The Revenge of Rutger Verhoven
Chapter One: Anger Leads to Hate, Hate Leads to Bad Sushi??

Author's Note: A bizarre little story, in that it's the wacky humor that I started with Career Choices until the very end, primarily because I just can't write Master Asia as a comedic character. As things progress, it'll slip into insanity again... particularly when a certain Neo Italian pilot shows up. This will contain spoilers, particularly if you've just started watching, so be warned! I'd also like to hear some feedback on what everyone thinks so far... this was written at around 1:00 AM after I'd had little sleep the night before, so I'm iffy on its quality. =p

Okay, I admit it. I'm rethinking the whole "throw the Gundam Fight" thing.
The plan showed its first cracks when I fought Markirott from Neo Greece. Okay, that's not entirely accurate. The cracks formed the night before, when that gigantic bastard came out of his hotel with a girl on each arm. The man wears a toga, and he's got girls hanging off of him like that. I mean, he doesn't wear it to a toga party, because that would be cool in a John Belushi Animal House kinda way. He wears it everywhere.
Yes, everywhere. It goes beyond living his gimmick. He wears it to events for the fighters. He wears it to the beach. He wears it when he gets to the store. I can't imagine how he deals with stiff breezes, nor do I want to. But yeah, he comes out, in all of his toga'ed ridiculousness, with two girls. Not really my type; they were every bit the ditzy blonde stereotype. But when a shaved sasquatch in a toga can get the ditzy blondes and the only person around me is my old friend Colt .45, there's a problem.
Still, I held the course. I threw the match to his Zeus Gundam. I made a half hearted attempt to use a windmill attack me and Billy Jack came up with, called the Nether Typhoon. Basically, it looks really spectacular, but has all the attack power of a ten dollar desk fan. So, Zeus takes the Nether Gundam's head, and that should have been all. But no, Governor Mayor Chancellor High Lord Wong(huh huh... I said Wong) says we can repair our Gundams as often as we want. So I had to stay. Watched Domon Kasshu blow up toga boy.
F'in' Domon Kasshu.
So, me and Billy Jack were repairing the Nether Gundam all night, which prevented me yet again from going out and having fun. One of our big weapons systems, the Gekigan Flare, is out of commission, maybe for good. Everything else seems intact, though. We started rebuilding the stupid, ugly head. Not entirely unrelated, we also started drinking heavily.
"Damn this thing is ugly." Billy Jack had a way with words.
Maybe I should explain Billy Jack a little further. You know how Gundam Fighters have highly trained crews, with repair technicians and battle strategists and, I'm given to understand, in some cases gourmet chefs and massage therapists. Chibodee Crocket has four really cute girls working with him. And Domon Kasshu has Rain Mikamura, one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen.
....f'in' Domon Kasshu.
Anyway, I've got Billy Jack. As you might guess, Billy Jack is not a beautiful woman. He could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called an attractive man either. You know how they sometimes leave things outside to give them a weathered look? Billy Jack has a great weathered look going for him. In fact, he looks like they left him to weather in a shallow grave. He's creepy when you first meet him... gives off a real serial killer vibe. Can't be sure if that's the case or not. He was bailed out of a Neo American prison and became a citizen of Neo Holland. He's a mechanical genius, so he got the crew job. He also have a steel plate in his head and can spit tobacco ten yards. I'm not exactly thrilled to know either of those last two things.
But Billy Jack worked with words the way Michaelangelo worked with marble, Rembrandt with paints, or the Matador Gundam with new and different ways to lose. Unfortunately, his preferred medium was obsenities. I doubt Neo Hong Kong heard so many four letters words since the last Tarentino film festival. He summed up the Nether Gundam, upon first viewing it, with a Mona Lisa level work.
"The bleeping piece of bleep looks like the bleeping bleeps took a bleeping outhouse, put a bleeping fan on the front and put a bleeping robot inside." For the record, he didn't say bleep.
"You're not too far off," I conceeded.
Billy Jack had more to offer. "That'll strike fear into the hearts of the other bleeping nations... look! Our Gundam is made out of a crapper."
This eloquent and measured speech helped me to decide to let Billy Jack in on my plans to throw the Gundam Fight. After about five times of telling him and retelling him, I took a different tact and approached him when he was sober. Shocked at the simple brilliance, he offered to help me with my scheme. Thanks to Wong, though, we both started to regret our idea. We'd spent the last several hours staring at the ugly mobile suit, the crapper with a fan on the front. We thought of new lame attacks, and made a drinking game out of it. If we topped one another, we'd get to drink another beer. Looking back on it, our judging system was a little liberal... we ALWAYS topped one another's ideas... but it made the night pass easier.
I can't remember the time the idea came, but it was about twenty three Coronas into our binge. Billy Jack looked towards the Nether Gundam and a smile passed over his face. "You know, if it's damaged beyond repair, we can go home."
"Yeah, but there's always enough to fix."
I swore I saw a gleam in the old bastard's eye. "If we wire it with explosives, throughout the body, there won't be anything left."
I'm not sure if the beer made it sound like a good idea, or if the beer made me pause to reconsider it. Either way, we started putting the explosives in throughout the body, and all we needed was an excuse to use them. Simple, easy. I'd take a heavy attack, bail just as I detonated them, and that's it. No more Nether Gundam.
So, of course, I faced off against George de Sand. Of course, he faced me honorably, and dispatched Nether Gundam by removing its head with one saber swipe. As we pieced the Nether Gundam back together, one of the fight officials noticed the explosives planted throughout the Gundam.
Boy, did that cause an uproar. People were throwing accusations back and forth, George offered to declare the match a draw, and some poor bastard from Neo Albania was arrested on suspicion of fixing the fights. As it turned out, he was in on a scheme with the Jester Gundam, so I suppose justice was done. Only problem was, Billy Jack and, more importantly, me were both still stuck in Neo Hong Kong.
The next night, everything changed.
I left a bar in the downtown area, and everything seemed the same. Markirott had two different girls, Chibodee partied with his own girls, and I walked down the streets of Neo Hong Kong with a bottle in my hand and a lot of my mind. Boasting to my friends seemed a good excuse for signing onboard, but now I found myself a prisoner. If my plan to throw the fight was ever uncovered, I'd be disgraced and probably jailed. Thus far, I convinced my superiors that unfamiliarity with the system and old injuries accounted for my losses. Eventually, I could blame hangovers, but that would take away alcohol, the one joy I had in the city.
Lost in these thoughts, it took a few minutes for the sound to register. A faint clicking that slowly grew louder. I'd wandered far away from the downtown area, and into one of the bad parts of town. I worried at first it was a bandit. I'd even heard rumors of a Gundam Fighter who killed his future opponents, and wondered if I'd just drawn him. I stopped and looked around, and that's when I saw a horse. Yes, a horse, walking down the street, with a shadowed rider on its back.
"Rutger Verhoven." The voice sounded deep, full of authority. Mounted police, perhaps?
"Yes?"
"Neo Holland's fighter Hardly an impressive performance thus far."
"Y'know, that had somehow escaped my attention. What was the first hint, the record short times in match length, or..."
"Silence! I have come to speak with you on important matters, not listen to your self important drivel."
"And who the hell are you supposed to be?"
The horse stopped, and the man jumped off its back. "You might know me as the Unbeatable East... the former King of Hearts... but above all, the defending champion."
"Tohofuhai... Master Asia?"
"The same."
"Why have you come before me?"
"Because I have questions that must be asked from one fighter to another." He walked towards me slowly, and stopped mere feet away.
"Such as?"
The question came in the form of a quick kick, aimed squarely at my head. I raised one arm to block it, and the kick stopped against my forearm. Slowly, Master Asia lowered his leg and a smile crossed his face.
"If you can block that kick, Rutger Verhoven, you could have certainly made a better showing in your fights thus far."
I took another drink out of the bottle and rolled my eyes. "What is it to you?"
"As a fellow fighter and defending champion, it is my concern! You taint the honor of this fight by not trying with all your heart and soul. What kind of fighter are you?"
"I spent eleven months sitting in a field waiting for the start of the finals. I'm hardly a fighter."
I expected a quick strike for my insolence, or for the lecture to continue. Instead, he smiled again. "I sense great resentment towards those who have held you back, Rutger. You have no love for your country, and I can hardly blame you. But beneath that beats the heart of a warrior."
"Doesn't do me much good at this point."
"And if I could offer you an opportunity to become a true fighter, in a noble cause... would that interest you?"
I looked into the eyes of Tohofuhai... a true legend not just in terms of the Gundam Fight, and saw a sincerity there. I also found it a little difficult to believe that I was standing face to face with him. I poured the beer out of the bottle in my hand, and threw it aside.
"I'm listening."