Chapter 2 – Do You Round Up, Or Do You Round Down?

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Author's Notes: Well, contrary to what everyone would probably prefer, we're back! Honestly, Bezo and Yezo both agree that this chapter was heaps better. Slightly solider characterization – comparatively – better silly gags, and just…funnier.

And to respond to our reviewer's comment (God bless you, by the way! ^_^), we're doing this parody because Bezo liked the show moderately, but found it hilarious in many ways that it wasn't supposed to be. Yezo, who adored it far more than she should have, made him sit through the entire season. He was made quite bitter by this, so when Yezo asked for his help writing the flippy-dog story, he agreed, but only on the condition that we could mock the hell out of the universe. Since Yezo just wanted to write some freaking CP 'fic, and couldn't think up a serious idea to try herself, she agreed. And so this tale was born. ^_^

Oh, while we've got your attention, we should probably explain the repeated references to Scout's utter terror of the Cube, and his obsession with his 'math hottie'. Maurice Dean Wint was in Cube, which explains both jokes, if you've seen the movie. Go Math Hottie! ^_^

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   "What brings you to overunit counselling?" Lord Dread asked, scowling at the pimply-faced young man.

   "W-well, I'm just not adjusting to the life of an overunit. Y'know, I wanna be all gung-ho, and yaay machines, but...it's really hard to get used to. I think I have to take baby-steps, y'know? 'Cause this is a huge lifestyle change!"

   "Oh," Dread said, an eyebrow that he didn't have lifting slightly. "May I suggest the following?"

With that, he whipped out a cattle prod and whacked the young man firmly upside the head with it.

   "I shoulda known better than to go to Lord Dread for supportive counselling," the young overunit croaked as he pulled his charred, smoking self out the door.

Dread glared after him.

   "Don't come back until you've accepted your place in the New Order! You're grounded, young Mister! Blastarr, kill him."

   "I'm not here." Blastarr said over the comm.-link. "I'm busy putting Soaron back together again. I have synthesized all the king's horses and all the king's men, but sadly, our progress has been hampered."

   "I'll have to kill him my self," Dread grumbled. "Isn't there anyone else around here who can kill him? Loser Overunit who is designated Benny!"

   "I thought it was Benny who is designated Overunit!" the scrawny young man said, scratching his hat in confusion.

      "Digital potato, digital potahto," Dread said impatiently. "Do not question my choice of words! Now, Loser Overunit, you will kill that Overunit who just left."

   "But it's so far," Benny whined.

   "Fine. Then bring me some motor oil. I could use a drink."

   "Yessir!" Benny chirped, saluting and bonking himself in the head. "Ow! Sorry. Ow, sir!"

   "Surrounded by idiots," Lord Dread sighed.

   "I am Lackki," the little robot announced as it rolled past, making for quite a useful visual aid. "I live to serve."

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   "Hit me," Tank requested, hitching his chair closer to the little round table.

   "Are ya sure, Tank?" Hawk laughed. "I don't want you to get mad."

   "Give me cards," Tank said, annoyed. "Hit me. I fold."

   "For someone with the best poker-face I've ever seen, you sure aren't getting the hang of this," Hawk noted, shaking his head.

   "What do you mean by that?" Tank asked.

   "Even if you have a lousy hand, you can still bluff," the older man replied. "Y'know, pretend you've got the greatest hand in the world."

   "And I suppose that strategy is why you currently owe us all your money and your pants," Pilot said.

   "I ain't licked yet!" Hawk declared. "Get stuffed!"

   "Who can tell the motives of a madman?" Jon murmured to himself.

   "You need any cards, Jon?" Hawk asked, changing the subject from his lack of pants.

   "Who can tell?"

Hawk stopped short and glared at him.

   "You could tell, actually. Us, for a start."

Jon looked down at his cards and smiled widely.

   "I'm good."

   "Fold," Hawk said immediately, tossing his cards onto the table.

   "Fold," Pilot agreed, tossing her cards onto the pile.

   "Hit me," Tank said. "I need two."

   "You got it, buddy," Hawk agreed, passing two cards across the table.

   "Hmm," Tank mused, looking down at his hand. "Is a ten, a jack, a queen, a king, and an ace, all the same suit, a good thing or a bad thing?"

   "Fold," Jon said immediately.

   "I'm just wondering. I don't have it or anything; I was just curious."

The other three sat in silence for a moment. Then…

   "Un-fold," Jon said, shuffling through the middle pile. "Can we do that?"

   "No one's played this game competitively for years," Hawk laughed. "We can do whatever we want."

   "Cool," Tank said. "Give me more aces."

   "Within reason, Tank. Within reason. Un-fold," Hawk concluded, grabbing his cards back.

   "Alright, let's just see what we've all got," Jon suggested. "Whoever wins, gets all the…bottlecaps. Great. Yaay for bottlecaps."

   "Hey, it was the best I could do," Hawk protested. "Scout doesn't leave a lot of stuff lying around."

   "Hit me," Tank requested.

   "We're done with that, Tank," Hawk informed him gently. "Everyone show your cards."

Jon threw down his hand.

   "Uh, interesting," Hawk commented slowly. "A four of cups, a nine of pentacles, the empress, a seven of swords, and…death."

   "Yeah," Jon said sadly. "It isn't a very good hand, and someone's going to die."

   "Right. Let's move on. Tank, what've you got?"

   "Five aces," Tank replied. "Is that good?"

   "Sure is," Hawk said. "It's impossibly good."

   "Yaay," Tank cheered with all the enthusiasm he could muster. "Does that mean I win?"

   "Only if we reward cheating," Hawk replied.

Tank considered this carefully.

   "Is that a rule?"

Hawk sighed.

   "There's no hope. Okay, Pilot, what've you got?"

   "Four jokers and the copyright card! And since jokers are wild, I say I've got five copyright cards, which means I win since the copyright card trumps all!"

   "Uh…huh," Hawk said very slowly. "Is anyone actually not cheating?"

   "I'm cheating badly! I used tarot cards," Jon said proudly.

   "None of you are any good at it," Hawk scoffed. "Five aces? Tarot cards? Five copyright cards? And…" Here, he peered closely at something in the middle of the table. "A sweater? Whose idea was it to use a sweater?"

   "It's a cardigan," Pilot informed him. "I was going to use that until the copyright card came along."

   "Great," Hawk sighed.

   "What've you got, Hawk?" Tank asked.

Hawk glanced down at his hand.

   "Uh…five ace of hearts," he admitted carefully.

   "Oh, really!" Jon laughed. "I wonder how he managed that!"

   "Hey, hold on! I have one ace of hearts," Tank said, scratching his head in confusion. "I thought the deck only had four!"

   "A deck is only supposed to have four aces, period," Jon said, glaring at Hawk and Tank in turn.

   "So…they can be any suit?" Tank asked.

   "No! One of each suit!"

   "There's only four suits?"

A long silence. Then…

   "Why don't we play Blackjack?" Hawk suggested.

   "Hit me," Tank requested.

   "Oh, I'm tempted to," Hawk grumbled. "Look, why don't you play Solitaire, and we'll play Blackjack?"

   "Can I play Solitaire with him?" Pilot asked.

   "As a matter of fact, you probably could. See how the five copyright cards fit in," Hawk suggested.

   "Hey, do you two need the tarot cards?" Jon asked. "You could make a new rule to add them."

   "Playing Solitaire with tarot cards seems risky to me," Tank said solemnly. "Who knows what could go wrong?"

   "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!" a panicked voice interrupted at this unlucky juncture. "Someone help! It's trying to kill me!"

Hawk shook his head good-naturedly.

   "What's trying to kill you now, Scout?" he called out the door as the terrified young man ran past again. "Is it the cube again?"

   "It's the damn devil dog," Scout replied, bolting into the room, a towel barely preserving his decency. "I knew it was up to something!"

   "Why don't you tell us exactly what happened, Scout?" Jon asked, guiding him to a chair.

   "But can you put some pants on?" Tank requested from the table, where a heated Solitaire match was already taking place.

Scout blinked in surprise.

   "I'm not wearing pants?"

   "No," everyone else replied in unison.

   "I'm not wearing pants either," Hawk said, "but you don't see me drawing attention to…where's your pants?!"

   "Well, do I at least have a towel? I coulda sworn I had a towel…"

   "Yes, Scout, you had a towel. It came loose while you were running around screaming. Now, please put it back on before I claw my eyes out of my head," Hawk requested, one hand tightly covering his eyes and the other holding out the younger man's towel.

   "Hey, sorry, man, but that devil dog is to blame, not me!" Scout said severely.

   "Slow down, Scout, and tell us what just happened," Jon said, also averting his eyes as Scout tied his towel back on. 

Scout felt a slight pressure and looked down to see Pilot tucking a bottlecap into his towel, then winking conspiratorially.

   "Hey," he noted, "isn't that mine?"

   "Uh…no," she smiled toothily at him.

   "Cool!  More bottlecaps!"

   "The story?"  Hawk reminded him.

   "Right, it all began like this…"

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The music of several harps began as the scene melted away, gradually shifting to the shower, from which Scout had just emerged, wrapped in a towel.

   "And now," he said jubilantly, "a little time to read my favourite magazine!"

He reached beneath the laundry hamper and withdrew a small magazine.

   "'Amazonians Monthly'," he read slowly. "O-kay, that one's not mine."

He tried again.

   "'Women of Mystery'," he read. "Must be Hawk's."

He tossed the magazine over his shoulder and tried again.

   "'Modern Thespian'?" he read, perplexed. "This one must be Pilot's. But why's she keeping her magazine here? And is there something she wants to tell us?"

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   "Okay, I've got to interrupt this story," Jon said somewhat sheepishly. "The 'Modern Thespian' is mine."

   "Captain! I had no idea you were into that sort of thing!"

   "What, acting?" Jon shrugged.

   "Oh! So you just act like a gay woman!"

   "What?!"

   "What, you mean you really are a gay woman?"

    "No! What are you going on about, Scout? Has this 'cube' of yours damaged your brain?"

   "I don't think it was the cube," Tank interjected before going immediately back to his Solitaire game. "Hit me." He paused for a moment, then picked up a card and handed it to himself. "Okay."

Jon sighed.

   "Scout, do you know what a thespian is?"

   "Well, I thought I did. Isn't it when a girl decides that another girl's lookin' pretty good, so they go off and-"

   "No! That's…something completely different! A thespian is an actor! Like Shakespeare? 'To be or not to be'? Or Tarantino! One of the great literary giants! You know, 'who can tell the motive of a madman,' that kind of stuff."

   "Yeah, I think I saw that one on the cover," Scout noted.

   "Well, what can I say? I have to get my dazzlingly clever material from somewhere."

   "Is that what they're calling it nowadays?" Tank asked from the card table. "Hit me again." He handed himself a card. "Thanks."

   "Hey, guys? Did you want to hear the rest of this story?" Scout asked, annoyed.

   "Honestly?" Hawk asked. "I don't know if I like where it's headed. You just stepped out of the shower, you're looking through our porno collections – this really can't lead to anything good."

   "Finally, I found my magazine," Scout said, completely ignoring Hawk.

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   "Ah! Math Hotties Weekly!" Scout noted, pleased.

He settled down into a chair and flipped to the centre.

   "Ooh, the centrefold's doing calculus," he said, ogling the girl on the page, a cute li'l redhead in a plaid jumper hiked up almost to the waist, holding a calculator and a textbook, peering at the book through thick-rimmed glasses. "Ooh, yeah! Factor, baby! Factor!" he urged the photo, missing a few things about reality: namely, that pictures don't answer back, and…more than a few things about math. "Tell me this, honey: do you round up, or do you round down?"

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   "Scout, thank-you for this insightful and disturbing look into your life," Hawk broke in, "but weren't you going somewhere with this?"

Scout thought for a long moment.

   "Oh, yeah, right, the dog. Anyway, I was just enjoying a few minutes with my girls, when I noticed that flippy-dog hovering near the door! I thought it was kinda weird, since I hadn't brought it in. Then I noticed the thing had a knife in its mouth! I tried to get up really slowly, but I guess it wasn't slowly enough, because the thing jumped at me!"

   "Mr. Woofy would never do that!" Jon said, cuddling the toy defensively.

   "Yeah! It said right on the tag, 'I also have no intention of turning on you'! No intention!" Pilot added.

   "Well, attacking me with a knife sure sounds like turning to me!" Scout exclaimed, backing nervously away from Mr. Woofy.

   "Are you saying the dog lied?" Hawk asked suspiciously.

   "How could such a cute little thing be a liar?" Tank demanded. "Would you like to play Solitaire with me, doggie?"

Mr. Woofy bounced over to the table, bounced onto the chair, and then bounced up.

   "Awww," said everyone save Scout, who was still glaring viciously at it.

   "Doesn't anyone else care that the thing couldn't walk before?" Scout demanded.

   "Well, Furbie learns as it goes; maybe Mr. Woofy does, too," Tank suggested, scratching the toy behind its little robot ear.

   "Tank, it's eating your cards," Hawk pointed out, gesturing to the little flippy-dog which was, indeed, munching happily and ferociously away on the cards.

   "It's probably just hungry."

   "It's a toy!" Scout howled. "It doesn't need to eat!"

   "Who can tell the motives of a mad-dog?" Tank asked as dramatically as he could, stroking his beard.

Hawk, Scout, and Pilot snickered.

Jon glared.

   "Are you making fun of me?"

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   "It has been approximately three-thousand, nine-hundred, and sixty-three seconds since I assigned Benny the Loser Overunit the task of bringing my motor oil," Lord Dread said. "According to my calculations, it should have taken only one-thousand, two-hundred, and fifteen seconds. I demand to know the reason behind the imprecision!"

   "You are forgetting that you deal with Benny," Overmind said.

   "If you knew he would not make an efficient minion, why did you assign him to me?" Dread demanded.

   "To be brutally frank, and as a machine of the highest order of perfection, it is all that I can be, I don't like you very much," Overmind replied.

   "Fair enough," Dread shrugged. "As an unemotional being, that has no bearing on my performance whatsoever. Big meanie," he concluded, sniffling slightly. Then, drawing himself up to a full height of five foot three, he glowered at the second of his temporary minions. "Random girl who is designated Erin!"

   "Yes, my Lord?"

   "You will go to find out the cause of this two-thousand, seven-hundred and forty-eight second discrepancy."

   "Haven't you been talking for about thirty-eight point nine three seconds?" the girl asked hesitantly.

   "Those are not billable hours. And it was actually thirty-eight point nine four seconds. I wouldn't expect an organic like you to understand the meaning of precision," Dread said airily. "Now, go!"

   "It will be done, my Lord."

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   "No! That doesn't go there!" Soaron protested as Blastarr tried to fit his leg up his nose. "Stop that!"

   "If I'd known you were going to sit there and complain, I would have saved your head for last, scrap heap," Blastarr grumbled with the uncomfortable sensation that the insult was not a new one. "I'm spending a great deal more time repairing you than I wanted to. There are several rock formations in the nearby area that desperately need shooting."

   "Perhaps if you'd repaired me correctly the first time," Soaron suggested.

   "I asked if you had a manual, you said no, and I'm going to need something a little more helpful than "no, that's not the right way"," Blastarr said.

   "What happened to all the kings' horses and the kings' men?" Soaron asked.

Blastarr stopped and looked up.

   "They stopped behind a rock formation for afternoon tea. Unfortunately, it was the one I was aiming for. On the plus side, I hit it on the first try."

   "Bravo," Soaron said as sarcastically as he could.

   "I'm doing the very best I can, Soaron. You could be a little more supportive," Blastarr said reproachfully.

   "Go network with yourself," Soaron grumbled as he found his left foot being crammed into his ear.

   "Is that better?" Blastarr asked, cramming the foot into Soaron's mouth.

Soaron made a muffled noise of protest.

Blastarr would have smiled if he could have.

   "Yes. Much better."

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   "Eugh!" Benny said, wrinkling up his face in disgust, tossing another can of motor oil over his shoulder. "That one tastes bad, too! He sends me off for motor oil, he doesn't tell me what brand, how am I supposed to pick? I suppose without motor oil, the Bio-Dread Empire wouldn't be a well-oiled machine!"

He was startled by a noise behind him.

   "Are you hurt?" he asked the girl standing in the doorway, in alarm.

   "No, that was funny," she replied. "I was laughing. I think."

   "I didn't think we were allowed to think," Benny said.

   "Screw the robot empire! This girl showed up a while ago and shot me – "

   "Shot you?!" Benny repeated in alarm.

   "No, that's not the part," Erin said, waving away further comment. "After she shot me!"

   "She shot you?! How terrible!"

   "I said that wasn't the part! Listen! After that! She cut a hole in my pants and – why is your nose bleeding?"

   "I don't know," Benny replied innocently, one hand clamped over his nose as he cursed all things anime rules. "Go on."

   "So, she cut a hole in my pants – "

   "Uh-huh," Benny said, drooling slightly.

   " – and fixed my leg and then rambled on about how machines are bad and we're not machines 'cause we're people instead!"

   "Oh! For a second there, I thought you were a thespian!" Benny laughed.

   "What's a thespian?" Erin asked.

   "It's like an actor," Benny said wisely. "So, finish your story, okay?"

   "That was it."

   "Wow. So, machines suck, huh?" Benny said conversationally.

   "Yup. That's what I hear."

   "That's not what I hear mostly. I hear that machines are perfection and humans are scum and all messy and stuff."

   "Hmm. I suppose both arguments are equally valid," Erin said thoughtfully. "Anyway, Lord Dread sent me to find out why you're taking so long to get his oil. I think he's thirsty."

   "I can't decide which one tastes best!" Benny wailed. "Why don't you take a taste and see which one you like best?"

   "That's alright," Erin said hastily. "Let's take the one with the most colourful can."

   "I thought colours were bad. Only red, black, and grey are cool."

   "Well, I guess we'd better get back to Lord Dread. He's counting the seconds. Trust me. We should talk again some time."

   "Yeah," Benny agreed shyly, his eyes dreamy and his nose still bleeding a little. Then, grabbing one of the cans of motor oil, he tucked it into his shirt. "I'm saving this one for later."