SOMETIMES THE DRAGON WINS...

A semi-Revenge Story by Wyrm.

*** --------- ***

I slumped back into my chair, the phaser clattering to the ground beside
me. I looked around my now totaled room, surveying the damage. It was bad,
but they were only possessions. I was a little dizzy from concussion, a few
broken ribs, and a deep laceration, but I would heal.

A relieved smile crossed my face, the euphoria of surviving them mixed with
my own grief for having to kill them in self-defense. I'd survived, and
unlike their other victims, I could be _sure_ that this wasn't just the
calm before the storm...

*** FLASHBACK ***

The Revenge Season had started again. The rumor that I had halfheartedly
joked about had come true. Last time, I escaped by the skin of my teeth to
come out smelling of roses. I knew that I might not be so lucky this time
around.

I admit that I had committed my own brand of cruelty to animekind during
the year. My Ranma/Vampire crossover, 'Huntress', featuring a Kindred
Shampoo, topped my list. Knowing that no one was safe, I took all the
precautions I could, and I was loaded for werewolf.

Of course, knowing my precautionary habits, I doubt that the Huntress would
come after me herself and in person. Even an Assemite would have only a
snowball's chance of even getting near me. In fact, there was only one pair
of hired guns who would have any chance of getting me was...

*** blam blam blam blam CRUNCH! ***

"FREEZE!!!!"

A scantily-clad red-headed bombshell glided into the room, followed by an
equally scantily-clad raven-haired vixen. The redhead shouted out a classic
greeting, "Hi! I'm Kei! She's Yuri!"

Speak of the devil...

"So, the Huntress has decided to send _you_ two after me. Thought as much,"
I said quite calmly. I spun in my chair to meet their gazes. Mopp happened
to be in my lap, so I decided to play up the mad villian role. "Welcome to
my abode," I announced. "Moppy-poo is glad to see you, too." I took her out
of my lap and shooed the kitty toward the door. Mopp took the hint and went
out of dodge.

I formed a steeple with my hands, and said ominiously, "However, I don't
like to lose, so I'm afraid that you have a choice: leave in piece, or die
in pieces."

They broke down laughing. Suckers. I slipped a pair of jawbreakers into my
hands, and used the thumbs that have been stregthened by years of playing
marbles to propell them powerfully down their throats. As they yelped and
gagged on the jawbreakers, I dove behind my desk.

Of course, the jawbreakers pissed them off. "*hack*poo* I'll GET YOU!!!"
Kei yelled, and without further prelude, they started blasting away at my
desk. Pausing only to hide a few items in my jacket, I threw my Backpack of
Doom over my shoulder and grabbed a trash-can lid. Yelling an attack cry, I
vaulted over the desk, using the lid to protect me.

The electromag projectiles and plasma-pulse ricocheted harmlessly off the
trash-can lid. "WHAT THE HELL?!?!" Kei gasped, as I rammed lidfirst into
her. Hard. I heard a satisfying *BONG!* as I hit skull. I launched away,
pulling out my Guilford College umbrella and striking Yuri's electromag.
The gun went into my Closet of Eternity, never to be seen again.

We paused for an obligatory in-battle conversation. "Why did our shots
bounce off that wimpy trash-can lid?" Yuri asked. "You wouldn't happen to
have an Abotex trash can, perchance?"

"Don't be ridiculous! It's just an ordinary trash-can lid."

"Then how--?"

"Don't they have movies in the twenty-third century? Next to neutronium,
trash-can lids are the toughest things around!"

"Sucker!" Yuri shouted, as she kicked both of my weapons out of my hands. I
backpeddled as fast as I could backward, avoiding her martial-arts
techniques.

"Ugh... did anyone catch the number of that bus?" came Kei's disoriented
voice behind me. Grabbing her (and copping a quick feel :)~, I used her as
a shield from Yuri's punch.

*SOCK*

Ooooh, right inna face! Beautiful!

"Oops!" Yuri squeeked.

Kei frowned into Yuri's fist, as she had yet to remove it. Noticing this,
she removed the fist from Kei's face. I grinned like a maniac as I watched
Yuri's lips pull into a shit-eating grin.

"Yuuurrrriiiii...." growled Kei.

I removed myself from the carnage about to take place.

The Dirty Pair started beating the living shit out of each other, and
thought to myself how well the aggression pressure-point worked. I took
advantage of this development by pulling a set of M80W firecrackers, Wyrm's
More Power (tm) formula. I lit a few and lobbed a few under the feet of the
fighting Pair, then found cover.

**** K A - B O O M ! ! ! ****

I peeked over the edge of the overturned table. The Pair's fight was
interrupted quite thoroughly, with each member of the pair embedded in
opposite sides of the wall. Happousai, eat your heart out! I recovered my
umbrella and rushed to Kei, and proceeded to beat the rest of the daylights
out of her prone form. Now, I know it's cowardly to strike an opponent when
she's down, but dammit, this was the Dirty Pair, fercryin'outloud!

The next few minutes were a fury of smashing at the least damaged portions
of Kei's body, which ended when I my own body was rained upon by storm of
punches and kicks.

It hurt. It really hurt.

I screamed as I felt my ribs crack, my body bruise, and my vision blur as I
smashed headfirst into the doorframe, tearing open my cheek. Hovering on
the edge of consciousness, I collapsed to the floor.

"You've been a difficult one, Wyrm," Yuri panted. "I don't know how you did
it, but we haven't been shown up this bad since Shasti!"

I heard Kei stir and groan as she slipped back into consciousness. "Ow...
Man, even my teeth hurt! That musta been quite a bomb."

"Actually, Wyrm beat you with the business end of his umbrella."

Yeah, just keep yappin'.

"He... Urr, when my nanites fix me, 'm gonna beat 'im within an inch of his
life, then kill 'im."

I reach into my jacket and pull out my ace in the hole.

I heard the even footsteps of WWWA uniform high-boots as they approached.

Yuri grabbed my ponytail and jerked it up. Damn, but that hurt! "Wyrm, you
are very, very stupid. You know that the Lovely Angels always get their
man..." Yuri pulled up, lifting my prone form off of my stomach...

...revealing the phaser. Yuri's eyes widened as she saw it, just as the
finger over its trigger convulsed. A deadly stream of phased rectified
energy stabbed through the space between us, lancing into her unprotected
abdomen.

The phaser was on its highest setting; disintegrate.

"YURI!!!!"

I dropped back onto my stomach, letting out a heavy grunt, as the hand
holding my ponytail dissolved around it. I laid there for a minute,
gathering my strength, then propped myself up on my arms.

BTW, please don't ask me where I got the phaser. It's a long story and you
wouldn't believe me.

Kei seemed thunderstruck, and it's no wonder. In all their adventures,
neither of them so much as gotten seriously hurt. Now, one man had turned
Yuri into atomic dust, and she was near-helpless. "Gonna kill you!" Kei
growled.

Lifting myself to my feet, I grinned nastily at her. "I don't think so,
Worlds' Worst Warped Assholes operative," I gurgled, coughing up a bit of
bloody phlem, "In case you haven't noticed, I can still stand, and I gotta
gun! _You_ on the other hand, have two broken arms, a smashed leg and a
cracked kneecap. You won't recover anytime soon from *that* damage. You
also have NO gun!"

Kei's unswollen eye widened as she realized her predicament. She realized
something then. "...Beat us! You beat *us*!" she hissed through clenched
teeth. "That... *cough* defies all known laws of anime!"

"Yes, I know that no one has survived the D-- I beg your pardon, 'Lovely
Angels', and neither one of you has been killed, ever," I began. "And
considering that I have absolutely no skill in martial arts or energy
firearms, I should've been a piece of cake! After all, more lethal people
have gone against you and not survived..."

"Exactly!" Kei snarled. "We've... gotten tougher slime than you... The
readership... ngh!... never buy it!"

I held up a finger, still keeping the phaser trained on Kei. "Ahhh, but
_they_ didn't have the advantage *I* have!" I hissed. "Y'see, *I* hacked
into the UFCS, the Ultimate Force Control System!"

The way Kei's eyes widened in disbelief appealed to my dark side. "Not the
one from 'Ah! Megami-sama'!" She seemed to be better; the nanites were
doing their jobs too well.

"The same. Gave myself the equivelent of one of those... y'know, power-ups
in video games! Now, just as you have a curse that kills all those you face
or love, _I_ have a blessing of ridiculous luck... No calamity, natural or
otherwise, will claim me, and ANY attempt on my life will backfire in the
most horrid way. And I made sure that included Yuri and _you_!"

Kei's eye glimmed with understanding. "You evened out the playing field,"
she whispered. "You pitted two forces of Fate against each other!"

"Which canceled out any advantage you had with change." I paused for
dramatic effect. "I don't like to lose."

Tears formed in Kei's eyes... well, the eye that wasn't swollen shut, that
is. Then she sobbed with the pain of her injuries, the grief of losing
Yuri, the frustration of losing for the first time. Much like a spoiled
brat.

"I..It's NOT FAIR!!!" she wailed. "The Lovely Angels _always_ get their
man!! It _always_ works out that way!!! THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED
TO BE!!!"

My face fell as I listened to her. This was a completely new experience for
any Dirty Pair's Kei; her partner had been killed and she was about to
follow.

Sonuvagun...

There really is a human behind that "mass murderer with a human face." I
had briefly, just briefly, thought of sparing her, but even as I thought
that, I knew that was something I couldn't afford to do. She would come
after me, and when that happens, my luck might swing differently.

Forgive me... "Kei..."

The sobbing redhead looked up with probably the first real fear of her
animate life.

My voice was a whisper. "'Sometimes the dragon wins...'"

My finger tightened across the phaser's trigger...

...and Kei of the Worlds Welfare Work Association's Lovely Angels ceased to be.

FIN

--- **** ---

Zen's revengefic triggered this one, with that one about being alone in a
universe of billions. However, like the old saying goes, "Sometimes the
dragon wins." That means that eventually their calamity streak is going to
end with _SOMEONE_ actually beating them at their own game. Yes, this is
also the second time that I had escaped the wrath of my characters. From
the bottom of my heart... BEEEDAAAHHHHH!!!!! :'P

Still smelling of the roses...

                           ---------------------
##   ## ##   ## #######  ##   ##  AKA Tom Jefferys, Time Lord for Hire
##   ##  #   #   ##   ## ### ###    "Have TARDIS; Will Travel."
## # ##   ###    #####   ## # ##  Wielder of ANVIL and SPAM! Breaking
### ###    #     ##  ##  ##   ##    the Rules of Fanfiction!
##   ##   ###   ###   ## ##   ## of UT      <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu>
Save the Bit Trees -- Conserve SPAM!         When in Rome...BURN IT!!!
                   Darwin was wrong: Man is still an ape!