In some legends, the universe was made from the rotting carcass

of a dead giant. It's armpit, to be precise.

Sure is fun to hear about that when you're eating that bologna

sandwich, ain't it?

Thought so.

There is another philosophy, one about how one's destiny was

predetemined into one of eight paths: Soldier, Farmer, Merchant,

Blacksmith, Slave, King, Doctor, Chef.

This was later changed into one of twelve paths: Dog, Lawyer,

Whiny Managers, Slaves, CEOs, Doctor, Prostitute, Ninja, Turtle Hermit,

Hero, Villian, Pointless Fanservice.

As so, the circle of life continues to grow and adapt.

~/o THE CIRCLE OF LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII- o/~

*KERBLAMMO*

*THUD*

Ahem, now that I've regained control of my keyboard, let's begin

this travesty, shall we?

//I, A-kun, posing as Rikudo Koshi, do hereby grant myself

permission to make an Excel Saga story.

- To A-kun//

"Postage Due!" The postman declared.

"Man, am I a cheapskate or what?" A-kun growled.

================

Excel Saga's Opening Theme

"Loyalty"

Lyrics by Shinichi Watanabe

That is not love

Love is not that

I am in love, but I am not loved

Definitely isn't love

Derriere isn't love

I want to be loved, but I never seek it out

I offer myself and throw my life away

Looking neither left nor right, I will just earnestly

Cheat, weedle, interfere

And trample down and kick strangers!

And we get the hell out! (And we get the hell out!)

And we get the hell out! (And we get the hell out!)

And we get the hell out! (And we get the hell out!)

And we get the hell out!

Even if I slip on a banana peel,

It's all for his sake anyway

If anything, that is probably

A kind of loyalty you might call love

================

Invincible and Excel laid on their backs facing the ceiling,

their heads a few feet away as they silently digested their meager meal

of the day. Menchi, Excel's pet female dog/emergency food supply, also

looked content for once. Ever since Invincible had shown up, both she

and Excel had gotten regular meals, meaning that the likelyhood of her

being eaten were minimized. Plus Invincible seemed to like dogs, in a

non-edible way.

Invincible looked up at Excel, "So, what do you wanna do?"

"I don't know. What do you wanna do?" Excel inquired.

The two sighed. It had been so incredibly dull during the week

long 'holiday' that Ilpalazzo had declared. They both gazed up at the

ceiling and watched as the obligatory flashback began.

"You failed." Ilpalazzo declared.

"How could we have failed? We got the pictures that your

mysterious individuals wanted and didn't even stab the models the fifth

time around." Invincible inquired.

"Whether or not you completed the mission isn't the point. You

both partook of a cheap plot made by the author from a pathetic video

game that barely has even minimal fanservice requirements to be

considered 'fanservice'. Thus, you failed." Ilpalazzo answered.

"But you're the one who-" Invincible began.

*TUG* went Ilpalazzo's hand on the rope cord.

"AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-*" went Invincible's

mouth as he plummetted.

*SPLASH* went the water that Invincible fell into.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAARRRRR!" went the coked-up bear that was currently

bathing in said water.

The door to the pit closed.

"In any case, we shall adjourn until I can devise a new plan for

conquering the city. Take the next week or so off. I'll contact you

when your vacation is over." Ilpalazzo declared.

"Adjourn?" Excel asked.

*TUG* went Ilpalazzo's hand on the rope cord...

"He seemed a bit irritable." Invincible commented, having seen

the complete scene for the first time.

"He hates being manipulated by hack writers." Excel explained.

"Ah." Invincible noted.

The two sighed. The vacation had coincided with the Burger

Maniac burning down. Apparently, management had found out that one of

the chefs was a pyromaniac, a second was a fireworks enthusiast, and a

third was an arsonist a wee bit too late to stop the trio from a

cooperative adventure in the back room. When the Fryalator's oil

caught fire, the rest of the resturaunt was pretty much toast.

Excel's hand found the daily newspaper that Invincible had

brought home. She opened it up to a random page and paused.

"Hey, how about this?" Excel inquired, rolling over and laying

the paper against the floor. Invincible rolled over, then rolled over

the other way so that he was lined up with Excel and the paper.

"Free syringe with every gram of coke?" Invincible inquired.

"No, the one below that." Excel responded.

"Youngest daughter of three arrested for abusive habits in Nerima

Distict, Fiancee marries seven other women?" Invincible asked.

Excel sighed, "Wrong way. I was talking about the ad that reads

'Expendable Extras and/or Main Characters Wanted to Explore F City

Ruins'."

"Oh, that one." Invincible said, blushing with embarrassment.

Ilpalazzo looked down his copy of the Evil Overlord List,

"Visually appealing... dammit! Why doesn't this ever mention anything

for musically-inclined overlords?"

Invincible and Excel looked at the two backpacks full of standard

archaelogical equipment, such as fedora hats, bullwhips, German Lugers

+ appropriate ammo, rope, military iron rations, flashlights with six

sets of spare batteries, and a copy "The Ruin Crawling Guide For

Complete Morons".

"Did you buy this?" Invincible asked.

Excel shook her head, then spoke up as she noticed a tag on each

one, "Well, this one has my name on it and that one has yours."

"So, it's a stupid plot device." Invincible declared.

"More than likely." Excel agreed.

"And why didn't we ever notice the moss-covered ruins right

across from our apartment building?" Invincible asked.

Excel shrugged.

K de C sighed as she stood outside the ruins of F City. Kabapu

had paid her to go in with the paid explorers to make certain that

"none of them posed a threat to the city". Which was rather

ambigiously stated, as just about anything could be a 'threat' to the

city.

At least she had a co-worker. Matsuya Misaki, the newest member

of the City Security, had red hair and eyes, was one-quarter british

and used the suffix '-kun' when referring to scoundrels.

"It wasn't funny when the original series did it." Matsuya told

the author.

"Sorry!" A-kun apologized.

K de C glanced around. There were plenty of extra characters,

but none were worthy of noting. Suffice it to say, most would probably

die or be ignored unless the author decided to give them a higher role

in the story.

"K de C! Look time no see!" Invincible rhymed, seeing his old

friend as he and Excel approached the ruins.

"Invincible! I thought you died back in Madsteram!" K de C

replied.(1)

"Well, you know, what with the name and all..." Invincible

responded, a bit sheepish, before asking a question of his own, "So,

what are you doing here?"

"I'm on the job too. Who's your pouting friend?" K de C asked.

Invincible turned to see that Excel was, indeed, pouting at the

lack of attention, "Oh, this is Excel. Excel, this is K de C, an old

friend of mine. We used to work together for the same organization."

"And this is my partner, Matsuya Misaki, but she prefers

Matsuya." K de C responded.

Introductions concluded as a grey-haired man with a green beard

appeared in front of the crowd.

The green-bearded man snorted as he glared at the crowd, "My name

is Irrelevant. I'm the land-owner for these ruins. However, since

this is an archaelogical find of the century, F City rules say that I

can't claim anything until an archaelogical exploration has taken all

that they could from the site. So, to speed things up, you evil

vultures are going to do that for me. I hope you all die so I can keep

everything!"

Confused by the long-winded speech, Invincible was about to clap

when K de C stopped him. She shook her head. Invincible nodded in

comprehension. At least, he thought he comprehended what she was

implying.

Irrelevant gave one last mean glare towards each of the crowd

members before throwing a smoke bomb at his feet and walking away,

despite the fact that the smoke bomb failed to go off. It rolled down

the stairs towards the crowd.

Excel, following standard logic for parser games, picked up the

smoke bomb. It would no doubt be of use later if the author chose to

focus on it.

A short-haired woman took Irrelevant's place in front of the

crowd. She patted her black hair briefly, before speaking up, "My name

is Momoji and I'll be the ruins exploratory manager. There are five

entrances to the ruins, so please pair up and report to me when you're

in a group that suits you."

K de C, Matsuya, Excel and Invincible found themselves teaming up

as the extras all made small groups of their own.

"I suppose splitting it four ways wouldn't be too bad."

Invincible commented.

"It'll be just like Maricea." K de C replied.

"Heh. That was pretty cool how Ian managed to-" Invincible

began.

K de C grinned, "-and how Tina used that tricked out-"

"-or how about when you had those-" Invincible interupted.

K de C chuckled, "-and then you said to the Prime Minister,"

"'IT'S YOURS NOW!'" they said in unison, before breaking down in

laughter.

"I feel left out." Excel noted.

"Indeed." Matsuya agreed.

Then, without warning, the scene changed.

Shioji Gojo was a genius. A perverted lolicon without the common

sense that evolution granted to 95% of the human race, but a genius

nonetheless. His genius was focused around robotics, programming and

advanced circuitry, all of which lacked any need for common sense.

Of course, there were more than a few times when Kabapu wished

that his most brilliant student was a bit more understanding of the

basic requirements needed for robots to operate within a human society

without being noticed.

"Yes, Shioji, you did fix the problem of Nimatsu walking into

walls repeatedly. But _NOW_, we have the problem of her walking

THROUGH the walls." Kabapu explained.

"It solved your first problem." Shioji responded, offended that

such a minor problem was being picked at. His genius mind didn't like

being nagged at for petty reasons.

Kabapu sighed. It was going to be a long day. He could feel it.

Nimatsu entered the room. She stood roughly five feet tall, with

light pink hair and dark purple eyes. Of course, she was carrying ten

plates of food, which was very unusual. At least, until she spoke,

"Master Shioji, Mister Kabapu, it is time for you to eat your five

dietary meals..."

"I'll see what I can do." Shioji told Kabapu quickly.

Kabapu stood up with Shioji. It would be a long day as they

headed to tackle Nimatsu and turn her off.(2)

Invincible twitched. Excel groaned. K de C sighed. Matsuya

looked for something to shoot to vent her frustration. In front of

them were a myriad of over twenty passageways.

"This is the TENTH time we've come back to this intersection!"

Excel declared after counting the number of marks they'd made on the

floor.

"This is INSANE! We've tried ten turns, and each time, come back

to this exact same place!" K de C snarled.

"DAMMIT! I WANNA FIND SOMETHING!" Invincible yelled, jumping up

and down angrily.

Just then, the floor beneath them made a very loud cracking noise

and slipped down an inch. The quartet exchanged worried glanced just

before the floor gave way.

=======================================================================

Excel Saga: Alternate Universe

Episode 2 - Spontaneous Spelunking, Part 2

Mission - Failed.... probably

(1) No, not Amsterdam.

(2) Ni = Two, Nimatsu is the second robot that Shioji has made for

Kabapu. Don't ask what happened to the first.

=======================================================================

Hyatt: Still not in the story.

Ropponmatsu: I'll keep you company. ^_^

Hyatt: How did you make that symbol appear?

Ropponmatsu: It's a simple matter of hacking the author's computer.

Hyatt: Oh, really? ^o^

Ropponmatsu: Indeed. ^_-