(Thanks to ange for pointing out my usual smattering of typos.)

Interlude from the Past 2/2

Excerpt -- an Essay on Fandom

Imagine this: There is a room, and that room has a table (two, actually, but you can't see the one on the left under the pile of books, CDs, dictionaries, music scores, and other junk). On that table is a computer (two, actually, but the one on the left is a laptop, and currently deactivated. The one on the right never goes below a Suspend to RAM). Before the computer is a chair (two, actually, except that you won't see the one on the left unless your sense of time isn't linear). Upon that chair is seated a translator, hard at work. (Yes, there is only one translator, unless you count the bipolar personalities.)

And while that translator is hard at work, a great black holes opens up in the rest of the room, swallowing socks, bits, and a certain blue plastic spoon (whose loss caused the translator great distress, and led to frequent bouts of babbling: "There is no spoon!" But that's another story.) And the lightnings crackle in this great rift, and then...

...the Legions of Terror explode out of it in a blast of multicolored hair and excessive makeup!!!!!

...Sorry about the exclamation marks.
...Yes, I actually did mean lightnings.

The translator meeps in terror, grabs a bokken, another bokken still in its plastic wrapper, a wooden ninja sword, and a shinai, and dives under the table. ...The table on the right, that is. And the Legions advance, growling and flexing nails.

Then the Chorus of the Damned starts up:

"How dare you open Pandora's Box?!!!"
"How could you write about our exploits to the world?!!!"
"We are the darkness that lives in every writer's heart, and we do not take kindly to--"
"--Your misrepresentations! (1)"
"You will cease and desist immediately!"

1: One may conclude that some of the more intelligent Fangurls have discovered the pile of law books.

The translator meeps again and starts babbling for dear life. Words are the only defence against such creatures, after all.

The Fangurls pause. Hasty discourse occurs.

"That's true. No one really knows why We write about Us the Way We Do."
"Stop it with the stupid capitals already!"
"Stop it with the stupid bitch attitude already!"
"Stop it with the--"
"Ladies."

(The translator coughs and thinks that the last sentence is stretching things about. But there's no accounting for the beliefs of some people.)

"Ladies, we are the alpha and the omega--"
"--the what?"
"--the seme and the uke."
"Oh, why didn't you just say so?"
"--And we are beyond mortal comprehension. For each of us is unique. We scorn the uncouth label of Mary Sue, for how could something so common refer to us? Nevertheless, the good readers--"
"--and the flamers!"
"--death to all flamers!"
"--flamers suck!"
"--even when they have something intelligent to say! Um, I mean... all flamers should die!"

"--AHEM. The good readers are labouring under the delusion that all Original Female Characters are Mary Sues. Obviously, that is not the case."
"Original Female Characters! That's Us!"
"We're Original!"
"We're the One And Only!"

"So therein and therefore, we must do our Utmost to correct that impression. And what better way to advance our mighty cause than to have our exploits chronicled and posted to that great altar that is for all the world to see?"

While half the Legion is still processing this multiple-word-sentence-without-any-commas-or-phrasing, mutters have started in the background.

"--some of us don't write about OFCs!"
"Yeah! Stupid OFCs!"
"Death to all OFCS!"

"Yaoiyaoiyaoiyaoiyaoiyaoiyaoi"

"So! I propose that we allow this pathetic mortal translator to finish this work, that the world may see and understand, and be enlightened--"

"Yaoiyaoiyaoiyaoiyaoi"

"--that we are no mere female characters, no mere Mary Sues!"

"YaoiyaoiyaoiYAOIYAOI"

"We are Fangurls, and the world shall cower before our might!"

"YAOI!"

The lead Fangurl pauses, fires blazing in her eyes (1).

1 - OW.

"What was that?!" she demands. "That foul word shalt not be voiceth inneth my presenceth! It is an Abomination Unto Fandomship!"

Angry murmurs start, and the Legions are suddenly divided into two camps, both glaring furiously at each other. The YAOI camp seems to be larger.

The translator, meanwhile, has not been idle. It is an admittedly underhanded method, but nevertheless, negotiations exist to be made, histories exist to be rewritten, and large groups exist to be undermined by internal rebellion.

"Wait a minute!" a group in the YAOI camp suddenly yells.

Both sides stop screaming threats and pause.

"Why should you Hakkai x Gojyo x Hakkai x Kenren x Tenpou x Kenren Fangurls get all the attention?!! What about Konzen and Kenren and Gojyo and Sanzo--"
"--what, all at the same time?"
"--Sugoi! I wanna write that!"
"--Hey, that was my idea, you rip-off!"
"Yeah? Not if I finish it first!"
"No way you're going to finish it first! I write 10,000 words a day!"
"And I write 20,000!"
"Hah, we'll see about that!"

There is a sudden scurry and several Fangurls break off from the crowd and dash towards the blackhole hovering in the background. They disappear, and there is the sound of frantic typing and Microsoft Word's Spellchecker making distressed noises.

The translator, meanwhile, has sidled to another camp and whispered conversation has occurred.

"383!" the cry goes up, and a somewhat smaller but equally determined group splits off from the main YAOI camp.

"That's STUPID!" the rest of the YAOI camp yells back.

"Yeah? Prove it!"

"GOKU x HAKKAI!" one lone Fangurl screams. Everyone stares at her in disgust.

"EEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW," the rest of the Fangurls chorus.

In the meantime, the very large and very violent Kenren x Konzen x Kenren x Sanzo x Gojyo x Sanzo (or was it Kenren x Konzen x Kenren x Gojyo x Sanzo x Gojyo?) camp has grabbed the translator. More frantic negotiation occurs. Threats of mortal harm are made. Promises are exchanged. Then the entire camp makes a break for the blackhole, dragging the protesting translator along. As the room dissolves into utter chaos, this determined group plunges out of it, and the scene fades to black.

(And that is the translator's explanation for the next part).

Interlude from the Past 2/2

Several of the Fangurls were bickering. Konzen opened a cautious eye. He ignored Tenpou, who was staring wide eyed at the ceiling, occasionally emitting sounds of extreme distress. The Marshall was most definitely out of it. His brain had dissolved in the face of presence of all the Negative Intelligence. (Like the Minus Wave, only worse.) Sometimes, it didn't pay to be the smartest one...

The Fangurls were no where in sight, which could only be a good thing. Taking care not to make any noise, Konzen inched towards the edge of the bed.

He realized too late that the Fangurls were no where in sight because they were all behind him.

--

Goku sped down the corridor, his heart pounding in terror. He couldn't lead to them to Konzen. Couldn't. They'd kill Konzen... no, they'd do unspeakable things to Konzen... no, they'd do unspeakable things to him and Konzen...

He took a random right turn in the corridor, and kept running.

--

"Him...!?!? Him....!?!?!!" Konzen spluttered, anger completely drowning out any sense of fear or self preservation. "You want me and him to... to...."

Kenren had backed up against the far wall, and was searching desperately for a sword (at least, a sword other than the one the Fangurls wanted him to use.) "No, look, Tenpou would kill me," he protested.

"I doubt that Tenpou Gensui is in any position to do so," one of the Fangurls sniggered.

"And we can keep him happily occupied," another one said.

"Besides," the third one said, "This is your chance to be seme."

Kenren drew himself up. "Do you think I'm a slut?" he hissed.

"But of course!" Another Fangurl waved airily. "Not as big a slut as Konzen, but--"

"--look here," Konzen snarled. "I haven't--"

"Oh yes, yes, you've been celibate for ten thousand years... don't you think it's time for you to get some?"

"Or," a Fangurl leaned forward, a predatory grin plastered across her face, "Would you rather get it on with Litouten?"

Konzen's brain unhelpfully supplied several mental images. As he gaped in wide eyed shock at the assembly, a Fangurl grabbed him from behind and poured a cup of... something down his throat. Across the room, several Fangurls had pinned Kenren down, and were shoving the whole teapot down him.

By some miracle of Anime Physics, neither of them choked and drowned.

The Fangurls sat back, drooling happily, and waited.

--

Goku had passed beyond terror into the great white blankness beyond. Stray Fangurls haunting the corridors had spotted him and were currently in hot pursuit. Various mangled cries of "Kawaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiii", "Ky00000000t" and other unidentifiable rubbish caught up with him. Goku sobbed, the overwhelming exposure to excessive Hormones, Fangurlism and Emotion driving him to the tears that any respectable 10 year old male would rather die than shed.

He'd lost a few of them at the last cross corridor. They'd stopped abruptly and began howling out something along the lines of :

Two ehhhhhh emmmmmm, and the rain is fallllingggggg
Here we arrrrrrrrrrr, at the crossroads once againnnnnnnnnnnn

He couldn't understand a word of it. It wasn't 2 a.m., it wasn't raining, and it wasn't even a road... Obviously, these creatures were stark, raving crazy.

One Fangurl reached out, and Goku felt her nails rack across his back before he doubled his pace. A soft whimper escaped him. He was lost, utterly and completely, and he couldn't remember what he'd been looking for, and where was Nataku so that he could bonk--

--the unusual stray thought made him gag. Stumbling blindly, he slammed into the doors ahead of him, and tumbled into the room beyond. The pursuing Fangurls screamed in triumph as they leapt.

"What the beepity beepity bong is THIS?!!" a furious, alto, feminine voice rang out.

All present screeched to a halt.

Goku picked himself off the floor, as the Fangurls hastily conferred behind his back.

"Who is she? I haven't seen her around!"
"Is she one of us?"
"Of course not! I mean, just look at her! She's nowhere as pretty as I am."

Goku yelped as a solid wall of Fangurl Hair smacked him across the face. And again. He leapt backwards as the Fangurl tossed her head once again. No, he really didn't understand these creatures and their weird motions at all. Why, one of them was currently engaging in a really odd dance that seemed to involve rotating her knees and moving her stomach back and forth while shrugging her shoulders--

--someone grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hoisted him into the air. He found himself face to face with one very irate Kanzeon Bosatsu.

"Where... did these creatures come from this time?" Se growled. Spinning, she deposited Goku on top of the heap of squabbling Fangurls, causing several to get squashed to the ground. One broke a nail, and dissolved into gray dust while wailing in agony.

"I don't know?" Goku said, eying the Fangurls nervously. They all seemed to have turned their attention on Kanzeon, but one could never be certain...

"Who are you?!!" the self-appointed Lead Fangurl (The Equal and Opposite of Seiten Taisei Son Goku, sent to Togenkyou to save the world from his destructive tendencies and to turn him around and make him a Good Guy in the process) screamed.

Kanzeon ignored her. Se seemed to be rambling on along some well worn gripe-trail. "I mean, first that Litouten pays a visit to that Earth place, and gets too many ideas from Terminator and I, Robot... and decides to build his own little killing machine. Except that that incompetent fool can't even get that right, and forgets to close the portal behind him, allowing a whole swarm of these ... things in. Then just as we finish clearing them out, that stupid boy Homura experiments with his world-creating-device and lets another bunch through! Guess why they're here! Guess who gets saddled with the clean up! By all that is unholy, I am SICK AND TIRED OF THIS!"

Kanzeon whirled around in a jangle of bangles. "So which one are you after? Konzen? Or Tenpou? Or are you the Kenren diggers?"

"GOKU-CHAN!" the Fangurls squee-ed, and promptly leapt on the object of affection. There was a terrified squeak as Goku disappeared beneath flailing arms, legs, and skirts. There was momentary chaos.

Abruptly, a thunderbolt cleaved the air and shattered upon the ground inches away from Goku's nose. The nearest Fangurls leapt back, batting at the flames that had sprung up in their hair. Two, evidently having used too much inflamable gel / hairspray, screeched in terror and disappeared in puffs of smoke.

The Lead Fangurl turned furious eyes on Kanzeon. "Just who are you to come between Goku-chan and me? What's your screen name, huh? What fics have you written? How many reviews do they have? My bestest fic, 'Rain', has 58 chapters and 605 reviews! Beat that!"

"Yeah!" Another Fangurl piped up. "You have to stand in line! I bet you can't beat my 'Goku runs away' fic with 440 reviews!"

"And 200 of them are flames," a third Fangurl scoffed. "Now, I have 66 fics, and 'Golden Eye' itself has 15 real reviews!"

"Enough!" Kanzeon scowled. Thunder crashed, and several Fangurls hid under the tables. "I don't need to compete with you pathetic creatures, with your petty little squabbles. I am Kanzeon Bosatsu, Goddess of the Western Ocean, and the Official Fangurl in Saiyuki. And unlike you creatures, I belong here, and I don't share." She drew herself up, and several of the less confident Fangurls crept away in a sudden pang of inferiority (that combined with their hormones to become suicidal depression, and they all wrote death fics before proceeding to kill themselves off.)

Kanzeon closed her eyes for a moment, and the walls of the Heavenly Palace dissolved. There was a moment of blind panic as Kenren was caught on top of Konzen and both dived for cover under the bed (never a good thing in that position). Then there was another long moment as Kanzeon knocked Tenpou back to his senses (using the 56th form: Bosatsu's Bitch-Slap) whereupon he took to his heels and had to be dragged back screaming. Then Goku, who had spotted the Heavenly Kitchens, had to be extricated from the pile of manjuu and brought back.

Finally, all were settled in front of Kanzeon -- Tenpou and Goku tied to a pillar to stop them from running off, Konzen and Kenren huddling as far away as possible from each other, clutching bedsheets, and the remaining Fangurls arrayed in a half circle beyond them.

No one, absolutely no one, looked happy at this turn of affairs.

"Just what is happening?" the Supreme Lead Fangurl demanded. "We were just having the best show of our lives when--"

"--silence, you little bitch," Kanzeon snarled. A handful of the younger Fangurls disappeared in clouds of gray smoke at the sound of this terrible obscenity. The Supreme Lead Fangurl, however, did not back down. She hadn't gotten where she was by being nice. Instead, she lunged at Kanzeon, nails outstretched, eyes blazing, ready for the kill--

--Kanzeon shoved a poster of Tenpou and Konzen in bed together in front of her nose.

The Fangurl howled in unspeakable agony, before exploding.

The rest of the Fangurls cowered. (Except for a few that spontaneously combusted along with the Supreme Fangurl, and the TenpouxKonzen Fangurls, who were very happy indeed...)

"All of you will return to your own world this instant, and cease plaguing Heaven with your nonsense," Kanzeon spoke into the silence. "All of you will be inflicted with flamers and writer's block should you even think of entering Heaven once more, and that's before I get to you with the Flaming Clue Hammer of DOOM."

"But......." the Fangurls wailed. "What about our Konzen-chan and Tenpou-chan and Kenren-chan and Goku-chan?!! Will we be parted from them forever? Oh woe is Mes!" (To a Fangurl, there is no 'Us'. Only 'Me'.)

There was a breathless moment of absolute silence.

Then Kanzeon exploded. Figuratively. "This is it. This is the end of all this nonsense! You four!" she pointed at the only males in the room. "This is the fourth time this week that you've brought the fangurls down on us. There isn't a moment of peace around here. I was just getting comfortable with Ji-- I mean, I was just getting comfortable, and you four had to bloody ruin it! I am fed to the teeth with you! From this point onwards, you will all be banished and reincarnated in Togenkyou!"

There was an absolute moment of breathless silence.

Then there was the jangle of a lot of people running in the same direction at the same time. Kanzeon looked up in supreme annoyance as Goujun, at the head of the Western Army, burst in on the scene.

"Bosatsu-sama, I apologize most profusely--"

Kanzeon cut him off with an imperious wave of Hir hand. "You are late. Again. Where were you this time?!"

"I was delayed by a Horde..."

Kanzeon glared. The ambient temperature of the room dropped by several notches. "So you're responsible for this influx as well."

Right on cue, another gaggle of Fangurls burst in behind Goujun, squealing in delight. The dragon king twitched visibly and drew his sword.

...His real sword, you perverts.

"Damnit, Goujun!" Kanzeon yelled, as the Fangurls went all sparkly eyed at the sight of the dragon in all his warrior's finery. "You're not supposed to encourage them! Why can't you sit in your little ocean and drink tea like your brothers?"

"But Bosatsu-sama, I enjoy travelling--"

"--FINE! You can travel down to Togenkyou with this bunch of morons and stay there! Then just maybe, I'll have some peace and quiet at last!"

Kanzeon clapped her hands. The world flew apart in a shower of sparkles.

The rest, as they say, is History.

--

Interlude from the Past -- Epilogue

Elsewhere, a group of Fangurls had converged upon a demi god with very bad dress sense. (Both the Fangurls and the demigod had bad dress sense, that is.)

"Hey Homura!"

"Yo, d00d! Wassup?!?!!?!"

"Hooooomuraaaaaaaa-saaaaaammmaaaaaaa!"

Homura casually decapitated one Fangurl with his Massive Flaming Sword, but it didn't seem to slow her down in the least.

"Homura! How would you like to get it on with Konzen?"

Homura gave the Fangurl an puzzled frown. "Konzen?"

"Yeah, Konzen! Mr Ice Cold Snarly Uke Blond..."

"I know Konzen Douji, and I have no intention of ... getting it on with him." Homura shrugged, and returned to staring at out the world below.

"Why not?!" the Fangurls demanded.

One jet black eyebrow rose in a supreme expression of 'Why-do-you-mortals-always-make-me-state-the-obvious?'. "Shien and Zenon would kill me," he said, and smiled.

End - Interlude from the Past

The translator meeps:
I'm going to get killed for this, right?

The translator meeps #2:
If any of you actually take this seriously, I will just kill myself.

The translator meeps #3:
While I think the world is overpopulated, please don't die waiting for my updates ;;.

The-cheap-way-of-increasing-word-count OR:
Answering reviews:

To people in general: Many thanks for your encouragement with this most ridiculous work. As I've long since discovered, Saiyuki is OOC when you take it seriously, so this is actually in character. long pause vigorous nodding. Please buy good chairs and secure straps to minimize risk of falling off them. Might I recommend the ones with leather straps that Gojyo seems to favor? The next chapter, may-it-be-quick-in-arriving, will return to the present, although what form it takes has yet to be decided.

And... because there are Fangurls hovering behind me with sharp, pointy objects, I would like to remind everyone that there are no Mary Sues! There are only Original Female Characters. And Goku x Kenren is a good pairing. Really. gulps

Finally, Kanzeon has sent me a note to insist that Divine Intervention is not deus-ex-machina when it involves Kanzeon Bosatsu. Not in the slightest. It doesn't even fall under the heading of 'clichéd'.

hands Olivia Y a bottle of calcium pills You might need these in future when your knees wear out, since I'm a terribly slow writer . Kanzeon keeps flinging writer's blocks at me, I'm sorry.

Lavender: What's your dowry like? I'll settle for half the world and several billion dollars.

Me-Nuriko : Fangurls raping Goku? Oh, perish the thought! eyes hovering Fangurls nervously

Zek Majiri : Mmmmmm. Skittles! Ramen! Could you get me M&Ms next time? =D

Silver on the Tree : It's alright to repeat stuff... there's only a limited amount of originality going around in the world. I mean, look at the stuff on Um. That was politically incorrent. I apologize .

Anthey Oom : Avoiding this fic is probably a good thing, because once you catch the insanity, you can't get rid of it.

ChaosDaughter : Dried frog pills! Dried frog pills! XD grins manically and pops a bottle