwards to
help.  To get you away from them as fast as is humanly possible.  To see
you GONE.  So that maybe, just maybe, whatever Gods they have offended will
have mercy, and recall their Angels, allowing them to live.

It might even work for a select few of them.

Some of them take the other route.  They'll defy you - attack you - try to
hinder your investigations at every turn, hoping that you'll give up and go
away.  But you can't do that.  You're 3WA.  You never quit - never give up
until the case is solved.  Maybe they go a step further, and try to kill
you, before whatever curse you carry can kill them.

Could you blame them for trying?  It's not a matter of chance anymore.
You're with the Dirty Pair, remember?  It *will* happen - it is only a
matter of time.  Perhaps after a thousand missions, if you still have a
soul, you might even pray for them to succeed.  For it all to end.  But all
their efforts will win them is a more violent death - a more total
destruction - and so your own legend grows.

You are no longer human.  The stench of death clings to you like an oily
second skin, and no amount of scrubbing, no manner of cleanser can expunge
that blood from your soul.  Lady Mac Beth had it easy.  Your very presence
is a sign from God that the end of the world is at hand.  Like comets were
in ancient times, you are the harbingers of the apocalypse.

Still think you can get a date?  Still think you can find a friend?  Maybe
so.  Travel incognito.  It can be done.  No one has to know.  But your
curse knows.  And it doesn't care if you're on a mission or not.  To get
close to you is the kiss of death.  How many lovers - how many friends
would you have to lose to bloody, violent death before you learned?  Before
you finally gave up?  Before you knew that no one could ever be close to
you again?

Pop quiz, sport.  What'cha gonna do?  Do you decide that you don't care
anymore?  Love 'em and when they receive their punishment for your
presence, move on to the next?  Cutting a swath through the galaxy, the
ultimate expression of a fatal attraction?

Or perhaps you DO care.  You become afraid.  Afraid to let anyone get close
again.  Afraid to face the inevitable loss.  Because if you do find a
person to love, or one that loves you, you condemn them to death.  Every
single time you let down your defences, every single time your heart opens,
Fate comes along and tears out more of your soul... more of your spirit.

Perhaps you would even consider suicide.  But that option is denied you as
well.  The 3WA has far too much invested in you to allow it.  Every bit of
your training, every bit of your conditioning, every last fibre of your
being has been saturated with the drive to continue.  The NEED to see the
mission completed.  And because of the nature of your unique 'curse', the
more dangerous the mission, the more likely you are to survive it.  You are
Teela Brown and Typhoid Mary rolled into one bikini clad package.

Writers are supposed to create.  To build new worlds for people to enjoy -
not bring them to premature ends.  You have become the unintentional
antithesis of everything you stood for and everything you believed in.
Once you were Clotho - now you are Atropos.  Indra become Shiva.

In a Galaxy of countless billions, you will still know what it means to be
truly alone.

Think about that, when you make that wish.

Zen no Itan-sha
Apprentice to the Angels of the Apocalypse